But those days are long gone, replaced by big-budget reality. At Charlotte, glinting turbine helicopters hover down onto a concrete pad just outside the speedway, disgorging corporate honchos in golf shirts and custom loafers. The money is huge. Once an unstoppable commercial juggernaut that looked like it might surpass professional football in popularity, NASCAR is in retreat. Crews have removed entire sections of the stands at Charlotte, and other tracks have followed suit. Tearing down the backstretch grandstands at Charlotte Motor Speedway pic.

The map shows the location of 12 major tracks and the number of seats removed between and Various reasons have been cited for the decline, including the price of gas, uninspiring race cars and the economic meltdown, but there might be more to it than that. What has happened to a sport that had always tugged at the imagination? Far from the hot banked asphalt and thunderous engine roar is a bubbling brook with a still.

My fascination with stock car racing began with Junior Johnson, a man I first encountered in a magazine story titled The Last American Hero. Wolfe's story changed all that. He was the son of one the biggest copper-still operators in North Carolina, and rose to local fame thanks to his skill at evading the law on late-night moonshine runs in tricked-out Ford sedans. Johnson's racing colleagues included a cast of characters that no movie director could dream up.

Curtis Turner was a star driver, a handsome rogue who mastered the power slide, slewing his car through turns at full throttle in a long contrail of dirt. Turner made and lost several fortunes in the timber business, and spent his money on airplanes and good times. He kept a party house near the Charlotte Motor Speedway that was a redneck version of Hugh Hefner's Playboy mansion, always stocked with liquor and women.

Turner flew a twin-engine Aero Commander , an airplane designed for business executives, and used it for his own unique purposes. Turner sometimes landed on the infield of dirt racetracks, then stepped straight into his car. Another time, he landed on the main street of Easley, S. Early stock car racing was loaded with risk and thrill. Races were held on dirt tracks and beaches Daytona Florida quickly turned into a major event.

The crowds grew, drawn by the spectacle. The cars on the track were identical to the ones the spectators drove themselves, and fans were divided into manufacturer-based camps — there were Ford, Chrysler and GM fans, and arguments over the cars' relative merits sometimes ended in trackside fistfights. Racing had a direct commercial spinoff. Cars that won races got an instant sales boost, which gave rise to stock car racing's mantra: Businessmen like Bill France and Bruton Smith quickly recognized the commercial potential of stock car racing.

In , France held a meeting of bootleggers, promoters, drivers and track owners at the Streamline hotel in Florida. By the s, the sport had found a crossover audience, and grown bigger than almost anyone could have imagined. That seemed entirely possible at the time. It was no longer just a southern sport.

The rise and fall of NASCAR

Gordon's racing career began with go-karts, and he was quickly identified as a child prodigy. Gordon's uncle, who managed his career, signed him up for Buck Baker's stock car racing school, and within two laps, instructors knew that Gordon was going to be a superstar.

Gordon won his first NASCAR race in May , when he was 22 years old, kicking open the door to a youth movement that continues to this day. Gordon changed the face of stock car racing. He didn't grow up fixing cars in his driveway, he didn't chew tobacco and he didn't have a southern drawl. The early Gordon era saw continued growth. But by the mids, attendance began to slide.

The COT introduced a new, standardized car, virtually eliminating the difference between the cars run by each team. Every car had to conform to a rigid set of specifications that determined its body shape and chassis design. But fans hated it. The traditional, manufacturer-based rivalry was gone. In , television audience numbers tumbled. NBC dropped out of negotiations for broadcast rights after deciding the audience was no longer large enough to justify costs. The racing schedule was cut back, and the A. Fan favourite Dale Earnhardt rose from the blue-collar, busted-knuckle tradition that defined racing's old-school heroes.

Earnhardt was not the product of marketing meetings and demographic analyses aimed at broadening the sport's appeal. Instead, he came from the same deep well that had produced old-school racers like Richard Petty, Bobby Allison and Benny Parsons. Earnhardt connected fans with the roots of the sport.

He quit school in Grade 9 to work as a mechanic, and patched together race cars in his driveway, using the money from his job to pay for parts. Unlike the current generation of NASCAR stars, who generally follow the same path as budding Formula One drivers, starting out with go-karts before moving on to open-wheel race cars, Earnhardt's race training was in the grand southern tradition: He learned to drive fast on dirt back roads, like the moonshiners once had, and raced beaters on the stock car chitlin' circuit, where crashes and fistfights were part of the action.

