NASCAR’s Earnhardt problem

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NASCAR officials just tweaked the rules in the middle of the Sprint Cup season to artificially inject excitement into a series that has seen an 11 percent drop in television ratings this year.

They’ve switched to something called double-file restarts, a techie-sounding rule that simply means that the leaders will line up next to each other on restarts following a caution. Previously, lapped cars would line up in the inside lane with the race leaders single file in the outside lane.

If that change creates more accidents among leaders now packed together and battling for position, all the better for NASCAR. Crashes always draw a crowd.

But ultimately, a minor rule adjustment isn’t going to recapture NASCAR’s disappearing fan base. Racing officials are going to have to deal with a more fundamental issue if they want to rebuild their audience and move the sport forward.

NASCAR has to solve its Earnhardt problem.

For years, Dale Earnhardt’s success, “Intimidator” persona and rivalry with Jeff Gordon helped grow the sport. NASCAR expanded nationally in the 1990s and ultimately negotiated a multi-billion dollar broadcast deal in 1999 that began in 2001. But Earnhardt was one of a kind, and his death in a crash on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500 was devastating to NASCAR.

There was another Earnhardt left to carry the torch, though. Ever since the accident, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has shouldered the expectations of a fan base second to none in NASCAR. He has been voted the most popular driver six years in a row.

“Nobody sells more tickets and nobody drives television ratings more than Dale Earnhardt Jr.,” Eddie Gossage, president of Texas Motor Speedway and a longtime race promoter, told The New York Times before the start of the 2008 season. “And as a sport, we need him to do well. If he’s doing well, it’s the Tiger Woods effect.

“If he’s in contention going into the final round, look at the Sunday T.V. ratings and that golf tournament is up, up, up. So if Junior’s doing good, that’s going to have a positive effect on the gate and a positive effect on the television ratings. Very important.”

No one ever expected Earnhardt Jr. to match his father’s seven championships or 76 career victories. But as long as he was a contender, fans were engaged and broadcasters had a star to focus on every race.

Except now, Earnhardt is no longer a serious contender in the sport. It has been five years since his stellar 2004 season, when Earnhardt won the prestigious season-opening Daytona 500 and went on to post a career high six victories. He has won just three races since then. That includes his current stretch of one victory in three years. His only win in that span came at Michigan in 2008.

Earnhardt had hoped a move to powerful Hendrick Motorsports in 2008 would jumpstart his career and help him become a contender again. But it hasn’t happened. In recent weeks, team owner Rick Hendrick has shaken up the team and inserted a new crew chief. But Earnhardt is 20th in the standings and a nonfactor most weekends.

Although it’s not too late for Earnhardt, 34, to revive his career and battle for a championship, it seems less and less likely that will happen.

And that means NASCAR, which banked on the Petty family name as it built the sport from infancy, and then profited wildly from the Earnhardt name the last two decades, is going to have to find or develop another megastar to captivate fans, drive ratings and sell tickets.

Perhaps that is why there is so much buzz about the possibility of Danica Patrick moving from the IndyCar Series to NASCAR next year. She would bring instant star power back to stock-car racing, possibly replacing Earnhardt as the most-watched figure in the sport. That could be a short-lived solution; there is significant question Patrick could sustain that over the long haul unless she was a contender to win each week as she is in open-wheel racing.

If not Patrick, there are other drivers who could potentially emerge not only as contenders and champions, but icons of the sport. Kyle Busch has become NASCAR’s favorite bad boy, and 19-year-old Joey Logano already has been anointed the next great hope. They join Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Tony Stewart as successors, although none of those three has been able to captivate fans quite like the Earnhardt’s.

No matter who it is, NASCAR needs a new face to carry it forward. The Earnhardt era is coming to an end.