NASCUP Racing Cars Come via Australia

The extent of NASCAR's influence never ceases to amaze me.

The latest wonderment comes via Australia and the brand new, never seen before, never raced before, NASCUP racing car.

Behold: NASCUP racing cars.

Following in the tradition of Aussie Racing Cars (ARC) which is now recognized along with the Aussie V8 Series as Australia’s two most successful motor racing categories, comes a new class of car that will offer similar excitement and driving thrills to a whole range of people who wish to get in to motorsport.

The ARC features U.S. Legends and Australian Falcon and Commodore body styles. (race reports)

The cars are half-sized replicas of the famous NASCAR Sprint Cup cars that race every weekend on America’s traditional oval layouts. They employ a strong typically American NASCAR type space frame chassis powered by a 1.3-litre Yamaha engine with water cooling.

The safe and robust chassis is draped in a fiberglass shell that replicates the famous body styles that are so well known on the famous tracks across the US including Daytona, Talladega and Indianapolis. (see images on page 8)

In Australia, there is a growing following of NASCAR with all the events being shown here on live pay TV. The interest here has never been higher, with home grown heroes like Marcos Ambrose joining the fray to continue his racing career in the category.

As I said, the power of the NASCAR publicity machine is amazing. Coupled with the actual product on the track, the series' influence keeps spreading. If it wasn't for Bernie Ecclestone's toy the Speedcar Series in Asia, I would expect to see Brian France act like that DiCaprio fella and scream "I'm king of the world!"

Speaking of ruling the world, there's a hot rumor making the rounds on a similar topic. According to the [in]famous unnamed sources, the Rolex Sports Car Series will be swallowed up whole and bought out by the NASCAR/ISC conglomerate.

The two series have been joined at the hip anyway, and a buyout would only make it official.

Cross posted at Asian Motor Sports and Full Throttle.