The engines start back up this weekend with the Busch Clash. Will you be watching?
NASCAR thread
- Thread starter Creed Bratton
- Start date
If this thread is anything like Nascar attendance, you may get 7 replies.
BTW I may check on it, but by no means am I making plans to watch it.
BTW I may check on it, but by no means am I making plans to watch it.
I have watched NASCAR since the early 80's as my dad used to race dirt cars and was a big Petty fan. He was the one who got me into loving racing both NASCAR and dirt. I have also been a Jimmie Johnson fan since his rookie year so I will watch this year to see his last year but honestly they product better improve drastically or this may be my last year of keeping up with it.
When the season starts, there’s about 5 or 6 guys that have a chance. By the 4th of July it’s down to 2 or 3. If your guy is one of the chosen, it’s worth watching. Otherwise it’s boring as hell.
I’ll watch the duals (I assume they’re still on), both Daytona races, Bristol at night, and bits and pieces of a few others. I used to watch all of them. Sad.
Jimmie is my guy too. Hope he can get into the championship race this year. Wonder if they’ll do the old rocking chair gifts and stuff for him.
Jimmie is my guy too. Hope he can get into the championship race this year. Wonder if they’ll do the old rocking chair gifts and stuff for him.
I figure they will. I am interested to see the Pocono double and how well that works. I mean if a team crashes their primary car in practice and goes to a backup for the Saturday race only to wreck it how will they get a 3rd car to the track in time for the Sunday race? I guess most multicar teams could use a teammates care but it seems like a disaster waiting to happen.
I'll be watching.
Although I am nowhere near as into NASCAR as I was before Jr. retired. I've tried to get behind other drivers but I just don't get even close to the same joy as I did watching Jr. race and win.
Nevertheless, I always will watch the Daytona 500. I was fortunate to attend the last three of Jr's career(Still kicking myself for not going in 2014). This new super speedway package was used at all the restrictor plate tracks last year, except for the Daytona 500. It seemed to greatly improve the racing. Guys are able to get a lot more runs, and should provide some great battles for the lead.
I like the young guys, would love to see Blaney or Chase win the 500, but also would be cool to see Jimmie win and get himself an early lock into the playoff's in his last year.
Although I am nowhere near as into NASCAR as I was before Jr. retired. I've tried to get behind other drivers but I just don't get even close to the same joy as I did watching Jr. race and win.
Nevertheless, I always will watch the Daytona 500. I was fortunate to attend the last three of Jr's career(Still kicking myself for not going in 2014). This new super speedway package was used at all the restrictor plate tracks last year, except for the Daytona 500. It seemed to greatly improve the racing. Guys are able to get a lot more runs, and should provide some great battles for the lead.
I like the young guys, would love to see Blaney or Chase win the 500, but also would be cool to see Jimmie win and get himself an early lock into the playoff's in his last year.
I just hope to see some other guys have a chance this year. Honestly if you weren't a Stewart Haas, Gibbs or Penske team you had a very small chance of winning. The Chevrolet cars have pretty much been crap for 2 years.
I grew up in South Boston, VA and NASCAR was huge, Burton brothers. Rarely missed a race night at SoBo Speedway and been to every track in Va and the Carolinas, a few multiple times. Kinda slowed down watching when I got to UK and just completely stopped the last 15 or so. The product/entertainment is just not there for me anymore.
Agreed. Toyota and Ford have been leaps ahead of Chevy the past couple of years.
There are 43 entries for the 500. Of the 43 cars entered 19 are Chevy's, 17 Fords and 7 Toyota's. I would assume due to a smaller number of cars Toyota can throw more money and R&D at their teams which would probably be the big difference in their dominance. This may also be why NASCAR is trying to get Nissan, Honda or any other manufacturer involved to help spread it out so Ford and Chevy can do the same.
Yeah I think you may be right. There's no doubt that Toyota is throwing big money into R&D.
Off topic from that, cool that there are finally more cars entered than can make the race. The duel's will actually mean something this year. I miss the days of 50+ cars attempting to qualify and the drama that went along with that in the 125's.
100%, I couldn't agree more. Loved the days of acting sick to stay home from school on Thursday and watch. I also can not stand the race ending in the dark. Race should start at 1 and end around 4:30.
While we are on things we miss I miss tracks that were not like all the others. I wish North Wilksboro, Rockingham, Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway and Riverside were still on the schedule and not so many 1 1/2 mile cookie cutter tracks.
Did you ever collect die-cast? I have about 45, mostly consisting of Jr. raced versions. Always loved collecting as a kid and was fortunate enough to get hot passes a couple of times to get several signed.
