June 20, 2025 • 39 mins
Sure, we've watched Pixar's Cars a few times. But that doesn't mean we know anything about racing. Will and Mango dive into the strangely boozy origins of NASCAR, why you might need a yacht to enjoy Formula One, and how driver Dick Trickle made sure every race got off to a smoking start. Spoiler: it involved drilling a couple holes in his helmet.
This episode originally aired on March 19, 2018.
Photo by Paolo Feser via Unsplash. Thanks, Paolo!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what, Well, what's that? Mango?
Speaker 2 (00:01):
So I'm not really into car racing, you know this?
I mean I have watched Talladega Nights. I'm also familiar
with Pixar's Cars movie and Cars two. So actually not
how I say that. Basically, I'm an expert, but.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
I think you are an expert. That's fair to say.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
But as we were looking into the strange origins of
NASCAR and F one this week, I actually stumbled into
this story about TLC's Nascar Wives reality show.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Have you heard about this? I haven't. Was this like
Jersey Shore or Real Housewives or what? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I mean that was kind of the idea. But they
wanted to play on stereotypes and have all the usual
drama you have baked into these things, and the hope
was that would appeal to all the NASCAR fans out there.
But they actually had to cancel the show because the
wives gone along too well.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Isn't that great? That actually kind of makes me like
NASCAR even more.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I know, but today's show is really for outsiders like us,
Like what makes NASCAR and F one racing so appealing?
And why do people bring their yachts to one type
of car race? While family's caravan to the other. And
that's what today's show is all about. So let's dive in.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend Mangesh hot Ticketter and on the other side of
the soundproof glass, he's the only guy who wears driving
gloves while seated at a soundboard. Now that's our friend
and producer Tristan McNeil.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
I mean, in all fairness to Tristan, his chair does
have wheels on it.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
That's a good point. I didn't think about that well
either way. It's nice when he gets into the spirit
of the day's topic. And you know, as you might
have guessed, for this episode, we're headed off to the
races and we're going to take a look at two
of the world's most popular motor sports. Now we're talking
NASCAR and Formula One. But even though those sports may
seem similar on the surface, each one has its own
very distinct style, history and fan base. So today we're
(02:02):
going to break down the differences. And I really tried
to get a sense of how these vastly different racing
institutions have managed to share the road for I guess
it's about seven decades now.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
So you know, a few years back, I was chatting
with our friend Dan Riley, who's written some amazing stories
on F one for GQ, and one of the things
he told me was that when this F one champ
came to the US, he was actually taking selfies of
himself in Penn Station in New York City and no
one recognized him. He's like this insane superstar. And apparently
the TV audience for the races there is like five
(02:33):
hundred million viewers, which is like five Super Bowls. I mean,
it's incredible. But in the US he's totally anonymous. Actually,
the other thing he told me was that Dan actually
got to sit in the passenger seat as the driver
drove on an F one test course in Jersey City,
but he was driving a mini van, and he said
he was terrified, Like the driver knew exactly how to
(02:54):
handle all the curves and corners and straightaways, but he
was in total control. But still, minivans shouldn't go that fast.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Oh, that is terrifying. I can't say that I've ever
driven my minivan as fast as he was probably driving.
But you're right, I mean, they have such different audiences.
I actually remember going to Austin one year. I think
we were presenting it south By Southwest that year, and
I was talking to the clerk at the rental car
place and just made a comment just in passing that
south By has to be one of the worst times
of year for you, right, And he actually said, it's
(03:25):
nothing compared to when they have the F one races,
because you know, not only is there this insane crowd there,
but all these rich people just come in and buy
up all the houses so they have a place to party.
I was like, so what do they do with them
after that? And he said they actually just sell them
a couple months later. Like the audience is just that rich.
