RE: Americans may be unsophisticated but

["Nick Koleszar" <npk@domain.elided>]

Ow, Mike, I reckon you're in for a rough ride, now.

I'll take on the "hahkey". But I'm from Windsor and grew up torn between
Detroit and Toronnah. I agree that "competition" in US sports tend to be
artifically induced to make it more visually appealling.

Not sure that nobody outside of the US enjoys it, though. I catch every
NASCAR and CART/Indy race I can over here. It IS exciting to see those guys
go toe to toe at 200mph. A helluva lot better to watch than any F1 race. The
only non-US circuit racing worth watching over here are motorbikes and
Touring cars. We also get the odd GT or F3 race televised but there really
is little to enjoy on the TV apart from the US series.

The UK now has its first modern banked oval at Rockingham where the ASCAR
series competes (European version of NASCAR) and the CART circus shows up
once a week - after having visited Austria.

BTW, drag-racing is huge in the UK, Scandinavia and Germany. Not sure what
that says about the northern Europeans.....


Q: Why do Canadians do it doggy-style?


A: So they can both watch the hah-key!"


> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 20:08:56 -0600
> From: C M Smith <cmsmith@domain.elided>
> Subject: Americans may be unsophisticated but
>
> They sure are sensitive.
>
> The Formula One circus left the US because US cannot supply
> enough fans to
> make it pay, except for the very interesting recent development at Indy,
> which was my point I think. Watkins Glen may have been a fine
> race track in
> the 60's but I doubt it could be brought up to modern F1 standards. Any
> other US location tried for F1 has been a joke.
>
> NASCAR may appeal to some but the idea of more or less identical cars
> circulating an oval track while large crowds wait for something
> interesting
> to happen (i.e. death or injury) reminds me more of the coliseum
> of ancient
> Rome than any modern sporting event outside the US (well maybe bull
> fighting). Now I concede that NASCAR builds awfully fast cars that are
> difficult to drive, but really...so what. Like the space shuttle, with
> enough money and enough horsepower, you can do just about
> anything (how the
> heck did the US space program get into this, it isn't a spectator sport,
> last I heard anyway)
>
> As for the lack of competent US racing drivers well, there aren't any at
> the moment who can compete at the level required in Formula One. Mario
> Andretti (just barely an American BTW) was and is an immensely skilled
> driver who can race anything and do well and let us not forget that truly
> brilliant American Phil Hill, or Dan Gurney for that matter. There are
> quite a few Canadian drivers who succeed in US racing (it's the
> icy winter
> roads that give us the edge) out of all proportion to our population
> (around 15% of US total) Apart from that the best current "US"
> drivers are
> furriners. Any F1 driver who comes over automatically does well. The real
> F1 champions just clean up. Plus it was a European car design that
> transformed US open wheel racing.
>
> Sorry, but US football, US baseball, and now US style ice hockey
> ( how the
> US has ruined that game is criminal, any takers? I'll explain how
> exciting
> it used to be compared to the boring pap now served up by US dominated
> hockey) has the entire world yawning and wondering just why
> Americans turn
> out in droves and spend huge sums of money to watch. Baseball is like
> watching paint dry, it even makes cricket look somehow cerebral. US (and
> Canadian) football where players rarely kick the ball, let alone do
> anything interesting with it, is equally dull. US auto racing is dull as
> dishwater (and passing is NOT an indicator of excitement, rather of
> artificially induced equality. A bit like chaining equal weights to the
> legs of  all the Christians before unleashing the lions, so as to give
> everyone a fair chance!)
>
> There is a reason no one else in the entire world is interested in any of
> the US sporting events you know.
>
> So, continue with your illusion that drag racing is somehow an
> entertaining
> sporting event (mimicked apparently by US vehicle buyers' obsession with
> 0-60 times instead of real world performance, may the new 6.0 litre
> Cadillac Escalade puleeze step up to the plate) and try to ignore the
> popularity of monster truck "racing" and (gawd luv 'em) competitive swamp
> buggy "racing" and leave me to my illusion that F1 is the
> premiere sporting
> event in the world, next to World Cup Soccer, and America's Cup....
>
> Cheers
>
> and happy Memorial Day everyone, let's see as much racing under
> the yellow
> as we can please so as to preserve the illusion that money doesn't make
> faster cars.
> Michael Smith
> Calgary, Alberta,Canada
> 91 Alfa 164L
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