Could you just IMAGINE what it would be like on DU right now if NASCAR were substituted for Penn St?

[cherokeeprogressive]

Holy moly I bet logging onto DU would melt motherboards.

[Electric Monk]

1. Poor NASCAR, always picked on for no reason whatsoever?

FAIL.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Jamastiene]

7. Yup, there are some on DU who love bashing southerners

even DUers who are from the south. It gets old. Sometimes I wish they would just acknowledge that there are some Democrats in the south.

[Fumesucker]

3. NASCAR is a team sport but it's not really analogous to football..

NASCAR just doesn't have that cult like following in one location like a football team does.

You'll never hear people in one geographical location going "We ARE Dick Trickle"..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Trickle

[MADem]

9. I know nothing about NASCAR...but DICK TRICKLE? Sounds like someone

with a urinary tract infection!!!

[cherokeeprogressive]

11. That name has always made me laugh. So had Peter Boyle. Good actor though! n/t

[Fumesucker]

12. Whenever NASCAR used to come up I'd always claim he was my favorite driver..

Got a lot of groans with it and some laughs too.

I don't care about NASCAR myself, now if they made the drivers ride on top of the car and it only had two wheels and turned both directions I might watch it..

[cherokeeprogressive]

10. My point is that it would have spawned a thousand and one "I hate NASCAR and its fans BECAUSE..."

The same old sacred cows would have been trotted out such as southern, inbred, mouth-breathing, country music, and the environment.

There have been almost as many threads about football and its percieved ills as there have been on that monster Sandusky. Football fans have even been called enablers of child abuse. I would doubt that at Penn State games there has ever been a chant of "We ARE, Joe Pa!"

OT but you could substitute "X" for Penn State and the haters of "X" and its fans/followers/practitioners would have come out of the woodwork to show their progressive creds and join the chorus of posters proclaiming the ills of "The Cult of X".

[Fumesucker]

16. I have an OP up about why I don't care for football..

If you're not part of the cult it's damn hard to see how it appears from the outside..

I'm reminded of this Jesse Ventura rant:

JESSE VENTURA, HOST: Imagine an alien suddenly dropped into the 21st century America. He goes to a Monday night football game and witnesses thousands of people guzzling a liquid refreshment as fast as vendors can supply it.

Observing the spectacle of the game itself, the alien is constantly distracted by fans whose behavior seems to become more and more bizarre. He watches as fights
break out between half-naked fans with painted bodies.

By the end of the contest, on the playing field, he notes that most of the people around him seem to have lost their ability to walk and for some reason, their speech has changed. Words are less audible. They seem to be talking in slow motion. Once the game is over, he watches the fans stumbling toward their cars, cursing and threatening other fans.

Clearly, the alien observes, something has caused these fans to have a mind-altering experience. But whatever is going on, it seems to be acceptable behavior for this society, because all the while, many police officers observe the behavior, but remain at a distance and don't interfere.

The next day, the alien attends a lecture on a college campus. After the lecture, he's invited by some students to a party. At the party, students are sitting around drawing smoke from a bottle-like structure with water in it. The
smoke is inhaled into their bodies, the conversation is friendly, calm and respectful, and music is playing in the background. But all of a sudden, many police officers arrive with guns, grab the water-filled bottle, put handcuffs on
everyone in the room, and take them off to jail. The alien is totally confused.

Welcome to the United States of America, the land of hypocrisy.

[cherokeeprogressive]

17. That could just as easily describe a concert. n/t

[Fumesucker]

20. Again you're missing the localized adulation thing that football teams get..

Concerts are pretty much a one time event, not week after week and the performers are almost always from somewhere else unless it's something like a bar band.

Not to mention that drunken brawls at concerts are pretty rare.

[cherokeeprogressive]

23. Not so fast...

The DeadHeads follow Weir and Manzarek around in VW buses, ParrotHeads follow Jimmy Buffet around in convertibles and I was at Jack Murphy Stadium once when the fight on the field during a UFO concert almost got the whole stadium evacuated.

THIS is as dumb as racing airplanes...

[Fumesucker]

25. Drunken brawls at Dead Concerts?

:rofl:

They're more likely die laughing than die in a drunken brawl.

