Quote Originally Posted by WRCStan View Post
why would a typical fan watch TV for several hours at the end of the 24 a car they know to be cruising and isn't racing?

You say plenty of people, I say only a dedicated minority and it's not a good way to stimulate stories, excitement, growth of the series...
Because if a motorsport fan, even not a hardcore one, decides to watch the 24 hours of Le Mans, they know more or less what to expect. They know someone might win by a big margin and might not push. But the great majority of typical fans won't stop watching, because there are other battles to follow on the track, there's the unpredictability of spins, crashes, technical troubles, safety cars, lapped cars getting in the way. And most of all, because a typical motorsport fan loves racing and racing cars.
If instead a Mustang loving Joe from Alabama casually stumbles upon a Le Mans broadcast and gets quickly bored because there are no car pile-ups and super close racing like in NASCAR... who cares? Endurance racing, rallying and most motorsports are not for him and there's no point in changing them to appeal to him. I don't find basketball entertaining and there's nothing the basketball federation of the universe can do to make me watch a game, period.
Sunday cruising is such a small problem that even if you "solve" it with weird point system, you won't see a difference in the fanbase. I highly doubt anybody will say "Oh Sundays used to be so boring, now some of the drivers push more for those 3-4 stages"