January 7, 2009
By Larry Van Zandt
I am going to miss the off-season….
Yes, you heard me correctly. While tens of millions of other sports fans can’t stand waiting for the regular season to commence, I’m actually sad that the off-season preceding the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup will be gone 33 or so days from now.
Why am I sad?
Because if 2008 is a glimpse of what we are in store for the upcoming 2009 season, I was a lot happier not having the boring races getting in the way of the actual news. In other words, the ‘racing’ that NASCAR claims is occurring on the track is serving only as a distraction to what is occurring off of said race tracks.
Think of it this way: “Martha, can you get them 43 pesky race cars out of in front of the TV set? I’m trying to watch something important!”
Being that this is my first few months of writing directly about NASCAR, and pulling away from making grown men cry on internet message boards, I was honestly worried about having nothing to write about in the off-season we are currently sailing through.
Wow, was I wrong.
It turns out that the off-season is turning out to be a heck of a lot more interesting that what I imagined. Not that any of the off-seasons prior to the upcoming 2009 schedule were all that boring, as I have been following NASCAR for at least a few years, but I am struggling to recall where the sense of foreboding was nearly as intense as it is now.There are currently maybe 36-37 teams committed to running the entire 2009 season...down from 42-43 a few weeks ago...and we still have a month to go.
Think for a moment. If I turned NASCAR and its current troubles into a metaphor of sorts, I would call it a steam-powered locomotive, and in particular, the Southern Pacific 4449 ‘Daylight Express’ 4-8-4, crossing a rickety bridge. (Go to http://www.sp4449.com/ to see which train it is I am talking about)
Like NASCAR, when it’s operating properly, the SP 4449 is a sight to behold. Like NASCAR, it’s a monstrosity. The sights of all of the machinery moving in tandem, the sounds…..like NASCAR, there is very little in modern times to compare to it. However, like most modern rail lines, the rails that both the SP 4449 and NASCAR ride on have been neglected. All of the focus goes to keeping the machine itself in top operating condition, and very little maintenance goes into the tracks themselves.
With the 4449, it’s not the fault of its caretakers…..with NASCAR, it’s entirely their fault.
However, both NASCAR and the SP 4449 have come to a pivotal moment in history, where they have become too monstrous for their surroundings; there are very few rail lines remaining that will allow the 433-ton SP 4449 to roll freely, and there are very few sponsors remaining that will fund NASCAR to its current levels. Like the SP 4449, even though there are some incredible people dedicated to keeping both monsters alive and running, NASCAR, like the SP 4449 before it, is threatening to become a museum piece unless something drastic is done.
And now we come to the ‘rickety bridge’ part of the story.
NASCAR is already on the bridge. The problem is that the France cartel has the windows boarded up on both sides, and they are proceeding full steam ahead, with a swell party going on in the ‘Presidential’ car. Since they are too self-absorbed to notice that the bridge is bobbing and weaving, they are also ignoring the people banging on the door to alert them about the problem (teams shrinking, racing going to pot, fans going away, etc).
What’s left to do, if you have done everything possible to try to warn the engineer about the ‘bridge out’ up ahead, and he simply shoves the throttle harder forward?
Sarcastic comments:
What’s the difference between NASCAR on its back, and a turtle on its back? At least the turtle knows there is a problem.
Watching a NASCAR race is rapidly becoming ‘waterboarding for race fans’. And the bad part? If I had a choice between watching another Phoenix race, and waterboarding?
Where’s my Donald Duck floating ring?
See you next week….
And if at first you don’t succeed, call it the ‘Car of Tomorrow’.
The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.
You can contact Larry Van Zandt at