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Uh... are any of y'all catching this "Busch Light Clash at the Coliseum" on Fox?  :huh:

 

NASCAR racers on a quarter mile track.  I don't see how they can get outta first gear - and lots of 'em getting bent!  :wacko:

 

Good thing they're done playing football for a while... 

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It be dumb.  They oughta put 'em in go-carts.

 

Reminds me of the time some fella got confused and tried to land his Cessna at the local RC Model Plane field.

 

Mighta made it if he'd used flaps and put 'er down on the numbers ("X"); rather, he came in slick and touched down mid-runway.  Immediately hit the brakes, left skid marks the rest of the pavement and then about thirty yards into the dirt - where his nose wheel ker-plunked into the drainage ditch and somersaulted the li'l plane.

 

Oops.  :lol:

 

image.png.76b3eae0184f079f0330fdfc1f05fd25.png

 

 

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They actually used to race on tracks that size!  They started this last year in an effort to capture the LA market/crowd.

 

 I agree!!  It’s ridiculous!  It took two hours, (I’m not counting the “halftime” show) and 20? cautions to cover 37.5 miles!!  The whole thing was run in first and second gear!!!  The venue was less than half full and that doesn’t count the whole sections of seating that were blocked off with canvas coverings!

 

I hope that they will abandon this venture in the future!  I’d be embarrassed to produce such a lame excuse for my product!!

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18 minutes ago, Dirty Dan Dawkins said:

With what NASCAR once was, isn’t watching them resort to gimmicks sad and painful to endure?

 

Between the gimmicks, cowing down to a mediocre at best driver, trying to appease the woke crowd and making them drive a car that doesn't have any resemblance to a "stock" car...sad and painful to endure...yes, yes it is.

That is just one reason that I refused to watch any of last night's (supposed) race.

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1 hour ago, Cypress Sun said:

 

Between the gimmicks, cowing down to a mediocre at best driver, trying to appease the woke crowd and making them drive a car that doesn't have any resemblance to a "stock" car...sad and painful to endure...yes, yes it is.

That is just one reason that I refused to watch any of last night's (supposed) race.

In my irrelevant opinion, it has been downhill since roughly around the end of the Winston Cup era (2003). Titties, alcohol, smokes, speed, action, a few fisticuffs- you barely have to advertise to sell this stuff.

 

When it was just beer and cigarettes, I enjoyed it, some. Them came Nextel, Sprint, Xfinity and all these other multinational corporations and perhaps corporate culture changed and trickled down.

Its like a cultural shift say from regional/local rodeos to triple crown thoroughbred horse racing.


The whole “Pride” trap they fell into (as well as other culture traps, and the “Bubba” Wallace nonsense) doesn’t help with a base comprised of largely rural white Protestants. They are mastering self-sabotage.

 

If they’d just shut their traps and focus on titties, beer, smokes and a few good wrecks, they might make a rebound 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Dirty Dan Dawkins said:

In my irrelevant opinion, it has been downhill since roughly around the end of the Winston Cup era (2003). Titties, alcohol, smokes, speed, action, a few fisticuffs- you barely have to advertise to sell this stuff.

 

When it was just beer and cigarettes, I enjoyed it, some. Them came Nextel, Sprint, Xfinity and all these other multinational corporations and perhaps corporate culture changed and trickled down.

Its like a cultural shift say from regional/local rodeos to triple crown thoroughbred horse racing.


The whole “Pride” trap they fell into (as well as other culture traps, and the “Bubba” Wallace nonsense) doesn’t help with a base comprised of largely rural white Protestants. They are mastering self-sabotage.

 

If they’d just shut their traps and focus on titties, beer, smokes and a few good wrecks, they might make a rebound 

 

 

 

It's too bad there isn't a way to leave a like, laugh, thanks and sad emoji...all at the same time.

 

Truer word have rarely been stated!

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First "race" of the season and the stands were basically empty. 29 heat races later and they get to the main show. Go cart racing with full size cars.

Central downtown LA is not am market for NASCAR. The only way to go through that area is on the freeway as fast as you can. So.........20mph on the freeway.

 

If you watched last year I never saw a single event with full stands.

NASCAR is ow in the race car building business. Everyone has to buy there cars from them. The only difference is the engine and driver.

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Howdy,

Nascar is going to street race in Chicago this summer.

I wonder how many are going to get stolen??????

It should be worth watching to see what weird things happen.

