Comments on: What Women Want – More Ovals

By: Chris Lukens

Chris Lukens — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 19:36:13 +0000

I had to look this up, you are right, TransAm has a 10 race schedule with SCCA. But I think you will have to agree that is just high level club racing.
However, I don’t think it was Champcar that accepted Georges offer, it was OWRS. so it only failed twice before it went out of business by being absorbed into the IRL.

By: Tom G.

Tom G. — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:00:37 +0000

Ouch! I resent that “best guest blogger” title

By: JohnMc

JohnMc — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 04:59:58 +0000

By the way, msheddon, your thinking that people don’t have actual lives because of non-stop sports media is a complete fallacy. They do and the sports marketing people all know it. You may not have an actual life, but most of us do. We have kids, mortgages, house-work, soccer games, basketball games, sleep-overs, teacher meetings, commitments too numerous to list here, car notes, tuition, cloths to buy, electric bills to pay and if that is not enough there are careers and all of what that entails. To claim that people don’t have actual lives because they follow sports and watch ESPN is an obtusive characterization. What an easy world you must live in.

By: JohnMc

JohnMc — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 04:29:22 +0000

Guys, let’s just look at the sentiment from 1888 with the last stanza of Casey at the Bat”

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville — mighty Casey has struck out.

No joy in Mudville because Casey did not hit a game winner. It is ALL about winning and I rest my case.

By: redbull

redbull — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 00:36:28 +0000

Whoops. That is my roommate’s wordpress account. Although I guess it wouldn’t hurt to read his blog. Thanks Matt for letting me use your computer!

By: mshedden

mshedden — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 00:32:32 +0000

Ha! Easy killer. Winning has always been winning but read some early sources and fascination you seem to proclaim here isn’t up the height you think it was until the later parts of this century with non-stop sports news cycle. People still won but most people had actual lives to live outside of that depended and requirement much more focus than to care that much about sports time. You may not like it but to say it is not just to say it so “is mad.”

By: JohnMc

JohnMc — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 23:04:26 +0000

Redbull, that is the biggest crock of sh*t I have read in a long while and exactly what I expected after reading your previous post. Living vicarously through sports, LOL. Claiming this on a sports blog is a winning post. LOL. The vast majority of fans take sports in stride, but will stop attending when it is losing and will become disenfranchised from the team. That is a fact and, no matter what you think, that is not living vicariously. However, it is bonding with a team or individual. The Cubs, by the way, have experienced a hit from losing for this year. Even though Corporate Chicago has bought enough of the season tickets for a sell out for each game, attendence is down. You might not think that is a big deal, but it is. Concessions is a huge part of the income and when people aren’t there then the hot dogs and beer don’t get bought.

Regardless of who told you, it was all about winning in the early 1900′s and for you to say different is asinine. It wasn’t about Heavyweight Champion Jack Johnson winning prize fights. Hardley. People came to watch him lose and a white man win. Johnson dissapointed them greatly. Winning also made him the man with the money and the gold. Christy Mathewson wasn’t about winning? Unbelievable and to say different is not so. It has been about winning since the first foot race. In Rome, if you didn’t win you were put to death. Early 1900′s and it was about the beauty of the game? Bullsh*t, it was ALL about winning because everyone had money on the outcome. You may not like it but to say it is not so is mad.

By: Susan

Susan — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:23:05 +0000

If I wrote a blog about the pros and cons of both kinds of tracks instead of stating my opinion, you guys would have been asleep before you got to the end of it. I have an opinion, many women share it–you can agree or disagree. At lease with a parade in a circle, you can see it all. I miss the Nashville race…

By: redbull

redbull — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:06:32 +0000

Yeah I am delusional enough to think back to early 1900′s where sports were about the beauty of the game, the skills, the formation of character, and the enjoyment for what it is (a game). Obviously its nice to win but the sheer fascination with winning for the sake of winning when the fans are merely spectators rings more of living vicariously through something other than your actual life than actual enjoyment of what is going on. It’s like someone who reads too many romance novels to make up for the humdrum life…

By: The American Mutt

The American Mutt — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:50:27 +0000

Nashville was a one and a half line track that took just as much time to set up a pass as any road course. I attended the final race in person, and if given tickets wouldn’t go back. The only thing more boring than a parade on a road course is a parade in a circle, which we have plenty of on the schedule, like for instance, this fan will be glad to see Kansas go as he doesn’t remember the last time it wasn’t a nap worthy race. Furthermore, this household has a woman race fan who begs to differ Susan, I’d recomend not speaking on behalf of all women, just as I’d certainly not choose to speak on behalf of all male fans. This post, as with so many others who claim to speak on behalf of American Racing Fans is, as with most indycar blogs, turning me off the sport I grew up loving.

Here’s a quick story; it’s 92, cold as shit, and I’m attending my first Indy 500 at one week shy of 13. I watch Michael Andretti destroy the field only to have his car quit with ten laps, or so, to go. An indycar fan was born that day after watching the ensuing battle between Al Jr. and Goodyear duke it out, and watching Lyn St James get rookie of the year. As a 13 year old fan, I didn’t care if they raced on ovals, or street circuits, and it would never have occured to me to care for one over the other. Hell, my second favorite race of the year was ClevelandI realize it’s no longer 95, but Cart drew rating back then, and still dominated over the IRL for several years.

I tend to think peoples opinion about what it takes to make racing great has been skewed by that other oval dominated series with the ugly “sedans”. What most people seem to overlook about Nascars ratings is that they’re good even though most of their races on ovals suck. It’s because people want the personality cult, not the racing. It has nothing to do with the on track product, if it did the IRL would have been more popular all along.