In an interview, Michael Schumacher was asked if he would race NASCAR. He said no for two reasons. One was that he didn’t like cars with roofs on them and two, he KNEW that NASCAR would not give him a fair chance to race as it was a series that only looked after its own.

Now that, sadly, might be true. Though again, that’s NASCAR, not the sport of stockcar racing. But they definitely don’t get good equipment to women or minorities.

NASCAR will not allow an outsider to have success in its series until he has paid heavy dues.

Montoya was allowed to win the road race in Mexico because he is popular there. In that same race, some no-name local driver came in 8th.

If you can, go back and look at the hard time NASCAR gave Roger Penske when he came to run AMC Matadors in NASCAR.

In an interview, Michael Schumacher was asked if he would race NASCAR. He said no for two reasons. One was that he didn’t like cars with roofs on them and two, he KNEW that NASCAR would not give him a fair chance to race as it was a series that only looked after its own. This perception of NASCAR isn’t such a secret in the racing world.

Yeah, that’s the ticket…….

How about some blue collar Toyotas? Or, IYHO is there no such thing?

tigeraid- to be fair to Tony, as of late he’s usually getting out of car that just took a hit into one or both walls. Can’t say his luck is too good this year.

Yeah, that’s the ticket…

Old fat guys? There aren’t any. There USED to be, and they were badass and fun to watch. They also looked damn near destroyed by the end of the race.

In the top three current NASCAR series, I can think of ONE driver who’s “fat”, and that’s Tony Stewart, and his weight goes up and down more than Britney Spears. He ALSO looks wrecked when he gets out of the car. Out of shape drivers are a thing of the best. One only needs to look at fitness freaks like Mark Martin, Carl Edwards, Denny Hamlin or Jeff Gordon and see how much better they’re doing when they get out of the racecar.

The longest race I’ve ever run was only 100 laps around a track just a bit bigger than a 1/4 mile… counting cautions it was maybe 2 hours. I lost 5 lbs and was just WRECKED by the end of it. There are old fat guys at MY level of racing though, that’s for sure–and it takes its toll on them, still.

And that’s at night, when it’s much, much cooler–NASCAR racers often run during the heat of the day. Cockpit temps can reach 120 degrees, and cooling fans to the helmet only help so much. Tony Stewart lost 15 lbs when he ran the Indy 500/Coke 600 double a few years ago. The stress and heat are tremendous. And while they don’t hit the g-forces an f1 car does at its peak, they will see 3+ g’s at the faster super speedways. And they do it for a whole lot longer than an F1 driver.

But that was a team thing not the organization doing the fixing.

NASCAR the organization does the fixing.

Then explain all the old, fat guys in various forms of “stock car” racin’?

Give me stock car racing from back in the day when teams had to buy their race car off a dealer’s lot.

NASCAR is fixed (yes, I said it). It has been since the early 80s when the only car with the camera inside it won the Daytona 500 (1984 Cale Yarborough)

He thought it sucked. Go into the woods, get eaten by bugs. Wait, wait, wait, car zooms by, wait, wait wait, car zooms by, wait wait wait, car zooms by. If there’s a crash, we rarely see it, and it could be an hour before another car comes through if it’s a serious crash. And that was just day one.

Somehow, I don’t think he’ll be coming with me to another rally event.

Did I mention boring? BORING! BORING BORING!

Now take those same cars and put them on the Nurburing and I’ll watch.

God NASCAR bores me to frustration just sitting here and THINKING about it. AT LEAST put some friggin’ right hand turns on the tracks!!! Use the in-field for something other than parking???

Close off the highway and let them race across the county or something at least! PLEASE!

When I go see the inlaws for the weekend and they insist on sitting through ANOTHER NASCAR race we just gather up the kids and go to the park for a couple hours or go see a movie. It’s about as exciting as golf but not as interesting. Ang is really boring too!

And then there are American sports commentators. IS there ANYTHING they have ever said that was remotely interesting in any sporting event?

The comment above that mentioned interviews where the driver has the mention every sponsor is just about right. And the similarity to WWF is about right too.

WRC is my favorite hands down. The Dakar Rally (or ANY rally really) is my 2nd favorite. F1 not so much but better than NASCAR at least.

There are such similarities between the auto industry and NASCAR. I see Detroit’s average car as being like a NASCAR – lot of horsepower, thirsty, noisy, crap in curves, technology retricted to about 1962, and only a fraction of what they COULD be. At least the F1 guys have these tiny little engines which they have tweaked to death to get every last bit of power and a chassis also tweaked to death. Even the WRC cars are more advanced than the damn NASCARs.

