Former driver Kenny Wallace explains how NASCAR's ticket pricing quietly pushed fans away

Former NASCAR driver and reporter Kenny Wallace has offered a blunt and revealing explanation for why many longtime fans are slowly drifting away from the sport due to ticket pricing. According to Wallace, NASCAR’s decline in live attendance wasn't just about the price of the tickets themselves, but how they were forced upon the fans in recent years.

Speaking candidly on the latest episode of “Coffee with Kenny” about what NASCAR did wrong, Kenny Wallace claimed that NASCAR got greedy for ticket sales.

According to Wallace, different racetracks have different approaches to ticket sales, and these approaches often don’t align with what most fans want. Some tracks only allow the purchase of a three-day entry ticket, whereas some fans prefer one event ticket. As a result, fans ended up paying for three-day events’ prices if they only went to attend one event.

On his “Coffee with Kenny” program, Kenny Wallace shed light on how NASCAR’s ticketing structure became too aggressive, too expensive, and ultimately disconnected from what grassroots fans actually wanted.

“They got greedy. They were so big that they would say, ‘Okay, you’ve got to buy one ticket for everything—you’ve got to show up Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.’ And the dirt racing fans are like, ‘Man, we just want to show up on Sunday.’ Some of the tracks were guilty of saying, ‘No, you’ve got to buy the Truck ticket on Friday, you’ve got to buy the Xfinity ticket on Saturday, and you’ve got to buy the Cup ticket on Sunday,’ and they just priced everybody out. So I’m going to end like this.” Wallace said. [4:50]

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Kenny Wallace reacts to a new Daytona 500 promo featuring legend Dale Earnhardt

Kenny Wallace was quick to react after NASCAR released the new 2026 Daytona 500 promo, featuring seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Dale Earnhardt. Taking to X, Wallace admitted that using Earnhardt’s name and legacy is an incredibly powerful way to grab fans’ attention for the upcoming season.

“Remember what I told you. The new @NASCAR “advertisement company” is going to start out with EARNHARRRDDDTT. And I am here for it, especially at a bar.” Wallace wrote on X.

Earnhardt took the checkered flag at Daytona 500 in 1998 in his 20th attempt, after 19 years.

The 68th edition of the Daytona 500, the season-opening race of the 2026 season, is scheduled to be held at Daytona International Speedway on Sunday, February 15, 2026.

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Edited by Yash Soni