Earlier this week, my Dad and I were having a conversation about NASCAR. (Now I fully understand that some of my readers just got up and walked away from the computer. No problem; everything on this blog isn’t for everybody.) I was telling my Dad about calling the local sports talk radio program early Saturday morning and going on a bit of a rant about NASCAR and its multiple shortcomings.
Any opportunity that I get to shred NASCAR, I will happily do so. And thus, the NASCAR blog post was conceived.
I would like to give my readers 9 reasons why the “sport” of NASCAR completely and unequivocally sucks and why it is losing support faster than Obama’s healthcare reform.
#1: Too many “cookie-cutter” tracks. For those of you who are wise enough to not care about NASCAR, a “cookie-cutter” track is a term generally used to refer to a 1 ½ mile oval track that seems to be all the rage in NASCAR racing these days. There is generally no side-by-side racing (or as I like to call it, “exciting racing”), and the track itself seems to be nearly as wide as it is long. As my Dad so loving puts it, “Hell, those guys could spin for 2 days before they hit anything solid.” Although I don’t have the actual number of tracks that fall into this dubious category, I would place the number somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 or so…….oh, wait! I’m sorry, there aren’t even that many NASCAR tracks on the current circuit, it just seems that way.
#2 Too many variables to determine the actual winner of a race. Okay, here is the MAIN reason that I only watch the last 25 laps of any NASCAR race, save Bristol. Isn’t racing supposed to be about the fastest thing winning? The fastest human; the fastest boat; the fastest, oh I don’t know……RACE CAR????? The thought of having some jackleg from Podunk Alabama, i.e. the front left tire changer on the pit crew, determine whether or not a driver wins a race is the single most idiotic concept that I can imagine in sports today. If we’re going to go this route, why not let the beer vendor at the baseball game call balls and strikes? Or how about letting my wife (love you honey!) referee a soccer match? It makes just about as much sense. Geez! Do I have to think of everything?
#3 Boring races. See point #1 above.
#4 Dale Earnhardt, Jr. This poor fellow had the bad luck of being born the son of one of the greatest drivers in NASCAR history. And then had the momentary lapse in judgment to try and follow in his father’s footsteps. NASCAR, the company, has marketed the soul out of Dale, Jr., and as we are now coming to see, he couldn’t carry his Daddy’s lug wrench on his best day at the track. He is now on the top team in NASCAR, Hendrick Motorsports, home of 4-time champions, Jeff Gordon and current champ, Jimmy Johnson. (more on this pitiful boob later). “Junior” is being shown to be nothing less than a fraud. He is not in the same class as his father as a driver. NASCAR puts all of its marketing eggs into Dale Jr.’s basket and race fans now see him for what he really is…..Kyle Petty.
#5 Jimmie Johnson is simply waaaaaay too vanilla. Jimmie Johnson, the current, defending king of NASCAR, is by all accounts is a well-mannered, likeable guy. He never says the wrong thing in an interview; he has never been caught drinking and driving; and word has it that Pope Benedict is considering him for sainthood at the end of the season if he can pull off 5 in a row! All these traits are great. I’d let him date my daughter. The problem is, he’s a NASCAR driver; not running for political office. Fans of the “sport” want to see Dale Sr. move someone out of the way to win at Bristol. They want a beer-swilling, loud-mouth redneck to be their anointed king, and J.J. just ain’t it! I wonder if John Daley’s golf career would allow him to try and qualify this weekend.
#6 Too many changes to the car to make things “fair” (Ugh!). Most of you know how I feel about the entire concept of “fair”; it makes me want to projectile vomit. The very essence of sports is that the best _______ wins. If you’re car isn’t fast enough to compete on a weekly basis, you might want to seek gameful employment elsewhere. If Ford builds a faster car than Chevrolet, then everybody go and get a Ford!!! Okay, I seriously have to stop on this point, because I just did vomit on my keyboard……..one moment please.
#7 Slowing down the cars???????? Now correct me if I‘m wrong here, but isn’t this RACING? I curse the individual that invented the restrictor plate. I can recall a time when “Awesome Bill” from Dawsonville was running laps at Daytona well over 200 miles per hour. And then one car crash injures some half-inebriated fan, and the cars are suddenly going too fast. This rule is second on the stupidity scale, right after the inbred tire-changer from Alabama determining whether or not his driver wins the race. This is also why I prefer NHRA drag racing to NASCAR. They have 8000 horsepower and are trying to faster!!!! You might want to take a few notes NASCAR.
#8 The races are too freakin’ long. 500 miles, or in real time 4 hours, is simply too long to sit in the baking sun and watch 43 dudes turn left. The only parts of the race that really matter anyway are the first 25 laps and the last 25 laps. This is because this is the only time when any real racing is taking place. The rest of the time, the boys are just riding around in their hotrods. So let’s do this; make all the races 75-100 laps. THEN you will see some racing! The drivers won’t be as tired, the fans won’t be nearly as drunk, and the racing will be more exciting. Everybody wins!
#9 Boring races. I know that I already touched on this one, but it needs more development than I allowed it in the previous point. The races, as we know, are too long; both in distance and real time. The cookie-cutter tracks have made this even more undesirable with 16-wide racing, and “spinning for 2 days and not hitting something solid!” So here’s what NASCAR should do; of the 43 participants in the race, 20 of them should be people who have never driven a NASCAR and/or blue-hairs from South Florida who haven’t held a driver’s license in the past 10 years. Or better yet, leave all the regular drivers in the field and have half of them drive in the opposite direction than the rest of the field! Wow! Now THAT’S exciting racing. Don’t nod off at the wheel fellas. It could be a very bad day if you do!
