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no man im saying money has nothing to do with it. its 100% stupid ass fans.

I know, I'm saying that to both of you, and trying to explain why I said "dont blame money or stupid people" in my original post.

Both of you are right though. I just wanted to dive deeper into it.

but im not blaming "stupid people" persay. im citing the change of fanbase to a different kind of stupid person.

The sport got a ton of DARF's and after it hit its peak its become one gimmick after another.

the "big race" thing also needs some consideration, as ebessan/buckner touched upon on SG. mcmurray had a fucking awesome year, winning probably the 2 biggest races, but nobody cares because he didn't make the chase. there was a time, a time not that long ago, where winning the daytona 500 was much much bigger than winning a championship. somewhere along the line that changed.

If Indycar never had the split, Nascar would've never grown exponetially in the 90's especially after '95 when their 500 (Daytona) became more important than Indy on a national scale because niether Indycar series could hold itself on its own without the opposite half. Its the worse kept secret that Bill France Jr had plenty of conversations with FTG about encouraging the IRL's existance to keep the flames alive in the open wheel war and be on the side of the lesser formula that wasn't the powerhouse CART which was 10 times better than Nascar even its in prime. France knew deep down his series would never match CART so he waited until a moron like FTG came along so he could talk him into destroying AOWR while faking a "friendship". Talk about hook line and sinker George took the bait and then some.

Nascar has always wanted to be Indycar. That's why they made the 600 on the Memorial Day to make Indy look less significant. That's why Daytona has banking to try to be more exciting than Indy. That's why Darlington is 500 miles because they wanted to match Indy and wanted to give the south a 500 of their own (they even started the first Southern 500 3-breast like Indy).

My point is...Nascar knew it needed its main American motorsports rival out of the picture to grow and succeed (turn into a marketing and money machine). The problem is, Nascar's luck is beginning to run out because Bill Jr forgot he had a retard as a son that would eventually destroy the empire that he built up when he stole Indycar's.

Can't wait for the Indy renaissance in 2012.

I agree with what you said though. I guess I sort of disagree with you saying that they were always dumbasses, and that they morphed into a different kind of dumbass. I don't automatically assume some "redneck" who drinks beer and chews tobacco is a dumbass.

I like the point Ebessan just made on SG



The media doesn't take NASCAR seriously, and somehow NASCAR got fooled into not taking itself seriously either.

yeah thats a great point. ESPN gets all up in arms when changes are made to football/baseball/basketball or when someone fucks up, but with NASCAR it's just like "here's the highlights, dale jr. finished 23rd, who the fuck cares heres some more lebron news". nobody gives a shit.

I would love nothing more than Indy reclaiming it's rightful place on top of American motorsports. NASCAR was better when it was worse (than Indy) anyway.

I'm not sure you can get any deeper without acknowledging how it comes back to those two factors. It sounds like a broken record, but you can't understand all the reasons for why things have happened the way they have in a bubble, that's all.

dude shut the fuck up, seriously. it's always been about money, everything is about money.

Then why try to explain everything without talking about the money? It'd be like trying to tell the story of the Titanic without using the words 'ice' or 'hole'....

Or Leonardo di Caprio post-1997.

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and yes, paul, dumbass fans are a lot of it and it explains a lot the stuff in your original post (my point wasn't DUMBASS FANS RUINED IT THEMSELVES, but are indirectly responsible for it). they're the reason why they do all these stupid rule changes. they're the reason why they have multiple GWC's and all the other stupid gimmicky crap. races ended under caution for 55 fucking years and nobody gave a shit because that's just how it was.

people for some reason now need every race to be over the top insane 4 wide photo finishes with 15 crashes and sheet metal flying everywhere. and if they dont then people bitch and bitch and NASCAR responds by changing rules to manufacture this kind of shit. then all the talking heads buy into it and fucking talk about it non stop and praise it and it becomes second nature and part of the sport and is never reconsidered again.

the july daytona race was a race that everyone said was great but it really was a perfect example of all this stupid shit coming together. the big one was cool and part of the race but then everyone in the fucking field started driving like morons and crashing and not giving a fuck.

I was 4 years old when I first got into NASCAR. At first it was because brightly-painted cars going at high rates of speed on big tracks pleased my short attention span. As I grew up, I began to idolize the drivers (Earnhardt, Martin, Jarrett, etc.) and later the inner workings of the cars and teams fascinated me.

Point being, I wasn't lured into NASCAR by the promises of stupid catchphrases, wacky hijinks from the commentators, big-name actors who don't really give two fucks about NASCAR popping up to talk about their shitty new movie, or a cartoon gopher and his extended family.

