What does this mean? I sure as hell hope guys making millions of $$ can do better than the fans watching a race can. Does the fact that they can do it better than us mean they can't be criticized when they screw up?

I see this comment being made when people talk about Danica. :rolleyes:

I guess what he is saying is that the WWE guys can out wrestle any of us.

I'm not sure they did all that training to be made into a spectacle. A lot of this is in how it's presented. I kinda fell off the wagon when they started hiring bands at the races. Long Beach Grand Prix is one of the worst offenders of track marketing as a party. You don't see a lick of that on the TV coverage, but when you get down there in person, it's a circus with about half the people watching the race. And most of them can't tell you who's in the lead just by looking.

If you strip off all the pomp and circumstance and the acting, even WWE is good. Not my cup of tea, but they are good.

Zeke,

I agree that when you go to races now it more like a county fair than a race. I think this comes from so many corporate sponsors and free tickets being given out by the sponsors. Humpy Wheeler puts on a show even before the race starts. School buses ramp jumping over cars. :rolleyes:

Let's put them all together, NASCAR, WWE and Honey Boo Boo and have a real show!

How about a NASCAR triathlon? Run a 100 laps, get out and have tome tag team wrestling elimination, helmets on, then hang some big ass mud tires on the cars and run 'em through the bog.

I like the way you think Zeke. Can you get a wet t shirt contest for the drivers girlfriends on the schedule.?

I don't think the drivers' wives are gonna go for that idea.

200+ mph, 1 inch in front, 1 inch in back, maybe 6 on both sides, lots of wind buffeting, bumpy track and 4 wide.....yep these guys suck and it's all show.

....exactly.

The armchair quarterbacks who pooh-pooh this are the same ones who won't eat out because their "tummies" feel queasy if someone other than their mother prepares their food.

Hysterical.

Abso*******lutely amazing how small minded people can read something into nothing. Not ONE person responding to this thread, including me, have said ONE negative thing about the drivers. To a man, and I WILL speak for the repliers... we ALL have total and the utmost respect for CRASHCAR drivers.
If either of you two actually read, (can you?), the thread you'd see it's the "show", the governing body people are disgusted with.
The Frances built a wonderful sport only to tear it back down for the sake of making more & more money.

On with the show!!!!

Just because the drivers are highly skilled does not make the event interesting to watch in the absense of a crash.

Do people watch a guy juggling swords to admire the perfect hand placement and how he keeps the blades twirling in unison? Or do they secretly want to see what happens if he slips up?

How can these two topics possibly be related? Are you stoned?

Have you ever eaten some of the food at a race conscession stand???

Some of it is chain restaurants (buffalo wild wings, etc). Walk through the tailgate section....it smells a lot better!

I don't. Do you have any idea how long it takes to sew a finger back on? Royal PITA.

Well, food notwithstanding, there is a correlation between sword juggling and race car driving. The movements are learned through much practice and become automatic. No one can drive a stock car as well as they guys that have been in them since they were old enough to climb in. Most of the time before that, they were in karts or Legends cars.

Today's crop of drivers are not more talented than the greats of yesteryear. They are, however, more prepared. When you do almost a 1000 laps over the course of a weekend running multiple series plus practice, you have a lot of time for getting those "four" turns down pat.

Frankly, even if I was born with the talent, I could never have been that dedicated. As a anonymous racer recently put it, "The fun factor was gone for me 2 hours ago."

When I was racing enduro karts in hour long races at big track, they would show the cross flags at 30 min. I'd look at those and go, "You're kidding. I've been out here for week already." The 15 min to go sign was a big motivator. Then I switched to sit-up enduros of 30 min races. Now those were fun.

If you can believe this, the early karting enduro races of the 60's and ran 2 hours. That is to say, no fueling and no driver change, just 2 hours of running a 3' x 4' wheelbase on 10" tires, 1 inch off the ground with no suspension.

Even at that, I don't envy driving in a 130* cockpit for 3 hours.

