R
RACER35
Guest
What worries me the most is all of these corporate entities buying up teams. Maybe NASCAR has priced itself out of it's own history. Roush/Fenway, Gillette/Evernham/Petty, wait until Gibbs, Childress, and Hendrick start acquiring partners and eventually get phased out. Kudos to Michael Waltrip, Robby Gordon, and Tony Stewart for trying to field teams, but I fear this is the end of an era in NASCAR.
I'm not one of those that fear change, but something has happened in this sport that has negatively changed it from a racing competition to a dash for the cash for big corporate players. Bringing new money into the sport isn't a bad thing, but casting aside the roots that helped make it what it is today is causing the death of the beast.
They used to race on many different and unique tracks, nowadays if they didn't display the name of the track on the screen you wouldn't know where they were running. The cost of fielding a team has skyrocketed so much that the people who helped build the sport are being pushed aside in favor of the coffers of corporate America. Television coverage used to be very limited but highly entertaining - now it is overly abundant and barely tolerable. There's nothing like having four hours of pre-race coverage and when I finally get to see the green flag drop, I'm lucky to see four minutes of actual racing. I love the fact that video technology has evolved so much that they can zoom in to give me three laps of the Amp Energy Drink sticker on Dale Jr's chin strap from the "gopher" cam in turn what does it matter anyway, but what happened to pulling the shot back and actually letting me see some "racing". What happened to keeping a paint scheme on a car for more than one race? I realize it's all about marketing and selling t-shirts and diecast "collectibles", but how marketable is it that I have to spend half of the race trying to figure out what car my guy is driving?
Sorry for venting but I'm sure I share some of the same frustrations as the rest of you. And I know someone will post "Well don't watch it if you don't like it!" That's the problem though - I do like it! In fact I love it, I love racing, and I love (at least used to) being able to watch the top teams and drivers duke it out on a variety of race tracks throughout the year. Lately though it feels as though I'm watching a 3-hour infomercial on rolling billboards, and I can't even figure out what they're trying to sell me. I'm assuming its some sort of sleep medication, and it has to be good, because I can barely stay awake to see who wins the damned thing anymore!!! I guess I should have seen the writing on the wall when one of the heroes of the sport became the front man for erectile disfunction...
My main concern with this recent trend of corporate teams is what happens when all of the teams are owned by corporations and the next economic meltdown occurs?
A 'Not Too Distant' Future BRRS.gov [formerly NASCAR.com] news article:
It was a shocking day for fans of the Bailout Recipient Racing Series (BRRS) across the country as Dale Earnhardt Jr. and fourteen of his teammates were not present for the start of the Arizona Iced Tea 500 this past weekend at the 1.5 mile Sams Club Speedway in Bristol, TN. Earnhardt Jr. came into the weekend leading the Apple iPhone Cup points championship, and qualified on pole in the #88 Microsoft Mazda Miata on Wednesday. However when the DOW dropped 14,000 points early Friday bringing it to an all-time low of -2,458, the entire Bank of America/Citigroup/Goldman Sachs racing team was forced to withdraw from the event.
When asked about the whereabouts of the team, Swedish spokeswoman and former Enron exeuctive Ida Screwedyouallifihadachance said, "Auto racing, what the hell is that?"
As late as the Sunday afternoon pace laps, the E*Trade/AOL/Exxon team was working on a buyout deal to enable the Bank of America/Citigroup/Goldman Sachs team to field Dale Jr's car, but talks reportedly broke down when Bank of America refused to layoff 27,000 workers from their Indonesian Call Center, fearing the move might jeopardize their $47 million "executives escape" weekend retreat at six-flags if the Congress or the media caught wind of it.
In an ironic twist, one lap into the event as positive numbers starting rolling in from the asian markets, and with a 1280% increase in the Chinese Yuan against the American dollar, E*Trade/AOL/Exxon team manager and U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney sold the entire 27 car team including equipment and personnel to Hang Chow industries for use as scrap metal, thus ending the day early for many popular drivers.
With the big teams out of competition, the two remaining cars of Michael Waltrip and Robby Gordon would both succomb to engine failures in their Mitsubishi powerplants on lap 17. Left with no other choice, BRRS officials awarded pace car driver Brett Bodine the victory stating that he was the only driver still running at the end of the event. The win which would have been Bodine's second win in 480 starts was later disqualified after it was determined that Lug Nut, a visiting mascot from Lowe's Motor Speedway, failed to inform BRRS officials when he substituted for Bodine during a restroom break on lap 8.
Exit polls revealed that dozens of the 1.3 million in attendance were not pleased with the event that fell 483 laps short of the advertised distance. One spectator, Joe Plummer has this to say, "After taking the day off of work and paying $2,500 for a seat in the Alan Greenspan/DirectTV/Tampax skybox I really expected more from BRRS. Even if I could afford to I'd never attend another BRRS event. From now on I'll just sit in the comfort of my home and buy the weekly pay-per-view package from Time-Warner which only costs $125 for the 6-day, 37 hour experience." It was later determined that Mr. Plummer doesn't actually have a job.
Late Sunday several drivers were spotted at the nearby former Bristol Motor Speedway, attending the Suze Orman/Bernard Madoff "Corporate Finance for Race Car Drivers" seminar sponsored by SunTrust Bank, though all refused to comment on the days events.
President-Elect Barack Obama held a news conference Monday morning and rallied American race fans with the statement, "Can we destroy a highly popular racing series with corporate greed, commerical ridden television coverage, and cookie-cutter tracks."
YES WE CAN, Mr. President-Elect, YES WE CAN...
