I don’t care for nascar but I love my flattrack!!! Like anything that gets the “Marketing treatment” nascar is oversold, racing motorcycles on a dirt oval on the otherhand rocks(the problem is there in’t very much room for stickers in a bike).
No, and despite the way my absolution of NASCAR’s wastefulness may have sounded, I don’t even like the sport. I’ll watch some F1, or Champ Cars, but can’t stand the “left, left, left” of stock car racing.
But just because I don’t like something doesn’t mean I want to see it attacked unjustly.
Beyond the immediate fuel usage in auto racing we have the fact that the ‘sport’ (I’m one of those people who thinks that an actual ‘sport’ requires standing up and/or moving on your own power, in the case of something like murderball) encourages driving. It encourages consumption of petroleum products and driving for driving’s sake, and everything is plastered with advertising specifically to encourage people to consume more fuel. That’s in the category of things that Americans don’t really need encouragement with. At least along with the beer ads a baseball game might encourage a fan to join Little League or a softball team and get a little exercise; NASCAR encourages lard-ass-ism.
I seriously question that attendance at a baseball or football game uses more fuel than, say, the Daytona 500. For starters the players don’t consume massive amounts of gasoline (just steroids 
). Beyond that people pretty much have to drive to a race track, whereas most ball parks are accessable to some degree by public transport. I can’t conceive of how a NASCAR event uses less fuel than a Yankees game.
Having said all of that, I wouldn’t ban it as that’s just a clear violation of people’s general rights to gather peacefully and do something legal. I just think we should put this all in perpective.
Additionally gas is not at all “cheap” in the US in the big picture. The price at the pump is held down articifically by massive public subsidy in everything from drilling on public lands to R&D subsidy to a trillion-dollar oil-intensive foreign policy to massive subsidy of shipping facilities and tax abatements for industry. Those of us who don’t even own cars are paying out the butt for all of that.
You realize that governments collect a tax on gasoline right? A tax is the exact opposite of a subsidy. Also, the government collects revenue from production on its land and sea. Are you referring to upfront incentives given to oil companies to encourage exploration? These are offered in hopes of collecting revenue in royalties and severance taxes down the road. I’m not sure exactly what you mean by R&D subsidies, but I’m not aware of any government programs that support any kind of technology development that will make people want to drive more. Perhaps automotive safety systems or better bridges or something of the like? Care to provide a cite?
Also, as a non-car owner have you considered you may be better off that you live in a nation with inexpensive fuel, despite the fact you don’t buy gasoline directly? For example, goods you buy at the store are likely cheaper because of this fact. Ever buy a bus or plane ticket? Economic health is directly linked to energy costs.
It’s true that gasoline might not be all that “cheap” because the consumer doesn’t pay the full cost, but that is due to pollution externalities. I don’t think that was the point you were making, however.
Please correct me if I’m wrong.
American taxation on gasoline is far lower than just about anywhere else in the industrialized world. Compare these US vs UK figures. Ever filled a tank in Europe?
“DOE’s oil research efforts are funded at $48.6 million in fiscal year 1999, with an emphasis on new technologies that can improve exploration, drilling, reservoir characterization, and extraction.” Link Hey, that’s the kind of thing that… um… companies usually pay for. “If only the oil industry had the money to pay for their own R&D!”
In my congressional district there’s a push to provide dredging of the Delaware River by the Army Corps of Engineers primarily to facilitate moving fuel by a couple of private energy corporations. The price tag is currently claimed to be $311 million. That’s one project of the sort; I’m sure we could multiply that by dozens nationwide.
Have a look at some of the energy industry giveaways in the 2005 energy bill.
According to the figures I’ve found, 90% or more of the gasoline tax revenues in the US pay for highways and related programs - in other words subsidize the roads upon which the gas is used. Toss in the other expenses I’ve partially noted above and clearly gas is more subsidized than taxed in the US net.
This is before we even get into American military usage to secure a flow of petroleum in this direction; I’ve seen figures between $244 billion to an eventual estimate of a trillion for the Iraq War alone. Even if that weren’t happening or we claim that the US would be occupying Iraq if the chief export were little hot chocolate marshmallows instead of oil, the US military resence in the region would still be costing us billions of dollars.
Note that in the past couple of years the energy bills have either eliminated these costs (which were always comparatively paltry to begin with) or switched to the oil industry paying these fees through oil, which a number of taxpayer and consumer advocates say cheat the American public out of hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars in compensation. Some of that is cited in the 2005 energy bill link above.
From a quick poke around online, Yankee Stadium seats some 50,000 people, and the attendance at NASCAR events averages around 200,000 per race. On the other hand, there’s 33 NASCAR races a year, but over two thousand MLB games. Even if the spectators at the racetracks are burning ten times as much fuel each to get there, the baseball fans are still burning more.
