# What does NASCAR stand for?



## Ziz (Feb 22, 1999)

*N*on 
*A*thletic 
*S*port 
*C*reated 
*A*round 
*R*ednecks


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## Old_McDonald (Jul 5, 2002)

*NASCAR* *stands* for the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing


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## Y3a (Jan 18, 2001)

I think Ziz is right.


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## Jimmy B (Apr 19, 2000)

Ziz said:


> *N*on
> *A*thletic
> *S*port
> *C*reated
> ...


 
:lol:


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## the Dabbler (Feb 17, 2005)

Ziz said:


> *N*on
> *A*thletic
> *S*port
> *C*reated
> ...


True indeed ! :drunk: It was originally started by 'Good ol' boys' that were moonshine runners who souped up their cars to outrun the "revenuers". They all started bragging about their cars and having races to see which was the fastest, and it took off from there.
And now you have "The rest of the story". Vrrom vroom vroom, White lightnin' !!! :thumbsup: 
Dabbler


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## ChrisW (Jan 1, 1970)

While my wife is a fan, I'm more of an interested observer. But I will say this - I don't think I'd like to subject my body to the beating that the drivers get on a typical Sunday Afternoon.


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## irishtrek (Sep 17, 2005)

The best thing about NASCAR? Ya never know when theres going to be a fender bender especialy if your least favorite driver ends up heading to the garage only to not return for the day. To that I say :thumbsup:Yeehaww!!


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## Ohio_Southpaw (Apr 26, 2005)

Drive Straight, Turn Left, Drive Straight, Turn Left...... Yup, it's a thrill a minute *please note heavy sarcasm*


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## justinleighty (Jan 13, 2003)

The thing that gets me about the name is that the cars sure aren't stock.


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## Rebel Rocker (Jan 26, 2000)

As of yet, haven't been able to bring myself to apply for membership in the "Left Turn Club". Maybe if they let 'em drive whatever direction they wanted to, and all they had to do was complete a certain number of laps the fastest (eliminating the need for a unidirectional finish line!), and each car was manned by a driver and a gunner, then I _might_ take a look!

Wayne


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## Lloyd Collins (Sep 25, 2004)

Normally Ass Sliding Crashing And wReaking


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## Dave Metzner (Jan 1, 1970)

Unlike Stick and Ball sports ---------
Auto Racing pays WINNERS! 
Too many stick and ball athletes are paid obscene salaries because they did something two or three seasons ago.

I watch racing, all kinds of racing......
Almost every Sunday and most Saturdays NASCAR Busch and Nextel Cup......Craftsman Trucks, Champ car and IRL
NHRA Drag racing..........I even get up early some Sundays to catch Formula 1........
I like rally racing, sprint car racing, unlimited hydroplanes, Air racing...even Swamp Buggy racing!

I don't watch much of the NFL, The NBA, or MLB, Hockey, or Soccer! Maybe a few playoff games but not much regular season........

I do watch some College Football - - usually NBC on Saturday afternoons! GO IRISH!

Dave


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## Y3a (Jan 18, 2001)

I only watch the Americas Cup Yacht racing. Once you understand the rules, and tactics its very cool. Playing chicken with a 3.5 million dollar sailboat takes guts. ya can't go in the pits and put on a new keel bulb.


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## Brent Gair (Jun 26, 1999)

I stopped watching NASCAR when they stopped racing. It's got all the drama of pro wrestling.

"There's the green flag. Wait a minute, somebody in the stands dropped a hot dog wrapper. That brings out the yellow flag..."

"A pidgeon just flew over the track and NASCAR wants to check for bird poo...that brings out the yellow flag..."

"Jeff Gordon's jack man is stuck in the porta-potty. That brings out the yellow flag..."

"Thanks for watching our coverage of the Daytona 500. Dale Jarret wins having lead 12 laps of green flag racing. 238 laps were run under the yellow flag."

Geez, I've watched F1 racing where guys burned to death on the track and they didn't throw a yellow flag.


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## Rogue1 (Jan 3, 2000)

I thought it stood for:

*N*ot
*A*nother
*S*tinking
*C*ircle!
*A*wwww
*R*ats!


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## F91 (Mar 3, 2002)

Uh, Dave, I got a heads up for you. F-1 Racers are some of the highest paid "athletes" anywhere. NASCAR drivers get money for wins, but they get paid money on top of that through their contracts with their sponsors and teams. I'm sure you know all of that, but it seemed kind of a lopsided comparison to the stick and ball guys.


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

Old_McDonald said:


> *NASCAR* *stands* for the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing


 What does "no sense of humor" mean?


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

Women's tennis. The only sport worth watching. Except for women's beach volleyball.


