Off Topic- Daytona 500

Steve A W

Member
I quit watching Nascar when Mark Martin retired.
He was the last of the drivers I liked to watch.
I've heard that it has been dropping in popularity
the last few years.
Coming home from dinner tonight I heard a news report
about the "Big One" at Daytona today.
Didn't even know it was running today. No add's
or any commercials.
I guess it is dying.
I googled the news about today's race to see about the
twenty one car pile up.
What a spark show !!
They must be putting magnesium spark strips under the
cars or something. Watch the sparks, their sparking like
sparklers. I guess their trying anything to get people
to watch.
Sure do miss the good old days of Nascar!!

Steve A W
 
I think you're right, the only way to watch it is be interested in a particular team or driver. But it was a spectacular spark show.
 
Haven't seen NASCAR in years and don't miss it
It was taken from broadcast TV
they stripped any and all internet viewing and interest to charged by fee only.

I really don't miss it.

There's plenty of motorsports on youtube
I noticed more DAKKAR this year
 
I still watch. It's something to do on a Sunday afternoon. It's kind-a strange about their commercials. The only time you see a Nascar commercial is during a Nascar event. Never could figure that out,
 
I was a dedicated NASCAR fan back 30 years ago, was a Cale Yarborough fan before I was a Bill Elliott fan, but got tired of the changes they made to the cars every race. Started watching Formula 1 racing and stopped watching Nascar except for the Daytona race.
One 2 car team, like Ferrari spends as much money running 19 or 20 races all around the world as all the NASCAR teams that TRY to qualify for the Daytona race COMBINED. FERRARI even rents their own air cargo plane, 747 might be big enough, to move from race to race. Better racing in my opinion, no stages, fastest car gets the pole, race fast as you can run for roughly 1-1/2 hours, winner gets the biggest trophy.

I try to watch the Dakar race too, talk about NO publicity! I missed the whole first week this year. Frustrated with the coverage, only 1/2 hour per day, mostly about motorcycles and cars. The time wasted on 4-wheeler ATV's and UTV's bored me. SHOW ME THE BIG TRUCKS! Seemed like this year was all sand dunes running, we needed more variety, mud, rocks, etc. I feel sorry for Brabec, kid from California, was close to winning but his Honda died on day 8 or 9 of 10. I BET he rides a KTM next year!
 
Didn't even know the race was Sunday. Nascar is a joke now, who wants to watch 30 of the same car drive around a track?
 
I agree, I wish Dakar had better coverage. Almost impossible to find any. I've been a Robby Gordon fan for years. Was disappointed to see he drove a silly little side by side this year. And it was all in one country in sand.
 
I don't bother with watching any sports of any kind. Never could stand racing so much like watching paint dry. Turn left go slow.
 
If it's a motorsport that goes in a straight line or is supposed to, I'm interested. If it goes round and round I get dizzy. I will tune in Indy cars on occasion. The way people talk about NASCAR these days makes me wonder if it will go completely away someday.
 
I dont like all the rule changes that seem to happen every race, And I dont understand having 3 stages in a race, why not have a race to the end, But when a driver misses 11 races and still wins the championship, That was to much
 
I enjoyed every minute of the 500. It?s not dying, the race was sold out. I saw plenty of commercials ahead of race day to remind me but I write it down on my calendar just because. Yeah I had my old favorite drivers back in the day, Harry Gant ?The Skoal Bandit? and others but their gone. So now I have my new favorites and the season is on.
 
Formula 1. Now talk about a waste of time. Win the pole, win the race, unless you make a mistake. Spend an hour and a half listening to the announcers tell you how they almost had a pass. Absolutely riveting. Not that NASCAR is much better. I find myself like a lot of the members on this site, the older I get, The less I like any sports.
 
Absolutely no interest in NASCAR.

In the 50s and early/mid 60s when you could run what you brung, it was very interesting.

Not interested in slot cars.

Dean
 
Ya mean where half the field was playing bumper cars with sparkle sparklers and smoke bombs? I just happen to be flipping channels as it happened. It almost looked like a pack of fighting wild dogs over the kill. Just love the ending. A two lap race?
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(quoted from post at 09:20:21 02/18/19) Formula 1. Now talk about a waste of time. Win the pole, win the race, unless you make a mistake. Spend an hour and a half listening to the announcers tell you how they almost had a pass. Absolutely riveting. Not that NASCAR is much better. I find myself like a lot of the members on this site, the older I get, The less I like any sports.

