Can someone explain the appeal of NASCAR to me?

[Taverner]

No NASCAR bashing here, and I know I've asked this question before (and often it turned into South-Bashing)

But why NASCAR?

Is it the ability to park your RV in the infield and watch the race from there?

Is it the stock cars, rather than racing cars?

Is it Danika Powell?

Is it a preference of turning left over right?

[Tobin S.]

1. Just a guess: Cars symbolize freedom and power to some people.

The raw power and speed of the cars all chasing after the big prize could be seen as a metaphor for the American dream. Personally, I just like to see the crashes. :bounce:

[MajorChode]

2. If it rolls, runs, floats, or flies, men are going to race it

It's all in what counts as entertainment for ya. It never did that much for me, but some people go batshit crazy over it. I have a NASCAR track just a few miles away from my house(TMS) and I've never been to an actual NASCAR race. I used to go to some of the Indy car races at TMS when they were in October. The crowds weren't nearly as big as the NASCAR races, but they moved it to June and I'm just not thrilled enough about it to go in the blasting heat of summer.

[valerief]

3. I don't understand ANY spectator sport. I understand the appeal of playing but not watching. nt

[Posteritatis]

51. Something to be said for observing techniques and the like

I enjoy fencing a lot more than I enjoy watching fencing, but I still find watching bouts to be interesting, especially if slow-mo's an option. When it comes to competitors who are way beyond my rather amateur league I can occasionally learn a thing or two as well.

I don't play hockey at all, but I enjoy watching Olympic hockey for the same sorts of reasons.

[Common Sense Party]

63. Do you go to movies, plays, concerts, etc?

Or only when you ONLY act, sing or perform in them?

[blockhead]

4. definitely

Danika Powell.:shrug:

[tango-tee]

29. Sorry for asking,

but who is Danika Powell?

[Mopar151]

34. I dunno - but Danica Patrick is an accomplished driver

In Indy cars, who is attempting to race stock cars in a couple of the lower-tier series (ARCA and NGN) that are thought to be training grounds for Cup. She's a good shoe, smart, tough, fit, quite pretty, and a marketing dream. The commentators all fell in love....
She is under the tutelage of the Earnhardt family at JR Motorsports, whose general manager is Junior's sister, Kerry (Earnhardt) Ellage.

[flvegan]

5. NASCAR was already wildly popular before Danica PATRICK joined.

I don't get the appeal either, but I don't knock it. I do like F1 and Indycar racing.

[Archae]

6. I wonder how many come to see someone crash.

Honestly, I wonder what is the percentage of those who watch to see who loses control and goes *CRUNCH*

[trof]

7. Bingo! THAT'S the attraction.

:-)

[ohheckyeah]

61. No, not really.

Many NASCAR fans hate crashes, as do I.

[Mopar151]

22. For me

It's the ability to watch drivers at the edge of control who don't crash. If it does'nt look difficult to you, you don't know what's going on.
And that goes double or triple for building, preparing, and adjusting the cars. Something that looks astoundingly simple to the uninformed - like an oil pan - requires years of engineering and development to function at the levels seen in racing today.
It shows up in all the people around the sport, too. Compared to the drooling morons who run most of our world, the folks at most levels of racing are amazingly knowledgeable, helpful, and friendly.

[taterguy]

8. The brilliant tobacco marketing minds needed a place to spend money when they couldn't do TV ads

Like them or not, the folks who market cigarettes are damned good at what they do.

They couldn't advertise on TV so they spent their time and money turning NASCAR into a booming business.

The other part of the appeal is that the drivers do an exceptional job of being accessible.

They don't charge for autographs or surround themselves with entourages. They do genuinely good charitable work. The Petty family has a wonderful camp for sick kids. They don't just write checks. They get involved. Drivers filled their trucks with supplies for Katrina relief and made a difference.

As for the sport's original appeal, the roots were in running from the law and everybody likes a rebel.

[Taverner]

37. Makes sense

I did notice it can truly be a family sport, as in there are Hot Wheels for each racer that the kids collect, etc...