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## scotpens (Sep 6, 2003)

*NUDE SURFING! NUDE SURFING! NUDE SURFING!*


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## the Dabbler (Feb 17, 2005)

Olympic class beer drinking ! :thumbsup: 
:drunk: Drbb..... Drabl.....Dabbler


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## Steven Coffey (Jan 5, 2005)

^ ROFLMAO  :roll:


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## Daikaiju1 (Apr 26, 2005)

Try watcing our V8 racing from Australia, particularly the Bathurst race (just gone a month back). I' ve seen cars explode with my own eyes there, sadly some drivers have died as well. But the Bathurst weekend is part of our culture, when not racing the track is a public road! No ovals, the drivers have to steer!
GS


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## BatToys (Feb 4, 2002)

Wasting gasoline driving cars in circles.


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## Dave Hussey (Nov 20, 1998)

I'm not going to dump on any one sport, but when it comes to car racing, I remember one race vividly that I watched on TV over 20 years ago.

Gilles Villeneuve was racing somewhere in Europe. The guy was, well, nuts. He got so close to the car in front of him at one point trying to take the lead that he ran into the guy's back end. That tore the crap out of the front spoiler assembly of Villeneuve's car and he immediately lost five or six places. The commentators agreed that Villeneuve was toast for that race. They even remarked with some derision that Villeneuve had begun driving in an erratic manner, weaving from side to side. However, he was actually trying to shake off the damaged front-end. After a couple of laps, he did just that. You could see him duck as the spoiler flew up over the back of the car. Villeneuve then drove like the devil himself was on his tail and won the bloody race.

Now that's racing!

Huzz


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

I was visiting my mom in South Carolina last spring when my nephew came to say hi. He walked in the door, saw she had Oprah on the TV, and said "Isn't there some NASCAR on?"


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## CaptFrank (Jan 29, 2005)

> Wasting gasoline driving cars in circles.


As opposed to the efficient use of gasoline driving to the 
model shop and back to your house.


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## Old_McDonald (Jul 5, 2002)

John P said:


> What does "no sense of humor" mean?


Sorry, just having one of my senior moments. I thought he really didn't know :freak:


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## Brent Gair (Jun 26, 1999)

Dave Hussey said:


> Now that's racing!
> 
> Huzz


That's REAL racing.

Modern NASCAR is, essentially, fake.

Did you ever notice that, even with roster of very long races (several 500 milers), there is rarely more than two seconds between first and second place? Watch the end of any 500 mile Nascar race and you will see the two leaders within three car lengths of each other. Does that seem suspicious? A Ford and Chevy can go full blast for 500 miles and finish one second apart...race after race after race? 

Nascar makes generous use of the yellow flag and some ridiculous rules to guarantee that no racer can pull out to a lead of more than 100 feet. Yellows are thrown for absolutely no reason to insure that all the trailing cars can catch up to the leader. The absurd "lucky dog" rule allows a car that is a lap down to be given a free pass to the lead lap when a yelow is thrown.

It's like the public school system that gives a pass to any student no matter how stupid and unqualified they may be. You could enter the Daytona 500 with a Schwinn and Nascar would find some way to make sure you were on the lead lap at the end of the race.


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## TrekFX (Apr 15, 2004)

I respect other people's opinions, and we're all entitled.

But I'll admit, I'm a NASCAR fan. Starting to get a little burnt out by it but still enjoy it.

Let's examine a few points made:

"Modern NASCAR is, essentially, fake."

Actually, it's quite real and is the most popular sport in America if you believe the statistics. Why do you think it's gone from niche programming on ESPN to extensive coverage on major TV networks?

"Did you ever notice that, even with roster of very long races (several 500 milers), there is rarely more than two seconds between first and second place? Watch the end of any 500 mile Nascar race and you will see the two leaders within three car lengths of each other. Does that seem suspicious? A Ford and Chevy can go full blast for 500 miles and finish one second apart...race after race after race?"

What you describe is almost exclusively found at what are described as "restrictor plate" tracks, and there are just TWO tracks, Daytona and Talladega, 2.5 and 2.6 miles respectively with high banking. A metal plate with four holes is placed under the carb to "restrict" airflow and drop horsepower. WHY would they do that? In the 80's, with speeds topping out well in the 210's the aerodynamics of the cars was such that if a car got turned sideways, at a certain angle it acted as a wing and the car would go airborne and generally start barrel-rolling. On incident in particular: a car blew a tire going into the frontstretch tri-oval at Talladega, went airborne into the fence and very nearly over the fence and into the crowd.

