NASCARx 6: Pray for Junior

I’ve got a theory about entertainment—novels, TV shows, sports: People come for plot, but they stay for character.
Applied to NASCAR the theory goes like this: they come for the action, but they stay for Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I’m over-simplifying of course. Junior isn’t the only guy fans care about, but he certainly has the most fans. And he may even have more than 50% of the fan-base in his corner. People really care about him. The really want him to run well. And when he struggles, they really suffer.
In NASCAR we talk a lot about the action on the track. Is it good? Is it bad? Can we make it better? Should we even try? What is the state of competition? Those are all critical questions, because without compelling competition, our sport simply cannot thrive.
(For the record, I think the competition is great these days—I also think it could be even better.)
But if competition is what grabs people initially, it is a real connection with a real driver that allows them to invest emotion in the sport. It’s the difference between being interested in NASCAR and caring about it.
In fact, it is one of NASCAR’s great assets that although it is a team sport, fans connect with individual drivers and root for them as people. It’s unlike the dynamic in stick-and-ball (and puck!) sports where, typically, the team comes first and the player second. In NASCAR the driver comes first. Fans don’t root for the jersey. They root for the man.
That one-to-one connection is a powerful thing—perhaps the most powerful thing of all. And without compelling characters, the sport can only be but so popular. Ironically, it is also one aspect of the sport the sanctioning body can’t do a single thing about. That makes the burden on Junior astronomical.
When Junior runs well, NASCAR gives millions of people a happy feeling on Sunday night. When he struggles, millions are reduced to looking for other things to compensate.
It’s not Jimmie Johnson’s fault that people don’t feel as connected to him as they do to Junior. If fans could spend time one-on-one with every driver, their loyalties might change. But they can’t, so for now that means that Dale Earnhardt Jr. is in many ways the most important man in NASCAR racing.
Junior doesn’t have to win a championship, but he needs to be a factor again for the sport to have that compelling emotional component for millions of fans.
Whether Junior runs well or not, 2011 will be a great season. If he can run up front, if he can give his fans hope and some happy moments, it will be even better. But there’s nothing you, I, or even NASCAR (conspiracy theories aside!) can do to make it happen - except maybe sit back and pray, even if he’s not our favorite driver.