Is the myth really true that it started from shine runners?

[taterguy]

46. One of the sports biggest stars Junior Johnson was a convicted moonshiner

Yes, absolutely true.

[Ikonoklast]

9. Go to a race with an open mind.

It can be a fun experience.


Not knocking NASCAR, I'm more of an road-race guy myself, but I've had some rip-roaring good times at some of the events, and even witnessed some pretty decent racing.

[Taverner]

40. Open mind, but lots of sunscreen

;)

[JitterbugPerfume]

10. I have never understood it

but my sons never miss NASCAR! Thank gawd they don't live with me!

[Oceansaway]

11. my uncles drove dirt track every

saturday night ... i grew up with it in my family

[SeattleGirl]

12. Both my parents and two of my uncles raced, so same here.

It was part of my life when I was growing up, and I still love it.

[JTG of the PRB]

13. People can see boring old nature anytime. This is your chance to see cars driving!

[Kali]

16. ...

:spray: :rofl:

scared the cats with my outburst

[yankeepants]

14. Nope. n/t

[alphafemale]

15. ZZZOOOMMM----ZZMMM!!!!

Because they think it's fun!!!

[jmowreader]

17. I can think of four reasons

(1) It is one of the few sports that's not full of drunken reprobates. Baseball you got A-Rod and the steroid users. Football's got Michael Vick. Basketball? Be easier to list the roundballers who are NOT drunken reprobates. NASCAR is family-friendly entertainment for all ages because the company whose logo is on the side of your car isn't going to tolerate drunken reprobates. Someone asked Darrell Waltrip what made a stock car go, and he told 'em: "The name on the hood makes a stock car go." And like someone said upthread, racers contribute to the community more than the money they pay in fines.

(2) It is one of the few sports where you can lose the game before you ever get to the stadium. If you put the wrong rear end gear in the car or install the wrong shocks you're screwed, and those decisions are made at the race shop.

(3) There's only one game per weekend*--you won't miss the GREAT pass in the Atlanta race because you were watching the New Hampshire race, because they're all at the same track. This happens in football.

(4) And because there's only one game per weekend, there's no question who the best team is this week. In football, your team could have won this weekend if they were playing the Lions. In NASCAR, your team plays the Lions every week.

* Yes, I know they're called races.

Funny story: I was reading an article about the new baseball season...the people who wrote it were selling discounted game tickets and the way the article was written was a hoot. According to this, on opening day fans of all 30 teams think theirs is the one that will go all the way this year. While I'm reading this, I am of course thinking, "the Detroit Tigers and Chicago Cubs are playing this season, correct?" Because no matter what happens, no matter how many trades are made, a fan of the Cubs thinks on opening day "maybe we won't be 25 games out of first on May 1 this year like we always are." It could be worse, though: you could root for the Orioles, who are 2-11 and 7.5 games behind.

But you watch racing because it's fun.

[MiddleFingerMom]

18. Grew up on 1/2 mile dirt track round-de-rounds.

.
FUN!!! Spend MOST of your time in a power drift through the
turns and a lot of bang-em-up jockeying with the cars.
.
Saw a couple of NASCAR races. EXCITING!!! The sounds are
PALPABLE as the cars roar past you. The colors, the speed,
the inches-to-spare precision driving -- they all add up
to a pretty spectacular spectator experience.
.
People who assume that a good percentage of spectators come
HOPING to see a crash strike me as a little bit elitist and
disdainful of folks who don't appreciate the "finer" things
in life that they do.
.
I don't think a NASCAR fan is ANY more likely to hope for a
crash than a downhill skiing spectator hopes for a tumbling
crash of a skier.
.
They may BOTH tell you later how awesome the crash WAS -- but
I think they both would prefer to see one hell of a racing
performance instead.
.
Now... even though I had two close friends (brothers) whose
lives revolved around drag racing (they had each built their
own racecar from the ground up), I have NEVER understood the
allure of drag racing.
.

