Kevin Harvick suggests NASCAR schedule changes

KEVIN HARVICK attracted more attention than is usual for a reigning Sprint Cup champion prior to last Sunday's Talladega race. Harvick suggested the Cup series schedule should be shaken up.

Asked how he thought NASCAR can grow its fan base, Harvick replied that his understanding is last season's final three races (Texas, Phoenix and Homestead) were sold out. Then he said, "If you want to talk about growing the sport, I believe that some venues need one race. The schedule needs to be mixed up. People like things that change. They don't like stagnant things.

"In my opinion the most stagnant thing in our sport is our schedule and our venues that we go to. You can beat a dead horse as much as you want, but it doesn't come back to life. And sometimes you just have to change things up to keep the excitement and enthusiasm in the sport. I think our schedule is definitely the weak link along with some of the venues that we go to."

Since no one is building new race tracks, Harvick focused on adding existing tracks to the Cup series.

"I know the first place I would go is Iowa," he said. "I think that everybody wants to see more short tracks and more venues."

Iowa Speedway, a 7/8-mile oval, hosts Xfinity, Camping World truck series and IndyCar events.

"Adding a road race here or there would definitely be something that I would vote for just for the fact internationally road racing is very recognizable to race fans,'' Harvick said. "You could take your pick on road courses, Montreal does a great job, you could go to Laguna Seca [Calif.], you could go anywhere in the world and race on a road course."

Thirteen tracks, including Pocono and Dover, host two Cup races per year. Ten tracks host one race annually.

Neither Pocono nor Dover expects to lose races.

"We're comfortable where we are on the [Cup] schedule, with one race in the Chase [Oct. 4] and one in the spring [May 31]," Mike Tatorian, president and CEO of Dover International Speedway in Delaware, said yesterday. That said, Tatorian added, "We can't keep doing the same things over and over and expect the results to improve. We call it constructive discomfort. We're making improvements on the track and for the fans. We're trying to make the experience more enticing for the fans."

NASCAR and all sports are attempting to make attending events more pleasurable for fans 18-35.

"We don't want to miss this generation,'' Tatorian said. "It's a balance between our avid and core fans and [younger fans]."

Addressing the possibility of Pocono Raceway losing a race, Brandon Igdalsky, Pocono's president and CEO, said, "I haven't heard the question in years. We're doing everything right. The stands are filling up more and we're doing what the fans want. We have a great product right now."

Since Pocono (June 7, Aug. 2), Dover, New Hampshire and Watkins Glen are the only tracks in the northeast hosting Cup races, it's unlikely NASCAR would take away races from these tracks. NASCAR wants to be in these markets.

When the newer tracks were being built, there should have been more imagination in design. Instead, Texas, Las Vegas, Kansas, Kentucky, Chicagoland and Homestead are all 1.5-mile ovals. The circuit needs more Iowas, more Richmonds ( 3/4-mile).

Kevin Harvick also offered some thoughts on Danica Patrick losing GoDaddy.com as her team's primary sponsor at the end of the year.

"I've been on both sides of it as the owner and as the driver," he said. "I sat in this room in 2009 and Shell Pennzoil announced they were leaving the car that I was driving. When you haven't approached that before, it can be a little bit intimidating.

"But I think when you know on May 1st and you have somebody like Danica Patrick that is obviously very marketable and I think she has done a good job on the race track, the opportunity to do that and go out and find a sponsor is very high. She has been a great part of being a teammate of me and everybody at Stewart-Haas Racing."

I would be shocked if Stewart-Haas, or whichever team Patrick drives for next season, has trouble finding sponsors for her. Even though she rarely runs up front in races, she has improved and she's very popular. When she finally wins a race (note optimism), it will be a jackpot day for her sponsor.

While he was rolling, Harvick provided insight into what's important to sponsors.

"The most important thing to the sponsors are those TV numbers and social media outreach," he said. "The fans are important to the event in the grandstands, but in the end the people - the Joyce Julius number [analyzing sponsor exposure] and those sponsor numbers are the most important thing.

"A lot of people like Saturday night races, but more people watch Sunday at 1 p.m. We need to be on the TV when the most people watch because the sponsors are a big part of what makes this go around. The fans watching on TV and in the grandstands seeing those products are important, but the TV numbers are the most important thing we have."