Trying to watch the Daytona 500..., and just can't do it. They should call it the Danica 500 Options

[markb]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif) your 2 cents are spot on Clay.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif)

[billh1963]

For those who read Peter Egan's articles he says as much.

I remember when I was around 10 we had a neighbor who raced an old MGB in SCCA races. He towed his car with an old station wagon. His equipment was old, his suit was old, and even he was old (to me at the time...lol). But, he did it because he loved it .

NASCAR is not real racing. NASCAR is an entertainment industry that happens to use cars for the entertainment. That is evidenced by the mysterious "debris on the track" yellow flags used to bunch up the field. Now they have the cars so restricted the only difference between the Ford, Dodge, Chevy or Toyota is the badge on the front. When there are 24 cars within a half a second after 300 miles of "racing", I figure that it is all about the TV ratings and the money.

The same goes for Formula 1.


Real racing is when the good driver with the good equipment can win by a bunch of laps, or the medeokre driver can win with great equipment. Or when the racing team with the shoestring budget can pour over the rule book and find that one loophole that allows them to clean up on the track. Mark Donohue called that the "Unfair Advantage", and he was always looking for it.

Real racing is the guy with the old open trailer and older truck driving hundreds of miles to races with his race car. He is the driver, the crew chief, and the whole pit crew. He knows he will be eating cheap fast food and sleeping in his truck. But he does it every weekend he can afford to, because he loves racing. He wants to win, but knows in his heart that the guy with the bigger wallet but less talent will beat him. But he keeps going anyway.

Real racing is the woman who wants to race so badly that she is willing to give up a family, a spouse/boyfriend and friends because they say it isn't "Lady Like" to race.

Just for comparison, I would rather watch a little league game than the World Series. By the time anyone gets to that level of a sport, they are so consumed by the system that they are there for the money and fame, not for the love of the sport. Racing is no different. I won't attend a NASCAR race, but I will go to the 1.4 mile dirt track or the 24 hours of LEMONS races in a heartbeat.

Just my $.02.

[scott_in_nh]

My brother's midget race car above was towed on an open trailer with an extended cab pickup truck, tool box in the back.
Sleeping in the truck was part of the program.
The chassis was old, the engine fresh and the tires so-so (race car - the truck was old, with an old engine with so-so tires).

Before that it was an outlaw mini-sprint dirt car and karts before that.

[jeff]

Prior to Danicas arrival they would talk about the Bush Brothers alot (IMG:style_emoticons/default/idea.gif) Maybe it's a BUSH thing?

[struckn]

NASCAR is interesting but pretty boring to watch.
I'd like to see them return to their roots and race real modified stock cars, meaning buy a car off the show room floor and modify suspension, engine, tires and go race Ford against Chevy sort of thing.

I'd also like to see them do it in the rain.

The Euro Sports Sadan racing kinda is what I mean. Run heats and eliminations to see who's the best driver and has the right equipment, don't leave it up to who survives the series of crashes that eliminate possibly the better car.

The attaction to NASCAR is and aways will be the accidents, and they pretty much have figured out how to protect the drivers enough so that there can now be more accidents. The bump drafting with restrictor plates pretty much couldn't happen if the driver protection for the unavoidable accidents wasn't there.

[ClayPerrine]

NASCAR is interesting but pretty boring to watch.
I'd like to see them return to their roots and race real modified stock cars, meaning buy a car off the show room floor and modify suspension, engine, tires and go race Ford against Chevy sort of thing.

I'd also like to see them do it in the rain.

The Euro Sports Sadan racing kinda is what I mean. Run heats and eliminations to see who's the best driver and has the right equipment, don't leave it up to who survives the series of crashes that eliminate possibly the better car.

The attaction to NASCAR is and aways will be the accidents, and they pretty much have figured out how to protect the drivers enough so that there can now be more accidents. The bump drafting with restrictor plates pretty much couldn't happen if the driver protection for the unavoidable accidents wasn't there.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif)

Maybe they should be honest and rename it "CRASHCAR".

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/happy11.gif)

[scott_in_nh]

I don’t hope for crashes but if they are going to happen I want to see them, but it has gotten out of hand.

The crashes happen because the cars are too bunched up.

They are too bunched up because the rulebook makes all the cars so equal that little to no advantage can be had and the cars are all the same with different engines.

The rule book is like that because new racing fans lose interest if there driver isn’t on the lead lap with a chance to win at the end and manufacturers find it better for their purposes and cheaper to threaten NASCAR (with their advertising dollars) to legislate their cars to competitiveness instead of engineering and designing high speed aero packages into their production cars and building skunk work race engines like they used to.

Real racing fans can find the race and it only takes 2 or 3 cars going at it to entertain me. If the leader checks out, I’ll watch the race for second, if there is no race there I’ll find the race somewhere in the pack. This is why races are better in person and part of what makes local racing so good!

The way the cars are might still be ok, but they insist on still racing from 300 to 500 miles. Originally this was to prove their engineering superiority of their products, now it is a waste of an afternoon when almost all the engines make it to the end of the race because they are so restricted and with the cars so bunched up and everybody on the same lap the drivers have no choice but to go for it at the end of the race.

