DAYTONA 500

[UNGN]

Growing up near Detroit, I enjoyed the rivalry of the Big 3 American brands. Personally, I can't think of a Japanese brand as American. No offense to those who can. For me, NASCAR is less interesting with Toyotas.

If Dodge came back to NASCAR everyone would go "whoo-woo! Hemis!" but they have haven't been an American company for over 20 years and built more Chrysler 300C's in Austria than they did in the US.

A Camry is at least made by Americans for Americans. Chevy SS's were made by Australians for virtually nobody.

 

[fleming442]

*assembled by Americans with foreign parts.

 

[grandamman]

China may be building plants in the US to build solar panels.
Made by Americans for Americans?

 

[jima]

Valid points. Especially Chrysler by Daimler. I might be a minority of one but I'd still rather have the American heritage of the Big 3 in NASCAR. If including Toyota gains more money and fans than it loses, it makes business sense to do it.

 

[64nailhead]

Imagine if they were running Chargers, Camaros and Mustangs - would your and most everyone else's interest level be higher? Someone else asked, can you buy one of these cars at the dealership? If that answer was yes, then Nascar would still be maintaining it's previous success and glory IMHO. And now imagine if they were actually using factory motors, WOW, what a concept. Oh, wait a minute, that's what they used to do when the series started and gained most of it's popularity.

Nascar needs a revamp before it's lost most all of its appeal IMO. But hey, what the heck do I know? 🙂🙂

I was a kid when the G-bodies ruled NASCAR and it was nice to see factory cars that Mom and Dad could be driving racing around the track.

 

[UNGN]

China may be building plants in the US to build solar panels.
Made by Americans for Americans?

If China thinks they can make a profit making solar panels in the US, why would anyone have a problem with that? As long as idiot politicians don't think we taxpayers have to subsidize it, jobs coming to the US are a good thing.

Most of Solar Panel mfg is robots and processing, so the jobs would be engineers and technicians and not manual laborers and more solar panels in the US mean more solar panel installer jobs and eventually cheaper electricity.

The US spent billions of taxpayer money subsidizing failed Solar ventures on the idea that "if we don't spend taxpayer money on this, the rest of the world will 'get ahead' of us". If the people that "got ahead of us" are moving their companies to the US 10 years later, anyway, why did we bother wasting those Billions of Dollars?

 

[UNGN]

*assembled by Americans with foreign parts.

All Camry engines are made in the US. Not that many high value "foreign parts" in any American made car anymore unless by "foreign" you mean Canada.

It's cheaper to build a plant in the US than constantly have 2 months worth of WIP inventory in transit.

 

[jima]

Imagine if they were running Chargers, Camaros and Mustangs - would your and most everyone else's interest level be higher? Someone else asked, can you buy one of these cars at the dealership? If that answer was yes, then Nascar would still be maintaining it's previous success and glory IMHO. And now imagine if they were actually using factory motors, WOW, what a concept. Oh, wait a minute, that's what they used to do when the series started and gained most of it's popularity.

Nascar needs a revamp before it's lost most all of its appeal IMO. But hey, what the heck do I know? 🙂🙂

I was a kid when the G-bodies ruled NASCAR and it was nice to see factory cars that Mom and Dad could be driving racing around the track.

That would be great!! NASCAR is what it is and won't go back to its roots. Maybe an alternative to NASCAR will start up. Then individual or small group owners could compete. I was at Daytona in 1959 or 1960. A friend of a friend and his dad owned, entered and drove a Ford that came in 7th. 👍

 

[rogue_ryder]

This modern NASCAR is meh at best.

The NASCAR era of Petty, Earnhardt, Labonte, Elliott, Wallace, Jarrett, Rudd, etc.from the 1980s through 90s were what I remember fondly. I moved to Daytona Beach in 1998 and remember Earnhardt wining his first Daytona 500 and watched him nearly win it again the next year! In the years following that monumental win, NASCAR popularity seemed to skyrocket but the racing seemed to get duller and duller as the years went on. Looking at the line up at this year's 500, I only knew who a handful of the veteran drivers were and I only managed to pay attention for the first couple dozen laps.

Living in Daytona for a half dozen years and working in the hospitality and racing industry (@ an SCCA pro team) I had to the opportunity to meet several of the most famous and successful race car drivers including the King himself Richard Petty. Who was (and I'm sure still is) a very humble, polite and kind man.

Hero:

Zero: