End of the NASCAR season brings mixed emotions
When I was growing up, I always used to feel a touch of sadness at the end of baseball season.
After the final out of the World Series and after all the champagne-soaked postgame interviews were through, whatever network that was broadcasting the game would run a montage of highlights from the season with scrolling credits along the side, almost like the end of a movie.
The end of baseball season meant the end of something enjoyable, sort of like saying goodbye to a constant companion.
In NASCAR, which has one of the longest seasons in all of sports, all of those associated with the teams, drivers and officials are happy to see it end. They’ve been on the road all year and are ready for a break.
To them, it feels like the last day of school: Vacations and much-needed rest are just around the corner.
But I’d imagine the end of NASCAR season feels a bit sad for many fans, just how baseball felt for me as a kid.
No matter how much people gripe about the racing or Jimmie Johnson winning all the time, fans get used to watching races every weekend. It’s just part of the routine: In their minds, “weekend” equals “race.”
For 38 out of 52 weeks, there’s a NASCAR Sprint Cup race of some kind on TV. That’s 73 percent of the year! Throw in the Nationwide or Camping World Truck series races that take place on Cup off-weekends, and it’s even more.
Then, just like that, it ends.
One of my favorite baseball quotes, from former commissioner Bart Giamatti, can be loosely applied to NASCAR.
He said of baseball: “It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone."
At least NASCAR doesn’t leave for long. The Budweiser Shootout in Daytona is only 80 days away.
