Is NASCAR Fake?

Something is going on with NASCAR. And I'm losing interest. For the last few years I have really enjoyed watching the NASCAR races and reading about the drivers and the drama and talking about it with other fans, but this year my devotion to the sport is really slipping.

It started when my favorite driver, Kasey Kahne, was caught with some kind of illegal part or modification at Daytona, docked 100 owners points, and had his crew chief suspended for 4 races. And then Kasey started sucking, and Jeff Gordon started winning every week (or Jeff Gordon II aka Jimmie Johnson.) Next thing you know, I just didn't care as much.

Then there was all of the Junior drama. The idea of Junior driving a red, Budweiser No.3 was pretty exciting. But I don't guess it was ever going to happen. Now Junior has joined up with Hendrick and will probably be racing a Sony No. 5. or a Visa No. 25. Will he win a championship? Does it matter? And if he does win a championship what will it be called?

Thanks to the tobacco settlement, Winston had to end its relationship with NASCAR several years ago. Nextel, a second tier cellular telephone company, scraped together the big bucks and bought themselves a Major League Sport. I'm sure this was supposed to help them sell telephones, but I haven't known anyone with a Nextel phone since I was a facility manager and had to call maintenance folks to come work on something at one of my buildings. Air conditioning repairmen and electricians needed the walkie talkie feature to communicated with their shops and their co-workers. Nobody else needs this. And nobody else bought Nextel phones. And I guess that's why they sold out to Sprint, a barely first tier cellular company. Sprint got themselves a cool walkie talkie cell system for electricians and air conditioning repairmen and a Major League Sport! So next year the drivers will compete for the Sprint Cup. Never mind that this sounds like a competition for sprint cars. And never mind that Nextel can change the name of the series to Sprint, but Cingular can't change its car to ATT to reflect their recent name change. A judge ruled in ATT's favor, so Sprint sued them back and now who knows how it'll end up. Though I would bet that ATT gets to keep its name on Jeff Burton's car. Yeah, Nextel had a deal with Cingular. But Nextel isn't Nextel anymore!

NASCAR has had sponsors and ads for a long time. It was the Winston cup forever. But it seems like the corporations are really running the sports part of stock car racing in the ground.
The companies and their logos take precedent over anything else. When Michael Waltrip was caught using jet fuel in his car in qualifying was only docked some points and moved to the back! He was still allowed to run the race, and that had to have something to do with the major auto parts company with their name painted on his hood. That same major auto parts company is now very unhappy that Waltrip has not been able to get his un-jet fueled car into very many races. The sponsors are running the show.

And that's what brings me to my the point of my title. Is there a set-up going on? Do certain sponsors cut deals with NASCAR to have their driver win? Is it just coincidence that Jimmy Johnson's Lowe's car owned Lowe's Motor Speedway over the course of several races? Or what about this year when Casey Mears' and his National Guard crew were oh so proud that they could win one for the troops on Memorial Day weekend?

Today's newspaper story about Juan Pablo Montoya's victory at Infineon contained a brief mention, near the end, about the win being well timed and well placed with Montoya getting to celebrate in front of a large crowd of folks from Chevron, the parent company of his sponsor, Texaco, whose headquarters are relatively near the raceway.

NASCAR, more than any other sport, is about selling product. Hell, most things in this country are about selling product. And sports are no different. But the other big sports at least try to appear like it's about the game. They have resisted ads on uniforms, changed their minds about things like Spiderman bases.

Maybe it's just another example of consumer society run wild. Maybe it's just about a sport that is getting boring. Maybe when Kasey starts running better I won't mind so much.