Apparently the Daytona 500 went off the other night, after a delay due to rain. There seems to have been quite a few crashes, at least one of which included a fireball made when a racecar collided with a tank of jetfuel.
I’m not much of a NASCAR fan. I watch it when I’m visiting friends and family and want to sit and drink beer with the menfolk, and I’ve worked at a couple of races at Kentucky Speedway. I’m not really a “car” guy, and “Go fast, turn left” gets boring after a while.
But if NASCAR was to go back to its roots, I’d quickly become a fan. Here’s what I think should be done to jazz up the races:
- Quit racing on super speedways. Race on two-lane country roads that are laid out to form a five mile course. This should include hills, right and left turns, and trees.
- Make all cars have a trunk. Put a couple hundred gallons of denatured alcohol in the trunk to replicate the rum-running experience for today’s drivers.
- Race unless there are tornadoes in the area. Rain, shine, snow, whatever. Bootleggers had to get the moonshine to market no matter what, so today’s drivers can do it.
- Every so often, put a chase car out there to take a lap. Any car that gets passed by the chase car has to stop in pit row until the leader has done one lap. That will simulate the experience of being chased by revenuers and county sheriffs.
These simple things would make NASCAR much more interesting to me.








bluesun
/ February 29, 2012And take of the engine governors, you're trying to get away from the revenuers, you don't want things to slow you down!
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Weer'd Beard
/ February 29, 2012Also dump the Nomex Fire Suits and Helmets!
Mullets and Bib Overalls!
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Old NFO
/ February 29, 2012LOL, and this doesn't happen on a regular basis in your neck of the woods??? 🙂
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DaddyBear
/ March 1, 2012bluesun and Weerd – If the drivers will go for it, I would not object.
NFO – I know nothing……
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Nancy R.
/ March 1, 2012I'd pay money to watch that!
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Drang
/ March 1, 2012Gotta be a way to work guns into it…
Oh, and Danica Patrick may be smokin' hot, but it turns out she's a statist tool. “I trust the government to make good decisions…?”
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Lazy Bike Commuter
/ March 1, 2012Go back to using production cars instead of making every car exactly the same, but with different stickers.
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Shepherd K
/ March 1, 2012DB, I think you are onto something here. Any chance we can crowd source this into a viable racing organization?
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Angus McThag
/ March 5, 2012Honestly, a bootlegger version of NASCAR would be a lot like a US WRC.
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