Re: NASCAR channel.... bad idea

["RoccoPhil" <roccophil@mindspring.com>]

Overall, strongs points that Meze made.  Disagree on a few though, and want
to make some general points.

First, redneck Americana is really anywhere USA.  To call it the South is
gettin' out there.  I know it *seems* that the south is where all the
rednecks are from, but you go anywhere in rural USA (except the west coast,
I guess, and I think the west coast has it's own kind of weird stuff) and
you'll find that crap.  I saw it up in New Hampshire while I was on vacation
and you go to Pennslyvania (where my family owns a place, and OH BOY).  It's
more an isolationist kind of culture.  Us vs. them.  Which is why the good
ol' boys didn't really get off on NASCAR blowing up nationwide.

On F1.  Yup, it has been boring for a long time.  This year, not.  And the
reasons are NOT about traction control.  Brazil was an awesome race, as was
Imola, and all that was before traction control.  Ferrari does *not* have
the edge (well, Schumacher is the edge) as far as construction.  The
BMW/Williams is by far a nastier piece w/ it's much greater power.  The
relative inexperience of the younger Schumacher is the issue there, as well
as Montoya.  But they will both continue to grow as racers.  Coulthard is
always there, and Hakkinen is getting it together.  And need I say Sauber's
boy - Raikkonen??  That kid is awesome (my favorite).  So the drivers AND
their teams are very competitive this year.

I think that F1 and all open wheel racing is superior to NASCAR.  I think
because it stresses the aspect of controlling your vehicle.  You touch the
other car, usually someone's going in the air.  No bumping for the most part
(OK, dumbass Schumacher not withstanding).  Not that I hate NASCAR.  I guess
I have a few grudges.  First, the moronic way it is so in style and
bludgeon's EVERY TYPE OF RACING in the media.  This is partly the media's
fault and partly general society.  The media jumps on anything society wants
and does overkill, and general society wants crap racing.  By that I mean
CRASHES.  And that is not really deniable.  A field of thousands, usually
crammed on oval tracks, will get ugly.  Oh, good.  How exciting.

Now, I don't deny the technical aspects to it, and I do think it has it's
moments of real racing.  Especially when the get on road tracks and off the
ovals.  But, again, NASCAR is so huge that whenever anything NASCAR comes
up, all other racing is pushed aside.  So we have to fight to get decent
access to other types of racing.  I don't think resentment here is
unwarranted.  You can get NASCAR anywhere.

Give you an idea of how big and overwhelming NASCAR is.  Here in Richmond
the local track is RIR and NASCAR runs two races there a year, I think.
Well, the IRL (Indy Racing League) has just commissioned to run races here.
They were covering it in the news and were calling it a 'new kind of
racing'.  Like Indy cars are NEW??  The IRL is relatively new, but not Indy
car racing.  But to people here they are.  Never mind that the Indy 500 was
*the* event on television for years.  Which, because it was oval, got boring
to me.  Anyhow, the people who've gone out to RIR (mostly NASCAR fans) for
IRL testing are *real* excited about the IRL and love the cars.  The sound,
the speed.  It's all exciting to them.  But somehow it's a new form of
racing to them.

You see, my point isn't that NASCAR is bad.  It just needs to have some
curbs on it's coverage so other things can flourish.



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