[hvn_nbr_2]

19. Goes fast, makes noise, advertises beer.

What else could a good Murkin want? Well, okay, explosions and blood now and then would be good, but there are at least some crashes.

[Mopar151]

23. Sorry, but you simply don't understand what's going on. n/t

[MicaelS]

20. To many people in America, Automobiles = Freedom

A car, an open road, plenty of gas without worrying about the cost, to drive as fast and far as you want.

For many people that would be paradise.

And as many before me have stated, these drivers are "regular" guys. They are perceived as normal, like they could be your next door neighbor. Except they drive real fast.

And many people say "That could be me driving that car." Even though it couldn't.

Oh, and no South-bashing what-so-ever.... The history of NASCAR is deeply rooted in the South, with men building fast cars to run from the "revenuers" aka the Tax Man. And trying to evade paying taxes on liquor goes back to the Whiskey Rebellion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nascar

Stock car racing in the United States has its origins in bootlegging during Prohibition, when drivers ran bootleg whiskey made primarily in the Appalachian region of the United States. Bootleggers needed to distribute their illicit products, and they typically used small, fast vehicles to better evade the police. Many of the drivers would modify their cars for speed and handling, as well as increased cargo capacity, and some of them came to love the fast-paced driving down twisty mountain roads.

The repeal of Prohibition in 1933 dried up some of their business, but by then Southerners had developed a taste for moonshine, and a number of the drivers continued "runnin' shine," this time evading the "revenuers" who were attempting to tax their operations. The cars continued to improve, and by the late 1940s, races featuring these cars were being run for pride and profit. These races were popular entertainment in the rural Southern United States, and they are most closely associated with the Wilkes County region of North Carolina. Most races in those days were of modified cars. Street vehicles were lightened and reinforced.

[paulsby]

42. it's good thing that automobiles are associated with freedom

because they are a big part of it.

i can jump in my car and be in canada in a few hours

or surfing(but it's really cold), etc.

it's travel with more freedom. tracks are a lot more limited than roads. roads can take you anywhere

almost

[Mopar151]

47. Not the whole story

The liquor runners had to buy their speed parts somewhere.. Some came from the Midwestern and Northeastern racers, who had adapted stock-based cars to the former midget and "big car" circuits - Andy Granatelli (Grancor) and the engineering of the famed Holman-Moody shops (Ralph Moody was the former track champion at Norwood, MA.) Lightweight hubs and running gear came from Jim Hailbrand in California, made to fit the Ford 3/4 ton truck axles ubiquitous in the Northeast. Hailbrand built much of the running gear for Indy cars as well.
A lot of the engine parts came from the California hot rodders like Vic Edelbrock and Speed-O-Motive, who got their start on the dry lakes speed trials.
As The Wiki article mentions, "modifieds" were the fare of early Southern racing. Today, the Troyer, Spafco, and Raceworks cars you see on "Madhouse" are built in the Northeast. But by the early 50's, stock-appearing Olds, Chrysler, and Cadillac cars had large, powerful engines, and would hold a LOT of liquor. Bill France, founder of NASCAR, bet big that these stock-appearing cars, on bigger, classier looking tracks, would draw droves of fans - and he was right.

[MicaelS]

49. Wow, thanks!! Learned a lot...

Thanks for the info.

[elocs]

21. Don't know. Car going very fast on an oval track. Fans love to see crashes.

They don't want to see anyone hurt, but they love crashes.

Think about it though, in what other sports are the spectators at risk of possibly being killed or injured themselves by the sport?

[Mopar151]

36. Soccer

Baseball. Anything involving bulls.

[Bucky]

45. Okay, I grant you all that. But what about fucking golf? Golf? That I will never get.

[Mopar151]

66. The crazy thing is

Golf is far worse for the enviroment than racing - something about the mercury compounds they use on the putting greens.

