Nascar

[svtrit]

A couple years before Dale Sr. Died, I quit NASCAR and started watching a European series on the SPEED network that was off the lot cars with cages and they raced road courses. It was a hoot to watch. That and WRC.

I don’t even watch the Daytona 500 anymore, and that was a half to for years.

 

[NYH]

Sports on TV has always bored me. But I like going to a baseball game and have been to minor league games like the Toledo Mud Hens and the Columbus Clippers. I've also been to the Indy 500 and enjoyed the experience.

Our minor league team in the Syracuse Mets. They don't do to good most of the time. Great time going to the games though!

NYH.

 

[NYH]

They're not really cars. Their scenic representations. The headlights, for example, are painted on.
Also, the engines are low tech wonders.

The headlights are part of the wrap (big sticker). They haven't painted the cars in years. Those engines could tickle 1,000 HP if NASCAR would let them. They made 850 HP years ago.

NYH.

 

[ammolab]

I just fast forward thru NASCAR races until I see them go yellow. I watch the carnage only! The rest of the race just looks like the freeway traffic in Houston I drove to work in for 40 years.

 

[SammyChevelleTypeS3]

A neat piece of NASCAR history some may enjoy. A true walk down memory lane. I recall a lot of these cars dominating the ovals.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/cla...f25ee6dbb024103a362f1b90170c2c6&ei=9#image=25

 

[tnt_motorsports]

A neat piece of NASCAR history some may enjoy. A true walk down memory lane. I recall a lot of these cars dominating the ovals.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/cla...f25ee6dbb024103a362f1b90170c2c6&ei=9#image=25

back when stock cars were "stock cars"

This current car with single lug nut and sequential gearbox is not for me. I watch some of the races now because my kid is a fan and it gives us something to talk about.

IMO, the real racing begins Wednesday about 30 miles south of the event held in Newton this weekend!!!

 

[SammyChevelleTypeS3]

back when stock cars were "stock cars"

This current car with single lug nut and sequential gearbox is not for me. I watch some of the races now because my kid is a fan and it gives us something to talk about.

IMO, the real racing begins Wednesday about 30 miles south of the event held in Newton this weekend!!

YES. Indeed I most certainly miss what I will always think of as REAL NASCAR.
IMHO original NASCAR died a little over 20 years ago. It was headed down slowly even before the loss of D.E. #3.

I even used to get excited about and follow the schedule weekly... Took my sons + wife to the races. Used to go to the Atlanta Motor Speedway as it was the shortest drive from home. Also have a cousin who lives and works near the track who would attend races with us. We had some great times there over the years.

Telling on myself (age) now. I am old enough to remember when one could not even watch a LIVE NASCAR race on television. We had to wait until the Monday after the Daytona 500 for the network to air a re-play of the 500 a day later. I would avoid the sports news so I would not see the results before I got a chance to watch that replay humbug when I got home from work on the Monday after.

REALLY telling on myself (age) now. I am old enough to know who The Alabama Gang was. I pulled for them. I recall pulling for Cale Yarborough when he won the 1976 / 1977 Championships back to back driving one of my favorites. The Chevelle Type S3 cars like my last Chevelle. The ones eventually banned from NASCAR due to winning too many races in 2 seasons back to back.

Ugh. Rules & NASCAR! The strange thing..... They banned the Chevelle Type S3 cars due to an unfair aero-design. NASCAR then allowed the 1977 / 1978 Oldsmobile 442s to run with a very similar front clip (near identical aero designed) as the banned Chevelle S3 cars.

NASCAR had forced the Chevelle S3 teams to use the restrictor plates on the intake manifolds in a failed effort to slow the Type S3 cars down after so much complaining from the other manufacturers & teams. When the restrictor plates failed to accomplish the slow down much, it was ban the car itself time. So , Cale Yarborough won the 1978 Championship driving the newer Olds 442s.

RULES! There have been so many new rules , rule changes and playoff systems + race manipulation (IMHO) they THINK the fans can not notice etc.... the last 20 yrs or so I can hardly even keep up anymore. I may be older but I don't think that has as much to do with my loss of passion/interest for the sport as much as the increasing amount of change NASCAR keeps weighing the sport down with.
Cale's 1975 / 1976 Chevelle Type S3 - Cale's 1977 / 1978 Oldsmobile 442s

 

[walterjay]

I went to a Nascar race a few years ago. I found it boring and left after about 30 laps.

 

[JoeDirt41]

I was a big fan growing up in the gen 4 era, until about midway through the Jimmy Johnson years. The COT really produced some boring races, I hated tandem drafting on superspeedways, and then I really lost interest in the Monster Energy years. However, the Gen 7 “next gen” car got me back into it. Yes, the cars are very different and there are some things I don’t like about them… but the racing has improved. Some people despise the stage racing, but it really doesn’t bother me. It creates restarts, which is where the action happens and it complicates pit strategy, which I find very interesting to watch play out.

The cars need more horsepower and more tire wear to make the racing better. I’d also like to see the composite bodies go away, or at least put some metal back in the cars so that impacts will affect the aerodynamics of the car rather than just popping back out.

