Quote:
Originally Posted by turn1
Loved your NASCAR post too. I'm guessing we're about the same age. Sprint Car racing and then NASCAR are what led me to being a huge motorsport fan in general, esp F1. Not into NASCAR anymore, for much the same reasons you described. Still into Sprint Cars though. Maybe the best racing on the planet.
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Spent almost every Saturday night watching Sprint or Super Mods at a local half mile dirt track sitting on the hood of my '78 Z28 at the drive up section of the track, eating funnel cakes and drinking beer. I agree, loud, fast, exciting racing. My wife's cousin drives a Super Mod in NY. My Z28 was new btw which should indicate my age somewhat. I also attended races at the Longhorn Speedway near Bergstrom AFB to watch stock cars race on a quarter mile paved track just because I lived a couple of miles away from it. Anyone remember that place?? We once had stock car racing in Austin, albeit at a shitty little track. The other much better place to watch stock car racing was at a track near Bryan, TX. My family got together every year to watch what was then a tape delay of the Indy 500, so I was just a kid when I became a racing fan. It took me a while to get into NASCAR. I was a big Rick Mears fan as well as Andretti. Lets not forget, Sneva, Danny Sullivan, Rutherford, Rahal, Unser, Johncock, Cogan, Foyt, Pruett, to name a few. Again, each of those drivers and more were followed by die hard Indy Car fans like I was because of the attitude and personality they brought to the sport. And I knew most of the drivers by name and sponsor. Now as in NASCAR, I don't know hardly any of the drivers and I'm not one to root for a driver just because they are American. Indy racing does have fundamental issues when there was a split, Indy VS Cart. But to top the list of the diluted fan base between the two was name recognition, or more accurately, lack of. Also, short track ovals are quit boring with Indy cars. Apparently no one really gives a shit about Indy anymore or the foreign drivers who dominate the sport save for the Indy 500 where fans will travel to the US for that one race, and as proof based on the dismal attendance at the COTA race. Adding COTA to their schedule was a popular move among the drivers who wanted to race on a world class F1 circuit. Promotion may have played a role in the attendance fail, but it really boils down to the lack of interest and connection between US fans and whoever the heck is driving those cars. Once the novelty wears off, I'd say they will only be around 3 -5 years unless there is a major uptick in local and US interest in the COTA race and Indy racing in general. That all being said, with the exception of F1, for some reason, the lessening interest in major motor sports is evolutionary. God, can't believe I'm saying this...but back in my day, we had a plethora of entertainment options that did not include cell phone, YouTube, Google, Social Media, whatever, so we did a bunch of outdoor activities which included Motor Sports. So in part I blame the gut punch to attendance and popularity of NASCAR, Indy, and to a much lesser extent F1 to cell phones, the internet, and Social Media. Even I have succumbed to these evils by evidence of the amount of time I spend on this forum. I haven't had a tan in years