Why Modern NASCAR Drivers Lack Respect 

The new format adds a ton of incentive to drive through the competition and, when the drivers try to take care of business, somehow the one that is settling scores gets punished not the original aggressor. NASCAR created a NASCAR problem and then piles on more NASCAR problems instead of solutions.

I think it’s worth noting that these kids coming up don’t actually have to fix their cars when they tear them up. They’ve got people to do that for them. Back in the day, guys like Dale and Mark Martin took care of each other because they knew they didn’t want to spend the next several days skipping meals to put their cars back together.

I'm still a fan of nascar and I've been a fan of nascar for almost 40 years

I really don’t understand people who defend the playoffs and stage cautions. It was made by an high out of his mind Brian France Jr and got old quickly. Nascar could and should go back to the way things were in 2003

It’s a shame kurt busch retired because of concussion issues. At least he was able to do a lot in his career and he probably only had a few years less anyway but it would have been cool to see him race until he was really ready to retire.

Aretha Franklin - "R.E.S.P.E.C.T, find out what it means to me." NASCAR Drivers - We don't do that here, we beat and bang each other instead."

I've always liked Nascar as a kid but since I lived in a U.S. territory and barely ever had cable I never managed to even see a full race, I get all my Nascar content from youtubers and I only came to realize I could watch stuff online like a year ago lol

This has to be one of the most insightful videos I’ve seen on NASCAR RU-vid

Drivers just had no choice but to drive aggressively to get into the playoff they probably saw it worked once to dump someone to get into the playoffs so they keep doing it.

Thing is that not only NASCAR drivers lack respect but today's society also lacks respect. Millennials and zoomers (my generation) doesn't know the concept of respect cuz their parents stuffed their faces with electronic entertainment instead of teaching them about respect and other important things. Now back to the subject matter, I think that the blame should go to the Gen 7 car cuz the car is so much durable that it's hard to get it to crumple and the drivers (the younger ones) know this and it gives them the notion that they're invincible and that they can use it as a battering ram without worrying about getting major damage in return. NASCAR unintentionally enabled these younger drivers to be more aggressive with this Gen 7 car and something should be done about it but we all know NASCAR has a track record for not giving a shit on a lot of stuff.

As of 2008 being that it’s 15 years ago, I would expect less of those drivers racing than there are. 15 years is a long time. It’s almost 2/3 of a current drivers career. Drivers aren’t racing for 25-30 years anymore. So I wouldn’t be surprised when getting out of the pen go see a whole new group of drivers.

Not having repetitive Sponsors helps. MTJ and Dillon having Bass Pro as a Sponsor is inane. Bright cars also help that. We all know the rainbow warrior scheme, Valvoline always had flashy schemes before it was just... White or red with a decal for Valvoline. Kids love bright colors. Make colors pop. Corey Lajoie gets it. Finally, remove the Win and In. People loved/hated Gordon, Earnhardt, Waltrip and even Jimmie Johnson more recently because they always won

You know Kyle Busch said it best after dumped Larson to win the 2018 Chicagoland race. "If you don't like that kind of racing, why are you watching."

I am 17 and have been watching nascar for almost 10 years and it was better back when kenseth and gordon and carl edwards were all in. I am glad kyle busch hasn’t retired yet because I want to see him race and have never been to one.

The fact that he uses Ty Gibbs dying as an example 💀

One huge mistake NASCAR is making is the assumption that younger crowds want nothing but drama and childish chaos. We love the sport for the same reason our granddaddys did. Hard work, genuine respect/rivalries and un neutered drivers. NASCAR has taken a route down a PC rabbit hole and injected fake chaos to make up the difference. Nobody can be themselves, and they've pumped in too many artificial hurdles for teams to overcome, all while trying to push NASCAR as more of a "legit sport". Stop the theatrics, stop with the "debris" cautions, stop throwing yellows to FORCE a green white checker literally 10 feet before the leader crosses the line, make your rules transparent, stop making things up on the fly, pay these teams more so the drivers aren't at the mercy of their sponsors PC culture, and stop fining everyone for absolutely everything. It just seems disingenuous and fake. We see right through it and it makes the sport more unwatchable year over year. oh, and stream all this racing content in ONE F*CKING PLACE.... I'm not paying for 4 different services at different times of year, AND following all the RU-vid channels like Dirty Mo. Work together and stick it all in one spot for Christ's sake.

