Having been a competitor since its inception in 1995, Ruttman was there when the trucks were packing fans in at half-mile bullrings like the Louisville Motor Speedway and has seen cavernous Bristol Motor Speedway, in Bristol, Tenn., with its capacity of 135,000, look empty with 45,000 fans. I remember looking up at the stands and, maybe the largest crowd I had seen then was around 12,000, and there were 36,000 people in the stands. In '82, the Cup races didn't draw that. Eighteen years later, fans have to get on waiting list to get tickets for some Winston Cup events. But when people watch on TV, they see empty seats at a truck race, not the 90,000 fans watching the Daytona 250 at the 250,000-seat Daytona International Speedway.
Perception is everything.
Winston Cup is 51 years old. Busch is 20 years old. The truck series is only six years old. Ruttman points out that it is the kind of racing that made the Winston Cup series popular at the superspeedways. We're like old Winston Cup racing, with the slingshot passes.