Jr Wins Most Popular Driver Award Number Five!

I have no problem with Jr winning the award. He and Jeff Gordon are 2 of my favorites along with a few others. Congrats to Jr. :winner:

http://www.scenedaily.com/stories/2007/11/26/scene_daily22.html?from_rss=1&from_chex=1

Earnhardt Jr. wins his 5th most popular driver award
NEW YORK - Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the NASCAR NMPA Chex Most Popular Driver award for the fifth consecutive season in an announcement made Thursday during the Myers Brothers Luncheon.

Earnhardt Jr. earned 1.4 million of the 3.8 million votes cast on www.mostpopulardriver.com. Fans could vote once a day for their favorite driver, and voting ended November 19.


"I'm extremely honored to win this award again, because it puts me with a very select group of drivers who I have a lot of respect for," Earnhardt Jr. said. "When I became a Cup driver in 1999, I never would've imagined that we'd be talking about five consecutive Most Popular Driver awards. I have a special place at JR Motorsports where I put the MPD trophies, so I'm honored to add another one to the collection.

"I don't want it to sound like a clichι, but this award really does mean a lot to me after all we have been through this year. This year has marked a significant transition in my life and career, and I knew the fans could go either way in supporting my decision or not. It was tough, and I don't underestimate the fans' support. It's been overwhelming, and I really appreciate it." .......................................

I wonder where JPM ranked? He did not make the top 10 but I suspect he made it to the top 15.

I think the award means something since the voting process was opened up and made very accessible to fans a few years ago, which prevented the Bill Elliott fan club from stuffing the ballot to give him the award when everyone knew Dale Earnhardt was the true most popular driver (yes, I was a fan of Dale Sr. and was always annoyed at the Elliott fan club turning the award into a farce).

I wonder where JPM ranked? He did not make the top 10 but I suspect he made it to the top 15.
If most of the voters were the NASCAR faithful, I doubt that Montoya made it into the top 25 or even 30.

Jr Wins 5th Most Popular Driver Award

Who won the 1st most popular driver award?

Ho ho ho ho ho

Fixed the grammar on the title.

If most of the voters were the NASCAR faithful, I doubt that Montoya made it into the top 25 or even 30.

JPM fans are NASCAR fans too. ;)

This award in pointless. All the Dale Jr fans will cheat to get him to win. No other driver stands a chance at winning.

Dale Jr. is the most popular driver and the new internet-based voting system reflects exactly what is in the stands (Junior #1, JG a distant #2, and then the tier of Kahne/Stewart/Harvick/Waltrip/Johnson). This is a refreshing change from the old rigged system under which the true most popular driver would receive little more than a tenth of the vote of the choice of ballot-box-stuffing Bill Elliot fan club members.

This is rigged as Dale Jr fans all have mulitple e mails with which to vote from making sure their man wins.

In reality, fans are split 50-50 on him.

I hardly think the vote is rigged. All one has to do is look at the stands in any race and you will see that more than a third are Jr fans and it is reflected in the voting. Jr received approx. 37 % of the total vote. He is one of the top 5 most popular sport figures in the U.S., not just Nascar but all sports.

37% of the vote sounds fairly representative of the real fanbase seeing that about 40% of all NASCAR merchandise sold is Jr. merchandise

Yes, I don't see any suggestion of rigging. Unless we are seriously suggesting that Casey Mears is more popular. ;)

I would be making allegations of rigged if Jr. didn't comfortably win it.

I don't really understand the point of this award, although I imagine it is of significant use to teams and corporations for planning their respective branding strategies.

I imagine there is alot of people that watch/come to the races just for JR, if my guys drop out I'll still watch, but if he does, they go home.

Junior's share of the vote is virtually identical to the percentage of fans polled in 1999 that said they were fans of his father (I think that was 38 or 39%). Was that poll rigged too? :) These numbers aren't anomalies. They are also backed up by the share of merchandise sales that Dale Sr. accounted for and Junior now accounts for. What was rigged was the most popular driving voting prior to the change a few years ago when the new sponsor made voting easily accessible to the masses, not the sole province of one overzealous fan club determined to stuff the ballot box.

In the US there are two NASCAR drivers whose popularity truly transcends NASCAR and makes them cultural icons. One is Jeff Gordon; the other is Dale Jr.

Dale Jr has been cited as the reason viewers are turning off NASCAR.

No way is he the most popular driver!

