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Brock Yates column, From the Margin.
Brock has been defending performance automobiles and racing from political attack for over 30 years now. Attacks both real and imagined. Some of you may have read his infamous memo to the Dept Of Transportation head some years back bashing studies of mass transit and other pursuits to replace the automobile.
But I digress, I enjoy Brock's columns and besides they always remind me of Steve Evans (RIP) which is a good thing.
Brock Yates' Notes From the Margin
By: Brock Yates
Wyoming, N.Y., August 13
As far as the great unwashed is concerned, only one thing happened in the world of motor racing over the weekend. That of course was Jason Priestley’s big crash at Kentucky. No other headline—Stewart’s win at the Glen or Sarah Fisher’s first pole—came close to garnering the attention the former heartthrob gained with his wall-bashing.
While we in the sport distract ourselves with seemingly important internal issues, clouds are gathering on the horizon that I think pose a major challenge. It currently means nothing to the average fan or even to the powers who run the sport/business; but the MSNBC political chat show "Hardball" last Thursday and a long piece in the Sunday "New York Times" outlined in broad terms what could be real trouble. The "Times" story was titled "The Fleeting Romance of the American Road" and hazily suggested that America’s romance with the automobile is over, thanks to rising environmental pressures and a shift away from high-performance cars to the mundane SUVs that the big media loves to hate.
Of course the gist of the story—and the similarly-themed "Hardball" show—was nonsense. Motor racing, the most ardent expression of the "romance," is booming. High performance cars ranging from the hot Civics and Neons at the bottom of the market to super-cars from Ferrari and Lamborghini at the top are selling well. Mini Coopers, new T-birds, PT Cruisers, 50th Anniversary Corvettes, etc., etc. are extremely popular, putting lie to the notion that as a nation our fascination with cars is over. If it was the case, would Ford, GM and DaimlerChrysler be investing tens of millions to develop such exciting machinery as the Ford GT40, the Pontiac GTO and the Chrysler Crossfire? I don’t think so.
Add to that the hundreds of thousands who participated in the sport over the last weekend—from races of all kinds to car shows, concours, swap meets, rallys, tours, auctions, etc.—and the idea that we as a nation are cooling on the car is sheer idiocy.
But on the flip side we have the State of California passing a Draconian law that will essentially ban CO2 emissions from cars by 2009. The law will no doubt be challenged in court and is likely to be radically altered, but the trend-line is clear: the enviros are in full cry against the automobile as a defiler of the planet. Joined as they are by the media elites and the Loony Left, the battle has just begun.
So far automobile racing has remained out of the Green’s sights. But with a celebrity like Priestley crashing, the sport will be back in the headlines. Will such events cause the enviros to decide that race cars, with their filthy exhausts, their noise and their danger ought to be a target? Efforts to excise tobacco advertising from the sport have a foothold here and in Europe, and who can say if race car noise and emissions might not be next on the greens’ target list.
On a minor note of alarm the recent ALMS street race in Washington, DC got the bureaucrats all wired up when their decibel meters registered readings as high as 105, or 45 DB over the legal limits permitted in residential areas. Panoz and Co. were fined a modest $500, with a warning that a repeat of the violation could result in cancellation of the race. This involves environmental troubles right in the heart of the government and must be taken seriously. One cannot even imagine how some super-ambitious politicos are seeking issues dealing with noise, clean air and the automobile in general.
It would be a no-brainer for example, for a pol like Ozone Al Gore to denounce motor racing as a threat to the environment and demand either its banning or strict controls. This would be a cheap political headline grabber and could trigger a shift of attention by the greens to the sport, with dire, long term consequences.
In the meantime, the moguls who run the motor racing business occupy themselves with internecine warfare between CART and the IRL, ALMS and Grand-Am while hustling mega-buck sponsors and television deals. No one, to my knowledge, has even discussed the environmental threats to motor racing, much less any potential solutions.
NASCAR race cars of all types use high-test racing gasoline and archaic, carbureted engines with no emission controls whatsoever. Indy cars employ methanol, which is slightly more friendly to the atmosphere; but in the broad scheme of things, race cars are dirty, noisy machines with no redeeming social virtues.
We don’t care. We love ‘em as they are. But we are not the powerful green movement and their allies in government and the elite media.
Be reminded that the sport was under fire once before. During the OPEC oil embargo of 1973-74, some pols demanded that the sport be banned as a profligate waster of gasoline. That was until Bill France Senior craftily pointed out that a charter jet flight of a football or baseball team burned up more fuel than an entire field of stock cars. But Bill France was a visionary, who looked at the big picture. The same kind of out-of the box thinking is needed now.
A symposium of racing leaders ought to be formed to study the issues of noise and pollution in race cars. At the very least this would silence potential critics who would otherwise claim that no one in the sport cares about converting Winston Cup cars (the most popular and most visible in the sport) to emission-controlled engines and unleaded gasoline. It might never happen, but such discussions would be a public relations defense with long-term benefits.
Popularity of the kind currently being enjoyed by motor sports has its downside. With public attention and approbations comes vulnerability to flaws that might otherwise be ignored. When the sport was fighting for headlines with Cricket and Lawn Bowling, it could get away with most anything. But now that it’s on the front pages, it stands in the line of fire.
Let’s make sure we can dodge the bullets from the greens that are sure to come.
