While NASCAR has been dabbling with race time management for some time now, weather conditions are an added pressure. The opportunity cost of promoting TV viewership is a fall in on-ground spectators. But for NASCAR, choosing one over the other is simply impossible. And as appalling as it sounds, that’s what happened during this weekend’s FireKeepers Casino 400 at the Michigan International Speedway.

NASCAR fans who take the time out of their busy schedules to cheer from the stands are the loyal ones. Discouraging these people from attending races due to unsuitable race times is highly detrimental to the sport.

Causes of disruption in Michigan and the aftermath

The event timing for Sunday was in the first place a bad idea, as pointed out by Jeff Gluck through his tweet. There is no point in starting a later afternoon race on Sunday for the primary reason that most people will find it difficult to attend. For a Saturday race, the timing is suitable because it’s the weekend, but everyone has to get back to work on Monday. The fans were, and still are, faced with the dilemma of having to decide where to watch an important Cup race leading to the NASCAR Playoffs.

Staying late to watch the end of the race on a Sunday evening is an inconvenience for most. Moreover, the purpose of scheduling the race as such is to increase the TV audience, as those are the prime timings for the platform. However, it’s a shame when achieving that purpose is at the expense of fans having to drop out of watching an official race in person.

If that wasn’t awful enough, another drop came into the picture when the race got repeatedly delayed by downpours throughout the evening. But the story still does not end with the delays, as the race eventually got rescheduled to be concluded on Monday. And there’s yet another angle highlighted by Toby Christie in response to Gluck’s tweet. Since the race is to be resumed on Monday morning, people will be stuck at work, all while having paid for the channel they wouldn’t even watch the race on.

And it’s not just the fans who are in dismay, even Dale Earnhardt Jr. commented, “Mid afternoon start times. Short term gain. Long term detriment.” Choosing between online and offline audiences wasn’t a sensible call, for sure.

This is how the fans reacted to the predictable but utterly distressful outcome of Sunday.

Fans were rattled about the inconvenience due to NASCAR’s lack of foresight

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Despite witnessing similar situations before, NASCAR has not learned its lesson to better manage race timings and monitor weather. Case in point, last year’s Michigan race saw the same eventuality. And fans have been complaining about late start times, anyway. One fan pointed out, “1:00 start times doesn’t seem to hurt the NFL why us?”

This is what a disgruntled fan commented on X: “I believe it should be night races are run on Saturday evening and day races should be run at 1pm Sunday afternoon. I can’t usually stay up and watch the Sunday night races I have to be up by 5am Monday morning and I’m at work now so I’ll miss the rest of the race today.” No fan would want to miss a race with such high stakes after a dramatic Richmond weekend.

Another X user couldn’t agree more, as they wrote, “Yup. Need to go back to 1pm starts for tracks without lights. I never understood the shift to later starts. The ratings might be slightly better but you’re putting out a worse product that’s more threatened by weather/darkness. The drop-dead time is good but just a band-aid.” Everything else kept aside, NASCAR needs to heed the concerns of loyal fans for a continued association.

Responding to Dale Jr.’s comment, a user wrote, “And the sort term gain has run its course.” It is anyway time for a long-term fix because short-term fixes do more harm than good in the long run. Mocking the irony of the late Sunday race that got postponed for Monday morning, a user wrote, “That 10am window on a Monday must be prime for TV 👎🏼”. Opposed to the widely held notion, a huge crowd showed up at the race this morning. However, people suffered at the hands of security personnel due to delayed entries.

NASCAR must do the needful going forward! What do you think?