Thread: NASCAR, something missing?

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i sure miss dale, have lost 99% interest in nascar since then. anybody else feel the same way? its way to commerialized. and theres isnt anybody out there to ruff up them sissy girly boy rookies

I have never had interest in Nascar but Dale was a trend setter...

I too was a Dale fan for many years-15 I think, before he was killed. I wasn't immediately a Jr. fan, and i've latched onto him, but I agree that it isn't what it used to be for me.

The wife and I watch it all the time. I do have my complaints, I don't like Toyota being shoved down our throats.
I don't like them calling them stock cars !
I wish the announcers would stop whining for the drivers.
I wish they had to qualify for each race, make it or go home, like everything else!
Now they have pushing around tires?
The only differance is the motor and driver.
But we watch it and drag racing.

Pat

I understand the need for endurance in parts and human muscle, but really it seems like only the last ten laps mean anything. Basketball is similar in that they should give each team 80 points and start with 2 minutes to play. In the NFL you can see that most teams are pretty closely matched but conditioning or lack of it shows up in the last four minutes, so maybe basketball games should be to run 100 laps around the court and then play for two minutes starting from 80 points? That is cynical and we just saw that Jeff Gordon was retired from the track with bad suspension, so the cars have to last 500 miles but really I always fall asleep for the first part of most NASCAR races and then make sure I am awake for the last ten laps so you really could do something else for most of the time and just make sure you watch the end of the race. The most extreme case is in those Olympic bike races where they lazily jockey for position slowly until the last lap when they go all out all of a sudden. I guess that is human gamesmanship nature and auto racing needs to have that mechanical endurance part of the race, but you really could schedule your day around something else for the first 3/4 of a NASCAR race; unless you need a nap!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Question? Do we need a pre-show that's longer than the race?

At least the National Anthem was sung straight up by Trisha Yearwood. It was very nice not to be forced to listen to an improvised hip-hoppy "improvement."

Oh, and this is to the slugs in the crowd . . . take off your damn hats. Didn't your momma teach you anything?

Henry,

Trish Yearwood really did do a good job of singing the National Anthem with no frills with excellent tone and on key all the way through.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

I WAS a Dale fan the first year he drove in Winston Cup (1979?); he was impressive and an immensely talented driver. But by the time he was halfway through his second season, his true colors began to show. He was not just agressive, he was mean-spirited and dirty. He used "bump and run" tactics that previously had been considered unsportmanlike and unfair. Previous drivers got black-flagged for those actions, but, for some reason, NASCAR let Earnhardt get away with it. Consequently, the "bump and run" tactic has become commonplace and somewhat accepted on tracks all over the country. Thanks to NASCAR's acceptance of Earnhardt's dirty driving tactics, good clean stock car racing is pretty scarce nowdays. Local short-track racing has become a contest of who can survive the beating and banging, rather than a contest of skill and nerve. I drove my first stock car race in 1969 and climbed out of the driver's seat for the last time in 2004. I was tired of rebuilding my car every other week. When I started, it was hard work, but a lot of fun. By the time I was done, it was expensive and frustrating because too many young rookies with more money than brains thought that the way to win was to knock everyone out of the way. That's the way Dale did it, right? Whenever some new rookie would show up at the track with a black car and a "3" on it, all us older guys would just roll our eyes and shake our heads. We knew someone was going to be a victim...

Off the track, Earnhardt was an immensely generous and charitable philanthropist. He gave millions of dollars to various charities and his sense of humor spawned many laughs and fun memories. But when he strapped himself in a race car and fired the engine, he turned ruthless. I respect both his generosity as a philanthropic person and, certainly, his talent as a driver, but his dirty tactics kept me from becoming a true fan.

He wouldn't have lasted two seasons had he come up in the late '50's or early'60s, Junior Johnson, Fireball Roberts, etc would have eaten his lunch for starters.
I lost all respect for NASCAR when they banned the Hemi and later when they tried to blame his death on Bill Simpson.

I've never been a big fan of current Nascar racing...I watched about 30 minutes of Daytona today then found something else to do...to biased and overly commercialized IMO. I did enjoy watching Nascar back in the 60's and early 70's when they were still running basically "stock cars" you know the old saying "race on Sunday, buy on Monday" philosophy of the Big 3
I have watched Nascar races in the past when they'd run at venues like Watkins Glen and such....Do they still run the road-racing events? Now those were interesting to watch for me because I'm a fan of GT type roadracing....FIA or ALMS series, and those events proved that some of the Nascar drivers that were so highly touted on the ovals had their hands full on a different type of racetrack and some of the lesser known guys could really drive most any track...Now don't go flaming me 'cuz I am not saying that Nascar drivers can't drive...they can, and some of them even drive in GT classes in series like ALMS.

60 ,70 and early 80's, good racing.....

since our track is probably 95% gone, and we have another roundy round over in idaho <bout 20 minutes away> i wouldnt mind building a round type car. stay where the racins hot i guess? and isnt this roundy stuff spose to be cheaper!??

I was a big NASCAR fan for many years, through my favorite driver's (Bill Elliott) career. His last few full time years were not too competitive, partly I think because he had been beat up so much. And, I'm sure that as he got older, and maybe more financially secure, he became a bit more cautious out there. So his retirement, or partial retirement as is turns out, combined with all the changes NASCAR has made, including bringing in the Toyota, has made me lose total interest in it. I would have liked a format where the racers would build and run what ever they wanted, come after it or stay home, instead of these cookie cutter cars thay have now.

and isnt this roundy stuff spose to be cheaper!??

Cheaper compared to what? Engine parts and machine work cost the same regardless of the type of race car. Now add to that the cost of constant body and chassis repairs... Nah, I don't think it's any cheaper and, if you race weekly, you will actually spend more time on car preparation and maintenance as compared to drag racing... What you have to consider is the "fun factor". I did some drag racing, but it just never had the same thrill as oval-track racing for me.

He wouldn't have lasted two seasons had he come up in the late '50's or early'60s, Junior Johnson, Fireball Roberts, etc

...or A.J. Foyt, Parnelli Jones, Johnny Rutherford, etc. Those guys all were aggressive, hard-chargers, but they weren't dirty. NASCAR, USAC, etc. wouldn't allow it back then. The best racing nowdays is non-winged sprint cars. The drivers really have their hands full and they don't have fenders to beat on each other...

There seems to be more of a difference in this sport between the way it is presented on TV than at the site, maybe because of the difficulty of showing the whole track at once. I live less than five miles from the Richmond International Raceway (RIR as it is called here) as well as two small Sprotsman type tracks. There are two NASCAR races per season at RIR with open wheel racing in between and the huge otherwise deserted parking space around RIR fills up like a small city for a weekend when there is a race. The next big event is when Danica Patrick comes to town and does not live up to her hype; it would be great if she would actually win a race! There is no doubt that the fans that come to these races are enthusiastic but it is just that the TV presentation on a Sunday afternoon is a sleeper for me compared to the NFL so maybe the thing is to go to the race site and be part of the event! Then there is the spin-off industry from the local racers who have to rebuild their cars every week so they have a shop to make a living in between. I had my SBC built at "Joe's Machine Shop", and although Joe is retired now, he had a big shelf full of racing trophies that helped you believe he knew what he was doing. That is the grass roots connection between the public and racing which many of the folks on this Forum have been part of. With the emphasis on fuel saving I guess these local machine shops will still form the link between smaller engines and racing that will probably be formed around class rules for those smaller engines.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder