My Fixes for NASCAR

I've never been a huge fan of NASCAR, other than I'm a fan of racing in general, so that makes me a NASCAR fan by default, I guess. Lately, they have been bemoaning the fact that their fan base is getting older - and they're losing fans in general. So without being asked (nobody ever asks me), here's a start on how to fix their immediate problems.

1. Racing old fuddy-duddy cars is NOT going to attract a younger fan base. Most car people will tell you the most boring, vanilla, plain-Jane car on the planet is the Toyota Camry. Near the top of that list would also be the Chevy Impala, Ford Fusion, and Dodge Charger. They might all be fine big four-door sedans, good for hauling the family to Aunt Joan's for Sunday dinner, but really - has a fifteen year old kid ever thought "I can't wait 'til I'm 16 so I can drive a Camry!"? So let's get some cars in there that people have passion for - Mustangs, Challengers and Camaros. Toyota has a problem with this right now, as the only car in their lineup that people actually have passion for is the Prius. Not really NASCAR material.

2. Racing cars that are really all the same but are pretending to be different and are nothing - at all - like what their road-going namesakes are is insulting to the fans. Make all race cars use the exact same exterior body panels that their road-going counterparts have. And have the same basic drivetrain layout. I get that underneath, they need to be real race cars with structural enhancements for safety and chassis stability under the stresses of a racing environment. But they can get all that under the skin of a real car!

3. Lose the restrictor plate. How embarrassing is it that the pace car can turn faster laps that the race cars? At the Daytona 500 a couple of years back, the Corvette pace car was faster than the Sprint Cup cars behind it!

NASCAR has taken a couple of steps in the right direction lately - Sprint Cup drivers can no longer score points in the Nationwide series, and they simplified the points system. Both good moves, though I think they could have gone a bit further with the points simplification, but it's certainly better.

My Conundrum

I've often heard it said about someone "They're a walking contradiction." I must say, I certainly fit that description. I like cars - a lot. Driving them, looking at them, watching races. And yet I also consider myself to be environmentally-minded. So how do I reconcile my dinosaur-burning, hydrocarbon spewing, mildly scofflaw-ish activity with my love for clean air and water and realization that there is only so much oil to go around and gathering, refining, and distributing it is a messy business at best and environmentally catastrophic at worst.

Well, here's my rationalization - as lame as it may be. In my 37 years of vehicle ownership, I have only owned one vehicle - a Ford Econoline van - that got worse than 20mpg. And that vehicle was driven only about two or three times a month as my DJ gear hauler. Even that had the smallest engine available and a manual transmission. Actually, I'm not even sure it got less than 20mpg because I never checked. I'm just assuming it did. Of my many other vehicles, I had one that got 40+mpg with 1970s technology. There were a few that averaged about 30mpg, and couple that got barely over 20. Most - including my current fleet of 3 - got right around 25mpg. Also, I try to avoid running into town for one or two things - if I have to drive somewhere to get something, I'll make a concerted effort to get several needed items to cut down on trips.

So I guess what I'm saying is, if all those SUV drivers had reasonable automotive transportation instead of motoring around in a 13mpg behemoth - alone - making a special trip to the grocery store for a loaf of bread and a quart of milk, maybe we wouldn't have to be searching for dissolved dinosaurs under a mile of ocean. Yet.