20:40 I also think that getting rid of the "Win and You're In" of the Chase would go a long way to helping.

Nascar really took something that didn’t need to be fixed and tried to overhaul it. That’s why it’s dying.

Gimmicks is one of these problems. The playoffs, the stages, and drivers with checkers or wreckers mentality. None of the active drivers today seen the death of Dale Sr. Kurt Busch was the last driver who raced with Dale Sr and now his career was cut short because of concussion he suffered at Pocono last year. We seen at least 3 drivers last year get some injury. Drivers need to realize this next gen car is dangerous than COT or Gen 6. Their career can cut short with head injury or concussion. You put this together, its a NASCAR problem. They cause this crisis by themselves with everything they did for past two decades.

You can thank various gimmicks and horrible governing and officiation for this crap…

That's an ordeal of resons why there's no respect among competitors in NASCAR: - Playoff format and "Win and you're in" system; - Traditional "lack" of officiating in NASCAR, that nowadays seems to be obsolete; - Sturdier construction of the new cars; - Social isolation and social darwinism taken to the extreme (not only in NASCAR but in general human society). POV of a driver nowadays: You've to bring results home, but the only result that counts (or useful) is the victory because of reason number 1. So you're obliged to do whatever you can to pass as many cars as possible to take the win, and because of reason number 2 you can easily get away if you do a boneheaded move and take out some competitors in the process (at least in the old days if you caused a caution you could be held in the pits and lose a lap, aggravating the situation even more). In the old system every point counted at the end of the season, so you were kinda encouraged to play at safer points in some situations. Because of reason number 3 you don't have to look for the equipment either: at least with the sheet metal you could risk to bend a fender and cut your tire, but now the "threshold" is larger, so you can straight dump your competitor almost as hard as you want without taking some hampering damage, whilst your competitor heads into the wall or for a spin in the grass. Also the safety improvements come into play in this case, so a crash is more an innocuos inconvenience rather than a matter of health, so you're pretty sure that your competitor will walk away unscathed (cough coungh, Bowman disagrees). Number 4? Well, it's our society. Nowadays everyone sees the other as an enemy more or less in disguise, so you tend to fight them mercilessly instead of constructing some kind of "franchising" like in the past (i.e. Dale Sr. and Rusty Wallace, despite some mess, but it seems that in general a lot of drivers were kinda gentle with each other). Of course, on track they're rivals, not enemies, so they considered themselves as "normal human beings", not as human obstacles to shoot down on your way to your personal realization/success. How did you consider the AI cars on your NASCAR videogame? This is how real drivers consider their competition now. I'm not blaming videogames with the last statement. Plus, I'm European from Italy, so my English is not perfect.

Dude if you were to repave Atlanta the old fashion way. We would have one groove, single file racing for the next 10 yrs.

I’m sorry, did you make the claim that robots have a chance at replacing nascar drivers ?

It's a good thing MASCAR will always ne there for the 65+ crowd. Everyone acts like aging won't happen to them.

First off, they are kids, they haven’t truly learned what respect truly is yet. The other thing I believe is that when Billy crashes his car mommy and daddy and monster energy just buy Billy another car. We are in a world where facing consequences are considered a form of hate. Where I have disconnected from as a nearly 50 year old man is that I don’t connect with 20 year olds who have never really built anything. And then there are the gimmick drivers that no matter how bad they perform they show up year after year until they get bored.

Q: Why Modern NASCAR Drivers Lack Respect

Nascar is pretty much unwatchable right now.

You forgot menion that erik jones austin dillon ryan blaney ryan preece and chase elliott did raced against with Jeff Gordon in 2015 of his final season in cup.

Nascar also has a personality problem to where everyone just sounds the same and don't fear being beaten up in the parking lot

The double-file restarts causes people to drive over the heads

The dive bonbing and killing eachother bumpers could be fixed by using the old sheet metal bodies. That would be stupjd to happen tho since they just switch

The problem with F1 is that it's too expensive... A ticket to Vegas is $1,000... I live in Michigan and they're aren't a lot of NASCAR tracks around besides Indianapolis and Michigan... That's two car cultured states right there and the tickets are fairly cheap...

