NASCAR's most popular driver voting leaves a lot to be desired. Don't get me wrong. I like the idea...I don't like the system.
According to NASCAR, "Fans may vote or submit a write-in candidate once per day and are encouraged to vote throughout the season." This system is a positive for NASCAR to drive traffic to the NASCAR family of sites, but is it realistically capturing who the most popular driver really is?
"Most Popular" under this system comes down to the driver who is the most successful at collecting votes on a daily basis. And I predict that this year the "Most Popular" driver in the NASCAR Camping World West Series will be Blake Koch or Moses Smith. They are doing a terrific job utilizing FaceBook, Twitter, Websites and other means of collecting votes.
Now if the voting was for the "Most Deserving of a Sponsor" these two deserve to be finalists as they are putting a true effort out and what sponsor wouldn't want a driver that will "work it" as part of a marketing plan?
Until NASCAR changes the way votes are captured, fans and teams can still monitor the cheers and applauds from the fans in the stands to determine who the most popular driver really is...which very well could be the very highly admired Koch or the well-liked Smith.
