[BlueOval Ralph]

This is a reson the race on Sunday sell on Monday does't much work any more!

It's in trouble because the youthful enthusiasm that fueled the sport for so long is dying off. The young auto enthusiasts who automatically watched the races, feverishly followed every last bit of news or detail about their favorite car or driver, and who eventually grew into professional careers and could actually afford to buy a car from their favorite manufacturers have been replaced by hordes of consumerist junkies with no affiliation to anything other than to have the latest bit of electronic technology in their possession, or the hottest communication device of the moment. Note that there's nothing in that scenario about desiring the latest sports car or high-performance vehicle.

And the world's auto manufacturers are worried. They're spending hundreds of billions of dollars on advanced technological development of alternative fuels and propulsion systems, forward-thinking fuel-saving and efficiency technologies, and countless other programs that will lay the foundation of our transportation of The Future, yet if people don't care or don't view automobiles as machines worth owning - and prefer their individual mobile communications devices instead, the whole damn thing could come unraveled