18:05 did Nathan suggest that NASCAR drivers are quiet quitters? 🤔

1. Older and Veteran Drivers are lacking compared to say even 7 years ago. 2. It’s not a lot of give and take. I’m not asking for drivers to be like Mark Martin and just guys go by but you have a ton of guys fighting for spots like Ryan Newman every damn lap. Even Newman slid over for some guys if he knew they were flying.

Could you do a video on could dale Earnhardt win an eighth championship

Ok random, but will NASCAR Irwin Tools Cup Series ever return (next gen diecasts 🤔)

I’m 29, and I’ve been a die hard NASCAR fan for as long as I can remember. I think what scares a lot of people my age away is the culture. Even though the majority of the best drivers now are from the west coast or the northeast, NASCAR is still viewed as a southern “redneck” sport. And this isn’t helped by the fact that boomer fans are constantly going out of their way to comment on every motorsports youtube video complaining about the “wokeness” of current NASCAR, which always circles back around to Bubba Wallace. It’s obvious to anyone with a brain that it’s just thinly veiled racism. These are the people that hurt the sport and scare away young Americans that are gravitating towards F1.

I'm 23 Years Old I've Been A Nascar Fan For 10 Years

That disgusting display by Bubba Wallace against Kyle Larson last year and the pathetic slap on the wrist he got plus the way Ty Gibbs deliberately took out his team mate to win the Xfinity series are the reason why I stopped paying to watch NASCAR and have switched to paying for Indycar instead and I don't regret it!

What if we force the drivers to pay for the damage

Here's what i think it is and now this may sound weird and everything but MF Ghost has weirdly enough a very similar thing happening very agressive drivers with stupid expensive cars banging off each other like its a Saturday night short track race why? Well they know the true potential of the car and know that they can get away with it classic racing respect is gone and sim racing helped to kill it and its not limited to nascar F1 Indy GT sportscars hell TCR even have these drivers getting over agressive with the cars the vets call them out but nothing will change because it attracts attention i mean whats more interesting two 911's beating and banging for three laps for class win or a tactical fuel strategy race where the winner ends up winning by 5 laps because their cars are the fastest on track. What if its not the sports but rather the fans what if we are to blame i see it often in nascar fans how they are two faced wanting one thing (ie more short tracks and road courses) and then turn around two years later after the changes have been made saying "We DiDnt WaNt ThiS BrinG baCk Old BriStol" like seriously i think its a fan issue as much as a driver issue

Drivers don’t need more danger to drive less like assholes. They need boundaries. If they cross it, then there will be consequences. Points or time deduction or a three strikes and you’re parked. Something like F1 (wink at NRF). Keep the level of safety that is and make the driver respect each other more with boundaries. They don’t have to intentionally wreck each other to have good racing.

Who is watching this video after the 2023 Pocono race?

The first 4 minutes of this video is literally just you complaining cause people get older and retire, and the young took over after the old retired. What'd you think was gonna happen? 65 year old Jimmie Johnson racing Jeff Gordon? This is coming from a HUGE Dale Jr fan. I hated when he retired but like.. that's sports/life. People get old and the young takeover. Accept it and embrace it 🤷‍♂️

Great points made here

Stages - make drivers race harder during the middle of the race. Chase format - make drivers race harder at the end of the season. Knockout-style playoffs - put divers in positions where wrecking competitors will benefit their title hopes. Win & You’re in - make race wins the only important storyline… Top 5, Top 10 finishes completely irrelevant. Those are the main reasons… all engineered by NASCAR themselves.

Oh man that Joan Rivers joke isnt cool. Do you know she died during one of those operations?

I know a lot of people are turned away cause of the religious aspect of it. All other sports don't get involved in it, but Nascar does. Might be good to cease it and see if fans come in. I know it's miniscule, but worth a try.

Because they're spoiled brats?

What? Bubba was mad at Larson because Bubba did not do anything to Larson to deserve being walled. Ross cant get mad at anyone because everyone owes him one. Hes put everyone in the wall on lap 6 at least once.....

I love your content man , but all your videos are always so negative

Idk I like Atlanta and I think it will wear itself out in 3 - 4 years and become a track that is bad fast but you will have to handle good to last…..