Just a Fan On The Bleachers

I'm not a sports writer. I'm just a fan. a fan of the sport of auto racing. I remember as a twenty something sitting down to flip the dial (no remotes in the old days)on the television one Sunday looking for something to watch. 

I had always been a huge St Louis Cardinals fan, but it had gotten boring. I had watched racing before. I remembered the big fight at the first nationally televised 500. I knew the names of the parties involved. Come spring and back to baseball. 

Well this one Sunday while flipping through the channels due to a baseball rain out I sat down to watch a race from Atlanta. The rest was history. I sat glued to my television for the next thirty years. Through the late 70's and my favorite era the 80's. A huge fan of Awesome Bill and Handsome Harry. Through booing The Intimidator and Rusty. 

The 90's continued with the same favorites, but the booing for the black 3 stopped and had been replaced with respect. 

Yes, the old cliche those were the good old days. Racing was exciting. I planned my whole Sunday around racing. Bumping, banging, and the bump and run were the order of the era. 

The late 90's found me glued again to the Busch series of the day. A skinny redheaded lad with the same name of the man I once booed, then admired appeared on the scene and I was hooked from his very first race. 

The sport I have loved so much has changed and evolved and reinvented itself and turned its self inside out again. It has changed so much I do not recognize it anymore.

This crazy car with it's splitter and spoiler do not even come close to the sleek race cars of days gone by. I am glad for the sake of my driver it is safer, but something is just not right. It's not the same racing. Each era has it's day, but I'm not sure I like this new evolved racing. I will give it the old college try and hang in there for the better. 

Right now I hang on to racing for one reason. I've followed my driver for over twelve years now. I have so much time invested in his career. As long as he races I'll be in front of the television or at the track, but if and when he decides to call it quits I just may follow. 

Anyone for baseball?