NASCAR. Just...why?

Growing up in a Nascar loved family... and knowing two of the biggest names from my hometown...

Yeah, I barely get it. Driving around in a circle, in cars purely built for advertising, left turn, left turn, left turn...

I watch F1 and some rally/rallycross, but I just don't see the appeal of Nascar.


Maybe it's more of the collective, as in the people around you, that grabs people. Then again, there's nothing to really talk about...

I had a Dale Earnhardt Jr. fan explain the appeal to me. The intricasies and stategies do have an appeal and I did find myself intrigued. For one race. After that, my mind just reverted to the 'they're just going in circles' mentality.
As for calling it a sport, the only way I can see is because of the endurance it takes drive a vehicle at high speeds for hours. That's a bit of a stretch, admittedly, but an argument could be made.

Opty said:

I wasn't asking for "justification."

I was asking for an explanation or list of reasons why people like NASCAR (evidenced by the fact that I asked specific questions). The hope was that a fan could tell me what he/she finds appealing about it.

Click to expand...

My dad was a NASCAR fan, and I think it's mainly because he liked fast cars when he was young, and auto racing was his sports love. He actually was part owner of a drag racing car at one point. I casually pay attention to it because of him.

However, baseball is my real sport love, and i got that my great grandmother and great-great aunt.

Not going to try to explain the appeal of Nascar. You like it or don't.

I don't get the appeal of golf, especially watching it on TV. Its like watching grass grow...

I'm a fan of the pit crew performances. It's a dance, an evolution. It's Stomp done in 11 second routines in an environment where more things can seriously hurt or kill you than can't.

The strategy that is involved, especially in the last laps, is interesting.

The racing itself? Who doesn't like to drive fast?

I've never found any appeal in NASCAR, but everyone has their thing. I think it deserves to be called a "sport" just as much as poker does (which is to say, not at all), but again, this is just my opinion. I can understand why people like it, even if I would never watch it myself. I'm sure there are plenty of things that I really like that others would scoff at. Like I said, we all have our things my friend.

Nascar is driving in circles like tennis is bouncing a ball back and forth or basketball is throwing a ball in a hoop. I get bored by all three - which means exactly diddly-squat.

I've never been interested in car racing, but it's similar enough to horse racing that I can see the appeal. I don't like live horse races, but I'll watch the big ones on TV.
Televised, you have a better view of events, the interesting bits are explained to you, they tell you the history of the horses, as well as the people involved. It's an event, and you eat or drink whatever you want.
Live, the horses are at a distance, you have to study up to know what's going on, half the track is too far to see clearly, and it's over in a couple of minutes. On the other hand, you can bet, and have that 'part of a group' feeling.
Spectator sports are more interesting when you 'get' what's going on.
When you know something about the participants, the equipment, when you understand a bit about the strategies, and previous events.
When you bore down into the event, and understand that whether it's been raining on the track or not is a big factor, that the horses leading the other horse to the gates are not their understudies. That how a horse loads into the gate might be an indicator of how smoothly the horse will start the race. That a horse that starts fast, might not finish first. That if you watch carefully, you can see a horse, that might have been slower out of the gate, gradually nose his way through the pack to a lead position.
That comes from watching a lot of races, paying attention, and finding answers to any questions that come up.
I imagine NASCAR is much the same, which suggests that NASCAR fans either started with an interest in cars and automotive stuff, or came from a family of fans, and so grew up knowing a lot of the basics.

Also how do people like present-day country music? Like, I love Johnny Cash, etc (though I don't really consider him country. He always seemed way more rock n roll to me) but Thr country music today is so banal and talentless. The music is so simplistic and unimaginative. It's just awful. Awful.

shadowwalker said:

Nascar is driving in circles like tennis is bouncing a ball back and forth or basketball is throwing a ball in a hoop. I get bored by all three - which means exactly diddly-squat.

Click to expand...

That's not really a good analogy.

Opty said:

Seriously, I just don't get why people like NASCAR.

Click to expand...

I don't get why people like any of the popular sports, lol. At best, they're boring and pointless. At worst, they create a rabid team mentality which brings out the very worst in human nature. From soccer riots to the abuse at Penn State, the craziness over sport is downright disturbing.

And Ed Panther, don't get me started on how intolerably horrible country music (and pop music) are.

Ed Panther said:

That's not really a good analogy.

Click to expand...

Sure it is. Over-simplification reducing a complex series of actions and strategies into seemingly boring repetition.

I had a neighbor who's entire apartment was like a shrine to Jeff Gordon, and I still don't get it. I even tried to watch a race or two with my FIL. It's like watching a 6 hour long commercial. I do agree that the pit crews are amazing to watch. I'd like to see that developed into it's own event. (I'm sure it has somewhere.)

I once heard about a little girl who asked her dad how the drivers can go so long without stopping to pee. The dad said they don't have time, so they just go in their suits. Now whenever I happen to catch the end of a race - an extreme rarity it seems - I always inspect the winner's circle for any signs of wet spots. I think the explanation is that they're sweating so much that they just don't need to go?

My parents were obsessed with NASCAR in the 90s. We are all from the South and both of them lived for the races. My dad went to as many as he coud in person even and met many of the drivers, even witnessing Dale Earnhardt's fatal crash.

But the appeal has always been lost on me and strikes me as something invented by rednecks with WAY too much time on their hands.

It always made sense to me that Indiana, my home state, was so into NASCAR. Gotta do something with all that flat land.

Opty said:

Seriously, I just don't get why people like NASCAR. I've even grown up in and lived in the South my entire life, and I've never understood why NASCAR has any kind of appeal at all.

It's a bunch of country dudes who drive around a track.

Click to expand...