Since then, the restrictor plate was used to tame top speeds and reduce acceleration. THAT is why cars are alweays in a bunch at those tracks... without horsepower, the only way to keep up is to depend on the "draft," the vacuum created by a car in front of you, to pull you along. The more cars in line, the more stronger the effect and the faster they go. If you get out of line without a partner, you WILL go backwards.

They have also improved aerodynamics by adding various spoilers and automatic flaps to disrupt crosswise airflow in the event of a spin to prevent flight. It doesn't alway work out, though.

"Nascar makes generous use of the yellow flag and some ridiculous rules to guarantee that no racer can pull out to a lead of more than 100 feet. Yellows are thrown for absolutely no reason to insure that all the trailing cars can catch up to the leader. The absurd "lucky dog" rule allows a car that is a lap down to be given a free pass to the lead lap when a yelow is thrown."

I agree that they tend to toss yellows far too often at the start of a race. A mouse farts and there's a flag. But at the end of a race, a guy can spin and they'll give him a good long while to get back underway before flagging.

The lucky dog rule was added as a concession when they forbade racing back to the line under caution. Think about it: how smart is it to have an incident, perhaps major, on the track, debris everywhere, people possibly injured, but the rest of the field is expected to race back to the flag?

This scenario happened in New Hampshire (my home track!) a few years ago. Dale Jarret spun out of T4, and was immobile right in the middle of the track. The whole field was barreling down on him racing full throttle out of 4 towards the line, and he very nearly got T-boned. That was stopped!

"It's like the public school system that gives a pass to any student no matter how stupid and unqualified they may be. You could enter the Daytona 500 with a Schwinn and Nascar would find some way to make sure you were on the lead lap at the end of the race."

Absolutely untrue. They do try to level the field as much as possible, trying to match equipment so that the DRIVER is key, not necessarily power. I do feel that sometimes they excercise a bit too much control, and more than once they've made a rule and shortly thereafter retracted it. You need to remember also that with a track 2.5 miles long, thats a loooong way to let the field spread out yet still be on the same lap.

At any rate I still find it entertaining. And you can't really appreciate it until you try it. At least, try one of the good NASCAR racing simulators (that's simulator, not game). Once you start working with the myriad interactive adjustments like weight balance, wedge, tire pressure, spring rate, shock parameters etc you begin to realize how sensitive these cars are, and how a wrong setup can make a car completely uncompetitive.

OK... done! :wave:


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## Dave Metzner (Jan 1, 1970)

I"m with Trek FX
If any of you think racing is easy or fake do some research!
I am a racing fan, also an ex member of a local car club that has owned high-class drag cars.
While I was a member we ran a AA/Gas dragster (ancient history) 
Drag racing is simple you say-------WRONG! Been there done that take my word for it it's NOT simple not easy!

NASCAR is simple-------Just drive around in circles ------Wrong again----go look at the equipment -try to understand how it works----go figure out how to make a 3400 lb car run 500 miles at around 196 mph with a 366 cubic inch engine fed by one four barrel carbeurator......NOTHING simple or easy about that........Chassis set-up NOT SIMPLE! Aerodynamics.....NOT SIMPLE! Fast pit stops, good pit crew.......NOT SIMPLE!!!

Those guys who drive those cars aren't athletes??????? WRONG again!!!!!!! 
Just climb in one of those 3400 lb cars and drive it around Bristol for 500 laps on a Tennessee summer afternoon.......and stay in the pack with 42 other guys!!!!!!!!

I don't care for NASCAR's current corporate immage, the bosses at NASCAR ar too concerned with political correctness! I thought that penalizing Dale Jr for saying Sh-t last year was a chicken shit deal!
I don't like their fixation with making all the cars alike! 
I think restrictor plate racing SUCKS! 
But I'm still going to be watching the race from Texas tomorrow!

Oh-In F-1 Racing that incinerated car is a "LOCAL Yellow" not a "Full Circuit Caution"
FIA World Championship Rally racing is neat too They run cars of the edge of cliffs and other neat stuff!

Oh Yeah I almost forgot GO IRISH!!!!!!!!
Dave


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## Brent Gair (Jun 26, 1999)

Dave Metzner said:


> I"m with Trek FX
> If any of you think racing is easy or fake do some research!
> Dave


Nobody here is claiming that racing is fake.

I'm simply claiming that NASCAR racing is fake...which it is.

As for my qualifications as a car guy, the cars I CURRENTLY OWN: 1959 Corvette with very non-stock 327 and M21 four speed, 1976 Trans Am with a 455 ci engine and t-10 four speed, a rare Triumph TR250 with dual carb straight 6 and a four speed. I was a pretty fair autocross racer from 1984 to 1991 (until I got old and broke).

And guess what...NASCAR is still fake.

