Ok, I’m not much of a NASCAR fan, but can you explain to me exactly what part of those cars whizzing around on ESPN are stock? I realize that the Stock Car races of old were indeed mostly if not all stock. But that Monte Carlo on TV hardly resembles the one on the Chevy lot.
What gives?
Can I take a guess and say that NASCAR governs all auto racing and what Tony Stewart is driving in is the most challenging branch of what NASCAR oversees? And that branch of racing is not necessarily stock?
I love it when someone has all the time in the world to dig up links to previous threads on the subject, but can’t spare ten seconds to offer an answer to the question.
King Friday, to summarize, in the early days of the sport, the car had to be built using only parts that the public can get at their local auto parts store or Ford dealer, for example. Now, of course, there’s very little about stock cars that are actually stock, and most of this is in the interest of safety. By then, though, NASCAR had a loyal following, and you don’t change the name of something successful, California American League baseball teams notwithstanding.
like the Pacific Coast League, which includes teams in places like New Orleans, Memphis, Omaha, and Oklahoma that are thousands of miles from the pacific coast.
Even thought there’s not a single thing on the cars that is stock, the name “stock car” is still used to differnitiate it from other types of race cars – open wheel, rally, and drag, just to name three.
As to the OP’s second question, NASCAR does not govern all racing. Their main series is called the Nextel Cup, and they have a lesser series called the Busch Series, and an evel lower series that races trucks… the Craftsman Truck Series.
Open wheel racing is governed by the Indy Racing League (mostly in the US) and Formula One (mostly in Europe). The top series in rally racing is the World Rally Championship. Drag racing is run bu the National Hot Rod Association. There are others governing bodies for racing.
Close. NASCAR actually sanctions a number of series: the National Touring divisions (Nextel Cup, Busch Series, Craftsman Truck Series), the Regional Series (Busch East, AutoZone West, the two Modified tours and the AutoZone Elite Division) and the Dodge Weekly Racing Series (entry-level racing.)
There is no overarching sanctioning body for American motorsports. The AAA is a member of the FIA, but has not sanctioned a racing event since 1956. Sports car racing is sanctioned by the SCCA primarily, although the ALMS and Grand-Am Series have separate sanctioning bodies. Open-wheel “Indianapolis-style” racing is sanctioned by both the Indy Racing League and the Champ Car World Series, while lesser open-wheel series are often sanctioned by USAC. Dirt late-model racing is sanctioned by a number of regional bodies, and sprint car racing is sanctioned by both DIRT Motorsports (World of Outlaws) and Brownfield Promotions (National Sprint Tour.)
Providing a list of cites without any comment does come across as a bit smarmy. Its like you are too bored by it all to even speak. And the person asking the question is wasting your personal hamster power.
Smarmy? It’s rude and ignorant. But that’s just my opinion and I realize this is the wrong forum for opinions.
I recall hearing on a documentary that it all started back in the days of Dodge’s Hemi engine. Dodge was annihilating the competition and the competition wanted NASCAR to even up the playing field, so they started allowing more and more modifications until pretty much nothing was stock. For the love of god, they replaced the Ford Thunderbird with a Ford Taurus! It’s a front-wheel drive car! That thing would make for a pitiful race car if they left it FWD.
I post links to previous threads all the time, quite often, actually most often, without explaining them. Sometimes I do this because I haven’t the time to do much more, sometimes because I’m bored by the subject matter.
Then don’t make backhanded comments such as you just did.
samclem GQ moderator
NASCAR did ban the Hemi for being too good, basically (the Plymouth Superbird with a 426 Hemi could dust the field at Daytona) but the real end of the “stock” era was the reintroduction of the Chevrolet Monte Carlo in 1995. NASCAR let Chevy design a race version of the street car that was intentionally 6" narrower at the rear than the rulebook specified for spoiler width, and NASCAR let them use a smaller spoiler as a result. That’s when the requirements that the car have some relation to the street car started to disappear.
As recently as 1986-1987, NASCAR required that a minimum number of street cars be produced before a modification was legal for the race car. That’s why Chevrolet produced the Monte Carlo SS “Aerocoupe.” The race cars needed the bubble rear glass for superspeedway aerodynamics, but they couldn’t run it until it was available on the street.
To my knowledge, the only stock pieces on the car are still the hood skin and roof panel, but the common template (and coming Car of Tomorrow) may make that obsolete. The Car of Tomorrow does more closely resemble the street cars in some ways:
http://www.jayski.com/schemes/2006/COT/mls-cot2.jpg
http://images.autobytel.com/cyber/169238/i69170297_1.jpg
With all due respect, just because behavior is displayed by a mod does not mean it is not rude or smarmy.
Also with all due respect, then why even post to the thread that bores you so? 20K posts should not be a license to be a snob.
Smarmy? Maybe. More than that I see it as a way to simultaneously be both instructive and mildly chastising, which is exactly what the situation asks for; before you start a thread in GQ, do an archive search in case this question has been asked already, because it almost always has.
(Sorry to continue the hijack, but the OP’s question appears to have been answered.)
Heaven forbid I might get a fresh perspective on the question at hand. It’s really the people that live on this message board day and night that lessen it.
I come here because something pops into my head during the day and I know I can usually find the answer here. I recklessly post without researching the question in hopes that someone with a clue answers it. And maybe will even *enjoy * answering it. I’m not however looking for a 20K poster to snuff me out with some link to a conversation from two years ago.
It is common around here to point people to recent threads. I could have answered the question directly, but the question was just asked two weeks ago and was answered more fully than it would have been if I had just posted a direct answer. Screw me for trying to be helpful!
IntelInside’s post started, suspiciously, with an attack. His current status is telling.
King Friday I was not trying to snuff you. I was trying do give you more information than you asked for. Since you can’t search on your own, I was just trying to help you out. Sorry you can’t be bothered to make a single mouse click to find the information you want. (And the first thread – which answers the very question you asked – is two weeks old, not two years. The oldest one is two months old.)
Sorry, I thought you were a guest.
You sure can. That’s my point; click “Search” up at the top of the screen, then type nascar in the box that pops down. You’ll not only get the answer, you’ll get it faster than if you post a new thread.
If you’re holding an encyclopedia in your hands, and you want to know the capital of Malawi, do you call up the encyclopedia-makers and ask them to write you a new article?
I think it’s pretty close to actual stock car racing. Sure, there are all sorts of rules of regulations making the variations exceptionally narrow, but throw those away, and a lot of actual stock cars that do not fit the NASCAR rules would be able to hold their ground. Which is not true of most open wheel car races. Cars like the Vanquish S or a 599 GTB, if suddenly allowed by the rules, could compete and very possibly win american stock car races while they would not even be competitive in most other types of car racing.