{"id":136265,"date":"2025-08-11T06:29:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T06:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/136265\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T06:29:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T06:29:11","slug":"insiders-lament-lack-of-rivalries-mass-appeal-in-current-era-of-nascar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/136265\/","title":{"rendered":"Insiders lament lack of rivalries, mass appeal in current era of NASCAR"},"content":{"rendered":"

After another ho-hum race, this time at Watkins Glen, NASCAR insiders are sounding the alarm<\/strong><\/a> on the sport. It\u2019s flat out been a little boring this year, a pair of insiders for The Athletic claimed.<\/p>\n

Speaking on The Teardown<\/a> podcast, Jeff Gluck<\/strong> and Jordan Bianchi<\/strong> brought up something that\u2019s critical to the sport right now. There just isn\u2019t enough juice.<\/p>\n

\u201cNASCAR when it can sort of transcend our little racing world, that means usually something big is going on,\u201d Gluck said. \u201cI mean saw this week people are talking about the (Connor) Zilisch video is going everywhere<\/strong><\/a>. That\u2019s not what you want it to be on. (You want it) because there was an unbelievable finish or some drivers were getting into it or whatever. Right now it just feels like we\u2019re in the waiting game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shane van Gisbergen took the win at Watkins Glen<\/strong><\/a>, winning his fourth straight road course. He hasn\u2019t had a challenger this year on that style of track.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not just the road courses that have caused some to hit the snooze button on NASCAR this season. There just haven\u2019t been many thrilling races this year. And there isn\u2019t enough outside of that to make up for it.<\/p>\n

Bianchi pointed out two missing ingredients right now. He outlined them.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me two of the things on my list would be personalities,\u201d he said. \u201cYou need bigger, larger-than-life personalities. I think a lot of the drivers are really great guys, they have personalities. But are any of them really larger than life right now? Are they Jeff Gordon<\/strong>? Are they a Dale Earnhardt Jr.<\/strong>? Are they a Tony Stewart<\/strong> who got that recognition? Are they going to be hosting daytime talk shows or Saturday Night Live or anything like that? The answer is no.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo we have a driver that\u2019s going to show up on the MTV music awards and introduce somebody like Dale Earnhardt Jr.<\/strong> once did? And people will be like, \u2018Oh it\u2019s Dale Earnhardt Jr., he was in Rolling Stone.\u2019 You don\u2019t have that right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s half the equation. NASCAR can\u2019t exactly coax the other one out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen the other big thing: rivalries,\u201d Bianchi said. \u201cYou need two big personalities butting heads on a weekly basis for wins and championships. That\u2019s what helps sell. That is the foundation of NASCAR, is great rivalries, in any era. When is the last great, consistent, prolonged rivalry we have? I couldn\u2019t tell you off the top of my head.\u201d<\/p>\n

Can Carson Hocevar be that guy?<\/p>\n

The good news is that NASCAR has some of the pieces to potentially eventually see the puzzle fall into place. Carson Hocevar<\/strong> is one of those pieces.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we can identify one half of whatever rivalry there will be, because Hocevar is not backing down,\u201d Gluck said. \u201cYou look at the comments he made to NASCAR.com this week, the Zane Smith<\/strong> stuff. He truly at this point in his career is like, \u2018I don\u2019t care\u2019 and he\u2019s fueling the fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we just need somebody, I guess, to get into it with him, because he is going to be a very willing part of that, it seems like. He\u2019s not going to try to smooth it over. So if you get somebody else that is going at Hocevar\u2026 but aside from that I feel like we\u2019re waiting for a great race, we\u2019re waiting for something to happen in the playoffs. The playoff bubble\u2019s not particularly compelling at the moment. It just doesn\u2019t feel like this season has given us sort of something to push the story forward as journalists every week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bianchi agreed with that assessment of Hocevar\u2019s potential impact in NASCAR. Well, in part.<\/p>\n

\u201cI agree with you on Hocevar. I think he has the potential,\u201d he said. \u201cHe certainly is willing to stand his ground and not be pushed around. He\u2019s not going to change, and that\u2019s great. I think he\u2019s with the right team, by the way, that\u2019s going to have his back and isn\u2019t going to be like, \u2018Hey, we need to do this and that.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the other part of this, though, is he\u2019s got to win races. You can\u2019t have a rivalry built around guys who aren\u2019t winning races. I think he\u2019s got the potential. I think we both think he\u2019s got the potential to do that, but you\u2019ve got to win consistently to do that. He\u2019s not there yet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After another ho-hum race, this time at Watkins Glen, NASCAR insiders are sounding the alarm on the sport.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":136266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[1406,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-136265","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-nascar","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115008724279762166","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}