The Money in Nascar

I'm going to take a subject on that i hold it very close to my person. Nascar, i am a huge fan and a avid watcher every weekend, i follow it closely and have some favorite drivers that i follow closely as well. But i have a huge problem, with the way the that Fox Broadcasting, ESPN, and TNT and Nascar seem to almost make a joke out of the racing and the racing fan.

Digger? Are you serious, i wish they would cram Digger the douche bag gopher up their rear ends. Really....are you people truly serious about promoting a stupid gopher for a ground cam, that is mounted on the apron of the track. Its one sweet view of cars going around the track, but come on. i didn't have a problem last year with it, just for the fact they kept the dad nab gopher to its own home which was when they would cut to the camera, he would pop up and do his little thing, and we'd get to see some racing at apron level(the flat part of the race track for those of you that don't know what apron is). But know they are promoting this thing like its the next great thing in Nascar, I'm more pumped up about the kind of toilet paper that's in the porta-potties, than i am that stupid cartoon animal.

Daytona could have started at lets say 12:30 maybe 1:00 in the afternoon, but no we had to wait for Keith Urban, to play his little pretty Daytona 500 Epiphone Les Paul electric guitar. Come on guys, then you follow up with the most lackadaisical famous words in nascar, and we start the race, and here is what really sticks in my crawl. Because of all this malarkey going on before the race we get a rain shortened Daytona 500. I kinda felt cheated really i did. i understand why they stopped it, it didn't quit raining till like 10 at night, but this could have been avoided if they would have started earlier in the day. Now onto what i see as a pain

Why OH why is it that when someone spins out down in the grass, or burns a tire and has to go into the pits, we have to burn 4 laps and 5 to 6 minutes on a yellow flag that is spent strictly on commercial time. I could understand if it was a 5 or 6 car pile up ad there was sheet metal and fiberglass everywhere but a spin out, are you serious. I think i just answered my own question, they have that many yellow laps so they can cram as many freaking commercials down your throat as possible, and before people start thinking, " hmm. i really think there doing this for a reason." they restart the race from commercial a total of 1.2 seconds before the green flag restarts racing, then they go 5 or 6 laps and go to freaking commercial break again, then they come back and send it down to bobby cant do wrong and he explains on his little built to scale car that's upside down why this tire goes down at a certain time, then guess what 2 more laps of racing and commercial break.

Guess what, its all about the money anymore, and all sports are falling into this trap. The almighty dollar has taken over the love, passion, and enthusiasm that all Nascar fans have and sports fans in general have for the whatever respective sport they love. These companies and Nascar are more interested in getting us to pay attention to what product their pushing than whats going on in the race, or that sporting event we are at. Think about it, the next time you are at a sporting event pay attention to all the different ads, endorsements, and general persuasion that has nothing to do with the sporting event that you actually came to see, Preparation H, the brand that the NBA trust for Hemorrhoids. I'm serious it is almost coming to that. But as bad as it gets i cant help but love sports because it is something that brings people together and we can rejoice in something together no matter how bad things get in the real world.

Little tid bit of Info: In 2007 Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon made a combined 49 million dollars, with endorsements included. Thats just 2 drivers out of a consistent 43 to 45 drivers every year. Granted someone like Dave Blaney or Mike Wallace doesn't make that kind of money but they make some sort of a decent living. Its still big bucks. But ultimately, we are to blame because we are and will continue to eat up sports in this great land, we call the United States of America