I can see it now Announcer 1: “Tough luck for truck number four. He drew the straw for the cubic yard of mulch”. Announcer 2: “I dunno. I’d hate to be be draftin’ him down the back stretch.”

I prefer grand prix style racing (and will likely never go to an F1 race unless someone else is paying), but pure speed a la Indycar is cool too.

But I consider superbike racing (to a lesser extent, MotoGP [sigh, I really miss the 500-cc two strokes, and the 1000-cc homologation from two years ago]) the pinnicle of motosport. Best of all, a race is only an hour or so. Isle of Mann TT? There’s a throwback to an earlier age. Must see before I die.

All different disciplines and different fanbases. I don’t get boat or airplane racing, but no need to bash…plenty of room for all, as long as corporate sponsors exist.

And like what’s been said before – you just can’t capture it on TV

All are pretty good on giant flatscreen tv in HD (even drag racing)

the problem with nascar is too many so so races which seem designed to increase exposure of the fans to the major sponsors but with F1 its too many crap curcuits like magny cours, hungaroring, the aborted hockenheim china, malaysia (Herman Tilke has a lot to answer for)

and you think american rednecks are bad? you head to the nordschleiffe with 200,000 german rednecks or the worst of the bunch, what seems like half a million pissed aussies at the Top of the Mountain at MT Panorama for the running of the Great Antipodean Taxi Tour otherwise known as Bathurst. The infeild at Telladega is tame compared to that.

And KnightRT, once again, that statement just drives home my point. Driving any car at a given limit is indeed difficult–the demands on an F1 driver are great. They’re also great on a stockcar driver. They’re simply different demands. The “limit” of an F1 car in terms of g-forces is far greater than a stockcar. Great. The temperature in a stockcar is far greater than an F1 car. The reflexes required to drive an F1 car are far greater than a stockcar. Well, being successful at drafting in traffic in a stockcar is far greater than that of an F1 car. Not less skill, not more skill. And I repeat, in just about every single example of “Formula 1 drivers vs American stockcar or Indy drivers”, more often than not the results are perfectly equal. Talent is talent, no matter where it came from.

And yes Montoya won two races last year–one was a fuel mileage race (yee haw) at a road course in the Cup series, and the other one was the Busch series race in Mexico, which he only won by wrecking his teammate (F1 drivers seem to have a penchant for that)… And when it comes to the Busch series, if you’re racing for a Cup team in that series, you’re driving equipment twice as fast as the rest of the field. As far as I’m concerned, Montoya is not “successful” in NASCAR until he wins at a difficult racetrack by actually driving and passing cars.

Anyhow, for those knocking the F1 drivers in NASCAR now, what do you think the result would be if they were driving for Gibbs, Hendrick, or Roush? My point is NASCAR really isn’t different than F1 – those with the biggest budgets win 95% of the time.

Now that would be entertaining.

Oh, and for those knocking the F1 racers in NASCAR, put them in a good team and see what happens – the results will be different. But then again that is just like F1 isn’t it? Those with the bigger budgets win 95% of the time.

If his driving skills aren’t holding him back, then what is?

Loren Wallace putting him in the walls?

In any level of racing, the drivers push the cars to the traction limit. In F1, downforce makes that limit stratospheric. If they were using the downforce to drive within a NASCAR performance envelope, then I’d agree that the F1 car could be more easily controlled. They don’t. F1 drivers run right to the limit of the F1 performance envelope, which is leagues beyond NASCAR.

Phrased another way, I’ve had cars with garbage handling and poor tires that required a firm hand and vigilance to keep on the road, but I have no illusions that such a skill would prepare me for the physical and mental rigor of F1.

Again, DIFFERENT skill set, not more or LESS skill.

I can’t speak for you, but I’m talking about driving, not the ability to listen to pace notes or the like. That sort of thing can taught far more easily than car control.

I’m unfamiliar with Scott Speed. As to the success of F1 drivers in NASCAR, we’ll soon find out. At least three, in addition to JPM, have defected from F1.

Quasimondo:

Based on this statement, one would think that Juan Pablo Montoya would’ve wiped the floor when he jumped from F1 to NASCAR…

Not necessarily. There’s a learning curve for every sport, and I’m not convinced that his driving skills are what’s holding him back. He won two races in 2007.

Based on this statement, one would think that Juan Pablo Montoya would’ve wiped the floor when he jumped from F1 to NASCAR especially since he has previous oval track experience, but so far, his entry into NASCAR has been the least successful part of his career, compared to his years spent with CART and Formula 1

I think it’s safe to say that it’s not as easy to drive in NASCAR as one would believe.