Inevitable as it may be, it's certainly over hyped in typical fashion

"Change is inevitable -- especially in stock-car racing, where the roots of the sport are deep in innovation. And now even that has changed with the full-season implementation of the Car of Tomorrow in 2008."
-NASCAR.COM

The Nextel Cup is no more, a new more locked down car has been introduced and we're still using 1950s technology. Can anyone other than NASCAR call that innovation? Despite the hype NASCAR's premier series bears little difference between now and what it was five years ago. Sure the names have changed and teams have come and gone, but can anyone really make a claim that stock car racing has moved ahead by leaps and bounds?

NASCAR is a racing series directed at the mass market, lowest common denominator audience. To present the series as anything less is disingenuous. NASCAR maintains it's king of the hill status because of easy to understand technology and an emphasis on driver personalities. There is nothing wrong with this strategy but to claim than change is driven by innovation rather than corporate strategies and "leveling the playing field" is ludicrous.

Fans continually lament how the sport has changed and that things were better in the "good ole days". Oddly enough most of these fans readily admit to having watched NASCAR for five or six years. That's a relative blink of the eye in respect to the decades long history of the series. Having watched for over twenty I can say that the more things change the more they stay the same. Changes are made, usually for the benefit of the show, but many things stay the same. NASCAR is still about team work, rough and tumble door to door action and flawless pit stops.

The point is that there is one defining characteristic about NASCAR that has made it a successful enterprise and a fan favorite for all of these years. That's the predictable nature of the technology, teamwork, and for the most part the rules coupled with the unpredictable nature of the personalities and the on track action. Things may have changed but the Sprint to the Cup Car of Tomorrow will still deliver the same entertaining races that fans have come to expect.

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