Why is oval racing so popular in the US?

[Skybird]

Usually I would post such stuff in a racing sim forum, but Empty Box gives a little narration of auto race history in the US in this video that I found interesting, and so I post it here. The film is not relevant and just avoids to show a black screen - its what he explains that I found entertaining. Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGIajJNk67g

I used to drive Nascar 2003 long time ago. Today I am with Assetto Corsa and Raceroom Racing. They form the lion's share of my PC playing activities these days. Not tanks. Not planes. Cars it is.

[Onkel Neal]

I think the reason it's, in the 50s, 60s, and70s the cars on the track were not that different from the cars you could buy. NASCAR even had rules that in order for a factory to race in stock car, they had to sell a certain number of units to the public.

Those were the days :)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Torino_Talladega#/media/File%3ATalladegas_at_Talladega_in_2009.jpg

[mapuc]

Once I had a motorsport channel and they used to broadcast Indy500 it happened that I saw some hours of this.

I guess that this sport became even more known among the ordinary people after the movie Days of Thunder with Tom Cruise.

Markus

[Rockstar]

I reckon its because on the oval you can see everything happening and how it affects the rest of the race. When cars pit, how fast the pit crews work, cars battling for position, crashes, breakdowns, you name it, you get to see it as it happens. Nothing is left to the imagintion or having to wait for the nightly news to tell you about.

Formula 1 and Touring can be just as exciting but you have to be in the right place at the right time to see any drama as it unfolds. I've been at the Grand Prix of Miami years ago though fun Id take tickets to the Indy 500 over it anyday.

[vienna]

It is possible the oval is a holdover from horse racing, the most popular form of individual racing before the automobile. It used to be, many, many long years ago, horse racing used lengthy courses, sometimes in a sort of straight line 'Point-A-to-Point-B" arrangement; the drawback was, if you were at the start, you wouldn't get to see the finish, sort of like today's marathon foot races. Circuit courses were developed to address these concerns; the oval be came the norm since they would allow spectator a better chance of seeing the entire race, from start to finish, and would take up much less real estate than a straight line course...



<O>

[Buddahaid]

I was going to say fairground tracks and cheap start up costs but the video went there.

Personally, I don't like it and much prefer road racing of all sorts. Looking forward to the Chinese Grand Prix this weekend. :up:

I just bought this older Tamiya kit of my all time favourite car.
http://shop.classicteamlotus.co.uk/ekmps/shops/classiclotus/images/tamiya-team-lotus-type-49-1-12-scale-model-kit-[2]-617-p.jpg

https://www.emodels.co.uk/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/800x600/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/t/a/tam12052.jpg

[mapuc]

(off topic comment)
^ As a person who love to see a model being built I hope you will create a thread where you show us your building-development.

Markus

(end of off topic comment)

[Skybird]

Empty Boxes' horse racing oval agument bought me where he said that most oval tracks used for racing today before have been horse racing ovals. He points out that the distances to the next racing place and the population density have something to do with it, because ovals are easier to maintain, the argument is economics: in the US, due to the distances to the next racing location, you have to expect a potentially smaller audience that equals to your income by which to finance your track park. These historic and long-distance arguments (long distance to the next racing location, not the track length) do not play that much a role in other parts of the world - and traaaraa, much less oval racing there.

And he mentions that it is comparable to the US in Australia: and here you again have the geography and audience arguments. Its quite convincing aguments Box gives, I think.

Neal, nobody hinders you to have those street cars form the 50s-70s on ordinary tracks, in fact it would make much more sense than to have street cars on highspeed ovals. So why has Nascar so many ovals, almost exsclusively? ;)

I once thought oval racing would be boring. Nascar 2003 by Pyapyrus taught me some lessons there. :D This probably is the reason why iRacing today does ovals racing better than other sims. These are the guys who originally did Nascar 2003. As far as I can see, none of the later Nascar games ever became that good again, not even the latest new entry to the competition from 3 or 4 months ago. On the web, players shreddered it, didn't they.

Today, I plasy no Nascar anymore, but go with AC and RR exclusively. Race sim physics have gone such an unbelievably long way in the past years. Thats is especially true for AC.

[u crank]

Those were the days :)


Oh yea. Although I no longer follow it that much, back in the 70's I was a big NASCAR fan. Big cars, lots of HP and great drivers.

My favorite guy.

http://i.imgur.com/6NLlxxv.jpg?1

[Julhelm]

I personally much prefer Indycar over Formula 1. With Indycar, especially on ovals, there is a lot of overtaking and tactical driving going on, whereas in modern F1 you have little overtaking and races are decided more in qualifying than anywhere else. The 80's with the overpowered turbo cars was much more exciting.

[Buddahaid]

Maybe I didn't get exposed to much oval track where I grew up. There was sprint car racing(still is) at the Calistoga fairgrounds, and what was called hardtop racing in Vallejo, which was older forties style bodies with fenders removed and cages. Those also ran on smaller size tires on the inside wheels.

Then there was Laguna Seca only a couple of hours away, and later nearby, Sears Point Raceway a.k.a. Infineon Raceway a.k.a. Sonoma Raceway now, which is one of the NASCAR road courses.

Here's this summers schedule.
http://www.sonomaraceway.com/events/complete-schedule/

[fumo30]

Maybe americans race ovals because of their traffic culture?
Big (less nimble) cars and long straight roads; Pedal to the metal and that's it.

I live in Finland and we have a lot of curly roads and guess what, there's many finnish rally champions.

I'm pretty sure there's some kinda connection.

[Onkel Neal]

That's very possible. Stock car racing started as"stock" cars, and our cars are big and made for long distance comfort. So it makes sense our racing would have originated from that basis.

[Jeff-Groves]

Maybe they race Ovals cause a true circle makes you dizzy after a few laps?
:O:

[Sailor Steve]

Much speculation, way complicated, overthinking the problem. Vienna came closest. It's a simple matter of tradition, going all the way back to the 1890s. The very first races were held in Europe, and they raced from one city to the next. In America cities were further apart, there were no major officiated races. When a couple of guys wanted to race they went to the local horse track. Simple as that.