Losing Touch with NASCAR

I first got interested in NASCAR when Bill France’s family built the track at Talladega. After my brother Rick got home from Vietnam, we decided to go see what all the fuss was about. In 1973, three of us loaded steaks, bread, and a woefully insufficient amount of beer, along with a change of clothes, into a Pontiac LeMans for the trip across the state. We watched Secretariat win the Derby on a portable TV the day before the race.

Before long, we invited our dad along. My father was a veteran of tense Alabama football games, raised four kids on a state employee’s salary, and served as a Gunnery Sergeant in the Philippines during World War II. He was a calm SOB most of the time. When the green flag dropped for his initial race at Talladega, Dad began hyperventilating. I though he was having a heart attack until I saw him smile.

I attended Talladega races regularly for several years. Ventured out to some other tracks while I was at it. Then the guys I pulled for began to retire, or die. Soon the second generation of my favorites began disappearing. I woke up one day with much less enthusiasm for NASCAR than before. About the time I saw a Richard Petty sticker on a Volvo.

Terry and I were discussing the sport last week. Both of us grew up following NASCAR and did it for many years. We now barely notice race results and were trying to determine why.

Part of it has to do with change. We don’t identify with any of the current drivers, although we haven’t lost our enthusiasm for football and baseball, where the same thing has happened. Then again, baseball and football haven’t revamped their entire competitive process to try and stay relevant. I’m still not sure what winning Stage Two at Texas Speedway means in the overall scheme of things.

We’ve also witnessed NASCAR, intentionally or not, outlaw individuality for some reason. When auto makers changed body styles in the late 60s car builders had a hard time getting extra speed from Fords, Dodges, and Chevys.

Bobby Allison drove a Matador one year because it offered an aerodynamic package unavailable elsewhere. That’s impossible in today’s NASCAR. The only difference in the cars is the hood emblem. Other things are also affecting viewership.

Attending a sporting event, or anything else live, requires much more motivation than it once did. Television is better; picture and sound. There are way more alternate choices, and everything is expensive.

We are older and less motivated. Dealing with human behavior has become my primary reason for watching in the Man Room with Coco and Jellybean. Attending anything live has become a jarring lesson in how different people have become in my lifetime. Either me, or everyone else, has changed, drastically.

And maybe it’s as simple as choices. There are way more things available to the average bored person these days. One can do more with a phone now than was even imaginable in the Seventies. Besides, I never worry about the dogs contradicting my expert opinion.

Although Coco does occasionally sigh and roll her eyes.