Dale Jr has been cited as the reason viewers are turning off NASCAR.
Why?

Dale Jr has been cited as the reason viewers are turning off NASCAR.
No way is he the most popular driver!
And,,,,, the rest of the story.

http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs....03/1010/SPORTS

When in doubt, blame Dale
By Mark DeCotis
special to news-press.com
Originally posted on December 02, 2007

So, after much tap dancing and tango, and after much soft shoe and spin, NASCAR chairman and CEO Brian France admitted that, yes, the sport's TV ratings are down. But there's a real good reason: Dale Jr. had a bad year.

Talk about putting the weight and the burden for carrying the sport on one guy among 43 who race for their daily bread 38 weekends a year, and ignoring the obvious — which we'll get to in a moment.

Here's what Sir Brian, speaking to a Reuters media forum in New York on Thursday, had to say about Dale Jr. and the roughly 13 percent fall in ratings: "It would have helped if he (Dale Jr.) would have been competitive. He didn't win an event, and he certainly didn't make our playoffs. And that's unhelpful if you're trying to build ratings."
So there you have it, and Junior, if there were any doubts about your standing in the sport, the boss dispelled them, but at the same time sent a message that should resound from sea to shining sea: Get on the stick, son.

The sport depends on you.
Never mind that Jimmie Johnson won consecutive championships for the first time since Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon in 1997-98, and Johnson won 10 races, including four straight down the stretch of the playoff to reduce Gordon's remarkable year to dust.

Obviously, it's all about the Earnhardts.

After giving Johnson his props — "Jimmie's in the early stages of what may be a dynasty," France said. "He's back-to-back champion in the stiffest of competition" — France just as quickly yanked the rug out from under the Hendrick Motorsports ace:
"But has he gotten to the status of Dale Earnhardt Sr.?" France asked. "Of course not. It takes a long time, and your personality has to come out there, too."

If anything, Johnson, who long has let his driving do his talking, has been criticized for a lack of spit and fire, and dash and splash. After all, all he does is win.
It can be argued that France's words mark the first salvo in the sport's long overdue move to pay homage to those who came before as part of its extension of an olive branch to longtime and traditional fans who are leaving NASCAR in droves.

But to throw your two-time champion under the bus in the process?

But then again, we are talking about Dale Jr., the sport's crown prince.
Perhaps the fact that Dale Jr. will join Johnson, Gordon and Casey Mears (remember him?) at Hendrick next season has escaped France. A real good year could be on the horizon. Then what will the excuse be?

Meanwhile, Johnson can be forgiven if he wonders in his solitary moments just what he needs to do to earn his creed. After all, he's won 33 races, 16 more than Earnhardt in 72 less starts (219 to 291), and did we already mention the two ... consecutive ... championships?
Don't feel bad, Jimmie. It's much easier for Sir Brian to blame Junior than to have to think about all the other possible factors for the decline in TV ratings, such as:

• Later East Coast starting times that intrude into dinner hours and family time.

• The perceived glut of commercials, missed re-starts, fawning announcers and, depending on your perspective, overcoverage of certain drivers and undercoverage of others.
• An overabundance of 400- and 500-mile races that can take forever to run.

• Less than compelling — more than a few would say boring — racing.
• The introduction of the new car that while, for all the right reasons, safety being paramount, has resulted in even less competition.

• The perceived abandonment of the sport's Southern roots, and the reality of only one date at Darlington, none at Rockingham and two in California and Phoenix.

And for the xenophobic among us:
• The entrance of Toyota into Cup.

• The invasion of foreign-born open-wheel racers.
Solving the first six issues will take time, patience and persistence — the final two are beyond hope — and perhaps even a more than perfunctory attempt to reach out to all its fans, current and former. Putting the onus on Earnhardt Jr. sure is easy and makes for irresistible fodder for the arguments, discussions and dissection that are the lifeblood of the sport.

But really? Junior had a bad year. C'mon.

Thanks for posting that article. It's interesting and makes far more sense than the random (very poor) attempts to immitate the Tony Blair style 'sound bytes' that you read on internet forums on occasion.

Dale Jr has been cited as the reason viewers are turning off NASCAR.

No way is he the most popular driver!



You ARE joking right?










...right?

i'm not a Jr fan myself and even less of a fan now he's joined the darkside but after all the failures of his car's last season he always took it graciously, even when we was running top 5, he never moaned about his bad luck

he's earnt himself alot of credit this season even if his results weren't great