Absolutely. I think the push to broaden the track types are there. Drivers new and old certainly pushed for it. I think it's just NASCAR being bound by contracts that prevents them from changing the schedule up too much. I think after this year some things may open up for them to mess with it. At the end of the day though, it is NASCAR's fault that there are so many cookie cutter tracks on the schedule.
I didn't realize that about Riverside. A track like Pikes Peak as a Roval could be interesting but they would have to invest a lot of money for additional seating, campsites, restrooms, etc.
Went to Wilksboro twice. You had to just park on the shoulder of the 2 lane road that went to the track and walk a mile or two to get to the track. Anytime I watch a documentary on Woodstock with the cars just parked on the road it reminds me of going to Wilksboro.
But it was some good racing....of course that also was before NASCAR decided to turn their racing into IROC racing with equally built cars. So they would probably find a way to mess things up at those tracks too. I mean look at what they've done to Bristol.
Last edited:
Hot passes are the single coolest experience I've ever had as a NASCAR fan. Got them at Talladega fall 2016 and Kentucky 2017.
I have a friend that worked for Miller/Coors and that's how I lucked into them. He had a hard card so that allowed him access to basically anywhere he wanted to go. Talladega I got to stand with Truex after he won the pole in front the of backdrop they use and get my picture with him. Kentucky he got us into the media room after qualifying to watch interviews with first three qualifiers, got us into the drivers meeting, and I also got to present Kyle Busch with the pole award for the Xfinity race. Also him being apart of the sponsor for Brad, he took us into his hauler while Brad was debriefing with his team and showed us around. Pretty damn cool stuff.
As far as meeting drivers, at Talladega I stood next to the entry from the drivers RV lot to the garages and met 8-10 drivers there walking to their cars for practice. I don't know that you really have to be lucky, it's more about just positioning yourself in the right place like at their haulers or around their garage right before practice sessions start, places you know they have to go.
What driver is most of your collection? Judging from the size, it sounds like you collect any and all drivers.
Last edited:
I respect Kesolowski for driving around the campgrounds in his golf cart most weekends and just meeting fans. Most guys aren't going to go out of their way to do that.
Oh it was definitely good racing. Loved it. One year saw Dale get out and start wailing on Geoff Bodine after Bodine spun him on the last lap.
Going to SoBo speedway every other Saturday night you were always guaranteed to see a fight after a race. They rotated weekends with Orange County in NC, that was a bullring, damn near a circle.
Going to SoBo speedway every other Saturday night you were always guaranteed to see a fight after a race. They rotated weekends with Orange County in NC, that was a bullring, damn near a circle.
When the Walmart Supercenter opened in my hometown they somehow managed to get Dale Jr to come for the grand opening. This was around 2001 and the rural area I live in doesn't have limo's anywhere close to us. So instead they picked him up, at our small local airstrip he flew into, in a very nice Motor home owned by the local Chevy dealership. I guess they were thinking he would be more comfortable for his ride to the Walmart in that. When he got off the plane and asked where the limo was they told him they would be shuttling him in the Motorhome. His reply, according to one of the managers I knew who was with the crew picking him up, "You gotta be kidding me. You know you're in a redneck town when they pick you up in an RV". 
Yeah definitely, Talladega is quite the experience even without the hot passes Lol.
Drivers do a lot of meet and greets at businesses during race weeks. That's how I met a couple early on in my childhood. Next time you go to a race, be on the look out online for announcements of locations.
As far as drivers I've met and got autographs. Dale Jr, Michael Waltrip, Truex Jr. Newman, Austin Dillon, Kenseth, Logano, Keselowski, Menard, Kyle Busch, Danica Patrick, Blaney, and Rickard Petty.
My Die-cast collection, though, is about 75% Dale jr, 20% Truex Jr, and a couple Tony Stewart, and Michael Waltrip.
I wish I got to experience your era of NASCAR. All the drivers I grew up watching are retiring currently. And like you said, my collecting has slowed down as well. Been a couple years since I bought one. Quality has also went pretty far down. They don't make them like they used to.
I will occasionally check Ebay to see what's out there for sale.
I have family that lives in the Johnson City area and I was down there once during the Bristol spring race back around 1990. Ken Schraders Bush car was sitting on an open trailer outside the hotel they were staying at after the race that Saturday night. It was beat all to crap but we pulled up in the parking lot and looked at it. Of course this was before cell phones and we didn't have a camera to get any pics. The truck and trailer looked like something you would see roll into a dirt track on a Saturday night.
