Team-BHP - Nascar, anyone?

I have been a long-term follower of NASCAR, though it has been difficult these last couple of years to follow Nascar in India because no Indian sports channels show the races. D-Sport had the contract for the last couple of years but even last year they barely showed any of the races live, or even re-telecast, or abridged version (which they had done two years back). Anyway, this year, with the season about to start this weekend with the Daytona 500, doesn't look like D-Sports is going to cover it. No ads on the channel or even on their twitter TL, and their Nascar webpage is still carrying last years season details. Looks like they have completely abandoned Nascar. They were anyway doing a poor job even last year, as I said, but still.

I still find Nascar the most exciting of car races, especially the ones on super-speedways, the long ovals, with cars doing 200 miles an hour inches from each other for about 2-3 hours. IMHO, no other type of automobile racing comes close to the excitement of Daytona or Talladega or Pocono superspeedway races.

So, wondering if there are any Nascar fans here. I see no discussions on these pages, and last reference seems to have been years ago. If there are Nascar followers, anybody know any way to follow or watch the races? Or any way to get one of the Indian sports channels to telecast it? Asking for a friend . . . :)

We lived in Kansas City, USA for 3 years. I went there to head up a newly established company Ericsson Services Inc.

We looked after the day to day operations, planning and maintenance amongst other of the Sprint Networks. Sprint at the time was one of the main sponsors of Nascar. We had a team that supported the Nascar events. About 15-20 guys, 5-7 massive trucks and a lot of equipment.

For every Nascar race a radio planning would be made and we would add so called COW (Cells on Wheels) around the circuit. The team would arrive about a week in advance of the race. It would take them 5-7 days working setting up the networks, tuning and testing. As soon as the race was over they would tear everything down and move on to the next circuit/event.

They spend a lot of time on the road. In those day the Nascar was about 40-42 week a year or there abouts.

So when they found out I was a petrol head they invited me over to join them. They arranged special passes for me, so I could go everywhere including the driver briefing. Nascar is like a travelling circus for those working with it. Small community, everybody knows everybody, easy going and very relaxed. The race itself is hugely competitive of course. But the whole environments is much more open and inclusive for fans and the public at large.

Everybody can get access to the pits, (for most that means buying a ticket) but you can just wonder around and you will just bump into your favourite driver. These guys (and the odd girl) just wander around, chatting to fans, very different from F1.

It is difficult to even begin to imagine the atmosphere during a typical Nascar race. For many years it has been the largest spectator sport in the USA. Which is saying a lot!. A race will draw literally tens of thousand of fan to the stadium. Many will show up for the full weekend in campers. The Americans are extremely good in organizing these sort of event. Nascar has its root in the deep south, easy going relax folks. They have always maintained that feeling. So you got hundred thousand people descending on a stadium. Nobody gets exited, there are no long queues, everything works, constant entertaining before and after the race.

National anthem, Airforce flyby, local beauty queen doing a round on the circuit, drum bands, the works!

To be very honest, I thought the actual race itself was the least. I just loved all the other stuff around it

I'll see if I can send you the link to my travel blog about my Nascar experience.

Enjoy Jeroen

Quote:

Originally Posted by R_R (Post 4543598)

I have been a long-term follower of NASCAR, though it has been difficult these last couple of years to follow Nascar in India because no Indian sports channels show the races.

...

So, wondering if there are any Nascar fans here. I see no discussions on these pages, and last reference seems to have been years ago. If there are Nascar followers, anybody know any way to follow or watch the races? Or any way to get one of the Indian sports channels to telecast it? Asking for a friend . . . :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeroen (Post 4543869)

We lived in Kansas City, USA for 3 years. I went there to head up a newly established company Ericsson Services Inc.

...

National anthem, Airforce flyby, local beauty queen doing a round on the circuit, drum bands, the works!

To be very honest, I thought the actual race itself was the least. I just loved all the other stuff around it

I'll see if I can send you the link to my travel blog about my Nascar experience.

Hi Jeroen and R_R,

It would be interesting to read Jeroen's travel blog about the Nascar experience.

Also, i came across an interesting blog maintained by a Dr. Diandra Leslie-Pelecky ( https://drdiandra.com/about/ ), where she documents NASCAR by the numbers. I thought I'd share for those interested.

https://buildingspeed.org/2020/11/13...s-2020-part-1/

There's also an interesting site that covers the science behind the speed of NASCAR, hosted by the National Science Foundation, USA. Have a look at

https://nsf.gov/news/mmg/?series_nam...e%20of%20Speed for videos

Cheers,

FourWheelDrift

Here in India, we aren’t particularly crazy about NASCAR and I don’t know why. I enjoy motorsports and watch F1 regularly, but don’t know much about NASCAR. I don’t even know whether it airs on Indian TV.

