Posted on 07/29/2013 5:32:58 PM PDT by B4Ranch
Car of Tomorrow. “Green” fuels. NASCAR pandering to political correctness.
sarc Gee... I wonder why attendance is down? /sarc
We all have our opinions. It has become a worldwide race and that is exactly why I have lost interest. As another stated, no one knows the drivers' names. That is exactly why its popularity has declined.
All drviers should be born-Americans but then that is just me.
Since you did not state so, then I assume that you do not want a breakdown by country or does it even matter to you that the foreigners win the races, take the monies, return to their home countries and laugh at Americans?
I feel as equally strong about the 'NBA', which should be called the 'IBA". How can it be the "National Basketball Association" if many of the players are foreigners?
The same is true of major league baseball. The "American" league? The "National" league?
The "NFL" has followed suit. "National" football league?
But then, some of us are patriots and others of us are globalists. I feel great empathy, sympathy and pity for globalists.
“He hasn’t done much of anything in NASCAR except cry and complain”.
You forgot CRASH. He does that very well also.
“So I guess wrecking cars doesn’t count for anything? ;)”
LOL
That would include crashing into a jet-dryer during a ‘Caution’! ;-)
“Um, by Hidaki, you don’t mean Takuma Sato, do you?”
Yes, thank you. Hidaki may be from years past.
“* Along this line, I find road-course racing interesting for basically the same reason a lot of NASCAR fans think it’s boring, namely, because it isn’t easy to pass. You have to plan ahead to pass someone, usually several laps ahead.”
I do not find road-racing boring but I find it difficult to follow which turn is which and the running order. Four left turns are more easy to follow. ;-)
“NASCAR went PC a number of years ago. They recently had a feature about a gay driver & how great it is to be “inclusive.”
That is why I have always wondered about Tim Richmond. He died of AIDS. Was he gay? No one in the media has ever broached that question.
I get the impression that Danica is the “pass around” in NASCAR like Angelle Seiling was in NHRA.
IIRC, the expression is “The best way to make a small fortune in racing is to start with a large one.” It’s been attributed to Roger Penske, among others.
There was a Hideki Mutoh running with IRL a few years ago. I think he disappeared shortly after his funding dried up...
And so far, Sato seems to be the only Japanese driver to make it into American open-wheel racing who is worth a damn (well, at least when he isn’t putting his car into the wall).
OTOH, this year at Brazil he showed that he could block other cars every bit as well as King Hiro.
When her looks are gone and her funding disappears, Danica will be kicked to the curb so fast it’ll make your head spin.
You can still see great stock car racing all over America these days. It's just that it isn't NASCAR who has carried on those traditions.
Interestingly, stock car racing can trace its roots to the late 1940s when Bill France Sr. established NASCAR as a racing league for competitors in the post-WW2 era who could race in cars that cost a lot less than the traditional “open-wheel” and “sports car” racing cars that were so popular back then.
The company that owns Michigan Speedway near Ann Arbor, for example, has built office and industrial buildings around their track that are home to the R&D divisions of most major auto manufacturers. You might even say the NASCAR races at Michigan are a side business for extra cash, while the real estate holdings are actually the core business of the track.
Ironically, it’s now less expensive to run a full season of IndyCar than it is to run a full season in Sprint Cup. Granted, Cup’s season is a lot longer, but break it down to individual races and IndyCar costs around half per race.
OTOH, IndyCar gets such poor TV ratings and has such lousy attendance (other than Long Beach and Indianapolis) that it’s a really tough sell for sponsors.
In either case, we’re still not talking Formula One money. For what Ferrari spends in an average F1 season, you could fund TEN Sprint Cup teams.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.