It's kind of insane. But that's what makes the comparison
(03:46):
between the two sports so interesting. And I didn't realize
before this episode that NASCAR and F one they actually
pretty much came up together mid century. And you know,
NASCAR was officially incorporated in the US in nineteen forty eight,
and then Formula one was just a couple of years
later than that in Europe.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
That's crazy, Like I never would have imagined that NASCAR
was older than Formula One. But yeah, it is interesting
to think about those like early post war years and
how I guess like the whole world was just itching
to get back to friendlier competitions, and I'm sure they
were also curious to see what some of the new
technology could do when it was put to more fun uses.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Well, you know, there's a lot of obvious stuff that's
similar between the two. But I do think we should
probably talk about, you know, what sets NASCAR and F
one apart from each other before we get too deep
into their history. So for starters, we definitely need to
take a look at the cars themselves, since that's ultimately
where the biggest differences lie. So, you know, right off
the bat, it's easy to tell an F one car
(04:42):
from a NASCAR just by the shape of the car.
You've got these nascars that look a little bit more
like the kind of car you see on the road
every day, you know, the boxy, more enclosed kind of
sedan type vehicle. And you know, I actually think your
car may even have the Giant Tide logo on the front.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
I mean, how great would it be if like Giant
Cup and these starts sponsoring people's daily commutes like if
teachers didn't have to pay for the gas to go
to work because it was all covered by folgers or something,
it'd be.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Great, nice idea.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
In fact, to the car design. You know, I love
boxy cars as a former Volvo station Wagon driver, but
F one racers are the ones that look completely different
than what you or I would drive, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
I mean there may be what most people would think
of when you're trying to picture a race car, and
they have that kind of that narrow, open cockpit design
and the wheels that stick out to the sides and
the big spoiler on the back, and overall they tend
to just look more sleek than their NASCAR counterparts. And
that sleek design is actually crucial because in F one racing,
the aerodynamics that's really of equal importance to the power
(05:41):
of the engine. So everything about the car is designed
to minimize the drag and maximize the speed. And this
also means that Formula one cars tend to be much lighter.
So looking at it's about fifteen hundred pounds on average
for an F one car, and that's compared to over
three thousand pounds for a typical NASCAR so it's twice
as heavy when you're talking about a NASCAR.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
That's funny, And I've actually read that like F one
drivers tend to be lighter, like they're like five eight
in size and on the lighter side. But like looking
at that weight comparison, like my expectation would be the
F one cars would be faster than.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
NASCAR cars, right, well not really. I mean the lighter
weight and sleeker design of the F one racers means,
you know, they can actually achieve these high speeds with
less powerful engines, but they do tend to be a
little bit faster than nascars, and both kinds of vehicles
top out in the range or around two hundred miles
an hour. But you can actually push an F one
to two hundred and five or even as high as
(06:34):
two hundred and fifteen miles an hour without as much trouble.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Well, that's crazy, and that is terrifying to me, like
those sorts of speeds. But you know what's funny is
like I was thinking about the cars cars to actually
a Pixar, and I just assumed that they made the
F one cars in the NASCAR cars about the same
speed because it would appeal to American audiences. I didn't
realize that it would be like factually accurate that they're
the same.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
But cars too is very factually accurate them credit well,
Vixar is.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Great at that, Like even up like that movie, they
actually used the number of balloons that would lift that
house like they oh circulated with engineers.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
But that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
But I do think there's something that's like exponentially more
dangerous about driving than anything else we do in our day.
And I can't imagine like driving at two hundred or
two hundred five miles per hour. It just seems insane.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Yeah, and you know, an F one racing in particular,
it was actually a pretty deadly sport when it first started.
In fact, just looking at the numbers, there were thirteen
drivers that were killed in the first decade of Formula
one races alone. But thankfully, you know, these safety standards
have been greatly improved over the years. And actually no
one has died behind the wheel of an F one
car since nineteen ninety four, so we're talking decades now
(07:45):
since there's been a fatality.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
That's pretty impressive. I wouldn't have imagined that. And of course,
if we're going to talk about the danger aspect of
high speed motorsports, we should also talk about something that
goes hand in hand with it, which is the spectacle
it provides, right, because, like you said at the top
of the show, so these are two of the biggest
motorsports in the world, both in terms of revenue and
in fan bases.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
All right, So I looked at this on the Formula
one side, and it really is an international sport in
terms of its audience. So you've got twenty or so
annual races that make up the Grand Prix series and
those actually take place in nineteen different countries, which is
pretty remarkable, and you got up to three hundred thousand
people gathering for a single event. Now, in terms of
overall viewership, you know, it's what you mentioned earlier. You've
(08:28):
got nearly half a billion people that watch at least
fifteen minutes of F one racing at some point during
any given season, and that's according to BBC's top Gear.
