
BACKSEAT DRIVERS VOLUME 48
Is dominance by one person a good or bad thing? If golf, phenomenon Tiger Woods is out for the season with a knee injury and the golf world is reeling. Jimmie Johnson was invincible last year and took home back to back trophies. In 2008, Kyle Busch is leaving everyone, including his teammates, in the dust. Is this good for any sport- especially racing?
Arianne: I tend to get bored easily so watching the same athlete or team win week after week gets old pretty quickly for me. I don't think that dominance from one individual or one team is good for any sport when looking at things long term. But the situation tends to have some benefits. Look at the New England Patriots, very few people rooted for them in this past Superbowl. This meant that the Giants wooed millions of fans for at least one evening. Despite my affection for the Dallas Cowboys, I found myself rooting for the Giants. Back in the day when the Cowboys dominated, there were times when I enjoyed watching them struggle a bit. It brought more excitement into the picture. I think this is the case in NASCAR as well. I hate to see anyone dominate to the point where races become predictable. That is when the sport suffers.
Kris: I think domination by one person makes the public less likely to stay interested. Too, that's how athletes like Jeff Gordon (won 13 races in a season in the late 1990s) end up with so many people that root against them. Spectators don't want to see the same people win all the time.
Brianna: WOW!!! This is a good question. In our sport that is measured by fractions of a seconds I think its a good thing for someone to be dominant. And here is why, it ain't gonna last long, probably a fraction of year which is the case for Kyle. Sure Kyle is a great driver and there are plenty of great drivers like Jimmy, Jeffy and others etc., out there today, but things happen. Things that are out of a drivers control. Sure knees blow out and cars blow up, but you can not compare golf with racing. A club doesn't break or run out of gas and a ball doesn't lose its grip or blow apart. Only the great drivers will have that special year and luck is often the reason for it. Tiger had tough luck, but he will be back. Tiger is a bad example he is someone that can not be compared to, he is that good...right now. As we progress thru the season, the 18 will be just another number in the top ten. Watch after Daytona and see if I am right.
Heather: No, dominance by one person is not good in any sport. Personally, it makes me want to turn off the TV because the competitiveness is gone. If it ends up being the same driver every week, or nearly every week, then I think there will be a lot of upset fans. In any sport, fans want to see competition. That's what brings the fans in.
Paolo: I'm not able to talk about another forms of sports. Although I live in a country in which "football" (soccer) is very famous, I do not know a thing. But as a racing nut, I know a thing or two about that. So I think that dominance by one driver -- or even a racing team -- is a bad thing. There are lots of examples regarding my opinion: in the 1988 season of the F1 World Championship, the Marlboro McLaren Honda team won 15 of the 16 races. Media and aficionados have unanimously agreed that 1998 wasn't remarkable.; the "fight for victory" was reduced between the McLaren drivers Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost. Twelve years later, Michael Schumacher, on another Marlboro-sponsored team, Scuderia Ferrari, repeated that. And the lack of different teams and different drivers to beat the German driver may explain why more and more fans started to root for NASCAR.
In the other hand, I don't believe that Kyle Busch's dominance is a bad thing for NASCAR: I'm sure the other teams are working hard to beat the Vegas native and the same can be said about his teammates...
READER RESPONSE:
With the price of going to a race being so costly it makes me think twice before we book our 3rd race for the year when only one driver wins what seems like all the races. We were going to use our stimulus check to book one but we don’t want to waste our money on the Kyle Busch show as that is what the races have become. Most of us would like to have our drivers at least have a shot but Kyle takes the lead and is gone with no one able to challenge for the lead. This causes very boring races.
Connie from IL
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