[Shotimes] Re: NASCAR numbnuts

[bjshov8@comcast.net]

I'm not sure I understand this.

I am not a rabid racing fan.  I'm interested in the cars and the technology but find most of the events to be too boring.  Most events seem to be too much "follow the leader" and not much actual racing.

When I was younger and working in my dad's garage, one of my coworkers had an asphalt track car that he raced one season.  It had a stripped Chevelle body on a frame, roughly similar configuration to current Nascar.  At the local track (3/8 mile) the racing was a lot of the "follow the leader" stuff.  My friend managed to crash a few times and when he didn't crash his tire appetite was pretty big.  One time a couple of out of town racers came in, and those boys were actually interested in racing.  They fought it out on the track, swapping the lead back and forth in some close racing.  THAT is what I call racing, and is what is interesting to watch.  Not many of the local racers were interested in fighting that hard to win.  They would just follow whoever managed to get in front of them.

I remember slightly more recently we had a Formula One race in Dallas.  They had some other events such as vintage racing and I think a CanAm race.  I watched most of the events but didn't see much racing.  It was the same follow the leader stuff.  But, when the formula one guys started they actually raced, and it was an interesting event.  The course was fairly large so we could only see a small part of the track.  I picked a spot where I could watch a chicane in a long straight, and the racers would fight for position leading into that chicane.  To me it seemed that the F1 drivers had an incentive to win and not just follow someone else around the track.  In subsequent years they still had the Dallas Grand Prix but without F1 it just wasn't the same.
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> I agree F1 isn't the most exciting racing to watch.