An apology is in order.
I’m so inured with the toxic free-fire zone that pops up around controversial issues, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that most people are decent and sensible. When I invited readers Wednesday to write in explaining the allure of NASCAR, I didn’t really expect that people would then actually, you know, write in explaining the allure of NASCAR.
But that’s exactly what they did — wrote thoughtful, often heartfelt reflections and celebrations of the sport. So as much as I like to flit nimbly from topic to topic, it felt wrong to just ignore them. So here goes.
Neal Elkind finds beauty in the races, writing:
“NASCAR has more in common with watching baseball than maybe you may realize. It’s a wonderfully lazy spectator sport. It’s auto racing perfected (in its traditional oval) as a spectator sport. ... The strategy of cars maneuvering for position and the use of aerodynamics. F1 and Indy, you only see cars whooshing by for 1 second (like watching competitive downhill skiing in person). The noise, which is astounding, and motion, is hypnotic. Like baseball, it’s pastoral. Really. You can wander off to the concessions for 15 minutes (or, a whole inning) and not feel that you’ve missed anything. The crowds tend to be families that do not fight or swear in the stands. I could go on about how this race shows the beauty of our city’s lakefront to a whole new audience.”
Doug Nichols traced the appeal of racing back to antiquity:
“There are the funeral games held by Achilles to honor Patroclus. Among other sports, the games featured a chariot and a foot race. Centuries later, the chariot racing in Constantinople’s hippodrome was important to the social fabric.”
Jack Shanahan popped for $300-plus tickets in “a slightly special section” for the Chicago races. Why? The same reason he once went to the Brickyard 400 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway:
“I like to say that I want to try everything once in my life, so to have the opportunity to see a professional car race at the Brickyard was to check a box I did not know existed, but was happy to do.”
“My wife thought the event was unique enough and because I am a Chicago-phile, and the opportunity to watch such a race (again, the inaugural one) in Chicago’s beautiful downtown and lakefront was an easy sell. ... I am going for the spectacle of a unique event in a great city, to hear some good music and partake in an event I normally don’t make time to attend. I can’t defend the cost. But the sport is wholesome American fun.”
Of course some, like Bill Beliakoff, agreed with my skepticism:
“$269.00 to sit and watch a few cars fly by for a couple of seconds, wait a minute for them to pass by again? While sitting next to someone getting plastered? I wouldn’t pay more than 10 cents.”
NASCAR is also a family tradition for readers such as Don Anderson, of Oak Park, and we’ll give him the last word:
“Auto racing was the hobby of my family growing up and I have wedged a lot of racing into my 57 years. So much so that in the late ’70s, my parents thought it was perfectly reasonable to take me out of middle school ... and drive from Wisconsin to the Carolinas or Tennessee to watch not one, but two, NASCAR races.
“The bottom line is, like all sports, it is kinda of a ridiculous endeavor. Is it more or less pointless than football, baseball or golf? No, it is exactly the same amount of pointlessness.
“But it is an experience. The sound, the sights and the dramatic tension are all the same as any other sport. They just have a different way of getting there (and do so by slapping sponsor logos on everything).
“The reality is they are closing off some streets in Chicago for a few weeks. … Streets that the overwhelming number of Chicago residents would not be going down. ... The race will cause disruptions, but most people will not be inconvenienced one bit.
“In exchange, Chicago will get some incredible beauty shots on NBC. Some people will entertain themselves by spending money on this instead of spending money on something else. And no one will notice much about the course once the streets are shut down again for Lollapalooza.”
