For most of its 76-year history, NASCAR has treated Mother’s Day like a wet racetrack—best left alone. Not out of reverence or some deep cultural commitment to flowers and family, but because back in 1986 they tried it once… and it went down like a Goodyear tire at Bristol. The All-Star Race ran on Mother’s Day, and the crowd was so sparse it looked like Atlanta Motor Speedway had forgotten to unlock the front gates.
But this year at Kansas Speedway, as has been done since 2022, NASCAR continued to embrace the date rather than run from it. They leaned hard into the floral bouquet and brunch crowd, embracing the Mother’s Day motif with the same all-in energy as a Ross Chastain last-lap wall ride. A group of moms gave the command to start engines, and if you listened closely, you could almost hear the Hallmark Channel clinking wine glasses in celebration.
And you know what? The race itself wasn’t half bad. In fact, it was brilliant. Kyle Larson put on a clinic in driving on the ragged edge—his car practically skating around the track like it had a grudge against physics—while the rest of the field behind him traded punches like it was Daytona in August. It was fast, furious, and for once, the racing did the talking. Just as Kansas has quietly done for the last few years.
Naturally though, the Monday morning experts didn’t talk about the racing. No, they grabbed their magnifying glasses and zoomed in on the empty seats.
Yes, parts of the grandstands did look a bit like the aftermath of a tailgate party in a zombie apocalypse. Yes, it was Mother’s Day. And yes, dragging mom to a racetrack on her one sacred day of the year is probably only marginally better than giving her a Shop-Vac and a Chili’s gift card. But losing your mind over the optics of a few empty rows is like complaining that your steak wasn’t grass-fed while you’re eating it in first class.
Once upon a time, NASCAR bragged about attendance like it was trying to win a county fair pie-eating contest. But then came 2008. The economy collapsed. The average fan had to choose between a weekend at the track or feeding their families instead of feeding the ticket scalpers. Suddenly, seats started disappearing like socks in a dryer. Entire grandstands were ripped out or covered up, and attendance numbers? Vanished. Today they’re kept more secret than the Colonel’s Original recipe.
But here’s the thing: NASCAR doesn’t live or die by ticket stubs anymore.
Eyeballs on screens matter just as much—if not more—than butts in seats. Streaming, TV ratings, social media impressions… the modern fan doesn’t need to smell the burnt rubber to be part of the experience, or for NASCAR to make a buck. That said, every fan should go to a race at least once in their life. It’s a high-octane pilgrimage. The smell of ethanol, the chest-thumping roar of the engines, the rumble in your sternum when the field roars by at full song—it’s as close to religion as motorsports gets. But let’s be honest: life right now is expensive. And not just “eggs cost more” expensive—“what do you mean my rent went up $600” expensive.
So if someone wants to experience Kansas from their couch, a cold beer in one hand and Mom happily binge-watching Bridgerton in the other room, who exactly are we to scoff?
Is NASCAR teetering on the edge because Kansas had a few thousand too many exposed aluminum seats? Of course not. If empty bleachers were a death sentence, Major League Baseball would’ve been cryogenically frozen years ago.
The real issue isn’t the seats—it’s the professional doom-and-gloom brigade who point at them like they’ve uncovered the Zapruder film of NASCAR’s downfall. These folks aren’t offering insight; they’re begging for clicks. Columnists, influencers, keyboard warriors and podcasters—most of whom haven’t bought a ticket to a race in years—acting like prophets of the end times. They don’t care about the sport. They care about being right on X.
Meanwhile, the sport marches on. Tracks get creative. Revenue streams stretch beyond tickets—merch, media deals, corporate hospitality, data licensing. NASCAR is no longer a one-trick pony. It’s a multi-platform, cross-promotional, revenue-generating circus that just so happens to stage some of the best racing we’ve seen in a decade.
So let’s give credit where it’s due. NASCAR tried something risky—racing on Mother’s Day, a day traditionally reserved for mimosas, not motorsports. And it worked. The racing was spectacular. The show went on. And while some seats were empty, the product on the track was full throttle.
Let’s stop treating empty seats like they’re signs of the apocalypse. Because as anyone who’s ever been to a race will tell you: the most important sound isn’t silence in the stands. It’s the earth-rattling thunder of 36 engines screaming into Turn 1.
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.