I loved watching Cars I the Pixar movie of 2006 when I was a young kid as much I’d love to watch it today.(I’m sure other enthusiasts as well as non enthusiasts would agree about the it, it is one amazing movie!) When I learnt that it was inspired by NASCAR, it got me interested about the sport for a brief while.

And then I did not care about it for so many years. But now after FourWheelDrift reopened this thread, I’m intrigued by NASCAR again.

So here is my humble request to NASCAR fans in the forum.

-Please bring me up-to speed on NASCAR.

-Describe me how it is different from F1

-Next, please tell me why I should watch it.

-Lastly, tell me how I can watch it in India and anything else I’d want to know before watching it.

You may also share some more useful links where I can have a good start, and or create a separate forum if required since we don’t have one (as per R_R)

Sorry for the heading font, mods please remove it if needed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EightSix (Post 4938219)

And then I did not care about it for so many years. But now after FourWheelDrift reopened this thread, I’m intrigued by NASCAR again.

So here is my humble request to NASCAR fans in the forum.
-Please bring me up-to speed on NASCAR.
-Describe me how it is different from F1
-Next, please tell me why I should watch it.
-Lastly, tell me how I can watch it in India and anything else I’d want to know before watching it.

You may also share some more useful links where I can have a good start, and or create a separate forum if required since we don’t have one (as per R_R)

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While I'm not a NASCAR fan, I'm also not a hater. Just have enough time to follow F1. I'll attempt to answer EightSix's questions as succinctly as possible.

Do keep in mind that this only my opinion, as all of the answers to these questions are available on Google.

NASCAR is a mostly American series of "stockcar" races, with a long and storied history.

The specification of cars raced is heavily regulated and changes with the type of track (small oval, large oval, road course). While the outside silhouette of the car might resemble a road-going car, the car itself is far from stock.

Currently, there are a few different levels of NASCAR series championships. The top level is called the NASCAR Cup Series, which gets most of the publicity.

Per the Building Speed website mentioned in my previous post above, the season consists of 36 races, usually held at 24 different tracks from Feb through Nov. 28 drivers drove the full-season in 2020, while another 26 drivers drove select races or a partial season.

The recently crowned 2020 Cup champion is Chase Elliott.

NASCAR uses a closed wheel car, which is quite different from F1 which uses an open wheel car. NASCAR races are longer, typically 500km or longer. All F1 races are less than 310km. The differences are too numerous to enumerate here. Simply put, it is like chalk and cheese.

If you're into watching cars racing bunched together at high speed on an oval track, NASCAR is for you. There are far more crashes in NASCAR (on account of loss of control or bumping into one another or both), as the speeds are higher, there are more cars on track racing in close proximity to one another, and the cars themselves are more unstable at high speed on account of the minimal use of wings to generate significant downforce. One thing is for certain ... they don't do much braking / accelerating / decelerating / gear changes in NASCAR, unless they're racing on a road course.

I don't believe there are any channels that cover NASCAR in India, although I could be mistaken. Real NASCAR fans will inform us correctly on this one.

I'm sure NASCAR has an app or their own online channel, where one might pay and watch races live. See https://www.mlive.com/news/2020/08/n...ogramming.html and https://motorsport.tv/

Cheers,

FourWheelDrift

Such a coincidence to catch this thread! I took a Discovery+ subscription last month - got a deal on Google Pay for which I had to pay only 199 for an year. A steal I thought when I saw their catalog with Top Gear in it - both classic and new. But they only have a few seasons, 6 or so. :( I guess that deal didn't work out as well as I thought.

Anyways, I am digressing. Happened to re-live series 18 where Top Gear's resident American had done a brilliant bit on Nascar. Here it is for your reference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtcbsi8itHw&

I haven't fancied Nascar that much while I haven't missed any season of F1 since the early noughties. And what attracted me to the sport was actually the cars itself - the technical prowess and how the teams overcame the tight regulations with engineering wizardry. Racing and drivers were a bonus really! :D So, Nascar is a bit too crude and rudimentary for my liking. But, close racing is simply brilliant at Nascar if that's your cup of tea, err coffee. And I love the sound the cars make!