<VV> !! Indy irony ! - No Vair

[John Kepler]

> The problem there is that the NASCAR fans are cut from a different cloth
> than F1 fans...

Without this getting SO off-topic that we get yelled at, I submit that while
SOME F1 fans are different....most aren't!  I raced cars for a couple of
decades, most of it on road courses.  In my youth, I was just the
road-racing snob that you insist is "cut from a different cloth" that
thought the sun shone out of Jackie Stewart's fundament!  Then I got older,
got around a little more....including running as support races for both
Canadian and US GP's (back when they ran in Detroit), CART, and got to know
some of the NASCAR teams (IMSA was jointly owned by John Bishop and Billy
France)....and learned!  Pro Racing is just as much a part of the
entertainment industry as George Lucas and Disney World....and just like
them, it's a "Field of Dreams" that is largely based on a carefully
cultivated and propagated illusion!  If there is a difference in the various
racing fans.....it's based more on the illusion they choose to buy into
rather than anything substantive!

The "F1 Illusion" is one of massive technological "sophistication" and
gladiatorial danger.  The truth is that an F1 car isn't any more or less
"sophisticated" than many GT cars that nobody gets their shorts in a knot
over, and far less "sophisticated" aerodynamically than your average Nextel
Cup car.  But techno-nerds apparently buy everything from gasoline to
condoms in Europe, and treat the drivers like Super-Models in spite of their
generally being insolent, spoiled little pricks to the point that they make
the average NBA player look accessible and mature!  So....dicking a bunch of
American fans does NOTHING to hurt the F1 "myth" in their primary
base....and even helps perpetuate it (our cars are too sophisticated to run
on some rude Colonial gravel road!)!  NASCAR sells a completely different
illusion....one that is more typically American, and one that darn-near
anyone on this list can relate to!  The NASCAR "myth" is the diametric
opposite of F1's!  NASCAR feeds the myth that with a little work, some "race
parts" you can get mail-order from Moroso, and a little welding in the dirt
back behind the Chevron station.....you too can make a "dog-lot" Monte Carlo
win at Daytona!   In America, we'd rather participate than spectate...and
the NASCAR illusion feeds that while F1 ignores it.......a factoid that has
kept Bernie Ecclestone and F1 out any major share of the US market, and will
continue to do so!

True story!  One of our racing team members was an engineer for Gulf Stream
Aviation down in Savannah.  They had been sweating a fuel-guzzling turbulent
flow problem in the multi-million dollar GS-4 for some time, and thought
they had a "fix", but needed to test it.  The only real way to do that was
at Lockheed's big wind-tunnel in Marietta, Ga.....and that sucker cost a
bundle to rent (seven-figures)!  The cost of the wind-tunnel led to weeks of
wrangling between engineering and the friggin'
bean-counters......engineering wanted a couple of days in Marietta, the
number-dummies only wanted to pay for a couple of hours.  After several
acrimonious meetings that that ended with the whole mess thrown on the CEO's
desk...Gulf Stream decided they could afford a single day at
Lockheed-Marietta.  With the decision made, Gulf Stream tried to book the
time down at Marietta.......nothing doin', the big tunnel was booked solid
for the next 3 months by.....you guessed it....NASCAR racing teams!  Junior
Johnson had the tunnel for an entire WEEK....the very same guy that talks
like an illiterate cracker and gave interviews in bib overalls with his barn
in the background.....all to perpetuate the illusion!  Oh yeah.....in the
end, Gulf Stream made a deal with one of the NASCAR teams, and got their day
at a discount!

Now...back to valve-cover racing and tossing fan-belts (which is
"on-topic"?)!

John