When you put Kenny Wallace and Mark Martin together, you’re going to get honesty, outspokenness and food for thought. The subject of interest this time was Sunday’s NASCAR Cup race in Mexico City.
Advertisement
On Thursday’s episode of Kenny Conversation, Wallace claimed many NASCAR fans were upset that the series ventured so far away, then alluded to some negative comments about the trip by ‘The King’, NASCAR legend Richard Petty. Wallace then asked Martin what his take was on the race and Martin’s answer came as something of a surprise.
“I’m a fan, so I didn’t have to go to Mexico,” Martin said. “I thought it was a great racetrack and I thought it was a great race and there seemed to be a lot of enthusiasm around it.
“I saw some complaining. I’m not sure I would have wanted to go to Mexico (to race or just to watch the race). I know that there were certain logistics that weren’t great. One of the things was that the haulers had to leave Michigan (the race the week before Mexico) rain or shine Sunday night.
“That could have been a major problem if they had had rain Sunday. So there’s plenty of things that you could question about all of that, but from a fan standpoint, I had no problem with it.”
Now that NASCAR has gone south of the border, Martin agrees with people like Jeff Gordon who believe the next international venue NASCAR should undertake is a trip north of the border — to Canada, that is.
“I have no problem with going to Canada,” Martin said. “I don’t really know why we want to go overseas, but that’s not my business… As a race fan — and that’s all I’m trying to do is represent race fans today — I saw a great race (at Mexico), I didn’t see any problem with it from my standpoint.”
Should NASCAR be a global series like Formula One?
Although it was a generalization, Wallace and Martin both agreed that it was older NASCAR fans who seemed not to like that the sport went to Mexico. Wallace even suggested that the U.S. has a great road course that may have been even better to compete at: Road America in Wisconsin.
Wallace then noted that Ben Kennedy, NASCAR’s Executive Vice President and Chief Venue & Racing Innovations Officer and grandson of Bill France Jr., is trying to grow the sport but more from a global standpoint — like Formula One — rather than adding more races or tracks in the U.S.
Wallace did not agree with Kennedy’s future look for NASCAR outside of the U.S., while Martin was a bit more diplomatic.
“I can understand going to Mexico and I understand why fans would rather that have been Road America. I get it, okay,” Martin said. “But they could possibly expand their audience in Mexico by giving them a race and getting people fired up. There was a lot of fan enthusiasm at that race, so I understand from that standpoint.”
But Martin also played devil’s advocate: “I’ve said this all along: what’s wrong with being the size we are? What’s wrong with our sport? Why do we have to sell out to big money? In the ’80s when Rusty and I went NASCAR racing, there wasn’t much money in the sport and we got rides and we drove cars.
“Why do we have to sell our soul 100% and change our product 100%? That’s the question and a lot of old people believe that.” Trying to please every fan demographic is certainly one of NASCAR’s biggest challenges and a near-impossible balancing act.