If I can go off on a tangent, if there is one nitpicky thing I'm bothered by is the lack of orchestral music as background music for big events like the Daytona 500 (Last time I remember it being used to a good extent was NBC's '500 broadcast in 2002). Because when I think of 43 strong, athletic men hailing from across the country and around the world in finely-tuned machines racing 500 grueling miles around a high-banked cathedral of speed with hundereds of thousands of fans and millions at home cheering them on, all to capture a crown that these drivers have dreamed about since they first put their hands to a steering wheel, my thoughts do not turn to overused country-twang and some hick chick singing "LETS GO RACIN' BOYS!". The networks could get with that shit in the 80's, but not now.

First thing's first, this thread's getting HoF'd. No doubt about it.

Secondly, it wasn't that USAC didn't start a rear engined sprint car series, they outright banned rear engined sprint cars. If that wouldn't have happened, who knows what could have happened in American Motorsports.

What's killing NASCAR is the same thing that killed Group C and what caused the open wheel split of the 90's: Guys at the top of sanctioning bodies with more greed and ego than common sense that try to change things just for the sake of change, and it backfires on them. Big time.

Think about it. Group C was changed to a 3.5L engine formula, and in a couple of years, it was over. The FIA didn't like that the WSC was rivaling F1, so they tried making the cars closed wheels versions of F1 cars. Died after 1993 or 1994 I think.

CART and IRL had idiots at the top of both sanctioning bodies, and neither one could see that they needed each other before 1996. As someone once said on another message board, "CART and IMS needed each other, but neither CART nor IMS were able to see that." Both wanted control, neither would budge, and we've seen what civil war has done.

NASCAR's going through a similar period now. They've changed so much in the past few years just for the sake of change that it's ruined. The Chase, Lucky Dog, GWC finishes, COT's, everything's fucked up. And hell, Brian France even said that he doesn't look at fan opinion things to help him make decisions.

Which leads me to believe that until Randy Bernard came along to IndyCar, the vast majority of sanctioning body heads were morons. I say the vast majority because Bill France Sr. and Jr. made Nascar great, but Brian's about to ruin it.

The question we all have now is, how do we fix Nascar? Well, I talked to Joey about this a while back, and this was the list I gave him:

1. Get rid of the CoT, except at the restrictor plate tracks. Honestly, I like the plate races with the new car, but I wish they had better looking cars out there.
2. Make the cars look different enough to where you can tell what's a Ford, what's a Chevy, and what's a Toyota. I hate that you can just swap out a few gears, a couple of engine bits, maybe some other parts in the rear and some stickers and you've made a Toyota into a Chevy.
3. Gray areas in the rules. Smokey Yunick and Junior Johnson thrived on these parts of the rule book, so let's open up Pandora's box here.
4. Have appeals boards consist of more than just Nascar personnel, and have them actually use sense and logic. If the Nascar appeal boards had sense and logic, Clint Bowyer wouldn't have had that big penalty after New Hampshire, but Nascar went into full retard mode (as if that's a surprise).
5. Enough with the stupid ass penalties. Kyle Busch gets a couple of laps for flipping off an official, yet nothing for having a slap fight? Let the drivers show emotion outside of the car. Hell it worked back in 1979 for the Daytona 500, it sure as shit will work now.
6. Streamline Nascar by selling Grand Am to Don Panoz for real cheap. Grand Am will never be big, just look at the stands during the Rolex 24 at Daytona.
7. Make the season finale be at Charlotte Motor Speedway. If you really want to make it big, make it a 750 mile race, so it'll REALLY be a test of how much a driver really wants to win. Also, give tickets to each team employee and their family members so wives, husbands, and kids can see what their time and effort is doing on the track.
8. Get rid of the damned chase. Nuff said.
9. Get a good company to make a Nascar offline or online video game that's not a subscription based game. I say good because not everyone's impressed with the new Nascar game that's coming out. Also, have a requirement that once a week, the top 25 in Cup points have to race online with fans.
10. Roof cameras on every car. Nuff said.

I didn't include some of Paul's things he mentioned in the OP because they were well covered (track markets, etc).

And to answer your question Paul, the last time I genuinely had a great time watching a Nascar race was the 2010 Daytona 500, because the MSN convo that was going on at the time was having me in stitches.

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If you screw up while skydiving, you have the rest of your life to figure out how to fix it.

Why did USAC ban rear-engined sprint cars, anyway?

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-Joe.
Atlanta United FC | Cincinnati Reds | Atlanta Falcons | Tennessee Titans

Anyone up for ressurecting Bill France Sr. or Jr. from beyond the grave so they can give Brian the ass-whooping he deserves for fucking up the sport?

Can we fix the schedules of the top-3 series, get rid of the yellow-line rule and create a better relationship between the sanctioning body and the media, too? If we can do that, I'm sold on the above.

they would have done the same things