Yeah man, no problem. I've certainly gotten extremely lucky with my experiences, and definitely once in a lifetime so I enjoy sharing stories.
Would love to see your collection when you get pictures. For Race Fans Only...That's some memories. Never missed an airing of that show.
One thing I wish would happen is (even more than now) increasing the number of Sat. night races in the summer. I don’t like spending a Sunday afternoon watching a race, but anytime there’s a Saturday night race you’ve got a good chance of getting me to flip it on for a while.
Wow! That is one hell of a collection. I mean that’s got to be at a minimum 15,000 dollars worth of diecast. Very cool, and I like how you have a little bit of every driver from all eras of the sport.
Yep, I agree. Too much sponsor involvement happened or whatever you want to call it happened in the mid to late 2000’s and turned these guys vanilla. Now I feel like NASCAR realizes this and is trying their best to get some personality out of these guys.
I like the guys you listed. I think they’re good for the sport plus Blaney. I am excited to see how DiBenedetto does in a better ride this year. I like him a lot.
I can only imagine. Losing like that as a fan is tough. I’m sure the drivers are upset, but enjoy close finishes like that. Only thing comparable I could think of as a fan of Jr is running out of gas coming off turn 4 for the coke 600.
I will say, I never was a big fan of Newman until last year. I think it was after he was eliminated from the playoffs at Charlotte(race Bubba threw water in Bowmans face), Newman got pretty emotional in his post race interview. I had never really saw that side of him, and it definitely changed my opinion of him. He’s one of the last guys still active that I grew up watching. I still remember the first spectacular wreck I’d ever saw. Him flipping at Daytona in 2003. Man that was a wild one. So I enjoy seeing him win
I was at the Bristol night race when Dale bumped Labonte for the win in the "I didn't mean to wreck him I just meant to rattle his cage" race. We were sitting in turns 3 & 4 and I had slipped my camcorder into the race in my wife's purse. When the caution came out with 10 or so laps left I told her to give it to me because it was about to get interesting. I have the infamous bump on tape somewhere but finding it mixed in with all the other stuff of my kids would be the problem. I've gotta say there were a lot of people booing him after it happened and some were wearing Earnhardt shirts. I was surprised his own fans were even upset. That aggressiveness is what made Earnhardt who he was.
Last edited:
Newman certainly is the hardest to pass in NASCAR and all the drivers know it. Which he should and does wear proudly. That's one thing I that gets me, is drivers bitching about someone not letting them go. It's called racing for a reason.
I've been a member since about 2012. I got engaged in November and have been living with my fiancé for about a year now. Own a house which I’m still trying to sell, so my computer is there. Haven’t been on in about a year, unfortunately.
If you all still have it, I’d suggest looking for races and series labeled “fixed setup”. I understand how hard setups are. Pretty confusing stuff. Fixed setup races, however, have one provided setup that everyone uses so it all comes down to driver skills.
If you all still have it, I’d suggest looking for races and series labeled “fixed setup”. I understand how hard setups are. Pretty confusing stuff. Fixed setup races, however, have one provided setup that everyone uses so it all comes down to driver skills.
Newman never let’s people pass him which many times cost him better finishes. He would race someone hard but by doing so, it actually slows him down. Which let other cars catch him. Then he raced them and slowed letting another catch him and so on. All the while he’s wearing out his tires faster which slowed him even more
It’s better to let someone by quickly so he could run by himself and faster. He’s his own worst enemy.
If it’s at the end then yeah race hard if earlier let one go so others can’t catchup as quickly
Gordon, Johnson, Harvick mark Martin, Jarrett and many more that have had more success than Newman all let them by. Smart racing
Best drivers know when to race as much as how to race. Newman is a great driver but for someone with his education not a smart racer
Darrell Waltrip has been preaching this for years
DW is a nut but is a HOF driver
Last edited:
I did say he is a great driver just not a smart driver. He has awesome skills.
He has been driving junk for a while
I remember when Newman burst into NASCAR He was winning polls and driving the wheels of his car. I expected he was going to be the next big thing.
Only problem was he drove his cars so hard they broke. At that time the best cars ran hard for a few laps then backed off till next pit stop. Then hard for a few and so on. They where adjusting the cars for the last run. They didn’t push hard after field separated during restarts. It’s different now, cars can take hard driving better
Being at Roush-Fenway has been a waste of talent. Roush Racing hasn’t been competitive since Fenway bought in Once a top team has really been pitiful for years.
Had he landed at one of the better teams he’d have many more wins. Same for several other drivers.
Similar threads