I was comparing any given race to any given baseball game. In terms of “bang for the fuel buck” you can’t compare the two; NASCAR is obviously far more wasteful.
In any event that gives us 6,600,000 annual NASCAR attendance, compared with a shade over 74,000,000 baseball attendees. I’ll guess that zero NASCAR attendees could take public transport and a decent number of baseball fans do. Baseball players use no gasoline. I saw a figure of 5,000 gallons of “racing gasoline” being used at Atlanta for one race, so right there NASCAR is spotting baseball 165,000 gallons (assuming that’s average) and that’s not including time trials.
I’d also point out that most baseball fans are travelling to a local stadium and frequently by public transport or even in some cases walking. Most stadiums are located in urban areas. NASCAR facilities for the most part are located away from major population centers. People must drive and as there’s only one race nationwide at a time people will drive through multiple states to get to races. 200,000 people travelling hundreds of miles to attend an event is one hell of a lot of fuel. Heck, the cars don’t even get to the races on their own power - they’re hauled in by truck.
I’m not 100% certain that a season of NASCAR uses more gas than a whole MLB season, but their 33 events for less than 10% of the audience of 2,000 MLB events is probably a whole lot closer in absolute terms than NASCAR defenders would like to admit.
Just FYI, that’s the actual 2005 attendance. Yankee Stadium draws about 50,000/game… Tampa Baty at the other end draws 14,000 on average, the rest of baseball is somewhere in the middle.
Interestingly it just occurs to me that the stadiums with the highest attendance are also most attended by people least likely or able to drive to games. This leads me to think that a NASCAR season does indeed end up using more gas in 33 events than MLB does in about 2,000, which is really quite amazing.
Baseball teams compete 162 times a year times 30 teams. By my powers of mental math, this is 2430 games a year. Then there is the playoffs. NASCAR get it all done in 36 races plus an All Star event, the Bud Shootout in the spring, and the Gatorade Duels before Daytona. All 60ish teams (depending on qualifying results) compete at once. Perhaps baseball could be more efficient if all 30 teams played on the same field at the same time.
True, many baseball fans take public transit to the games, but usually after driving to a park and ride lot. And I would also like to point out that the baseball players aren’t exactly riding their bikes to the stadium and the RedSox certainly aren’t walking to the game when they are playing the Diamondbacks.
A final consideration, is that the people who are actually travelling to the races are usually there for the weekend, or up to a week. NASCAR advertisements brag about the fact that NASCAR fans tailgate for 3 days instead of 3 hours. In a way, the fans are vacationing when a race happens to happen. If you consider the scale of the event, a race and a ball game aren’t even comprable. Have you ever parked an RV in the infield to watch a weekend of baseball games? To accurately compare gas consumption, maybe you should add vacation travel to the average baseball fan’s consumption.
“driving for driving’s sake” Yeah, because everybody who watches NASCAR events has access to a track where they can do just that. I’d guess that most NASCAR fans watch the races because they can’t do that themselves. So we’re left with the advertising and the sponsors, things like Cheerios and Home Depot and Sears and M&Ms. Don’t see much “driving for driving’s sake” there.
Another minor nitpick: There are 36 races a year for the Nextel Cup cars, the top tier of NASCAR, 35 of which count for championship points. The other is an “All Star” race.
Now, if we wanted to get ridiculous about this, we need to add the economic benefit of a couple hundred thousand fans in the cities which host racing. Quite a few fans spend a week or more spending big bucks in the host cities. Actually, most tracks host a spring and a fall race, so the host cities get a double shot of needed local spending.
And I would add: How much energy do gas or electric powered golf carts expend per year compared to NASCAR, or any racing for that matter.
I don’t want to verge on GD territory, but I just can’t agree with the OP on this.
Too many intangible variables.
OK, so then NASCAR is spotting baseball at least 190,000 gallons then, not including time trials (including Bud Shootout & Gatorade Duels).
I don’t doubt there are economic benefits to NASCAR, but this doesn’t affect fuel consumption at all.
“I’d also point out that most baseball fans are travelling to a local stadium and frequently by public transport or even in some cases walking. Most stadiums are located in urban areas. NASCAR facilities for the most part are located away from major population centers. People must drive and as there’s only one race nationwide at a time people will drive through multiple states to get to races. 200,000 people travelling hundreds of miles to attend an event is one hell of a lot of fuel. Heck, the cars don’t even get to the races on their own power - they’re hauled in by truck.”