Earnhardt's strength was sheer determination: He smashed his way to the front of the pack, leaving a trail of wrecked cars in his wake. He was all or nothing. After his death, someone pulled up the NASCAR driver information sheet he had filled out when he applied for his competition license in the s.


  1. Das Geheimnis des grünen Steines (German Edition)?
  2. User-Centered Agile Method;
  3. ?
  4. Road Block Busters: Getting rid of the no to make more space for the YES in your life!.
  5. The Globe and Mail.
  6. .
  7. Indianapolis 500.

One of the standard questions asked the applicant driver what his other ambitions were. Because of the country's lack of expertise in automotive mass-production development, it was decided to find a foreign partner who would contribute technically and with its own models in the early years in exchange for cash, shares, bonds and royalties. With the rest of Europe having entered World War II , and Spain itself in ruins from its civil war, the project was delayed but not abandoned due to its strategic importance. Fiat's bid won for several reasons including Fiat's prominence in Spain and the fact that the company established the short-lived 'Fiat Hispania' plant in Guadalajara , which was destroyed in the Spanish Civil War.

Fiat's collaboration with the French company Simca proved Fiat's ability to manage complex international projects. Fiat's experience in the semi-protected car market in Italy was seen as the most easily transferable to the one in Spain, both of which had, at the time, customers of low incomes and limited markets for cars, as well as similar road conditions.

In Italy, Fiat dominated the market for vehicles under 12 horsepower, which would initially be the main market segment in Spain. The relative economic isolation of World War II damaged Italy and made Fiat interested in opportunities outside Italy, meaning that the negotiations with the Italian manufacturer could prosper more easily in favour of Spanish interests than with those from other countries.

In , the Banco Urquijo group had revived the S. The Banco Urquijo group, although a minority share holder, looked forward to assuming a leading role in the future as soon as the company was privatesed. This way SEAT not only would be able to reinitiate the country's economic recovery and as the largest employer in the s and s but would also contribute to the industrialisation of what was still a largely rural economy.

Even though there were initial thoughts of locating in less developed inland cities like Valladolid and Burgos , it was decided that the company's plant would be constructed in the duty-free zone area of the Port of Barcelona Barcelona Zona Franca , which would offer better access to the Mediterranean shipping and the rest of Europe through rail and road connections across the nearby French border.

Being an enterprise of vital interest for the national economy as well as an investment opportunity for Fiat's expansion plans through the Iberian peninsula, SEAT benefitted from state tariff and tax exemptions and technical assistance from its foreign partner Fiat. The construction works for SEAT's Zona Franca plant began on and the opening day came three years later on June 5, , while in the meantime since the Spanish marque was starting preparations for setting up almost from scratch an entire supplier industry background.

The first car in the marque's history to be produced was a SEAT model that came off the production line on November 13, with licence plate 'B In the following few months the plant's production output and workforce would significally increase together with the implementation of locally made components in the production process, in order to limit imports from one part and from another part to push to the development of the almost non-existent Spanish supplier industry and meet SEAT's assigned key role as the national car maker in restoring the Spanish economy of post—World War II Spain.

Nevertheless, the impact to the Spanish society could not be seen clear immediately, since the first model launched by SEAT was considered a luxury car therefore it was highly priced and still not affordable to the average Spanish consumer. Until the time SEAT had the technical maturity and expertise to present its first self-developed model the SEAT Sport in , in its beginnings the company had to manufacture either rebadged or restyled models borrowed from the range of its Italian partner Fiat Automobiles , or even redeveloped them according to the needs of its own range.

In SEAT founded the SEAT Training Centre in the greater Zona Franca plant area, an institution covering the training of qualified personnel and serving the needs of the automobile industry in specialized technical human resources. As the growth of the annual production was hitting one record after another due to the heavy demand, the economies of scale achieved would permit cutting costs and prices, subsequently renew demand and boost sales together with profits for SEAT. On June 29, , the brand opened its new headquarters in Madrid , which hosted the firm's sole — up to — general administration offices.

