He could have meant any number of things. NASCAR and NFL are mainly U.S., F1 and Rugby are international, etc etc.
Tony Stewart and Lewis Hamilton: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbxP09UZ2F0
I like the F1 tech/series better but Nascar is extremely impressive. They generate a ton of revenue and do a good job of catering to the consumer. There’s something to be said for three wide at 200mph and more lead changes in a race than an entire F1 season.
There are several things that make NASCAR far more popular than F1 in the US:
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Americans like big cars with big engines.
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Americans like guys with guy names that they can pronounce, Kimi Räikkönen is not going to resonate with the typical American race fan.
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Road races are not particularly good events to attend because you only see a very small portion of the circuit. Imagine going to a baseball game and only being able to see left field.
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NASCAR has strong historical ties to running moonshine.
I’ve been an F1 fan for years, but never a NASCAR fan.
In May I did a couple of Level III CFA webinars for Singapore and Malaysia. With luck, I’ll be going there for live classes this Fall or next Spring. I’m trying to negotiate the dates: late September for Singapore, late March for Malaysia.
I love the Tony Stewart / Lewis Hamilton commercials (though I’m no fan of Hamilton).
I wonder how a F1 car would do vs a stock car on a NASCAR track and an F1 track.
F1 is way faster, not even close. They’ve all run in MTL and the open wheel cars are ~20% faster per lap. Downforce, tech, weight are all heavily in the F1 car’s favor and they make about the same power…it’s like comparing Usain Bolt to a high school track meet winner. F1 cars are truly incredible.
^I disagree. An F1 car would slaughter a NASCAR car on an F1 track, but could lose on an oval. F1 cars are designed for acceleration and manueaverability, not top speed. To my knowledge, current generation NASCAR cars go faster than F1 cars. However, in the past there have been F1 cars that were faster than the current versions. Hence, it would be possible to design open-wheel cars that could beat NASCAR cars on ovals (Indycars), but I doubt it would be possible to adjust the design of a NASCAR car to beat an F1 car on an F1 course.
NASCAR has severe constraints on their car technology. Not only must NASCAR teams use the stock car bodies, but they also use antiquated engine technology that is worse than many road cars. NASCAR engines are still made of heavy cast iron. Electronic fuel injection, was not used until a couple of years ago.
If someone wanted to optimize an F1 car for an oval track, it doesn’t seem like it would be difficult - take off aero parts, increase gear ratio, and change the tires. The resulting car would easily beat a NASCAR car. It’s not a fair comparison - F1 teams spend $50 million a year to develop their cars. NASCAR is basically a bunch of modified Camrys and Ford Fusions.
Agreed, there’s definitely a setup issue but the key is the power/weight ratio. F1 has the advantage there (both make similar power but F1 weighs almost half).
Interestingly both have tried top speed runs at bonneville…and they did 249/246mph with the edge to nascar.
On race circuits they also have similar top speeds. The fastest tracks I think are Monza for F1 and Talladega for nascar and they can both top 200mph.
Either way, taking a ride in either would be awesome and they should definitely do some F1 vs. Nascar races. Though I think nascar would have the advantage there since they could just ram the F1 cars off the track, redneck style.
F1 car would absolutely destroy a nascar on virtually any track. Top speed or otherwise. Nascars are built within much stricter limitations. That being said, in IROC events, and when racers transition, apparently driving NASCARS is extremely technical with NASCAR drivers often outperforming their open wheel peers. I’m not trying to make an inflammatory statement, or honestly say that one driver type is better, but just that there is some merit and difficulty to the technicality of what nascar drivers do, whether it’s entertaining or not.
I don’t hate nascar as much as some people here, although I would def prefer F1.
Re: Football vs Rugby, I’ve played both and known people who played both at college levels, and the hitting in football is exponentialy harder, with the NFL having some of the highest caliber althletes in the world. Rugby is still cool, I’m sure. But without the rampant commercialization and large paychecks, it just doesn’t attract the same caliber of athletes.
From internet search, the highest two NASCAR top speeds were set in 1987 before more regulation was added to the sport, at 210 and 212 mph.