Parrotheads aren't known for drunken brawls either..

But football fans are.

You point to the exception, a drunken brawl at a concert, to counter a rule, drunken brawls at football games.

ETA: Ever seen street luge?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvam9BhUL10

[cherokeeprogressive]

32. Come on... football games aren't the only large gatherings where drunken brawls happen.

I have a childhood friend who raced street luge in the X Games. His name is George Orton.

http://articles.latimes.com/1997-06-20/sports/sp-5258_1_street-luge

[Fumesucker]

34. I never claimed football games were the *only* place drunken brawls take place..

Just that they are a common place to have such events happen.

Good on your friend.

Here's a guy I've been following for couple of years now, he just came in third against a bunch of electric motorcycles with a scratch built electric bicycle at Laguna Seca..

100 on a bicycle is pretty scary..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX-ki3pP8YU

I've actually been thinking of entering the electric bicycle race at Pikes Peak next year, I have the motor and the bike but batteries are still very expensive for that amount of energy storage, I'd need about 3KWH of Lithium Ion cells at about $700 per KWH to be competitive, if I can get a sponsor I'm going to give it a shot.

[cherokeeprogressive]

37. "How do you fit your giant 'nads on the bike."

That was insane!

If you do the Pikes Peak thing make sure you have a good helmet cam. This I gotta see.

FWIW I think you should ask DU members to sponsor you. I'd cough up a few geedas in order to get my name on your leathers LOL and I bet others would too.

[Fumesucker]

44. LOL.. He was wiring the bike in the van on the way to the race..

Luke gets more shit done in a day than a lot of people do in a year, he was a Microsoft engineer that quit to develop electric vehicles.

Top speed on a Pikes run would be a lot slower, more like forty or so..

The winning average last year was 21 and change, the big trick is to keep the motor from melting down because the average grade is about seven percent with some places up to about fifteen percent, a constant heavy load on the motor is going to generate a lot of heat and the air is thin which reduces the heat transfer capability out of the motor.

Here's an example of what happens to a motor that's run too hard, note the shape of the ventilation holes on the motor. :evilgrin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e03rMDmJzLE

What's got me thinking about it is that the guy who has won the real Pikes Peak auto race in the unlimited class for the last six years in a row is my age, sixty one. A one thousand horsepower all wheel drive Suzuki.. He averaged about 78 mph up the whole thing this year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VAJaZAV-gQ

There's a bunch of people on the electric bike forum I'm on that are champing at the bit to stomp the current record holders, Optibike..

http://optibike.com/

[valerief]

30. I hate the cult of X. The cult of X is stoooopid. The cult of X is bad for kids. nt

[sylveste]

45. ever been to charlotte nc?

[Angry Dragon]

4. I guess if one enjoys watching people start their engines

and drive around in circles for hours
and end up in the same place they started
more power to them..........


:hide:

[sylveste]

47. beats walking

through an art museum, and some people seem to enjoy that. not me, but if they like it no skin of my dick, live and let live i say.

[valerief]

5. Racing cars. It's the only sport dumber than butting heads or punching faces. nt

[Fumesucker]

6. LOL.. Dumber than racing airplanes?

[valerief]

8. Ack! You're absolutely right! That IS dumber. nt

[virgogal]

27. Marathons are even dumber.

[valerief]

29. Nah, they're not as life-threateningly dumb as the others. Marathons are, though, very Forrest Gumpy

[virgogal]

31. :-)

[devilgrrl]

13. No, I can't imagine. Tell us.

:popcorn:

[cherokeeprogressive]

21. Oh, I think the last paragraph in post #10 about covers it.

And seeing as how NASCAR occupies the top of the DU's Most Hated list along with Walmart, Olive Garden, circumcision, and Michael Vick, there would be a hue and cry so large you could stand 10 feet from your computer and feel the gnashing of teeth.

[madinmaryland]

14. The responses to your post seem to be proving your point.

And that to like and follow professional sports makes you a knuckle dragging repuke. Unbelievable, isn't it.

[cherokeeprogressive]

24. We've been here long enough to know that REAL progressives don't follow sports.

They listen to classical music (not the mainstream dribble others listen to) and drink only imported beer by the light of Atlas Shrugged burning in the fireplace while eating their vegan meals.

