The Death of NASCAR

[JD Carpanzano]

Well with the Government running Chrysler and GM I guess NASCAR is going to be pretty boring. No more roar of engines, just the monotonous hum of electric motors creeping around the track at breakneck speeds of oh, 60 or 62 miles per hour. And I guess they won’t have to rush the pit stops either. I just can’t see Tony Stewart purring into the pits and making those guys run around the car all in a rush when the refueling is going to take about 8 hours. The good thing is in a 500 mile race he could get out to go pee instead of having to do it in his driver’s suit. And think any 500 race will last about a week! Just imagine the partying you could do in the infield. It would give those hot race chicks enough time to flash every single guy at the race. I like that part.

The unfair part will be that Ford will win all the races since they’ll have the only real cars in the race. Since they didn’t take any of Obama’s stimulus money they can still build real cars and not the cardboard and plastic toys the other guys will have to make. It will make the crowd happy though nearly everyone will be driving Fords anyway since nobody wants a cardboard, plastic plaything car anyway. Could you imagine going to a race in one of those things with just enough room in the trunk for a six pack and 4 charcoal briquettes. Yep, everyone will be driving Fords.

Race tickets are going to be real expensive though. The big super speedways will have to cut the banking down so the little wind up jobbies can stay on the track at those speeds. I have driven at Daytona and at 60 mph you slide down the banking, you have to run at least 90 mph just to get up near the wall. The wrecks are going to be a mess too. They will probably have to stop the race after a crash, call in a Haz-Mat team to soak up all the battery acid, pick up the copper and lead, re-pave that section then restart the race. Of course if the driver is hut he’ll have to go before a medical review board to make sure he’s really hurt which means he’ll miss the next three races waiting.

The way things are going they’ll probably have the food police search your car at the gates and confiscate all the hot dogs and burgers to keep your cholesterol down. Beer will taste like crap, low sodium, low fat, low cholesterol, reduced alcohol Government approved beer, yuck. After a few years of consecutive championships Ford will probably pull out since they won’t need the advertising leaving a bunch of wind up toys on the track. Race fans will just be the Poindexter types with thick glasses, pocket protectors and slide rules. No cheering, just sitting in the stands calculating charge rates, distance, time-space continuums and the like. The hot chicks will be replaced by Ugly Betty types who will ask if they can flash you, you answer “please no thank you.” The concession stands will serve Soy milk, decaf lattes and tofu burgers and you’ll get trail mix in place of funnel cakes. Tracks will loose money, TV ratings will plummet and NASCAR programming will be replaced with re-runs of An Inconvenient Truth. NASCAR will die a slow agonizing death.

I wish there was a country in this world where men can be men, women are treated like ladies (but still flash you anyway). You know a place where competition is a mark of excellence, where winners are cheered and losers praise their teams for their efforts. A place where you thought your Dad was the toughest guy on the block and you didn’t talk back to your Mom. A little corner where if two guys have a disagreement they go out to the parking lot, beat the tar out of each other and laugh about it later without a phalanx of attorneys getting involved. I seem to remember a place like that; I heard it committed suicide November 4, 2008.