The Budweiser Shootout: Kevin Harvick

One more week and it’s NASCAR weekends for the next nine months. Woo hoo!

The Budweiser Shootout gives us something exciting to watch while patiently waiting for the Daytona 500 to start off yet another year of making NASCAR memories.

This year, Carl Edwards pulled “pole” flag out of the Budweiser bottle. “Yay! Front row. Bring on the pack!”

Michael Waltrip spun a few times on the backstretch and Kurt Busch was taken out of the race before it was over (all because a spotter wasn’t doing his job). Mark Martin took the blame for it, but honestly, if a spotter had mentioned to Kurt that the gap he was trying to squeeze into was also available to any one of 3 other cars behind him, he might have thought twice about trying to squeeze in there. Kurt didn’t act like he wanted to rush to the front real bad by leaving that gap open for so long, but I guess a slow reaction time is what caused his race demise. (Mark - it wasn’t your fault. Do not take the blame for something you didn’t do. Someone else’s late reactions shouldn’t be what you’re worrying about.)

Despite getting over the flu, he took home the win. Yay for him and yay for Richard Childress Racing.

 

Quote of the Day

“Eight cylinders singing? It’s music to my ears. Nothing’s more beautiful than the sound of a perfectly tuned engine revving at 9,000 rpm’s. There’s no better sound in the world.”

America’s Favorite Sport or Just *MY* Favorite Sport?

Take a look at the chart I’ve put together at the bottom of this blog. Look closely at the amount of seats at each track. With seating that goes all the way around the track (Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee) or just a stretch between turn 4 and turn 1 (Auto Club Speedway in California), it’s still jammed packed with spectators and life long fans.

 

Throughout the year, I hear people compare the popularity of sporting evens more often than I hear people talk about what their favorite television show is. I do not claim to know the answer to which sport is more popular, but I will say that racing has more seating than any other sport.

 

Examples: Dallas Cowboys Stadium holds 80,000. The Rose Bowl holds 92,542. Lambeau Field holds 72,928. Madison Square Garden holds 19,763. The Staples Center holds 18,997. And my favorite….the largest hockey venue holds 21,273. That’s the LARGEST. I once heard someone say that hockey was the most popular sport. I laugh at that today, 18 years later.

 

The number of attending fans depends greatly on the number of seats, I know. Tell me. If Lambeau Field held 257,000+ fans like Indianapolis Motor Speedway does, would there really be 257,000+ fans attending? The stadium would have to be so big and wide, that the field would seem so small. Difficult to see from greater distances than 100 yards. Would more fans attend? I don’t tend to think they would, so I can say with confidence that I believe NASCAR (or racing in general) is a much more popular sport than any other. Several will disagree. That’s fine.  That’s what will be so fun about this blog.

 

Track	Length of Track	Permanent Seating
Atlanta Motor Speedway	1.54 miles	124,000
Auto Club Speedway	2 miles	91,000
Bristol Motor Speedway	.533 miles	158,000
Chicagoland Speedway	1.5 miles	75,000
Darlington Raceway	1.366 miles	61,000
Daytona International Speedway	2.5 miles	159,000
Dover International Speedway	1 mile	133,000
Homestead-Miami Speedway	1.5 miles	63,000
Indianapolis Motor Speedway	2.5 miles	257,325
Infineon Raceway	1.99 miles	47,000
Kansas Speedway	1.5 miles	80,000
Las Vegas Motor Speedway	1.5 miles	131,000
Lowe’s Motor Speedway	1.5 miles	156,000
Martinsville Speedway	.526 miles	61,000
Michigan International Speedway	2 miles	129,000
New Hampshire Motor Speedway	1.058 miles	96,000
Phoenix International Raceway	1 mile	76,812
Pocono Raceway	2.5 miles	70,000
Richmond International Raceway	.750 miles	109,000
Talladega Superspeedway	2.66 miles	143,000
Texas Motor Speedway	1.5 miles	138,122
Watkins Glen International	2.45 miles	35,000