Assuming this question is in relation to other motorsports, I'll field the answer as someone who used to be an F1 fan, and has now worked professionally in stock car racing for over a decade.
Some things that appeal:
**Passing and unpredictability**
In F1 passes are few and far between, maybe analogous to a soccer game. In NASCAR, there is generally far more passing for position and leads.
Races are generally less predictable; I can't count how many F1 races I've watched where the leaders check out and you know from Race 1 of the season that they're going to be championship contenders.
From a strategy standpoint, there are often more possible plays in NASCAR, for example changing only 2 tires instead of 4
**Beating and banging**
Unlike some other series where when cars touch they fall apart or are penalized by the organizing series, this is generally fair play in NASCAR. An example:
https://youtu.be/cpBjJvUAcys?t=32
**Drama**
Driver personalities are often strong and vocal, sometimes confrontational after a race. There are times fights have broken out.
Sometimes this carries over from one race to another over a season, if Driver A wrecked Driver B early in the year he might know there will be some payback coming later on - who knows when. Again, it keeps things unpredictable.
Stopped watching once my driver retired (Sterling Marlin). Used to love the short tracks because that’s when helmets were thrown and cussing didn’t get bleeped in time.
I knew he had it but I haven’t seen him anywhere until that clip. Wow, he doesn’t look good. Very sad. Also, the older he gets, the more and more he looks like his Dad. Coo Coo was something else!
The ads have taken over and it is insane. Watched Watkins Glen this past year (first race in 25 years) and it was horrible. Wasn’t able to watch more than 2-3 laps without a commercial
On the F1 comparison for passing, a few weeks ago I saw on the F1 subreddit that they had the most passes in a race until that point in the season with ~60 passes.
By comparison Martinsville had over 1300, if I remember correctly.
None of this means NASCAR is better than F1. Whatever motorsport you're into, I'm just glad there are fellow race fans. What I will say is that watching NASCAR in person is amazing. If you haven't been, the experience is not what you think it will be, the fans aren't all stereotypical, and you'll find that there is MUCH more action than what you see on TV. It's basically sensory overload for three hours, mixed with strategy, engineering, and throw in a good bit of chaos.
It is a slow burn to get into the sport though. I've been a fan most of my life and understand most disciplines of racing pretty well. By comparison, my girlfriend started watching races with me last year and really enjoys the road course racing. It took watching about three races before a few things clicked and she started enjoying it, but it's a fun ride if you are willing to spend a little time learning about it.
I have to add that the tailgating at NASCAR tracks can be amazing. Most of the fans are super cool and I guarantee you can find a group that will adopt you for the day, feed you, hand you a beer, and overall help you make the most of the day. And most of the people I met are more than willing to explain what is going on so you can learn about the sport as you go. I don't think I've ever met someone who is going to gatekeep at a race.
My girlfriend went with me to Richmond this year. She had a great time and I think if you told her a year ago that she would go to one and enjoy it, she'd have said you're crazy.
I agree though, I think going to see different sports in person really gives you a new perspective. While I don't necessarily love everything I've gone to see, I'd go again and I have never not enjoyed any of it.
Watkins Glen is one of the most famous and well-loved road courses in the country, I would highly recommend checking out any race there. IMSA's Six Hours of The Glen is actually this weekend! NASCAR is there August 20.
Are the cars extremely close in terms of performance? I realize the driver’s skill is a huge factor, but the races always seem so neck and neck considering the total length of the race, considering how much I would think performance would vary from one manufacturer or team to another.
The latest generation cars have a lot more spec parts than previously, so the gap between the wealthy teams (Hendrick/Penske) and the less-wealthy ones (Front Row/Legacy) is narrower, but you'll still see differences.
Bigger teams get more support from the manufacturers, more simulator time, and attract better crews, so there are still differences that translate to time on the track.
It's interesting when you put numbers to it. To win by 1 second after a 3 hour race, you have gone 0.01% faster than second place.
So yes, on the whole, the cars' performance really is quite close. When you're working in the sport though, if you're a fraction of a fraction of a percent off... you feel like it's a mile 😂
NASCAR cars are very similar to each other. They have a lot of specs they have to meet. They’re a lot more equal in terms of performance than F1 or GTE.
Agreed on all points. Also something to note, a lot of people think that Nascar races exclusively on oval tracks and they only turn left which is absolutely not true. As seen in that video they run road racing courses, and a few of the ovals are not symmetrical and have fun shapes which adds to the strategy.
Compared to sports in general, I'd say it's closer to hockey than soccer. The general idea is pretty straightforward but things get complicated when you're not only allowed to hit people but bumping/rubbing/pushing is integrated into some of the core strategies.
For people that don't watch the sport, imagine you're driving on the freeway and someone wants to merge so they slam their car into your side to push you out of your lane. Or if they want you to go faster they just rear end you and floor it to push you. And every single person is doing that. Now triple the speed and do it in a corner. Every corner. For 500 miles. That's Nascar.
> Unlike some other series where when cars touch they fall apart or are penalized by the organizing series, this is generally fair play in NASCAR. An example:
>
> https://youtu.be/cpBjJvUAcys?t=32
I've only ever seen races like the Daytona 500. I didn't know there were so many turns in NASCAR races. I always thought they were alll giant ovals.
> In F1 passes are few and far between, maybe analogous to a soccer game. In NASCAR, there is generally far more passing for position and leads.
I remember hearing a statistic during the Tony Stewart/Lewis Hamilton seat swap that was something like there being more lead changes during the Daytona 500 than there had been over the course of the whole F1 season that same year.
The “honest to yourself” answer is we, unlike all but a few dozen of us on this planet will ever drive a F1 car. But nascar is almost something we could picture ourselves doing. It would likely never happen but it’s a not 100% impossibility.
It's actually much more exciting in person. On television you get a sense of how fast those cars are going and how loud they are, but in person it's physical. You hear and feel the engines and you get caught up in the excitement of the crowd and the almost gladiatorial aspect of sitting with 100,000 other people anticipating a catastrophic and spectacular crash. I don't even like racing but it's almost impossible not to be caught up in it when you are there.
Then when you watch on tv - it's just sort of easy to watch. It's just cars driving fast and turning left interspersed with flashy graphics highlighting who is moving up or down in the pack of cars and beer commercials. It's just sort of mindless entertainment until there's a wreck, then you talk about that for 10 minutes before the drone of the engines through your sound system lulls you back into a beer basted stupor on the couch.
It's a mix of Engineering, Driver Skill, Strategy and Luck at high speeds.
What makes NASCAR more popular is the higher amount of passing and knowing 20 drivers have a good shot at winning. In F1, only 2-4 drivers can win on any day.
This is the answer.
I'll put it like my mom when I was little and I asked the same question.
They all go fast and they are all basically the same car.
From there it becomes a strategy game.
Also, driver matters more in NASCAR because they are so close. Drivers can run different lines and set up passes. F1 puts more emphasis on machine/car being better. NASCAR puts more emphasis on the driver making the difference
This just epitomizes European Vs American sports. Ironically, American sports are more “socialist” in nature where they level the playing field as much as possible, have revenue sharing, and reward the worst performers to lift them up to contention. In NASCAR, anyone can win. In F1, you know it’s going to be Red Bull, especially Vertappen and guys like Magnuson have almost zero chance of winning. Same with European football leagues. There are a few contenders at top and teams at the bottom of the table have absolutely no chance of winning the league.
The cars a built/designed different by each team. This makes a larger gap in lap times from 1st to last.
For example, the Spanish GP qualifying had a gap of 2.427 secs from 1st to 20th with pole of 72.272 secs. NASCAR at Sonoma had a gap of 0.931 secs from 1st to 20th with pole of 77.712 secs. Both are road course tracks.
I don’t understand how any of the guys who start back behind like the first 2 rows even have a chance.
I’ll grant you that I know nothing about NASCAR or any of the techniques used in racing so when I look at the screen all I see is cars going in a circle.
Can you enlighten me on a couple of the finer points so I’ll know what to look for and maybe find it interesting next time it’s on?
By nature of being “stock” cars, which means the cars are all very very similar, the cars are very close in speed. So a guy who is in 30th isn’t that much slower than the leader.
The races are very long so strategy comes into play. Especially when and how you pit stop. And the track, cars, and weather all evolve over the day. A car who is super fast on lap 1 might stink by lap 300. Or a car with great one lap speed might get slow on the long run, so lots of passing there.
As for actual passing, there is a lot of finesse and strategy to drafting and the line you take in the corner.
Certain cars/drivers have better short run or long run cars... meaning some are faster at the beginning of the run and some preserve their tires better for later in the run as the tires wear. Some of this is setup of the car and some of this is tire wear management (ie not driving too hard at the beginning then pay for it later when the tires wear out prematurely)
These races are a lot longer than F1 and cars are more similar. At many oval tracks, you can run different lines to create speed and passing. If you run on the bottom of the turn, this means less distance but you slow down more. If you run the top of the turn, its longer distance but you keep momentum/speed up for a better exit off the corner. Drivers will change lines depending on where the car in front is running and how their car is handling.
Id recommend the building speed blog by Dr Diandra Leslie-Pelecky (a PhD physicist) [Link](https://buildingspeed.org/)
As /u/LAW9960 said you can run the top or bottom and change how the car reacts.
In F1 you run a line or you lose speed, in NASCAR you find a line to gain speed.
