Darrell Wallace, Jr is the first fruit to be harvested from the NASCAR Drive for Diversity program as he won the Kroger 200 truck race at Martinsville, winning a race that Gannett’s USA Today described as a sport dominated by “lily white men”.
NASCAR’s origins go back to an era where moonshiners (untaxed alcohol) would soup up cars so they could outrun and evade police on windy mountain roads up around North Wilkesboro. I doubt that Junior Johnson would in a million years have considered himself to be “lily white”, although I suspect he would accept the description of redneck.
NASCAR decided that it will no longer publish crowd estimates. Race attendance has been declining since 2007. According to a show I heard Saturday morning, even some of the good drivers aren’t sure they will be able to find sponsors for their cars next year.
Oct 20, 2011 … Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laughing it up with a reporter after hearing initial, unconfirmed, reports of Muammar Qaddafi’s death. “We came, we saw, he died” When the TV reporter asked if her recent visit to Libya had anything to do with Gaddafi’s downfall, the Secretary of State quipped: “No,” then rolled her eyes before adding “I’m sure it did.”
She knows a lot more about Vince Foster than we do. A training exercise with some American special ops guys and who knows we would learn?
As for those redneck race car drivers, they bear little resemblance to the good ole boys who ran moonshine on the backroads of America. So what, the sport is in decline now and is out of control. It bears little resemblance to the sport of the 50’s and 60′.
Around the 1970s, it went from who could drive the best and had the least fear of death – to the winners being decided by the rules committee deciding whuch modifications were improper.
The original notion that the races were using cars you could buy at a car dealer are long gone. In 1986, a coworker in Flint used his employee clout to buy some limited edition car. They had to make a certain number of the model to make it allowable for use in NASCAR. I doubt there is a single thing in a NASCAR racer that is still related to anything you can buy from a retail dealer.
A few years ago, NASCAR was offering a live Internet streaming thing including the audio of the control tower. It convinced me NASCAR is now as contrived as pro wrestling. When some leader wants to make a pit stop, some no name rookie dutifully spins his car harmlessly to bring out the caution flag
I was always amused by Watkins Glen and how most of the racers avoided it – the idea of being able to turn left and right and hitting the apexes of tight curves was just too difficult.
Television (money) ruined NASCAR. Toss in a hefty dose of politically correct and you can put R.I.P. on the headstone. You only needed to see Kyle Busch smash a collector guitar (he won in the race) in a fit of stupidity to know that the foxes are running the hen house. Check any race and note the timing of the “debris” cautions. Odd how they seem timed for commercials.
Now someone needs a way to fix soccer so it can be packaged for American TV.
The streaming video & audio just makes it more apparent what people who are paying attention already know. The drivers use hand signals and flags to tell the non-competitive drivers to move aside. Then you have all the judgement calls of when to open the pits and whether people were passed as the exit pit row under caution, etc… Then add lighting for night time racing so people have to leave the race way after dark
One of the UHF stations in Tulsa used to carry dirt track racing. It was pretty boring, but at least somewhat authentic.
Yeah, I hung on as long as I could. Last NASCAR race I went to was Martinsville in 1995. You could get a ticket Sunday morning on the short side where the railroad track was right up against the grandstand for $30. Non-reserve seating. Bring your ‘small ‘ cooler if you wanted.
I will tell you which one hooked me. The 1979 Daytona race that Richard Petty won, when Cale Yarhborough and Donny Allison started fighting in the infield, LOL Classic
ESPN grew with the races popularity in the 80’s. Some were not covered on TV but you had Ely Gold and MRN. CBS did Daytona and Brooklyn Michigan, ‘The Michigan 400’ and Talladega. Bill Elliott was like five or six laps down in Michigan and came back and won the race ! ‘Restrictor plates’ suck.
I havn’t watched a race on TV, hell I can’t remember. When NASCAR called Coca-Cola 600 early while Jeff Gorden was in the lead one night, but the obvious rigged was Dale Jr. winning Daytona. I said screw this ! They moved all the shops to Kannapolis and Charlotte. Now they have ‘media days’ more scripted, controlled.
Like Briand said ‘ debris’ at opportune times, rule changes if Bill France farted. They took a race away from Darlington. Dropped Rockingham and NorthWilkesboro from the schedule and those towns were loosing manufacturing at that time as well. So it was a double hit for the towns and NASCAR left their roots.
I don’t know who races anymore, maybe someone related to Va Sen Tim Kaine and Junior Johnson, or maybe not. I don’t care.
I miss ol’ Harry Gant, the ‘SkoalBandit’ LOL
parrott
If NASCAR is a dying sport, it appears these guys didn’t get the memo. 🙂
http://www.daytonainternationalspeedway.com/Vanity-Pages/2013/Daytona-Rising/DAYTONA-RISING.aspx
Say what you will about fan demographics and the rules committee, one thing I like about NASCAR is that it’s all privately financed. NASCAR doesn’t regularly hit up the local taxpayers to finance new racetracks – or else. Whereas the baseball, basketball, and football team owners seem to regularly blackmail their hometown’s citizens into bond issues for new stadiums.
http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/daytona-international-speedway/nbFKX/
“State legislators just filed a bill to give the Speedway taxpayer money, which could help pay for extra gift shops, landscaping and other details that had to be cut.”
Amazing what leaving cash in an envelope can do when the people who find it know who left it any why…. not that that ever occurred in the state of Florida, of course.
http://coastal.news14.com/content/news/charlotte/679935/legislators-address-loopholes-in-american-taxpayer-relief-act
“the NASCAR loophole”
Having just driven past Charlotte Motor Speedway and its miles of road improvements and traffic control signals
http://www.wbtv.com/story/11190331/concord-vows-to-fight-bruton-smith-lawsuit?redirected=true