As an outsider, it has no attraction to me. I thought it was mandatory for a 'merican car guy.

I give up on Nascar when all the cars started looking alike.......all the drivers  turned to "gay movie stars"....and it was all about the big crash at the finish!!  BUTT.......as with a lotta sports it loses A LOT trying to watch it on the 'telly'.
Back-in-the-day  (oh crud...here he goes!!)  you could actually buy the cars that were racing.
Sell on Sunday-buy on Monday was really true!  427 Galaxys.........Hemi Dodge/Plymouths....etc.

Now Rick Hendrix builds all the Chevy stuff...........Jack Roush builds the Ford stuff.......Charlie Chan builds the Toyotas (maybe)  and everybody just 'buy a motor and put it in their car'!

The days of Smokey Yunich.... David Pearson.....Junior Johnson.....are wayyyy in the rear view.
OK........I'm done (stick-a-fork-in-me)
6sally6

Rudi wrote:

Roundy round racing is big in mullet country.
I actually was a fan when they used Detroit cars, anyone remember Hudson’s on the Daytona sand track?

Hudsons were the hot ticket back around '50.  Part of the reason was you could get dual carbs on it.  As the I6 was a flathead, the carbs were bolted directly to the heads.  The manifold was integral to the head, and getting one on your Hudson was a big deal.

I used to watch them in action in Gardena, or thereabouts, with my dad.

50vert wrote:

As an outsider, it has no attraction to me. I thought it was mandatory for a 'merican car guy.

Not for this American guy. Like most everything today that has a long history, what we have today has little resemblance to days gone by. We speak of the good ole days for that reason.
 

Ah, NASCAR just like any sport. We new it in the day based on all the social interaction like Beer and dogs at the track while walking elbow to elbow or cheek to cheek at the track in the crowd. Getting excited (drunk) talking so loud we were spitting all over each other. Watching people till we laughed so hard we had to run! Hard to do that watching empty stands and crying the the beer we are holding wishing we were there. Nothing like that many loud exhausts going by to the tune of pain!

My mom had one in college, not sure the year.  It was green and thus is always recalled as The Green Hornet.  No Kato to go with it, but interesting still.

I've often wondered what the American automotive landscape would have looked like if Hudson had the money behind it that GM or Ford had.  With OHV that 308 would have kicked the snot out of the first gen SBC. More HP, with more low end torque.  The SBC is widely regarded as the engine that brought V8 power to the working man.  That's debatable, as the flathead Ford probably was the one that had really done it, though it didn't have the longevity or production numbers of the SBC.  But you have to wonder, if Hudson had the market share of GM, the engineering budget of GM, the production ability of GM; would we have seen high powered sixes develop at least alongside such V8s?  Smokey Yunick never goes to GM; he stays at Hudson, and maybe Hudson starts the musclecar era instead of Pontiac.  Heck, maybe John Delorean who's ceiling was limited at GM ends up as CEO of Hudson.  Hudson later picks up Lee Iacocca after he's let go from Ford, and continues to innovate by birthing the American economy car and minivan.  Today the big three are Ford, GM, and Hudson.  Maybe instead of a Mustang what's in my garage is a Hudson Smokey Special.  It has an OHV 308 with a factory blower, 3X2 and is backed by a multiplate wet cork clutch connected to a Borg/Warner T-10 with an overdrive 4th gear.  Now that would peg the cool meter!
 

I'm with you on this one 6sally6.  Safety upgrades only, and some old school "if the rules didn't say it wasn't allowed I had to assume it was" type modifications. 

In truth, I think modern cars would run very fast once they got up to speed.  You have to remember that the first cars to top 200 were in the late '60s.  NASCAR has been playing games with tires and spoilers for decades to limit top speed and try to make them all run the same speed so they're bunched up and the wrecks are more fantastic.  Most new cars top speed is electronically governed due to the tires they sport from the factory.  Slippery as these new cars are with all the emphasis on fuel economy I bet they still run close to 200. 

NASCARs are intermediate bodies though, so its more like the Charger, etc.  I'd like to see any manufacturer able to compete too.  Bring the Asian and European cars in.  Size wise I think the Kia Stinger (those things are FAST) and BMW M6 qualify.  AWD, turbos, etc.  If they sell it to the public they can legally race it, so long as it meets old school homologation rules.  It would really be back to the heyday.  6s vs. V8s, auto vs. manual, RWD vs. FWD vs. AWD.  It would actually be exciting again!

The Mustangs, Camaros, and Challengers should run Trans-Am.  Old school Trans-Am with the same kinds of rules as our new version of NASCAR.  Let's see if all that Hellcat power can beat something like the GT350R in the twistys.