But you know, when you add up all the revenue
from ticket sales and advertising, that F one industry makes
roughly about one and a half billion dollars a year.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Which isn't too shabby. And okay, so F one racing
definitely has global appeal on its side, but here in
the US, there's no question that NASCAR reigns supreme. In fact,
about seventy five million American adults consider themselves NASCAR fans,
which is one in every three people. And wow, of
that huge pool of fans, about three point five million
(09:05):
cran the cells into speedways around the country every year. Meanwhile,
NASCAR races are also broadcast to one hundred and fifty countries,
which helps drum up about three billion dollars in sponsorship money.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Well, I'm curious, like, did you get a sense for
who these fans are? I mean, and NASCAR fans tend
to be stereotyped pretty hard. I mean, you know, as
people from the rural South or Middle America who are
white and lower income. But I'm kind of hoping there's
a little more nuance there than most people might guess.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah, it's kind of interesting, and we'll talk about the
statistics in a second. But I know we've both driven
to the brickyard because we ended up on work trips
in Indianapolis. But you know, you're so close to Talladega
and Birmingham. Have you ever actually gone to a.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Race I've never actually been to a race, and I've
driven past Talladega so many times. It's right in between
the two cities that I spend a lot of time
in between, you know, Birmingham where I'm from, in Atlanta,
where our offices are, and every time I go by,
they have these massive flags that are flying nearby, and
it's just such an interesting place and have always wanted
to go to a race. But there is one thing
(10:06):
that I observe every single time I go by there,
and I'm really curious to look this up, but I
think they might be in the running for the largest
gathering of porta pottis in the world. I mean, it
is unbelievable. If you drive by there on a race week,
I swear it seems like there are just thousands of
these things out there. So I kind of want to
(10:26):
look into this at some point, just to see if
they might have that claim to fame.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
I like that NASCAR, you know, followers are just like
you and me. They also use the bathroom they too.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
You know, we're all alike, Mango. There's so much that
makes us in common.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
So I didn't find any statistics about that toilet situation.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
You're talking about.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
But I did find some statistics on NASCAR fans in
an Atlantic article, And while some of the stereotypes we
commonly associate with NASCAR are born out by the numbers,
some definitely aren't. So for instance, two political pulling groups
found that nineteen percent of all American voters identified themselves
NASCAR fans, and sixty percent of those fans live outside
(11:03):
the southeast US.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
I definitely wouldn't have predicted that. So, like, nineteen percent
of all American voters are NASCAR fans. That is unbelievable.
All right, so it's maybe more geographically diverse than we
might have thought. But what about other stuff like income
and gender and ethnicity, Like, are NASCAR fans more diverse
than those areas too?
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Well? Yes and no. So the stereotype about most NASCAR
fans being white is certainly true, and in fact, according
to Nielsen's data, NASCAR's audience actually has the highest share
of white people among all broadcast sports. It's a whopping
ninety four percent.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Like I couldn't believe. Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
But that said, NASCAR also boasts the highest share of
female viewers. Thirty seven percent of its audience is made
up of women and even in terms of finance, like
there's a greater degree of variety than we've been told. So,
for example, of the voters who self identify as NASCAR fans,
forty two percent earned between forty thousand and one hundred
thousand a year, which means like a good chunk of
(12:00):
NASCAR fans are wealthier than the average American.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
And to be frank like f.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
One drivers have actually talked about it. They claim they're
envious of some of the NASCAR audience because it's more
of a sport that families can watch together and instead
of something that feels like a little colder and just
about status. And even the drivers like they're more approachable.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
M well, all right, So so public opinion maybe a
little off base about NASCAR fans and in some ways,
and I guess pretty accurate in others. And I do
like that the sports styles itself is something made by
and for ordinary people. I mean, you think about it,
they're no Lamborghinis or Ferraris in the sport and said,
you're gonna find these cars by like Ford and General Motors,
And of course they've been modified after the fact so
(12:40):
they can hold their own on these races. But there's
still somewhat of a level of familiarity there, and I
