Fan's Eye View ~ Hey, NASCAR! Can You Feel The Love Tonight?
6/25/2013
Jim Fitzgerald
For
The Love Of The Race…
I
will tell you, I’m not usually one to write a column in the first person point
of view. In fact I try to avoid it at
all costs, but this one is going to be a little bit different, simply because
it is all about me and my feelings about our sport. You may agree with me, disagree with me, call
me names, feel offended… all of that is completely up to you and will probably be
based on how you digest what I am writing now and you will (hopefully) read
when it is published.
I’m a
NASCAR fan. I am mostly a Sprint Cup
Series fans, but if the opportunity presents itself then I will expand my
weekend viewing activity to include a Camping World Series or Nationwide Series
race. On Memorial Day, I will most
assuredly catch some of the F1 race in the morning, then a good bit of the Indy
500, and then the Coca-Cola 600 from start to finish. On Labor Day weekend, I’ll try to watch the
Baltimore Grand Prix just because it’s nice to see my home city on television,
but I will have watched the Cup race as well.
So, a little bit of other series here and there, but 95% NASCAR, and
probably 80% Sprint Cup Series.
I
love this sport. Yes, it is a sport, and
the drivers and crew members are most definitely athletes, at least in my
book. If Curling is considered a sport
and the participants are considered athletes, then golly darn, racing is, and
racers are.
But I
do. I love this sport. I love the speed, and the competition. I love the drama of watching a race
unfold. I will watch races that may not
be the most exciting races I have seen, just because you never can tell wheat
is going to happen or what may happen until the checkered flag has fallen. There are no certain happenings in our sport,
and there is so much proof of that. You
could consider Dale Earnhardt and the 1990 Daytona 500. He had the lead going into the third turn on
the final lap, only to run over a piece of debris which cut his tire and
allowed Derrike Cope to score his first career
win. What about Kasey Kahne at Dover in
2004, leading 36 laps, well on his way to his first win? Well, with 19 laps left, he suddenly slips
his car into the wall. Mark Martin would
go on to win that race, his fourth win at the Monster Mile. Then there was Dale Earnhardt, Jr at the Coca
Cola 600. He held the lead in the third
turn on the final lap, only to run out of fuel and hand it to Kevin Harvick. Do I even need to bring up the 1979 Daytona
500, which Richard Petty had no chance of winning as the leaders began the
final lap? Bang, bang, crunch, spin,
there’s another Petty win. (See what I
did there?) It’s the equivalent of a
last minute miracle in any other sport…it’s that “OH NO!!” moment, when it may
work out in your favor as a fan, but you still cannot help but feel bad for the
victim. And if it doesn’t work out for
you as a fan, well, you’ll never forget it.
I
love the fan access. I doubt that the
California Angels would let you walk through their club house an hour before
the game, or sit in the dugout as the game was going on. No, I think that is a rare occurrence, but it
happens in racing weekly. Garage passes
and pit passes are available to the average fan, and this allows for closeness
you would be hard pressed to find in another sport. Oh, by the way…when is the last time you paid
money for a driver’s autograph? I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but our
players are more than willing to write their name for free if you are in the
right place at the right time. (And
there is a right place an time for that, and it is not during a driver’s
personal time.)
I
love the changes the governing body of our sport makes in an effort to make it
better for the competitors and fans.
Yes, those changes may not be exactly what the fans wanted, or they may
be nowhere near what the fans wanted, but the fact remains that they are
willing to change and take a chance on making the sport better. It is more competitive now than ever. Do you know what happened in the “good old
days” of NASCAR? Drivers used to win and
the margin of victory was sometimes measured in laps. LAPS. Do you know the last time a driver won a
Sprint Cup Series race by more than a lap?
Sunday, October 2, 1994. Geoffrey
Bodine won at North Wilkesboro, leading 334 of 400 laps,
including the last 301 consecutively.
You think races are not exciting now?
Try watching one where the leader was fourteen laps ahead of second
place. No thank you.
I
love the fans. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I
don’t agree with all of them, and some of them are downright ignorant and
rude. You know who you are. But all of them, even the aforementioned
ignorant and rude, are fans because they not only love the sport as I do, they are just as passionate about it. A good fan will see something they don’t
like, and get pissed about it, and rightly so.
You plunk down your hard earned money for a ticket, or your cable bill,
and you want to walk away feeling like you are getting your money’s worth. I’m no different. If I pay my quarter and I feel like I didn’t
get the value of it, I’m asking for the manager. I will send food back at a restaurant because
it’s not cooked the way I want. If I
wanted crappy food, I’d stay home and make it myself. Racing is no different. If you feel like you’re getting a bad
product, you unquestionably have the right to voice your opinion about it and
tell The Manager. “Mr. France to
customer service, please…Mr. France. I’m sorry, he
doesn’t seem to be listening. Would you
like to leave a message?”
My
message is this: I love NASCAR racing. I
love so many aspects of it. It is so
much like a family member. I may not
agree with everything about it, and I’ll get angry with it because I care about
it. We may not always part on the best
of terms, but I will never turn my back on it, and it can always count on me to
stand behind it when the critics or the uninformed come knocking.
Be sure to follow me @Forewasabi on Twitter