The rise and fall of NASCAR: Why tracks are removing seats - The Globe and Mail

In , fourteen years after producing cars for the domestic market, SEAT's success was signaled by its dominant position in Spain, ahead of its major competitors, i. In that year an agreement between Fiat and the Spanish Ministry of Industry was reached so as to put an end in the restrictions over exporting SEAT cars out of Spain, a term of the original licensee contract agreed with Fiat in Although not a majority owner, Fiat now was seen to control the business: To be able to produce independently its own research projects, SEAT on November 16, came in accordance with Fiat so as to start building separate infrastructures aiming at developing new technologies.

As the brand arranged in some provisional facilities in the site of the future Technical Center in Martorell and in began construction works, this goal would only take five years till to be reached with the completion of the first phase in the construction of SEAT's Technical Center, a facility designed by the Catalan architect Josep Antoni Coderch. On May , after a request from the Spanish state authorities to ensure the rescue of the jobs for the workers in the Authi owned factories, SEAT moved on talks with the parent company British Leyland Motor Corporation BLMC of the bankrupt Authi in order to take over the brand's operations in Spain leaving aside GM 's interest in it, something which would otherwise open the path for the American automaker to enter the Spanish market thus jeopardizing the relationship with Fiat.

The talks ended soon on July , when an agreement was announced between the two parts under which SEAT would acquire from BLMC the Authi brand along with its assets for 1, million pesetas. The imposed acquisition of the Landaben plant would also result in giving up SEAT's plans to build a new facility in Saragossa.

The s were a decade of rising prosperity in Spain, which is reflected in the announcement in August that SEAT would commence local production of the Lancia Beta. The Spanish cars were fitted with a simplified suspension system and smaller engines than their Italian counterparts in order to qualify for a lower car tax rate.

In SEAT's leasing company Liseat was founded and in the Gearbox del Prat facility was set up as a specialised plant in the production of gearboxes, gear mechanisms and differentials in El Prat del Llobregat near Barcelona. In the early s, extensive discussions concerning funding and control took place between SEAT's major shareholder, the Spanish government, and Fiat Automobiles ; SEAT needed major capital investment, which Fiat was not prepared to contribute, partially due to the oil crisis of the s and in also due to the uncertainty for Fiat's interests following the end of a protectionist policy against GM in Spain.

The outcome, in , was an end to the relationship with Fiat after nearly 30 years, a rather surprising decision in spite of the favourable perspectives for the Spanish economy with Spain being in the anteroom of the European Economic Community since The launch of this model though sparked a lawsuit from Fiat against SEAT, as the former claimed the car was too similar to a car in Fiat's range, the Ritmo.

The case was eventually taken to the Arbitration Chamber of Paris which in declared that differences between both cars were important enough so as not to consider the Ronda as a rebadged Ritmo, ending the dispute in favour of SEAT. Rumour at the time had it that Fiat was angry because the Ronda restyling was in fact too close to their own planned restyling for the Fiat Ritmo, which they had to scrap. Carl Horst Hahn — who had just assumed responsibility as the chairman of the Volkswagenwerk AG Volkswagen Group — examined the opportunity of approaching SEAT after Fiat's withdrawal, in his plan to expand the Volkswagen Group's operations out of Germany and turning the German group into a global force.

It would also follow the precedent set by other global manufacturers such as Ford in Valencia and General Motors in Zaragoza in setting up manufacturing operations in Spain. However, the Spanish authorities had already started talks with other foreign firms such as Toyota , [68] Nissan and Mitsubishi [69] in order to choose a strong partner for SEAT. It also formed the basis of the Malaga , a four-door family saloon. SEAT then began to expand into markets beyond Spain's borders, including the United Kingdom , where it began selling cars in the autumn of On December 18, the Volkswagen Group acquired Fulfilling Hahn's expectations, SEAT not only made a profit two years after Volkswagen bought a majority of its stock, but also provided a low-cost manufacturing outlet for other VW group models, contributing up to The gathering of the brand's main infrastructures in the greater Martorell plant area has taken place in a long process beginning back in with the opening of the SEAT Technical centre [72] but it was only in when a decision was taken to start building a new main assembly facility next to the Technical Centre in Martorell replacing the old one in Zona Franca.

In that same year began the translocation of SEAT's Madrid administration offices to Barcelona with the sale of two of the brand's assets in La Castellana to be completed in with the definitive installation of SEAT's headquarters in the Catalonia region. The centralisation of the management, design, research and production facilities localized around the plant site was meant to serve the aim of optimising the development in the process of making new models. Since its inception in , the race has always been scheduled on or around Memorial Day.

Since , the race has been specifically scheduled for the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. Practice and time trials are held in the two weeks leading up to the race. The Sunday of Memorial Day weekend is widely considered one of the most important days on the motorsports calendar, as it is the day of the Indianapolis , Coca-Cola , and currently the Monaco Grand Prix. Traditionally , the field consists of 33 starters, aligned in a starting grid of eleven rows of three cars apiece.

The event is contested by "Indy cars" , a formula of professional -level, single-seat, open cockpit , open-wheel , purpose-built race cars. As of , all entrants utilize 2. Chevrolet and Honda are the current engine manufacturers involved in the sport. Dallara is at present the sole chassis supplier to the series. Firestone , which has a deep history in the sport, dating back to the first , is currently the exclusive tire provider. The race is the most prestigious event of the IndyCar calendar, and one of the oldest and most important automobile races. It has been avouched to be the largest single-day sporting event in the entire world.

Likewise, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway itself is regarded as the world's largest sporting facility in terms of capacity. That is unique to most sports where major events are usually at the end of the respective season. Currently the Indy is the sixth event of the race IndyCar schedule. From the s to the s, Indianapolis was often the second or third race of the season, and as late as the s, it was sometimes the first championship event of the year.

Due to the high prestige of the Indianapolis —rivaling or even surpassing the season championship—it is not uncommon for some teams and drivers to concentrate heavily on preparation for the during the early part of the season, and not focus fully on the championship battle until after Indy.


  • Indianapolis - Wikipedia.
  • Cars 3 - Wikipedia.
  • Navigation menu.
  • ACCOMPLISHED;

    • The traditional car starting field at Indianapolis is larger than the fields at the other IndyCar races. The field at Indy typically consists of all of the full-time IndyCar Series entries roughly 20—22 cars , along with 10—15 part-time or "Indy-only" entries. The "Indy-only" entries, also popularly called "One-Offs", may be an extra car added to an existing full-time team, or a part-time team altogether that does not enter any of the other races. The "Indy-only" drivers may come from a wide range of pedigrees, but are usually experienced Indy car drivers that either lack a full-time ride, are former full-time drivers that have elected to drop down to part-time status, or occasional one-off drivers from other racing disciplines.

    It is not uncommon for some drivers particularly former Indy winners , to quit full-time driving during the season, but race at Indy singly for numerous years afterwards before entering full retirement. Due to safety issues such as aquaplaning , the race is not held in wet conditions.

    In the event of a rain delay , the race will be postponed until rain showers cease, and the track is sufficiently dried. If rain falls during the race, officials can end the race and declare the results official if more than half of the scheduled distance i. The Indianapolis , as well as other IndyCar Series races, does not utilize the green—white—checker finish in case of a late race yellow. The race can, and in the past has, finished under caution. However, officials may call for a late race red flag to ensure a green flag finish, an option that was used in The Indianapolis Motor Speedway complex was built in as a gravel-and-tar track and hosted a smattering of small events, including ones for motorcycles.

    That these spectacles had attracted 15, paying customers and crowds of up to 40, [5] persuaded principal owner Carl G. The crowds grew progressively smaller for the rest of the season, however, so the track owners chose to focus on a single race. Eighty thousand spectators were in attendance, and an annual tradition had been established. Many considered Harroun to be a hazard during the race, as he was the only driver in the race driving without a riding mechanic, who checked the oil pressure and let the driver know when traffic was coming.

    After World War I , the native drivers and manufacturers regained their dominance of the race. Engineer Harry Miller set himself up as the most competitive of the post-war builders. For musical entertainment prior to the start of the race, the Purdue All-American Marching Band has been the host band of the race since In , American operatic tenor and car enthusiast James Melton started the tradition of singing " Back Home Again in Indiana " with the Purdue Band before the race when asked to do so on the spur of the moment by Speedway president Tony Hulman.

    This tradition has continued through the years, notably by actor and singer Jim Nabors from until In , the a cappella group Straight No Chaser sang the song before the race, and since Nabors' retirement and before he became the regular singer , the singing of the song is done on a rotating basis. In the early s, Miller built his own 3. In , Miller's former employees, Fred Offenhauser and Leo Goosen, had already achieved their first win with the soon-to-become famous 4-cylinder Offenhauser or "Offy" engine.

