Talladega, Oh The Humanity!

NASCAR is boring.  BAWWWWWW...watch the last few laps of the Good Sam "DAD I FOUND A TURTLE!!!" 500.

These cars are going 190 mph.

This is RaceBuddy--Dale Jr. on the left, Jeff Gordon on the right.  You thought changing lanes on the highway was bad, well try doing that here, slick!

Then with less than a half to go, they all died. Tony Stewart went for the block but was pit maneuvered sideways into the crowd.  I can't totally blame him...he's trying to win.  Had they made it just a few more seconds they would've made it to the finish like okay.  But no, like Ahnuld Schwarzenegger in the Jingle All The Way movie, they all made a mad dash for DA TURBO MAN action figure at the finish line and the result?  OH THE HUMANITY!!!

Good Guy Junior givin Jimmie Johnson a ride to the garage.

I know there's a good saying "People only watch NASCAR for the wrecks," and I don't really believe that's the case for most people.  I enjoy the pure adrenaline of going 190+ mph and defying those wrecks.  But when I saw that 20-car pileup, I wasn't impressed or entertained, I was saddened.  Saddened because Junior's championship hopes were shot (though Jeff Gordon is back in the hunt) but also because of the carnage that ensued.  Nobody was hurt, but there was a lot of twisted metal.

TOTAL CAR-NAGE!!

To quote Sheriff John Bunnell, a stock car is a "beautiful and exciting machine."  Man, that horsepower, that transmission, the suspension & tires, I mean I like stock cars the way they are.  I mean I don't mind rubbin' cause it is racing after all, but when a car is incapacitated, it's a damn shame.  The car sort of becomes its own entity like "There goes that Diet Mountain Dew car!" and you can't help but smile (if you're a Junior fan).  It's intent was to go fast, not to wreck.  Sure, it's meant to take damage if the situation goes bad, but I'm fairly certain every team wants to see their car finish in one piece.  And it sucks that a lot of the fans assume these things are expendable tin cans or something.  Boy, I would kill to own my own stock car.  If you owned one, would you want to wreck it.  HELL NO.

Daytona USA 2 has possibly the most violent damage models in any Sega racer I know of, but I shrug it off because A. wrecks have no real effect on car performance and B. pit stops miraculously rid your car of all cosmetic damage.  This is apparently different in real life since stock cars can take even the slightest of hits and they may be done for the day.

Besides, think of this--when a few cars wreck and a caution comes out, it's "cool" to see the wreck, but then the action stops for a few minutes.  Is that what you want to see?  Maybe time for a restroom break I guess.

EDIT: Dale Jr. lost his cool after the race and says that anyone who likes these race results are "bloodthirsty."  Said he would quit if every race ran that way.  I know he was frustrated at the moment (I was too for Junior) but I agree--if you want to see wrecks, go watch a damn destruction derby.  Or play Burnout.  I mean, G-dammit, not every car needs to get smashed like a pinata.  I'm f***in sick of it too.

But what can you say?  If there were no wrecks, then there would be no fear or excitement of going fast and apparently, too long of a green flag stretch would bore viewers out of their minds.  So as long as stock cars race, wrecks will happen and that's the breaks.  You live with it, even if it hurts your poor little feelings.  It's like finding out about the poor baby turtles on the beach trying to swim into the ocean and many get mauled by seagulls and crabs and it sucks ass but what can you do about it?  NOTHING.

Sheesus...I made a post about wrecks in racing like two years ago.  A damn good post too.  And basically all this crash talk illustrates why I have so much disdain for wreck 'em racers like Burnout and Split-Second. But I don't want to talk about those two anymore cause they make me vehemently ill when I do.

Tony Stewart the insane maniac, always looking out for the fans.
A figure 8 in NASCAR...holy s***, give this guy a cigar.

Oh, and one more thing.  Don't give me this nonsense about how NASCAR is all about the wrecks and Formula 1 is the real deal.  I think I've seen about three F1 races this season where there was a wreck ON THE FIRST TURN of the race.  Monaco, Suzuka, and some other one that got a month's worth of footage on Speed Channel (cause some driver's head was nearly taken out by a flying car).  Besides, those that talk down of NASCAR and say F1 is better probably don't watch F1 either--they're just sticking it to the rednecks.  Screw 'em, I love F1 cars but I love them stock cars too.  BOOGITY BOOGITY BOOGITY!!!