guess it does make the sport feel more approachable.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
No kidding. You know, I've never been to either a
NASCAR or F one race, and I'd actually love to
go to both. But my friend Jeremy once told me
that you'd actually see Amish families come to Dover Downs
to watch races, and I think that's kind of amazing, right,
like something I never would have guessed. But I also
don't think you'd find the homage going to F one races,
right right. I knew you were talking about the wealth
(13:09):
that would fly into Austin, but I read this one
article that said the yachts people bring to Monaco or
Belgium or wherever are one hundred and fifty million dollar boats,
which is insanity, and you wonder, like why they're dropping
so much on a boat, and the author's answer was, well,
you need something to take to your private islands.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah. I mean it makes a good point. You got
you got to get there somehow.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
I know. But like that audience feels like such a
barrier of entry to me. I mean, like formula one
just feels as elitist as it.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Gets Yeah, I mean that that sounds pretty accurate. And
I've heard the sports compared, like you know, like hot
dogs versus or dervs or sometimes you know beer versus
champagne when you're thinking about the difference between the two.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
So obviously I get the connection between beer and Nascar,
but like champagne actually has a connection with Formula one, right, oh, definitely.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
I mean, you know, the idea of popping champagne bottles
has long been asssociated with huge wins or winning championships
in sports, and actually that active celebration got it start
from F one racing. So this goes back to nineteen fifty.
This is when the first French Grand Prix was held
in the country's Champagne region, and naturally, because of where
it was held, the winner of that year's race was
(14:16):
presented with this bottle of the region's trademark beverage. And
actually that's a custom that's still around today.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
I mean, that's a little like how Federer won a
milking cow for winning a tennis tournament in Switzerland.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
I think, did that really happen? Yeah, you didn't know
what to do with it. I can imagine like you're
gonna pack it and take it on the plane or what.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
But so so the winner just emptied the bottle into
the crowds or something like that. Seems like something that
would have really ticked off the audience.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Well not really. I mean, the first time an F
one racer sprayed the crowd with the champagne happened. It
was really more like a decade later. I think it
was in the sixties, and the locals were okay with
it because you know, this was actually a mistake. And
so Nick Carvel had this great article on it in GQ,
and he described the event this way, says, upon winning
the twenty four Hours of Laman in nineteen sixty six,
(15:03):
Joe Sipherd accidentally sprayed the crowd as the bottle of
champagne had been sitting out in the sun, causing pressure
to build up inside the magnum. The next year, Californian
racer Dan Gurney deliberately copied Stiffer's gesture when he won
the same race, and a tradition was born, which is.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Awesome, but like a magnum, like that's two wine bottles, right.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yeah, well, actually it's even more nowadays. So currently F
one winners receive a full Jeroboama champagne for the big win.
So wait, what's a jeroboe. Well, it's actually the equivalent
of four standard wine bottles, So all the better to
soak the crowd with, I guess. But if for anyone
who wants to re enact their favorite F one victories,
the official champagne of the league is the gh Mom
(15:43):
cordon Rouge, so you can score your own Jeroboama of
it for about, yeah, like four hundred bucks.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Okay, so I can definitely see why the NFL just
sticks with buckets of Gatorade. But you know, Formula one
isn't the only motorsport with boozy roots, and in fact,
it is actually a strong case for thinking of NASA
car as an unintended product of the prohibition era.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
You know, I've read something about this before, but I
didn't really get the full story. So do you mind
just kind of walking us through this?
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Definitely, But first let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
You're listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about
the ins and outs of NASCAR, So mango drinking and
driving definitely don't go well together. But you were actually
saying there's a connection between the two that somehow gave
rise to NASCAR.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yeah, so, decades before NASCAR came along, Apple Ashian bootleggers
began running homemade whiskey up and down the East Coast
during Prohibition. And many of these guys were family farmers
who'd fallen on hard times and turned to moonshine as
a way to keep their heads above water. And of course,
desperate or not, what they were doing was very, very illegal,
so it helped to have a car that could make
(16:56):
some serious tracks whenever they cross paths with Federal Asians.