[Mopar151]

24. Let me ask a question, then.

Do you think you could do it? Could you start with tubing,sheetmetal, and a pickup-load of junkyard parts, and piece together an amateur-level car? Can you make it go straight, turn on demand, stop, make horsepower, not overheat, burn bearings, sieze up? Have the clutch release, the gears shift, the electrics work? How about installing the seat, and all the other safety equipment?

Can you put on the firesuit, don the helmet, climb in the window, strap in, and go out to race?

[Taverner]

39. Not at all - but I don't think I could curl either

Either way, they involve talent

[Mopar151]

41. OK, then you're starting to see it.

A big part of any sport or entertainment is having an appreciation for the talents involved.
IMHO, the reason many people don't "get" motorsports is that they beleive that there is no real talent involved.

[Taverner]

48. Let me put it this way: RUSH is a great band. Geddy Lee is an amazing bassist.

Neil Peart is an amazing drummer and Alex Lifeson is a great guitarist.

I can't stand listening to RUSH, however.

[Taverner]

50. And I'd rather watch NASCAR (with sunscreen) than listen to RUSH

[Mopar151]

56. I hear ya, brotha

Geoff Bodine was a top driver in his day, a brilliant chassis man, and did amazing things for the US Olympic bobsled team. I'd as soon kick him in the nuts as look at him.

[CBGLuthier]

25. Because it is the only sport where everybody tries to cheat.

That makes it the great american sport. The fact that everyone tries to cheat. They all know the rules and what is legal and illegal on a car and they all try to get away with illegal things.

[MicaelS]

27. True... BUT as one head mechanic said....

"I don't call that cheating, I call it racing."

[Mopar151]

33. The odd thing is about cheatin'

It's the back half of the field, and the casual fan, who are most obsessed with it. The winners are too busy working on the stuff that really matters to screw around with cheating. The real gray area is in figuring out what the actual rules are, vs. the ones printed in the rulebook.

[canoeist52]

35. My brother, who's a mechanic on a pit crew, calls (cheating) "pushing the envelope"

[paulsby]

43. you are OUT OF YOUR MIND

the ONLY sport where everyone tries to cheat?

you are kidding me, right?

the french used to drink red wine with cocaine to help during bicycle races.

heck, the ancient greeks ate bull testicles (although i don't think they were banned at that point) to try to get manly essence (not knowing that testosterone is not orally bioavailable but they were on the right track)

then there's the whole performance enhancing modern drugs thang from hgh to AAS to blood doping.

name me a sport AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL that is free from cheating

nascar is hardly more prone to cheating than any # of sports.

in some sports, there really isnt' any great way TO cheat, but if there is a way, people will try it.

you really have no idea of the history of sports if you could make such a statement

[CBGLuthier]

52. Golf

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100420/ap_on_sp_go_ne/glf_tim_dahlberg042010

After much deliberation with his caddie, he splashed out from a crummy lie to about 30 feet, giving him a chance to make it to stay alive. But something felt wrong, and he immediately called over a PGA official to tell him why.
"I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye," Davis said Monday in a telephone interview. "I didn't feel anything, but I thought I might have seen something."
What Davis saw was his club almost imperceptibly grazing a reed in the hazard. Under rule 13.4 — moving a loose impediment during a takeaway — that meant a 2-stroke penalty, even if the offense was only visible in super slow motion replays.
And that meant the golf tournament for Davis.

[paulsby]

55. that;'s a good one

i read about that the other day, and it really enhanced my conception of golf as a gentleman's (woman's) game

good for davis, btw

[One_Life_To_Give]

54. No Holding Calls, Fouls, etc?

What Football or Basketball game doesn't have cheating. It would be like a Tour-De-France without a doping scandal.

[Captain Hilts]

26. You root for a driver you like. It's not so much about the sport itself. nt

[Altoid_Cyclist]

28. I can take it or leave it.

The only time that it really bothered me was when I was in the Hospital a day after my first heart attack.

I wasn't feeling that great to begin with and I wasn't able to get any sleep the day of the heart attack.