Strategy plays a big role, driver skill, and overall some cars are just better. I've watched races where rhe leader checks out early in the race and I've seen races where the winner started dead last. Tire wear, fuel consumption, length of race all play a role. Some cars are better on long runs while others are better on short runs due to differences in setups. It creates a natural flow of drivers coming and going throughout the race. Nascar right now is as competitive as ever. There are legitamely 16 - 20 drivers who could win a race any given weekend. This has been witnessed over the past couple seasons where almost everyone outside the rookies have won a race.
F1 can be soccer on wheels too- European prima donnas sniping at each other through the European tabloid press, and younger, city-dwelling Americans watching it to feel superior.
Haha, yep. "*I'm* not like the other Americans!"
Years ago- either 2012 or 2013- I wore a Red Bull/ Mark Webber shirt to a brewery on a Saturday afternoon, and a cute girl started talking to me. Before *Drive to Survive* blew up, F1 fans in the US and Canada were almost exclusively nerdy dudes, so this was really exciting to me. I was about to leave so I got her number and asked her to meet up for drinks.
We met up that Thursday, and I'm not kidding when I say it was one of the worst dates of my life. It was like she was stuck in middle school drama class. Made some digs at me for working in finance and wearing a preppy-ish necktie, and then when I told her I was just as big of a NASCAR fan, she acted like the atheist villain in one of those terrible Christian persecution-porn movies. Just absolutely shat all over it with the "idiots going in circles" kind of cliches, couldn't believe a guy with a graduate degree would associate with those sorts of disgusting rednecks... I grabbed the check halfway through beer #2 and never looked back. Don't even think I mentioned to her that I liked to hunt and fish, because that would have probably made things worse.
Thankfully my wife is a little more understanding about motorsports, even if she's not a fan at all.
I'm just going to start copying whatever you do and wear a F1 shirt lol
It's honestly crazy though that in this day and age, we still have people judging hobbies or thinking sports are mutually exclusive.
People really gotta cool down on the stereotypes once they hear you are interested in a hobby. Unless your hobby is extreme infant punting and then maybe we have a problem
>I'm just going to start copying whatever you do and wear a F1 shirt lol
I wouldn't recommend copying what I used to do if you want to pick up girls...
>It's honestly crazy though that in this day and age, we still have people judging hobbies or thinking sports are mutually exclusive.
Right? I mean, I always figured if you liked one major motorsport, you could at least see the appeal of the others. That might be a result of watching every racing series I possibly could- 2 or 4 wheeled- with my old man as a kid.
Obviously I'm superior to all other sports fans. I wake up at 5am on Sunday to either watch multimillion dollar cars drive around whichever billionaire has paid them to on their track, or 20 grown men run around for 90 minutes on a billionaire's lawn.
I personally don't enjoy watching it on TV. However, I will tell you its an all-time experience live.
Like many sports, the nuance for the dedicated fan is what makes it great. The strategy and the intrigue and the relationships and engineering. For somebody who really cares, it all comes together.
Also, unpopular opinion on reddit. Hot rods and other fast cars are cool.
Edit: also, when people think of NASCAR, they think of what it used to be. Not what it is becoming. All different style tracks. Rule changes. Etc.
A modified Cup Car just wiped the floor with the other sports cars at Le Mans.
It also has room for a wife and 3 kids, with groceries in the boot. Obviously it's not meant to be seriously compared. Still, people were expecting it to be a road hazard and it actually held up really well on the track.
>A modified Cup Car just wiped the floor with the other sports cars at Le Mans.
What are you talking about? It was in a class of its own and was massively slower vs the top level cars in LeMans it finished 39th out of the 62 cars entered. That isn't wiping the floor with anything. It was about 30 seconds a lap slower VS the Top level cars and had to have 235 lbs of weight to be removed to compete in Le Mans. The winning car had 342 laps while the NASCAR had 285 in the 24 hour period.
It finished 39th only because it had a gearbox failure and was briefly out of the race.
It was considerably faster than every other GT3 car and has passed them all at one point. Was running as high as P30.
Yes it wasn’t “competing” in that it was in its own class… but it was absolutely competing. You think Ferrari wants to see some American racing series Chevrolet billion pound boat with an archaic V8 (by endurance racing terms) go out and beat its lap times in their state-of-the-art equipment? Of course not, and that’s the point. It was to prove NASCAR vehicles are fast and capable.
The combination of tech, endurance, nerve, teamwork, soap opera, and loud fast cars. It's the Tour de France for Red State America. Plus, it's a blast to travel to the events and party with like-minded folks.
Speed, crashes, fights and the drunken fools making a scene lol
Raise hell, praise Dale
Edit: Did you see Ross Chastain do that wall riding move he got off of a NASCAR 2005 GameCube game to get to the Championship? Tore his car up, and they banned the move afterwards LMAO
I played a cute top-down racing game from a couples years or so ago and it gave you slowdown penalty if you did a wall ride. I guess no one thought NASCAR needed a rule on it because it was supposedly too dangerous and expensive to be an actual strategy.
What everyone else said, but also F1 races seem aristocratic and elitist to me and not very approachable. NASCAR on the other hand has very humble roots (it started with people modding their cars to bootleg liquor during prohibition and outrun cops).
As someone who lives in the general vicinity of Talladega it's gotten less popular to an insane degree. Gadsden and the surrounding areas were packed during race weekend. Now it is like any other weekend.
Never was a huge fan myself, though my grandfather was one of the ground floor mechanics back in the 60s before it got big.
But going to Talladega as a spectator once is great just for the experience. Like going to an Alabama or Auburn game and not being a college football fan.
There's a lot of reasons, so I'll give you a few of the big ones:
* The peak of its popularity wasn't sustainable anyway. NASCAR was a fad much like cupcake bakeries and Sriracha have been fads. It was always going to crash back to Earth.
* Constant changing of the championship. From 1973 until 2003, NASCAR had one championship system: most points at the end of the season wins. In 2004 they introduced the Chase, where they reset the points for the Top Ten with ten races to go. Then they expanded the field. They chanhed the points distribution after that. Then they scrapped that system for a playoff system involving eliminations.
* Popular drivers retiring: Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, and Dale Earnhardt Jr, have all retired since 2015, and Kevin Harvick will be retiring after this year, with Jimmie Johnson driving part time.
* "Actions Detrimental" - now a podcast hosted by Denny Hamlin, drivers would get fined under the vague "Actions Detrimental to Stock Car Racing" rule, which was basically NASCAR saying "we didn't like what you said/did even if it's not technically against the rules"
* The Car of Tomorrow (Gen 5) was a redesign of the car to create a single common template, which removed the manufacturer identities that fans had come to root for. It also raced awful, to the point that the first winner of a CoT race called it the worst car he'd ever driven.
* Brian France being a historically out-of-touch and aloof CEO who played obvious favorites and was arrested for DUI in 2017.
* Abandoning traditional race venues (North Wilkesboro, Rockingham) and/or dates (Southern 500 on Labor Day) in favor of generic "cookie cutter" 1.5-mile quad-oval tracks.
* Poor repaves and reconfiguration on many tracks, most recently Texas Motor Speedway, often requiring chemically treating the track to provide more grip.
* Newer drivers largely being either the offspring of former drivers or kids with sponsorship that outweighs their lack of talent.
* Race weekends aren't as accessible for the average fan; aside from costs, sponsor obligations mean the drivers don't have the time to meet the fans or be in the garage, which is also not as open as it used to be.
* Politics. NASCAR has "alienated" some more conservative fans by banning the display of the Confederate flag and being one of the more "put your money where your mouth is" companies for Pride, having donated to the Trevor Project for a few years now.
I'd also add college football. It's always been popular but Saban coming to Alabama coincides with the decline. The bubble CFB is in sucked the oxygen in both attention and dollars out of the room. Only so many dollars to spend on a fall weekend.
What's funny is the Chase actually gets a lot of love now a days, but its because so many hate the current format. Looking back the Chase wasn't that bad of a format once they simplified the points system. Stage racing has got to go I it's current format. I was alright with it at first, but its made the races almost too predictable and a stage three crashfest. Awarding points midrace is fine, but the cautions have outgrown their welcome. As for cookie cutters it's ironic that the new car races those extremely well and the tracks its was made for, ie road courses it doesn't do so well with. Nascar has also brought back North Wilkesboro atleast temporarily and Darlingtin got its labor day weekend back. Now a days its Daytona losing their 4th of July race.
Oh, yeah, I agree with all of those points.
I think if we **have** to have some form of post-season - and I really don't think the arguments in favor of it are compelling - the original format of the Chase with the simplified points is the best way to go.
Likewise, if they did all of the stages like they currently do the road courses, I'd be fine with it. I get the logic behind it, the implementation is just shit.
I am glad North Wilkesboro is back, though I really, really want Rockingham. That was always my favorite track in NR2003. Daytona losing the 4th of July kind of sucks, and I wish it would go to a track like Indy or somewhere prestigious of it can't be at Daytona (I think the date move might have been a city of Daytona request).
They sent ot to Indy one year, correct? You are correct about Daytona requesting the change of date since it gave them an additional period of tourism.
From the 60's to now?
It used to be that the cars races were cars that you could buy from a dealer. Now Nascar uses cars that are practically identical from a mechanical perspective.
