17. Racing Politics: Why NASCAR has it right.

Says one Official to the other on the topic of Fiat/Porsche contesting the Vette illegal direct injection:

"Oops... did we overlook that little fact and let the Vettes run hot for a few races so that they could look good, and be immediately competitive out of the box, thus keeping GM happy and more willing to fund future seasons?"

"I think we did sir. What about the 4.0L Porsche flat 6 sir?"

"Oops... hard to believe we let that one go under our nose since it was implemented in the 2008 season. No blind eye turned for the sake of saving Porsche face to keep them competitive, and to keep their money flowing into the series. Publicly giving them concessions beyond the 30lbs would have made the proud company look bad."

"Sir, some people are questioning the recent and sudden improvement in the pace of the BMW's."

"Nonsense! Pure German engineering... Efficient Dynamics. The Ultimate Driving Experience, and nothing more."

"Thank you for the clarification sir. It is good to know that with the recent news that BMW is leaving F1... and will have lots of race-cash floating around, that there would be no temptation to let BMW have some behind the scenes black-box parts swapped into their cars to suddenly make them faster... thus making the program look more successful than it is... and tempting BMW suits to send more money in the direction of GT racing."

The Serpent lesson of the day:

In GT racing, the goal at the end of the day is to get a bunch of different cars on the track that are all competitive with (ideally) similar rules. But life is not that easy, money talks, and changes are made to give fans good racing, and keep manufacturers happy.

Racing is somewhat artificial. The best car doesn't always win. Money and politics always cloud the picture.

Sound like a mess? Sound more like politics than sport? Some things in racing never change.

With all the recent bashing of poor ALMS economic models, NASCAR kind of had it right. They kept fans happy by giving fans the illusion that different makes were actually different cars. They kept manufacturers happy by keeping development costs at a minimum, and performance at par... with the stipulation that manufacturers invest money in the series (with advertising in return). They then learned to focus on the drivers as a storyline. Fans like cars, but they like humans too.

So why don't I watch NASCAR?