And so the biggest godsend for these bootleggers actually came
from Henry Ford in nineteen thirty two, and that's because
that's the year he debuted the V eight engine.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
This is kind of a weird connection though, because it
wasn't Ford a teetotaler. I mean, I actually think I'd
read that he made all his employees take a temperance
pledge just to work in his factories.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Right, Yeah, so he wouldn't have been too pleased to
learn that his flagship engine was basically driving the bootleging business.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
But yeah, the V eight was perfect for it.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Like it was fast enough to evade the law and
tough enough to withstand the strain of all those mountain roads.
And of course bootleggers didn't stop there for added security.
They actually started souping up their cars with all these
features straight out of like a speed racer cartoon.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
What I mean, like, I'm imagining the ability to like
press a button and spray oil all over the road
or stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Yeah, so I know you're joking, but I mean oil, slicks,
smoke screens, you name it. Like they even rigged up
that classic gag where like a bucket of tax is
spilled out onto the road. Now way straight out of
Super Mario cars. Seriously, except like they were high tailing
away from the cops. And also, this is a little aside,
but I remember this from mental Floss that when like
bootleggers would be on the run and have to flee
(18:09):
their cars, they actually had these shoes made that had
hoofprints on them, So basically they'd leave these deer tracks
in the mud instead of shoe prints. Isn't that like
super crafty?
Speaker 1 (18:18):
It is crafty, But I think we've got a little
off track here, Like, so what does this have to
do with NASCAR?
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Well, before prohibsion even ended, some of the bootleggers had
started having these informal races, you know.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Just for kicks. That does make sense. I mean, you've
got all these tricked out cars, it does seem like
it'd be pretty tempting to have some fun with them, exactly.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
And then in the nineteen thirties, like bootleggers started taking
their moonshine mobiles to local race tracks and even county fairgrounds,
and that's where they really started to build an audience
and eventually like tens of thousands of people would show
up to some of these races.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
All right, so this is kind of like the birth
of stock car racing in America. But the actual formalized
NASCAR league does it also have its ties with bootleggers.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
It does, so, so racing had become an organized sport
by the nineteen forties, and most of the people involved
in it had connections to bootlegging in one form and another.
There's actually a great book about this called Real Nascar,
and it talks about just how much of the sport
owes to moonshiner's. So the author rights quote what most
chroniclers of stock car racing and NASCAR have failed to
(19:19):
note is that a large percentage of the early mechanics,
car owners, promoters, and track owners had deep ties to
the illegal alcohol business. It would not be an exaggeration
to say that the sport was built on the proceeds
of the manufacturer transport and sales of hundreds of thousands,
if not millions, of cases of liquor, right, I mean,
that's amazing. So even if they weren't bootleggers themselves, like
(19:42):
the mechanics definitely knew they were working on bootleggers cars,
and similarly, all these track owners they were taking cuts
from illegal sales in exchange for use of their track.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
That connection definitely goes much deeper than I would have expected.
So what about the drivers though, Like, did any bootleggers
go on to become NASCAR drivers? Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (19:59):
And one of the most famous is Junior Johnson, who
came from a long line of North Carolina bootleggers and
went on to become a NASCAR Hall of Famer and
team owner. There's actually a great old story about him
in Esquire, and he and plenty of other former Moonshiners
were recruited as drivers in the late forties by a
fellow stock car driver, this guy named Bill Franz Senior,
and France actually became an important figure in all this.
(20:21):
He started promoting his drivers at different races in the
Daytona Beach area, but he was soon annoyed by how
much the racing rules varied from one event to another.
So in December of nineteen forty seven, France actually called
a meeting of all the top stock car drivers and
he got the mechanics and owners to come in as well,
and they all discussed how to standardize the rules, and
by the end of the meeting they agreed to form
(20:42):
the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, which is NASCAR.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
So that's what it stands for. Okay, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
And and Bill Franz Senior became the first president of
NASCAR once the league was officially incorporated, this is in
February nineteen forty eight. Under his leadership, the sport began
to distance itself from its boot like roots, and they
started going after corporate sponsorships and you know, building a
wider audience. And by the time his son, Bill Franz
Junior took over the presidency in nineteen seventy two, NASCAR
(21:10):
had become this incredibly popular regional sport in the South.
But it was Bill Junior who really made the sport huge.
He had this three decade run as president, and that's
when the sport transformed into a multi billion dollar global industry.
