Quote Originally Posted by 2Fast4Radar
This is spot on. Beyond the fact that I think NASCAR is in and of itself an insufferable spectacle of racing, I also loathe NASCAR because of its overall dominance that has left no choices to watch any other form of racing in this country.

I like the idea of cars from the dealer showroom racing instead of purpose built tube framed chassis stickered out to pseudo-resemble a real car. Why anyone would buy a Monte Carlo because they call a car racing in NASCAR a Monte Carlo is beyond me. No matter how "simple" someone is I find it hard to believe that they would find any resemblance between the car they see on TV and the one on the dealership lot save for the nameplate. Why go through all of the motions?

It's these simple minded, stuck thinking inside the box people that are really hurting our car market. We simply build poor quality vehicles pushed through by an older generation of simple minded executives geared to simple minded consumers who love simple minded racing. That's fine until you look at who we export our cars to - basically NOBODY. Because NOBODY outside the US has much interest buying them. Hell we can barely sell them to citizens of this country who are proud to be US citizens - myself included. Now there's some exceptions - Jeremy Clarkson would drive a ZO6 or a Ford GT, but like everyone else from his homeland Clarkson wouldn't be caught dead driving an Impala or Caliber around in place of a comparable Peugot or Nissan. That's why there aren't Chevrolet dealerships all over Asia or Europe, yet the US has an enormous list of import dealerships.

Sorry I quit checking on the thread and didn't see you had replied DrivenMinds...

That was a more than respectable response, which as you've seen in this thread, many people are unable to voice those things clearly.

I agree with more than a few things you said, but I for one think there is still areas for change and I think the sport will have to make changes for the positive, or eventually hurl itself into a downward spiral that might not have an eject button.

2fast... You make some great points that aren't totally about this sport, but in my opinion more acurately reflect why the American Auto Manufacturers have had such troubles in the past years....we largely produce crappy cars.

Take a 5 year old Honda Accord and a 5 year old Chevy Malibu, or a Taurus even. Look at their maint. records, the interior wear, the exterior wear, and it's no comparison. We've made poor choices in catering to a market that had too many good choices to continue to make poor ones year after year.

I don't think your NASCAR car model reference is all that major since when you watch F1, there's zero crossover to a real car. And speaking with The King, Richard Petty, I have learned tons about how some of their cars came to be. The cars were much more stock oriented, but mst of the good teams, such as Petty Racing, would basically get a car from the assmebly line well before it was competed and customize the car at that point. I am sure there were many smaller teams that tore apart dealership sold cars, but to my knowledge there weren't many bigger teams that did that. But still, they at least looked like them....

I for one wish they did since I don't want to it end up like the IROC series where all the cars are built the same, look the same, and everything else.

The one thing I think we should address here is that a lot of people have said SPEED Channel, originally Speedvision, has sold out in many ways and doesn't stand what it originally stood for.

SPEED is a great example of change and evolution in todays economy. As a business, you have to make money. When they had rally races or shows about smaller racing series and they couldn't find any sponsorships for commercials or the shows, were they just supposed to pay themselves to keep everything on just to be true to the real racer ? Some would argue yes, others realize if they did that for long, they would have gone under....

What they did was create more programs with more "mainstream" content that had more sponsor options and would get higher ratings. Through this came the waterfall of NASCAR programming to the network. And you know what ? In my opinion, SPEED is much larger than it's ever been before due to the extensive NASCAR coverage and the great people that watch it.

Without it, how could a show like Pinks accomplish all that it has done ? Shows like NOPI Tunervision and Unique Whips have promos during NASCAR programming for a reason... it's because those viewers will come back and watch the other stuff...NASCAR programming makes other programs possible. Wether it's Unique whips, Pinks All out, or anything else.

That's why I am so adament about people being "Pro-Motorsports." It helps us all out in the end. Wether anyone likes NASCAR or not, when they get involved with stuff, people listen. People respond. Companies listen. Companies spend marketing dollars.

That's why it's important to understand the sport and how it works, which obviously some of you guys do.

And just for the doubters...last year, Kasey Kahne, who is a younger NASCAR driver for Dodge at Evernham Motorsports, helped throw a drifting event at Irwindale that matches up Drift pro's with NASCAR driver's all for Charity and the Kasey Kahne foundation. Not only was the place a sell out, 2 groups of people who didn't have much in common found themselves there together and cheering for driver's of different sports on the same track.

That's the definition of being pro-motorsports. Learn it, support it, and figure out how to benefit from it.