Matito29
10-10-2006, 07:15 PM
I really liked this. This was written by my friend Ricky, who occasionally posts here under RCBJan1090. He gave me permission to post this.
My Take On Nascar, by RCBJan1090
I'm not doing this because I care about what you think or because I'm trying to sell you a bunch of ideas, but because I just want to make sure you have some sort of idea of what some of you mock and criticize, the second greatest and fastest growing sport in the United States, better known as NASCAR.
"Redneck, hillbilly, pointless, boring, unsofisticated, and stupid" are words I commonly hear used to describe NASCAR. Most of the people that say those words have no idea what they're talking about, you don't grasp the concept. You don't understand it.
"Yes I do, it's a bunch of rednecks driving around and around for 500 miles." Well, when you say this, it tells me right a way you don't understand it.
You can put any sport in this simplistic and pointless perspective. "Oh football, how stupid! Just a bunch of big, strong men moving a ball from one end of the field to another for ever and ever until the game ends. And then, after they score, they kick a ball between two poles, what the heck does that accomplish." Or "baseball, how dumb, you just hit a ball and run in circles." Football is more than moving a ball from one end of a field to another and baseball is more than hitting a ball and running in circles. And yes, NASCAR is more than driving in circles.
NASCAR is a multi-BILLION dollar operation. Nearly every week from February to November, teams across all three major series transport two, one million dollar, 800 horspower works of engineering genius to tracks all over the United States at which they reach speeds of up to 200 mph inches a part, lap after lap dealing with tuning and pit strategy.
To put it in perspective for you, some drivers make more money per lap than most of you make in a week, whether you work at McDonald's flipping burgers or American Eagle selling jeans with holes in them.
Now, about the redneck thing, there are absolutley rednecks that love NASCAR, however, the stereotype needs to stop. People from all walks of life enjoy watching NASCAR who don't regularly have sex with their cousins or their goat. NASCAR rightly deserved this stereotype 25, even 15 years ago, but in recent years, it has become more sophisticated than even football. There are more drunken morons at football games than there are at NASCAR races. That's ecspecially considering that some NASCAR tracks house up to 250,000 fans in the stands and in the infield.
The sport must not be that stupid and pointless if its the second biggest sport in the country besides NFL football. Heck, it's even more popular than the aged sport of baseball.
But all I can say is you need to stop bashing a sport that you don't understand, once you go to a race in person, and see it in person, with your own eyes, then you can come back and bash it, but I guarantee you won't. You can still not like it and find that it doesn't interest you, but you will never look down on it again, I guarantee it.
To be in the stands for "The Great Amercian Race", the Daytona 500, is an experience you will not forget for as long as you live. As if you need more convincing than all the activities taking place around the track itself, when there is a Special Ops soldier gliding from above via parachute, toting the American flag as the National Anthem is performed shortly followed by 4 F-16 Fighting Falcons roaring across the sky, you are reminded of your freedom and how great it is to be an American. When they give the command to start engines and 43 cars equivalent to more than 30,000 horsepower erupt on pitroad and the smell of octane drifts slowly into the stands, and when they get underway and blow by you for the first time, 3 abreast at over 190mph, 150,000 people are on their feet...you see the cars before you hear them, the whole stands are shaking, you hear them all the way around the 2.5 mile superspeedway even though they look like dots all the way on the back straightaway...you realize how great NASCAR really is.
And to leave you with something to think about...when was the last time you prayed before a NFL Football game or a baseball game?
My Take On Nascar, by RCBJan1090
I'm not doing this because I care about what you think or because I'm trying to sell you a bunch of ideas, but because I just want to make sure you have some sort of idea of what some of you mock and criticize, the second greatest and fastest growing sport in the United States, better known as NASCAR.
"Redneck, hillbilly, pointless, boring, unsofisticated, and stupid" are words I commonly hear used to describe NASCAR. Most of the people that say those words have no idea what they're talking about, you don't grasp the concept. You don't understand it.
"Yes I do, it's a bunch of rednecks driving around and around for 500 miles." Well, when you say this, it tells me right a way you don't understand it.
You can put any sport in this simplistic and pointless perspective. "Oh football, how stupid! Just a bunch of big, strong men moving a ball from one end of the field to another for ever and ever until the game ends. And then, after they score, they kick a ball between two poles, what the heck does that accomplish." Or "baseball, how dumb, you just hit a ball and run in circles." Football is more than moving a ball from one end of a field to another and baseball is more than hitting a ball and running in circles. And yes, NASCAR is more than driving in circles.
NASCAR is a multi-BILLION dollar operation. Nearly every week from February to November, teams across all three major series transport two, one million dollar, 800 horspower works of engineering genius to tracks all over the United States at which they reach speeds of up to 200 mph inches a part, lap after lap dealing with tuning and pit strategy.
To put it in perspective for you, some drivers make more money per lap than most of you make in a week, whether you work at McDonald's flipping burgers or American Eagle selling jeans with holes in them.
Now, about the redneck thing, there are absolutley rednecks that love NASCAR, however, the stereotype needs to stop. People from all walks of life enjoy watching NASCAR who don't regularly have sex with their cousins or their goat. NASCAR rightly deserved this stereotype 25, even 15 years ago, but in recent years, it has become more sophisticated than even football. There are more drunken morons at football games than there are at NASCAR races. That's ecspecially considering that some NASCAR tracks house up to 250,000 fans in the stands and in the infield.
The sport must not be that stupid and pointless if its the second biggest sport in the country besides NFL football. Heck, it's even more popular than the aged sport of baseball.
But all I can say is you need to stop bashing a sport that you don't understand, once you go to a race in person, and see it in person, with your own eyes, then you can come back and bash it, but I guarantee you won't. You can still not like it and find that it doesn't interest you, but you will never look down on it again, I guarantee it.
To be in the stands for "The Great Amercian Race", the Daytona 500, is an experience you will not forget for as long as you live. As if you need more convincing than all the activities taking place around the track itself, when there is a Special Ops soldier gliding from above via parachute, toting the American flag as the National Anthem is performed shortly followed by 4 F-16 Fighting Falcons roaring across the sky, you are reminded of your freedom and how great it is to be an American. When they give the command to start engines and 43 cars equivalent to more than 30,000 horsepower erupt on pitroad and the smell of octane drifts slowly into the stands, and when they get underway and blow by you for the first time, 3 abreast at over 190mph, 150,000 people are on their feet...you see the cars before you hear them, the whole stands are shaking, you hear them all the way around the 2.5 mile superspeedway even though they look like dots all the way on the back straightaway...you realize how great NASCAR really is.
And to leave you with something to think about...when was the last time you prayed before a NFL Football game or a baseball game?