Fans no longer racing to see NASCAR’s Brickyard 400

A fan watches from the stands as temperatures climb to the mid 90s with a heat index over 100 during the running of the Brickyard 400 NASCAR auto race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Sunday, July 24, 2016. (Michael Conroy/AP)

People kind of snickered when it was announced a Motel 6 soon will be going up at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Leave the Light On jokes were made.

The budget hotel will have 87 rooms. People joked that if 1,540 Electric Daisy Carnivalists would cram into each of those 87 rooms, they wouldn’t have to drive back to the Strip all monstery energized on Red Bull or whatever.

But here’s another way to look at it: If a Motel 6 were built in the back of Gasoline Alley at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, they could have just about accommodated every fan who attended Sunday’s Brickyard 400 without Tom Bodett having to refer anybody to the Quality Inn in Brownsburg, Indiana.

An event that once attracted more than 250,000 speed freaks and people from Kentucky to the venerable oval before the novelty wore off drew less than 50,000 this year, according to the Indianapolis Star.

“But then, that’s a guess,” wrote the Star’s Gregg Doyel. “NASCAR stopped providing attendance after 2012 because it can’t handle the truth.”

Doyel asked podium finishers Matt Kenseth and Jimmie Johnson about the cavern of empty seats. The drivers immediately brandished 10-foot poles.

“That’s for you, Jimmie,” Kenseth said.

To which Johnson responded: “I don’t think my mic’s working.”

Philosophical thought of the day: If the Skittles Toyota blows the doors off the field at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

Kyle Busch of Las Vegas cruised to his second consecutive Brickyard victory by starting from the pole and blowing doors off. He led 149 of 170 laps. It was pretty much the same story in the Xfinity race the day before. The Cup series race was an abject snoozefest, as most NASCAR races on flat tracks are abject snoozefests.

After Kyle B. and family were through kissing bricks, a NASCAR honcho named Steve O’Donnell told NBC Sports he would like to see more fans in the stands, but that it was also on NASCAR to “put on the racing that people (in Indianapolis) want to see.”

A cynic, or somebody named Unser or Andretti, might have told him they already have one of those races in Indianapolis, that they run it every year on Memorial Day weekend — that when they ran it for the 100th time this year, more than 350,000 turned out to see it.

The innkeepers in Brownsburg had their hands full.

GREEN-WHITE-CHECKERED

• His kid brother has been dominating NASCAR headlines the past couple of weeks (along with Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s head wooziness). But if Kurt Busch, also originally of Las Vegas, now of a lake outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, completes all 160 laps at Sunday’s Pocono 400 in the verdant hills of Pennsylvania, he will become the first Cup driver to have completed every lap through the first 21 races of a season. Busch has completed 5,673 laps without fail — 20 races worth — tying Junior’s record set in 2012. The elder Busch brother should wear a pink driver’s suit and flip-flops with his dark sunglasses, and he should beat a bass drum in the garage area, because he’s the Energizer Bunny of the Cup series.

• DC Solar, which would be a great name for a fleet-footed outfielder in Kevin Costner’s next movie about baseball, has been named title sponsor of the Oct. 1 NASCAR truck series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. DC Solar is LVMS’ official off-grid mobile solar partner, one of those clean energy industries — like Sunoco Green 15, an ethanol blend of biofuel that is said to reduce greenhouse emissions by 20 percent while still allowing Dale Earnhardt Jr. to pass guys on the high side.

• Tweet(s) of the week, courtesy of NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski, who at first said he was having a “fun day of testing” at Watkins Glen, and that he was waiting for a long changeover in the paddock so he could interact with his fans on Facebook live. That was before he clouted the tire wall, causing a changeover of interminable duration. Always quick with the wit, Keselowski immediately posted photos of his bent steering wheel and totally wadded-up Ford: “NOT doing Facebook live today. Sorry.”

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. His motor sports notebook runs on Friday. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski