A Top NASCAR Event: The Nextel Cup

Do not worry that NASCAR will change the name of your favorite event yet again for they say that a rose will smell good with any name!

Nextel, the new sponsor of the famous Winston series, has been bought over by a rival Telecom company called Sprint. Now, there are big bucks behind the NASCAR glory, so none of us should grudge a sponsor wanting to put their company name on a trophy. So do not get bugged if we have a stock car event called Sprint Cup in 2007!

The truth is that you do not have to smoke to love the Winston Series, but then the tobacco guys also have to make returns of their support for NASCAR. We must live with periodic changes of name of our favorite events, and be grateful that the thrills remain the same!

Winston Series, Nextel Cup, or any other label for that mater, cannot touch the exceptional quality and attractions of top stock car racing on the NASCAR circuit. No other event tests the skills of drivers and pit crews to this gut wrenching extent. You cannot hide behind reinforced plates and engines that will never see an assembly line. The Nextel Cup and events of this genre virtually put you behind the wheel! It is like driving in real life, with the road open only for others to match your guts and caliber, and all rules suspended for a few minutes of pure thrust, power and freedom. You get to know what is behind all the glossies that use curvy models to peddle their wares! Stock car racing is the naked truth, and while you cannot drive like that in reality, you can certainly live the romance in your mind.

Let us not tear down the Formula 1 stuff, for fantasy has its place as well. Engineering geeks should have their places in the world, and all the best to those who sit on engines designed to race once, with controls and systems that can make a champ of a babe! Let us celebrate the fact that NASCAR does not downplay the real stuff of stock car racing, and those of us who believe in this real-life sport can indulge to our heart’s content!