Stand Your Ground

[rookie]

With corporate money now ruling racing and a generation of racers afraid to stand there ground for fear of losing their fame and fortune how long will it be worth watching? It seams strange the number of sponsored teams that have won there sponsors race in Cup since Nextel took over sponsorship, most obvious is the Lowes car Lowes race at Lowes Motor Speedway owned by the premier NASCAR promoter. Now with the C.O.T or the spec car and the talk of spec engines it will be too easy for the field to be stacked and the next thing you know the drivers will be wearing tights capes and masks and putting on stage shows my mistake the stage shows are already here. I could be wrong if someone has stats on racers winning their sponsors race let me know before I go full fledge conspiracy theory.

[Alex]

"Debris on the backstraight"

And your conspiracy theory has taken how long to formulate ?
Dale Jr winning the next race after Dale Sr died, and the return race to Daytona...
NASCAR has been bent for years.

[doc]

With Pro Stock and NASCAR going to cookie cutter cars and leased engines, the racing is about the driver. It means less importance of the team. It used to be fun when a team of brains came up with something to get the edge for a few weeks until the other teams caught on. I went to the Summit Nationals and was disappointed by the corporate dominance. Maybe racing pedal cars will be cheaper and just as interesting.

[rskrause]

Most "fans" are more interested in the drivers than anything else. It's not too different from kind of celeb worship you see in pop music and other forms of entertainment. I am an avid fan of certain forms of motor racing. But I don't give a proverbial rats ass for who a driver is dating, how many kids he has, what kind of shampoo he uses or any of that crap. I assume most of you are the same, to one degree or another. But we are in the minority. Most "fans" don't care what the compression ratio is or where the redline is set, let alone "estoterica" like head design, etc.

Racing has changed, a lot, as corporate sponsorship has taken over. To justify the huge sponsorship $$$, a mass market audience is a must and what appeals to them is National Enquirer type stuff at worst, or People Magzine at best. I loved F1 in the sixties. Technical innovation occurred at a blistering pace and the innovations were major and obvious. The rear-engine revolution was the most obvious. But there were races where you could see 4, 6, 12, and 16-cylinder motors all competing one against the other. Then there was the turbo era of 1,000hp 90ci qualifying motors. F1 is still full of innovation, but now it is largely limited to aero and electronics and largely invisible due to the subtlety and secrecy involved. Another great era was the heyday of Can-Am. Jim Hall's Chapparals were one "wow" after another. The wings, the sucker car, the automatic transmissions, etc.

Spec cars bore the crap out of me.





Rich

[Pinhead]

This is one of the very reasons I hate the argument "If it worked so well, why doesn't NASCAR use it?"!!!

[Ron Golden]

At 66 years old, and a gearhead since I was old enough to read, I've witnessed numerous changes and have grown tired of the "cookie-cutter" cars in all forms of racing. Last year I was at a nostalgis drag race at MoKan Dragway near Joplin Missouri. There was several cars there that are tailored after the first dragster to go down a drag strip. The car ("The Bug") is now in the Peterson Museum.

To make a long story short there are lots of these cars being built with the idea that we can have fun without spending a fortune and all the rules regarding the cars are on one page. This is old time racing to have fun.

I suggest you do a Google search for H.A.M.B or HA/GR dragsters.

HA/GR = Hokey Ass Gas Rail

[panic]

"Most "fans" are more interested in the drivers than anything else."

Gee, do you think that might have an effect on increasing the female response volume ("I don't like his noisy car, but his wife is nice")?

Why go through all that trouble - just have the accountants duke it out, or weigh their wallets?