The result is often 1, 2, 3 or more crashes toward the end that negates the skill, strategy or luck it used to take to be in a position to win a race making the entire episode pointless.

So I would propose that they go to short heat races where the first so many positions advance to the feature and a consolation last chance heat for the losers that would be the wreck fest everybody likes followed by a longer but still short feature race – just like the short tracks do it.

They’ll never do it, but that it is what it would take.

[zymurgist]

NASCAR is interesting but pretty boring to watch.
I'd like to see them return to their roots and race real modified stock cars, meaning buy a car off the show room floor and modify suspension, engine, tires and go race Ford against Chevy sort of thing.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif)

IMO the cars they run are about as far from stock as you can get. I'd like to see them use a stock shell... mandatory safety cage of course, but an honest to goodness Ford or Chevy or Dodge or Toyota (hoo boy, that last one *still* pisses off some people I know).

Added degree of difficulty? How about if the stock car is FWD, the race car has to be FWD? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/happy11.gif)

[scott_in_nh]

NASCAR is interesting but pretty boring to watch.
I'd like to see them return to their roots and race real modified stock cars, meaning buy a car off the show room floor and modify suspension, engine, tires and go race Ford against Chevy sort of thing.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif)

IMO the cars they run are about as far from stock as you can get. I'd like to see them use a stock shell... mandatory safety cage of course, but an honest to goodness Ford or Chevy or Dodge or Toyota (hoo boy, that last one *still* pisses off some people I know).

Added degree of difficulty? How about if the stock car is FWD, the race car has to be FWD? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/happy11.gif)

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif)
That is what they do in Europe and Austrailia. The rule book is complicated as they do strive to make the field competitive.
Daytona was just as exciting when the cars "only" went 150 but you had to drive them.

[Todd Enlund]

NASCAR is interesting but pretty boring to watch.
I'd like to see them return to their roots and race real modified stock cars, meaning buy a car off the show room floor and modify suspension, engine, tires and go race Ford against Chevy sort of thing.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif)

IMO the cars they run are about as far from stock as you can get. I'd like to see them use a stock shell... mandatory safety cage of course, but an honest to goodness Ford or Chevy or Dodge or Toyota (hoo boy, that last one *still* pisses off some people I know).

Added degree of difficulty? How about if the stock car is FWD, the race car has to be FWD? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/happy11.gif)

BTCC
DTM
V8 Supercars

Good stuff. And they turn right too.

[Elliot Cannon]

They aren't Fords, Chevys, Dodges or Toyotas. Why don't they start calling them what they really are. Formula NASCAR. Hell, even "NASCAR" is wrong. Isn't "stock car" some where in there?

[bcheney]

I don’t hope for crashes but if they are going to happen I want to see them, but it has gotten out of hand.

The crashes happen because the cars are too bunched up.

They are too bunched up because the rulebook makes all the cars so equal that little to no advantage can be had and the cars are all the same with different engines.

The rule book is like that because new racing fans lose interest if there driver isn’t on the lead lap with a chance to win at the end and manufacturers find it better for their purposes and cheaper to threaten NASCAR (with their advertising dollars) to legislate their cars to competitiveness instead of engineering and designing high speed aero packages into their production cars and building skunk work race engines like they used to.

Real racing fans can find the race and it only takes 2 or 3 cars going at it to entertain me. If the leader checks out, I’ll watch the race for second, if there is no race there I’ll find the race somewhere in the pack. This is why races are better in person and part of what makes local racing so good!

The way the cars are might still be ok, but they insist on still racing from 300 to 500 miles. Originally this was to prove their engineering superiority of their products, now it is a waste of an afternoon when almost all the engines make it to the end of the race because they are so restricted and with the cars so bunched up and everybody on the same lap the drivers have no choice but to go for it at the end of the race.

The result is often 1, 2, 3 or more crashes toward the end that negates the skill, strategy or luck it used to take to be in a position to win a race making the entire episode pointless.

So I would propose that they go to short heat races where the first so many positions advance to the feature and a consolation last chance heat for the losers that would be the wreck fest everybody likes followed by a longer but still short feature race – just like the short tracks do it.

They’ll never do it, but that it is what it would take.

This comment makes some sense... It's interesting how everyone is so worked up over NASCAR. If you don't like it...don't watch it. If you don't have enough money to go to a track then don't go. All sports and businesses are about suppy and demand. I was raised watching local short track racing in the Watertown NY area. We had paved 3/8 oval-Evans Mills Speedway with modifieds, 1/2 mile dirt-Watertown Fairgrounds with modifieds and Sprint cars and 5/8 paved-Oswego International Speedway with Super modifieds. This was pure racing and great family fun. Later, I became fascinated with sports cars and got into IMSA racing and loved the international flair and diversity of the manufacturers and drivers. In college I attended NHRA drags at the Gatornationals and was blown away by Top Fuel and Funny cars. Really, any form of motorsports gets me charged up! Enjoy ALL of it and get into the postives about the sport.