[mitchntx]

After watching a some of the coverage of the Daytona 500 this weekend and hearing a lot of discussion about the costs associated with feilding a competitive team and hearing the gnashing of teeth surrounding the dwindling sponsorships and hearing the concerns about enough cars to field a full grid and seeing Waltrip's wild tumble and seeing that tumble re-played on network after network after network ....

I began to wonder ....

Because it's all about the number of minutes a specific sponsor get's it's name on TV, when will a driver, who is an "also ran", purposely wreck his car, just get gleen a few extra minutes of sponsor coverage?

Is it cost effective to spend a $100,000 race car in order to keep a $10 million sponsor?

NAPA received tons of exposure from networks to local TV stations replaying his wreck. I would hate to see that happen on purpose, but ... it has to be there in someone's mind ...

[JonV]

I don't mean to imply that there are no good racers in NASCAR. Clearly Jeff Gordon has the stuff to make it RR, from what I saw of him in that little promo stunt where he drove Juan Montoya's Williams last year. He showed some pretty decent speed, and glory hallelujah, he was endlessly enthusiastic/amazed about the car. I'd love to see him in F1. Tony Stewart had an incredible drive in the Daytona 24 hr this year. He was unfreaking believable driving that car on two wheels. There are others I'm sure. Also, I like to watch the NASCAR races when they are on the Road Courses. It makes for some interesting cut and thrust stuf happening from time to time. This is the shame of NASCAR. Potentially great racers do nothing but go round and round. Everything is reduced to the lowest common denominator.

But circles?

Endless circles?

Blah!

I think it is near criminal to put open wheel cars that close on ovals. It is spectacle, and I'd say cheap spectacle except that so many guys are getting so seriously hurt and killed doing it. I want to see good racing. I want to see cut and thrust. Dive bombs up the inside under braking. But I don't want to see mangled cars and mangled bodies. After that hideous Greg Moore wreck in '99, I lost all interest in open wheel cars on ovals. It was just an unspeakable horror to see that car go into the wall, and I knew as soon as he pancaked, that he was dead as a door knob. Not my scene. He looked too much like my oldest boy.