EPA-NASCAR green deal covers everything--but racing!

washingtonexaminer.com ^ | 5/22/12 | Paul Bedard

[ColdOne]

President Obama’s eco-friendly EPA inked a green partnership deal with high-octane NASCAR Monday to promote recycling and environmentally-friendly products to the sport’s millions of fans. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, NASCAR will encourage fans to buy “sustainable concessions” at races, expand the use of “safer chemical products,” conserve water, reduce waste, promote recycling, push products approved by the EPA that have a small enviro footprint and encourage suppliers to get an “E3 tuneup” aimed at promoting sustainable manufacturing.

Missing: any talk of greening races or race cars that consume about two million gallons of gas a year and average five miles per gallon.

“Yes, the focus is on suppliers and programs, not green cars,” said an EPA spokesman.

[razorback-bert]

I can’t wait for hybrid racing.

[Spktyr]

NASCAR’s always been prone to that sort of ‘faggotry.’ It’s just taken the fans a lot longer to realize the stupidity.

1. When NASCAR goes to Watkins Glen or Sears Point/Infineon, they’re running on the same track as other series have to. Actual stock-based cars are FASTER at those road courses than the NASCRASH cars. Their solution: Stick heads in sand, pretend it’s still the 1970s and ban the adoption of newer technologies. Like fuel injection, antilock brakes, etc., etc. But then claim that you’re all for safety despite making crashes more likely.

2. NASCAR has always been fond of banning things that show them up. Until Toyota showed up, the only NASCAR win by a foreign manufacturer was Jaguar at Linden Airport in 1954 in an almost completely stock XK120. Jaguar took first, second, fourth, fifth and sixth. The two lead Jaguars lapped the entire field. NASCAR’s response? You’d think that they’d shrug and tell people to build/bring better cars if they wanted to win, right?

Nope. NASCAR’s solution was: More ovals, less road courses (so the shortcomings of the cars wouldn’t be as exposed) and a ban on any foreign marque ever competing again. Cute, huh? And these are the people the fans support????

[Spktyr]

This is also why the American car companies had to work so hard to catch up with foreign technology after the 70s - while they were out running the same old crap on the same old ovals and not really increasing their knowledge base by racing in NASCRASH, everyone else was out running cars in DTM, BTCC, WRC, and countless other road and rally series using what they learned and tested there directly on their retail products. Their R&D dollars got to work twice - once for R&D but at the same time that R&D effort also did marketing!

[snoringbear]

Agree for sure. I too am an old dog who fondling recalls the “good old days” of NASCAR. It was lots more fun when there was actually some variety in the manufacturers cars and engines. Now, even though NASCAR likes to present themselves as offering competition between the Ford, GM, Chrysler, Toyota, all the bird-cage bodies are the same as are the engines. Yep, ain't today's string racing exciting! Not.....

[Jack Hydrazine]

Running alcohol also produces more pollution and the lose mpg because of the lower energy content.

[Halls]

That’s what my husband days. Use to watch the racing for years. We’d go to races as well. Gone our the good old days!

[Repeat Offender]

I agree. It is just like when they banned the HEMI engine for a year because Chevy and Ford couldn't compete. Then they said cars couldn't be larger than a certain displacement with spoilers/fins larger than xxxx.

I quit watching Not Actually Stock CARs quite some time ago.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Someone posted a story not too long ago about the woes of NASCAR and its declining fan base due to the “improving” Obama economy. These green measures are going to cost NASCAR fans even more green from their wallets. That should drive the fan base to even lower numbers.

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

Gone are the days of real manufacturer competition! Much less the days when guys challenged and bent the rules! The rules would say something like, “You can only have a 20 gallon fuel tank.” Smokey would put an inflated basketball in his tanks. 20 gallons. Then he’d deflate the b-ball and put in 23 gallons. The best trick was beating that restriction by adding about 10 miles of fuel line! He’d add gallons of fuel, until they caught him and changed the rules again!
Things used to be fun,,,, now they’re boring!

[The Antiyuppie]

You are mistaken.

“EPA approved products = CRAP!”

