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Well to be honest I do question myself if my interest would have also gone a different direction (pun not intended) let's say if I didn't have to battle with the lack of accessibility for motorsport here in the United States
I been only digging plenty of more serious motorsport content very recently. I am still way too new to get bored of racing, even a boring race at best at least still feels relaxing
Here's a video I just watched recently(Just rewatched fully again right now) of a lead battle in the GT2 class between Corvette and Porsche
I mean how could you not appreciate such dynamic action right there?
The majority of Americans would say, watching this is about as boring as watching paint dry!!!!
So auto racing is back, and wanted to ask any current fans if Covid 19 is reflecting a bit of a crisis onto the sport
It is very interesting that even motorsports are joining the political corporate causes of American social issues.
Also a question for former racing enthusiasts, does the engineering in racing nowadays focus too much on meta analytics? Why or why not?
I think there's a HUGE crisis on the horizon, for automobile racing in general. YES, on one hand, it's back. However, only the NASCAR Cup series, due to currently lucrative TV contracts, can go on broadcasting races with nobody in the stands....at least for a while. But the "grassroots" of racing, the local "short tracks", in many states, are still unable to open.
In New York, "Commandant Cuomo" (the Governor) is still forbidding any auto racing, with spectators in the stands. Other that a few dirt tracks that banded together, and managed to find themselves a "pay per view" deal, for several races, there's NO auto racing going on in NY, and technically, our racing season should be nearing it's half way point.
Think about the long-term implications over that......MANY tracks in NY barely survive, as their facilities are operated on basically a once-a-week, 4 month a year schedule, due to this area's weather. Yet their taxes and associated expenses can be in place all year long. Many are also in a sticky situation with their neighbors trying to shut them down as a "noise nuisance", even though the track was there for 20-30 years before the people moved out near it, due to the expansion of the population.
Consider the plight of the racers themselves....This "Kung-flu" deal didn't really hit until the early spring. Most "short track" teams, in anticipation of the upcoming racing season, spent $$$$ freshening up the cars, as well as their tow rigs, over the winter. Those ready-to-go race cars are now sitting, idle. What will the racers do, if this extended shut down causes their local tracks to declare BK, and close up for good, and they have nowhere to race? Not every racer has the necessary funds, of available time, to travel 4-6 hours each way, if that becomes the closest track to them. Who is going to buy their cars and parts, that are no longer usable to them?
The long term implication of this crisis has the potential to DEEPLY change our country, and NOT for the better.
So I think this thread is even now more relevant than ever in 2024
And what got me thinking is, I used to be so yapsy about "racing" being a marginalized pasttime
But then I realized something
I think right now in the US at least sports culture is going thru a milking cycle
Let's take skateboarding for instance
Skateboarding's boom of the 90s and 200s did not a great favor of holding up the commercialization of the sport
Why? Because skateboarding got milked hard by merch appealers and non-skateboarding sponsorships to the point where many counterculture types saw their passttime being used for corporate interests and it kinda dried the "appeal" of the sport
There's probably then a similar situation with racing and motorsport, in regards to probably the last 22 years, in that over the last 2 decades racing has been used as a dancing playground for high end manufacturers such as Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Aston Martin and BMW so that said manufacturers can only use the winnings of racing as a means to only give more public profile to upcoming vehicles of said manufacturers
After all, the "sport" aspect of professional auto racing is really just not there, I totally get it
However there is no denying though marketability for auto racing and motorsport in general is increasing, but with that marketability comes in a claw in the machine for corporate firms that be to only use racing as a once again, a hippie parade of advertisement and publicity, rather than raw competition
Alrighty then I will baby-step it as much as I can
You know that statement that racing today is about money and not about the cars or the racing action?
Yeah that
The comparison to skateboarding is that the grassroots feel is dead and skateboarding, just like auto racing, got milked hard by clothing brands and other non skateboarding miscellaneous brands
Similarly in most mainstream motor sport automakers are now less significant and important sponsors than say a decade or 2 ago
But at the same time many are using racing as an advertising playground because it can make the car seem more "sellable" or just "marketable"
Remmeber that a lot of performance cars draw design cues those based of iconic race cars
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