NASCAR returns tomorrow with a race at Darlington Raceway in South Carolina. They will race at an empty racetrack with no spectators allowed. Even said that most car owners won't be there since most are over 65 and considered at risk for covid.
I got into watching NASCAR probably around 2007ish after the debacle of what happened in open wheel racing between Champ Car and IRL series basically splitting the open wheel fan base in two. Now only IRL exists and very few people care. I remember when Vancouver hosted the Indy Vancouver in the late 80s and drew huge crowds over the whole weekend.
When I first started watching NASCAR, the stands were always full but in recent years, I've noticed lots of empty seats and even full sections that weren't even used anymore.
Do many non North American IORR race fans here watch NASCAR or lean towards F1?

I enjoy SCCA road racing, drag racing, and Bonneville salt flats/dry lakes running myself. In my own life I send a lot of time 4WD in the southwestern USA desert. Don't really care much about roundy-round NASCAR myself.

jb

NASCAR Cup series started going downhill around 1996/97 when they pulled both of the races at historic short track North Wilkesboro. Replaced with cookie cutter boring tracks in Texas and California. Then NASCAR dropped the races at Rockingham and they added a bunch more cookie cutter tracks in Vegas, Kansas, and Chicagoland. They alienated their original fan base, and their history.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. seems to be the curator of NASCAR history, trying to bring back the Nashville Fairgrounds short track and bringing back Wilkesboro in iRacing. I admire the work he’s done, but it’s an uphill battle.

Charlotte added a road course which is pretty cool. I never thought I’d see a road course in North Carolina.

The schedule used to be really well balanced and interesting, but unfortunately track barons bought up all the historic tracks and replaced their dates with boring tracks with no personality. It’s a shame.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2020-05-17 01:06 by TravelinMan.

Oh, and Darlington is an old school great track and will provide a thrilling spectacle.

Hope them cowboys all wear
masks and practice safe distancing ...........



ROCKMAN

I was a fan for awhile but they've messed it up with the dash & running races in stages. I smell business school graduates. All theory, not practical knowledge.

Inbreeding is coming back?

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TravelinMan
NASCAR Cup series started going downhill around 1996/97 when they pulled both of the races at historic short track North Wilkesboro. Replaced with cookie cutter boring tracks in Texas and California. Then NASCAR dropped the races at Rockingham and they added a bunch more cookie cutter tracks in Vegas, Kansas, and Chicagoland. They alienated their original fan base, and their history.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. seems to be the curator of NASCAR history, trying to bring back the Nashville Fairgrounds short track and bringing back Wilkesboro in iRacing. I admire the work he’s done, but it’s an uphill battle.

Charlotte added a road course which is pretty cool. I never thought I’d see a road course in North Carolina.

The schedule used to be really well balanced and interesting, but unfortunately track barons bought up all the historic tracks and replaced their dates with boring tracks with no personality. It’s a shame.

All true. They left their core audience. Don't forget the impact Dale Sr.'s death had. Never been the same.

All that said, I'll be watching - although my interest had been steadily going downhill. Thankful for any live sports.

"No Anchovies, Please"

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Elmo Lewis

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TravelinMan
NASCAR Cup series started going downhill around 1996/97 when they pulled both of the races at historic short track North Wilkesboro. Replaced with cookie cutter boring tracks in Texas and California. Then NASCAR dropped the races at Rockingham and they added a bunch more cookie cutter tracks in Vegas, Kansas, and Chicagoland. They alienated their original fan base, and their history.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. seems to be the curator of NASCAR history, trying to bring back the Nashville Fairgrounds short track and bringing back Wilkesboro in iRacing. I admire the work he’s done, but it’s an uphill battle.

Charlotte added a road course which is pretty cool. I never thought I’d see a road course in North Carolina.

The schedule used to be really well balanced and interesting, but unfortunately track barons bought up all the historic tracks and replaced their dates with boring tracks with no personality. It’s a shame.

All true. They left their core audience. Don't forget the impact Dale Sr.'s death had. Never been the same.

All that said, I'll be watching - although my interest had been steadily going downhill. Thankful for any live sports.

Absolutely, I don’t think there has been an equivalent to Earnhardt’s death in any major sport.

I was huge into NASCAR as a kid growing up, but then in the early 2000’s it was evident they had changed for the worse. Allowing owners like Roush to run monopolies with like 5 teams really choked out the little guy. Then it got even worse. I stopped watching for years and just came back into paying attention a bit the last few years because of my father in law.

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Cooltoplady
Inbreeding is coming back?

What an ignorant comment. I know what you’re going for, but it’s totally off base and one of the reasons the sport isn’t as great as it once was. All the drivers now grew up with silver spoons playing computer games with daddy’s money.

Also, maybe you should stop listening to the Stones because they appreciate and imitate southern music.

