Reasons Why Nascar Is The Most Popular Spectator
Written by Super AdminMarch 12, 2026 Oh, how I loved to make fun of NASCAR! When I was a kid, we were a baseball family, and to me, NASCAR was nothing but a joke. Then I met my husband, who is a huge fan of anything with an engine. He’d be watching, and I’d cross back and forth in front of the television, carrying the laundry and whatnot, and occasionally look at what I thought was just a bunch of guys making a lot of left turns, really fast. It seemed like a big waste of time and fuel to me.Then one day, I sat down. I watched a lap or two. The next time, I watched a few more. And it seemed…kind of interesting. At least, interesting enough to ask my husband why he was interested.He explained, and I understood most of it. He left out the technical stuff, for the sake of my newbie ears, and told me that it’s much more fun if you pick a driver to root for. He, for example, is a Tony Stewart fan. At the time, I didn’t know Tony Stewart from Tony Randall. And I didn’t much care.But each time I passed by that television on a Sunday afternoon, I watched a little more, then a little more, and then, much to the chagrin of my family, I became hooked.Then I completely understood why NASCAR is the top spectator sport in America.It’s the coolness factor. It’s the noise that the engines make on a restart, when they’re all whipping the turn one after the other, on a track banked so high it must be like driving on the inside of a cereal bowl.It’s the skill and athleticism of the drivers — don’t ever call NASCAR anything but a sport — as they grip the steering wheels and ram their feet into the floorboards, going round and round at speeds flirting with 200 miles an hour, pulling G-forces like an astronaut, sometimes for five hours at a clip. Could you do that? Huh? Could you? Didn’t think so.It’s the strategy — team members conniving to get past their opponents using the very air they draft. Using physics to slingshot past the leader and scream their way to the checkered flag and on to victory lane. Hah. And some people think they’re just a bunch of rednecks turning left.It’s the danger of racing three-wide on a short track and watching through your fingers as someone goes slideways and tattoos the wall. The sigh of relief when you see that your guy made it through clean.It’s being out with your family on a beautiful weekend afternoon (they don’t race in the rain) and feeling the excitement and the rumble of the track. You don’t get that from baseball. No, no, no. Basketball, football… nothing even comes close. And once, even if it’s just once in your life, going to a race and feeling the rumble of the earth as the cars fly by, feeling that thunder and lightning in your bones — it’s well worth the trip.It’s the politically incorrect ridiculousness of it all — all that spent fuel, all those tires tossed aside by the scrambling pit crew, the winner burning rubber as he digs donut after donut into the infield grass in celebration. It’s all the things that people say we shouldn’t be doing… and we’re doing them, and loving it. And no one can tell us we can’t.And you know what else? It’s fun. Plain old, flat out, fun, like all those things you wanted to do when you were a kid and your mother told you not to. Like skiing down the black diamond trail, like throwing your hands in the air while the roller coaster flings you around and around and around and you’re screaming and loving every minute of it.It’s no surprise NASCAR is the top spectator sport in America, and no surprise that its fastest growing segment of spectators is women. We love us some macho guys in fireproof suits. Baby faced Kasey Kahne, handsome Jeff Gordon, guy-next-door Carl Edwards, and that scruffy bad boy, Tony Stewart.Tony is my guy, too. Any racing dude who can top off the day by sliding past the finish line on his roof is one tough stud, in my book.Dad? I still like baseball. I still root for those boys from New York. But sitting on the edge of my seat, in front of a restrictor-plate race and watching Tony go for it, with Kyle Busch flat out on his bumper and Junior scooting up beside them? Sorry, Dad. I’ve got another love, now. Category:Home › Other • Pomegranates: A newly discovered superfood • Where did the joke why did the chicken cross the road come from and why is it funny? • Can mothers diagnosed with bipolar disorder make good parents? • Spiritual evolution of human consciousness • Tips for getting a college basketball scholarship • Living with Pseudotumor cerebri (PTC) • Caring for the caregiver • Technologys impact on society
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