[NASCAR Gnome]

I heard today that in 2007, not a single driver from North Carolina won a NASCAR Cup race. Not being from the area, I wonder how important this news is in terms of the area and racing history.

[LSC9901]

It is all sort of dependent as to how you feel about NASCAR moving away from its roots. No longer is it a southern sport. It is a national sport and those involved come from every corner of the country and now even different countries. Whether it is good or bad for the south is again dependent on who you are, where you live and how it might possibly affect your life. More and more companies, sports and so on are becoming more global and national versus regional. This didn't happen overnight. This has been a long time coming.

[jks812]

I guess it might matter to the drivers from there. But to me, I don't really care where they come from, I just like to see some racing. It might have started out a southern sport, but it hasn't been that for awhile.

[disco stu]

At the risk of sort of coming at the same issues as raised by my earlier JPM thread, how would you feel about NASCAR spreading it's wings further afield than America?

You know, like Champ car for example. Races in Australia, Japan, Europe etc.

Personally, I would not like to see that happen.

[cwstech]

I'm from North Carolina and I have no interest in Nascar. It's not as big overall as you would think it is in this state. I'm not sure of the percentage of who cares about it and who does not but at my church of 350 people, we have maybe 10 people that are die hard into Nascar.

[Racer Duck]

Originally Posted by disco stu

At the risk of sort of coming at the same issues as raised by my earlier JPM thread, how would you feel about NASCAR spreading it's wings further afield than America?

You know, like Champ car for example. Races in Australia, Japan, Europe etc.

Personally, I would not like to see that happen.

Agreed!

But that's not the direction the Frances are headed... They just haven't found anyplace they can find traction .. yet.

I wonder how much it costs to air freight a loaded hauler to, say, Germany or Italy or Japan or Australia?

[PettyBlue]

Originally Posted by Racer Duck

I wonder how much it costs to air freight a loaded hauler to, say, Germany or Italy or Japan or Australia?

So much that Nascar quit Japan.They would have to pay last place 1/4 to 1/2 mil likely for all the cup teams to showup.

[disco stu]

There is one very practical reason why it might be more difficult for NASCAR to do "fly away" races than other codes like F1 and Champ Car.

And that is the fact the during a NASCAR season the guys race every week, whereas there's usually a two gap between F1 and Champ Car races.

Logistically, I think this would pose a very real challenge.


For me, though, I really do think that the very "American-ness" of NASCAR is one of it's core characteristics.

I honestly don't think it would make me any less interested in the sport if "fly aways" were introduced....but I do think that it would somehow dilute it's character for me.

When I think of attending a NASCAR race (fingers crossed, 2008 will be my first), I always, always, always think in terms of travelling to the USA to do so. Even if they decided to have a race over here....I'd travel over there!

[NASCAR Gnome]

I've told many people who are not in tune with NASCAR that this type of racing with the cars and venues, is very "indigenous" to the United States. I don't know of another place in the world where the "hippodrome" or circular or oval race course is so prevalent and popular for racing cars! It's very popular all over the world for horse racing but definitely not for motor vehicles!

I've always said that stock-car racing on oval tracks here in this country is as close as we're going to get to the ancient Roman and Greek chariot races! These are the modern-day equivalent of those events and if history is a teacher, those chariot races was smashingly popular back then! It's no surprise to me that people don't mind (and actually prefer) racing in a circle or oval in this day and age regardless of what others might say about left-turns-only racing!

[PettyBlue]

U.S.A. does not want right,left.S,or U.We drive them everyday.Give us speed as in Nascar rounds or drag races.Hell,we don't care for soccer either, as a whole, like it seems the rest of the world does.Lol.