Your Auto Racing Information Site!
Call it what it was or is, as the case may be!
|
|
|
|
I’m a little confused and I’m sure others are too. Why do they (those in NASCAR and those who write about it) refer to past seasons, series, races, and championships as “The Sprint Cup” when it was The Winston Cup for years and years and recently The Nextel Cup? I heard a commentator on Speed the other day referring to Dale Earnhardt Sr. as a Seven Time Sprint Cup Champion and the winner of several Nationwide Series races. Wrong, wrong, wrong! Dale Sr. won the Winston Cup, not the Nextel Cup and especially not the Sprint Cup since it hasn’t even been awarded yet! He never drove in the Nationwide Series (formerly the Busch Series). Why do they do this? It’s very confusing, not only to the fans, drivers, team members, but also to the commentators who are obviously required by some policy to refer to everything in the present tense. It’s not right, it makes no sense, and it causes confusion. Why do they do this? I’d like an answer please!
I know it all started way back when Coke decided to change its secret ingredients to replace pure sugar with other less costly sweeteners and they came out with “New Coke”. All of a sudden, everyone had to refer to Coke as New Coke. After a while and once the Coke people figured out that they didn’t fool anyone and more importantly that their product would still sell, they dropped the New Coke line and started calling it Coke Classic, which was New Coke without the controversy. Soon everything went back to normal. They eventually dropped the Classic part and went to just plain Coke, but they never used pure sugar again. Well, I’m waiting for the normal to come back to this mess in NASCAR.
A buddy of mine who thinks he knows everything about auto racing (which is actually very little) said that it was because of the advertising licensing of the current sponsor. Another words, he thinks that when Nextel came along, they demanded that everything in NASCAR, including passed events be referred to as Nextel Cup and NASCAR complied. They seem to be doing the same for the new sponsors from Sprint. I’ve also heard that NASCAR was prohibited from referring to a tobacco product because of some federal ruling against the advertising of tobacco in that type of medium, but this can’t be true because they still advertise SKOL and Kodiak at every race. They even promote alcohol, the Budweiser Shootout, the #07 Jack Daniels car, the former Busch Beer Series now known as the Nationwide Series, and many more, so that can’t be the reason.
It’s very comical to hear a veteran commentator or driver stumble over this issue when talking about passed events or the people involved. It’s like NASCAR and Sprint have someone standing off in the wings with a bucket of water and a bar of soap just waiting to wash out someone’s mouth for uttering the word Winston or Nextel. What is up with that?
Listen, we don’t refer to World War I or II, the Korean War, or the Vietnam War as the Iraq War just because the Iraq War is the one we are involved in at the moment. It wouldn’t make sense for kids in the second grade to be learning a lesson about the Iraq War, led by General Robert E. Lee now would it? Nope, that’s just plain stupid, right? Well so is this!
I can’t see why NASCAR is trying to drown its history. Passed races, seasons, and championships were won back when it was called The Winston Cup or the Nextel Cup and I see no reason why they can’t forever more be referred to as such. I personally have attended 39 Winston Cup Races, mostly at Talladega and Atlanta. I’ve been to 6 or 8 Nextel Cup races, but I’ve never been to or even seen a Sprint Cup Race, because there hasn’t been one yet, at least not until 1 PM CST today, because that is the first one, ever, in the history of NASCAR, today’s running of the Daytona 500 will be the first “Sprint Cup Race”. Why can’t someone who is in power at NASCAR see this problem for what it is and fix it by removing the policy that is causing it or the mouth washers who stands by to discipline those who violate it and let it be what it is, or as the case dictates, what it was!
I’m through ranting now! Thank you for your time!
James H. Jones Jr A2Z Auto Racing 17 Feb 08 9:20 AM Copyright 2008Ó
Back to the A2Z Auto Racing Article Index
