Tornado does $40M in damage to Atlanta Motor Speedway

[Pflugerville Ag]

Pretty impressive damage...

http://i.a.cnn.net/si/2005/racing/07/07/atlanta.motor.speedway.ap/p1.atlanta.motor.speedway.a.jpg

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/racing/07/07/atlanta.motor.speedway.ap/index.html?cnn=yes

[polish]

Could care less, less left turns in life is a good thing, but it is a lot of damage.

[Vlyrock]

That's a pretty cool pic...hope their insurance covers everything.

I've never been in a tornado/hurricane or flood...and frankly, I'm quite glad.

[Pflugerville Ag]

Come on polish, NASCAR isn't too bad. Its the most popular sport in America. Name another sport that can sell out a 200K seat stadium every week.

[Vlyrock]

Soccer in England. :D (I know...that's not America)

[Dustin00whoop]

I love NASCAR...wouldn't expect a Pollack to get it, though. ;)

[Loftin]

Well the stands now resemble the homes of most NASCAR fans. All that's missing is wheels.

[polish]

Holy crap, i can make left turns for hours!

Fixing cars and working on cars cool, getting paid to drive cars cool, watching someone drive cars, loser.

No nascar isn't the most popular sport in America, they do have the most fanatical fans though. People travel to go to races, people don't travel to go to say a baseball game. If your in NY you might go to Yankee Stadium, but usually it's not the sole reason. You only root for a team and that team is at home half the time. But since there is no "home game", it's like the traveling circus except worse because you get want to fall asleep for bordom after the first 10 laps, until the last 10, but you can't b/c their is too much noise. In between those laps absolutely zero happens to get excited about. I mean do you take out your stopwatches and say "damn Cletius that pit stop was .012 secs faster than last woohoo." Ok so somebody wrecks, yeah, that gets old after tthe first time you see it and you realize that that's just another twenty minutes you've wasted of your existence. Watching cars go really slow around the track, yippee. It's the the same phenomon when a guy goes outside with power tools and every guy on the whole street comes down and talks, but doesn't do ****. They want to look cool, like they know something, when in fact they don't. Podunk guys like fast cars and they wanna think they can one day do that too, when in fact they won't.

[Dustin00whoop]

"guys like fast cars and they wanna think they can one day do that too, when in fact they won't."

Isn't that the basis for sports? Isn't that why we watch whatever sport it is we watch. Because somebody is doing something that we wished we could do. NASCAR is unbelievable as long as: 1.) you understand it (which obviously you don't) 2.) you have someone to pull for & someone else you hate. 3.) you realize that they are doing something that you can't.

From your take on NASCAR it sounds like someone listened to a little too much Jim Rome back in the day. But hell, even Rome's view on the sport has changed. Go to a race. Sit in the stands, listen to the engines, watch 43 cars come by bumper-to-bumper at 190 mphs. Hell, even rent you a scanner so you can listen to the drivers talking to crew chiefs & spotters. I guarantee that your opinion will change.

Until then, don't speak about it, because you have no clue what you are talking about.

[polish]

Um sorry i can drive a car and turn it left as well as the next guy, and 43 guys in bumper to bumper traffic isn't cool for hours upon hours.

I have one uncle who raced cars in California when he was growing up and his son (my cousin) who is in WRC racing overseas, trust me i've seen races and heard all the stories. WRC is cool, nascar is gay. When your confined to a small oval and going really fast for a long time, that's called pointless.

Edited mis-spellings man i suck at typing

[polish]

Forgot to add

WRC is awesome to watch on tv and F1 is fairly cool, Indy car can even be OK every once and a while. I just don't enjoy watching the exact same motions over and over. There really not that much differentiation btw cars, there are small things different and they can make a difference but they are very constrained by rules.

The biggest thing i like about WRC is it truely racing in any conditions. If it's raining and the course is mud, suck it up. if a tree is in your way and you hit it, tough ****.

I agree listening to scanners is kinda funny sometimes, but that doesn't amke me go. I don't understand everything about racing you are right, but i understand enough to know whats going on.

PS Jim Rome is one of the biggest idiots in the world. I (pause) am (very long pause) (vansmack) (extrememly unbarable long pause) rackem! The reason he stopped dissing Nascar is research showed alot of nascar fans listened to his show, and most drivers are readily available for intewrviews. He most likely doesn't like or dislike nascar, but you wouldn't go to Europe and diss soccer the same way you don't go to the Southern US and diss nascar, people have hissy fits.

[Loftin]

If NASCAR is a "sport," then so is competetive scrabble. Sure, it takes a lot of hard work and skill, but if a fat 65 year old can compete at the highest level, it isn't a sport.

Also, if it was a sport, it would be behind football, baseball and basketball.

[Texas Aggie 07]

I see NASCAR as a sport. It is more of a mind sport than a physical one, that is why you have older people still being competitive. I would place NASCAR behind football and basketball, but it would definitely be ahead of horse racing, golf and the national spelling bee

[Dustin00whoop]

We're going to have to agree to disagree, but there are some statements you both make that are flat out wrong. First off, Pollock, you can't drive competitively at 190 mph side-by-side with 42 other cars...in a circle or not. If you could, you'd be a millionaire with a hot ass wife. Which also shows your inaccuracy about NASCAR being gay (in the homosexual sense of the word, of course.) Its worth watching just to see all their hot wives if for nothing else. And there isn't anything even metrosexual, much less gay, about putting your life on the line every single week behind a machine with the horsepower that those cars have.

Your point on Rome is extremely valid, but you can't argue the fact that he is a marketing genius. He single-handedly made sports talk radio what it has become today....like it or not.

And Loftin, your arguement is so off base you should just stop posting on this thread. Scrabble requires brain power (a complex vocabulary to be more specific.) There is no athletic ability whatsoever required to play competitive Scrabble. On the other hand, NASCAR does require one to be in shape. I'm not saying that there is any driver as gifted or in as good of shape as Lance Armstrong but the athletic requirements needed for cycling & racing are extremely similar. And, I challenge you to name me one fat guy, of any age, who is competitive in NASCAR, much less one who is 65.

[polish]

I would agree i can't do it, but that doesn't mean i think there some's something fasanating to it. I can make a left turn and a right turn too, and that doesn't mean i'm a WRX racer. The speed is cool for a while, but then it gets boring because its the same thing for 250 laps and after you've seen a few wrecks it's old. The only nascar events i've seen are at texas motor speedway and i wasn't impressed after watching wrx in Britain. It's really quite boring to me for an action standpoint, sure there are technical things you can watch, but thats not fun to me.

Jerry Springer changed daytime talk the way Rome changed sports talk radio. Rome Rome did change the style, but sports talk would be their Rome or no Rome. He made the non-sports, sports show popular, aka a mixture of other news and sports. He popularized a new genre of sports-talk really.

I think Nascar is a sport, b/c of the mental endurance needed, and a 65 couldn't do b/c of reaction times would never be there (like any sport). I don't rank it with the big sports and don't think it takes as much talent as WRC. I guess i think nascar is too much commercial not enough sport. They need some differentiation btw tracks too. Every track (sans surface (concrete v asphault) and curves which are slightly different and take some adjustment) the same to a me. You don't see the difference, you can when you drive i'm sure, but you can't see it. The tracks and cars and talent are all more different and therefore better to me in WRC.

Money begets hot girls, so what, and wow i can see them through the tv just like on almost any other programs. You watch racing for racing, not the chicks. Though scenary is not bad

I'm saying watching it is gay, not doing it, anything that pays you that kinda dinero is good work