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They held a legends race at Bristol last year, one of those sad events with former drivers going in slow circles for the enjoyment of old-school fans. Track officials expected the typical appreciative response from sports' most atypically appreciative fans.

What they heard stunned them.

The fans didn't want to see a bunch of old guys going in safe circles. They wanted to see them "race."

NASCAR has been hearing that for years from people walking away from race tracks across the country. The 62-year-old sport has seen empty seats in venues far from racing's birthplace, and it has seen empty seats right down the street from the sport's posh headquarters.

Somewhere along the way, NASCAR forgot about its fans. Somewhere along the way, NASCAR forgot race fans don't do posh. Daytona opened its gates to a new era this weekend as NASCAR seems to have finally gotten the message. The question is, was it too late?

Dwindling TV ratings and attendance coupled with a stagnant economy finally exposed the modern game in stock-car racing. The old ways were better, and if the folks on International Speedway Boulevard in Daytona Beach were the last to figure that out, well that's just the way the sport has devolved.

NASCAR has decided to give racing back to the fans by giving the fans what they've wanted all along — racing. After years of trying to control everything from driving styles to personalities, NASCAR finally has given the sport back to the racers.

"It's in their hands now," said competition director Robin Pemberton. "Anything can happen."

It happened in the first minutes of practice Thursday, when Sprint Cup drivers looking for the new limits to NASCAR's new limitless restrictions crashed. The wreck will be the new limit, according to many.

"NASCAR racing from Day One has always been highly competitive, and there's an age-old adage saying, 'If you ain't rubbin' you ain't racin,' " said Mike Helton, the sport's president. "That's what the NASCAR fan, the NASCAR stakeholders, all bought into and all expect."

In other words, tighten your belts, boys. Bring back the steering wheel. It's a last-gasp effort to slow the traffic to the exits and to remind fans that drivers aren't just cardboard cutouts, walking billboards.

"This is a contact sport," Brian France, the CEO of NASCAR, said a couple of weeks ago. Those words had never been uttered by the grandson of the sport's founder. He said they'll let drivers police themselves and they'll let drivers say what's on their mind, not just what's on their rear quarterpanel.

"I like it," said Ryan Newman.

"About time," said Tony Stewart.

"We'll see," said Jimmie Johnson.

Those are the modern racers NASCAR will build around this year, those and others named Earnhardt and Gordon and Busch and Hamlin and Edwards and Montoya and even one named Danica.

The old fans back home will remember them from a few years back when things seemed to be going great for racing and the seats were filled and the money flowed. NASCAR read the results wrong in those days, left its past behind and tried to re-invent a sport that didn't need re-inventing.

The reckoning came last year when fans stayed home from the tracks and didn't bother watching on television, either. NASCAR got the subliminal message, and last year at Bristol the message was loud and clear.

"We not only found out that the fans want to see racing the way it ought to be, they want to see racing the way it used to be," Jeff Byrd, the Bristol Motor Speedway president, told the local paper.

The not-so-subtle reminder was that some race fans are willing to let it all disappear, to sit home on Sundays and reminisce about Saturday night. This year, Byrd will invite Cale and Rusty and Chargin' Charlie Glotzbach and Saturday night racers Jimmie Hensley and Jack Ingram and Dave Marcis. That's who the fans wanted to see, and they wanted to see them race.

The not-so-subtle message was that racing can be replaced by memories of when the sport really was controlled by the drivers, when they came back after a race holding only a steering wheel. And maybe a tire iron.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@news-record.com