What’s Wrong with NASCAR
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The world we live in is not as black and white as that flag, and the cars we drive are nothing like theirs. Why should the law we obey be so different? Here’s a rundown of just a few of the hundreds of problems with NASCAR: They burn way more than they should, and this is all at a time when fuel costs are at record highs with no sign of easing back down, and supplies show no immediate signs of increasing to match global demand. The fuel crisis is very real and this waste is only making things worse. Figure too the average NASCAR fan drives the biggest V8 they can find to get to the events (couldn’t be caught dead in an economical commuter!) and that factor just compounds the problem. These race cars employ little or no muffling, causing noise pollution that negatively impacts people and animals alike, causing serious, often permanent damage. The form of gas used in these cars is a leaded variety (one of the last remaining on the whole planet). Lead, even in small quantities, can cause serious developmental and neurological problems in humans, not to mention the less studied impact it surely has on animals and plants. Exhaust also contains carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane, unburnt fuel and many other harmful substances that directly cause greenhouse warming and environmental destruction. The occurrence of spilt oil and other toxic chemicals is almost constant in the pits. Even higher is the instance of fluids “properly disposed” that end up in landfills or rainwater runoff drains. Harsh oils and antifreeze destroy plant and animal life and can linger in soil for hundreds, if not thousands or even many millions of years. The macho display of horsepower common in all racing classes of “burning rubber” takes oxidized petroleum, converts it to a thick, smoky, airborne mass and scatters it unto the winds. Once the tire is worn even a little bit, it goes in the trash. If you know the smell of burning rubber it is only because you have been forced to breath in one of the most deadly smokes there is, and if you’ve ever seen a pile of tires left for useless (even if it wasn’t on fire) you know these things happen every day, even if only 40% of the tire’s mass has been spent. Where there’s smoke in corner three, there’s fire, and it’s a fire that burns fuel, oil, coolant, plastic, tires, fireproof jumpsuit, and carbon fiber parts, all of which make for a spewing plume of acrid poison into the sky. We breathe that, and so do all the other animals of this earth, none of which enjoy NASCAR. The most effective substance for brake pads is asbestos, due to its ability to resist bursting into flames under even the most demanding stops. When you stomp the brakes, though, your “stock” car kicks up asbestos dust, and that ends up in lungs of fans, passersby, emergency crews that don’t even like NASCAR, and people who just happen to live on the planet better known as earth. Asbestos causes rare cancers like mesothelioma, and NASCAR doesn’t cure it. 6.7 million fan-billies attend Nextel Cup events each year, and they drink beer. It doesn’t come in washable glass mugs, it comes in non-recyclable plastic cups and (unrecycled) recyclable plastic bottles, and aluminum cans THAT END UP IN THE TRASH! If you figure even only one six-pack per attendee, and many drink much more than that, it equals 40 billion pieces of garbage, and we haven’t even talked about the hotdog wrappers, condiment packets and hundred square miles of paper napkins. If each fan drinks only one case of beer per event, at one ounce of trash per beer, that’s still 160billion pieces of garbage, 10billion pounds of garbage, 5,000 tons of garbage per year, 13,698 tons per day, 570 tons per hour, or 9.51 tons of garbage created every second of every day, 365 days a year, and just because people go see NASCAR. The cost of even a single NASCAR event is a lot, but that cost doesn’t cover all the cars, crews and venues. The real brunt of the cost is passed on to taxpayers who subsidize the construction and maintenance of these grand tracks. The tax payers often get stuck with the cost of providing sufficient police presence to make it safe. Then you’ve got the corporations who pay top dollar to slather their logos across the hoods and panels of the cars when they could be putting that money to legitimate social causes, which they just can’t do so long as such luxurious advertising opportunities remain available. Tracks are built by clear-cutting vast tracks of virgin land, often wetlands that would normally be protected, while destroying countless bird nests, beaver dams, fox holes, sasquatch dens, briar patches and any hope of life any of these woodland creatures could have had. It would be like if Japanese tourists built a karaoke bar over your trailer park and didn’t give you any notice, and then poured lead in your water supply, and burnt rubber, and poured antifreeze into your aboveground swimming pool. Is this starting to sink in? There is NOT ONE SINGLE race track, not even any of the newer ones, that have been built to green standards with environmentally conscientious materials. Not only do these buildings produce greenhouse gases as they age, but the materials used wasted energy, may have funded tyrannical governments in Asia, Africa, South America and the Middle East, and didn’t give the first rip as to how they’d be decommissioned in the future. What world am I living in where this is somehow acceptable? Even though tracks cost tens of millions, sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars to build, they rarely get used more than a day or two out of any given week, and even then only during just a few months out of the year. Compare this with a city park which is environmentally friendly, carbon beneficial, and is used every single day of the year by citizens of all walks of life, not just “race car fans”. 