July 12,1993 may have well been the end of NASCAR as we used to know it.
All we have today is clean-shaven, short-haired commercial robots carefully
selected from every region of the country.
I cannot find fault with the current crop of Jeff Gordon wannabes for
trying to earn as much money as they can in what is often a brief career but
the old days were much more rollicking and fun.
On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 11:14:25 CST, "galloping.moron" <nasca…@cox.net> wrote:
>July 12,1993 may have well been the end of NASCAR as we used to know it.
>All we have today is clean-shaven, short-haired commercial robots carefully
>selected from every region of the country.
Driving skills are still part of the selection process, I think. Cousin Carl
hasn’t gotten his victories in three series just on his boyish good looks
alone.
>I cannot find fault with the current crop of Jeff Gordon wannabes for
>trying to earn as much money as they can in what is often a brief career …
Agreed. More power to ‘em. I don’t begrudge them anything
they earn, on or off the track.
> … but
>the old days were much more rollicking and fun.
Things have changed a lot in our culture. The media, to whom I’m
grateful for delivering the races to my couch, are much more
aggressive in their coverage of the racers’ off-track lives. And
the value of keeping up a good image has risen tremendously
since I started watching in the 80s.
Money makes the cars go ’round. It pays the wages of … thousands
if not tens of thousands of people who earn a living from The Show.
There’s more money now and more people sharing the wealth
from the top to the bottom of NASCAR.
I’m sure the good ol’ boys are still out there–at the local tracks,
in hardscrabble series. You just have to go out and find them.
They probably won’t be brought to a TV near you any time
soon.
Speaking of guys who are rough around the edges–I wonder
whether Tony Stewart is going to make a comeback. The
Gibbs teams seem to be underperforming these days.
Marty
> Agreed. More power to ‘em. I don’t begrudge them anything
> they earn, on or off the track.
Double agreed. Anyone who enthralls and entertains deserves to get paid for
it.
Anyone who has a problem with that should just adopt a kid from the local
kids shelter and try to get them into sports or entertainment and see how
easy it is. The talented and driven few who make it into those arenas
deserve to get paid for beating the odds.