Daytona 500

[Corey]

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This is absurd thinking. If any sporting event could bring in 250K they'd build a stadium that could pull in 250K.

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Let's take football as an example. If they built a 250k seat stadium for football, it would be full for only the superbowl or perhaps a playoff game in a particularly large city. If they built a 250k seat NASCAR venue in Florida, it would be full only once or twice a year. Key difference is that there's only one or two events per year. It's not feasible to build a 250k seat stadium for football, soccer, or any other sporting event that occurs often in one location. for one or two events per year.

Another example, I'm sure the entire city of Glasgow would go to every Celtic-Rangers game, but they would look foolish when 5,423 showed up to see one take on Heart of Midlothian in stadium built for half a million people.

[Richard Tanner]

I live in Indy (greenwood) and go to the Brickyard yearly. It always reports about 300,000 people ever year. The Indy 500 is shrinking in popularity, so it's numbers arent' as high.
It's worthwhile to note that there is alot of unused space on the backstretch that could be made into seats (it's presently a golf course) so the numbers could be even higher.

Cody

[Alobar]

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According to this article from 10/07/03
Nascar is second to the NFL. Still it's popularity is growing. The Daytona 500 might have the greatest attendance of any sporting event in the country, maybe the world. Can anyone shed some light on this?

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The tour de france owns any sport by far when it comes to viewer attendance. On the premier mountain stages over 1 million people will be roadside.

[Richard Tanner]

Lots of overtaking. Last years American Grand Prix had a staggering zero lead changes. I'm sorry but I can sometimes watch NASCAR, I can never watch F1 races.

Cody

[Lazymeatball]

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According to this article from 10/07/03
Nascar is second to the NFL. Still it's popularity is growing. The Daytona 500 might have the greatest attendance of any sporting event in the country, maybe the world. Can anyone shed some light on this?

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The tour de france owns any sport by far when it comes to viewer attendance. On the premier mountain stages over 1 million people will be roadside.

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Wow, that's impressive, you would think there wouldn't be much to see. A bunch of guys going by on bikes, you could see the same thing everyday in Honk Kong.

But that reminded me of marathons, do those count as a spectator event? I know the streets aren't packed the whole route, but when you've got 26 miles to work with you could potentially fit alot of people. Any estimates for a popular marathon, such as Boston or P Diddy runs the City?

[pokerjo22]

By saying I can watch F1, I mean I don't feel the urge to tear my eyeballs out of my head to stop the brain-crushing boredom. I wouldn't class it as entertainment, but I would watch it if I was eating my lunch [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I guess I just don't understand how overtaking works in NASCAR. I mean how much do they have to slow down for those bends? Can't you just pretty much keep your foot flat to the floor?

[rusellmj]

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I guess I just don't understand how overtaking works in NASCAR. I mean how much do they have to slow down for those bends? Can't you just pretty much keep your foot flat to the floor?

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Uh, no.

Russ

[Sweaburg]

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I guess I just don't understand how overtaking works in NASCAR. I mean how much do they have to slow down for those bends? Can't you just pretty much keep your foot flat to the floor?

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Uh, no.

Russ

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I'm not posititive but I'm pretty sure you're wrong. At most tracks they can't keep the gas on the whole time but at Daytona I'm pretty sure they run pretty much flat out. They may also keep the gas to the floor while braking with their left foot in some situations. This allows you to keep the engine running at peak rpms while slowing the car.

[Edge34]

At Daytona, with the restrictor plates on the engines, you can go full throttle the whole way if your vehicle is handling well. Dale Jarrett's troubles in the race (from pole to 31st) were attributed to the fact that his car was handling so poorly that he had to "feather" the throttle through the turns.

Good race today though, I seriously thought Junior had it!

[HDPM]

I am going to lose respect for myself posting this. I know way too much for somebody who isn't a huge fan and I don't think I am a total redneck. Maybe I am. So here goes. [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]


Daytona is a bad race to judge by because they run with a restrictor plate that takes away a lot of power from the engine. It closes off fuel to the carburetor. Yes, unlike the ridiculously advanced and expensive F1 cars, NASCAR has carbureted V-8's. The cars still go fast and they are big and heavy so they push a lot of air around. So driving the air is important. You have to work with other cars to get going and pass. So in some respects Daytona and Talledega are bad races. At tracks where the cars run at full power and the draft isn't as important you get more passing. You have to slow down for the turns and maybe even shift once in a while. At Daytona they basically need to be able to stay at 100% throttle through all the turns. ANd if you get off the gas it takes longer to get up to speed because of the stupid restrictor plate.

The charm of NASCAR used to be that the cars really were stock cars. They were modified of course, but they were still recognizable as stock cars. Because they have fenders the drivers can bang against one another, the racing could be good. A F1 car can't do that. The cars are big and heavy and the divers have to wrestle them around as opposed to a fast, sleek, light F-1 car. Bigger cars, smaller tires.

Whatever charm NASCAR had as a redneck event where bootleggers ran their second fastest car is basically gone. But there is still some of the old racing at the short tracks.

As somebody who is not really a race fan, I would like to see true stock car racing. let the drivers run very fast. They should be going 215-220 at Daytona. They ran 210 in the '80's It would be dangerous and drivers and fans might die. But so what. You buy your ticket by showing up to a race, right? [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]


Maybe I shouldn't have posted. But I don't own a single piece of NASCAR clothing at least.