Tondeleo: Most rural Americans have been stereotyped as being lifelong NASCAR racing fans. Lately I have heard Doc and his friends grumbling about why they don’t follow NASCAR racing anymore. Most of it is beyond my comprehension, but I recorded parts of Doc and Big Dave discussing their disenchantment with NASCAR racing.
Doc: Well, most of the problem with NASCAR started a long time ago, Tondy. NASCAR stands for something like National Stock Car Racing…
Big Dave: Actually, it’s the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing…
Doc: The point is that it started off as STOCK car racing,
meaning that they was basically racing cars that you could by from the car dealer. Lookit this picture from 1960 NASCAR Daytona race! It is a CHEVY! Got a bumper, a grill, and they just lightened it up a bit.
It was Fords, Chevies and Plymouths and Pontiacs and Chryslers and all that, and you could buy cars like them at the dealer.
What got it popular was, if you was a Chevy man and your buddy was a Ford man, you could go to the race and see which one held up the best, and you could see how they ran when they was drived by the best drivers. If a Ford won the race on Sunday, then sales of Fords went up on Monday. True fact.
That’s why the factories and car dealers got involved. So of course, they started changing what they called a stock car. I think back in the 60’s my daddy said that by then a car could be called stock if they made at least 500 of whatever parts it needed to be made.
Big Dave: I remember that. If Junior Johnson or Fireball
Roberts won the race, you could go to the Chevy, Pontiac or Ford Dealer and if you had the money, you could order a car fixed up just like theirs. I knew a boy in Kentucky back in the 70’s what had a 1963 Ford factory race car. Name was Mark Robinson. He wasn’t rich, neither. His car had been ordered new from the factory like Fireball Roberts’ car. Had aluminum bumpers, fiberglass front end and trunk lid and small seat inside for the driver and a 427 motor. He drove it on the streets. These were called factory race cars.
Doc. Try goin’ to the Chevy dealer an’ orderin’ a car like whatever Chevy won a NASCAR race lately. It ain’t happenin’ cause they ain’t STOCK cars no more and haven’t been for more n’ 20 years or even more.
When a Chevy wins a NASCAR race, it don’t mean nothin.’
It don’t say that Chevies are faster n’ anything else. Cause it ain’t a real Chevy. None of them is really cars what you can buy from a dealer. That’s what killed the pride in it, Tondy.
Big Dave: And that’s when it become more about the driver than the cars. The cars ain’t nothin’ you could ever own. So you at least figure you can drive like the driver maybe…
Marilyn: Jeff Gordon is the world’s fastest Christian! I learned that on King of the Hill…
Doc: Then, Tondy they been ruinin’ it more and more cause the drivers ain’t allowed to really RACE each other till right at the end. Everybody knows it and the drivers is up front about it. They just go roundy round til the last part of it. People wanna see them race each other the whole time, every lap.
Tondeleo: Maybe they are trying to play it safe?
Doc: And racin’ aint about playin’ it safe. It’s about which car is the fastest ad the best drived, and it ain’t been about that in a long time.
Big Dave: Yeah, that’s why we go more for drag racin’. A man ain’t got to be a millionaire to go in there and race and have some fun doin’ it. No matter what you drive, you can race it. Even a pick up truck.
Doc: Yeah, there’s big money in drag racing, too, but the little man can still be part of it, and you can go to the track and if you’re not racin’ you still know a lot of the drivers and some of them is your friends, so it’s a lot better. Ain’t nothin NASCAR can do to catch my interest anymore.