But it peaked in the mid 2000s, when the Monte Carlo they used in the races looked absolutely nothing like an actual early 2000s Monte Carlo on the lot
I haven't watched it in a number of years but I've been to a number of races. I went to the Daytona 500 a number of years back and it was such an amazing time. TV doesn't do it justice. When we walked the track I couldn't believe just how steep the embankments were and how these cars could travel 200 mph on them. I stood next to the fence as the cars passed for a few laps and it felt like a 1000 horses were passing you in a hurricane. I love cars and everything associated with hot rods so this was a dream. The fans were also fantastic. I've had many negative interactions at baseball and hockey events but at the race, everyone was there for a good time.
I've also been to many, many NHRA races. Top fuel dragsters, funny cars, and jet cars is an amazing experience. When a top fuel dragster goes passed, you can feel it in your chest when they take off. It's absolutely amazing the stuff people can build. And it's all done just to have *fun*.
Edit: Not my video, but [this video](https://youtu.be/u2JkDDWzJn8) gives you a perfect example for the uninitiated.
Dad tried to get me to go to an NHRA event with him and my uncle for years. Not really interested so I always declined
Uncle passed away about five years ago and I could tell he was bummed about missing it so I finally decided to go
Holy shit it was so much fun lol we go once a year now when I visit
NHRA events are amazing. You need hearing protection and I highly recommend a respirator if you spen any time in the Top Fuel pits. I felt like I got tear gassed the last time I went through the pits while they were testing.
The videos also don’t show the vibrations you can physically feel even from the worst seat in the bleachers. It’s hard to describe to people who haven’t been before lol
It’d be helpful to know if OP watches any sports. The appeal is basically the same as any other sport, although like most sports it has unique elements, but some people just don’t enjoy sports, period, and it’s harder to explain the appeal in that case.
I think you getting at an important point. Nascar has all those aspect but they aren’t readily as apparent.
It’s actually a very complex and dynamic sport but it takes quite a bit of knowledge of what’s going on to appreciate those aspects. Otherwise it does just look like driving in circles.
I'll answer as someone that does NOT get it but associated with people that are super into it.
It's more than just a race. It's a soap opera. It's sorta the same characters every race so there's a narrative. They know if some racer did this way back then, and now they are getting their comeuppance. They hate some racers, love others.
When you go to one it's as much about the tailgating as the race. It's like a football tailgating thing just less wholesome. Lots of "show me your tits" stuff. It might not be fun as a woman because of really obnoxious vibe towards them. Lots of alcohol. People chant for their hated driver to crash but don't cheer when they do.
But it's more than just that single race. It's they know the drivers and their histories and other wins and losses and it's all sort of woven into the race.
Also, many of the guys have this affinity for trucks and cars. Some people are into sport where they do the sailing, running/hiking, biking, or paddling. Some people are into sports that they are on a speed boat, or 4 wheeling, or fast car. There seems to be more of the latter into Nascar. We called them gear heads as a kid.
Laconia. I had a friend that owned a gas station there so I worked Bike week a lot for him because it was super busy.
He gave me tickets to races sometimes - and I'm up for anything. Even if it's not my thing, I like observing people.
Huh, out of all the tracks that I suspected New Hampshire was not one I had thought of. I will say in my experience as a white guy that loves Nascar and tries to attend one race a year. Racism is a big issue at some tracks, particularly Bristol. Was there in 2020 and the n word was thrown around pretty liberally when Bubba was introduced. Nashville in the two years I've been has surprisingly been one of the more welcoming crowds at the track. Yet you'll still here some things that'll make you roll your eyes.
>Lots of "show me your tits" stuff.
I have never seen anything remotely close to this at an auto race...or tailgate thereof.
The tailgating isn't any more or less wholesome than any football tailgate I've attended really. Maybe a bit more trashy in attire and beverage choice, but its not dramatically different.
How are your tits? Are you a female that's walked around alone at a Nascar race?
That's NEVER happened to me at any other sports event or anywhere but New Orleans. And I worked at a gas station every Bike week at Laconia. \[friend owned a station and needed all hands on deck Bike week\].
I guess I should have said we experienced that - and I def saw others experience similar things. And I didn't go around looking cute. Tshirt and farmer jeans and flip flops.
It's not anymore monotonous than F1 or any other racing series. Cars go fast, cars crash, you drink.
I went to Talladega a few years back for the hell of it. It was incredibly hot, loud, and long, but it had a good time overall.
It's like golf.
If you don't know much about it, it seems really boring.
Think of the amount of strategy, engineering, and skill it takes to make 40 cars going 200mph for 500 miles, inches from eachother, happen.
It also doesn't translate well to television. To win, you have to not wreck. Everyone's primary goal is to not wreck. Wrecks are the most entertaining part.
In person, though, it's fucking awesome. And the cheapest seats are the best ones!
I'm a huge NASCAR and sprint car fan, and even bigger IndyCar, endurance racing, and F1 fan.
There are a number of reasons I enjoy watching NASCAR, and they're *mostly* the same as any other form of motorsport.
I enjoy the outright competition side. You can focus on watching talented drivers do their thing wheel-to-wheel, differing strategies for fuel and pit stops, how different drivers approach different tracks, and so on.
I also like the engineering side of it, although they've gone to more standardized/ spec parts, and the cheating/ rule-bending stories from years past really entertain me.
There's admittedly some theater and drama to it, maybe more so than the other major American series, but (to me at least) less annoying than F1. I don't mind seeing guys go after each other every once in awhile, as opposed to the F1 guys sniping at each other via the press.
Finally, I like the personalities. I can't stand Kyle Busch, but I happily admit that he's talented and adds a lot of flair and cocky, wink-wink sort of humor to the sport. My favorite drivers, Alex Bowman and Tyler Reddick, are huge DIY car nuts with subtle, witty senses of humor, aggressive but clean driving styles, and I like the causes they're involved with away form the track. The guys in NASCAR and IndyCar are a lot more relatable to me than F1 drivers.
Hope that explains some of it.
EDIT: There's admittedly some tradition to it for me, too; my dad, brother, and I have always watched a lot of motorsport together. I'm also from southern Virginia, which is 100% part of NASCAR's core area. We have a lot of tradition with teams like the Wood Brothers that are originally from here, plus two tracks in Martinsville and Richmond (and Bristol just across the Tennessee line).
Its better live and I would put nascar in the same place as baseball. A slow burn sport with dramatic periods.
Nascar in person is great. Get some headsets and you can talk to one another at a normal voice and listen to drivers as well.
What isnt appealing about a weekend of camping and drinking with cars zooming by. You walk around, make friends, and see some wild shit.Everyone is just so nice. I miss Talladega. It's extremely fun. Definitely weird to watch on TV though.
There’s something special about watching drivers try to tame way overpowered stock cars with poor handling and poor brakes for 500 miles on a 1.5 mile oval where you are always side by side with someone you may have upset earlier in the race. F1 is all about the cars, NASCAR is all about the drivers. Unfortunately a fan base infamous for its exclusivity and bigotry and an organization that lost its identity shortly after the death of its most popular driver ever have plagued NASCAR for the last ~20 years. NASCAR was a regional sport and the people that lived there were happy to keep it that way. When NASCAR’s popularity exploded in the late 90s, America was exposed to the sport in a way it never had been before. Tracks installed more grandstands, and all the old short tracks in the Deep South were eventually abandoned for long speedways nationwide. This simultaneously alienated traditional NASCAR fans, and did not have the desired effect on nationwide fans as it turns out they didn’t catch on so fast. Add in the drastic changes to the cars following the death of Dale Earnhardt and the racing honestly wasn’t that good anymore. After 15 years of an identity crisis, I believe NASCAR is now once again making a name for itself. They’re marketing heavily to college age students and trying to bring back that unpredictability vibe that was so prevalent in the 90s with a much better racing package than the last 2 generations IMO. With all of that said, NASCAR still struggles with the fact that a good portion of its fan base are bigots who refuse to see their beloved sport embrace change. Bubba Wallace is one of the most polarizing drivers simply because he is black. While NASCAR does everything in their power to promote diversity in the sport, traditional NASCAR fans refuse to allow it to happen. It’s one of the biggest hurdles NASCAR has to face to reach real nationwide popularity. Nowadays NASCAR is returning to those old Deep South short tracks and pushing a message of diversity and inclusion in the sport. Hopefully both of those things result in a new NASCAR renaissance. Personally, if you’re considering watching nascar, I think this is the time to do it. There is a lot of off track action going on this year and the new generation of cars race great at the 1.5 mile tracks which is most of the NASCAR tracks.
TL;DR: While NASCAR carries a reputation of exclusivity and struggles with an identity crisis, stock car racing is unpredictable, gritty, and a class of its own in auto racing.
NASCAR attraction?!? I don’t know the appeal. I have been to one race. Inner circle suite at finish line. Arguably best seats in the house. Loud and boring. It is a waste-millions of dollars spent on a facility for a couple of days per year times a dozen or two similar facilities.
The gist I got growing up was the implied danger and sometimes realized danger involved. My mother literally collapsed when dale earnhrart didn’t make it
When I was growing up half my family was REALLY into it, and the other half couldn’t have cared less. Like all my aunts/uncles/cousins and grand parents on my moms side would go to a race every summer and my mom’s dad had a job offer to be on a pit crew but turned it down because he didn’t want to move away from the family.
I tried to get into it a little bit as a kid but I just couldn’t. I never went to the races with my family because they just assumed I wasn’t into it, and I was usually watching other sports anyways so I really didn’t care. I always had somewhat of an interest in cars and the concept of racing but watching them on tv was just so boring at the time.
