So Fox is showing the 1979 Daytona 500. How the hell did the drivers not die?
1979 is the most important year in the history of NASCAR's rise. The Daytona 500 was the first race ever shown "flag to flag". And back then most people only got 3 or 4 channels, and the northeast got a massive snow storm, trapping people at home. Later that year CART got de facto control of Indy car racing and soon turned it from a legitimate thing to a controlled competition/exhibition where only a handful of cars had a shot, and driver selection switched from merit based to rich, mostly Brazilian kids willing to pay the CART owners. And then ESPN was formed, quickly followed by many other channels. ESPN, et al, had hours to fill and no relationship with the major sports, so it pointed its cameras at the races, and if it had any suggestions, kept them to itself. And NASCAR boomed for the next 20 years.
Then sadly, came the unified TV contract, and the passing of control to the idiot grandson, Brian France. France had a deep need to be accepted by those he considered his betters. With RJ Reynolds, and its marketing genius T Wayne Robertson gone, the networks started calling the shots, flooding the sport with people who had no understanding of what the sport was about. This people were listened to, and the massive decline followed.
Which brings us back to 1979. Under the idiotic rules of today, one of the greatest finishes in NASCAR history would have never happened.
First generation starts a business, second generation builds a business, third generation destroys a business.