Best

CR

 

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Actually, the cars that they’re running today are much closer to the car you buy from the dealer!! 
 

All of the base models that these new racecars are supposed to represent have electronic fuel injection, independent suspension, (front and rear) composite body panels, rear video cameras, electronic gauge/dash/instrument panels, larger, (17 to 19 inch) alloy wheels, low sidewall radial tires, and many have transaxle setups as well!

 

The old cars with their “solid” rear axles, ‘63 Chevy pickup rear suspension, (something that never appeared on any factory passenger car) and oversimplified sheet metal body panels certainly didn’t represent the cars of the time. Even when they used “factory” body panels, the fenders were narrowed and flared, windshield posts were chopped and laid back, and in some documented cases, bodies were scaled down!

 

It took almost thirty years to get back to even a faint resemblance of the cars that you “win on Sunday and sell on Monday”!!

 

The political crap and the PC garbage needs to be completely deported from motorsports competition!!  I won’t dignify that part of today’s product with further comment!

 

The road course races ARE, in fact, selling out. Not an empty seat to be had!!  The race in Nashville, which was brought back two years ago, was sold out to the point where there wasn’t even standing room to be had!  Returning to some of the tracks that were dropped for venues that were “more attractive” or in “new markets” has produced much better in person attendance and a better market share on TV!  Simply stated, some places where NASCAR wasn’t popular were that way because that demographic wasn’t there!!

 

When I was involved with the beginnings of the NASCAR “infield show”, Winston was the major sponsor and we did shows on Friday and Saturday nights IN THE INFIELD with the folks who came in Wednesday and Thursday and camped out and partied all weekend!!  I recall Pocono and Daytona and Talladega having fifty thousand people in the infield and ten to fifteen thousand people in our audiences! After NASCAR and Winston parted ways, the sanctioning body and some track owners decided that these infield spectators weren’t the kind of image and clientele that they “should” be catering to!! They reduced the number of infield spectators and camping facilities and those loyal fans started staying away in droves!!  That attitude carried right over into the bleachers and to the guys and gals in the living rooms all over the country!!  When that happened, the sponsors saw it and started looking for other, more productive places to spend their advertising dollars.  Oh!! And the networks noticed too!

 

On the plus side, and disregarding this last weekend’s offering, NASCAR has returned to some of those tracks that were abandoned and have reaped some benefit in both attendance and TV market share. They have added a “dirt” race that brought a big, positive spike in interest and the addition of road courses has helped draw a new demographic into the mix.  This summer, they are running at least one car at the 24 Hours at LeMans! It will be a car very like the ones in regular NASCAR competition. That’s the kind of thing that they SHOULD have been doing, instead of alienating the folks who took them to the top of the heap in motorsports!!

 

Having been involved in NASCAR, and being a fan for more than sixty seasons, I feel safe in saying that while it often takes a season or two to get fans to accept a new generation of car, most true fans don’t care much about what’s under the skin so long as there’s good competition and the cars are fast and loud.  No harm in trying new locations if you’re smart enough to remember where your fanbase lives!!

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The quarter mile bullrings are a lot more common than the superspeedways.  What's really different about them running in the Coliseum and Bristol holding a football game?

 

NASCAR has gotten away from the short (1/4 or 1/2 mile) tracks in recent years.  It didn't help that the owners of Charlotte has been buying up tracks and shifting races between the tracks they own.  Bristol tickets were left in wills (which were immediately contested by the family members that didn't get them) and it was a perennial sellout for both races with the night race considered a bucket list stop- until the progressive banking was put in and the racing was changed to just like ever other track.

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20 hours ago, irish ike, SASS #43615 said:

First "race" of the season and the stands were basically empty. 29 heat races later and they get to the main show. Go cart racing with full size cars.

Central downtown LA is not am market for NASCAR. The only way to go through that area is on the freeway as fast as you can. So.........20mph on the freeway.

 

If you watched last year I never saw a single event with full stands.

NASCAR is ow in the race car building business. Everyone has to buy there cars from them. The only difference is the engine and driver.

I was there for the race last year and I enjoyed it, except for them having an intermission and a crazy concert in the middle of the race. I also watched the race this year. You are right about attendance, but the stands were pretty full for the main event. Last year lots of the people were in the "pits" and doing other things during the heat races. I attended my first NASCAR race in 1960 and like all sports it has changed and evolved over the years trying to appeal to new fans. I used to race boats and drag race and anything that makes speed and competes against other racers is in my wheelhouse. 

