NASCAR Shouldn’t Lose its Soul

The Car of Tomorrow seems to be picking up a lot of steam on the NASCAR circuit. This involves a car that resembles nothing about its sponsoring auto company, save for a sticker on the hood of it.

These cars are generally compiled from a conglomerate of random producers and don’t accurately represent the brands they promote. Proponents of this practice say that it evens out the playing field for all racers. On the other side of things, this has to hurt the sponsors somewhat, as the cars don’t resemble the actual models you can buy from these brands.

It would make a lot more sense if these cars looked more like the cars they’re trying to represent. Otherwise, the automaker has less and less of an impact on the driver’s success.

In tying the brand directly to the car being used, I’m not exactly sure who it hurts. The brands obviously win out, and I really don’t see any fans being offended by it, let alone losing interest in the races each week.

And how about the power trains? These should represent the actual auto companies too. Not doing this just makes things more unrealistic in my mind.

If the racers drive a car where the engine is made by the auto maker sponsoring the car, not only will this create a few more jobs, but it’ll assign that much more responsibility to the sponsoring auto maker for the driver’s success.

On an unrelated note, I also took offense to last year’s races, during a time where gas prices were at an all-time high, yet the cars burned through gallons and gallons like there was no tomorrow during races. Many fans I know felt this was done in poor taste, and favor a shift to ethanol.

This could help NASCAR get some good publicity by using no gas in their cars. I have heard about many people who dislike NASCAR saying that they hate how they use so much gas. By changing to ethanol they could maybe pick up some of these fans. If gas prices were to hit 4 dollars again i think they could lose some regular fans when they realize the MPG of the cars.

Tags: NASCAR