Brand loyal to the point where you make yourself a shut-in for that brand and aren't even opening to trying to experience any alternatives for the sake of comparison, is not healthy. There's being loyal, and then there's being so fanatical that you can't see reality anymore.
What do I get from following s driver or a team? I'm not crazy enough to think Jeff Gordon or Jimmie Johnson truly gave a damn that I was a fan. What does a Yankees fan get from it? It's just about picking a side and staying with it. I have always been drawn to the consistency of rooting for the same thing year after year, and in racing, the manufacturer was about the only thing that stays fairly consistent. When I started follwing NASCAR, it seems like drivers were changing teams every year. Also, I grew up in an era where people tended to be MUCH more loyal to car brands. My family on both sides were GM people. The only non-GM cars you would find was maybe an old beater car. When I think about my grandfather, one of my FIRST thoughts is that he ALWAYS owned Buicks.
Jeff Gordon isn't getting increased stock value or increasing his market share in anything when you watch the HMS cars today. It's not the same scenario.
And that's their problem, no one else's. I can't condemn anyone because I have my own problems.
Brand loyalty doesn’t have the same significance since, IMO, since the early 70s.
Cars nowadays are no more the same than they ever were. What's changed is that you don't pay attention to the details between them anymore.
Amen.
I disagree.
The thing is, the person that's the "loyal fan" in this equation has a tendency not to respect others. We've heard about the Camaro body change that was "unfair" for literally like two years. I don't care if somebody is a brand fanatic, but that doesn't give them the right to belittle others when it comes to their strong preferences either.My dad was a diehard Ford guy, much like Revman with his Toyotas. He only ever rooted for Ford drivers and loathed Dale Earnhardt and, to a lesser extent, Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson. His one exception was Mark Martin after he left Roush for Ginn/DEI and then Hendrick.
I started out that way as a kid, obviously because of Dad, but I eventually came to realize that I was really more of an anybody but Earnhardt (and Gordon until later in his career) fan than a strictly Ford fan. I was drawn more to the drivers and my perceptions of their personalities than whatever decals they had on their cars. When I was going through my NASCAR hat phase, I remember telling Dad that I was gonna get a Jimmie Johnson hat. He was (playfully) disappointed. When I came home one day and saw the box with the hat in it in my room, he had written "don't do it, son!" on it.
I wonder what Dad would have thought of me becoming a Dale Earnhardt, Jr. fan after he passed away. He didn't seem to have the same level of dislike for Jr. that he had for Sr., so I don't think he would have been that surprised, especially if I got to explain my reasoning to him. But I digress.
My point is, there's no right or wrong way to be a NASCAR fan. It's a subjective form of entertainment, and different people approach it differently and get different things out of it. We may not always understand others' approaches to it - for example, I'll never understand how there are some people who watch this stuff purely for the crashes - but regardless of how I may feel about it, that's their right.
It has always been this way: https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/04/do-todays-cars-all-look-alike/
No one said it was wrong? Not a single person… stop putting words in peoples post.
“Look alike” isn’t what I meant.
This made me laugh.
Because it’s true? Show me a post where someone said it was wrong? I’ll wait.
I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing because my dad was the same exact way. I'm pretty sure I remember a similar complaint from him when Chevy first brought out the Monte Carlo. Even if he didn't actually complain about that, he definitely used to think that NASCAR unfairly stacked the deck to benefit Chevy, and Ford had to move mountains to win races.
I’m unable to respond ... can’t stop laughing.
So yeah. You got nothing.
How about when they make it our problem, because they won't stop using this place as a soapbox about it like a broken record?
I love my F150 and I loved my Camry. However, all my drivers have been Chevy drivers. Go figure.
I was a Toyota fan before they came to NASCAR, I will be one after. I was an IMSA fan before IndyCar and NASCAR. Wherever Toyota is, I will be.
Thank you very much. Very kind of you to post this.
You have been on this all day. You have an apology in your in box. It is never my intent to come across as disrespectful. I have owned that my passion can get the best of me. We are done here. You are on ignore. Have at it.
Why do you assume that Childress wasn't prepared to do that? I recall reading that Reddick had a long-term offer from Childress in hand when he decided to accept the 23XI deal. I believe it was Pockrass that reported that, but frankly I'm not 100% sure.
bull****. Richard said in an interview that he didn't have the resources to match "that other offer." ....and Danielle Trotta whined about it on her show so she heard it too.
I heard this from so in so and that from you know who. Maybe so. What is said and in print that I have read comes from an article.
www.sportscasting.com
And where is the press, and the motor sports inner community, on the actions taken by Denny Hambone with respect to this signing? Where is the condemnation for the manner their signing was conducted, the announcement process, etc? Was Hambone’s “slip it in” introduction of his new driver during a video web stream just as bad as Reddick’s one hour notice to RC? Seems to me very unprofessional as well.
