Here is a more modern version. The modern connotation of a Darlington stripe is that you have slid into the wall or were pushed into it, at speed, and continued to race with a damaged car, with the aerodynamic uncertainty that resulted.
My point is that when a soccer player rolls onto the grass, there’s a good chance he’s faking an injury in order to get another player ejected from the game. When a stock car rolls onto the grass, the driver will be injured, and that driver is in mortal fear of being ejected from the vehicle.
You can argue all you want about the pros and cons of NASCAR from a distance but I would just about bet that I’m the only one on this board whos town was ruined by NASCAR. That’s right, a couple of years ago all the wiseass nascar drivers decided to move up here and build their shops here and guess what? All the fans followed them. My formerly peaceful little town is now known as “Race City USA”. There is constantly construction, building strip-malls, gas stations, and other crap that all us natives were fine without. Where is used to take me 4 minutes exactly to get to work, it now takes me 25 on a good day!!! All the nascar drivers live within 5-10 miles of me and all their shops are 2 miles down the road from me, it absolutely sucks. So go ahead rednecks, say what you want about how great it is to watch those shiny little cars chase their tails, but here’s what i have to say: FUCK NASCAR.
Which for my money, is NASCAR’s redeeming value.
Reference George Carlin - (paraphrased) - A true sport is one where there is a real chance for debilitating injury.
Yep. It reminds me of the past month of my hated motivational calendar, which had a picture of a person scaling a really dangerous-looking rock face with the enormous heading: ACHIEVEMENT.
I amended the “motivational lesson” to read: "Surviving the Consequenses of Stupid Actions Doesn’t Count."
I can see how people could feel that way about NASCAR.
Could you be a little more offensive to Southerners (and race fans) in your gross generalizations, please? You obviously have no idea what attending a NASCAR Winston Cup race is like. The average race fan (based on over 10 years of attending races) is not, as you say, “sitting around in their greasy coveralls.” I’ve seen race fans from virtually every state, as well as several Canadian provinces. They were no different from the fans I’ve seen at a St. Louis Cardinals game. Some, obviously, are going to be lower-income folks who may enjoy their beer a bit too much, but most are just there to enjoy a friendly atmosphere and a great sporting event.
As far as drivers not being athletes, let’s subject you to three hours or more in a closed space, at over 125 mph, in 100 degree plus temperatures, experiencing over 3 Gs in the corners, with no timeouts or breaks. Jeff Gordon, a four-time Winston Cup champion, says he loses between 7-12 pounds during a race through sweating. You want to tell him he’s not an athlete?
You said it well Brienjedi- You left out the women. There are some hot babes at these events. Even the unnactractive racers have nice looking girlfriends/wives.
AFAIAC, people can watch whatever they want - it’s a free country. When I lived in Bristol, VA, it was no imposition to avoid the Tennessee side of town on race weekends. Ditto Darlington when I lived in Florence, SC. And it takes a mere fraction of a second to click past NASCAR on the tube. I don’t care for it, but if you enjoy it, I have no problem with that.
Fans apparently keep forgetting that he’s been dead for a couple of years. Not all of those “3” stickers are old.
Well, SOMEBODY associated with racing owns the stadium, and they are selling some serious tickets, even if it’s only once or twice a year. If the money from those tickets (and the TV contract!) isn’t finding its way to the racing teams, then I’d say that’s their fault: the show doesn’t go on without them.
Concerning the NASCAR broadcast contract - $2.4B for 6 years - by comparison, the NFL’s current contract is for www.indystar.com/article.php%3Fnfltv07.html+NFL+television+contract&hl=en&ie=UTF-8"]$17.8B over 8 years; IOW, the NFL gets about as much money from its network TV contract this year as NASCAR will over the life of its contract.
The MLB network TV contract ($2.5B for 6 years) is almost exactly the same size as that of NASCAR, but there’s a big difference between the two sports with respect to TV: only a handful of MLB games are broadcast nationwide during the season, and the real TV money is in local and regional TV. MLB gets $417M per year from the national contract, but the teams, taken as a group, get an additional $571M from their individual local and regional TV contracts. And this figure may be a low-ball figure - these are the figures that MLB has released, which (for reasons discussed in the link) are generally believed to be artificially low. But even using MLB’s figures, baseball’s still got TV revenues of about $1B per year, which is 2.5 times that of NASCAR.
You don’t have to be an athlete to be subjected to such experiences. And chess grandmasters in championship matches have also been known to lose serious weight during a championship match. (Cite: Chess Life, back in the 1960s sometime, discussing the Petrosian-Spassky championship matches.)
My comment at the top of the post notwithstanding: is it just me, or does this behavior have ‘loser’ written all over it?
I’ve never, ever before heard it suggested that it’s a good thing to buy Product X because some celebrity is featured in its ads. If the celeb is hawking something major, like cars or health insurance, I’d want to rely on my own research and preferences, rather than the word of a celeb. And if he’s pushing beer or burgers, I can figure out for myself whether I prefer Bud or Miller (they’re both bear whiz), or BK or Wendy’s. If race fans are going to short-circuit their critical faculties, or even their own taste buds, because their favorite NASCAR driver picked up a new sponsor, I can only feel sorry for them.
In the words of Firesign Theatre, “I think I’ll find a bunch of guys who dress alike, and follow them around!”
I am one of those race fans who would change my product allegiance based on a driver’s sponsorship. I do not see anything silly or weak minded about this.
The reason is simple: I like auto racing quite a bit, and I like certain drivers more than others. What is illogical about supporting companies who support my entertainment? If I buy Brand Y because they sponsor racing as opposed to Brand X that does not, Brand Y will notice that they are making more money as a result of their sponsorship, and will continue to fund it, keeping me entertained.
Of course this is just one of many things that would influence my purchasing decision, but everything else being equal, it strikes me as perfectly logical to do.
As easily the biggest fan of NASCAR and auto racing in general of the membership of this board, to all of those that took the time to express negative opinions of NASCAR, I drop my drawers and moon you.
Those who dont find NASCAR interesting (at least) havent spent any time watching or trying to understand the complexities behind the owners, NASCAR, the teams, the drivers, the sponsers, the racers, the tracks, the weather, the rules, the speed, and the danger and excitement of a whole season. I can understand why someone would not like the sport. I didnt much care for it as recently as five years ago. I was "forced "to watch the first Daytona that Earnhardt won (98?) and have been hooked ever since. Im not a huge fan, but Ill watch when ever I get a chance. I havent been to a race either.
One really needs to understand all the layers that are involved in a race, or for that matter the whole season, to appreciate the sport.
If you knock the sport then at least be honest enough to say that you also dont understand it or that you havent watched enough of it to make a proper judgement.
I can say with a high degree of certainty that you won`t find someone who watched and enjoyed NASCAR and now does not like it and rips it.
Sorry, I bumped it to see what people think now, after a couple years off the boards. NASCAR has a much greater exposure now than it did then, and people may have changed thier views.