That's what you know of it today.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
And I'm guessing like sponsorship probably played the biggest role
in this transition. Huh.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Yeah. So the turning point of that actually came in
nineteen seventy and that's when Junior Johnson approached the RJ.
Reynolds Tobacco Company. So Johnson had retired as a driver
by at this point, but he stayed in the league
as an owner, and he hoped that the cigarette company
might want to sponsor his car in the upcoming season.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
So, I mean, why would this be an unprecedented move?
Was it just that it was a tobacco company or what.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
So I looked into this because I was confused about
it too. But the thing is, like President Nixon had
actually signed a bill in April nineteen seventy they had
banned all cigarette advertising on TV beginning of the following year,
so Johnson knew the company would be looking for new
ways to spend its advertising budget the next year. And
of course Johnson liked to live dangerously, you know, like
cigarette advertising didn't bother him at all.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
But RJ.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Reynolds was a long shot. Like until that point, most
of NASCAR's sponsorships were limited to local or regional businesses,
and a company as big as RJ. Reynolds would that'd
be like a huge win for the sport. But instead
of just sponsoring like one car, Reynolds decided to turn
down that offer and they put their money behind one
hundred thousand dollars championship series called the Winston Cup. It
(22:35):
was this super smart marketing move for them, and until
two thousand and three it remained the top series in
NASCAR until it took on a new sponsor. It became
the next Tel Cup, and then like it changed hands
to the Sprint Cup. And I think it's now like
the Monster Energy Cup.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
The Monster Energy Cup. All right, Well, you know, if
boos and cigarettes acted as NASCAR's backbone for the first
what three or four decades of its existence, like, how
do we eventually get from this to Tide and Monster
Energy drinks?
Speaker 2 (23:03):
So that change actually happened in the mid eighties, and
this is when Procter and Gamble decided to sponsor a
few cars with brands like UH, Crisco and Folgers. And
this is when Tide comes into the mix as well.
And once other companies had heard how the logo branded
cars had boosted P andng's sales, they all decided to
throw their hats in the ring as well. So, you know,
you fast forward thirty years and everything from like Cheerios
(23:25):
to Spam to even the cartoon Network is out a car.
It's amazing, and they've paid pretty handsomely for that honor.
Like I think a primary sponsorship, which is when the
logo is on the hood of a car and it's
also on the racing team's uniforms, that runs between ten
and twenty five million dollars.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Oh wow, I mean, And so is it worth it
for these companies to spend that much money?
Speaker 2 (23:47):
You know, you always ask these things, and I looked
into it. But the market research bears out like NASCAR
fans are apparently three times more likely as non fans
to buy products from companies that sponsored their sport of choice.
Part of the reason is that they're so attached to
the drivers that they're also attrached to the driver sponsors.
But another big part is just how much exposure these
(24:08):
brands get. So like the Las Vegas Review Journal reported
that the average screen time for a car's primary sponsor
during a race is about twelve and a half minutes. Like,
imagine how many millions of dollars it would cost to
eric commercial that long. And that exposure only goes up
if a sponsor's driver wins or sadly Rex's car like
In fact, a pr man for the Richard Childress Racing
(24:29):
team once told a reporter quote, if you crash, crash fabulously,
and make sure your logo is not wrinkled up.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
So class. All right, well speaking which we should probably
take some time now to talk about the history of
NASCAR is more posh counterpart, But before we do that,
let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Welcome back to parton genius. All right, will, So, what's
the story behind Formula One? Like? Was it started by
smugglers or maybe some jewel thieves?
Speaker 1 (25:08):
You know, that might be a nice story, but there's
actually no criminal component for this one. And instead what
we get with Formula One is a professional racing league
that really gradually grew from those pioneering car races in France,
that these were taking place back before nineteen hundred. I mean,
think about that, these were the earliest days of motor racing.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
So explain this to me, Like, if racing was that
popular from the start over there, why did it takes
so long for F one to be formalized.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Well, it's actually because the beginning of World War two.
