The loss of a sports fan

[mark_chalifoux]

Sports Gospel

The loss of a sports fan

By Mark Chalifoux



Loss is a part of life, unfortunately, a part that no one can escape.
Full Article

[Shane]

Oh THIS is going to be a popular thread.

[JGAC]

To me, a sport is something that, among other things, requires a decent amount of athletic ability. NASCAR requires very little. I guess another reason I don’t consider NASCAR a sport is because fans can’t partake in the game itself. I can play golf or hockey with my friends, toss a baseball or football or play a pickup game of basketball. Can I go outside and play NASCAR?

go kart racing?

But I have to agree, NASCAR is not a sport, theres too much mechanization in driving the car.

[Ishkur]

Wait, weren't you people harping on me for pretty much saying the exact same thing awhile back?

Mark, may I direct your attention to here.

Sometimes an apple needs to be tossed down the hall every once in awhile, just to see which goddess picks it up.

[Mike]

The fact of the matter is this discussion will never end, I have to say that I personally dont think that NASCAR is a sport, but most people that I talk to in day to day life would totally disagree!

My reactions would be the same if i had a close friend, say KP, go redneck on me, I mean nascar!

Ish is right, he did point this out in his last article, but then again, your article focused on a friend going "south". Ish - your aritcle pointed out all different sports


Good article Dude

[mark_chalifoux]

Sorry if I stepped on your toes Ish, I didn't catch your article. My main point was just detailing the fall of my friend and putting the debate to rest, once and for all. I'm sure there will be a lot of discussion on this for ever, but let's face it, if I wanted to, I could argue that a tree is really a car until I am blue in the face, but I will never see anyone driving a tree to work.

[Rusty27]

Nice opinionated article.Unfortunately you can't change the fact that Nascar is a sport based on the definition of the word.Nascar is covered is the sports
section in the newspaper,the sports portion of the TV news,sports web sites,
and sports magazines.
You write very good articles when it comes to the many topics you have expertise in, but Nascar is a topic you are not knowledgeable in coupled with your dislike for it,makes for bad joke of an article containing unoriginal
worn out stereotypical remarks and a 1950's or 1960's mentality of the sport.

[KP]

I went to a NASCAR race...once. It was okay. Lot's of people. Lot's of good looking women. Same as any other sport. Can't say the experience coerced me in to being a diehard, cap wearing fanatic screaming to my favorite driver to hurry up and get around the corner. NASCAR requires a fair amount of skill, sure. But, so does bowling. So does table tennis. So does horseshoes. None of those are "sports" with "athletes" on the level of football, baseball, basketball and, (this is difficult for me to say) hockey. Shoot, gymnasitcs and ice skating are more of sport requiring an athlete than those others I mentioned.

Like Larry the Cable Guy asks, "How'd you git dem tickets to the Tampax 200?"

[Ishkur]

No toes stepped on here. Just wanted to point it out, is all.

I dislike NASCAR, but not for any of the typical reasons (boring, too many similar oval tracks, redneck reputation, etc...). It's actually what it did to CART. I'll explain, and this is well-documented:

I like auto-racing. Chiefly, I've always loved CART series auto-racing (more variety of tracks, faster cars...or used to be. Faster than formula 1 even). In the mid 90s, CART and NASCAR were neck and neck for market share in the North American auto racing fan. In fact, I would say that CART had a slight edge, with such legends as Mario and Michael Andretti, Al Unser Jr., AJ Foyt and Bobby Rahal.

NASCAR's boss is Brian France. Tony George is the owner of the Indianapolis Speedway, the most prestigious auto-racing event in North America and a CART race first and foremost. France did something really clever that was great for NASCAR, but awful for auto-racing: he wanted a piece of that pie. He became good friends with George when he landed a deal to have the NASCAR circuit race on the famed Indy oval for the first time in 94 (Brickyard 400), but he went one further from there: he convinced George to demand more money from CART, being the most prestigious race and all. CART refused. So, like a Shakespearean tragedy, George returned to the man who was silently organizing his demise, and France told him to break things off with CART and form his own league: The Indy Racing League.

This rift divided open-wheeled racing fans down the middle and resulted in much infighting and team switching. Meanwhile, NASCAR roared ahead with its ratings and it's smoothed, polished delivery that was much more efficient and unmuddied as the befangled open-wheeled racing circuit. And that is why today NASCAR is the most dominant motor event in North America. This was one of the most clever and well-executed plans of "divide and conquer" I have ever seen. Brian France almost single-handedly had annihilated the competition in less than a decade. this would be like if Pepsi planted seeds of mistrust in the Coke empire which resulted in breakaway factions and its ultimate collapse in just a few short years.

The schism in open-wheeled racing confused new fans and turned off old ones. Dwindling interest forced CART to fold in 99, and now in its place is a maligned circuit called the Champ Car series. And the Indy Racing League? It's still around, and although it's improved beyond CART/Champ Car with a network TV ontract and increased exposure, the feud decimated the entire spectacle of open-wheeled racing, leaving NASCAR as the only sane choice for the casual racing fan.

And the Indy 500? It used to be the Kentucky Derby of auto-racing, held every year since 1911 on the Sunday before Memorial Day. These days, it's just a minor footnote in the racing circuit now. It's not even on TV anymore, except when it's the NASCAR Brickyard 400.

[Rusty27]

Originally Posted by Ishkur

NASCAR's boss is Brian France. Tony George is the owner of the Indianapolis Speedway, the most prestigious auto-racing event in North America and a CART race first and foremost. France did something really clever that was great for NASCAR, but awful for auto-racing: he wanted a piece of that pie. He became good friends with George when he landed a deal to have the NASCAR circuit race on the famed Indy oval for the first time in 94 (Brickyard 400), but he went one further from there: he convinced George to demand more money from CART, being the most prestigious race and all. CART refused. So, like a Shakespearean tragedy, George returned to the man who was silently organizing his demise, and France told him to break things off with CART and form his own league: The Indy Racing League.

This rift divided open-wheeled racing fans down the middle and resulted in much infighting and team switching. Meanwhile, NASCAR roared ahead with its ratings and it's smoothed, polished delivery that was much more efficient and unmuddied as the befangled open-wheeled racing circuit. And that is why today NASCAR is the most dominant motor event in North America. This was one of the most clever and well-executed plans of "divide and conquer" I have ever seen. Brian France almost single-handedly had annihilated the competition in less than a decade. this would be like if Pepsi planted seeds of mistrust in the Coke empire which resulted in breakaway factions and its ultimate collapse in just a few short years.

So what you are saying is that Tony George is completely incompetent,lacking any business sense and not only that,but had no competent staff to coach
him forcing him to rely on an outsider, blindly taking his advice.And because
of this incompetence,you are blaming the other party,Nascar,for this.
Your Pepsi analogy and for that matter, your entire post is totally preposterous.
Nascar is popular because of it's marketing, driver recognition and more exciting style of side by side racing.

[Ishkur]

Do you blame Iago or Othello for Othello's downfall?

[Rusty27]

Do you blame Nixon or Charles Colson for Nixon's downfall?

[KP]

Do you blame Ishkur or Rusty for the downfall of this thread?