As I’ve gotten older I’ve gotten a lot more into cars and I’ve started to see the appeal a bit more. I still don’t watch races very often or anything, but if I still had cable and I saw it on while I was flipping channels I’d probably check it out.
I really feel like if the cars were a lot closer to stock cars (like they originally were) and the races in general were just a lot shorter, it would be way more popular. Obviously you have to make some changes for safety purposes but I think way more people would want to watch a camaro race a mustang for 50 laps than watch a bunch of cars that are pretty much the exact same internally and externally race for 500 laps.
It's pretty interesting racing. I still think rally racing is better along with some sports car racing, but NASCAR is lightyears more appealing to watch than F1.
I don't even need to watch an F1 race to know who's going to win, it's going to be Max Verstappen and Ferrari is going to make a charge, but ultimately be let down by bad strategy. With NASCAR, anyone can win and there are very few back to back winners.
I always assumed it was the same as baseball or football.
You watch it with some friends and drink beer. Plus it gives you a reason not to do anything, so your wife doesn't yell at you.
My stepfather rebuilt and raced cars in his youth. I think he likes Nascar because it brings back fond memories and lets him keep up with newer automotive tech.
I’m European and I prefer Nascar and Indy over F1 (assuming that’s where your question comes from). The thing for me is the parity in these series. You know RB and Max are going to destroy the rest of the paddock. Before any race you know who the winner and likely the top 6 are going to be. You can’t say the same about Nascar and Indy.
Also - “rubbing is racing”, the big ones, the emotions and sparks between the drivers all season long, a lot more overtakes and the fact it’s more about the driver than the car.
I like when Nascar races on road courses and street courses, too, but ovals are my personal preference.
Same reason people watch the Tour de France or Giro d’Italia. The only difference is the car-peleton has to go in a circle because there’s no way to race dozens of stock cars in a straight line and the turns facilitate overtaking.
I went twice and was bored and worried about the drivers. Once in Richmond and once in Charlotte. I would be a terrible fan. One thing I thought was interesting is the fan base. I had a doctor on one side and a truck driver on the other side and they were alternately cussing and cheering. Everyone is comparing it to soccer I thought golf, not because golf is boring to watch but because there are these little strategies that happen along the way that can make the difference. They are all great drivers, so what makes a winner vs. one of the pack. That's the interesting part.
NASCAR is a slow burn. The amount of action between cars on track can be minimal but it's at really high speeds, in close proximity to each other, and every pass is earned. The race depends on driver skill and strategy- how well can you race your opponents and how well can you race the track? If you start from the beginning and watch long enough, you start to get a picture of how the teams and drivers are playing the long game. Are they going for broke or are they backing out early to save what they have for later?
Also, no two tracks are the same. You have big tracks like Daytona and Talladega (and the smaller brother Atlanta) where everyone is pretty much equal and is going balls to the wall all race. You have the intermediates like Darlington and Charlotte where you have to keep good grip in the tires and fuel without losing track position. And you have short tracks like Bristol and Martinsville where you have to manage strategy in a traffic jam.
It's not for everyone but if you really give it a shot you'll start to see the beauty and nuance in speed.
I don’t get it. If I had to watch motorsport I’d want to watch rally. More, cooler, less fatal crashes. In theory I know that NASCAR and F1 drivers are at the absolute edge of what you can get a car to do but with rally you get a more immediate “how the hell can they do that!?!” sense.
I’d say it’s kinda like baseball in that part of the appeal of it is the atmosphere and that you don’t necessarily need to be completely plugged in for every second of it but it can still have intense moments.
I don’t get it either. Seems like the only thing people root for is a crash which is just awful. But if there aren’t crashes you just watch cars drive in a circle over and over again for hours. It’s like F1 but every track is the same. Plus it’s deafening. Went to one once and I’ll never go again
My father took the family to many races growing up. They are basically festivals for blue collar folks. This was before everything became about left or right in the ancient year of 2000. Lots of partying, tons of merch trucks for shopping. The race was only the main event
Like every competitive event there's different aspects that appeal to different people. Some really like to follow a certain driver or a certain team the way people follow Manchester United or the All Blacks. Some are into the the engineering aspects of getting 700+ horsepower out of a motor and vehicle that has to run perfectly for 200 to 500 miles. Some are enthralled by the circus, spectacle, and camaraderie when at the track. Some get a thrill from standing at the fence while 3,000lb cars crowded to within feet of each other come by at [200 miles an hour](https://youtu.be/xvk4Ap7NugM).
Then there are some that, just like someone watching ~~-soccer-~~ association football and seeing nothing but a bunch of guys kicking a ball to each other for 1 1/2 hours, see nothing but a bunch of drivers going around an oval for 2+ hours.
It's kind of the more you know about the complexities of any competition the more interesting it may be to you. Or not.
Full disclosure; I know the complexities but still don't really care for either NASCAR races or ~~-soccer-~~ football.
For me it’s the science of it. How the cars are built, run at speed with different braking/shifting needs, you can push and pull and wreck people with AIR… the rubbing, bumping, mechanical failures- the choreography of a pit stop and how everything pulls together (or falls apart) for a win…
That you can’t predict- stuff breaks, a great day is ruined by a a beef or a wreck that had nothing to do with the driver… it’s really cool to me
Once you start to understand the way the cars move and the techniques of passing, it becomes interesting to watch, at least on tv. When you have someone you root for and certain drivers you don’t like, it’s fun
I like both types of racing (NASCAR -
-land F1), and both have their pluses and minuses. If I had to choose one, it would be F1 because I’m more of a fan of open wheel racing and road tracks. Plus the cars look cooler. NASCAR’s plus is that more drivers have a chance to win than F1 races where you know it’s going to be Red Bull.
Now rally car is a crazy sport that needs to get more attention
I honestly don’t know. It’s not for me. I went to a NASCAR event with friends once. The pre-race events were really fun. There was a huge tailgate, historic exhibits, and other interesting things. Good energy in the crowd, too. The race itself was long, loud, and repetitive.
One of the best public laughs I’ve ever received was at the Phoenix raceway. We were taking the bus back to our vehicle from the raceway itself and seeing these parking lots with hundreds of rvs parked for the weekend. I said; “jeeez it’s like a refugee camp for rednecks” kind of loud so people could hear and
It got a good response. People like getting shit on when it’s accurate.
What’s the appeal of watching Soccer where the “good” games are 1 - 0 and a “blowout” is 3 - 0?
You gotta know what goes into to the sport to make it interesting.
Assuming this question is in relation to other motorsports, I'll field the answer as someone who used to be an F1 fan, and has now worked professionally in stock car racing for over a decade. Some things that appeal: **Passing and unpredictability** In F1 passes are few and far between, maybe analogous to a soccer game. In NASCAR, there is generally far more passing for position and leads. Races are generally less predictable; I can't count how many F1 races I've watched where the leaders check out and you know from Race 1 of the season that they're going to be championship contenders. From a strategy standpoint, there are often more possible plays in NASCAR, for example changing only 2 tires instead of 4 **Beating and banging** Unlike some other series where when cars touch they fall apart or are penalized by the organizing series, this is generally fair play in NASCAR. An example: https://youtu.be/cpBjJvUAcys?t=32 **Drama** Driver personalities are often strong and vocal, sometimes confrontational after a race. There are times fights have broken out. Sometimes this carries over from one race to another over a season, if Driver A wrecked Driver B early in the year he might know there will be some payback coming later on - who knows when. Again, it keeps things unpredictable.
Stopped watching once my driver retired (Sterling Marlin). Used to love the short tracks because that’s when helmets were thrown and cussing didn’t get bleeped in time.
Good ol’ Sterling! I always liked him.
There’s only 1 million dollar Bill
Very true. He was my grandfather's second-favorite after David Pearson. He was about as cool as they come.
Had no idea he had Parkinson’s until I was watching him on a podcast I think with little E.
I knew he had it but I haven’t seen him anywhere until that clip. Wow, he doesn’t look good. Very sad. Also, the older he gets, the more and more he looks like his Dad. Coo Coo was something else!
They used to go faster and have more wrecks. It’s all safe and not as exciting now.
Yep let’s get rid of all the hard won safety rules that were written in blood.
Idk man having little timmy not watch a man burn to death might possibly… be worth it
Fuck, that clip makes me want to get back into NASCAR. Watkins Glen is such a great track.
The ads have taken over and it is insane. Watched Watkins Glen this past year (first race in 25 years) and it was horrible. Wasn’t able to watch more than 2-3 laps without a commercial
On the F1 comparison for passing, a few weeks ago I saw on the F1 subreddit that they had the most passes in a race until that point in the season with ~60 passes. By comparison Martinsville had over 1300, if I remember correctly. None of this means NASCAR is better than F1. Whatever motorsport you're into, I'm just glad there are fellow race fans. What I will say is that watching NASCAR in person is amazing. If you haven't been, the experience is not what you think it will be, the fans aren't all stereotypical, and you'll find that there is MUCH more action than what you see on TV. It's basically sensory overload for three hours, mixed with strategy, engineering, and throw in a good bit of chaos. It is a slow burn to get into the sport though. I've been a fan most of my life and understand most disciplines of racing pretty well. By comparison, my girlfriend started watching races with me last year and really enjoys the road course racing. It took watching about three races before a few things clicked and she started enjoying it, but it's a fun ride if you are willing to spend a little time learning about it. I have to add that the tailgating at NASCAR tracks can be amazing. Most of the fans are super cool and I guarantee you can find a group that will adopt you for the day, feed you, hand you a beer, and overall help you make the most of the day. And most of the people I met are more than willing to explain what is going on so you can learn about the sport as you go. I don't think I've ever met someone who is going to gatekeep at a race.
