NASCAR is lame. The cars are pushrod V8s and they only turn left. Argument over.
What does that leave us with? How about real racing. ALMS (American LeMans), Porsche Cup, Spec Miata, Spec Focus, Sports Car Series, Rolex Cup, Formula One, SCCA racing, Grand AM and NASA. Throw in some Karting, Autocross, Rally, Rallycross and you have an full plate of every flavor of outstanding racing that normal people can actually take part in. yes, you can in fact race your Aerostar if you wanted to, there is a class for it.
Sure, racing a Porsche 997 Cup car at the Rolex events is a $150K/yr (and then some) endeavor but, NASA’s SPEC E36 class is based on old bimmers where the whole setup including car is less than $7K. Spec Miata is around $12K. Real people, real cars, real wheel-to-wheel racing that includes, brace yourself, turns that are both left and right handed.
Where can you spy these events? All but a few are not on TV. F1 has to be chased around the dial, ALMS is mostly on Speed but sometimes on a network, Sports Car racing can be on any number of channels. But Spec miata, one of the most popular race programs in the US, its just not available. But there is a chance it will be.
Jim Liberatore, former head of Speed is toying with an all racing channel called The Racing network. Covered in Autoweek, this network would cover all of the grass roots racing that we just dont get and a lot that we do.
Once you’ve seen a Pontiac GXP-R overtake a 911, a Corvette and an RX8, you’ll never turn back. Once you see the Penske P2 Porsche RS Spyder, you’ll forget there was anything else.
As a great racer like Andy Lally has to get out of his 911 Cup Car to go racing with the Bush series we see that road racing in this country needs to be more visible. We’re losing a great driver to an inferior sport because he simply has to pay the bills and turning left is the only option right now. Lets turn that around.
Go sign the petition to bring real racing to US TV.
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