Guest post COW: Stu, rubbin’ and racin’
Posted on February 25th, 2008 – 10:57 AMBy Michael Rand
|
For his diligent all-around work, combined with his national presence last week, Stu earned the co-COW honors (Clarence Swamptown, where are your 300 co-COW words?). Stu is up first with some words about auto racing, which doesn’t really seem fair since we write about it all the time. But whatever. It’s Stu’s St. Cloud life. Here he goes:
My plan for this column was to sit down and watch Sunday’s NASCAR race and submit my findings. It wouldn’t be like one of Bill Simmons’ running diaries, as I don’t know anyone named J-Bug. Rather, I’d immerse myself in a sport I care little about and actively dislike for no good reason, and let you, the reader, know what I find.
However, it rained in southern California, proving Albert Hammond wrong and postponing the race. That left me with few options other than to explore what I currently know about NASCAR. Not much, as it turns out.
Where I’m From: the bars and Legion Clubs of Renville County are suffused with NASCAR signage, with their patrons clad in jackets, T-shirts and caps endorsing their favorite driver. One of the taverns even has an engraved mirror with Dale Earnhardt’s number 3 on it, along with a black ribbon. You know, because he’s dead.
However, this sartorial and emotional investment is not a long-standing tradition. When I was growing up in the ‘70s and ‘80s, I imagine you could go from Buffalo Lake in the east to Sacred Heart in the west and not find anyone who knew Cale Yarbrough from a hole in the ground. When NASCAR’s popularity boomed in the ‘90s, though, my home turf went along for the ride. My best explanation: there’s not a lot to do in small towns on the weekend, much less when the Vikings aren’t playing. Here’s something that lasts as long as a football game, the bar’s open, and someone might get horribly injured. What’s not to love?
The Culture: in 2004, the Republican National Committee held a voter registration drive at the Daytona 500. Said driver Rusty Wallace, “I was real excited to do it, I look at it as common sense … (t)he President came in with all the right things on his mind. He’s a tough guy. I believe him. It’s pulling for what you know is right and using some common sense about it. I know what I’m pulling for is the right thing to pull for.”
Rusty’s authentic frontier gibberish aside, it’s no secret that a sport that began and flourished in the red states is going to tilt right. That doesn’t mean I have to like it. Yes, plenty of other athletes in sports I enjoy disagree with me politically, and I’m not going to quit watching baseball because Curt Schilling mistakenly thinks his opinion is informed or relevant. However, when I don’t care for the sport to begin with, stories like the above justify my apathy.
Bottom Line: I didn’t grow up a fan, I don’t share their politics, and, oh yeah, the sport involves making left turns really fast, and that’s it.
But other than that, I’m open to persuasion, NASCAR. Get her done! (That’s how you say it, right?)
Newspaper Subscriptions
eEdition
RSS
Newsletters