NASCAR

[MrUtley]

NASCAR for ants:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu7mzTPHeJI

[bosox18d]

Lick my nut sac

[weezo]

OK all y'all Bubba's out there ...

The BubbaBurger 250 is just starting on SpeedTV ...

Coming from Richmond, Virginia ....

                YeeeHA !!!

[MrUtley]

Hick.

[weezo]

Hick.

    Hickcup

[MrUtley]

Hick Cup = The trophy awarded at the end of each year to the points leader in NASCAR.

[bocce]

some thoughts on NASCAR from a southerner who is neither a hick nor a fan:

i grew up with nascar. it was born the same year i was (not the sport, mind you, but the organization). racing automobiles either on a straightaway, a road course or, particularly, an oval has been an american obsession since the advent of the motor vehicle, itself. this fact is not particularly regional. in fact, there are probably more circuits (both dirt and asphalt) and drag venues in the north and west than in the south...

the thing that identifies NASCAR with the south is mostly its origin and consequently most of its major and traditional venues. unfortunately, over a sixty some odd year span, NASCAR has become transmuted not only from its original intent but become affiliated with a certain coterie of fans who wouldn't have the slightest concept of what that original intent was...

back when i was a kid and still enthusiastic about what we called "stockers", the cars and the guys that drove them were just that: blue collar fellas that worked on their own engines part time during the week and raced against one another on saturday nights. there were rules for stock cars then which almost seem ridiculously absurd today...

all the vehicles had to have a certain amount of units sold to the public to assure equity and the parts had to be available to mass market in order to qualify. of course, exactly how you tweeked the engine was your business as long as you used market components. THIS was the essence of NASCAR racing until the early 70's: one mechanic and one driver (usually the same cat) against another...

prior to 1973, there were some moderate rule changes (mostly safety issue), but the cars remained essentially "stock". in other words, if you were a 19 year old gearhead with a 326 '65 le mans, you could convert that to a GTO and race away all day long. it was actually a universal sport microcosmically displayed at talledega, darlington, daytona or bristol. if you worked on cars in the 50's, 60's or early 70's, i guarantee you were a NASCAR fan whether you were from pomona, the upper penninsula, east orange NJ or opelika AL...


but something happened in 1973 (not only to NASCAR but all sports), the advent of the SUPERSTAR. people began talking more about individuals than team and in NASCAR, they talked more about drivers than the engines that made them win. the cult of personality overwhelmed the modus operandi that got them there. if you take the legacy of the petty's from lee thru richard to kyle, you'll see a dimminuation of personal involvement in the mechanical end of racing...

this was the year that i stopped being a NASCAR fan (or a fan of most pro sports, for that matter). it was kind of the "year the music died" to paraphrase a contemporary analogy. scores of other former enthusiasts left as well...


so what we now have as NASCAR fans are a group of yahoos who go to a race to socialize, get drunk and hope for "wrecks" much in the same way that the new northern hockey fan looks for fights amongst the players without much of a clue as to the finesse aspects of the game. being a moron is pretty fairly equally spread over the many regions of the US and it seems to rise to its apotheosis in sport...


but i'll leave you with this last sociological footnote: a lot of the reason NASCAR is identified with the south is that it was "our" pro sport for decades. we didn't get a pro football, baseball or basketball team until late in the 60's/early 70's. hard surface auto racing was ours other than the indy and that was open wheel. and we took it pretty seriously and to heart and are not embarrassed in the least about it...

[weezo]

Bocce,

In '78, I met my husband who was an avid NASCAR fan. A week after our first date, he went to Daytona. Next month, he talked me into going with him to the Richmond race, and to my total surprise, I enjoyed the race. Bobby Allison won, and after the race, we went to visit him inside the racetrack, and Steve, thinking I wasn't being assertive enough trying to get the man's signature on a hat, pushed me into the car, onto Bobby's lap. Until the early 80's we went to a number of races in VA, NC, and even to Pocano. Yes, on recollection, I remember the star cult, but enjoyed it. Neither of us had interest in any other sports. But, what turned us off was the rise of corporate sponsorship. Originally, all cars were covered with sponsor stickers for auto products and such. Then, we went to a race in which Darryl Waltrip (loved to boo him!) had a huge TIDE emblem painted on his car, and the day of big corporate sponsors dawned. The cost of tickets spiraled and were outside of our budget. Originally, we had to listen to the races on radio -- but more and more were televised, so we stopped buying tickets. When they started combining cars/drivers under one umbrella, we began to lose interest. Now, when hubby turns on a race, it is because he wants to take a nap, and the race on tv is a sure invitation to doze.