Wrong!

EPA approved products = EXPENSIVE CRAP!

[Jay Redhawk]

I am predicting that within five years NASCAR will be running Chevy Volts and the Toyota Prius. Every institution is surrendering to the criminal government.

[The Antiyuppie]

“I quit watching Not Actually Stock CARs quite some time ago.”

I don’t think that there is a single nut or bolt on those cars that can actually be found on the cars that they look like. Even the short blocks (if this is true anymore) are tweeked or “special”.

[KosmicKitty]

Personally, I don’t follo Nascar, but the thought of Chevy Volts covered in ads racing around a track just isn’t going to draw many fans.

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

NASCAR is about everything wrong with the country. I was a fan years ago but no more. They’ll be offering stock before long.

I’ll watch a good Moto motorcycle race before NASCRAP.

[FlingWingFlyer]

I don’t need NASCAR to “educate” me about the environmental scam. I’ve been a race fan forever. They are really pushing it right now. Maybe it’s time for me to TAKE MY GREEN and MoveOn. If I want any crap from the morons at NASCAR, I’ll unscrew their heads and dip it out. Are you listening NASCAR? I find it a little odd that they put Gordon in a “Drive To End Hunger” car the same year they started burning ethanol in their fuel tanks. Obviously, somebody has their head stuck up their ...

[Wurlitzer]

When they turned their backs on the most basic premise of racing, that of the best drivers/pit crews advance to the big show and hired a “diversity” queen to quiet the race card dealers Sharpton/Jackson they were on the wrong path.

Now getting into bed with the Enviro-Nazis is the final straw. I can find a lot to do with the 4 extra hours every Sunday.

Should Mitt grow a set and actually fight to win this election the first thing he needs to do is put the EPA Nazis in a much smaller cage. They have grown way too big.

[FlingWingFlyer]

My favorite was when they confiscated Smokey’s car after a race and accused him of cheating. NASCAR removed the entire fuel system and fuel tank. When they were done, Smokey cussed ‘em out, jumped in the car, fired it up and drove it back to the garage. LOL!

[SoFloFreeper]

NASCAR can piss off. They crammed Michelle Obama down the throats of Homestead fans last year, along with that moron’s wife...”Dr.” Jill Biden.

Now they’re putting Tony Stewart at the White House to smooch Obama’s ass?

Cram it, NASCAR. Hard and deep.

Maybe I’ll start watching Formula 1.

[PistolPaknMama]

sustainable concessions

What does that mean? If you get a soda, everyone around you gets one too? Or buy a hot dog and it will grow into a pig that will make even more hot dogs to feed kids in some country we can't spell? Or eating popcorn, I can grow corn in my bloomers for the next year?

What on earth is a sustainable concession?

[Spktyr]

Here’s some of the spectacular racing we don’t get to see because of NASCRASH.

Australian V8 Supercars - where locally produced V8 RWD cars (yes, they still make those down there - Holden/GM and Ford) are modified and fight it out - these guys are really doing what NASCAR pretends to be:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94_9qO19z-0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW6rwAkCxKE

Unlike FakeCAR, you can actually buy those cars there.

The Germans have their own viciously contested racing (it’s dubbed in English for overseas broadcast, I just can’t find a good example of it)

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc16h-aM89o&feature=related

You can buy these cars too.

ALMS, which is the American extension of the Le Mans racing series. It combines prototype/purpose built racing cars in their own classes on the track at the same time as production cars in their own classes. Some of the best racing anywhere. By the rules, the general public has to be able to buy any car model in the production classes. And no, the prototype classes don’t always win. Better still, this is endurance racing, so they run day and night and have to have functional light systems. And they run no matter what - rain, shine, whatever. Not on broadcast TV because of NASCRASH.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqH-6U4Sm0k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brNtbaMadX4

Even the Brits, who don’t really have a car industry any more, still have production car classes (and Ford’s smaller US models are now the direct beneficiaries of this.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0LjDGouEg8

One of the best final laps fight EVER, courtesy of MotoGP.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ivx2IfzYHp4&feature=related