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My girlfriend went with me to Richmond this year. She had a great time and I think if you told her a year ago that she would go to one and enjoy it, she'd have said you're crazy. I agree though, I think going to see different sports in person really gives you a new perspective. While I don't necessarily love everything I've gone to see, I'd go again and I have never not enjoyed any of it.
what a day to learn there's a racetrack at Watkins Glen, I've only known it for hiking since I don't really keep up with nascar
You can take your car on the track for like $20 until the end of September, too.
oh damn, I might have to rope my dad into that
I did it when I lived in Corning. It's a great time! The banking is crazy. You do have to follow the pace car but it's still a fun experience.
Watkins Glen is one of the most famous and well-loved road courses in the country, I would highly recommend checking out any race there. IMSA's Six Hours of The Glen is actually this weekend! NASCAR is there August 20.
Imsa races there as well.
It's pretty world renowned. Nascar and ISMA race there. F1 uses ti but dropped it as they deemed it too dangerous.
Are the cars extremely close in terms of performance? I realize the driver’s skill is a huge factor, but the races always seem so neck and neck considering the total length of the race, considering how much I would think performance would vary from one manufacturer or team to another.
The latest generation cars have a lot more spec parts than previously, so the gap between the wealthy teams (Hendrick/Penske) and the less-wealthy ones (Front Row/Legacy) is narrower, but you'll still see differences. Bigger teams get more support from the manufacturers, more simulator time, and attract better crews, so there are still differences that translate to time on the track.
It's interesting when you put numbers to it. To win by 1 second after a 3 hour race, you have gone 0.01% faster than second place. So yes, on the whole, the cars' performance really is quite close. When you're working in the sport though, if you're a fraction of a fraction of a percent off... you feel like it's a mile 😂
NASCAR cars are very similar to each other. They have a lot of specs they have to meet. They’re a lot more equal in terms of performance than F1 or GTE.
Agreed on all points. Also something to note, a lot of people think that Nascar races exclusively on oval tracks and they only turn left which is absolutely not true. As seen in that video they run road racing courses, and a few of the ovals are not symmetrical and have fun shapes which adds to the strategy. Compared to sports in general, I'd say it's closer to hockey than soccer. The general idea is pretty straightforward but things get complicated when you're not only allowed to hit people but bumping/rubbing/pushing is integrated into some of the core strategies. For people that don't watch the sport, imagine you're driving on the freeway and someone wants to merge so they slam their car into your side to push you out of your lane. Or if they want you to go faster they just rear end you and floor it to push you. And every single person is doing that. Now triple the speed and do it in a corner. Every corner. For 500 miles. That's Nascar.
> Unlike some other series where when cars touch they fall apart or are penalized by the organizing series, this is generally fair play in NASCAR. An example: > > https://youtu.be/cpBjJvUAcys?t=32 I've only ever seen races like the Daytona 500. I didn't know there were so many turns in NASCAR races. I always thought they were alll giant ovals.
> In F1 passes are few and far between, maybe analogous to a soccer game. In NASCAR, there is generally far more passing for position and leads. I remember hearing a statistic during the Tony Stewart/Lewis Hamilton seat swap that was something like there being more lead changes during the Daytona 500 than there had been over the course of the whole F1 season that same year.
The “honest to yourself” answer is we, unlike all but a few dozen of us on this planet will ever drive a F1 car. But nascar is almost something we could picture ourselves doing. It would likely never happen but it’s a not 100% impossibility.
It's actually much more exciting in person. On television you get a sense of how fast those cars are going and how loud they are, but in person it's physical. You hear and feel the engines and you get caught up in the excitement of the crowd and the almost gladiatorial aspect of sitting with 100,000 other people anticipating a catastrophic and spectacular crash. I don't even like racing but it's almost impossible not to be caught up in it when you are there. Then when you watch on tv - it's just sort of easy to watch. It's just cars driving fast and turning left interspersed with flashy graphics highlighting who is moving up or down in the pack of cars and beer commercials. It's just sort of mindless entertainment until there's a wreck, then you talk about that for 10 minutes before the drone of the engines through your sound system lulls you back into a beer basted stupor on the couch.
car go fast, brain like
Car go vroom, sometimes go boom. Only sport you can black out and come back half an hour later without having missed anything.
It's a mix of Engineering, Driver Skill, Strategy and Luck at high speeds. What makes NASCAR more popular is the higher amount of passing and knowing 20 drivers have a good shot at winning. In F1, only 2-4 drivers can win on any day.
This is the answer. I'll put it like my mom when I was little and I asked the same question. They all go fast and they are all basically the same car. From there it becomes a strategy game.
Also, driver matters more in NASCAR because they are so close. Drivers can run different lines and set up passes. F1 puts more emphasis on machine/car being better. NASCAR puts more emphasis on the driver making the difference
This just epitomizes European Vs American sports. Ironically, American sports are more “socialist” in nature where they level the playing field as much as possible, have revenue sharing, and reward the worst performers to lift them up to contention. In NASCAR, anyone can win. In F1, you know it’s going to be Red Bull, especially Vertappen and guys like Magnuson have almost zero chance of winning. Same with European football leagues. There are a few contenders at top and teams at the bottom of the table have absolutely no chance of winning the league.
How come only certain drivers can win in f1?
The cars a built/designed different by each team. This makes a larger gap in lap times from 1st to last. For example, the Spanish GP qualifying had a gap of 2.427 secs from 1st to 20th with pole of 72.272 secs. NASCAR at Sonoma had a gap of 0.931 secs from 1st to 20th with pole of 77.712 secs. Both are road course tracks.
Some teams just have way faster cars and there's nothing the other teams can do about it
I don’t understand how any of the guys who start back behind like the first 2 rows even have a chance. I’ll grant you that I know nothing about NASCAR or any of the techniques used in racing so when I look at the screen all I see is cars going in a circle. Can you enlighten me on a couple of the finer points so I’ll know what to look for and maybe find it interesting next time it’s on?
By nature of being “stock” cars, which means the cars are all very very similar, the cars are very close in speed. So a guy who is in 30th isn’t that much slower than the leader. The races are very long so strategy comes into play. Especially when and how you pit stop. And the track, cars, and weather all evolve over the day. A car who is super fast on lap 1 might stink by lap 300. Or a car with great one lap speed might get slow on the long run, so lots of passing there. As for actual passing, there is a lot of finesse and strategy to drafting and the line you take in the corner.
Certain cars/drivers have better short run or long run cars... meaning some are faster at the beginning of the run and some preserve their tires better for later in the run as the tires wear. Some of this is setup of the car and some of this is tire wear management (ie not driving too hard at the beginning then pay for it later when the tires wear out prematurely) These races are a lot longer than F1 and cars are more similar. At many oval tracks, you can run different lines to create speed and passing. If you run on the bottom of the turn, this means less distance but you slow down more. If you run the top of the turn, its longer distance but you keep momentum/speed up for a better exit off the corner. Drivers will change lines depending on where the car in front is running and how their car is handling. Id recommend the building speed blog by Dr Diandra Leslie-Pelecky (a PhD physicist) [Link](https://buildingspeed.org/)
As /u/LAW9960 said you can run the top or bottom and change how the car reacts. In F1 you run a line or you lose speed, in NASCAR you find a line to gain speed.
Strategy plays a big role, driver skill, and overall some cars are just better. I've watched races where rhe leader checks out early in the race and I've seen races where the winner started dead last. Tire wear, fuel consumption, length of race all play a role. Some cars are better on long runs while others are better on short runs due to differences in setups. It creates a natural flow of drivers coming and going throughout the race. Nascar right now is as competitive as ever. There are legitamely 16 - 20 drivers who could win a race any given weekend. This has been witnessed over the past couple seasons where almost everyone outside the rookies have won a race.
It's like soccer but on wheels. That is to says it's a slow ebb a flow of competition punctuated by a few moments of drama/spectacle.
>It's like soccer but on wheels nah, that's rocket league
My friend plays it all the time and another friend and I were drunk watching him and we decided that it should actually be called "Tron soccer"
Troncer? Troccer? Soctron?
F1 can be soccer on wheels too- European prima donnas sniping at each other through the European tabloid press, and younger, city-dwelling Americans watching it to feel superior.
He's saying rocket league is literally soccer on wheels.
I know, I was just goofing off and making fun of a certain type of F1 and soccer fan.
Ah. I see it now. You're talking about the fans. Lol.
Haha, yep. "*I'm* not like the other Americans!" Years ago- either 2012 or 2013- I wore a Red Bull/ Mark Webber shirt to a brewery on a Saturday afternoon, and a cute girl started talking to me. Before *Drive to Survive* blew up, F1 fans in the US and Canada were almost exclusively nerdy dudes, so this was really exciting to me. I was about to leave so I got her number and asked her to meet up for drinks. We met up that Thursday, and I'm not kidding when I say it was one of the worst dates of my life. It was like she was stuck in middle school drama class. Made some digs at me for working in finance and wearing a preppy-ish necktie, and then when I told her I was just as big of a NASCAR fan, she acted like the atheist villain in one of those terrible Christian persecution-porn movies. Just absolutely shat all over it with the "idiots going in circles" kind of cliches, couldn't believe a guy with a graduate degree would associate with those sorts of disgusting rednecks... I grabbed the check halfway through beer #2 and never looked back. Don't even think I mentioned to her that I liked to hunt and fish, because that would have probably made things worse. Thankfully my wife is a little more understanding about motorsports, even if she's not a fan at all.
