It's Time To Tell NASCAR How We Feel About Toyota

Much to the dismay of some fans, it looks like Toyota is going to get the chance to compete in the American sport of NASCAR.

I belong to several NASCAR fans private groups online and can honestly say that the majority of these fans are not just in shock at this news, but are as mad as Tony Stewart and his crew chief, Greg Zippadeli, were when NASCAR confiscated Stewart's Home Depot Chevrolet at Texas Motor Speedway earlier in April. Now it's come to light that NASCAR has given that car to the Japanese to help them produce a Toyota race car.

However, NASCAR has denied that Stewart's car was ever given to anyone and stated that the car is still in the R & D shop. If what NASCAR says is true, then why is Stewart and Zippadeli upset with NASCAR?

The first reason: During World War II, not only did some of these fans lose a grandfather, husband, dad, uncle, brother, cousin and or a dear friend, while other fans may have a loved one that is or was permanently injured, as losing their eye sight or even a limb if not two, during the sneak attack on our American troops, that fateful day on December 7, 1941 known as "The Attack at Pearl Harbor." The Japanese brutally killed our boys on the march to Bataan, on Mount Suribachi in Iwo Jima, as well as the P.O.W. camps, our American soldiers were brutally murdered and dismembered. It's not that we Americans hold a grudge, it's just the Japanese have never apologized to the United States for any of these cowardly acts.

Don't get me wrong, we realize that the Dodge's are now a German vehicle (Daimler owns 51% while Chrysler owns 49%), and we don't mind having foreign cars in NASCAR such as the Dodge, but it was first an American manufactured vehicle. The fans just don't want to see any foreign made cars in NASCAR.

Secondly: Traditionally this sport was based in the south and has traveled throughout the United States. Drivers like Ned Jarrett, Lee Petty, Ralph Earnhardt and Curtis Turner, just to mention a few, began this sport on the beaches of Florida and North Carolina, as well as dirt tracks in North Carolina. This sport has been passed from generation to generations of American families. What happened to the tradition of this sport? This is what the fans are asking. Why does Mike Helton or even Bill France have the right to change that? Looking at the whole picture, if Toyota is allowed to race in NASCAR, what's next? Are we going to open the door to Italy, France, Russia, China, or the rest of the world. Where does it end? Does this sport go International? Will we be actively looking for foreign drivers? Will NASCAR be building tracks in other countries?

No longer will NASCAR be an American sport. Like so many other things we have lost, it's time for the fans to stand up and fight for this by letting NASCAR know how we feel about it.

I am speaking on behalf of the majority of the NASCAR fans, We do not want Toyota or any other foreign made car in the sport of NASCAR. We want to keep the tradition and we want to keep NASCAR the way it is right now, today.

Many fans have fallen in love with the sport. Don't let NASCAR or anyone else take it away from us. You can contact NASCAR at the following address:

Just the discussion to totally take my mind off the endless meetings I've had today...

Trying to compare F1 and NASCAR is like trying to compare ballet and break dancing. Both are great racing but the similarities end at the fact that each competitor has 4 tires and an engine. Technology, track design, physical demands placed on the drivers, not to mention the rule variations leave very little room for meaningful comparison.

While I'm not a great fan of oval racing the fact is that NASCAR is great afternoon entertainment. F1 is a very different animal and to truly enjoy it requires a significant investment of time and attention. Look, I'm an F1 psychotic, but then I'd probably watch insects race if it were televised. I track pre-season test times for every track and driver and do stats analysis on the results. The whole sport is about strategies and technology, and the rules Mosley brought in this year for qualifying have thrown an interesting monkey wrench into the mix due to the post-qualifying Parc Ferme regulation, which forces the teams to think carefully about their fuel strategy. NASCAR's a much more rough and tumble form of racing to be sure, but there's a competitive tension in F1 simply because the opportunities for overtaking and fewer pit stops leaves much less margin for error for each driver/team.

Both have their respective merits, as does CART, but the similarities end there.

Someone made a comment about the average speeds at Monaco. Irrelevant. The only reason they still race there is history and the fact that a lot of the drivers live there. It's a dangerous tight street course with little or no overtaking opportunity and the teams positively hate the pit/garage arrangement. For speed look at Hokkenheim or SPA, but unfortunately unless Belgium does something about their tobacco advertising rules we've seen the last race there we'll see. Pity.

Now, as for Michael. It would be interesting to see a shoot out with him and Senna but tragicallly we can't. Would Senna come out on top? Hard to say. Schumi is in better physical condition than Senna was and the tracks have changed due to safety considerations but that's not the whole story. One has to look at the knowledge base of the two. Recall where Michael came from. His dad was a dirt poor small engine mechanic in Kerpan who built his son a go cart with the hopes he'd develop an interest in engines and therefore learn a trade. Well, Michael became interested in engines, all right, specifically how fast he could make one go! The rest is history. The one major difference between him and every other driver is his almost mystical ability to read a car's performance on the fly and advise his team what needed to be changed. No other driver spends as much time actually working with his engineers and mechanics and actually helping to develop the car. A lot of F1 drivers basically show up at the track. Could other drivers today better him in the same car? Well, Alonzo seems to be coming along nicely and Kimi is proving to be a real talent. The Canuck in me wants to think that Jacques could give him a run for the money but JV is so darned hard on cars that he'd likely find a way to ruin Ferrari's reliability record. He's past his due date IMHO. As for Road Hazard Montoya it's a reason to open the champaign whenever he manages to finish a race without hitting anything.

The biggest complaint one could make about F1 is the disparity in team budgets which range from around 25 million for the Minardi's of the world to over 300 million for Ferrari and Toyota (remember them? That's what this thread started out being about!). If something doesn't give on the engine supply front this could be crippling to the sport in the medium term, but my faith is Max and rabbi Eccelstone will come up with something (saying no to bernie is a very bad strategy).

To all you NASCAR fans who have never been to an F1 race but otherwise love racing I highly recommend you give it a try, and by luck the Indy race in September is one of if not the least expensive F1 events on the calender, not to mention that the city puts a great face on for race weekend. Heck, the way the season's shaping up it may even be the deciding race for the championship this year. It's not the best F1 track on the tour but watching those cars come around turn 13 and in front of the main grandstand (turn 1 for you Indy 500 fans...the F1 cars go around the other way...and will run in the rain, BTW) and peel into the straightaway is one of the most beautiful sights in racing. There is simply nothing to compare to the passion and atmosphere of Formula 1 when seen live at the track.

Okay, typed long enough. In the words of the immortal Murray Walker, it's time to "GO GO GO!"

Cheers, eh!

I care!

NASCAR (It is the "National Association of Stock Car Automobile Racing, after all!) ought to race only production based automobiles, IMHO.

Racem on Sunday, buyem on Monday! was what made NASCAR great, and the more they race these damned "homogenized, purpose built race cars," the less I like it. A private individual cannot buy a 750 hp FRont motor, rwd "Chevrolet," "Ford," "Chrysler," or "Pontiac" -- they are all special purpose race cars and bear no similarity to production automobiles, save the name.

I am willing to bet that the FRont wheel drive stock cars available to the general public can be developed to run at the 200 mph speeds we are used to, and their racing development would lead to better cars for the general public to boot.

I'm actually losing interest in NASCAR, because they race cars no one can watch on Sunday and buy on Monday.

NASCAR needs to revise its thinking on their "formula," IMHO.

HST, with a "stock, production car based formula," if Toyota or Mitsubishi or Mercedes wanted to race, and their cars were approved by NASCAR, letem race!

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