NASCAR legend Kenny Wallace is once again giving his thoughts on the current standing and future of NASCAR, but his current view of the enterprise seems to go against the many tirades he’s been on as of late where he’s painted an extremely dim view of the future for this racing franchise.
Kenny Wallace via Kenny Wallace YouTube
In a recent video uploaded to his YouTube channel, Kenny Wallace shared his thoughts on the current state of NASCAR. He believes that after 15 to 20 years of struggle, NASCAR is finally finding its new course. He attributes this to the changes brought about by technology, such as live streaming, and the changing attitudes of people due to social media.
“What I think about NASCAR right now is they’re finally after 15 or 20 years of misery, it’s been brutal, they’re finally finding their new course.” said Wallace. “Because although we do agree that NASCAR, let’s just to make the fans happy, let’s say NASCAR was 50 at fault. I’m not gonna go any more than that because with this invention of this cell phone and all the live streaming, life has changed so much, it was not all NASCAR’s fault.
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“Plus, people are more of a negative nature now, people are meaner nowadays because of social media,” he continued. “Everybody just… I think NASCAR is the best it’s ever been because they’ve taken enough chances, they know that the people our age, you know, we’re the, you know, we’re watching the races, but you know, we’ve got, we’ve got to create some excitement. So they took a chance and all the NASCAR car owners, they wanted this new car, they’re the ones that wanted the next gen, the car owners, hear my voice go up, surprise! So in some weird way, the car owners, man it rained hard here, the car owners wanted that next gen car and it’s really saved NASCAR because they can take their Daytona 500 car that runs 200 miles an hour at Daytona and take it straight, take that car to the Chicago Street course race and that is a huge, huge deal.”
Wallace also speculated that NASCAR might go to Canada next year and suggests that they should go to Circuit Jacques Villeneuve in Montreal. He praised the location for its cleanliness and vibrant college town atmosphere.
Finally, he addressed the nostalgia some people have for the “good old days” of NASCAR. He argues that while NASCAR was great back then, it wasn’t perfect, and people tend to romanticize the past. He concluded by saying that what people deem as good or bad is at the end of the day, entirely subjective.
Photo by Caitlyn Wilson, free to use under the Unsplash license.
His current take seems to be a huge departure from how he addressed things just a few months ago.
In April of this year, he expressed his disappointment with NASCAR’s 75th-anniversary celebrations, accusing the organization of overlooking its “golden era” and focusing too much on recent stars like Jimmie Johnson. Wallace suggested that NASCAR should celebrate its best years, which he identifies as the period from 1985 to 2006. He mentioned drivers like Dale Earnhardt Sr., Terry Labonte, Rusty Wallace, Kenny Schrader, Ernie Irvin, and Davey Allison, arguing that this was when NASCAR was at its peak.
He also criticized NASCAR’s ongoing efforts to attract a younger audience, arguing that they should focus on their existing viewers. Wallace emphasized the importance of the 60-70 age group, who are still tuning in and attending races. He also voiced his frustrations with NASCAR for not acknowledging his brother, Rusty Wallace, the 1989 NASCAR Winston Cup champion, and other drivers from NASCAR’s “golden era”.
Last August, Wallace also called out NASCAR for what he described as abandoning their roots in pursuit of larger venues and more seats. He accused NASCAR of discarding iconic tracks like Wilkesboro, Rockingham, and Indianapolis Raceway Park to accommodate larger audiences.
Do you agree with Wallace’s current assessment of the current state of NASCAR? Let us know in the comments below and across social media.