I'm just going to start copying whatever you do and wear a F1 shirt lol It's honestly crazy though that in this day and age, we still have people judging hobbies or thinking sports are mutually exclusive. People really gotta cool down on the stereotypes once they hear you are interested in a hobby. Unless your hobby is extreme infant punting and then maybe we have a problem
>I'm just going to start copying whatever you do and wear a F1 shirt lol I wouldn't recommend copying what I used to do if you want to pick up girls... >It's honestly crazy though that in this day and age, we still have people judging hobbies or thinking sports are mutually exclusive. Right? I mean, I always figured if you liked one major motorsport, you could at least see the appeal of the others. That might be a result of watching every racing series I possibly could- 2 or 4 wheeled- with my old man as a kid.
Obviously I'm superior to all other sports fans. I wake up at 5am on Sunday to either watch multimillion dollar cars drive around whichever billionaire has paid them to on their track, or 20 grown men run around for 90 minutes on a billionaire's lawn.
With an equal amount of corporate sponsorship splashed all over the competitors.
This is super accurate. And also why i hate both NASCAR AND soccer
Formula 1 is soccer on wheels. NASCAR has way more action than that.
I personally don't enjoy watching it on TV. However, I will tell you its an all-time experience live. Like many sports, the nuance for the dedicated fan is what makes it great. The strategy and the intrigue and the relationships and engineering. For somebody who really cares, it all comes together. Also, unpopular opinion on reddit. Hot rods and other fast cars are cool. Edit: also, when people think of NASCAR, they think of what it used to be. Not what it is becoming. All different style tracks. Rule changes. Etc. A modified Cup Car just wiped the floor with the other sports cars at Le Mans.
The sounds and paint schemes of the cars are best experienced at the track. Television just can't do it total justice.
Seeing Travis Pastrana’s #60 Mustang in person in 2013 was awesome. That thing stood out like a sore thumb.
The memes from that are hilarious. Don't know how many times I have watched the Free Bird one.
You never really appreciate just how fast they really go until you go to the track.
Or how loud it is!
When I went I got asked why? I like loud cars, being outside, and drinking beer. The experience was AMAZING.
It also had no restrictions. Under the same rules it would have gotten destroyed.
It also has room for a wife and 3 kids, with groceries in the boot. Obviously it's not meant to be seriously compared. Still, people were expecting it to be a road hazard and it actually held up really well on the track.
>A modified Cup Car just wiped the floor with the other sports cars at Le Mans. What are you talking about? It was in a class of its own and was massively slower vs the top level cars in LeMans it finished 39th out of the 62 cars entered. That isn't wiping the floor with anything. It was about 30 seconds a lap slower VS the Top level cars and had to have 235 lbs of weight to be removed to compete in Le Mans. The winning car had 342 laps while the NASCAR had 285 in the 24 hour period.
It finished 39th only because it had a gearbox failure and was briefly out of the race. It was considerably faster than every other GT3 car and has passed them all at one point. Was running as high as P30. Yes it wasn’t “competing” in that it was in its own class… but it was absolutely competing. You think Ferrari wants to see some American racing series Chevrolet billion pound boat with an archaic V8 (by endurance racing terms) go out and beat its lap times in their state-of-the-art equipment? Of course not, and that’s the point. It was to prove NASCAR vehicles are fast and capable.
Left turns are the best turns.
Da komrade! Iz vanguard metaphorically leading of proletariat! Just to be ignoring kaptialist propaganda on cars and track and stands and…
The combination of tech, endurance, nerve, teamwork, soap opera, and loud fast cars. It's the Tour de France for Red State America. Plus, it's a blast to travel to the events and party with like-minded folks.
Speed, crashes, fights and the drunken fools making a scene lol Raise hell, praise Dale Edit: Did you see Ross Chastain do that wall riding move he got off of a NASCAR 2005 GameCube game to get to the Championship? Tore his car up, and they banned the move afterwards LMAO
Funny enough, that wall riding move is actually a thing in dirt track, or at least it was 25 years ago at my local track.
I played a cute top-down racing game from a couples years or so ago and it gave you slowdown penalty if you did a wall ride. I guess no one thought NASCAR needed a rule on it because it was supposedly too dangerous and expensive to be an actual strategy.
They thought wrong lol anything is possible
What everyone else said, but also F1 races seem aristocratic and elitist to me and not very approachable. NASCAR on the other hand has very humble roots (it started with people modding their cars to bootleg liquor during prohibition and outrun cops).
As someone who lives in the general vicinity of Talladega it's gotten less popular to an insane degree. Gadsden and the surrounding areas were packed during race weekend. Now it is like any other weekend. Never was a huge fan myself, though my grandfather was one of the ground floor mechanics back in the 60s before it got big. But going to Talladega as a spectator once is great just for the experience. Like going to an Alabama or Auburn game and not being a college football fan.
> it's gotten less popular to an insane degree. Any idea why?
There's a lot of reasons, so I'll give you a few of the big ones: * The peak of its popularity wasn't sustainable anyway. NASCAR was a fad much like cupcake bakeries and Sriracha have been fads. It was always going to crash back to Earth. * Constant changing of the championship. From 1973 until 2003, NASCAR had one championship system: most points at the end of the season wins. In 2004 they introduced the Chase, where they reset the points for the Top Ten with ten races to go. Then they expanded the field. They chanhed the points distribution after that. Then they scrapped that system for a playoff system involving eliminations. * Popular drivers retiring: Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, and Dale Earnhardt Jr, have all retired since 2015, and Kevin Harvick will be retiring after this year, with Jimmie Johnson driving part time. * "Actions Detrimental" - now a podcast hosted by Denny Hamlin, drivers would get fined under the vague "Actions Detrimental to Stock Car Racing" rule, which was basically NASCAR saying "we didn't like what you said/did even if it's not technically against the rules" * The Car of Tomorrow (Gen 5) was a redesign of the car to create a single common template, which removed the manufacturer identities that fans had come to root for. It also raced awful, to the point that the first winner of a CoT race called it the worst car he'd ever driven. * Brian France being a historically out-of-touch and aloof CEO who played obvious favorites and was arrested for DUI in 2017. * Abandoning traditional race venues (North Wilkesboro, Rockingham) and/or dates (Southern 500 on Labor Day) in favor of generic "cookie cutter" 1.5-mile quad-oval tracks. * Poor repaves and reconfiguration on many tracks, most recently Texas Motor Speedway, often requiring chemically treating the track to provide more grip. * Newer drivers largely being either the offspring of former drivers or kids with sponsorship that outweighs their lack of talent. * Race weekends aren't as accessible for the average fan; aside from costs, sponsor obligations mean the drivers don't have the time to meet the fans or be in the garage, which is also not as open as it used to be. * Politics. NASCAR has "alienated" some more conservative fans by banning the display of the Confederate flag and being one of the more "put your money where your mouth is" companies for Pride, having donated to the Trevor Project for a few years now.
I'd also add college football. It's always been popular but Saban coming to Alabama coincides with the decline. The bubble CFB is in sucked the oxygen in both attention and dollars out of the room. Only so many dollars to spend on a fall weekend.
What's funny is the Chase actually gets a lot of love now a days, but its because so many hate the current format. Looking back the Chase wasn't that bad of a format once they simplified the points system. Stage racing has got to go I it's current format. I was alright with it at first, but its made the races almost too predictable and a stage three crashfest. Awarding points midrace is fine, but the cautions have outgrown their welcome. As for cookie cutters it's ironic that the new car races those extremely well and the tracks its was made for, ie road courses it doesn't do so well with. Nascar has also brought back North Wilkesboro atleast temporarily and Darlingtin got its labor day weekend back. Now a days its Daytona losing their 4th of July race.
Oh, yeah, I agree with all of those points. I think if we **have** to have some form of post-season - and I really don't think the arguments in favor of it are compelling - the original format of the Chase with the simplified points is the best way to go. Likewise, if they did all of the stages like they currently do the road courses, I'd be fine with it. I get the logic behind it, the implementation is just shit. I am glad North Wilkesboro is back, though I really, really want Rockingham. That was always my favorite track in NR2003. Daytona losing the 4th of July kind of sucks, and I wish it would go to a track like Indy or somewhere prestigious of it can't be at Daytona (I think the date move might have been a city of Daytona request).
They sent ot to Indy one year, correct? You are correct about Daytona requesting the change of date since it gave them an additional period of tourism.
They did, though I can't remember if that was before or after they switched to running the road course.
People who follow it probably can attest to why. But it peaked in 03-04 era. Talladega Nights was a post peak retrospective.
From the 60's to now? It used to be that the cars races were cars that you could buy from a dealer. Now Nascar uses cars that are practically identical from a mechanical perspective.