I guess I'm an odd ball, because I like it better if a few cars run away with the race. Its lets you really see who is dominant. It creates dynasties. Anything that causes 'false' competition by holding back the best drivers and cars is theater, not racing.

This has been discussed seriously behind NASCAR doors since the restrictor plate was introduced. No one would like a solution more than the drivers and NASCAR itself. This is really a conundrum. Every idea has been explored and many tried. You could list those as long as your arm.

So, until someone figures this out, there's not much to do but complain. You can complain about the weather, but you can't change it by complaining.

Let me take this a bit further: sports car racing has been plagued with domination of one team or factory after another. We all know how Porsche trounced the Cam An series and I can't think of anyone that wouldn't have liked to see that series continue.

While we've seen all the iterations of sports car racing in the US, NASCAR has remained stalwart. And one of the reasons is that they won't let one manufacturer run off with the series. I know Dodge has been fickle over the years but you can't blame NASCAR for that. They've tried to maintain parity and even let Toyota in running an engine they don't even produce commercially.

Sure, the identical cars is a problem, but they are working to give back more manufacturer identity beginning with next year's model. But, don't all Sprits and midgets look alike? How about the popular modified's on the East Coast? They all look the same to me. Just like the Daytona Prototype. Oh, did I forget to include the spec Indy Car?

Individually built cars exist in F1 and the Euro LeMans series. It just died in the US AFA sports cars are concern at the prototype level. And each year there are only 2-3 LP-1s in the hunt in the Euro series. Audi dominates, then Peugeot. They are dying on the vine as we debate this.

So, again, who has kept up a successful racing organization with feeder series' for over 60 years? You don't have to like it, but it's working.

And I'll say one more time for the road, you don't have any American red blood running in your veins if you can go to a NASCAR race in person, see and feel those cars and not get the chills even just a little. I love those motors. Drag racing with turns.

It just doesn't get any better in person.

But don't let me leave w/o mentioning MotoGP and AMA Pro. On my bucket list.

I wouldn't worry so much about AMA (if you're talking Superbikes) unless you have a time machine. AMA SBK went into the toilet in the Mat Mladin years and hasn't come back.

I went to lots of races at Brainerd back in the day (mid-'90s) and they were awesome. Loved seeing (and hearing/feeling) the H-D VR1000 going like the clappers (even though it was never a winner) and watching the Ducatis battle the Hondas... Miguel Duhamel, Troy Corser, Colin Edwards, Steve Crevier, Anthony Gobert, Pascal Picotte...

MotoGP at Indy was fun too. Was at the hurricane round and one after that.

Cheers

d.

Didn't someone on a thread here say CRASHCAR took over AMA racing?

As far as restrictor plate racing goes, here's the solution. Letem' race. Elliott has the record at what, 212 and change back in 88' or so? With today's safety equipment, cars, and walls they can run that fast with a helluva lot less chance of seriously getting hurt than when Elliott set the record.

@Buck, I guess you missed the part about the safety of the spectators. I'm not saying the threshold is at 200 MPH, but you can postulate the risk of compromising the catch fence goes up exponentially with speeds in excess of 200. See Mike Conway's 2011 Indy crash to evaluate the theory.

Also, I have heard talk in the pits about how far one can see at 200. They are traveling 293 FPS at 200. Add a third of a second and add 100 feet. According to some eye and reaction time studies, anything stationary within 30 feet in front of the car will hit the car before the driver can notice it, much less input some evasive reaction. That is literally less than a blink of the eye. Typical reaction time to input is somewhere between double and triple recognition time. Then you have the response of the car itself, which is quick, no doubt. But it adds to the overall time factor to avoid.

Just trying to finish this up I will conjecture that a race car driver is helpless in avoiding mishap anywhere within 150-200 feet at 200 MPH.

Traveling around an oval race track at speeds like Indy Car is only successful when the driver can place the car correctly before the critical point. If he/she misses that critical point, there is no going back and no time to fix it.

At typical DE speeds for us weekend racers, we have a lot more potential for control with experience. And we won't be punching through the fence at 220.