nascar and formula one fans

[squirrelman]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhuIGLV97Kw


the greed of some rich ppl never stops

[flyinelvis]

As an employee of a Cup Series, NASCAR team, I'm not the least bit surprised to hear this. The HIGH cost of racing moves many to fund their passion in anyway they can. Our US based sport is cheap in comparison to say F1, where the cars/teams travel the world. Funny that Haas dropped their Russian driver at the start of the war in Ukraine. Major sponsorship (Nakita's father) went with it. And then the young Shumacher destroyed several cars over the course of the '22 season ($$$). Something needed to replace that income, so what's wrong with selling a few CNC machines to Russia to keep his F1 team on the track? Who's gonna be the wiser? Rich kids playing a high stakes game of cars...

[6]

As an employee of a Cup Series, NASCAR team, I'm not the least bit surprised to hear this. The HIGH cost of racing moves many to fund their passion in anyway they can. Our US based sport is cheap in comparison to say F1, where the cars/teams travel the world. Funny that Haas dropped their Russian driver at the start of the war in Ukraine. Major sponsorship (Nakita's father) went with it. And then the young Shumacher destroyed several cars over the course of the '22 season ($$$). Something needed to replace that income, so what's wrong with selling a few CNC machines to Russia to keep his F1 team on the track? Who's gonna be the wiser? Rich kids playing a high stakes game of cars...

One of many things that has pulled me away from NASCAR. The nepotism and greed.

Whats going in in NASCAR proves to me a couple of things,
1. talent is 100% in the family and passed down, over, around, across, diagonally, and sideways around the gene pool with 100% success rate,
or...
2. Learning to drive the cars at that level involves FAR more money and opportunity than talent, and can be learned by pretty much anyone who is strapped into a car early enough and/or long enough and given the best stuff all along the way,
and/or
3. the driver matters not, its the marketability that matters most.

I always loved thinking of the next big star being some guy working on his beat up race car at night in the garage with his dad and then going out there every weekend battling it out on 1/4 miles all over the region. My uncle was a Bush North Champion twice, once in the 70's and again in 87. He was the youngest to ever do it until Joey Logano beat that benchmark. That was how they went racing . Him, my grandpa, my dad, and their cousin, in the garage every night working then towing that car with an old pickup anyplace they though they could afford to race.

This is why i loved NASCAR, you wont find a bigger fan that i was....

Then you start to see behind the curtain.. Read a NASCAR grid. Its all very familiar names,... Last names.. But the first names have changed. Its disappointing.

And then they start manipulating and changing the racing, to make it "more exciting" hows that working out? How big is NASCAR compared to where it was just before "The Chase", "Competition Cautions" and the COT? Not good... Maybe the racing is more exciting, but the viewership and fan base fell off a cliff.

It sucks. I used to love nascar.

[Shthawk]

Like Flyinelvis, my employer is "tangentially" connected to Nascar, and I can't disagree with anything that anyone has said so far. Sad to say, but I don't really enjoy the racing anymore either.

[tian647]

I think it's not just NASCAR with this kind of problem.

I grew up racing cars with the SCCA which was long the stodgy bastion of shade tree mechanics flogging their home-built jalopies, but in the 90s real estate development reduced the available venues and liability concerns ratcheted up the cost so that small, local sanctioning bodies basically all were priced out and the SCCA became the only game so the money moved in and a typical weekend field went from a bunch of dented Datsuns and Pintos to last years World Challenge and WEC cars, all but shuffling the obsolete heritage cars off the paddock.

I moved over to endurance racing with the WRL (https://www.racewrl.com) as an outgrowth of LeMons/ChumpCar which were a bit more party-and-pagentry and a little less competition oriented and the first 5 years were great! A bunch of low-budget DIYers slinging hardware for bragging rights and plastic trophies, but the the money started showing up because the racing was good. this season most of the grid are bespoke GT cars from multi-vehicle professional teams and us garagista with our battered old Miatas and Bimmers spend the race waving past a train of glistening supercars who then more often than not hold us up through the twisty sections before disappearing for a few laps at the next straight.

ChampCar and American Endurance Racing have sprung up to sort of replace the old budget/entry-level series but even there there are more dollars being thrown at cars than my budget can compete with.

I also play in spec series (SpecE30, SpecE46, Spec Miata and now Spec Corvette) where the rules theoretically enforce mechanical equality across the field but each of those over time have escalated into a game of who can throw more money into the grey areas of the rules to find an advantage.

It's competition, I get it, but the reward is still a $5 plaque so every couple years I find myself searching out the next promising new series where I can afford to challenge again. I guess the cure is to get the itch out of my blood, but I don't see that happening. Instead I need to up my financial game and marketing outreach, but those efforts have not yet yielded the desired results. We'll keep trying...

[6]

I think it's not just NASCAR with this kind of problem.

I grew up racing cars with the SCCA which was long the stodgy bastion of shade tree mechanics flogging their home-built jalopies, but in the 90s real estate development reduced the available venues and liability concerns ratcheted up the cost so that small, local sanctioning bodies basically all were priced out and the SCCA became the only game so the money moved in and a typical weekend field went from a bunch of dented Datsuns and Pintos to last years World Challenge and WEC cars, all but shuffling the obsolete heritage cars off the paddock.

I moved over to endurance racing with the WRL (https://www.racewrl.com) as an outgrowth of LeMons/ChumpCar which were a bit more party-and-pagentry and a little less competition oriented and the first 5 years were great! A bunch of low-budget DIYers slinging hardware for bragging rights and plastic trophies, but the the money started showing up because the racing was good. this season most of the grid are bespoke GT cars from multi-vehicle professional teams and us garagista with our battered old Miatas and Bimmers spend the race waving past a train of glistening supercars who then more often than not hold us up through the twisty sections before disappearing for a few laps at the next straight.

ChampCar and American Endurance Racing have sprung up to sort of replace the old budget/entry-level series but even there there are more dollars being thrown at cars than my budget can compete with.

I also play in spec series (SpecE30, SpecE46, Spec Miata and now Spec Corvette) where the rules theoretically enforce mechanical equality across the field but each of those over time have escalated into a game of who can throw more money into the grey areas of the rules to find an advantage.

It's competition, I get it, but the reward is still a $5 plaque so every couple years I find myself searching out the next promising new series where I can afford to challenge again. I guess the cure is to get the itch out of my blood, but I don't see that happening. Instead I need to up my financial game and marketing outreach, but those efforts have not yet yielded the desired results. We'll keep trying...

We are looking at moving away from racing bikes and into cars. Local short track stock car racing seems to be where its at.

For a few grand (5k-10k) you can get a lower series car that's is about ready to go. And you get to race it every weekend, multiple times. Friday Lee, Saturday Star, Sunday Hudson or wherever... There are even local tracks that run Tuesday or Thursday. They try and keep the rules the same so you can run your car at multiple tracks.

Racing Speedway I learned just how much fun it is to race in a weekly series that has multiple tracks each week, as opposed to prepping a bike all month, to race one weekend, for thousands of dollars, were you may only get to run a lap if things go wrong.

You invest that much time and money you want to be able to run more then 5-6-7 times a year.

2021 we won the track championship at Champion Speedway and the NY state championship. I missed a race, and I crashed 15 20 times.. and we about broke even..

try saying that in a road race series were you run 7 rounds and spend $2200 a round... Ya cant.