The Xfinity series has some great racing right now too. A lot of people say the Xfinity racing is better than the Cup Series.

I just went to Dover for the race a couple weeks ago and had a blast. Crowd was awesome, no drunks near us, race was fun to watch.

 

[rijndael]

I just recently visited the Hendrick Motorsports Museum in Charlotte, it was a nice flash back to the 90s and early 2000s.

 

[AZjeff]

I'm old enough to remember when there were 4 or 5 guys who were going to win the race and they'd all just drive around for 450 miles then get serious about it. The other 35 cars were filler and racing for a top 10. It wasn't that good.

NASCAR is trying to find some formula to attract younger people to watch without much luck, the photos above have lots of empty seats in the stands. We were into it in the late 90s/early 2000s and there were no empty seats at the races we went to. But in those days if one make won 4 or 5 in a row the others cried and whined and NASCAR would tweak something to try to make them equal. There's nothing new about what NASCAR is doing today it's just different.

They finally have the right "cars" running, Camaro & Mustang make sense, just wish the Challenger was competing. Trying to remember when Toyota produced a 2 door RWD V8 Camry... Must have been when Ford was making the V8 RWD Taurus

If I were king they'd be using OEM steel body panels, 25% narrower tires, and minimal aero stuff. The cars and tracks are as safe as they've ever been, let the drivers drive like they had to in the 60s and 70s.

 

[tnt_motorsports]

I'm old enough to remember when there were 4 or 5 guys who were going to win the race and they'd all just drive around for 450 miles then get serious about it. The other 35 cars were filler and racing for a top 10. It wasn't that good.

NASCAR is trying to find some formula to attract younger people to watch without much luck, the photos above have lots of empty seats in the stands. We were into it in the late 90s/early 2000s and there were no empty seats at the races we went to. But in those days if one make won 4 or 5 in a row the others cried and whined and NASCAR would tweak something to try to make them equal. There's nothing new about what NASCAR is doing today it's just different.

They finally have the right "cars" running, Camaro & Mustang make sense, just wish the Challenger was competing. Trying to remember when Toyota produced a 2 door RWD V8 Camry... Must have been when Ford was making the V8 RWD Taurus

If I were king they'd be using OEM steel body panels, 25% narrower tires, and minimal aero stuff. The cars and tracks are as safe as they've ever been, let the drivers drive like they had to in the 60s and 70s.

For me aluminum ABC bodies like most super late models would be best. Get rid of the fuel mileage racing and introduce more short tracks. There are far to many 1-1/2 & 2 mile tracks.

I hate the stage racing. If you want to be the Saturday night short track then race like them. Qualify, heat race and feature in one day. If you wre7or blow up you unload the backup car and start at the back.

 

[Oliveoil2]

I watch sporadically, mostly the road courses. But what has turned me off most….is the play-off scoring system. I just don’t have the patience to understand it. Formula 1, WRC, Australia SuperCar….you name it are much easier to follow.

 

[JoeDirt41]

For me aluminum ABC bodies like most super late models would be best. Get rid of the fuel mileage racing and introduce more short tracks. There are far to many 1-1/2 & 2 mile tracks.

I hate the stage racing. If you want to be the Saturday night short track then race like them. Qualify, heat race and feature in one day. If you wre7or blow up you unload the backup car and start at the back.

I definitely do not like the frequency of fuel mileage races. It seems to be less of an issue than it once was, but then even this past weekend at Iowa it wound up being a fuel mileage race. Again the stage racing doesn’t bother me, but I get people not liking it.

 

[JoeDirt41]

I watch sporadically, mostly the road courses. But what has turned me off most….is the play-off scoring system. I just don’t have the patience to understand it. Formula 1, WRC, Australia SuperCar….you name it are much easier to follow.

NASCAR has increased the road courses a lot this past year. I’m personally not a fan, I prefer the tight pack racing, higher speeds and aerodynamic challenges of ovals, but a lot of people like the road courses. I’ll watch Watkins Glen and Sonoma but that’s about it.

The playoff system really isn’t that complicated. There’s regular season scoring and playoffs scoring. You can earn playoff points throughout the regular season by winning stages and races. It’s very much like Football or hockey playoffs.

 

[4WD]

They still have to be pushrod engines - right Toyota ?

 

[JoeDirt41]

NASCAR is trying to find some formula to attract younger people to watch without much luck, the photos above have lots of empty seats in the stands. We were into it in the late 90s/early 2000s and there were no empty seats at the races we went to. But in those days if one make won 4 or 5 in a row the others cried and whined and NASCAR would tweak something to try to make them equal. There's nothing new about what NASCAR is doing today it's just different.

Weather was a factor at the Dover race which is probably why a lot of seats were empty. I went to Pocono the year before and Michigan the year before that, and stands were packed full. The Brickyard 400 a few weeks ago was a sellout race.

They still have to be pushrod engines - right Toyota ?

Yes. 358 cu in pushrod V8s. Fuel injected. Independent rear suspension. 5 speed sequential-shift manual transmissions.

The Xfinity cars are still carbureted and still use a solid rear axle and 4 speed H pattern transmissions.