For two decades I was a devoted follower of NASCAR. It was a sport that I truly enjoyed: Sunday race days couldn’t come quick enough for me. I was a whole-hearted Richard (“The King”) Petty fan and when he retired, I latched onto Jeff Gordon, cheering on his brilliant duels with Dale Earnhardt. I reveled in the sport’s history as an outlet for rum-runners, and I loved the old films of gas-guzzling monsters racing on southeastern beaches.
I stopped watching on a regular basis some years ago. My wife, despite — or perhaps because of — living in Appalachia for many years, just hated the good ol’ boy southern accents of the commentators, and I was happy to go along with watching less to please her. At the same time, the France family that essentially owns NASCAR, did a lot to drive me away — cutting out traditional races in favour of expansion to Las Vegas and Kansas, for example, and introducing their misbegotten “race for the chase” playoff series.
I spent a couple of years watching one or two races each year, following the rest of the season in the press. But I haven’t even bothered to do that for two years or so. Life without NASCAR has been more than tolerable and I rarely give it a passing thought. Now, Robert Weintraub has spoken the hard truth — NASCAR needs to be wound up completely.
As Weintraub points out, the relationship between NASCAR and the big three automakers in Detroit is parasitic — the sport cannot survive without ongoing and expensive sponsorhip by Ford, GM and Chrysler. The taxpayer bailout and the defensive retrenchment that seems to be the American industry’s future, might be — and should be — the death knell for stock car racing. Injured by a massive fall in attendance last year, more than 1,000 race employees have already lost their jobs and more cuts seem certain:
[E]xamine the situation from the Big Three’s point of view. The automakers’ CEOs have already been reamed for flying private jets to D.C. while their companies wither. If the bailout does come through, making a huge expenditure on a diversion like NASCAR would be a jet-style PR disaster. Congress wants those dollars to go toward renewable-energy technology, not mammoth ad displays in the Talladega Speedway infield. Continuing to fund stock-car racing would be a sign that Detroit simply cannot function in the new century.
I’m not sure I agree with Weintraub’s suggestion that in the future we are “going to look back and shake our head in wonder that we let such a wasteful, environmentally disastrous ‘sport’ take place”. But he is right that Detroit needs to pull out of the sport. If Bill France and his people can find some other funding mechanism, then good for them. If not, sayonara baby.
Posted by jakking 
