So, I get a lot of ideas from what people comment in NASCAR groups on Facebook or Twitter. That being said, I’m not a nascar know it all but I’ve been a fan for close to 40 years, I’ve heard stories from my 90 year old grandfather about the early days and my family drag races and I’ve spent alot of time at the dirt tracks in central Pennsylvania. So I have some knowledge of racing. So, when I saw a post the other day about the nascar dying out because they have moved away from traditions made me think, are they important in NASCAR?

The answer in my opinion is yes and no. Traditions keep you linked to the past, which is at its core is what you want but nascar is a business and to keep a business alive you have to change. I was thinking about classic tracks like North Wilkesboro, Rockingham, The Fairgrounds, etc… some people to this day have issues that they don’t run Wilkesboro ( I miss the track) but think about it from a business stand point. You have a track that was built ages ago when they brought cars in on a roll back. It’s a small track out in the middle of know where. The track wasn’t able to support where nascar was headed at the time. The track was falling apart and they didn’t want to raise prices, which I respect but if you aren’t making money to make improvements things will suffer. I miss Wilkesboro but I understand why the left in 1996. Same with other tracks. The sport grew, and the areas the tracks are in or the tracks themselves couldn’t handle the people. So we ended up at Texas and Auto Club. Cool at first but not what people wanted in the long run. NASCAR has started to get back to its roots, now. Darlington has two races again, there is the throwback weekend to bring the history back. There are still talks of the Fairgrounds coming back and Wilkesboro has been cleaned up. But a lot needs to happen for any of these tracks to come back. Traditions are nice but sometimes you have to move on and just enjoy what you have. People forget that Daytona wasn’t always the first race of the season. Riverside always came first, a road course to open the season, crazy!! Fans would hate that today. So, let’s keep the traditions and memories alive as nascar continues to make new traditions and maybe we will get some of the old ones back as well.