Explain NASCAR to me please

[hornet]

thunderbelmont said:

Here are a few linkys...

http://www.asa-racing.com/
http://www.uara-stars.com/index.html
http://www.craracing.net/
http://www.carsprocup.com/
http://www.acttour.com/
http://www.proallstarsseries.com/
http://hometracks.nascar.com/series/kn_pro_series_...
http://hometracks.nascar.com/series/kn_pro_series_...

That should keep you busy!!

Thanks!

Vaguely aware of the modifieds and the sprintcars through the old "And They Walked Away" videos and "American Sports Cavalcade" shows that used to be on Sky many, many moons ago. Mostly involved people like Steve Kinser and Dave Blaney being upside down, as I recall.

[Camaro]

Excellent thread!

Well done Crafty, well written responses and you sound like someone I could spend a beer chatting to about this stuff!

One piece that seems to be a miss. The Big One.

Talladega, known as a Superspeedway due to its shape and the ability that cars have the chance to reach ridiculously fast speeds while drafting and side by side in the corners. Due to this theres become a thing known as the big one, which happens at nearly every Talladega race. While in a big pack, someone gets loose, or loses a tyre, and with absolutely no room for error, it kicks off a chain reaction of bad times.

This video is from the final laps of the 2012 Talladega race, I think it was a Green White Chequered situation, meaning they only had to make two laps of the track, all was going so well...

Watch in full screen with HD on and crank it up!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdk8LEXaJHs

[hornet]

Camaro said:

Due to this theres become a thing known as the big one, which happens at nearly every Talladega race. While in a big pack, someone gets loose, or loses a tyre, and with absolutely no room for error, it kicks off a chain reaction of bad times.

Am I alone in finding the way NASCAR has turned said "Big One" into part of the product rather unsettling? They've gone from an air of inevitability to something bordering on pleasure that half the field has been wiped out. One of these days I expect to tune in to hear "You join us at Talladega Speedway where we're under yellow following the Taco Bell Big One. If you had lap 126 on your Taco Bell Big One scratchcard, you've just won a Big One burrito!". I know people watch for the crashes as much as the races, but it's weird to see huge accidents turned into a unique selling point. Would be like the NHRA marketing top fuel blow overs. Feels wrong. I still watch, but it's from behind the sofa at times. It's the one race I have trouble enjoying.

[Crafty_]

I think its just a reflection of how much they have improved safety. Years ago you wouldn't promote the crashes because inevitably people were seriously injured/killed.

Now with the safer barriers and COT serious injury is pretty rare. Like it or not big crashes are part of the spectacle of all motorsport imho. Thats not to say NASCAR drivers don't get tired with the attitude http://youtu.be/v3Skr7SJRnY

Stewart coughed to causing that, he left it too late to move down to get bumped by someone else to keep the lead.

What I like about Talladega is the laps before that - 4 wide in a tight pack at 180-200, its an awesome sight.

This is pre-COT but I reckon the scariest crash I've seen: http://youtu.be/jxtID4k3UBw

A while back we were talking about the value of NASCAR, we had this little snippet last week:

jayski said:

NBC expected to make push for NASCAR rights: The shift to a less passive audience that would rather interrelate with a race telecast than just watch comes as NASCAR negotiates its next television contract.
The current deal expires after the 2014 season and by the time '15 rolls around the TV landscape could look very different. FOX has already renewed its agreement through 2022 to the tune of $300 million per year, or $2.4 billion over the eight years. That's a significant bump up from the $220 million Fox is currently paying for a package of races that includes the Daytona 500.

Despite a drop in ratings, an increase is also expected from other television entities for the remaining components of the contract, which include 23 other Sprint Cup races, ten inside the Chase, and the entire Nationwide Series schedule.

Incumbents TNT and ABC/ESPN are expected to again jump back into negotiations but a wild card has come to the table in the form of NBC. Desperate for quality and popular live sports programming for its NBC Sports Channel, the Peacock Network is expected to make a substantial play for a big piece of the NASCAR pie. But while the dollars may turn out to be greater in the NBC proposal, at this point the network could not match the exposure and publicity NASCAR receives from the "World Wide Leader" in sports.

As part of the mighty ESPN machine, NASCAR enjoys a hefty amount of promotion on not just auto racing-related programming but a wide range of content across a variety of television, radio and online platforms

So that means FOX are paying $300m for 13 races + the shootout.. Bernie would be proud of those figures!

NBC have picked up F1 coverage in the US, seems they are trying to build their profile in motorsport coverage.

[hornet]

Crafty_ said:

This is pre-COT but I reckon the scariest crash I've seen: http://youtu.be/jxtID4k3UBw

That was certainly a remarkable escape. I guess I'm answering my previous question about marketing of crashes. I could quite happily discuss NASCAR for hours, yet save for the Nationwide races at Montreal, I'm struggling to think of many race that stand alone because of the racing rather than the accidents. If someone asked "where did Mark Martin last win a race?" or "where was the closest finish?" I'd come up blank, yet if you asked "where did Montoya collide with the jet drier?" or "where did David Ragan and David Reutimann have their huge road course crash?", I'd be straight in with the answer. Nature of the beast I guess. I just worry that NASCAR is in the same place F1 was in the years before Senna died and something is going to come along that shakes everyone up. Watching people so accepting of the mass pile-ups at Talladega and Daytona feels like tempting fate. Daytona especially was a series of monstrous crashes this year. Pretty much every race there had something huge happen.