Will Nascar racing become the wave of the future that its devotees are planning? Justin Hynes reports.
Two weeks ago, in the last 50 laps of the opening race of the new Nascar season, all hell broke loose. Cars began spinning all over the track, leading to five multiple-car wrecks and leaving the Daytona International Speedway in thick palls of smoke. With debris littering the oval track the final laps were run through scenery more reminiscent of the finale of Mad Max than a controlled racing environment.
At the finish, drivers Kevin Harvick and Mark Martin raced side-by-side to the flag at 200mph through the chaos. Harvick took the win by the length of his car's bonnet while second-placed Clint Bowyer skidded his car across the line upside down - and in flames.
That, ladies and gents, boys and girls is Nascar, motor racing's circus maximus, its Barnum and Bailey extravaganza, the greatest horsepower-driven show on earth.
At least that's what's being sold in ever-increasing numbers to the American public. And, if the powers that be of the once Good Ole Boy, southern-fried, race series are to be believed, it's what will soon be sold to all of us here in Europe.
Forget the effete, elite nature of too-polite-for-overtaking F1 - Nascar is coming to town.
Soundtracked by ex-members of Van Halen, green-flagged by Hollywood stars and raced by an increasing number of high-profile and bankable boys who hail not only from places south of the Mason-Dixon line, but from all over the world, Nascar is shooting for the stars.
Daytona was the calling card. A world away from any race series we prissy Europeans are used to, Nascar pinned its seasonal colours to the sporting mast by avoiding the temptation to wave cautionary yellow flags at the close of the chaotic race, shrugged off any notion of protecting its drivers and went for the big Hollywood finish.
And it couldn't have come any closer, as former Nascar driver turned commentator Darrell Waltrip notes. "This finish," he says, recalling the 2006 Nascar-inspired comedy film Talladega Nights, "it's Ricky Bobby. It couldn't have been any better."
Brian France, chief executive of the series and the man behind the push to make Nascar a global phenomenon, is blasé about the failure to show cautionary full-course yellow flags as the race grew ever more chaotic: "Racing has always had them [ magical moments such as the Daytona finish]\. The trick now is to keep them coming on a bigger stage."
For Nascar, that bigger stage is world domination. For years a niche sport characterised by films such as Talladega Nights as resolutely redneck, Nascar was a national joke, a pursuit which exemplified the slack-jawed, more-tattoos-than-teeth cliché of the Deep South and which had its roots in backwoods moonshine-running of the 1920s. To be involved, as participant or fan, was to be outcast. If boxing was Raging Bull and baseball the Field of Dreams, Nascar was the Dukes of Hazzard - hotpants, barbeque ribs and rebel yell Dixie flags.
All that has changed. Since the turn of the century Nascar has been the fastest growing sport in the US. Indeed, the audience for the season opening Daytona race on Fox Sports was 17.53 million viewers and a Nielsen rating of 10.1. The NBA All-Star game on the same day on the TNT network pulled in a measly rating of 4.1, the lowest ever for the game.
All is not entirely rosy, however.
The Daytona figure was a drop on the previous year of almost 10 per cent in viewer numbers and many have been quick to sound the death knell of the sport's ambition, claiming it has abandoned its roots, embraced marketing over racing and, worst of all, allowed non-American manufacturers into the sport.
This year, for the first time, Toyota entered cars in the series and their arrival has been greeted by traditionalists with all the tolerance of an interracial marriage by the Klu Klux Klan.
On the Fans Against Racing Toyota website, which delights in the acronym of FART, under the tagline "We're Creating a Stink", fans have been debating the arrival of Toyota in vitriolic style:
"Some say we have no right to our opinion; well, to them I say when you look at the American flag remember, unlike Japan, here in the good old USA anyone can speak their mind. And it will be a cold day in hell when I give up that right." But if the hardcore is running scared of the new globalisation, Nascar itself is uncaring. There are wider vistas opening up, mostly thanks to the arrival of Toyota and also to one other man - former F1 star Juan Pablo Montoya.
The Colombian is the poster-boy of Nascar's campaign to win hearts and minds outside its heartland. Having spent the bulk of his career racing at the pinnacle of world open-wheel racing he now delights in rubbishing F1 as much as he does talking up Nascar as the wave of the future.
"The racing is what drew me to this, it's amazing," Montoya gushed recently.
"You are always racing someone. The more I get into it, the more excited I am."
His arrival is another step in the push outwards for Nascar. It has already established a series in Mexico and Canada and is aiming for its own race in Montreal and further down the road is about to launch a homologated car, "The Car of Tomorrow" which will race in the States this year with a view to launching a series based on the car worldwide.
For the moment, however, Toyota, Montoya and finishes such as Daytona's, remain the chief weapons in the series' arsenal. And as the series heads to what should be its spiritual home - Las Vegas - it is those elements that will keep the appeal high.
"The thing that interests me about Montoya is more than him simply being Hispanic," says veteran Nascar race driver Jeff Burton, "it's that I think we have a great opportunity for F1 fans to understand that this [ Nascar] is really hard, and that we're not just a bunch of dumb, unintelligent rednecks."
With racing that tops Formula 1 for fan involvement and via the sort of fire-engulfed chaos that defined Daytona, who is going to argue with that?
Nascar Factfile
HOW MANY RACES? 36 this season in the premium Nextel Cup series - there's a NASCAR race on nearly every weekend somewhere.
POWERFUL CARS? 5.8-litre, naturally aspirated V8, pumping out about 800bhp.
HOW FAST? 190-200mph at full tilt on a good day.
STARS DRIVERS?
Dale Earnhardt Jr is the series' most popular racer. Drives the number 8 Chevrolet for his family's team Dale Earnhardt Inc.
Juan Pablo Montoya - The F1 runaway, is proving a huge draw. After stagnating in F1 he's gone back to his US racing roots and teamed up with the Chip Ganassi Racing team.
Jeff Burton - Ranked number two, Burton races for Richard Childress Racing.