[MrUtley]

some thoughts on NASCAR from a southerner who is neither a hick nor a fan:

i grew up with nascar. it was born the same year i was (not the sport, mind you, but the organization). racing automobiles either on a straightaway, a road course or, particularly, an oval has been an american obsession since the advent of the motor vehicle, itself. this fact is not particularly regional. in fact, there are probably more circuits (both dirt and asphalt) and drag venues in the north and west than in the south...

the thing that identifies NASCAR with the south is mostly its origin and consequently most of its major and traditional venues. unfortunately, over a sixty some odd year span, NASCAR has become transmuted not only from its original intent but become affiliated with a certain coterie of fans who wouldn't have the slightest concept of what that original intent was...

back when i was a kid and still enthusiastic about what we called "stockers", the cars and the guys that drove them were just that: blue collar fellas that worked on their own engines part time during the week and raced against one another on saturday nights. there were rules for stock cars then which almost seem ridiculously absurd today...

all the vehicles had to have a certain amount of units sold to the public to assure equity and the parts had to be available to mass market in order to qualify. of course, exactly how you tweeked the engine was your business as long as you used market components. THIS was the essence of NASCAR racing until the early 70's: one mechanic and one driver (usually the same cat) against another...

prior to 1973, there were some moderate rule changes (mostly safety issue), but the cars remained essentially "stock". in other words, if you were a 19 year old gearhead with a 326 '65 le mans, you could convert that to a GTO and race away all day long. it was actually a universal sport microcosmically displayed at talledega, darlington, daytona or bristol. if you worked on cars in the 50's, 60's or early 70's, i guarantee you were a NASCAR fan whether you were from pomona, the upper penninsula, east orange NJ or opelika AL...


but something happened in 1973 (not only to NASCAR but all sports), the advent of the SUPERSTAR. people began talking more about individuals than team and in NASCAR, they talked more about drivers than the engines that made them win. the cult of personality overwhelmed the modus operandi that got them there. if you take the legacy of the petty's from lee thru richard to kyle, you'll see a dimminuation of personal involvement in the mechanical end of racing...

this was the year that i stopped being a NASCAR fan (or a fan of most pro sports, for that matter). it was kind of the "year the music died" to paraphrase a contemporary analogy. scores of other former enthusiasts left as well...


so what we now have as NASCAR fans are a group of yahoos who go to a race to socialize, get drunk and hope for "wrecks" much in the same way that the new northern hockey fan looks for fights amongst the players without much of a clue as to the finesse aspects of the game. being a moron is pretty fairly equally spread over the many regions of the US and it seems to rise to its apotheosis in sport...


but i'll leave you with this last sociological footnote: a lot of the reason NASCAR is identified with the south is that it was "our" pro sport for decades. we didn't get a pro football, baseball or basketball team until late in the 60's/early 70's. hard surface auto racing was ours other than the indy and that was open wheel. and we took it pretty seriously and to heart and are not embarrassed in the least about it...

It will never be better than Grand Prix, but I can how if the bass ain't bitin', you can't find your horseshoe set,  or you have nothing else to do you might tune it in.

And the everyone knows that the South's real "pro sport" is and has always been college football.

[weezo]

some thoughts on NASCAR from a southerner who is neither a hick nor a fan:

i grew up with nascar. it was born the same year i was (not the sport, mind you, but the organization). racing automobiles either on a straightaway, a road course or, particularly, an oval has been an american obsession since the advent of the motor vehicle, itself. this fact is not particularly regional. in fact, there are probably more circuits (both dirt and asphalt) and drag venues in the north and west than in the south...

the thing that identifies NASCAR with the south is mostly its origin and consequently most of its major and traditional venues. unfortunately, over a sixty some odd year span, NASCAR has become transmuted not only from its original intent but become affiliated with a certain coterie of fans who wouldn't have the slightest concept of what that original intent was...

It will never be better than Grand Prix, but I can how if the bass ain't bitin', you can't find your horseshoe set,  or you have nothing else to do you might tune it in.

And the everyone knows that the South's real "pro sport" is and has always been college football.

Guess that's why I'll never be a true southerner. Remember what I told my students why I didn't go to the football games .....

I had no desire
To spend the evening
Sitting on a cold hard bench
Watching a bunch of boys
Run around a field
Grabbing each other's balls ....

A few days later a father stopped by to find out if I'd really said that, and congratulated me on having the guts to do so ....

Both father and son had a really rough year, and it was really, really helpful to have been on good relationship before the s hit the f ....

[bocce]

It will never be better than Grand Prix...

eurosnob

[MrUtley]

It will never be better than Grand Prix...

eurosnob

: 0

Actually, there's been talk of trying to put a Grand Prix race in Hudson County, NJ, which run it through Hoboken and Jersey City, and NYC in the background for the telly. So, yeah, I think it's a more Eurocentric sport, but I also think it's a better sport, and one that is far more challenging than NASCAR. Or perhaps I just prefer the different skill set needed to negotiate a course that is multilayered in scope and sequence than the one that NASCAR essentially requires.

[sebastian03]

One of my favorite thing to do when I'm bored is to visit some website that that discusses new cars.