After dinner the conversation becomes a hand-wringing contest to see who is more outraged by the latest moral/political injustice.

Meanwhile us mouth-breathing sports fans watch the homo-erotic spectacle of football.

[madinmaryland]

49. Don't forget the must watch television show for real DU'ers: LOST.

:puke:

[AngkorWot]

15. Olive Garden franchisees, PETA, Ralph Nader campaign, OWS...

[Initech]

18. The series of tubes would get clogged with hair.

[JoePhilly]

19. PA is Pitt to the west, Philly to the east, and ALABAMA in the middle.

So to put it another way, PSU is in the Alabama of PA. And NASCAR is very popular there.

[cherokeeprogressive]

26. I've been to State College a number of times. Didn't remind me of Alabama at all.

:shrug:

[melissaf]

38. Yeah, way to generalize about what you know nothing about.

I grew up in State College and was taught all my life that cities are hotbeds of rape, murder, and gang warfare. Care to tell me if that's true or not?

[JoePhilly]

43. I've been to State College many times. And the region that surrounds that small college town ...

is Alabama.

I find it interesting that you think you know what I know, or where I've been.

And if that's really what they taught you about cities, you helped prove my point. Thanks.

[ScreamingMeemie]

46. The person you are responding to has a Philadelphia Eagles avatar...

and that's all you need to know about that. We went to a game once. I have never seen a more nasty, rotten group of fans in my life. I wish I could say something nice about the stadium and its denizens...but getting pelted with beer isn't my idea of nice. So I'd take this persons opinion with, not just a grain of salt, but the whole shaker. :hi:

[Brother Buzz]

22. Well, Paterno is a staunch Republican and leans right making all those left turns

:crazy:

[hughee99]

35. He must be the STAUNCHEST of repukes to donate to Obama and Sestak.

http://www.newsmeat.com/sports_political_donations/Joe_Paterno.php

'cause that's what staunch repukes do.

[zbdent]

28. side note ... I used to have a RWer coworker who kept reminding me that

"Joe Kennedy made his fortune running illegal liquor" ...

I really wish I had known at that time the true history of the origins of NASCAR to throw back in her face ...

[cherokeeprogressive]

33. Truth.

But you know as well as I do that there are NASCAR fans who are practicing Democrats/progressives/liberals. There are even a few of us here at DU.

[hughee99]

36. That's not entirely true, Joe Kennedy made a good deal of money

through insider trading and stock manipulation as well (before there were laws against such things).

[zbdent]

40. that why I put it in quotes ...

it was her word, not necessarily the truth ...

[hughee99]

41. I assumed that's why you did it.

and Kennedy did run illegal liquor too, but he made his money in lots of different ways (shady and legit).

In any case, I suspect the only reason your coworker said it was to put you in a position to have to defend bootlegging (or "trash talk" the Kennedys). Given your suggested response, I bet anything they'd defend bootlegging rather than "trash talk" NASCAR. One think that I've never heard of is a NASCAR fan that doesn't like a drink or two.

[NBachers]

42. "The Ballad of Thunder Road" by Robert Mitchum on YouTube

Hot '40's and '50's cars, Robert Mitchum, moonshine, revenooers, mountain people - here's where NASCAR came from.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut-yPqXGS1M&feature=related

[hughee99]

39. That's because almost everyone here seems to agree on two basic things:

1) It's wrong to profile a whole bunch of people based on a single characteristic.
2) NASCAR fans are a bunch of dumb, toothless, racist, repuke, redneck hillbillies.

[yewberry]

48. I'm sorry, I don't get it.

NASCAR vs college football... two things I don't follow. Both are venues I don't know anything about, so what difference would it make?

[NYC_SKP]

50. ~~~~~~~~~~ Actually, NASCAR is Far More Progressive than Professional Football ~~~~~~~:

Pro Fooball is remarkably backward and absurd in it's male dominated bizarre ritualistic nonsense sportiness.

Meet Sarah Fisher, one of nineteen woman drivers in NASCAR:

http://image.stockcarracing.com/f/9450232/scrp_0604_05_z+NASCAR_female_drivers+sarah_fisher.jpg