Thursday, February 25, 2016

First ever NASCAR post

I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've ever posted about NASCAR, or any kind of racing for that matter, in this blog.

I used to love watching racing.  I particularly enjoyed Formula 1 and Indy-car stuff (before CART came along).  NASCAR was a distant third for me, although I always rooted for Richard Petty and Darrel Waltrip when I did watch.  I enjoyed the road courses more than the ovals, and I liked Mario Andretti and Rick Mears.

I know I'm dating myself big-time, but I loved watching Andretti duking it out with Nikki Lauda, Jody Sheckter, Gilles Villneuve, James Hunt, and a bunch of others.  Loved that black JPS Lotus.  In those days it seemed like it was a hunt for innovation to give yourself an edge over everyone else, whether it was aerodynamics. or some engine innovation that gave you more power - whatever it took to get you onto the podium or into the winners circle.

Which leads me to my real point today - what we have in racing is all about sameness.  Bodys, wings, spoilers, height, weight, width, length - everything is the same and there is no innovation.  So what we get is what we saw last weekend at the Daytona 500 - hours of staying in the draft because if you get out of it you lose about 25 positions.  So it's nose to tail lap after lap unless someone cuts a tire or gets too loose in a turn.  Then its a mad scramble to get in and out of the pits and pick up "track position".

I watched the whole race, all the while thinking "it has to get better sometime soon", but it was just a yawner.  I think I prefer the short track NASCAR races where aerodynamics take a back seat to power and skill and, well, RACING.

So give me the old days of racing, not the genericized, uniformed, sameness of today's version




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