Although I grew up not far from Darlington, S.C., I cannot pretend to be a modern NASCAR fan. Couldn't tell you who drives the M&M car, or is it the Eminem car? Couldn't distinguish the various juniors from the dads, but it does make sense why they only make left turns.
And could someone please explain this Tony Stewart character? Petulance or perfection? Dennis Rodman or Michael Jordan?
But I do know something about tradition, and the wildly popular sport that once defined and dominated a region now belongs to the country, maybe the world. And with NASCAR's booming popularity has come the inevitable wave of progress, not all of it good.
Late last week, NASCAR announced that it was taking the venerable Southern 500 away from Darlington, the sport's oldest super-speedway. It also is moving the final race left in Rockingham, N.C. Those events will be relocated to Dallas-Fort Worth and Phoenix, which each received second races.
Another sign of the times: In 1996, there were eight races held in the Carolinas, where NASCAR took root. Next year, there will be three, the same number that will be raced in California during the 2005 Nextel Cup season.
And that just isn't right. Stock-car racing grew out of the Carolina hills, where moonshine runners in wolf-in-sheep's-clothing sedans outran the law. Before corporate sponsorships and Madison Avenue makeovers there was David Pearson and Junior Johnson tinkering in garages in places like Spartanburg and Rocky Mount. That, my friends, was racing.
Yet students of sports history could see this one coming all the way from turn No. 1.
In the 1950s, the baseball universe emanated from New York. Along with the Yankees, the Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers dominated the game. But by 1958, the Giants and Dodgers followed the migration patterns and the money to the West Coast, just as NASCAR is doing as it expands its empire to bigger and richer markets.
So how will the erstwhile Southern 500 look in Arizona? Pretty much like Sandy Koufax did in a Los Angeles Dodgers uniform: a little strange and sad to traditionalists, but very, very successful.
On their way to chasing the money at the expense of tradition, NASCAR officials argue that the abandoned Carolinas fans who helped create their monster will have plenty of chances to see racing throughout the Southeast. That is true, and no one could fault the sport for making business decisions in places where business makes sense.
But at what price? Selling out the people who helped make the product possible is the way of professional sports, but that doesn't make it any more palatable.
As the Rose Bowl of stock-car racing, Darlington has operated since 1950. Yet by leaving it with just one race, NASCAR could be relegating Darlington to oblivion. Its remaining event for 2005 has been scheduled for the Saturday night before Mother's Day, a bad time to try to draw crowds. If attendance falls, so will Darlington.
Rockingham, like North Wilkesboro before it, was an anachronism in the cyber age, kind of like Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds. There will be no more like them, yet the cash registers in Texas and Arizona and California will continue to fill at staggering rates. And that, of course, is the name of the game.
And that is fine for the people who run NASCAR because their product is popular enough to be sold in the largest and richest markets. Someone, however, needs to tell the suits that tradition can't be bought.
http://www.jsonline.com/sports/race/may04/229817.asp