Not all baseball is played in the Northeastern part of the country. At St. Louis, for example, traditionally one of the top draws in MLB, very few people use public transportation and downtown housing is still in its infancy in that city. The new stadium has a large number of parking lots and garages around it. (This is an improvement over about ten years ago, before the establishment of the rail line, when no one took public transportation.) The NASCAR track is only a few miles outside town.
Have you ever been to a game in Los Angeles, Anaheim (I still count the Angels as Anaheim), Kansas City, San Diego, etc.? All of these stadia are surrounded by large parking lots and most people drive to the games.
Many NASCAR tracks are adjacent to, or even within, large metropolitan areas. Such tracks include Indianapolis, Chicago, Kansas City, Nashville (Busch race), Charlotte, and Phoenix. Not all NASCAR are at Talledega or Martinsville.
I think there has been a lot of over-generalization on the urbanity of baseball and the rural nature of NASCAR.
The highest attendance baseball games are not surprisingly in cities with public transport connecting the stadiums to the games. For example the Yankees, who draw an average of 5,000 more people to home games than anyone else, have nearly 3x the average home attendance of Kansas City (2nd-worst draw in the league). In any event there is a bus line which runs to home games (otherwise the KC stadium does seem poorly located accessability-wise). Not sure where New Busch Stadium is, but the old one was right in downtown St. Louis.
Is there even a single NASCAR track accessable by public transport? I’m assuming for obvious reasons no one is sticking a racetrack in a n urban setting. I also don’t run on the assumption that most people attending a NASCAR event are local; it is the only event of its sort in the country at one time, and most of the cities named simply don’t have enough people to generate 200,000 for a single event of any sort.
The other way to look at this statistic is this:
If car manufacturers were able to increase the fuel efficiency of their vehicles by .00037%, we would completely offset the consumption of the entrie NASCAR season.
And, if we really want to come up with useful, long-term methods of conservation, that’s the kind of area we need to look at. Making changes that apply to TONS of average consumers instead of a few of our worst consumers.
The other part of this thread is hilarious. Hilarious how just a throwaway statement can devolve into an argument with people’s heels dug in and both sides making claims that they have no way to back up.
(Disclaimer: my user name indicates that my hobby is amateur sports car racing, so I can’t claim a neutral stance. But few posters to these boards do…)
For one of MY races, it may require 7 or 8 gallons of race fuel a weekend to run a couple of 20 minute practice sessions and a 30 minute or 45 mile race. Not much. I burned more fuel driving to see a concert in a city a few hours away, and actually burn more in my van getting to the tracks than my car burns at the track. This is my hobby - I could be drivng to ski resorts or scuba dive spots instead and how would that fuel use be accounted for…?
Which brings me to the overlooked point: According to some studies I read during the 1970’s gas crisis, the biggest fuel use in major sporting events was for team travel. Football, baseball, basketball teams fly all over the country for games- sometimes several times a week. Many times these are private or chartered flights, but even a share of airline miles must be included. The fuel burned in all this travel is the biggest factor in the total use. By contrast, the NASCAR and other racers travel by semi-trailer and motorhome to events, and they are moving a few to a dozen people - not nearly as many as a football team! (Yes , a few drivers and top crewmembers fly, but not all.) Sorry, I can’t do the math on this.
The New Busch Stadium is downtown, directly across the street from the old. The reality, however, is that very few people who go to the games there use public transportation. There is little housing in downtown St. Louis. After the Yankees, the top three teams in attendance in MLB are all “commuter stadia” – LA Dodgers, St. Louis, and Anaheim. There is public transportation to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and it is used by some, but most of the ~300,000 fans drive to speedway. There are many local fans, but there are also people from around the world that attend the Brickyard 400.
In comparing 6.6 million NASCAR attendance vs. 74 million baseball, you (Crandolph) were trying to lessen the impact of the baseball by saying that public transportation is available. But really, how many baseball fans do that? I would be surprised if even 5% of attendees got there by public transportation, so that brings it all the way down to about 70 million.
There are two issues there: that many fans do arrive by public transport (this is true, I can attest to it having been caught in the crush to get to the Broad St. Subway following Phillies loss after Phillies loss year after year) and that the vast majority of fans are local and aren’t driving an RV hundreds of miles to the stadium if they are driving. On average I’m sure the average baseball-fan-per-game who is driving is using far less than a gallon - probably not even a half gallon - to arrive at a game. (Think about average vehicle mileage, number of people per vehicle and average distance a baseball fan travels to get to a local game). I doubt the same can be said for a NASCAR attendee.
I’m abundantly sure that far more than 5% of the attendance of MLB gets there via public transport. Don’t forget all of those busloads of schoolkids too (still gas, but better bang for the buck as it were.)
This is all in addition, of course, to the races themselves, which are conservatively using a shade under 200,000 gallons of gas/yr not including time trials and practice.