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*Lose on the track, and you go home. Lose with a load of whiskey, and you go to jail. ~ Junior Johnson

The Birth of NASCAR

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kenny Boxster (Post 288823)

As for your belief that anything other than street racing is fake,

Real racing is road racing against strangers under natural conditions, with all of its unknowns and unexpected thrills thrown in. No one is fooled, paying some self appointed authority, on an artificial simulated pretend road, to race is just make believe.

* Auto racing began 5 minutes after the second car was built. ~ Henry Ford

* A racing car has only one objective: to win motor races. ~ Colin Chapman

When the second car was built there was no authority, no fake road courses, but there was real racing. Real racing came before, and is not dependent on authority or closed circuits to continue. The racecar build objective is to finish in front, not only to finish in front with some parental organizations approval, on a commercial road course.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kenny Boxster (Post 288823)

There is a reason why racing is sanctioned under authority and practiced on closed circuits.

The reason is so that corporations can sell stock to the public, everybody knows that. They make the entertainers pay to perform so that they can make profits for shareholders. They charge everybody for everything. Question authority!

This may seem controversial. Nothing here is implied to suggest breaking any laws or operating a motor vehicle in an unsafe manner. Nonetheless these activities take place every day, wherever there are drivers and roads. Street Road Racing, where not prohibited, involves three simple rules. The role of leader and pursuer may change many times during contention, there can be only one winner. • The Winner is in front at the finish. • The Leader chooses the course. • The finish is when the Pursuer quits.

Unorganized, unregulated, spontaneous, low speed contests between strangers, are probably the most common of all motor sports confrontations. From the first cross continental races, to the last person you prevented from passing. Your use of a motor vehicle in an attempt to out-gain, out-distance, prevent another vehicle from passing or to arrive someplace first, constitutes a Road Race. You cannot ignore the fact that people bet their lives on winning every day. Victory in all of these cases is covered by these essential elements.

*On the race track, you're a-runnin' to beat someone. Out on the highway, you're a-runnin' for your life. ~ Junior Johnson

Junior Johnson is a retired moonshiner who won 50 NASCAR races before retiring. You may have seen the movie. Johnson says that Stock Car racing was a comedown compared to real racing, running moonshine. Moonshiners put more time, energy, thought, and love into their cars than any racer ever will.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Junior Johnson

I had some purty fast race cars, but I never run anything as fast as the fastest cars I had on the highway. The cars we ran on the road, you could modify 'em to the tip. Plus, they were supercharged and turbocharged. We could just do anything we wanted to 'em. There was never a time we could do anything we wanted to the racecars, even the Modifieds. NASCAR wouldn't let 'em run turbochargers or superchargers or anything like that. A supercharger or turbocharger just packs so much power in that motor, it’s unbelievable. And we had no limitations on cubic inches. We could bore and stroke 'em all we wanted. We'd run 500 cubic inches a lot of the time.

*There is no dishonor in losing the race. There is only dishonor in not racing because you are afraid to lose. ~ Garth Stein (The Art of Racing in the Rain)

Each and everyone of us has our opinion on racing. You seem to say that racing, under it's true roots, started with a no-frills spontaneous spar, which I think any purist worth their salt can agree upon.

I would, however like the ask an interesting question for thought.

The origins of NASCAR was from bootleggers/moonshiners running alcohol under prohibition. The drivers took stock cars and tuned them in the hope of outrunning police, which some successfully did. My question is, what do you think is the greatest contributing factor as to why drug cartels in present time do not have fast cars to specifically outrun police?

I think that all of that moonshinin' business makes for good folklore and some of it is probably true but a 1940 Ford flathead V8 only produced about 100hp in a car weighing around 2900lbs with a Cd of 0.5 (at best).

They might have been racing each other for all they were worth - but no one was going very fast! :D

Hmmmm....... Well I did plenty of street racing when I was young and stupid. Cars, trucks and motorcycles. I lost a couple of good friends that way and I am thankful no innocents got killed in the process (I guess they left that part out of the moonshine runner stories). I'll keep it on the track from now on thanks. :)

For those interested, more info on illegal street racing can be found here: http://evostreetracers.org/tragedytower.html

The site that Topless sent us calls racing, "a contest of speed." The essence of a motor racing contest is that whoever is in front at the finish is the winner, the same as horse racing before cars were invented.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Topless (Post 288978)

more info on illegal street racing can be found here: Tragedytower

All this stuff about excessive speed and danger, is something that you brought to the table. They just want to call any speed contest racing, to get people all emotional involved against it. If you take a 20 mph corner at 22 mph you will crash, that is fast driving but it does not make it a race. You can win a race going slower than your opponent as long as you start far enough ahead.

At LeMans in 1966 with a dominant 1–2 lead, the two Ford cars slowed to allow for a photo opportunity at the finish line, with Denny Hulme slightly ahead of Bruce McLaren. However, since McLaren's car had actually started much farther back on the grid than Hulme, McLaren's car had actually covered the greatest distance over the 24 hours. With the margin of victory determined to be eight metres, McLaren and his co-driver, Chris Amon, were declared the winners.

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Whenever we out-gain, out-distance, prevent another vehicle from passing or arrive someplace first, we are racing on the road. Nothing in that implies that we have to do anything in an unlawful or unsafe manner. Unorganized, unregulated, low speed contests between strangers, are probably the most common everyday races. A good driver does not always need high speeds to defeat a competitor. Often you can beat them before they have time to build up speed. Experienced winners use tactics and technique to win, all of the time. Novices think they need speed and recklessness as that page suggests.

You can safely race against time over long distances without using excessive speed. To beat another car you just need to be in front at the finish. I prefer to lose them, so I know, they know, that they are losers. You are driving a fine handling sports car, you can enter any corner fast, and come out faster. If your opponent cannot, they will fall behind. The last time you prevented someone from passing, did you need to use high-dangerous speeds to stay in front?