I once heard that auto racing is the most popular sport in America. I thought, "That makes sense. We're in the middle of an oil crisis that demands we send our young men and women to fight, and often die, in a region of the world that has that energy supply. Why wouldn't we, as a country, enjoy watching cars drive in circles really fast?"
In case you missed the facetious nature of my first statement, then I will come right out and say it. The huge popularity of NASCAR is one of the finest examples of American insanity that I have ever seen.
Thankfully, auto racing is not the most popular sport in the nation. The general consensus amongst experts is that it is probably the fifth most popular sport, just slightly behind hockey. NASCAR is the second most watched sport on television behind football. It is the most highly sponsored sport by Fortune 500 companies and has 17 out of the top 20 most attended sporting events. So it's not the MOST popular, but it's still an awfully damn popular "sport".
Now don't get me wrong. I completely understand that the amount of gas used by NASCAR is not even a drop in the 139 billion gallon bucket of gas that America consumes each year. It's the self destructive paradox inherent in the culture they promote that disgusts me.
Sports are supposed to uplift the human spirit and make us realize how great we can be if we work hard enough. Professional athletes are capable of doing things that many of us will never be able to do and in so doing they teach us about ourselves in relation to ideals such as team work, sacrifice and dedication. Automobile racing does not teach these things and in fact it undermines these ideals in relation to the reality of an energy crisis because it undermines the fact that it will take team work, sacrifice and dedication for our country to overcome its oil crisis.
NASCAR is automobile idolatry and if those "athletes" behind the wheel are heroes just because they are capable of driving fast and reckless over long periods of time without killing themselves then my picture should have been put on a postage stamp when I turned 20. There is nothing admirable or virtuous about auto racing. It is a travesty that those guys get praised for living after acting dangerously while soldiers in the middle east die while acting responsibly and heroically.
Comments (3)
As Bill Maher described it: "Rednecks drinking beer watching other rednecks turn left."
Posted by Ryan McG | September 3, 2007 11:01 PM
Posted on September 3, 2007 23:01
Great post--lots of interesting ideas. I pretty much agree with you that NASCAR represents all that's currently "broken" about America, but I think you can extend that further to sports in general (Sorry Shawn).
I mean, the way you see sports is definitely an ideal worth achieving, but we both know that sports (lately, at least) has mostly been about individual's taking short cuts (steroids, ref's fixing games, etc). We place far too much emphasis on the individual star (in every sport), and we place far too much emphasis on sports in gneral (like you say, we're at a time of war, yet athletes like Kellen Winslow Jr. think it's okay to call himself a soldier.
Also, at the risk of sounding like my brother-in-law, I think it's only fair to mention that NASCAR definitely has its team qualities (pit crew, race team, etc), so it's arguable whether you can call it a strictly individual sport (like tennis or golf).
Anyway, don't get me wrong. I love me some sports--and come March Madness time you'll see a guy who takes it way too seriously.
But I really enjoyed your ability to put things in perspective and I think you're spot-on by saying that America's love affair with the car (auto-erotica?) is really diggin us further and further into this war.
Posted by Ranjit | September 4, 2007 11:22 AM
Posted on September 4, 2007 11:22
The battle over NASCAR begins...I was waiting for you to say, "It's so damn boring; I can't watch a car repeatedly take left turns for three hours," but to argue what you did is definitely something I haven’t heard before; it was much more thought out than I thought it would be. But, I think the claims that NASCAR parallels shoddy American ideology is a little far fetched.
Using an energy crisis as a way to show why NASCAR is a thorn in the side of America seems far too dramatic to me. As far as it contributing to the human spirit, or the breaking of it, seriously? When I hear of a young kid's spirit broken because of NASCAR, I'll believe this. I would take the NASCAR isn't a sport argument over it's ruining America.
Have you ever watched the Red Bull Air Races? Imagine how much fuel those airplanes are ‘wasting’.
What do you propose?
Posted by Alex Pouppirt | September 4, 2007 12:40 PM
Posted on September 4, 2007 12:40