The Grand Prix of India, maybe the last running for quite some time, was the big show for Sunday but that's not the only race coverage on Brit TV. British Superbikes, Grand Prix Superbikes, rally racing, sports car racing, and others are also well-represented. However, what you will never see is NASCAR and this seems true for all of Europe as there is a generic disdain for stock car racing.
Before going on to NASCAR, something that may amuse you is last year's champion in British Superbikes is Shaky Byrne. How you carry a name like that in big bikes and still live is open to your guess.
So, some of the disdain about NASCAR is warranted. In Formula One if you so much as break wind in the direction of another driver then an official will bust you for it. In NASCAR, the other driver may well punch you in the face. Maybe that's bad form but that's how it's done.
Where NASCAR is really beautiful is in about the last thirty or forty laps of the race. As many as eight or ten of the fastest drivers sort out over nearly five hundred miles to form a pack of their own and they start a dance within inches of each other at about 200 mph. There's nothing else in automotive racing that matches this elegance. Formula One is a little bit faster but when you're running at 200 mph or above, it really doesn't make much difference. Besides, Formula One drivers hardly ever drive so close and definitely not for so long.
What European fans find distasteful is all the crashing and banging in NASCAR and there's a lot of it but there's a form to it you will come to know. NASCAR officials don't interfere anywhere near as much and drivers will seek justice on their own. There are some things that happen that are 'racing incidents' and are all part of the business of racing but there are others in which a driver has done something stupid or overly-aggressive and caused an accident. You bet there will be a payback for it in a future race. Whether this is good racing is your call but that's how it works in NASCAR.
I didn't like crashing and banging at all as NASCAR rules apply in go-karts as well. I really didn't particularly prefer racing as practice was always faster. In practice there is no-one in your way and you can drive just as fast as you and the kart are capable of going. I didn't care about who was the best or all the crashing and banging, I just wanted speed. (Sebastian Vettel was turning laps in the Grand Prix of India that were about six seconds slower than his qualifying time. Everyone is faster ahead of the race.)
On to the Grand Prix and the most important question of the day is what kind of music does Sebastian Vettel hear when he wanders about the pits with his headphones. I don't have an answer and I'm surprised the TV people haven't asked him.
Alonso got screwed as he had to swap the front wing that was broken when he and Webber bumped on the start. It looked like just plain bad luck as Webber and Raikkonen bumped then Webber came right which took him into Alonso's path and that hit Alonso's wing. It was a bitch later on for Webber when his alternator broke so he has had three DNFs in the last four races and none of them were his fault. The only one of the three who wound up in the points was Raikkonen.
Cat fancies Raikkonen but I've been watching Grosjean and it was cool to see him come back from fifteenth to finish third again. Alonso was back down to around fifteenth but he couldn't come back from it while Grosjean did. Most impressive.
And a big NASCAR burnout by Vettel after the race. Cute. He's the new World Driving Champion ... again. He has now matched Niki Lauda with four world titles so they will be singing songs for him in Germany. Very cool.
Ball games get a lot of attention over here too. Even American football plays pretty well. I didn't know this previously but the NFL stages pro games in Wembley Stadium and last night the San Francisco 49ers played, I mean beat the living hell out of, the Jacksonville Jaguars. What may be interesting to you is that there was a huge crowd watching the game and they stayed through the whole game even though it was obvious very early that the game was over.
Cricket, soccer, and rugby all get live coverage and maybe that's because people so much love gambling over here. Regardless of the reason, they love the events and there is tremendous enthusiasm for them. All of this makes it all the more remarkable to me that NASCAR is nowhere here, it's not even mentioned. There's no mention of Indy car racing either and Danica Patrick wouldn't be known here as anything but a model for Go Daddy, assuming she's known at all. There's no great sociological phenomenon, it just might be interesting to you.
Before going on to NASCAR, something that may amuse you is last year's champion in British Superbikes is Shaky Byrne. How you carry a name like that in big bikes and still live is open to your guess.
So, some of the disdain about NASCAR is warranted. In Formula One if you so much as break wind in the direction of another driver then an official will bust you for it. In NASCAR, the other driver may well punch you in the face. Maybe that's bad form but that's how it's done.
Where NASCAR is really beautiful is in about the last thirty or forty laps of the race. As many as eight or ten of the fastest drivers sort out over nearly five hundred miles to form a pack of their own and they start a dance within inches of each other at about 200 mph. There's nothing else in automotive racing that matches this elegance. Formula One is a little bit faster but when you're running at 200 mph or above, it really doesn't make much difference. Besides, Formula One drivers hardly ever drive so close and definitely not for so long.
What European fans find distasteful is all the crashing and banging in NASCAR and there's a lot of it but there's a form to it you will come to know. NASCAR officials don't interfere anywhere near as much and drivers will seek justice on their own. There are some things that happen that are 'racing incidents' and are all part of the business of racing but there are others in which a driver has done something stupid or overly-aggressive and caused an accident. You bet there will be a payback for it in a future race. Whether this is good racing is your call but that's how it works in NASCAR.
I didn't like crashing and banging at all as NASCAR rules apply in go-karts as well. I really didn't particularly prefer racing as practice was always faster. In practice there is no-one in your way and you can drive just as fast as you and the kart are capable of going. I didn't care about who was the best or all the crashing and banging, I just wanted speed. (Sebastian Vettel was turning laps in the Grand Prix of India that were about six seconds slower than his qualifying time. Everyone is faster ahead of the race.)
On to the Grand Prix and the most important question of the day is what kind of music does Sebastian Vettel hear when he wanders about the pits with his headphones. I don't have an answer and I'm surprised the TV people haven't asked him.
Alonso got screwed as he had to swap the front wing that was broken when he and Webber bumped on the start. It looked like just plain bad luck as Webber and Raikkonen bumped then Webber came right which took him into Alonso's path and that hit Alonso's wing. It was a bitch later on for Webber when his alternator broke so he has had three DNFs in the last four races and none of them were his fault. The only one of the three who wound up in the points was Raikkonen.
Cat fancies Raikkonen but I've been watching Grosjean and it was cool to see him come back from fifteenth to finish third again. Alonso was back down to around fifteenth but he couldn't come back from it while Grosjean did. Most impressive.
And a big NASCAR burnout by Vettel after the race. Cute. He's the new World Driving Champion ... again. He has now matched Niki Lauda with four world titles so they will be singing songs for him in Germany. Very cool.
Ball games get a lot of attention over here too. Even American football plays pretty well. I didn't know this previously but the NFL stages pro games in Wembley Stadium and last night the San Francisco 49ers played, I mean beat the living hell out of, the Jacksonville Jaguars. What may be interesting to you is that there was a huge crowd watching the game and they stayed through the whole game even though it was obvious very early that the game was over.
Cricket, soccer, and rugby all get live coverage and maybe that's because people so much love gambling over here. Regardless of the reason, they love the events and there is tremendous enthusiasm for them. All of this makes it all the more remarkable to me that NASCAR is nowhere here, it's not even mentioned. There's no mention of Indy car racing either and Danica Patrick wouldn't be known here as anything but a model for Go Daddy, assuming she's known at all. There's no great sociological phenomenon, it just might be interesting to you.
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