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There are a lot of 1/4 mile asphalt tracks.  There are many dirt tracks as well.  3/8 of a mile and 1/3 of a mile are not uncommon either.  After participating in the pits for 7 or 8 years, going to a 1/2 mile track, they look ginormous.  My son raced at a 3/8 mile track and would be today but work, marriage and kids took precedence as it should.  Too many of the racers I've seen can barely feed & house their families but they go racing.  NASCAR has been fiddling with a program that has worked for years and are cutting it down piece by piece.  Bringing back legacy tracks is the smartest thing they have done.  They started going to corporate owned tracks and the product waned.  They thought bigger tracks were better.  NOT.  Just different.  The drivers are scared to race them.  A 747 takes off at a slower speed than race cars achieve on super speedways.  Short tracks are more up close and personal.  They really highlight the drivers skill.

 

Then enter the wokeness and political correctness and we tear more fabric from the sport.  Today there are people racing who have no business driving.  They have a ride because daddy, grandpa or somone with more money than brains own the team or have enough money to put them in a car. It is all about the money.  There is little talent involved these days.  The drivers are instructed how to drive and where to move to by spotters.  The drivers would have you believe they need all the spotters advice because there is too much going on.  There is nothing more going on than there was 20 or 30 years ago.  You have no talent.

 

The sponsors have been figuring it out.  Many have left or are leaving.  Being the official product of NASCAR has lost its shine.

 

The LA race is a joke.  A 1/4 mile track is fine but it needed to be wider and banked.  A flat track that narrow is only good for go carts.  I'd still like to see a Bristol race or Darlington.  A couple of the last great coliseums of racing.  

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I saw somewhere that they were going to run at No. Wilkesboro this year. Good I'm glad that they are going to run it. Will it bring back the longtime NASCAR fans that have given up on it? No, it won't. Will a new, woke fan watch it? For a little while...maybe.

I'll watch it, maybe. 

 

I have no illusions of NASCAR returning to the glory days, those are gone. Little rich boys, running their granddaddy's car simply isn't appealing to me. A woke racing organization protocol sure as hell doesn't appeal to me. 

 

I'll watch Daytona and the associated racing...just like I've done ever since the snippets on Wide World of Sports back in the '60's. I'll watch some other races probably...but it's just a not "must see" thing for me...at one time, it was.

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I have taken to watching the short track races, (less than a mile and a half) and the road course races.  The longer tracks lack the competitive edginess and closely resemble parades.

 

I dislike that the sanctioning body hands out the ECM/ECUs to the teams.  This is the “computer” that controls the engine functions.  This practice lends itself too well to the possibility of handicapping or benefiting one or another team or driver.

 

 I TOTALLY DESPISE that teams are precluded from making extensive repairs after a wreck!!  These teams are racing for points!! WHY ON GOD’S GREEN EARTH would you, basically, completely disqualify a team or driver that COULD fix the car and compete for every last point??  
 

Last but not least, why does it take six or seven laps to clear and clean up the track for a minor wreck??  Some of these cautions are way too long for the damage done. For example. Two cars slap the wall and bounce off of each other. They drive to the pits and replace the tires, refuel, and make very minor repairs. They are back on track, perhaps without even losing a lap, but the race remains under caution for several laps, as many as eight or ten!  

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My dad used to take me to watch quarter midget races when I was a whippersnapper. Great fun. Both that thing on Sunday? Gimme a break.:blink:

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:ph34r:  I see regulation destroying the sport.  I loved the era of experimentation and innovation.  Like AMA flattrack USED to be.  As much of a tuner's race as the driver.

       Were they becoming too successful and going too fast?  Put a displacement and weight limit on 'em and get outta the way......  and shove the restrictor plate 

up...  er, down the director's throat!

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21 hours ago, Bad Bascomb, SASS # 47,494 said:

:ph34r:  

 

Roller Derby with race cars........:wacko:

And the old races at Bristol and Darlington weren't?

 

Before Bristol was 'improved', you ran at the bottom and the only way to pass was to root the car ahead of you off the bottom line (one way or another- including by 'getting him loose' with your chrome horn).

 

At Darlington, hitting the wall on exit of a turn was an accepted tactic and the resulting damage was referred to as a 'Darlington Stripe'. A kid went rim riding last season- rubbing the wall to keep it straight- and to get into their playoffs and NASCAR declared it illegal for this season.

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