HST on NASCAR Death

[Rob Schaap]

This article sooo nails it!  Maybe it's a little naive to believe motor
racing hasn't always had a necessary component of imminent (and immanent)
death'n'destruction about it, but that's still a quantum leap away from
building the death'n'destruction into the sport's very infrastructure.
Reminds me of one fine distinction between a generic commercial transaction
(ie anywhere and any time) and a specifically capitalist one - in the
latter instance, the thing sold is solely and specifically made to be sold.
If death used to be piquant part of the spectrum of possibility in motor
racing, it is now on its way to becoming the thing you get for your entry
fee.

By the way, I'm not sure I'd heard of the late Mr Earnhardt.  The
non-Yancqui (ie. greater) part of the media-accessed world went equally
sombre and thoughtful about the fatal shunt of a Formula One driver called
Ayrton Senna about five years back - supposed to be the best ever.  Anyone
stateside ever heard of him?  Funny thing about formula one - most of the
tracks don't encourage overtaking at all (fair dinkum, you wouldn't get a
Beetle into third around that Monaco street circuit), and one brand of
conveyance usually dominates, as, usually, does one driver (these days it's
a German called Michael Schumacher) - so it's got very little in the way of
sport's virtue going for it.  Yet it's HUGE.  And they've made that safer
than the Canberra Show bumper cars.

The pulling power seems to be in the noise (all petrol-heads love the
noise) and the pheromones emanating from all those Marks'n'Francs.  Me, I
used to prefer it coz the winner never has to rabbit on about the Lawd
Gard's part in a bunch of donks negotiating a stretch of concrete ... now I
prefer it because the gladiators don't have to die to afford the event its
raison d'etre.

Cheers,
Rob.