My roommate's redneck son came in and turned on the race so that he could cheer on Dale Junior. Between the loud whoops and yeehaws and come on Junior!!!! my already frazzled nerves were just about at the breaking point.

I was never so relieved to see Junior crash as that day. The son lost interet and turned off the TV.

Thanks Junior!

[Arugula Latte]

30. No.

[tango-tee]

31. I went to one of these races once, with some colleagues

and it was a whole lot more interesting to watch the spectators than what was going on on the race track.

That was many years ago and perhaps things have changed, but I remember thinking that it must have taken an ocean of peroxide to bleach all that hair on the women. And there was so *much* hair. Platinum blonde verywhere. To me, it seemed that there must have been a mold or cookie-cutter that shaped these ladies. Never mind the men. Lots of hoopla, loyalty to a particular driver, deep loathing for another one, self-proclaimed expertise, hats and shirts with engine oil ads. People were really serious about what was happening.

Bless their innocent hearts.

[Mopar151]

32. I must have gone to a different Cup race

(not in the South)
I sat behind a guy with a comb-over worse than Trump's, and saw a lot of folks that were there to see and be seen. I've been around local short-track racing and amateur sportscar racing for near 5 decades, and those folks are a lot more serious about their racin'.
When it comes to the "self-proclaimed expertise" of the casual fan, racin' fans can't touch baseball or football fans.

[crim son]

38. In a word, no. n/t

[Bucky]

44. Big loud cars are fucking awesome.

It's like what Louis Armstrong said about the blues: if you have to ask, you'll never understand.

[Silver Swan]

53. I'm beginning to think that

The appeal of NASCAR is that it is easy to understand. The rules mostly apply to the inner workings of the cars, and the main spectator activity is to watch the cars be driven at high speeds around a track. Anyone can understand that.

Other spectator sports seem to have numerous rules, which can cause the uninitiated to say, "What just happened?"

BTW, I am not a NASCAR fan.

[Mopar151]

57. You have a very good point.

I devote foolish (or so some would say) amounts of my life to racin', and I've got to tell you - a lot of it is a Roman Circus, without the blood. An unashamed spectacle, with bright colors, incredible noise, heroic gladiators, and colorful flags flying. And I'll let you in on a secret - there are several regional or national touring series that are a better spectacle than NASCAR. If anyone is interested, tell me where y'all are, , and I'll see if I can point you at something.

[ohheckyeah]

62. That's just so ridiculous.

There are many rules to NASCAR racing, not only the actual race but the building of the cars.

[Mopar151]

65. Not so fast

The rules serve to refine tha contest - but the basic premise is very simple - first one to complete the distance wins!
See if you can explain football or golf in terms that simple.

[Corey_Baker08]

58. I Have To Admit My Parents Are Nascar Fans & Democrats & I Simply Don't Mind It & Prefer it Over...

different sports like basketball, golf, hockey,etc. Nascar Drivers are extremely good at what they do and the thrill of the sport is choosing a favorite driver and really following that drivers life story. My entire family became emotionally attached to the sport after the death of Dale Earnheardt Sr. and since then have been inspired by Dale Jr.'s involvement in the sport and the race to his destiny of being like his father and cheering him on at races!!!

[MiddleFingerMom]

59. I loved NASCAR until very recently...

.
...when their scandalous cover-up of all that steroid use came to light.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
ONLY sport where everybody tries to cheat, my oval-tracked ass.
.
.
.
.
I don't know what that means.
.
.
.
And... I don't wish to know, but thank you anyways.
.

[ohheckyeah]

60. It's really not complicated.

Some people like things that go fast. some people prefer seeing horses race down a track and other's like cars racing around a track. What's the big deal about people liking car races?

What's the appeal of football or golf?

[ohheckyeah]

64. nevermind

[goldcanyonaz]

67. I think some want to see them crash, much like Hockey and the fighting.

[Old Troop]

68. The consummate ability to make a left turn

[jakefrep]

69. It's a cult of personality

Sort of like professional wrestling, but with cars.

[Robeson]

70. If you find out, let me know.