From wikipedia on F1 cars:
Top speeds are in practice limited by the longest straight at the track and by the need to balance the car’s aerodynamic configuration between high straight line speed (low aerodynamic drag) and high cornering speed (high downforce) to achieve the fastest lap time.[20] During the 2006 season, the top speeds of Formula 1 cars were a little over 300 km/h (185 mph) at high-downforce tracks such as Albert Park, Australia and Sepang, Malaysia. These speeds were down by some 10 km/h (6 mph) from the 2005 speeds, and 15 km/h (9 mph) from the 2004 speeds, due to the recent performance restrictions (see below). On low-downforce circuits greater top speeds were registered: at Gilles-Villeneuve (Canada) 325 km/h (203 mph), at Indianapolis (USA) 335 km/h (210 mph), and at Monza (Italy) 360 km/h (225 mph). In the Italian Grand Prix 2004, Antônio Pizzonia of the BMW WilliamsF1 team recorded a top speed of 369.9 km/h (229.8 mph).[21]
Away from the track, the BAR Honda team used a modified BAR 007 car, which they claim complied with FIA Formula One regulations, to set an unofficial speed record of 413 km/h (257 mph) on a one way straight line run on 6 November 2005 during a shakedown ahead of their Bonneville 400 record attempt. The car was optimised for top speed with only enough downforce to prevent it from leaving the ground. The car, badged as a Honda following their takeover of BAR at the end of 2005, set an FIA ratified record of 400 km/h (249 mph) on a one way run on 21 July 2006 at Bonneville Salt Flats.[22] On this occasion the car did not fully meet FIA Formula One regulations, as it used a moveable aerodynamic rudder for stability control, breaching article 3.15 of the 2006 Formula One technical regulations which states that any specific part of the car influencing its aerodynamic performance must be rigidly secured.[23]
BS - Word, definitely some talented drivers in Nascar. Guys like Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon are very skilled on all surfaces (the race of champions is fantastic)…hell, look at Travis Pastrana, he can drive anything.
That’s because NFL athletes are far more specialized in terms of position and for short explosive bursts, not so with Rugby. Furthermore, in most places where Ruby is popular soccer gets the best athletes. I
Ironically, soccer doesn’t prize pure athletic power.
How do you get into car racing anyway? Figure that only 0.1% of the population ever participates in racing at any serious level. Most likely, the best car racing prodigies are still undiscovered.
Go karts. There are some serious go kart leagues around. Also, dirt tracks. In the middle of God’s country you get tons of amateur dirt track racing. Many, if not most, of the NASCAR guys got started in go karts or dirt tracks.
Edit: And, when the pros come back home, lots of times they race at their old dirt tracks under false names. They always dominate. You wouldn’t think there would be that big of a gap in driving ability, but it’s just like anything else. The pros are leaps and bounds better than everyone else.
Some F1 teams, at least I know for a fact that Ferrari does this, sell their older F1 cars from four or five seasons ago to private collectors, who are normally the most exclusive customers. They include a number of restrictions: for instance, they cannot resell them before certain number of years, and they cannot drive the cars on the streets. They must be driven, if ever, in a private circuit.
Insightful. Could contrast with traditional sports where the barriers to entry are much lower.
The next Gretzky was just born in Namibia, but we’ll never know.
I think it mostly comes down to having some guy from your own country doing well.
When Brazil had top F1 drivers (Ayrton Senna, Nelson Piquet) the sport was second only to soccer here. Nowadays, I think it loses by far, even to MMA.
That happened with basically every sport. Volleyball got a decent following after winning the olympics. Tennis got bigger after a brazilian (Guga) was number 1 for a little while, and MMA is growing pretty fast with Brazil having some top guys as well.
I figure the same happens in most countries, maybe even more so in US. I mean, no offense, but why would anybody care about the MLS or even the brazilian soccer championships when most top players end up playing the Champions League in Europe? And yet fans enjoy the more local tournaments.
I have no idea about Nascar, but as far as F1 vs Indy goes, I think F1 has a much higher skill level. If I recall correctly, when Mansell competed in Indy, he destroyed the competition in his first year. When Andretti competed in F1, he was about average.
What sucks about F1 is that the competitors put so much emphasis on the machines that you can’t really tell who the best drivers are. When Schumacher was in his prime, every year it seemed like a competition between Schumacher and some better car, which happened to have a pilot inside it.