sinicalypse wrote:
BigW72 wrote:
I enjoyed what I was able to watch of the race. I know very little about NASCAR, but since last year I at least find the Daytona 500 entertaining. I have a lot to learn about how all of this works.
when i was watching nascar years ago i found the best way to get invested was to find a guy to pull for, so in my case i went for tony stewart in the orange #20 and followed him over to his own race team and he eventually had what i remember as the most epic chase where he was neck and neck with carl edwards til the end, but he prevailed. then he ran over somebody on a dirt track and kind of went into the downward spiral in his career. i wouldn't fuck with a guy nicknamed "smoke" on a dirt track, but what do i know?
Stewart will run your ass over if you let him!
How you described getting into Nascar was how it happened to me 25 years ago. Early February 1997- There was nothing else on besides the Daytona 500 so I started watching it. I don't think I had ever watched a race before. Jeff Gordon was a hotshot, young driver winning a bunch of races and was constantly talked about. Gordon won that 500 which definitely caught my interest. That evening I went to tend bar and these 50ish year-old, blue collar macho guys were badmouthing him and calling him all sorts of names. Naturally, they were Earnhardt fans. I knew I was not going to root for Earnhardt and be part of that fan base. Gordon was a young, handsome guy with a pretty wife who was just kicking the other drivers' asses. He was a few years older than me and I saw a lot of myself in him. He won the following week after the 500 and then a few weeks later Gordon won at Bristol in the famous Bump-n-Run on Rusty Wallace. And as I learned more and more about Gordon and how he was an interloper from California and how he was hated by the southern fanbase, I realized that is EXACTLY who I wanted to root for. And the thing is, Gordon is a helluva nice guy and has been a great ambassador for the sport. My Dad and I became huge Gordan fans and watched a lot of races together over the years.
I worried when Gordon retired if I would still like Nascar. DraftKings contests make the races very entertaining even if the race is not that exciting. And now putting some money on a couple drivers has increased my interest even more.