Sorry for double post, but I suppose this will be quite long as well and about quite a different matter
How to fix it? Money. NASCAR money. But that is only a small part.
You will have to convince the millions of people who watch NASCAR to try watching open wheel racing. Let me be frank: The majority of NASCAR fans know little about motorsports, and as such, are content to watch rolling billboards for two hours while pounding down salty snacks and guzzling watery beer.
Americans on the whole pride themselves on being different; whereas the most popular sport in the world in soccer, in America it is football. Same goes for motorsports. NASCAR is undoubtedly American in every way.
Also, you can pinpoint it to events from the late 1940's and 1950's. At the time, there was three major racing sanctioning bodies: the SCCA, the AAA(not the auto club) and NASCAR. SCCA had, and in some ways, still have an air of elitism about them, thus alienating common people and letting only the rich boys race. Plus, the SCCA didnt really pay a person to race. The AAA sanctioned mostly oval tracks and the Indy 500. They were absorbed and dissolved by FIA. The FIA hosted a few events here and there, but never got a foothold in America. Shame.
That only left NASCAR to have free rein to dictate what motorsports would be sanctioned. And look at the results...
I'm no expert on the history of american racing(although I'm interested about it) but to my knowledge FIA never really absorbed any of the american motorport associations... AAA stopped hosting races after 1955, which was followed by forming USAC, which did affiliate with FIA somewhat but wasn't absorbed by it. But the major open-wheel racing moved from USAC to CART in around 1980, and that never really had anything to do with FIA either. As far as I know FIA has always pretty much failed to make any sort of impact in USA, apart from the US GP.
In america the organisations can do pretty much what they want, compared to Europe where everything is controlled by FIA, and as NASCAR is currently the biggest one they can do as they wish. They have the whole ladder set up that a talented driver can climb up, from local and regional races to national series ARCA, Busch, Trucks and Nextel Cup. In open-wheelers, Champcar has their Atlantics and Star Mazdas once you get to that level and IRL their Indy Pro Series, but below those everything is scattered to smaller associations like USAC and SCCA. There's no real ladder that talented drivers could climb up and get to the top, and all series are competing for the same amount of talent. With sportscar racing as well.
As for the cultures... America might take some pride over being different from rest of the world with their football and NASCAR, but at least as far as racing it all comes down to different cultures. In Europe racing has always been somewhat elite, starting as a hobby for the wealthy in the early years of automobile and with factories being involved, and it has pretty much stayed that way at least on the top level with your super-sophisticated F1 cars that cost millions. It's all about racing itself, finding out who is best and fans can come and watch it if they want to but there's not that much effort to make racing easily accessible.
American racing, on the other hand, has always been more about entertainment and making a good show. You have your simple but spectacular oval tracks where you can fit thousands of people and they have a great sight of everything that goes on, coupled with ticket prices which are fraction of those in Europe, open pits where fans can see the teams and drivers and so on. And it's also very accessible for competitors, with your simple and relatively cheap stock cars, sprint cars, midgets and such, which means that your average Joe can get himself a car, start racing and make it all the way to the top. The concept of american dream still lives on.
