The making of a great race

H

HardScrabble

Guest
Like everything it depends on perspective.

One driver gives his opinion of what would have been a great race at Martinsville. Like many many things, competitors and fans don't see things the same..........

“I think if 42 (cars) dropped out (of the race at Martinsville) and I was the only one left, I think it would be a great race. Who cares about being bored? They’d still give me the trophy.”
 
Originally posted by HardScrabble@Apr 15 2003, 07:31 AM
“I think if 42 (cars) dropped out (of the race at Martinsville) and I was the only one left, I think it would be a great race. Who cares about being bored? They’d still give me the trophy.”
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Did a driver really say that, HS?
 
Absolutely!

Smokey Yunick once said that as a competitor his desire was to build a car and lap everyone on the track at least once, but it pissed him off because NASCAR wouldn't let him do it.

It is a different perspective, hard to look at things through another eyes.
 
Careful there HS,

When I pointed out the fact that Jeff Burton ran the perfect race here at NHIS a couple years ago; the race where he made the pass for the lead on the first lap and walked away for the next 300 miles; I was told that I didn't know what racing was all about. (And called all sorts of names as well).
From a racer's standpoint, that is exactly what the intent should be. Get to the front and never let anyone get by you. Lead every lap, green to checkers. The perfect race.
Sucks for the spectators, but as the old saying goes, "That's racing".
Unfortunately what we have now is no longer a sport, it's entertainment and the biggest concern is putting on a good show for the folks in the stands; too often calls are made and rules interpreted with that fact in mind. Of course this is nothing new, seems as if a fellow named J. Alex Sloan had the same idea way back before the WWI. The santioning body he built then is still alive and well, still a money making deal, too.
Just the thoughts of a worn out old phart who remembers when racing was just that.
 
Careful as can be boB -

It's one of the tougher concepts for fans young and old to get their heads around. And its not just NASCAR fans either. We seem to live in times where folks expect their competition to be like a video game. All action all the time. The stick and ball sports have been affected by it as well. More scoring, I often wonder if the art of the no-hitter or the perfect game will ever hold the appeal it once did. And I recall the plate race at NHIS very well, to me it was jusl like watching a no-hitter, part of racing art.

But even an old codger like myself probably likes to see a high scoring game from time to time, and racing can rack up big scores as well. That's racing too. And even back in the old days, the sport needed the battles and close finishes and surprise victors just as it does now.

Which gets to the concept, the drivers and teams have a job to do. So does the sanctioning body and its officials. And 90% of the time the two jobs are going to be at odds with each other. And much of the time most of us aren't going to understand fully what either of them are really up to.

But that is part of the appeal as well, trying to figure the game........
 
It seems to me that this sport that we all love so much would have never gotten to the level that it is now if one racer led every lap of every race. You have to have the contriversy to get people interested. It's all about the talk around the water cooler on Monday morning. Think about what got you started keeping track on NASCAR. It difinately wasn't boring races. It was the sheer thrill of seeing men battle door handle to door handle at speeds that you and I cannot obtain on the highways on the way home from work in the evenings.
 
Nope bowtie, the appeal for me was trying to get the car running and handling good enough to lead every lap and blow the competition completely away. It doesn't happen very often, but it sure is sweet when it does.

While that is boring for the fans, that is what every real racer hopes to do every weekend.
If he's there to just ride around and collect last place money, he sure as he!! is no racer.

Remember that it wasn't that many years ago that winners in Grand National (Winston Cup) would have a lead of two or more laps over the second place finisher; perhaps there'd be another couple of cars on the same lap and then a few more laps over the next car or two, and more than half of the starting field would have dropped out with mechanical problems.

So now we have the goal of making all the cars equal in every way.....
Not good for racing, but great for the entertainment of the paying fans; it must work well as the "sport" seems to still be growing beyond anything anyone envisioned just a few short years ago.
The most important thing now is putting on a good show for the fans in the stands and getting the sponsors' names on camera for the TV audience. IF a race should, by some quirk of fate, result from those efforts, well that's all for the better.

I do agree with your observations if you look at the subject from the fans' point of view; but the whole idea of racing is to dominate, overpower, outsmart, and flat-out, plain old beat the pants off the rest of the field. Make them try to figure out what you did and what it's going to take to beat you next week.
Or at least it used to be.
But then again, we used to all be young and foolish once upon a time, too.

Did you, by any chance ever stop and give some thought to the futility, not to mention the stupidity, of a bunch of supposedly grown men, spending untold millions of dollars to build machines for the sole purpose of chasing each other around in circles?
All of that money wasted when there are people starving, people who are homeless, and people who are unable to afford even the most basic of medical care; not in foreign countries, but right here in the United States?

Just wondered?
 
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