I can't decide which I find dumber

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Mudcat

Mudcat

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The BCS in college football.

NASCAR starting their season with their Super Bowl, the Daytona 500.


I can just imagine the outcry if any other sport tried to adopt either concept. It would be so completely unacceptable, a commissioner might end up lynched.

But I guess because it is tradition, it is somehow okay.


:bashing:
 
not a Nascar fan myself even though I live in nascar country where every Bubba, Junior, and Dilweed have a #24 or a #3 on their truck but its not really the superbowl of Nascar.
Daytona doesnt decide the yrs champion.
Its big cause of the venue and history of the track.
Daytona is where some of the first Nascar races took place, except they used to race on the beach.
 
BCS for sure! But always thought having the Daytona 500 first off would lead to everything after that being a big letdown! Still the one race that I won't miss tuning in to unless something comes up! Middle of February and 30 degrees so won't be going outside!

Nationwide Series today at 1PM

Danica Patrick, all 5'2" and 100 pounds of her! In the #7 GoDaddy car for Dale Jr! Didn't root for her in the Indy cars but will be here for sure. Seems alot less cocky over here in listening to her.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009_swimsuit/models/danica-patrick/09_danica-patrick_8.html

Go Daddy!!!
 
Formula 1 treats all races the same way. Never understood why NASCAR puts so much importance in one race.
 
hype, to sell tickets, apparel, etc...
 
No contest - the BCS is dumber. I don't follow Nascar though.
 
Pavy
Formula 1 treats all races the same way. Never understood why NASCAR puts so much importance in one race.
Click to expand...

It is treated the same way in terms of points scored but a win in the Monaco Grand Prix is the jewel in the crown for an F1 driver.

I have never understood why NASCAR does things this way.
 
mmike032
its not really the superbowl of Nascar.
Daytona doesnt decide the yrs champion.
Click to expand...


Not meaning to be argumentative because I don't follow Nascar closely at all - but the reason I compared Daytona to the Super Bowl is because I saw some Nascar people saying that this week.

And I saw a driver interviewed who expressed feelings like how a football player would talk about the Super Bowl. i.e. - his season would be a success if he won Daytona but completely flopped in "The Chase." Sounded like a football player saying he wouldn't care if his team went 8-8 as long as they won the Super Bowl.

Except Nascar has the Super Bowl first, then plays the regular season.

I'm sure the analogy is not 100% on-the-money though.
 
There's really more nuance to it, Muddy. Back when NASCAR was trying to establish itself as a premier racing tour, most teams had to scrounge around for parts and sponsors to get the season rolling as this pre-dates the domestic automakers having racing divisions to aid in the development of the sport. Thus, one of the original organizers realized that the one race nobody had to fight for sponsorship in was Daytona, so they moved it to the very first race of the season to give more teams the financial backing they needed to start the season racing at peak performance. It worked magnificently, sponsors of cars who did well at Daytona usually retained them for the entire season thereafter, and sponsors unsatisfied with early results would switch to endorse another car/team rather than just giving up on NASCAR entirely as they had done in years past.
 
RogueScholar
There's really more nuance to it, Muddy. Back when NASCAR was trying to establish itself as a premier racing tour, most teams had to scrounge around for parts and sponsors to get the season rolling as this pre-dates the domestic automakers having racing divisions to aid in the development of the sport. Thus, one of the original organizers realized that the one race nobody had to fight for sponsorship in was Daytona, so they moved it to the very first race of the season to give more teams the financial backing they needed to start the season racing at peak performance. It worked magnificently, sponsors of cars who did well at Daytona usually retained them for the entire season thereafter, and sponsors unsatisfied with early results would switch to endorse another car/team rather than just giving up on NASCAR entirely as they had done in years past.
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Rogue, your are for sure the Scholar!!!:clap:
 
Mudcat
Not meaning to be argumentative because I don't follow Nascar closely at all - but the reason I compared Daytona to the Super Bowl is because I saw some Nascar people saying that this week.

And I saw a driver interviewed who expressed feelings like how a football player would talk about the Super Bowl. i.e. - his season would be a success if he won Daytona but completely flopped in "The Chase." Sounded like a football player saying he wouldn't care if his team went 8-8 as long as they won the Super Bowl.

Except Nascar has the Super Bowl first, then plays the regular season.

