2014 NASCAR running thread - Brian France idiot edition

No doubt, you see that with drivers from other series go to NASCAR. It takes a long time to adapt to driving the taxicabs.

But what you're watching on the track isn't a driver fighting a car. At Indy, you're watching stock cars topping out laps at 185-190, which even the crappy Lotus cars from a few years ago would blow by.

When my father died in 2009, I inherited two sets of tickets from him -- Indy 500 and Brickyard 400 (he was a '94er, as Indy started calling them, one of the original buyers). The only reason I would have held on the Brickyard tickets is if there were some demand so I could resell them. Admittedly, I'm not a big NASCAR fan, but the race at Indy is deadly dull. If it wasn't Indy, there is no way NASCAR would run on a track like this.

 

I agree re: the Indy track. Other than the restarts, which are quite compelling, it doesn't make for those grab-you-in-the-gut NASCAR moments.

 

I have no doubt that NASCAR is challenging, perhaps more challenging than open-wheel racing.

But watching both at that track, and at Joliet, NASCAR is deadly boring.

 

I go every year to at least one NASCAR race and one Indy race at Texas Motor Speedway. I love watching those Indy cars dart around at 200+, watching them set up passes... It's decidedly a different racing pleasure than NASCAR, but goodness is it fun. Then again, I love oval racing of any form. Hell, I'll even watch the trucks.

 

The trucks put on the best show of the three. The races at Eldora are especially entertaining.

 

If you're ever in the Chicago area over the summer, I would recommend Team Demolition Derby in Joliet. Teams have four cars each, and the first one to have a car collect five laps on the all dirt track wins. The trick is to avoid being crashed out by cars from the other team. It's glorious. Imagine a contest where two football teams had to return kickoffs AND stop returns at the same time.

 

Actually, what would be awesome at Indy (not that they'll ever do it) is to do an Indy-car style double for the weekend, with one race at IMS, and one race at the oval in Clermont where until a few years ago they race the whatever-the-hell-the-lower-series-is-called-now.

 

Tony Stewart may be in deep shit. Reportedly ran over someone during an altercation during a race in NY. Police investigating.

http://thatsracinluckydog.blogspot.com/2014/08/police-investigating-incident-involving.html

 

Depending on who you believe, Tony Stewart either accidentally or purposely killed a guy by hitting him with a race car.

 

Starting to be picked up by the big outlets.

 

There will be footage of it on Deadspin eventually. Tony Stewart at a local dirt track is a big deal and someone will have been rolling on it.