Martin Could be Onus For NASCAR to Start “Senior Tour”
Hendrick Motorsports
This idea is not new. I’ve advocated it for years.
But in light of Mark Martin’s win in the Chase for the Sprint Cup opener at New Hampshire, not to mention the incredible year Martin is having overall, if there was ever a time for NASCAR to start thinking about establishing an IROC-style “Senior Tour” for drivers over 50 years old, this is it.
Guys like Martin and Bill Elliott have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that just because you’ve got a lot of miles already on your personal speedometer, doesn’t mean you still don’t have a good bit of gas left in your tank.
Granted, all three pro series are having their struggles to different levels of extent. And with the economic problems still plaguing us, starting a new series would seem illogical, particularly from a financial standpoint.
I counter that by saying you couldn’t find a better time than now to bring fans back into the stands, able to cheer for their favorite drivers once again in a safe and controlled environment.
I’m not talking about a full 36-race schedule like we see currently in Sprint Cup. But an 8-to-10 race series pitting some recently retired racing vets – or soon-to-be retired like Martin and Elliott – would go over like crazy, I feel.
We could establish a NASCAR-sanctioned and operated organization that would be similar to the old IROC series, with all cars being equally prepared by one group. On the other hand, we could also have some of the sport’s biggest teams currently, like Hendrick Motorsports or Joe Gibbs Racing, be allocated one slot in the “senior tour” and campaign one individual driver.
Some people may say that as a driver ages, his reflexes get slower. That’s true, which could prompt a senior tour to have only drivers from, say, 50 to 60 years old be eligible to compete.
But on the flip side, down in Hueytown, Ala., seemingly ageless Red Farmer is still racing competitively at the age of 78!
If NASCAR could establish a series of medical and competition standards that would be fair across the board to any and all competitors, I predict you’d see a lot of drivers come out of retirement to give it a go, guys like maybe Rusty Wallace and Dale Jarrett.
What’s more, the senior tour would be selective about the places it would let the oldsters run. While it would be great to see them at places like Daytona and Talladega, that might make things a bit extreme, in my opinion.
Rather, I’d like to see the seniors at places where the racing is still exciting, but the speeds are a bit more, shall we say, manageable (and a bit more equitable for their ages)? I immediately think of places like Bristol, Richmond, Darlington, Charlotte, Dover, Phoenix, New Hampshire, Las Vegas and Martinsville.
This way, you don’t have as much danger at places like those than you would at ‘Dega or ‘Tona. And, at the same time, you have an opportunity to bring the seniors somewhat full-circle, to have a tour that would be primarily based and built around some of the smaller short tracks where they learned how to race initially and where they essentially grew up as racers.
If a well-financed title sponsor could be found – and what company wouldn’t want to be associated with some of the greatest names in the history of the sport (and please, no jokes about AARP) – not only would the drivers get a good payday by of coming out of retirement, they could once again make some lucrative side money by bringing back and updating their old souvenir trailers with new merchandise that long-time fans would surely eat up.
And what if a major auto manufacturer got behind things and provided an identical fleet of cars. Talk about good PR and publicity that I bet would convince more than a few fans north of 50 years old to want to go out and buy a street car like their favorite driver races on the racetrack.
If “Miracle Mark” Martin goes on to win the championship this season, NASCAR could be sitting on a potential goldmine of opportunity and excitement. At the very least, it’s worth some serious consideration right now, don’t you think?
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