I’m quite a fan of NASCAR, yesterday’s race at Dover International Speedway in Delaware was in aid of Autism Speaks
Don’t ask me where Denny Hamlin finished, I’m only watching it now and they are only on lap 70 (of 400) at the moment!
I just thought it a very cool picture!
Boadicea's Chariot 
I hope you have the sound turned right down!
Soutie
I’m in Vegas with the family this coming August to celebrate my 65th, I have a sneaking suspicion they are trying to wangle a few laps in a NASCAR car at the Vegas track for me, if they do I’ll be thinking of you as I hurtle round.
I’m all in favour of getting the message out there, Soutie!
It can’t be bad. 🙂
Well that was fun, the broadcast has just finished, I still don’t know where car No. 11 finished other than it wasn’t in the top 10.
The word Autism must have been uttered at least once every 5 minutes by the commentators, wonderful participation by them and one hopes a successful weekend for autism awareness and fundraising in The States.
I still think that it’s a great picture 🙂
Well Done Soutie: Each May NASCAR is always a big deal in this small state, it’s been Autism Speaks for a number of years now and looks like continuing. We only have 700,000 residents but we do have a NASCAR track and we make it work for us and our favorite causes, there were probably 240,000 attendees on Sunday and many times that number watching on TV. Denny Hamlin (#11 car) was 16th out of 43. He was on a bit of roll before this race but he does not like the Dover track (it’s a short mile and is lapped in less than 30 seconds. Unfortunately he drives a Toyota and they are not normally allowed to win here :).
Soutie – Agreed, that is a very cool picture.
OMG – You might be driving a NASCAR car at speed later??? Have you looked at your gravatar recently? 🙂
LW – I do like this idea of Toyotas not being allowed to win.
OZ
Thanks LW, I obviously thought of you when compiling this post.
OZ, here’s another pic of that cool paint job on the No. 11 car of Denny Hamlin
Two great pictures Soutie – I see in the second one your car is being chased by a big cat and an antelope!
Great advertising and well done y’all for getting it out there!
I love the sound of the engines, but I have to say NASCAR is a little dull for me!
LW – how can a mile be short? 😉
Fantastic Soutie, well done. Great pics too.
There are many kinds of mile:
Country mile
Golden mile
Nautical mile
Arab mile
4 minute mile
Air mile
Metric mile (WTF?????)
Scandinavian mile (10 kilometres)
Roman mile
Statute mile
Food mile
Square mile
And just for the sake of standards, they are nearly all different. Go figure.
Cuprum, Ferret: This track is a little less than a mile around, two 1000 ft straights joined by half circles banked at 25 degrees. I have driven it in a NASCAR replica (detuned for amateur drivers). At sixty miles an hour it feels like you are about to fall off the wall on the bends, at 100 mph you are pinned to the middle of the car (top side). The fastest lap speed is 160 mph (22 seconds for a lap) the fastest race speed is 130 mph for 400 miles. It seems a very short mile when you drive it. It’s a bit like the old “Wall of Death” fairground act, but in a car.
LW – thank you, I see what you mean! Well done for having a go, but as a spectator sport it must be a little dull except for the occasional crash? What was the origin of the oval in NASCAR? Are all races done that way?
LW the fastest speed indicator that I saw at Dover was 169 mph, as you say the straights are short and they can’t get up to full speed.
Cuprum dull? Far from it, I’ve been to F1 and MotoGP where if you’re lucky you can perhaps watch the action on about a third of the track, oval racing you see the lot, the cars can only go about 60 laps on a tank of fuel but the tyres don’t generally last that long, pit stops are many, as are positional changes, overtaking is non-stop, I’d love to go watch one.
Wiki tells us that there are 23 oval circuits and 5 street circuits
If memory serves me correctly this term originated in athletics when all race distances were metricized the mile (remember Roger Bannister?) had to be changed and the 1500 meter race was introduced.
If a may quote a well known Edinburgh legal practitioner “I could of course be wrong.”
😉
OZ, I’ll keep one eye shut.
Cuprum, Soutie: The oval originated as a dirt track on which southern boys raced modified street cars (hot rods). As the races became more professional the banking improved speeds and visibility. Soutie is correct, you can pretty much watch the whole race from one position. The venues spread slowly to the north during the years and now almost all events are televised. There are several classes, a truck series (racing pickup trucks) and two racecar classes. The cars only look like road cars, they are really lightweight pipe-supported shells over a racing chassis. The cars are weight biased towards the left as all but one of the races circle the track anti-clockwise. The exception is Watkins Glenn, NY a road track. The longer ovals are faster and Talledega, Alabama (2.7 miles) has the fastest lap at 216 mph. As Soutie says it is a good spectator event, leads changing continuously and pit strategy and speed an important factor in winning. NASCAR is reputedly the largest spectator sport in the US as measured by track attendance.
LW & Soutie, I stand corrected!
Soutie – Any chance I could advertise your charity on my site? All I need is a logo or something, I’ll do the rest. 🙂
Morning Donald, thanks for the offer.
We’re a small local organisation and one of our members is currently establishing a wordpress website for us, have a look here
I published our logo some time ago with a brief summary of how we chose it, here it is
Soutie, got the logo and the link, thank you! I’ll have something to show you soon., I will of course confirm everything with you before posting online. 🙂