"Gay?" Is that why NASCAR is so "huge" in West Hollywood?
Anyway, you bring up good points. Fan base in NASCAR is so large because the sport has A LOT of personality. Name any driver - Gordon, Petty, Earnhardt, etc, and you'll find distinct personality.
Also, it's a multi-regional sport like baseball, football and basketball. It's not just a southern thing.
As well, it's a huge consumer based operation. NASCAR has more product than Disneyland, Disneyworld and Six Flags combined. That goes back to the plethora of drivers and their personalities. NASCAR is a multi-billion dollar-a-year entity.
NASCAR is also about other peoples' product: like in international cycling, where a cyclist becomes a rolling billboard, the cars in NASCAR are much the same.
The level of technology only on the outset looks crude. No, there's some serious tech stuff in those cars, but all within strict parameters. I have to hand it to a NASCAR crew for working at such high levels within so little wiggle room as what the sport offers.
And if the elite out there believe NASCAR is of a less level, they (NASCAR) is about as closed a society as one can get. I knew the daughter (and heir) of Hewland Racing Transmissions, who tried many, many times to get NASCAR to allow the Hewland tranny into the fray. After a while, they wouldn't answer her calls. And this is Hewland! What race car from Formula Ford to F1 hasn't had, at one point, a Hewland. In fact, NASCAR to me is more like football; each team has players with positions and a game plan; and more than not, a race is as much won in the pits than on the track.
Skill level of the drivers: don't be mistaken. These guys know how to drive. What's Dale and Dale Jr. doing in the LeMans series if they didn't know how to drive. Gordon has driven Indy cars, and I think had a try out in F1. All of them start off like F1 drivers - in karts, and work their way up.
But I do agree, some races are just tedious. I'd like NASCAR to go on more road circuits. But evidentially, they need a completely different car and chassis for anything but a left turn...