I grew up a fan of "The King", Richard Petty.

Rarely watch it now, but follow F1 regularly... fan of the team from Maranello, Ferrari.

Where do folks think Vettel will end up in 2021?

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TravelinMan

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Elmo Lewis

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TravelinMan
NASCAR Cup series started going downhill around 1996/97 when they pulled both of the races at historic short track North Wilkesboro. Replaced with cookie cutter boring tracks in Texas and California. Then NASCAR dropped the races at Rockingham and they added a bunch more cookie cutter tracks in Vegas, Kansas, and Chicagoland. They alienated their original fan base, and their history.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. seems to be the curator of NASCAR history, trying to bring back the Nashville Fairgrounds short track and bringing back Wilkesboro in iRacing. I admire the work he’s done, but it’s an uphill battle.

Charlotte added a road course which is pretty cool. I never thought I’d see a road course in North Carolina.

The schedule used to be really well balanced and interesting, but unfortunately track barons bought up all the historic tracks and replaced their dates with boring tracks with no personality. It’s a shame.

All true. They left their core audience. Don't forget the impact Dale Sr.'s death had. Never been the same.

All that said, I'll be watching - although my interest had been steadily going downhill. Thankful for any live sports.

Absolutely, I don’t think there has been an equivalent to Earnhardt’s death in any major sport.

I was huge into NASCAR as a kid growing up, but then in the early 2000’s it was evident they had changed for the worse. Allowing owners like Roush to run monopolies with like 5 teams really choked out the little guy. Then it got even worse. I stopped watching for years and just came back into paying attention a bit the last few years because of my father in law.

I would say when Ayrton Senna was killed, that had a bigger worldwide impact than when Earnhardt passed away. Brazil held 3 days of national mourning. I didn't follow NASCAR at the time but I knew who Earnhardt was. I was actually a bit surprised when I saw highlights of the actual crash. NASCAR is famous for huge crashes and then the driver just getting out of the car. When I saw Ryan Newman crash at the end of the Daytona 500, I thought for sure he wouldn't survive. Even as they went off the air, the announcers voices were breaking up so I thought they knew he didn't make it. Now here he is starting 5th tomorrow!
I know what you mean about one team running many drivers. It's basically down to Henrick, Gibbs, Ganassi, Penske and Roush.

Joey Logano has won 2 of the first 4 races so for before the quarantine shut down.
I will be curious to see if he has lost the momentum he had early on.
I've always liked Martin Truex Jr who has sucked early on, hoping for him to gain some new momentum tomorrow.
I'm hearing some talk about the major sports teams in the USA giving it up to 5 positive cases of covid before shutting it down again.

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TravelinMan

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Cooltoplady
Inbreeding is coming back?

What an ignorant comment. I know what you’re going for, but it’s totally off base and one of the reasons the sport isn’t as great as it once was. All the drivers now grew up with silver spoons playing computer games with daddy’s money.

Also, maybe you should stop listening to the Stones because they appreciate and imitate southern music.

I have the agree with her. I never met a nascar fan with other more then half their teeth.

doesn't apply this weekend but the above reminds me of old joke: what has 200000 legs & no teeth? a NASCAR crowd!

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TravelinMan

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Cooltoplady
Inbreeding is coming back?

What an ignorant comment. I know what you’re going for, but it’s totally off base and one of the reasons the sport isn’t as great as it once was. All the drivers now grew up with silver spoons playing computer games with daddy’s money.

Also, maybe you should stop listening to the Stones because they appreciate and imitate southern music.

This has nothing to do with musical heritage. Ignorant comment This has to do with morality and intelligence. Some parts of the south are still stuck in the 1930’s. Why do I have have to live in a country where the swastika waves. There were some many fans at Daytona giving Trump the nazi solute Have a good day



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2020-05-17 07:09 by Cooltoplady.

You might even see those people at a, well, Rolling Stones show.

Just sayin.

jb

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DGA35
NASCAR returns tomorrow with a race at Darlington Raceway in South Carolina. They will race at an empty racetrack with no spectators allowed. Even said that most car owners won't be there since most are over 65 and considered at risk for covid.
I got into watching NASCAR probably around 2007ish after the debacle of what happened in open wheel racing between Champ Car and IRL series basically splitting the open wheel fan base in two. Now only IRL exists and very few people care. I remember when Vancouver hosted the Indy Vancouver in the late 80s and drew huge crowds over the whole weekend.
When I first started watching NASCAR, the stands were always full but in recent years, I've noticed lots of empty seats and even full sections that weren't even used anymore.
Do many non North American IORR race fans here watch NASCAR or lean towards F1?