    Legal Car Rally Trades On Legendary Illegal Race, For Profit

    This motor was forever connected with the Brickyard's history with a to-date record total of 27 wins, in both naturally aspirated and supercharged form, and winning a likewise record-holding 18 consecutive years between and Meanwhile, European manufacturers, gone from the Indianapolis for nearly two decades, made a brief return just before World War II , with the competitive Maserati 8CTF allowing Wilbur Shaw to become the first driver to win consecutively at Indianapolis, in and Among the Formula One drivers who did drive at the speedway was five-time world champion, Argentinian Juan Manuel Fangio , though he failed to qualify for the race.

    In fact, it was not until the Indianapolis was removed from the Formula One calendar that European entries made their return. In , technical innovator Colin Chapman brought his Team Lotus to Indianapolis for the first time, attracted by the large monetary prizes, far bigger than the usual at a European event. Racing a mid-engined car, Scotsman Jim Clark was second in his first attempt in , [26] dominating in until suffering suspension failure on lap 47, and completely dominating the race in , a victory which also interrupted the success of the Offy, and giving the 4. The Offenhauser engine was also paired with a European maker, McLaren , obtaining three wins for the chassis, one with the Penske team in with driver Mark Donohue , [29] and two for the McLaren works team in [30] and with Johnny Rutherford.

    American drivers continued to fill the majority of entries at the Brickyard in the following years, but European technology had taken over.


    1. Shop the drive.
    2. SEAT - Wikipedia.
    3. Allergie: Nouvelle noire (French Edition).
    4. Cannonball Run Founder Dies, New “Cannonball Run” Spits on His Grave.
    5. Spanish Dance, Opus 28 (Serenata Andaluza): For Violin and Piano: 0 (Kalmus Edition)?
    6. Cannonball Run Founder Dies, New "Cannonball Run" Spits on His Grave - The Drive?

    Starting in , most chassis and engines were European, with the only American-based chassis to win during the CART era being the Wildcat and Galmer [32] which was actually built in Bicester , England in and , respectively. Fernando Alonso was the most recent active Formula One driver to race at the Indy mile race, in Prior to that, no active F1 driver had competed in the Indy since After foreign cars became the norm, foreign drivers began competing in the Indianapolis on a regular basis, choosing the United States as their primary base for their motor racing activities.

    Despite the increase in foreign drivers commonly being associated with the CART era, it should be noted that four of the first six Indianapolis winners were non-American drivers. The race was originally advertised as the "International Mile Sweepstakes Race" [9] from to However, from its inception, the race has been widely known as the Indianapolis or, more simply as "the ". Usually the ordinal e. Often the race was also advertised on the radio as the "Annual Memorial Day race," or similar variations. For the race , the name "65th Indianapolis Mile Race" was officially adopted, with all references as the "International Sweepstakes" dropped.

    Since , the race has been formally advertised in this fashion, complete with a unique annual logo with the ordinal almost always included. Around that same time, in the wake of the entry controversy, and the formation of CART , the race changed to an invitational event, rather than an Open , rendering the " sweepstakes " description inappropriate. For nearly a century, the race eschewed any sort of naming rights or title sponsor , a move, though uncommon in the modern sports world, that was well received by fans.

    This tradition finally ended in when a presenting sponsor, PennGrade, was added for the first time. In the 21st century, the facility has also slowly added sponsorship ads on the retaining walls and infield grass. The Borg-Warner Trophy , introduced in , [36] proclaims the event as the "Indianapolis Mile Race", with no reference at all to the name "International Sweepstakes".

    In , the Indianapolis Motor Speedway began a three-year-long "Centennial Era" to celebrate the th anniversary of the opening of the track , and the th anniversary of the first Indy During the month of May , the ordinal 93rd was used very sparingly, and for the first time since , was not identified on the annual logo. Instead, in most instances in print, television, and radio, the race was referred to as the " Indianapolis ". Since the race was not held during the United States' participation in the two World Wars —, — , the advertised Centennial Era occurred during the 93rd to 95th runnings.

    To avoid confusion between the th anniversary, and the actual number of times the race has been run, references to the ordinal during the Centennial Era were curtailed. Six years later, in , the race celebrated its th running with about , in attendance.

    Female participation of any sort at Indianapolis was discouraged and essentially banned throughout the first several decades of competition. As such, female reporters were not even allowed in the pit area until Sarah Fisher has competed nine times, the most of any woman. Danica Patrick led 19 laps in the race and ten laps in the race, the only times a woman has led laps during the race.