Former driver says NASCAR's 'new show' is no match for the sport's glory days

As NASCAR continues to evolve and change in the modern era, one highly contentious argument among fans is about the sport's glory days.

The time period considered by fans to be NASCAR's golden era is likely dependent on when said race fans grew up, but from a statistical standpoint, there's no denying that from the early 1990s to the mid-2000s, NASCAR was at its peak in popularity.

Jeremy Mayfield drove in the Cup Series throughout the sport's most popular era, and when asked his thoughts on the current iteration of NASCAR, he didn't hold back.

"I'm not very fond of it," Mayfield said when asked about his opinion of modern NASCAR. "All you have to do is take a look back. Go back and watch races from '07, '06, '05, 2000, '98, '97. The racing was awesome. The show was good. They had superstars, they had brands."

"Rusty Wallace and Miller Lite. Dale Earnhardt with GM Goodwrench. When you see the black No. 3, you don't have to ask who it is. You watch today, you don't have a clue who's driving what. You have a bunch of different sponsors every week."

Those aforementioned brands were as tied to the men behind the wheel just as much as they were to the iconic paint schemes and sponsors that adorned their cars, a feature of the sport Mayfield fears is no longer prevalent.

"Who are your superstars?" Mayfield said. "We have Chase Elliott, Kyle Busch... that's still not a Dale Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace, Darrell Waltrip or Cale Yarborough. There are not enough superstars there. They've alienated their fans that related to Dale Earnhardt, and Bill Elliott, and Rusty Wallace. Fans used to look up to them. Now you have a younger group of guys in there, and older fans don't really care about that."

NASCAR's young crop of talent have a tendency to constantly replace veteran drivers during every offseason, a trend that Mayfield likened to "replacing NFL players with high school football players every winter."

"You (NASCAR) start making all these changes to make your show better, and you screw it all up," he said. "You've done nothing. That's where they're at right now. How do you get that feeling (of the glory days) back? They won't ever get it back, because no one at the top wants to hear what's really wrong. They just tell each other how great it (NASCAR) is all the time."

In recent years, NASCAR has tried to cater to both its younger and older fanbases by making numerous schedule changes. Races in new markets such as Chicago, Nashville, Los Angeles and soon, Mexico City have been added, while legacy venues such as North Wilkesboro, Bowman Gray and Rockingham have been revived.

However, Mayfield sees the revitalization of historic venues as small consolation for the fans that helped build the legacy of said tracks.

"They brought North Wilkesboro back, but guess what they brought back? Their new show. It wasn't very good racing," Mayfield said. "They were hoping Wilkesboro would be the same old Wilkesboro it used to be, but we raced with the old show. Now you bring your new show years later, with the track in the best situation it's ever been in, and you bring this new racing there and it's boring."

NASCAR has long tried to walk the tightrope of pleasing both new and old fans, but it appears that retaining its core fanbase is easier said than done.

All quotations obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.