Couldn't agree more on your comment about F1

Would be different to be there watching it in person but I cannot stand the painfully dry monotone announcers they have for the TV coverage.

Three cars appear to have hit the wall and are tumbling through the air.....

All spoken sounding like they are bored to death and are holding their nostrils shut with their fingers.

Mid sentence coverage interrupted and cameras switched over to;

But wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Look at this absolutely marvelous spectacular attempt ward off a pass by the 14th place driver.....

Usually then interrupted by a commercial break to remind everyone when the next episode of Coronation Street will be on.
 
I watched it, cannot say why, but thanks for the idea, to select one car and watch that one, see how it does. Would make it interesting. But the big question, to me, is why was not 18 guys killed in massive fire ball? Why no fire ball? Whatever technology prevented that, was a success.
 
In 1963 when I was stationed at MCAS Beaufort, SC, I'd go to a half mile dirt track in Savannah, GA every Friday evening for stock car races.

At that time, Cale was one of the local brats driving a Sportsman car. Back then, Leroy Yarbrough was racing there, Tiny Lund would show up, etc. Those were the days.
 
quit watching NA*CAR along time ago... notice there is no S?

that's because there is NOTHING STOCK!!! ==> i couldn't care less. the created the IROC series with all the same cars to give everyone an even edge. didn't need to make the regular NA*CAR series into IROC like they did.

prefer sprints on dirt anyway... or the rare "pure stock" races if you can find one somewhere.
 
That race yesterday reminded me of when we were racing our late model modified car. At one track we ran a split show with hobby stock cars.

In one of the hobby stock races, they called the race several laps from the end because there were only two cars still running and one of them had lapped the other.

Someone once asked me why I hadn't become involved with demolition derbys. I told them I'd been in too many stock car races that resembled a demolition derby.
 
I miss the good old days.

When areodynamics kicked in big time to make the cars stick to the track in the 70s perhaps, into the 80s, the big high banks super speedways became a problem. The faster you go the more you stick to the track on them. So you just keep your foo down and you go faster and faster. But there has to be -some- bit of safety and control. On a normal track it is the corners that you have to slow down.

The high banked 2+ mile tracks, you don?t.

So, restrictor plates and other stuff has to be used to create what ends up being a boring single file follow the leader or group up in a pack race. If you pull out by yourself you don?t have enough power to do,anything but fall backwards. If a group of you pull out to pass it requires such close quarters to keep the speed up that someone gets in trouble and wipes,everyone out.

The nature of the beast.

There is no good way to fix it.

They would need to go back to racing stock cars with stock sheet metal so the cars don?t suck down onto the track; but they still would go too fast to be safe and need modifications and end up getting different sheet metal and..

It just would t work out.

The big tracks are now an event, not a race.

Paul
 
Most drivers on the roads these days think they are NASCAR drivers. Pile ups like that are common on the interstates. Local news has plenty of them on film.
 
Magnesium sparks are WHITE. Those sparks are yellow/orange, clearly made by steel being rubbed against asphalt at ~200MPH.

It's like none of ya have ever used a bench grinder before...
 
Sometimes when the cars go by they look so small -- like little sports cars. Outlaws ran Volusia County Speedway all week as well.
 
Dr sportster, Billy Decker won at Volusia. My brother was on his pit crew years ago. He is from Franklin N. Y. and has raced for many years. My brother and his son went to the Volusia and Daytona races.
 
Closest dirt track to me is in Hagerstown, Md. I’m by no means a regular, but the few times I’ve gone over the years I’ve really enjoyed the races. Local boys battling it out with their home-town sponsors throwing in a few bucks to help them along. Occasionally a lone-wolf with an underpowered jalopy that promptly blows up after three laps. I enjoy the drama of it and the local flavor. I’ve tried to look at Nascar on tv, can’t get into it. It’s like a glossy, over-produced movie with no story but a lot of pretty actors to look at. Maybe if I knew more about the drivers and what goes into a race I’d be more interested, but I doubt it.
 
Totally agree with that. Jr wasn't the driver his dad was but i pulled for him hoping he would man up. I think after that bad crash he had it
knocked the wind out of his sail and he just wouldn't step up after that. Which im not angry about it and kinda understand. He made his money
and got out while he was alive so good for him. I live close to them. The step mother bought pops house on lake Norman in Denver NC and
bought the one beside it for her daughter. Shes out of racing she has a air charter business now she has 5 50 passenger jets. I know one of
the pilots that fly's for her.
 
I took that 33 car down off the poll at his shop . My boss bought that building back in the day. I think it was sometime in the 90s .
 

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