Brock has been defending performance automobiles and racing from political attack for over 30 years now. Attacks both real and imagined. Some of you may have read his infamous memo to the Dept Of Transportation head some years back bashing studies of mass transit and other pursuits to replace the automobile.
But I digress, I enjoy Brock's columns and besides they always remind me of Steve Evans (RIP) which is a good thing.
Brock Yates' Notes From the Margin
By: Brock Yates
Wyoming, N.Y., August 13
As far as the great unwashed is concerned, only one thing happened in the world of motor racing over the weekend. That of course was Jason Priestley’s big crash at Kentucky. No other headline—Stewart’s win at the Glen or Sarah Fisher’s first pole—came close to garnering the attention the former heartthrob gained with his wall-bashing.
While we in the sport distract ourselves with seemingly important internal issues, clouds are gathering on the horizon that I think pose a major challenge. It currently means nothing to the average fan or even to the powers who run the sport/business; but the MSNBC political chat show "Hardball" last Thursday and a long piece in the Sunday "New York Times" outlined in broad terms what could be real trouble. The "Times" story was titled "The Fleeting Romance of the American Road" and hazily suggested that America’s romance with the automobile is over, thanks to rising environmental pressures and a shift away from high-performance cars to the mundane SUVs that the big media loves to hate.
Of course the gist of the story—and the similarly-themed "Hardball" show—was nonsense. Motor racing, the most ardent expression of the "romance," is booming. High performance cars ranging from the hot Civics and Neons at the bottom of the market to super-cars from Ferrari and Lamborghini at the top are selling well. Mini Coopers, new T-birds, PT Cruisers, 50th Anniversary Corvettes, etc., etc. are extremely popular, putting lie to the notion that as a nation our fascination with cars is over. If it was the case, would Ford, GM and DaimlerChrysler be investing tens of millions to develop such exciting machinery as the Ford GT40, the Pontiac GTO and the Chrysler Crossfire? I don’t think so.
Add to that the hundreds of thousands who participated in the sport over the last weekend—from races of all kinds to car shows, concours, swap meets, rallys, tours, auctions, etc.—and the idea that we as a nation are cooling on the car is sheer idiocy.
But on the flip side we have the State of California passing a Draconian law that will essentially ban CO2 emissions from cars by 2009. The law will no doubt be challenged in court and is likely to be radically altered, but the trend-line is clear: the enviros are in full cry against the automobile as a defiler of the planet. Joined as they are by the media elites and the Loony Left, the battle has just begun.
So far automobile racing has remained out of the Green’s sights. But with a celebrity like Priestley crashing, the sport will be back in the headlines. Will such events cause the enviros to decide that race cars, with their filthy exhausts, their noise and their danger ought to be a target? Efforts to excise tobacco advertising from the sport have a foothold here and in Europe, and who can say if race car noise and emissions might not be next on the greens’ target list.
On a minor note of alarm the recent ALMS street race in Washington, DC got the bureaucrats all wired up when their decibel meters registered readings as high as 105, or 45 DB over the legal limits permitted in residential areas. Panoz and Co. were fined a modest $500, with a warning that a repeat of the violation could result in cancellation of the race. This involves environmental troubles right in the heart of the government and must be taken seriously. One cannot even imagine how some super-ambitious politicos are seeking issues dealing with noise, clean air and the automobile in general.
It would be a no-brainer for example, for a pol like Ozone Al Gore to denounce motor racing as a threat to the environment and demand either its banning or strict controls. This would be a cheap political headline grabber and could trigger a shift of attention by the greens to the sport, with dire, long term consequences.
In the meantime, the moguls who run the motor racing business occupy themselves with internecine warfare between CART and the IRL, ALMS and Grand-Am while hustling mega-buck sponsors and television deals. No one, to my knowledge, has even discussed the environmental threats to motor racing, much less any potential solutions.
NASCAR race cars of all types use high-test racing gasoline and archaic, carbureted engines with no emission controls whatsoever. Indy cars employ methanol, which is slightly more friendly to the atmosphere; but in the broad scheme of things, race cars are dirty, noisy machines with no redeeming social virtues.
We don’t care. We love ‘em as they are. But we are not the powerful green movement and their allies in government and the elite media.
Be reminded that the sport was under fire once before. During the OPEC oil embargo of 1973-74, some pols demanded that the sport be banned as a profligate waster of gasoline. That was until Bill France Senior craftily pointed out that a charter jet flight of a football or baseball team burned up more fuel than an entire field of stock cars. But Bill France was a visionary, who looked at the big picture. The same kind of out-of the box thinking is needed now.
A symposium of racing leaders ought to be formed to study the issues of noise and pollution in race cars. At the very least this would silence potential critics who would otherwise claim that no one in the sport cares about converting Winston Cup cars (the most popular and most visible in the sport) to emission-controlled engines and unleaded gasoline. It might never happen, but such discussions would be a public relations defense with long-term benefits.
Popularity of the kind currently being enjoyed by motor sports has its downside. With public attention and approbations comes vulnerability to flaws that might otherwise be ignored. When the sport was fighting for headlines with Cricket and Lawn Bowling, it could get away with most anything. But now that it’s on the front pages, it stands in the line of fire.
Let’s make sure we can dodge the bullets from the greens that are sure to come.
