Hinton: Don't bash NASCAR

What this reads is more a defense of culture than of NASCAR itself.

To many in the populace, NASCAR = Southern culture.

When NASCAR is bashed (or country music is bashed), Southerners see nothing more than elitist Yankees trying to belittle their culture (and by extension, force a foreign Yankee culture down their throats).

Southerners are VERY defensive about slights/threats to their culture/way of life. Obviously, some of the threats were justified (e.g., slavery, the Civil Rights movement).

The flip side is, when something Southern is popular -- like NASCAR, Wal-Mart or country music has become -- they have a tendency to be very in-your-face about it, and tend to belittle competitors (if I had a nickel for every time I've heard a southerner bash IndyCar as a bunch of foreigners driving funny-looking cars, or bash F1 because of no passing/road course racing/no Americans, I'd be rich).

 

I feel like I just heard Gimmie Back My Bullets.

 

Wal-Mart is only 15 miles away (west or north) from being Midwestern when founded; the driver that screwed up the Cup so much was a stinking Yankee (Kenseth); and the biggest country star right now is Bon Jovi.

The irony drips.

 

Fuck all forms of auto racing with a BBQ pork rib. Taken from the freezer. That is all.

 

Well, I heard Mr. Indyfan4ever sing about 'em
Yeah, I heard ol' Indyfan4ever put 'em down
Well I hope Indyfan4ever well remember
A NASCAR man don't need him around, anyhow!

 

That's the line that drew me into the column. I want my six minutes back, Bubbler. I'll be waiting at Wal-Mart next to the Santa-type person with a bell.

 

I always just find it funny that every driver gets in the plugs for his sponsors every time he's interviewed.

It's not enough that he has a big logo on the hood of his car, or that he's wearing a baseball hat with the logo, or has the logo on his jumpsuit. Nope, he's got to plug his sponsor:

Interviewer: "BillyBob, congratulations on winning today's FordEnron 500. What happened out there today?"

BillyBob: "Well, my Condomrubber tires saved me today. They gave me good protection from the others. My GM Car No. 69 with Exxon Oil really was running good today. And I had a lot of energy from eating a bunch of Chocobot bars. That kept me going.

Oh, and I also have to thank the good Lord, Jesus. I won today because He wanted me to."

 

From what I read, this is the reason that only Jamie McMurray and Dale Earnhardt Jr. would make cameos in "Talladega Nights." Most of the drivers thought it hit just a bit too close to home.

 

Nice column by Ed. He could have written it for many of the commentators on this board.

I'll be honest with you: Auto racing -- NASCAR in particular -- is a great, hidden sports writing secret. Reporters run from it like it's a forest fire. Cover a race? Uh, no thanks, can you find somebody else? It's too strange, too unusual, too starkly different from everything else. The perception is that racing writers are part of some grease-stained cult, where the members speak a language all their own. They're just players in the big redneck hoedown, right?

Wrong. I was a college beat writer who never watched the stuff, and fell bass ackward into covering it. I had no idea what I was getting into. But good lord, the subject matter. It grows out of the walls. In 20 years in this business, I've never been around a beat with a more consistent flow of material. Every week there's a new controversy or a rules change or a transaction or a business angle or a personality conflict or (sometimes literally) a life-and-death issue. As a racing writer for nine years now, I know the perception. And I will admit, this beat has its share of motorhead lifers that give it an often too-cliquey feel. The media center can feel like a high school sometime. But from a writing perspective, the amount of material is simply amazing. It's a dreamworld for a columnist in particular.

As for the "sport/not a sport" argument ... any competition that lands guys in the care center with IV needles in their arms qualifies in my book. Cover a race sometime and ask NASCAR PR if you can take a ride in a pace car. That will wake you up. And for Sam Mills, if you're hearing from fans who think NASCAR is infallible, you're hearing from a small, splinter group. Most of them blame the current CEO for everything from the new car to Watergate. They don't take to change very well.

 

Good stuff. From a writing standpoint, there is nothing I enjoy more than auto racing.

 

I love racing, and I would love to write about it on a NASCAR level (I've done some at the local levels.. local dirt tracks and stuff)... I always get the weird looks from our own sports department when I'm talking about racing or some of the idiosyncracies of it.

 

Plus, the whole dictionary definition argument is high school-level writing.