9/11 didn’t have anything to do with America supporting Israel, unless you read those ten thousand articles in the Lexis-Nexis. The president said it was because those people hate freedom, and I believe him, because he’s my president. We also have a pretty deathly serious addiction to oil, which is also a factor, since God had the audacity to put all of our oil underneath their countries. Forget that. What is more American and oil-centric than watching an Earnhardt take the checkered flag? Perhaps maybe the runaway consumption of oil, the brash machismo of the American racecar styled ego, and the constant thanking of Jesus Christ. Maybe some of those are also some of the things that Muslims hate about us, or how we treat them, or how we act in their country, but it’s probably the freedom-hating thing. Still, those guys have our oil, and a trillion out the door, we know they ain’t giving it back, not even with a fight. These are not coincidences. It has been shown beyond any suspicion of reasonable doubt that the times before and after every NASCAR event, there is a disproportionately high number of alcohol related arrests, accidents and vehicle deaths. NASCAR sells a lot of beer and it’s no surprise that these same drivers were the ones doing all the drinking at the stadia. It’s already been statistically verified that a favorite driver winning a race leads to an increase in birth rates among unmarried couples. The same studies likewise prove that a favored racer losing leads to increased instances of domestic violence due to the combination of dangerously excessive alcohol consumption, Defeat Frustration Syndrome, and the ready availability of punchable women in near proximity to NASCAR events. Sanctioned NASCAR merchandise alone sold $2.1 billion in 2006, and that leaves out the cost of tickets, refreshments, transportation to and from events, and an estimated $4.6 billion worth of unauthorized, Chinese-made bootleg merchandise. Americans are deeper in debt than ever before and now maybe we know why. The $600 stimulus check can’t hold a match to the raperous pillagery of the likes of Official NASCAR merchandise shopping (which we can help you do on our site, if you like, due to our affiliate sponsor cooperation with them). Spending money like this may help stimulate the economy for a very brief period of time, but at a cost to the debt burden of Americans who could seriously use that money to fund community programs, hire a tutor for their children or switch to organic fruits, vegetables and soy based non-dairy substitutes. For every person attending NASCAR or buying NASCAR beer on credit, I’ll show you an American who would be better off staying home, staying out of debt, and not contributing to the total destruction of our precious, fragile earth. NASCAR fans apparently need something to believe in and to help take them away from the real problems that exist in their everyday world. Instead of going to church, performing volunteer work, looking for a job, attending an AA meeting or spending a quiet afternoon with the kids, these poor people choose to go watch the world die a little bit, all while breathing deep of the rich, petrol-soaked air that comes with it. Not only are the trophies given out at each cup made out of petroleum based plastics and non-renewable wood products, but the components are manufactured in China (terrible environment polluter and human rights violator, in case you’ve been living the last ten years under a fake rock you bought at Wal-Mart that was made in China. These goods are then shipped here (6,000 miles across the ocean and 2,000 miles over land, all the while burning off the very same oil you’d better prefer to see in your race car… don’t get real and neither of you will have it pretty soon.) This is only a small part of the equation, but it’s still a very real problem. 
Gasoline Waste
Noise Pollution
Lead/Heavy Metal Waste
CFCs Greenhouse Gases
Spilling of Hazardous Liquids
Burning Rubber
Burning of Plastic and Carbon Fiber in Crashes
Asbestos Brake Pads
Garbage Creation with No Recycling
Taxpayer and Corporate Money Drain
Destruction of Ecosphere, Habitat, Habisphere and Ecotat
Non-Green Construction
Tracks Are Rarely Used
NASCAR Basically Caused 9/11
NASCAR Related Drunk & Reckless Driving
Population Boom / Domestic Violence Boon
Economical Drain
Social Distraction at Best
Trophies are Plastic, Non-NAFTA made, and Imported from Red China