You're evoking a dead stereotype for today's NASCAR. The era of the rural Southern good ol' boys has a fork stuck in it. The top guys now come from all over the place:

Tony Stewart -- Indiana
Jimmie Johnson -- California
Jeff Gordon -- California
Ryan Newman -- Indiana
Carl Edwards -- Missouri
Danica Patrick -- Illinois
Clint Bowyer -- Kansas
Kyle and Kurt Busch -- Nevada
Juan Pablo Montoya -- Colombia
Brad Keselowski (this years Nextel Cup winner) -- Michigan
Greg Biffle -- Washington
Kevin Hamlin -- Washingon
Joey Logano -- Connecticut

There's still a supply from Texas, Arkansas, Virginia, etc. But back in the 1970s-1980s, and probably before then, the state of North Carolina could claim about 90% of NASCAR drivers. Now, Dale Jr. is about the only major one left. And he won a race last year for the first time in several years.

(And I'm not a terribly big fan of NASCAR.)

caw

I imagine the appeal is different for someone like me who grew up with a father who worked on cars for a living and later raced his own cars at a local track for fun. When you understand a bit about the cars and what things like camber and aero push mean, it's much more interesting.

It's also a sport that allows more access to its athletes than most other sports, which adds to the appeal for some people. In some ways, it's easier to find someone to root for because the drivers are out there so much. You choose a driver because of their personalities or their abilities, or occasionally their teams or sponsors. In some ways I prefer it to other sports. Sure, you can like a certain team because of where you live or whatever, but free agency, etc. have made teams rotating doors for players. Fantasy sports have had interesting effects on how people follow sports as well.

You might note that I called the drivers athletes, and I stand by that. I know fitness isn't necessarily a requirement for a driver, but neither is it a requirement for baseball, football, or certainly golf. The g forces a driver endures combined with the reactions and coordination needed to drive a car at up to 200 mph through banked corners while inches from another car for hours at a time qualifies them as athletes in my mind.

That said, the glut of mile and 1.5-mile cookie cutter tracks have taken some of the fun out of the sport over the past few years.

Take this all with a grain of salt though, as I love many sports and am a bit of a fanatic.

(Btw, Kasey Kahne's also from Washington.)

Chasing the Horizon said:

I don't get why people like any of the popular sports, lol. At best, they're boring and pointless. At worst, they create a rabid team mentality which brings out the very worst in human nature. From soccer riots to the abuse at Penn State, the craziness over sport is downright disturbing.

And Ed Panther, don't get me started on how intolerably horrible country music (and pop music) are.

Click to expand...

I'm right there with you on the country music, I cringe when I hear ANY country song. But I don't think it's fair to say popular sports bring out the worst in people. There are those who take it too seriously, like those Dodger's fans who dragged the guy from his car and beat him, but let's be honest, those scum bags would have done that ANYWHERE, and for ANY other reason. Sports, in my opinion, do more good for people than harm.

Ed Panther said:

Also how do people like present-day country music? Like, I love Johnny Cash, etc (though I don't really consider him country. He always seemed way more rock n roll to me) but Thr country music today is so banal and talentless. The music is so simplistic and unimaginative. It's just awful. Awful.

Click to expand...

And why is the correlation between NASCAR fans and country music fans so strong?

Answer that and you'll be on to something.

Live horse racing.....As opposed to what.....Dead horse racing. Maybe they could be teamed up for more HP.

Think about it....One dead horse = 1DHP. But 4 dead horses = 4DHP!

But even that makes more sense than car racing. The Talladega Race Track in Alabama (that's a clue) used to have daredevils perform before the race. They were getting sausage heads to perform whatever Evil Kinevle record was plus another million cars or whatever. There was no chance in hell of the stunt being successful.

But no one cared. It brought in more fans to see an idiot turn himself into a skid mark on the track. And they did this 2 years in a row until some Einstein told them it was "not a good long term business idea."

Maybe I missed something. They always race counter-clock wise.....Na...Their friggin idiot. Not the racers, the fans. I would like to see a camera on the fans at a wrasslin match, to hell with the goons in the ring. Show me the screaming morons that pay money to see that crap.

But being a heterosexual male and completely objective, there is something captivating when 2 women with big tits and scantly clothed are going at it in the ring. I wonder if they circle each other in a counter-clock movement before locking up.

Really?

You don't know?

There was an article in Scientific American just last month on this topic. The Frequency Effect on the Highly Evolved Almosticus Homo Sapian.

The Super Humans in Return to the Planet of the Apes were able to use visual control to scare the sheit outa apes and keep them away. And that was a good thing. But the apes brain had not evolved enough for the Super Humans to use their mental telepathy to control them. And that was a bad thing.

Now with this new species, Almosticus, they can be reached by certain frequencies. Quite interesting. That frequency can be altered only slightly and the change in its effect is amazing to see. Some frequencies will have Almosticus sitting quietly, calmly and sometimes even crying. But change that frequency ever so slightly and its as if Almosticus takes a step or two back down that evolutionary ladder.

Love that SI magazine. There's power in knowledge.

Michael "O" said:

...Maybe I missed something. They always race counter-clock wise.....Na...Their friggin idiot. Not the racers, the fans. I would like to see a camera on the fans at a wrasslin match, to hell with the goons in the ring. Show me the screaming morons that pay money to see that crap.

But being a heterosexual male and completely objective, there is something captivating when 2 women with big tits and scantly clothed are going at it in the ring. I wonder if they circle each other in a counter-clock movement before locking up.

Click to expand...

Michael, I think you've seriously misjudged your audience here. We value responses that are engaging, but please do not insult the fan base and/or athletes of any particular sport.

Keep that in mind should you decide to post in this room again.