I'm sure the analogy is not 100% on-the-money though.
Click to expand...
I agree.
its the biggest race of the yr and the most hyped.
IMO its more of a racer staking his claim in history by winning the Daytona 500..
guess you could say a driver would rather have a Daytona 500 trophy on the mantle instead of a trophy from Pocono.
Talledaga is another big one
 
Awwww, you're making me blush.

In case you're wondering how the Emerald Triange's preeminent twink hunter has time to "bone up" on the history of stock car racing, ain't nothing but a family thing. Of my 20+ cousins, my favorite one is a stock car driver at the local short tracks, so growing up he taught me how to build race cars and the history of the sport itself. Now that NASCAR has gotten themselves a couple twinks, I find myself really getting into the races more.

Joey Logano:
joey-logano.jpg

(He's just 18 and loves to go fast *swoon*)
:hippie:
 
My thread has taken an unexpected turn for the twink-tastic. You just never know when that is going to happen.



Okay I think I am convinced. The BCS is worse. Issue resolved in my mind.
 
RS, I wanted get back to what you wrote here and how it makes so much sense! Richard Petty in an interview once stated that back when he first started the good old boys would be out drinking the Saturday night to the wee hours of the morning together like best buds.

Then the next morning they wake up and battle each other like they hated each other. Making money wasn't the greatest motivation except like you said probably in being able to afford to get the car ready for the next race. It's such a big business nowadays the guys are lifting weights, eating healthy, and going usually there own separate ways.
 
You know, I realized as I saw the cars line-up for the start and during the introductions that this current economic recession may make starting the season with the Daytona 500 just as necessary as when they originally moved it to the start of the year. Look at these drivers and their primary sponsors for 2010:

Travis Kvapil: Extenze (really?)
Regan Smith: Furniture Row
David Reutimann: Tums
Bobby Labonte: Taxslayer.com (wow)

Now, I cherry picked some of the more unlikely sponsors obviously, but it shows just how hard these teams are having to work for sponsorship agreements. Primary sponsors are on the hook for a minimum of $300k per race, and you simply aren't going to get TaxSlayer.com to pay that kind of money for other early-season races like California and Las Vegas. By having the Daytona 500 start it all off, every company who had designs on being a primary sponsor in the Sprint Cup has to find a team and draw up an agreement. Some of those agreements might not even make it to the races at California and Las Vegas (especially for the poor guys who wreck early and piss off said sponsors by removing them from televisions across America), but those teams will already have used their Daytona monies to build their cars for the season and stockpile some parts for the coming months.

I'm sure the economy will rebound and you'll see a lot of penny-ante sponsors get the hell out of NASCAR to make way for dominant brand names, but because of the wisdom of early NASCAR commissioners, even during such tough times as these, we still have 43 race teams all with primary sponsors (for the time being). With it now costing upwards of $20mil to race a car for a full NASCAR season, decisions such as these affect the entire future of the sport.
 
Scholar, I am not sure if this happens, and a I am to lazy to do the research, but do any of the big time racers get appearance fees for racing at some of the smaller or less known races. Daytona wont have to pay racers to show up, but was just wondering if other tracks due. I guess drivers dont skip races because they don't want to lose out on points for the Chase. Just wondering if NASCAR would turn into golf, where Tiger was getting appearance fees.
 
Back to the original question....no matter what the reason is. It is definitely more dumb to have the biggest race at the beginning of the year. The thing about the BCS is that more often than not....it gets it right. It has the best teams in the country facing off. I am sorry that I am in the minority that doesn't want to see TCU vs. Boise St. in the national championship. I don't want to see Utah St. getting beat 90-2 by Florida. It makes the regular season more relevant and it makes these small schools schedule games against the big boys. If those non-BCS schools prove they can compete and have a tough schedule for a couple years in a row....they will get their chance.
 
Nah, there are no appearance fees, primarily because those same sponsorship agreements are made by apperance, if you don't get your car to the track to at least attempt to qualify for the race, you forfeit the monies you were due from your sponsors for that race. So for the elite drivers/teams, their sponsorship deals are worth so much money, that not only are those guys at every race, they're also required to spend over 100 hours during the year doing whatever their primary sponsor wants in order to help promote the brand. A driver with a SuperCuts sponsor is going to spend a few of those hours getting haircuts at highly publicized events in front of fans, and so forth. Considering that the Sprint Cup doesn't have an off-season, I don't think anybody can question the committment that any of these drivers have to their sport/profession. Few professional athletes have a workload that compares with the Sprint Cup drivers.
 
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