the blame is squarely at the feet of NUTScar... they wanted drama, so they manufacture it, and they got it.
So unless they put you in charge you'll sit home and pout.
Man, I bet that has the bosses in a tizzy.
Way to tizzy up them bosses.
I remember when they were called “stock” cars
Plate racing needs to go
I went to a Daytona 500 and a Hockey Game broke out:
1979:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mucSyo9yLLQ
Going two abreast (wide) all the way around the track was once considered risky and counterproductive in terms of wind resistance but advances in aerodynamics and the drudgery of restrictor plates made two-wide either necessary or advantageous depending on your viewpoint.
This became three-wide on a rather narrow and steeply-banked track - which obviously leaves little and in many cases zero space between the cars. It’s essentially one big jigsaw puzzle with the pieces loosely connected and when one goes they all go.
I’m a recent adopter of YouTubeTV and while giving Google more cash up front and sacrificing some privacy is not high on my wishlist it’s certainly cheaper, better and more useful than AT&T/DirecTV.
YouTubeTV’s DVR is unlimited (I’m whispering that in case they start moving goalposts) so I’m able to record any and all sporting events for later viewing - which I did with the 500 due to the rain delays and the Monday finish.
Fast-forwarding provides little thumbnails above the timeline. What was most shocking and dismaying to me, even as a longtime NASCAR viewer (albeit a casual one) was the staggering number of ads. Every time I moved my mouse and stopped it seemed a commercial was on the screen. Full screen. Half screen. And then there were Fox’s own inane interruptions. Shots involving the cameras on the cars and the track in full screen view seemed to be a rarity rather than the bulk of the broadcast (which is what they should have been). A comparison with any Formula One race will be an even more sobering reminder that NASCAR races should precious little of the actual race.
Sports leagues and broadcasters complain that short audience attention spans are hurting their live gate and ratings. But who fired the first shot? I would say it’s the broadcasters, especially Fox on all sports, who produce their events like they’re on a combination of crack cocaine and double espresso. Noise, lights, graphics, whiz-bang sound FX, shouty announcers, cheesy 90s heavy metal music. Shots of the announcer booth at the track. Shots of the studio analysts - DURING THE DAMNED RACE. If you don’tt have ADHD before a Fox broadcast you probably have it after. They can’t pay attention to the event they have paid handsomely to air - the audience has no prayer.
Every change they make is geared to bunch up the cars so they will crash 20 at a time.
I’m a sports fan, but I can’t watch racing.
It’s slower than SH!T.
I tuned in to watch Trump and then thought I would catch the start of the race...
and then I waited and I waited and I waited. DAMN.
It takes a fricking hour just to get the damn thing started. FORGET IT.
By luck, I turned to it yesterday just in time to catch the finish. Such a close race, but Fox showed exactly ONE replay of the finish. ONE. WHAT IN THE HELL?!
I was screaming at the TV. Can you kindly show us the slow mo finish of the race. Yes, there was a horrible accident, but does that mean they don’t show us various shots of the 2 cars that raced across the finish line?
The entire experience was aggravating as hell. I simply don’t know how race fans stand it.
I got better things to do than turn into an old lady while trying to watch a damn race.
The 2000 Daytona 500 was such a snooze fest that NASCAR changed the aero package on the cars for 2001 that ended up getting Dale Earnhardt killed.
Check out this link below to the last lap of the 1979 Daytona 500 -- a race that is generally regarded as the turning point in the history of NASCAR, when it changed from a regional sport to a national spectacle.
There were several factors that made this an epic race:
1. It was the first Daytona 500 televised nationally in its entirety. CBS signed the contract to televise the race as an afterthought. February is usually a "dead" time in the sports calendar, and they were just looking for something to broadcast during the period between the Super Bowl and the start of the NCAA basketball tournament and Major League Baseball.
2. The race featured the epic brawl alongside the track between the two drivers leading the race at the end: Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison. They crashed just before the end, and the driver then running in third place (Richard Petty) passed them both to win.
3. The story made the front page of the New York Times, which was highly unusual for ANY sports story -- let alone an auto race in a league that had been regarded as a "redneck sport" up until then.
I bring all of this up to make a point:
Notice how far behind the leaders Richard Petty was before he passed them on the last lap. The reports I saw on this race indicated that he was at least half a lap -- about a mile and a half -- behind the two leaders when the crash occurred.
NASCAR had seen too many races like this over the years, where a few cars dominate the field and there isn't much doubt about the outcome. A lot of the rule changes in recent years like restrictor plates and the elimination of races ending under yellow flags were simply intended to make these races more interesting to the spectators.
Yeah it got boring years ago... They took the racing out of the sport with all the new rules and changing things continually, stage racing killed it for good.
I rarely even watch anymore, Probably should change my screen name. I watched President Trump’s appearance and then caught the last lap yesterday and saw Ryan Newman almost die. Restricter plate racing causes all those wrecks, they don’t have enough power to get away from the other cars.
Yes the bump and run was used a lot in the past, but it was not something drivers ever did on purpose at the super speedways because of the speeds they are running... It used to be a short track thing, at Bristol or Martinsville. There certainly have been some nasty ones since they added in the restricter plates though, this one looked much worse to me than the one that killed Dale Earnhardt.
the blame is squarely at the feet of NUTScar... they wanted drama, so they manufacture it, and they got it.
I was there...what a race...President Trump leading the racers, Jimmy Johnson being honored, the flyover and yes, the results was great... JH Nemechek coming in 11th in his first NASCAR cup race and yes, the Blue Oval with Rousch Yates Engines doing great. The race was safer than any weekend in any big city like Chicago.
NASCAR has really struggled with the aero on these cars. I noticed when cars pulled up behind each other as the car behind approached it would make the lead car loose and then the trailing car would close the last couple of feet like slamming a door.
IMO, they need to get air going under the cars again and leave more to the drivers. Ryan Newman drove like his nickname suggests - Rocketman - and was within feet of winning and damn near got killed.
Do you see any parallels between Americans and the primative Romans who fed victims to the lions for sport. I cannot call racing in front of a blood-thirsty audience “sport”.