It's fake because it's not racing

NASCAR does not allow competition. It carefully orchestrates every element of the so-called "races" to ensure that cars are artificially bunched together. No innovation is allowed. No excellence is allowed. Anything that would allow a team to get an edge on the "competition" is not allowed. Look at the history of how NASCAR tampered with the rules governing the supply of tires to ensure that no single team or group of teams could get superior tires.

NASCAR will NOT allow competition. RACING is not something that NASCAR is interested in. The sole and only purpose of NASCAR is to guarantee that when you get to the last lap of the race, as many of those rolling billboards as possible are clumped together coming out of the last turn.

NASCAR is to car racing what WWE is to Olympic Wrestling. A show.

Racing is real. Watch F1. Watch the NHRA. Watch that terrific Rolex Sports Car Series that I'm really enjoying. Oh and I really love the America's Cup racing too.

Want to see some magnificent fakery? Watch WWE Wrestling, Penn&Teller or NASCAR.


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## CaptFrank (Jan 29, 2005)

> I was a pretty fair autocross racer from 1984 to 1991 (until I got old and *broke*).


Is that broke as in penniless, or broke as in _broken_?


Where can one see the America's Cup?


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## Brent Gair (Jun 26, 1999)

Broke BOTH ways . I sufferred severe burn out from a well-paying job and took a huge pay cut to lessen my responsibilities (I figured something was wrong when the doctor put me on perscription tranquilizers at age 28). And my lower back reached a point where hard suspensions and stiff clutch pedals meant I had to be helped out of a car.

Americas Cup proper isn't a regular event that has a season. It's more like boxing where you sort of have to wait for challengers, qualifiers and challenge matches. There are things like the LOUIS VUITTON CUP which are close relatives and will include Americas Cup racers. You generally have to try and find it buried on channels like ESPN, ESPN2 or SPEED.


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## Dave Metzner (Jan 1, 1970)

Best racing on TV recently has been IRL ........close finishes - fast race cars - lots of excitement.........and Dannica Patrick is easy on the eyes as well! (also a pretty fair race car driver)

NHRA Funny cars are interesting too Pomona this weekend to decide a three way chase for F/C Championship - -Capps, Celzie, Force each have a shot!

Formula-1 could be real interesting next year - new engine formula and a bunch of other rule changes- new qualifying rules - back to tire changes thruout races....

I watch lots of Speed Channel - I even enjoy their coverage of the Barrett Jackson auctions.......
Love Dave Despain's Wind Tunnel!

Dave


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## TrekFX (Apr 15, 2004)

The IROC race at Atlanta last week was nerve-wracking!!!!

I ask you, what's wrong with trying to equalize equipment to make the DRIVER and/or TEAM the key to winning?

It's not about who can pee further anymore. :wave:


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## CaptFrank (Jan 29, 2005)

> I ask you, what's wrong with trying to equalize equipment to make the DRIVER and/or TEAM the key to winning?


What's wrong is you get what we got: slot car races.


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## CaptFrank (Jan 29, 2005)

I think the restrictor plate parade, uh, racing is a joke.
If the high banking turns on those two tracks cause the 
cars to become airborne, then get rid of the banks.
Make the tracks completely flat, and level. Then, the 
drivers will have to brake going into the turns. Position will 
be determined by _skill_. Imagine that!


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## Y3a (Jan 18, 2001)

<< 
Where can one see the America's Cup? >>

It'll start with the "Louis Vuiton" Series to see who'll race against last times winner.
This will be an interesting series because the winner comes from a place without a sea coast! Team New Zealand hosted it before off the coast near Auckland, and I was rootng for Dean Barker and the boat "Black Magic" - but they fell to the 'if more is better than too much much be just right' error, and their boat suffered broken booms, flooding on deck etc. I was really embarrased!!! Jeez.

try this link:

http://www.americascup.com/en/


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## Trek Ace (Jul 8, 2001)

Smash-up Derby!


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## the Dabbler (Feb 17, 2005)

There's a lot to be said for RODEO !! :thumbsup: 
Dabbler


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## fjimi (Sep 29, 2004)

Nascar "leveling the field" is indeed akin to government schools-no uniqueness, everybody gets a pencil from the community box etc. 

I'll watch it occassionally to see a wreck, see someone flagging down cars under the ever prevalent caution and toss a helmet at a car, watch dudeman do a backflip and hear DW yell "boogity". They generally have good looking significant others too. It does kinda sound like the WWF(E). 

IMHO: They are NOT athletes, neither are chessplayers. Is it an olympic sport? I rest my case. 

Danica - prrrrrrrrr

Dale Sr (RIP) in the Indy 500? now there's a thought.


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