As we all are aware, regardless of what our fearless leaders tell us, we are having a spot of trouble with the economy here in the good ole USA.
This includes, not just the construction industry and the retail industry, but also, especially, the automobile industry. They are in the process of reevaluating every dollar they spend. GM has pulled out of sponsorship of the Academy Awards and all of the US manufacturors are also reevaluating their relationships with NASCAR.
Whether you like NASCAR or not, and I fall into the latter category, it is the most watched form of motorsports in the country. To bad, as there are a couple great sports car series around. You can see them here and here.
Having said that, one of the blogs I frequent, theautoextremist.com has these comments on the future of NASCAR with reference to the Big 3 automakers involvement.
The author of this blog is Peter DeLorenzo who spent his career in the marketing of Detroit's products and has had this blog going for quite awhile.
His post can be seen here.
I actually hope NASCAR lends an ear to these propositions.
Reason being:
Racing is all about "Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday".
The Car of Tomorrow, and quite frankly NASCAR, since they steered away from actual STOCK cars is relatively boring, unless you like wrecks, which I don't.
The initial appeal of NASCAR came to me many years ago in the form of Grand National Racing. This was back in the day, late sixties, early seventies. The cars on the track looked like the cars in the showroom. It was a fun time with all of the teams doing what they could to win.
They still do that today, but they all start with the same platform and have limited opportunities for modification.
I believe that should change.
I mean I would rather watch a car I can buy in a showroom race, turning left and right, such as this this Mercury Cyclone and Chevy Monte Carlo.
rather than these, I am not sure what they are (Chevy Impala/MonteCarlo and Ford Fusion/Taurus?, race around only doing loopty loops.
NASCAR, in their justification for the CoT noted they wanted to save teams money. Well as Darrell Waltrip mentions in one of his columns on FoxSports.com, as he quotes an unnamed NASCAR owner,
And finally, my all time favorite quote -- and trust me, I have heard a lot of them -- is from a car owner currently in the sport. More prophetic words have never been spoken when he said, "I don't think I can afford for NASCAR to save me any more money."
Camaros, Mustangs, and Challengers racing all together on the same track and looking like STOCK cars. This might even be enough to get this old man, and many more, to tune in more often and maybe even buy something from Detroit.
4 comments:
good post.
Thanks bus...from you this is a great compliment....john
And that's why I dig vintage races like those that have the racecars you were looking at while at Emelia, many of those I've photographed here in San Diego at Speedfest. Real close to stock, though (race safety and expensive parts) modified a little, they are the same cars we can buy and similarly modify to drive for ourselves. See Les Werlings Boss 302 and hauler for just one example of having the determination to duplicate the very Parnelli Jones / Bud Moore yellow Boss 302 you just photographed.
Very good post.
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