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Guest
That article about O.B.Smith buying North Carolina Motorspeedway is another of those unsubstantiated rumors which a certain writer for the Winston-Salem Journal seems to delight in getting into print.
I believe that Mr. Smith has denied any knowledge of this latest scenerio and yet the media and fans are getting themselves worked into another frenzy, paying attention only to the parts of the story that give them another thing to get worked up over.
While I'm here, some trivia; a quote for all of you. Who said it? and when?
"The biggest problem facing organized stock car racing today, as opposed to other sports, is a lack of guidelines, a lack of understanding, a lack of direction in deciding the issues most beneficial to the sport itself."
I will tell you that since this statement appearred in a racing magazine, the points system has been changed, the manufacturers left the sport and returned, Winston came and left as a series sponsor, the schedule has gone from nearly 50 events per season at that time to as few as 28 events and back to the current 36 week schedule, many tracks have been dropped and many more added, television coverage has come from none at all to coverage of practice, qualifying, every race, as well as coverage of the Busch and Craftsman Truck series events, news and magazine programs covering all aspects of NASCAR have become the norm and nearly every driver in the top tiers of the sport are millionaire drivers instead of driver/mechanics with grease under their nails and knuckles skun raw.
The cars are now purpose built racing machines, assembled in operating room clean facilities instead of altered stock, as from the manufacturers, with big block engines, "built" in something called a garage.
Individual car makes have been replaced by "corporate" cars, built to fit NASCAR templates in order to assure parity; the engines are all "made for racing" units, machined and hand assembled by team specialists, from parts which are approved by NASCAR, a different combination for each track on the tour. (See all the posts on the different forums about the "Template engines". Just shows how little some of the media and fans know about what is actually happening within the sport.)
Oh yeah, NASCAR has also seen two more generations of the France family at the helm along with the addition of an outsider named as President of the company.
Now, would some of you "older fans" upon who's money NASCAR built its empire, care to tell me all about how bad change is for the sport?
Or how the sport has become too focused on "entertainment"?
It would appear to me that NASCAR built its empire entirely upon constant change, aimed solely at selling its product, i.e. entertainment, to an evergrowing group of fans nationwide.
NASCAR was never intended to be a regional or "southern sport"; some of the original, published goals were to make stockcar racing the national equivalent of "big car" racing; to establish a set of uniform rules, guarantee that purses were paid to the competitors, and to allow the establishment of a point system which would recognize a national champion.
The whole intent was to take stockcar racing from the short tracks of America to the superspeedways which Big Bill envisioned; tracks like those he built at Daytona and Taladega.
Would all of this been possible without the constant change to take advantage of the marketing opportunities offered by sponsors, souviner sales and television? Or selling the entertainment value of racing itself?
The quote? That was from an article written by Jim Hunter which appeared in the February, 1970 issue of Stock Car Racing Magazine. At the time he was the public relations director for Atlanta International Raceway. He is now the Vice President of corporate communications for NASCAR.
I thought it just goes to show that the more things change, the more they seem to stay the same.
Or something like that?
I believe that Mr. Smith has denied any knowledge of this latest scenerio and yet the media and fans are getting themselves worked into another frenzy, paying attention only to the parts of the story that give them another thing to get worked up over.
While I'm here, some trivia; a quote for all of you. Who said it? and when?
"The biggest problem facing organized stock car racing today, as opposed to other sports, is a lack of guidelines, a lack of understanding, a lack of direction in deciding the issues most beneficial to the sport itself."
I will tell you that since this statement appearred in a racing magazine, the points system has been changed, the manufacturers left the sport and returned, Winston came and left as a series sponsor, the schedule has gone from nearly 50 events per season at that time to as few as 28 events and back to the current 36 week schedule, many tracks have been dropped and many more added, television coverage has come from none at all to coverage of practice, qualifying, every race, as well as coverage of the Busch and Craftsman Truck series events, news and magazine programs covering all aspects of NASCAR have become the norm and nearly every driver in the top tiers of the sport are millionaire drivers instead of driver/mechanics with grease under their nails and knuckles skun raw.
The cars are now purpose built racing machines, assembled in operating room clean facilities instead of altered stock, as from the manufacturers, with big block engines, "built" in something called a garage.
Individual car makes have been replaced by "corporate" cars, built to fit NASCAR templates in order to assure parity; the engines are all "made for racing" units, machined and hand assembled by team specialists, from parts which are approved by NASCAR, a different combination for each track on the tour. (See all the posts on the different forums about the "Template engines". Just shows how little some of the media and fans know about what is actually happening within the sport.)
Oh yeah, NASCAR has also seen two more generations of the France family at the helm along with the addition of an outsider named as President of the company.
Now, would some of you "older fans" upon who's money NASCAR built its empire, care to tell me all about how bad change is for the sport?
Or how the sport has become too focused on "entertainment"?
It would appear to me that NASCAR built its empire entirely upon constant change, aimed solely at selling its product, i.e. entertainment, to an evergrowing group of fans nationwide.
NASCAR was never intended to be a regional or "southern sport"; some of the original, published goals were to make stockcar racing the national equivalent of "big car" racing; to establish a set of uniform rules, guarantee that purses were paid to the competitors, and to allow the establishment of a point system which would recognize a national champion.
The whole intent was to take stockcar racing from the short tracks of America to the superspeedways which Big Bill envisioned; tracks like those he built at Daytona and Taladega.
Would all of this been possible without the constant change to take advantage of the marketing opportunities offered by sponsors, souviner sales and television? Or selling the entertainment value of racing itself?
The quote? That was from an article written by Jim Hunter which appeared in the February, 1970 issue of Stock Car Racing Magazine. At the time he was the public relations director for Atlanta International Raceway. He is now the Vice President of corporate communications for NASCAR.
I thought it just goes to show that the more things change, the more they seem to stay the same.
Or something like that?