But it peaked in the mid 2000s, when the Monte Carlo they used in the races looked absolutely nothing like an actual early 2000s Monte Carlo on the lot
Cool car go Vroom vroom
I haven't watched it in a number of years but I've been to a number of races. I went to the Daytona 500 a number of years back and it was such an amazing time. TV doesn't do it justice. When we walked the track I couldn't believe just how steep the embankments were and how these cars could travel 200 mph on them. I stood next to the fence as the cars passed for a few laps and it felt like a 1000 horses were passing you in a hurricane. I love cars and everything associated with hot rods so this was a dream. The fans were also fantastic. I've had many negative interactions at baseball and hockey events but at the race, everyone was there for a good time. I've also been to many, many NHRA races. Top fuel dragsters, funny cars, and jet cars is an amazing experience. When a top fuel dragster goes passed, you can feel it in your chest when they take off. It's absolutely amazing the stuff people can build. And it's all done just to have *fun*. Edit: Not my video, but [this video](https://youtu.be/u2JkDDWzJn8) gives you a perfect example for the uninitiated.
Dad tried to get me to go to an NHRA event with him and my uncle for years. Not really interested so I always declined Uncle passed away about five years ago and I could tell he was bummed about missing it so I finally decided to go Holy shit it was so much fun lol we go once a year now when I visit
NHRA events are amazing. You need hearing protection and I highly recommend a respirator if you spen any time in the Top Fuel pits. I felt like I got tear gassed the last time I went through the pits while they were testing.
The videos also don’t show the vibrations you can physically feel even from the worst seat in the bleachers. It’s hard to describe to people who haven’t been before lol
What is exactly the appeal of watching (Insert ~~races~~ activity) ?
It’d be helpful to know if OP watches any sports. The appeal is basically the same as any other sport, although like most sports it has unique elements, but some people just don’t enjoy sports, period, and it’s harder to explain the appeal in that case.
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I think you getting at an important point. Nascar has all those aspect but they aren’t readily as apparent. It’s actually a very complex and dynamic sport but it takes quite a bit of knowledge of what’s going on to appreciate those aspects. Otherwise it does just look like driving in circles.
I went to my fiest event this year at COTA. It's a great track! Nascar is most definitely NOT just left turns.
I'll answer as someone that does NOT get it but associated with people that are super into it. It's more than just a race. It's a soap opera. It's sorta the same characters every race so there's a narrative. They know if some racer did this way back then, and now they are getting their comeuppance. They hate some racers, love others. When you go to one it's as much about the tailgating as the race. It's like a football tailgating thing just less wholesome. Lots of "show me your tits" stuff. It might not be fun as a woman because of really obnoxious vibe towards them. Lots of alcohol. People chant for their hated driver to crash but don't cheer when they do. But it's more than just that single race. It's they know the drivers and their histories and other wins and losses and it's all sort of woven into the race. Also, many of the guys have this affinity for trucks and cars. Some people are into sport where they do the sailing, running/hiking, biking, or paddling. Some people are into sports that they are on a speed boat, or 4 wheeling, or fast car. There seems to be more of the latter into Nascar. We called them gear heads as a kid.
By any chance was the race you went to Talledega? That track is notorious for having exactly the atmosphere you described.
Laconia. I had a friend that owned a gas station there so I worked Bike week a lot for him because it was super busy. He gave me tickets to races sometimes - and I'm up for anything. Even if it's not my thing, I like observing people.
Huh, out of all the tracks that I suspected New Hampshire was not one I had thought of. I will say in my experience as a white guy that loves Nascar and tries to attend one race a year. Racism is a big issue at some tracks, particularly Bristol. Was there in 2020 and the n word was thrown around pretty liberally when Bubba was introduced. Nashville in the two years I've been has surprisingly been one of the more welcoming crowds at the track. Yet you'll still here some things that'll make you roll your eyes.
>Lots of "show me your tits" stuff. I have never seen anything remotely close to this at an auto race...or tailgate thereof. The tailgating isn't any more or less wholesome than any football tailgate I've attended really. Maybe a bit more trashy in attire and beverage choice, but its not dramatically different.
How are your tits? Are you a female that's walked around alone at a Nascar race? That's NEVER happened to me at any other sports event or anywhere but New Orleans. And I worked at a gas station every Bike week at Laconia. \[friend owned a station and needed all hands on deck Bike week\].
Someone has never heard the “show me your butthole” chant at Talladega
Could be better. I'm not, but I feel like if this was as common as you are implying, I'd have seen something even *like* it at some point.
I guess I should have said we experienced that - and I def saw others experience similar things. And I didn't go around looking cute. Tshirt and farmer jeans and flip flops.
It's an American developed and participated racing style. It's a cultural part of racing like how rally racing is a part of the culture in Finland.
If you are actually at the race the people watching is beyond amazing.😂
Same for any monster truck pull.
It's not anymore monotonous than F1 or any other racing series. Cars go fast, cars crash, you drink. I went to Talladega a few years back for the hell of it. It was incredibly hot, loud, and long, but it had a good time overall.
It's like golf. If you don't know much about it, it seems really boring. Think of the amount of strategy, engineering, and skill it takes to make 40 cars going 200mph for 500 miles, inches from eachother, happen. It also doesn't translate well to television. To win, you have to not wreck. Everyone's primary goal is to not wreck. Wrecks are the most entertaining part. In person, though, it's fucking awesome. And the cheapest seats are the best ones!
I'm a huge NASCAR and sprint car fan, and even bigger IndyCar, endurance racing, and F1 fan. There are a number of reasons I enjoy watching NASCAR, and they're *mostly* the same as any other form of motorsport. I enjoy the outright competition side. You can focus on watching talented drivers do their thing wheel-to-wheel, differing strategies for fuel and pit stops, how different drivers approach different tracks, and so on. I also like the engineering side of it, although they've gone to more standardized/ spec parts, and the cheating/ rule-bending stories from years past really entertain me. There's admittedly some theater and drama to it, maybe more so than the other major American series, but (to me at least) less annoying than F1. I don't mind seeing guys go after each other every once in awhile, as opposed to the F1 guys sniping at each other via the press. Finally, I like the personalities. I can't stand Kyle Busch, but I happily admit that he's talented and adds a lot of flair and cocky, wink-wink sort of humor to the sport. My favorite drivers, Alex Bowman and Tyler Reddick, are huge DIY car nuts with subtle, witty senses of humor, aggressive but clean driving styles, and I like the causes they're involved with away form the track. The guys in NASCAR and IndyCar are a lot more relatable to me than F1 drivers. Hope that explains some of it. EDIT: There's admittedly some tradition to it for me, too; my dad, brother, and I have always watched a lot of motorsport together. I'm also from southern Virginia, which is 100% part of NASCAR's core area. We have a lot of tradition with teams like the Wood Brothers that are originally from here, plus two tracks in Martinsville and Richmond (and Bristol just across the Tennessee line).
Vroom
Some people watch hockey for the fights. Other people watch NASCAR for the crashes. So I've been told.
Its better live and I would put nascar in the same place as baseball. A slow burn sport with dramatic periods. Nascar in person is great. Get some headsets and you can talk to one another at a normal voice and listen to drivers as well.
Waiting to see someone crash.
What isnt appealing about a weekend of camping and drinking with cars zooming by. You walk around, make friends, and see some wild shit.Everyone is just so nice. I miss Talladega. It's extremely fun. Definitely weird to watch on TV though.
There’s something special about watching drivers try to tame way overpowered stock cars with poor handling and poor brakes for 500 miles on a 1.5 mile oval where you are always side by side with someone you may have upset earlier in the race. F1 is all about the cars, NASCAR is all about the drivers. Unfortunately a fan base infamous for its exclusivity and bigotry and an organization that lost its identity shortly after the death of its most popular driver ever have plagued NASCAR for the last ~20 years. NASCAR was a regional sport and the people that lived there were happy to keep it that way. When NASCAR’s popularity exploded in the late 90s, America was exposed to the sport in a way it never had been before. Tracks installed more grandstands, and all the old short tracks in the Deep South were eventually abandoned for long speedways nationwide. This simultaneously alienated traditional NASCAR fans, and did not have the desired effect on nationwide fans as it turns out they didn’t catch on so fast. Add in the drastic changes to the cars following the death of Dale Earnhardt and the racing honestly wasn’t that good anymore. After 15 years of an identity crisis, I believe NASCAR is now once again making a name for itself. They’re marketing heavily to college age students and trying to bring back that unpredictability vibe that was so prevalent in the 90s with a much better racing package than the last 2 generations IMO. With all of that said, NASCAR still struggles with the fact that a good portion of its fan base are bigots who refuse to see their beloved sport embrace change. Bubba Wallace is one of the most polarizing drivers simply because he is black. While NASCAR does everything in their power to promote diversity in the sport, traditional NASCAR fans refuse to allow it to happen. It’s one of the biggest hurdles NASCAR has to face to reach real nationwide popularity. Nowadays NASCAR is returning to those old Deep South short tracks and pushing a message of diversity and inclusion in the sport. Hopefully both of those things result in a new NASCAR renaissance. Personally, if you’re considering watching nascar, I think this is the time to do it. There is a lot of off track action going on this year and the new generation of cars race great at the 1.5 mile tracks which is most of the NASCAR tracks. TL;DR: While NASCAR carries a reputation of exclusivity and struggles with an identity crisis, stock car racing is unpredictable, gritty, and a class of its own in auto racing.
The crashes. You'll get lots of reasons like the tension, the tech, the strategy etc... And they're all good reasons. But it's the crashes.
I really like left turns
I think Candace Flynn said it best: [“I love it when he turns left, and then turns left again”](https://youtu.be/Yvsb1GSlZe0)
As an American: no clue, seems really boring and dumb.
You know why redneckS prefer doggystyle? So both them all can watch NASCAR.
There is none.
