Passing Lane
A NASCAR BLOG BY Mike Hembree
An idea whose time has not come
BRISTOL, Tenn. – Saturday night is one of the coolest nights of the Sprint Cup season, although it will be a hot August night at Bristol Motor Speedway. Forty-three drivers will hurtle around a half-mile track at about 15 seconds per lap and occasionally slam into each other. It is the motorsports definition of chaos and mayhem.
The Sharpie 500 is an event that needs no self-promotion, no gimmicks, no carnival barkers. You’d have about as much luck trying to subdue the excitement here Saturday night as if you attempted to drown Michael Phelps.
The speedway, which will make an insane amount of money from the race (easily enough to open its own mortgage bank on site if officials decided to move in that direction), typically does a great job with the buildup to one of the season’s best events. Among the highlights of past races have been some sensational card stunts involving virtually everybody within the facility.
Unfortunately, Saturday night’s race will be preceded by one of the goofiest and most time-worn attention-grabbers in all of sports. The speedway will attempt to set a world record for the largest audience wave.
The guy who started the wave 20 or 30 or 40 years ago has been in prison – and rightfully so – ever since. Now it is mostly seen at baseball or football games where the on-field action is boring and the fans want something else to amuse themselves.
Such an approach is not needed at Bristol. And, if one of the 170,000-plus fans on hand refuses to participate or is absent buying a $6 cheesburger, isn’t that going to mess up the world-record attempt? That could be critical.
Mike Hembree
Mike Hembree has been covering NASCAR since 1975 and has been an associate editor at NASCAR Scene for three and one-half years.
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Comments
3 responses to "An idea whose time has not come". Post a Comment.
beth emerson said:
Aug 24, 2008 at 12:32 PMWhy dont you stop leaving your stupid comments everywhere.
They did set the record nothing wrong with the fans having fun. Better they do that then do something really stupid.
anonymous said:
Aug 25, 2008 at 2:26 PMI enjoyed watching and PARTICIPATING in the wave. Was a great race, especially the end. If you thought the crowd was loud on the TV when the #18 was spun around, you should have heard it in person. I recorded the race and watched it last night, kept rewinding the bump and run and the cool down lap spin. Priceless!!!!!!!!!!
Michael Daly said:
Dec 9, 2008 at 6:48 PMHere's an idea that still hasn't come - the idea that Bristol is actually a decent race. First, Saturday night does not belong to Winston Cup, it belongs to the local tracks. Second, once you get past the overrated glo-in-the-dark racecars and the flame out the exhausts (and where are more lead changes brought out by this, anyway?), what do you have? Single file running where over half the field gets lapped by the 1/4 mark, a lot of cars crash - and there is next to nothing in the way of positional passing. So Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards got into it at the end of the 2008 running - that's good racing?