On Thu, 30 Mar 2000, Richard A Pyburn wrote:
[...]
> But, who knows? NASCAR and NHRA have written rules against Mopar for
> years. I'd prefer that they just let the manufacturers give it their best
> shot and actually use what they produce. Ever see the front end of a
> NASCAR 4Duh Tortise? One hell of a lot different than the stuff at Hertz
> and Avis. NASCAR did away with the HEMI nad they killed the Superbird.
> They might just remove all brand differences, too. Maybe Jr. thinks that
> NASCAR's so popular that they can get away with anything. We'll see.
Yeah, the rules some of the santioning bodies come up with are
pretty stupid. (IMHO, of course.) That's one of the reasons I don't
watch NASCAR (the biggest reason is that its a bunch of boring cars
going around in a big boring circle; I think its the NHL of the
automotive world; the sport itself is boring but everyone comes for
the fights (crashes)) Ok, have I enraged enough people yet? ;-)
Anyway, having the cars so similar is BORING! Since NASCAR is
supposedly representing "stock car" racing; and there is a strong
brand loyalty involved, I say let everyone run whatever they want!
Turbos, superchargers, nitrous, JATO rockets, I don't care! No
limits. Let the foreign makes compete too. Let the team with the
most ingenuity and the best products win, not the one with the
most luck and the best tune for that particular track. If you're
behind then you need to evolve or you're going to get eaten. Liberals
have already proved that micro-managing the government is a recipe for
disaster, but this is the same thing these sanctioning bodies are
doing. (Hey look I just ticked off a few more people!) ;-)
Anyway, if there were people with radical new designs and some cars
were way out in front, and others just sucked, I might tune in. I
would much rather watch a drag race than NASCAR (or CART or IRL), but
even there, just about every car and engine is the same, its just
small differences in the tune up. NHRA could do with some wild
designs too. I don't care if there is one team that is completely
dominant. That's more exciting than having them all be about the same.
It begs the question, what is this team doing that the others aren't?
What is the secret to their sucess? The other teams have to figure it
out, perhaps surpass that dominant team, and the process starts all
over. LeMans doesn't really interest me a whole lot, but after
hearing so much about how the Vipers are so dominant, that has
piqued my interest, and I've tuned in a few times instead of changing
the channel...
What happened to cultivating innovation? Essentially what I see
is the "dumbing down" of organized motorsports! I would agree to a
rule that would place a spending cap per vehicle, just to keep the
big boys from pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a
vehicle and eliminating the little guys, but I think beyond that,
anything goes!
What would be really cool is different classes where one might be
almost an "R&D" thing where there is no spending cap; another "mainstream"
one where there is a spending cap, and a third where you run bone stock
vehicles and can't change a thing from the showroom, except for the paint.
(It would be interesting to see just how the manufacturers REALLY
stack up.) :-) If a manufacturer wants to dominate in that class of
NASCAR, then they have to offer that same vehicle to the public also.
Ok, I'm done. :-)
-Jon-
.--- jon@dakota-truck.net -- or -- stei0302@cs.fredonia.edu ------------.
| Jon Steiger * AOPA, DoD, EAA, MP Race Team, NMA, SPA, USUA * RP-SEL |
| '92 Ram 150 4x4 V8, '96 Dakota V8, '96 Intruder 1400, '96 FireFly 447 |
`---------------------------- http://www.cs.fredonia.edu/~stei0302/ ---'
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