F1 fan here. Got interested in Indy when Mansell went over and his races were well covered in the UK. Now we really couldn't follow it (in UK) even if we wanted to. However were Lewis Hamilton to cross over and it came back on our screens I would be very keen. One of the most exciting race battles I ever recall was Emerson Fittipaldi v Nigel Mansell. I forget which race but had me edge of my seat. And it was a clean fight and not even for the lead. But bloody brilliant.

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More Hot Rocks

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TravelinMan

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Cooltoplady
Inbreeding is coming back?

What an ignorant comment. I know what you’re going for, but it’s totally off base and one of the reasons the sport isn’t as great as it once was. All the drivers now grew up with silver spoons playing computer games with daddy’s money.

Also, maybe you should stop listening to the Stones because they appreciate and imitate southern music.

I have the agree with her. I never met a nascar fan with other more then half their teeth.

Says the person with improper grammar!

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Cooltoplady

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TravelinMan

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Cooltoplady
Inbreeding is coming back?

What an ignorant comment. I know what you’re going for, but it’s totally off base and one of the reasons the sport isn’t as great as it once was. All the drivers now grew up with silver spoons playing computer games with daddy’s money.

Also, maybe you should stop listening to the Stones because they appreciate and imitate southern music.

This has nothing to do with musical heritage. Ignorant comment This has to do with morality and intelligence. Some parts of the south are still stuck in the 1930’s. Why do I have have to live in a country where the swastika waves. There were some many fans at Daytona giving Trump the nazi solute Have a good day

Got it, so you are stereotyping just like the bad people and making highly derogatory comments. Now you’re saying people from the south have low morality and intelligence too. Wow, keep ‘em coming!

Competition in nascar today is better then ever since 1996 they have only lost 1 short track north wilkesboro which was old and run down and then rockingham went away because crowds there were far less then other tracks and for the record no track is identical so stop using the stupid term cookie Cutter it dosen't apply to anything in nascar.

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Rickster
Competition in nascar today is better then ever since 1996 they have only lost 1 short track north wilkesboro which was old and run down and then rockingham went away because crowds there were far less then other tracks and for the record no track is identical so stop using the stupid term cookie Cutter it dosen't apply to anything in nascar.

California 2 mile oval
Chicagoland 1.5 mile tri-oval
Kansas 1.5 mile tri-oval
Kentucky 1.5 mile tri-oval
Las Vegas 1.5 mile tri-oval
Texas 1.5 mile quad-oval

Hell, even Atlanta was reformed into a 1.5 quad-oval.

What’s another word I can use for “cookie cutter”?

Actually in cali they use Sears Point/Infineon/Sonoma Raceway (whatever it is called today) road course for at least one race a year. This requires completely different set up cars from those used in the traditional ovals, they have to turn right as well as left as on oval tracks. So there is some variation in the tracks used nationwide for all NASCAR races and the cars used for the races.

But the variations are few and far between. Most races are on banked oval tracks.

jb

No spectators made virtually no difference in the race. It was a good race although I think NASCAR is being a tad ambitious with the number of races in the next few weeks. That could be more dangerous for the drivers than the virus.

I followed NASCAR the few years Danica Patrick raced, hoping she's win at least one. Never happened. Now it's just a bunch of cookie cutter, bland, almost all white guys.

I grew up in Indianapolis, and had close ties to the track and race. It's lost its way with this strange mixture of road races and oval. To me Indy Racing (IRL) should be totally oval. America just doesn't care that much about road races.

Different degrees of banking at almost all those tracks and other characteristics to the tracks if you paid close attention to the sport and quit listening to mainstream news media you would know that.

They use to race 2 to 3 times a week in 60s and 70s and were fine with technology these days it should be easier they will be fine they have been talking about doing mid week races for years now they have to and I think it will be a very good thing.

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Rickster
Different degrees of banking at almost all those tracks and other characteristics to the tracks if you paid close attention to the sport and quit listening to mainstream news media you would know that.

I didn’t listen to the main stream media, I looked it up because they look exactly the same on TV being that they’re all 1.5 miles and tri-ovals. They could eliminate Chicagoland, Kentucky, and Kansas and nobody would notice. At least Iowa is a bit different, but that’s in the other division.

Your previous argument about attendance not being full capacity doesn’t matter anymore. The last race at Texas looked like it had less people than the last race at Rockingham (over 50,000)...and Texas has like three times the capacity. The funny thing is, Rockingham and Wilkesboro would have kept their attendance figures consistent.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2020-05-18 16:13 by TravelinMan.

Spoiler alert* As long as they tweak having the points leader pick the pit stall first, Harvick is going to continue to win unless he has a DNF and losses the points lead, then Joey or Denny or who ever takes over the point lead will go on a winning streak with the #1 pit stall and lane selection on restarts. Lane selection is huge.

Strange sports, Nascar. Looks like a human roulette. You go round and round and sooner or later you're bound to end up in the pocket (fence). It's just a matter of time.