AMERICA AT LARGE:WHENEVER I'VE been asked what I think of Nascar racing my reply has been the same as my response to similar questions about Mixed Martial Arts, Soduku, or Britney Spears: I don't, writes George Kimball.
I understand that the aforementioned have their passionate devotees.
I just don't happen to be one of them, nor do I waste much time ruminating on them.
On the other hand, there have been occasions when it has been inescapable - Brit popping out of rehab to shave her head last year seemed to lead every newscast in the country, for instance, and the farcical proceedings taking place at the Indianapolis Speedway last weekend made for such high camp and theatre that the networks repeatedly interrupted the live baseball telecast to show an afternoon-long profusion of shredded Goodyear tyres.
It is a uniquely American pursuit, this Nascar stuff. Although it is distinctly regional in character and its venues exist primarily within the boundaries of the old Confederacy, the sport boasts the highest US television ratings this side of the National Football League, and while this appeal remains mysterious to non-rednecks, 17 of the top 20 best-attended sporting events in the country are Nascar races.
And it probably goes without saying that these spectators are pretty much exclusively Caucasian. An African-American would feel safer in the midst of a Klan rally than at, say, the Talladega Speedway on the afternoon of the Mountain Dew 250.
To most Americans the image of the typical Nascar fan remains that of an orthodontically-challenged, beer-guzzling lout waving a rebel flag as he chews Red Man tobacco. Indeed, the sport had its roots in the old Appalachian tradition of moonshiners outrunning the "revenooers" in souped-up cars back in the Thunder Road era of Prohibition. Thus, while it may lack dashingly romantic mystique of, say, Formula One racing, it is not without historical antecedents of its own.
What began as a fairground pursuit pitting "stock" models of domestic automobiles has developed into a high-tech business. So hi-tech, in fact, that the vehicles used in today's Sprint Series competition are essentially cookie-cutter replicas of one another. They might look like Fords and Chevrolets and Dodges, but the so-called "Cars of Tomorrow" utilise modular bodies with apparently interchangeable parts.
The playing field is further levelled by the fact that each must race with identical tyres, all of which are furnished by Goodyear, which, as Nascar's "exclusive tyre supplier", occupies approximately the same role Michelin does with the Formula One series.
Nascar fans are reputed to be among the most brand-loyal in all of sport, but it seems highly questionable that even the spit-kickers are going to be running out to buy a set of the sponsor's product in the wake of last week's Brickyard 400, one the hometown Indianapolis Starlabelled the "Tire de Farce".
Goodyear had tested the tyre model in use last weekend on other tracks, but only once, last spring, at Indy itself. That the pavement surface was apt to be much hotter on a 98-degree (36.7 Celsius) day on the last weekend of July than it had been in April does not appear to have occurred to the exclusive tyre suppliers.
Once it became apparent during trials that the equipment was going to be woefully inadequate - in practice runs tyres were disintegrating after just a handful of laps - Goodyear's concession to the track and weather conditions was to ship an emergency supply of 800 extra tyres just like the ones that had already fallen apart.
The result was a race interrupted by no fewer than 11 yellow flags.
Once it became obvious that the tyres weren't capable of lasting more than 10 laps in the 160-lap race, the longest interlude of green-flag racing lasted 13 laps.
Tyres were exploding and shredding all over the racetrack, and the Brickyard was reduced to a series of mini-races, each lasting from 10 to 12 laps. The 100,000 spectators, needless to say, booed for most of the afternoon. They even booed the racetrack sweeper when he came along to harvest the rubberised fragments littering the track.
The drivers themselves seemed equally disgusted. One, Matt Kenseth, described the proceedings as "embarrassing" and "pretty damned disappointing".
Even eventual winner (or in this case, perhaps "survivor" would be more apt) Jimmie Johnson called it "a long and slow afternoon".
"It was like being at the NBA play-offs when the basketballs go flat and nobody has an air pump," wrote Starcolumnist Bob Kravitz, who likened the proceedings to "a high-tech conga line". After zipping over the finish line, Johnson, who had earned $500,000 for his win, attempted to salute the spectators with a victory lap, only to blow a tyre on the backstretch.
Johnson, by the way, averaged 110 mph in his winning run in Indianapolis last Saturday.
"Shoot," Dallas Morning Newsscribe Tim Cowlishaw was moved to note of Johnson's winning time, "Derrick Rose (the NBA's number one draft choice) was clocked at 106 mph on Interstate 88 not far from here - and he didn't have 700 horsepower under his hood."