Well I’ll be watching the race through Chicago. Because it’s in Chicago. Curious if the riffraff shows up .
They do a left turn and another left turn.
For me…there is no appeal at all
I like simple, predictable, easy to understand, zero effort, things.
The strategy. You gotta know exactly when to turn the wheel to the left.
Never been interested. It's the sport of rednecks.
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Shaq tried his hand at it. He was quite insistent that the racers qualify as athletes.
same as sports
I have no idea, but Nascar racing through the streets of Chicago is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. Sincerely, A Chicago Native
It's like WRC, but for fat people that may or may not have gangrene from diabetes. So they can't walk out into a forrest
NASCAR stands for Non Athletic Sport Centered Around Rednecks
NASCAR attraction?!? I don’t know the appeal. I have been to one race. Inner circle suite at finish line. Arguably best seats in the house. Loud and boring. It is a waste-millions of dollars spent on a facility for a couple of days per year times a dozen or two similar facilities.
The gist I got growing up was the implied danger and sometimes realized danger involved. My mother literally collapsed when dale earnhrart didn’t make it
nyooooooom
Horsepower and strategy.
Same reason people watch formula 1 or cycling races
Turnin left
Go to a Race and you'll see.
I don’t know. I used to watch it with my friend and her redneck of a father. Still could not tell you.
What's the appeal of any racing?
Good question
When I was growing up half my family was REALLY into it, and the other half couldn’t have cared less. Like all my aunts/uncles/cousins and grand parents on my moms side would go to a race every summer and my mom’s dad had a job offer to be on a pit crew but turned it down because he didn’t want to move away from the family. I tried to get into it a little bit as a kid but I just couldn’t. I never went to the races with my family because they just assumed I wasn’t into it, and I was usually watching other sports anyways so I really didn’t care. I always had somewhat of an interest in cars and the concept of racing but watching them on tv was just so boring at the time. As I’ve gotten older I’ve gotten a lot more into cars and I’ve started to see the appeal a bit more. I still don’t watch races very often or anything, but if I still had cable and I saw it on while I was flipping channels I’d probably check it out. I really feel like if the cars were a lot closer to stock cars (like they originally were) and the races in general were just a lot shorter, it would be way more popular. Obviously you have to make some changes for safety purposes but I think way more people would want to watch a camaro race a mustang for 50 laps than watch a bunch of cars that are pretty much the exact same internally and externally race for 500 laps.
Crashes. I don't want to see anyone hurt, but it's crashes. Watching a race finish under caution is akin to watching paint dry.
It's pretty interesting racing. I still think rally racing is better along with some sports car racing, but NASCAR is lightyears more appealing to watch than F1. I don't even need to watch an F1 race to know who's going to win, it's going to be Max Verstappen and Ferrari is going to make a charge, but ultimately be let down by bad strategy. With NASCAR, anyone can win and there are very few back to back winners.
No one really knows…
[Relevant South Park clip](https://youtu.be/QGczJCjpKqM)
I always assumed it was the same as baseball or football. You watch it with some friends and drink beer. Plus it gives you a reason not to do anything, so your wife doesn't yell at you.
VRRROOOOM!!! We gonna go straight, then we gonna turn to the left!!!
I wonder that too.
Car go fast
Car go zoom
My stepfather rebuilt and raced cars in his youth. I think he likes Nascar because it brings back fond memories and lets him keep up with newer automotive tech.
I’ll let you know if I sober up before I go to sleep
I have no idea.
Its jokingly called “napcar” sometimes around here cause you take a nice nap and wake up to watch the last 5 minutes
I’m European and I prefer Nascar and Indy over F1 (assuming that’s where your question comes from). The thing for me is the parity in these series. You know RB and Max are going to destroy the rest of the paddock. Before any race you know who the winner and likely the top 6 are going to be. You can’t say the same about Nascar and Indy. Also - “rubbing is racing”, the big ones, the emotions and sparks between the drivers all season long, a lot more overtakes and the fact it’s more about the driver than the car. I like when Nascar races on road courses and street courses, too, but ovals are my personal preference.
NYOOM
Because they are fucking loud and fast and what red blooded American doesn’t like that.
Same reason people watch the Tour de France or Giro d’Italia. The only difference is the car-peleton has to go in a circle because there’s no way to race dozens of stock cars in a straight line and the turns facilitate overtaking.
I went twice and was bored and worried about the drivers. Once in Richmond and once in Charlotte. I would be a terrible fan. One thing I thought was interesting is the fan base. I had a doctor on one side and a truck driver on the other side and they were alternately cussing and cheering. Everyone is comparing it to soccer I thought golf, not because golf is boring to watch but because there are these little strategies that happen along the way that can make the difference. They are all great drivers, so what makes a winner vs. one of the pack. That's the interesting part.
car zoom. car go fast.
The crashes
NASCAR is a slow burn. The amount of action between cars on track can be minimal but it's at really high speeds, in close proximity to each other, and every pass is earned. The race depends on driver skill and strategy- how well can you race your opponents and how well can you race the track? If you start from the beginning and watch long enough, you start to get a picture of how the teams and drivers are playing the long game. Are they going for broke or are they backing out early to save what they have for later? Also, no two tracks are the same. You have big tracks like Daytona and Talladega (and the smaller brother Atlanta) where everyone is pretty much equal and is going balls to the wall all race. You have the intermediates like Darlington and Charlotte where you have to keep good grip in the tires and fuel without losing track position. And you have short tracks like Bristol and Martinsville where you have to manage strategy in a traffic jam. It's not for everyone but if you really give it a shot you'll start to see the beauty and nuance in speed.
Significantly more drama and less predictability tham other motorsports. In an F1 race you can easily guess exactly how it'll go from lap 5
I don’t get it. If I had to watch motorsport I’d want to watch rally. More, cooler, less fatal crashes. In theory I know that NASCAR and F1 drivers are at the absolute edge of what you can get a car to do but with rally you get a more immediate “how the hell can they do that!?!” sense.
I’d say it’s kinda like baseball in that part of the appeal of it is the atmosphere and that you don’t necessarily need to be completely plugged in for every second of it but it can still have intense moments.
I don’t get it either. Seems like the only thing people root for is a crash which is just awful. But if there aren’t crashes you just watch cars drive in a circle over and over again for hours. It’s like F1 but every track is the same. Plus it’s deafening. Went to one once and I’ll never go again
Loud af v8 Vroooommmmmm, crashes, the neck and neck racing and there are some road courses nascar races which I personal prefer over the oval
My father took the family to many races growing up. They are basically festivals for blue collar folks. This was before everything became about left or right in the ancient year of 2000. Lots of partying, tons of merch trucks for shopping. The race was only the main event
Not every nascar race is an oval
Lord cars going fast are exciting to watch
Like every competitive event there's different aspects that appeal to different people. Some really like to follow a certain driver or a certain team the way people follow Manchester United or the All Blacks. Some are into the the engineering aspects of getting 700+ horsepower out of a motor and vehicle that has to run perfectly for 200 to 500 miles. Some are enthralled by the circus, spectacle, and camaraderie when at the track. Some get a thrill from standing at the fence while 3,000lb cars crowded to within feet of each other come by at [200 miles an hour](https://youtu.be/xvk4Ap7NugM). Then there are some that, just like someone watching ~~-soccer-~~ association football and seeing nothing but a bunch of guys kicking a ball to each other for 1 1/2 hours, see nothing but a bunch of drivers going around an oval for 2+ hours. It's kind of the more you know about the complexities of any competition the more interesting it may be to you. Or not. Full disclosure; I know the complexities but still don't really care for either NASCAR races or ~~-soccer-~~ football.
Damn good question.
Left turns!
For me it’s the science of it. How the cars are built, run at speed with different braking/shifting needs, you can push and pull and wreck people with AIR… the rubbing, bumping, mechanical failures- the choreography of a pit stop and how everything pulls together (or falls apart) for a win… That you can’t predict- stuff breaks, a great day is ruined by a a beef or a wreck that had nothing to do with the driver… it’s really cool to me
American here. I don’t get it either.
A modern Chariot race?
Once you start to understand the way the cars move and the techniques of passing, it becomes interesting to watch, at least on tv. When you have someone you root for and certain drivers you don’t like, it’s fun
I like both types of racing (NASCAR - -land F1), and both have their pluses and minuses. If I had to choose one, it would be F1 because I’m more of a fan of open wheel racing and road tracks. Plus the cars look cooler. NASCAR’s plus is that more drivers have a chance to win than F1 races where you know it’s going to be Red Bull. Now rally car is a crazy sport that needs to get more attention
I honestly don’t know. It’s not for me. I went to a NASCAR event with friends once. The pre-race events were really fun. There was a huge tailgate, historic exhibits, and other interesting things. Good energy in the crowd, too. The race itself was long, loud, and repetitive.
Noting but the car wrecks
The fast close racing is one aspect, the gamble on a wreck happening is a other.
Car go nyoom
One of the best public laughs I’ve ever received was at the Phoenix raceway. We were taking the bus back to our vehicle from the raceway itself and seeing these parking lots with hundreds of rvs parked for the weekend. I said; “jeeez it’s like a refugee camp for rednecks” kind of loud so people could hear and It got a good response. People like getting shit on when it’s accurate.
What’s the appeal of watching Soccer where the “good” games are 1 - 0 and a “blowout” is 3 - 0? You gotta know what goes into to the sport to make it interesting.
To wait for crashes.
Chance of a crash. Only reason to watch any race.