nascar is an idiot’s sport. 43 cars, driving in a circle, always making left hand turns (except twice a year on road courses) and basically burning leaded fuel in an effort to beat the other guy with a car that is technically the same as everyone else’s. friends joke with me, if they stopped the race and made right hand turns half way through the race, all the cars would net zero miles travelled. that’d be the ultimate event. everyone racing to see who can get back to zero miles fastest.

with all that said, i absolutely fucking love nascar. this year, i will spend more effort converting my friends into NASCAR fans.

first, i love cars. there’s a reason i work in the auto industry. i always loved auto racing, but never nascar. when i moved to detroit, i started getting into watching the races each sunday. it took one week to get me hooked. but i love nascar because of the culture of its business. its not the sport that really gets me (i’ll touch on that in a bit) but the business.

nascar is america’s #1 spectator sport. it holds 17 of the top 20 most attended sporting events in the u.s. it’s #2 in terms of regular-season sports television viewers (#1 is the nfl.) its broadcast in 150 countries, and has an estimated 75 million fans that purchase nearly $2 billion worth of licensed products each year. more fortune 500 companies sponsor and participate in nascar than any other sport. and in non-olympic years, the daytona 500 is the 2nd most popular sporting event on tv next to the superbowl, globally.

nascar is huge business. 11 of nascars 31 tracks seat over 100,000 spectators, and indianapolis motor speedway seats 250,000 plus an infield capable of holding another 150,000 making it the largest sporting facility in the world. that race has been sold out for years. races at bristol are sold out for the next 7 years!!!! with 160,000 tickets selling for nearly $150 a pop, you can see why nascar is huge business. that’s why i love it. races have nearly a quarter of a million attendees and millons of viewers at home. more women attend and watch nascar on tv than any other sport. there’s a culture to the races.

despite what you may believe, i think nascar is a sport. many of us will never experience what those drivers experience. they must drive a car (no a/c, no power steering, nothing) for 4 hours, at 160+ mph, where the track temperatures are nearly 120 degrees in the summer, and the temperatures inside the car can reach 150-170 degrees. an elite marathon runner will run for 2 and a half hours, and burn over 4000 calories with sustained heart rates in the 150 bpm range. nascar drivers will have heart rates in that range for nearly an hour or two longer, and end up losing 5-15 pounds of water weight in a single race. most nascar drivers will drive twice in the same weekend, doubling their feats of endurance. nascar drivers experience 3-6 G’s each and every turn on a race track at speed, which is roughly equivalent to G-forces experiences by astronauts taking off in the shuttle. if you don’t believe me, believe lance armstrong. considered among the worlds elite endurance athletes, he is a nascar fan, and has the utmost respect for the drivers that experience worlds of pain over 4 hours.

carl edwards, one of nascar’s premiere drivers, works out 7 days a week in the 3 month off season. i should mention nascar is the longest running regular season sport, starting in mid-february and ending a week before thanksgiving. doing what those drivers do is amazing.

nascar isn’t just a bible-thumping southern sport either, it has the fastest growing high-income demographic of any sport, and in places like california, offer a wolfgang puck restaurant for fans to dine during race days. individuals like jay leno, lance armstrong ,wolfgang puck, mario battali, and kelly clarkson consider themselves fans. 2 recent movies, talladega nights and cars, were based on stock car racing. combined, they grossed $392 million dollars.

nascar is huge big business. i cannot wait until next week, where i’ll decidely run my half marathon, rush back to our condo on the beach and fire up the daytona 500 with a glass of wine. after all, my buddy brad calls me the only person on earth who spends his sunday watching nascar, with a bottle of wine.