GIVE ME THE SUPER BOWL OF STOCK CAR RACING ANY DAY
For many Americans, Sunday night’s Super Bowl was one of the biggest sporting events of the year. People throw parties, spend ridiculous amounts of money on tickets – even to watch in the parking lot, and yet it does not seem like the main event of the year to this race fan.
The real Super Bowl in February is the one that kicks off in Daytona Beach, Fla. later this month – the Super Bowl of Stock Car Racing. Started eight years prior to football’s first big game, the Daytona 500 has been one of the biggest sporting events for over five decades and continues to thrill fans both in person and on their televisions and radios. Yet for some reason, the Super Bowl seems to continue to steal all the glory, but is it justified?
For one, there are 32 teams across the National Football League, yet only two get to play in the Super Bowl. So, if your favorite team is already eliminated you have no shot at winning the big game. What you are left with is a hope for a close game and not a runaway win by one team.
However, in the Daytona 500 there are 43 teams with fans and supporters hoping for the chance to celebrate that big win. Given the possibilities of restrictor plate racing and the unknowns of this year’s new pavement the opportunity to win is even greater.
The fast-paced action of racing at Daytona is something that cannot be compared to the stop-and-go play of the NFL. The constant jockeying back and forth, the bump drafting and the breakneck speeds provide constant action, whereas a football game takes time to develop and plays are separated by lulls of play calling, television time outs and pauses between quarters. In NASCAR, there is no half time show; there is no rest for the drivers – even under caution.
In terms of attendance, while NASCAR has seen its share of criticism over the past few seasons, there is no comparison with the number of people showing up to watch. Sunday night’s game in the state-of-the-art Cowboys Stadium saw 103,219 total people in attendance, for an event that lasted 3 hours and 32 minutes.
Last year’s Daytona 500 – not counting time taken to repair the now infamous pot hole – took 3 hours and 47 minutes to complete and was seen by an estimated 175,000 fans in person. While some fans left the track during the lengthy repairs, Sunday’s Super Bowl was not without its inconveniences to fans either.
According to Associated Press, roughly 400 ticketholders were unable to watch the game from the stands because a section of seats had not been fully installed. The issue affected about 1,250 people, with most of those relocated, but the others were left watching the game on monitors without a seat.
This morning, stories of the Green Bay Packers victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers were on the front page on newsstands and websites across the nation and even internationally. Yet, when the Daytona 500 is decided, the story is often relegated to the sports page. Sure, there is a string of television appearances and late night guest spots, but the winner of the Daytona 500 rarely gets the attention outside the racing world that the Super Bowl winner receives.
Call it nitpicky, call it being biased, call it what you will, but I cannot help but believe the Daytona 500 is more thrilling and more dramatic than any Super Bowl. In terms of the action of the track, the number of possible winners, the number of fans it draws and the history associated with it, the 500 is leaps and bounds above the Super Bowl. Now, if only the rest of the sports world could realize that.
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to add on your point about Daytona not selling out. Next time you watch Nascar at Daytona, when the announcers are talking, take a good look at the seats in the stands behind them. Notice the multi-mix of colors. The purpose, when a tv camera rolls by it appears like fans not empty seats. You would think if a place is so prestigious and an event so big they would not have to worry about doing something like that, if ticket sales were not an issue.
You dont see that non-sense at Indianapolis. Maybe they dont sell out every year. But they get a legitimate 300,000 to 350,000 every single year. More than ANY Nascar race gets.
I will also add, as for attendance, If the Super Bowl had 175,000 seats available, they would sell all of them. A stadium can only seat so many. Plus FACT: Super Bowl Sells Out, Daytona 500 Does Not Sell Out. Plus im sure the super bowls record tv rating of over 100 million viewers will put the lights out of your weak attempt to try and compare the Daytona 500 to the Super Bowl.
I could not agree more.
Maybe if it was not portrayed as an unstructured crash-fest, as it was by Fox in the Super Bowl commercials.
Until you can find a way to work motorsports into a scholastic/regional competition for youngsters, it will not be considered a worthy sport.
it should be set-up similar to the F-SAE program in colleges but with simpler go kart type chassis. Cars can be built by the auto and metalworking classes in high school and vocational schools. Potential drivers would definitely not be hard to come by in high school. Five cars to a team and two teams contest weekly in a local parking lot. The engineering and math aspects of car construction and set-up will attract those who do not have natural athletic grace.
The cast-off vehicles can be used to teach proper car control in Drivers-Ed programs. Today's teens know nothing about car dynamics and it shows in the accident rates. Let them try to text while driving through a group of pylons. Show them why they can't brake in the middle of a turn. Demonstrate how to determine braking distances.
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1st off, The Daytona 500 never has, nor ever will be anywhere near the popularity or prestige of the Super Bowl, 2nd off, it is not even the most prestigous race in America, Cleary that is the INDY 500. Do you realize, many people outside of the U.S., racing people that is, have never even heard of the Daytona 500 or couldnt tell you one thing about it, but EVERYONE knows about the Indy 500. More people outside the U.S. see the 24 Hours of Daytona as a much more prestigous race that actually requires some driving skills and toughness, not 43 drivers who need restrictor plates to run close and cause huge wrecks and need fake cautions to have an exciting finish.
3rd, Nascar has become an entertainment based business, not a sport. So there is no comparing Nascar to any other sports, because its a sport anymore. Compare it to WWE, because that is more of the category Nascar falls in.
4th, i dont know who the bone-head in Nascar is that came up with this myth that Nascar is the 2nd most popular sport behind the NFL. That could not possibly be more inaccurate. Many statistics and surveys have proven Motorsports in America (Nascar, IndyCar, NHRA), are in a distant 5th place behind NFL, MLB, NBA, College Football.
The things Nascar trys to put in peoples heads is absurd. And sadly, there are fools who actually beleive the non-sense that comes out of nascar.