The New Electoral Sex Symbol: Nascar Dad

The New York Times ^ | 01/18/04 | JEFF MacGREGOR

[martin_fierro]

I doubt Metrosexual candidates will do very will with this demographic.

[ClintonBeGone]

Pokey, why isn't your computer in the picture? :)

[mewzilla]

I'll have to call my li'l bro. I think someone stole his couch!

[Az Joe]

I wonder if NASCAR Dads ever quit their churches over bike paths?

[Capriole]

Jeff MacGregor wishes--or ought to wish--that he was half the man most of these NASCAR dads are.

[Mears]

Maybe it's me,but I found this article condescending.

[bannie]

Forgive my lack of knowledge, but how do you get INTO "chat"?

[Welsh Rabbit]

FIRST race of the year, the 500 at Daytona, I'm standing next to Nascar dad for the anthem. Takes off his sunglasses, holds his hand over his heart. He's a big man, 40's, 6-foot-3, a gut-sprung 225, biker leather head to toe and a beard on him like ZZ Rasputin.
Comes to the end of our national song, 250,000 people shouting and applauding, flags snapping everywhere, and a sound rumbles low up out of the ovation and comes down out of the sky and breaks out of the clouds like a thunderclap. It's the pre-race flyover, four F-16's with the burners lit, 200 feet off the deck at 400 miles an hour and the crowd goes crazy. The sky cracks and the smell of jet exhaust fouls the grandstands. I, sophisticated tourist sarcast, turn to Nascar dad, cock my eyebrow and shout, "Our tax dollars at work, huh?"
He looks down at me through the beard, blue-eyed and red-faced in the heat. "Damn straight," he says, "damn straight," as the tears roll down his cheeks.

This campy, cliched introduction reminds me of the sort of dribble Jayson Blair would write. I wondered if this really happened.

[MichaelDammit]

Not a mention of the one issue 2nd Amd voter.....

[WILLIALAL]

"Damn straight," he says, "damn straight," as the tears roll down his cheeks.
Something the Dems will never understand.

[NYCVirago]

It's the pre-race flyover, four F-16's with the burners lit, 200 feet off the deck at 400 miles an hour and the crowd goes crazy. The sky cracks and the smell of jet exhaust fouls the grandstands. I, sophisticated tourist sarcast, turn to Nascar dad, cock my eyebrow and shout, "Our tax dollars at work, huh?" He looks down at me through the beard, blue-eyed and red-faced in the heat. "Damn straight," he says, "damn straight," as the tears roll down his cheeks.

Glad to see this reporter is so objective, and that he never lets his personal views seep into his reporting. (/sarcasm)

[NYCVirago]

The races may not be political, but they're patriotic in a way that isn't often seen in this country any more.

Maybe it "isn't often seen" in latte-drinking, sushi-eating, New York Times-reading areas like Manhattan, but it's still seen in the rest of the country.

[Ciexyz]

The author of the article doesn't have much respect for working class America.

[NYCVirago]

You know what the dumbest thing of this article is: it acts like Nascar dads are a big mystery politically. Let's see -- the vast majority of so-called Nascar dads are white male southerners. How many white male southerners vote Republican? 70%? Heck, Bush carried the total white male (not just southern) vote by 24 points over Gore! End of mystery, end of story.

[Mears]

General Interest on the Homepage will take you into Chat.

[NormsRevenge]

.. sociopolitical anthropologists and the Eastern establishment think tankers from both parties have been parachuting into the infields and campgrounds of the tracks at Darlington and Daytona, Las Vegas and Fontana, Bristol and Richmond with their clipboards and their digital recorders and their questions, trying in a weekend to understand Nascar dad's complex tribal customs.

I love confounding the "experts".

Thanks for the post. :-]

[LuLuLuLu]

I found the article condescending, too. Mr. Lu is more or a fan than I am, but we don't fit the generalized demographics at all.

I can believe the reaction at the flyover; there something in the air at race tracks that I've never felt at any other sporting event.

[bannie]

Thank you! :)

[tubebender]

We've been outed...