Former IRL IndyCar Series champion Dario Franchitti (also known as Mr. Ashley Judd) has lost his job as a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver. Team owner Chip Ganassi decided to scale back the three-car team to a two-car team leaving Franchitti the odd man out.
Franchitti’s #40 team had had an awful start to the season. His best finish came with 22nd place at Martinsville. He also had a dificult time finding permanent major sponsorship. The team had to resort to using single-race sponsorship with different companies.
Evidently a 35-year old Scotsman doesn’t appeal to key NASCAR demographics. Maybe he would have had more NASCAR appeal if he had started dressing like General Robert E. Lee or maybe learned to play the banjo.
A NASCAR driver can never go wrong learning to play the banjo.
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
5 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.
I think it’s kinda funny that a guy who talks about tolerance quite often in his blog has no problem bashing NASCAR and it’s fans.
I happen to be a big NASCAR fan, I grew up watching it. I think auto racing is a great sport, and I happen to think stock car racing is the best. I know if you don’t understand or like a sport it can be boring, but no other sport receives the constant harassment that NASCAR does. I have had people on many occasions say to me in a snide tone when they find out I like NASCAR, “You like NASCAR, really??”. They are basically saying, “Oh, I thought you were better than that.” Just because I’m a moderately successful guy in his mid-twenties, a huge fan of indie rock, nearly obsessive about hockey (Go Preds!), and keeps up with politics..why is it so unexpected that I’m NASCAR fan? Am I supposed to be above that somehow?
How come fans of other less mainstream sports don’t get this sort treatment? I’ve never heard anyone get put down for liking soccer, rugby, curling, fencing, swimming (weren’t you just defending that one?), or MMA..but if you like NASCAR, well then, let’s tag our posts “General Robert E. Lee”, “Rednecks”, and “Banjos”.
I don’t mean this as an attack on you, you kind of get used to the treatment after a while, I’m just trying to open a discussion on what it is about NASCAR that makes it okay to openly ridicule it, when it’s not okay to do the same thing about so many other similar groups/organizations?
“I’ve never heard anyone get put down for liking soccer”
Sorry, but I don’t believe that for a moment. A lot of Americans are way, WAY intolerant to the concept of soccer. It’s too “European” for them or some such nonsense.
David, I don’t think I talk an awful lot about tolerance. The reason being is that I am a very intolerant guy. For instance, I am quite intolerant of fat free mayonnaise and Jimmy Buffet music. With that said, I was just having a little fun.
This may surprise you, but I used to be quite into NASCAR. As the years went by, I realized that NASCAR racing “left” a lot to be desired, especially when it is held up and compared to the other racing circuits. For instance, F1 and even Indy Racing. It’s a racing circuit that relies on way, way too many oval circuits.
But I have to ask, you don’t think that NASCAR is a redneck sport? I tried to watch a little of this past week’s race on TNT. When they were going into the commercial break, the outro (is that a word?) was BANJO MUSIC. If NASCAR isn’t the official #1 redneck sport, what is?
And people here hate soccer. I personally love it, but most of my fellow Americans hold their nose to it and denounce it as boring. They couldn’t be more wrong.
But I and sorry if my poor sense of humor offended you. I was just being a goof.
The only reason I said anything was because I figured you’d understand what I was getting at. I know what you were saying wasn’t bashing NASCAR and I didn’t mean to give the impression that you specifically offended me. I suppose I’m just not that great at capturing the mood of what I’m trying to say, that’s probably why the only thing I typically write is software. =)
1. Sure people don’t like other sports, but it’s not assumed that you drop 50 IQ points just for being a fan like in NASCAR.
2. NASCAR is, without a doubt, the #1 Redneck sport. I have been to a lot of NASCAR races, and sometimes the people watching is the best part of the event. Not everyone there is a redneck though, it’s just that rednecks tend to make themselves very noticed. But with NASCAR you automatically get labeled as a redneck for being a fan, you aren’t instantly labeled as a thug if you’re a fan of the NBA.
3. The TV networks have definitely been playing the whole redneck angle around the sport lately. Remember though, that’s what some executive for the network thinks they should do, they’re playing to the whole “all these people are redecks” aspect too. Back in the late 80’s, when NASCAR was less mainstream and an even higher percentage of the fans probably were rednecks..ESPN wasn’t doing that sort of stuff, they just covered the race..like you should do with any sport.
4. You’re right about fat-free mayonaise. F*** that stuff. =)
“Just because I’m a moderately successful guy in his mid-twenties, a huge fan of indie rock, nearly obsessive about hockey (Go Preds!), and keeps up with politics..why is it so unexpected that I’m NASCAR fan? Am I supposed to be above that somehow?”
No offense, but have you ever looked around you at a NASCAR event? Not a whole lot of 20-something hipsters there, are there?
And people put down soccer fans all the time. Because soccer is gay. Sorry, Jesse, but “too European” is a synonym for gay.