You know, you had European racing that had continued growing
in popularity through the early decades of the twentieth century,
and this was right up until the Germans began to
dominate in the nineteen thirties. So although there were plans
for an official Formula one championship, and they'd already been
discussed by this point, they had to be set aside
until after the war.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
So once again there's a pesky world war that spoils
our fun.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Spoils all the fun. But you know, by nineteen forty six,
the term Formula one was formally defined and these plans
were put in motion for the Sports owned Drivers Championship. Now,
it did take a few years to figure out all
the details, but it was in nineteen fifty that's when
the very first F one World Championship was finally held
and this was at the Silverstone Circuit in England.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Okay, so don't laugh, but you just mentioned that Formula
one was officially defined at one point, and it occurs
to me that I have no idea what the term
really means, Like, does it refer to a certain kind
of fuel the cars use or maybe a certain kind
of motor oil?
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Oh, good guesses, but actually not accurate on that. And
I can't laugh at you because I didn't know this
either until I looked it up. But you know, the
formula and Formula one racing actually refers to the rules
that govern the car's design. So you go back to
the beginning on this. That formula was taken from the
pre war regulations that really pertained the engine's capacity, and
it was first known as Formula A. Now, over the years,
(26:51):
the formula's been tweaked a good bit and now it
counts for both like new technology and environmental concerns, but
it's still based on the car's engine. So, for example,
the current formula is built around this hybrid power unit
that actually includes the turbocharge V six engine, but it's
electrically assisted by this power generated from kinetic energy as well.
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
And do most F one teams build and modify their
own engines like NASCAR teams. Also, this isn't aside, but
I think it's funny that F one is so fancy,
like partially because I remember that in that documentary about
Senna the driver, which is honestly so good, the way
he came up in F one was by raising go
karts like go cars feel so everyk in the world.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
I know, I love that. It definitely feels that way.
But you know what's funny is that unlike NASCAR, there
there really isn't much room for improvisation in F one,
and I kind of wonder if the improv part is
is maybe that American influence on the sport. But instead
you've got these eleven official F one teams and they
all get their power trains from one of four engine manufacturers.
(27:50):
So you've got Ferrari, Honda, Mercedes, Benz, and Renault. And
even if an F one team doesn't build their own engine,
they're still responsible for much of the does of the car.
And honestly, I mean that's the part that seems to
count for the most and Formula one. Yeah, so one thing.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
I've always heard about f one is the huge emphasis
that plays on like top of the line tech and
this efficient design. Like some people swear that the whole
thing is just this elaborate pet project of technicians and
engineers masquerading as a sport. It's almost like the racing
is secondary to these design teams getting to experiment and
mess around.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Well, I mean, I think for some there's probably a
lot of truth to that. You know, many longtime fans
really think the focus on the car itself has long
since eclipse the actual drivers. And huh, this is something
that first started happening back as early as the seventies,
and these cars had steadily grown faster and more sleek
since those very early days of the sport and all
the r and D for this constant quest to reduce
(28:47):
drag and increase cornering speeds. It was starting to get
super expensive, you know, so much so that by the
seventies there were really no private entries in this sport
because it was just so expensive.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
I mean, that's almost a shame. Yeah, I'm curious though,
like how much do these cars actually cost?
Speaker 1 (29:03):
So it varies, of course, but a good rule of
thumb is to take a team's entire racing budget for
a year and then cut that in half. So for
the top teams, we're talking about spending upwards of two
hundred and fifty million dollars on the sport each year. Yeah,
so that's about one hundred and twenty five million of
that that goes toward the car for that season. And
even the bottom teams are dropping huge dollars on this,
(29:25):
anywhere from like twenty to fifty million dollars on average.
I mean, that's insanity to me. So why are these expensive?
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Like are the materials just that pricey?
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Well, it's not so much the individual parts that cost
so much. It's actually, you know, the entire labor force
needed to design and develop and build, and then even
beyond that, just to constantly modify the product, and this
massive amount of cash needed to keep pace with the
wealthier teams. It's actually really starting to affect the outcomes
of the races. I mean, if you look at the
highest ranking teams in the league, they also happen to
(29:57):
be the ones with the most money. And then on
the other end of the spectrum, the last place finishers
are typically the poorest teams. And there's no coincidence to that.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
So I remember hearing that the cash prizes in Formula
one are among the highest in all of organized sports.
So couldn't it just be that the winning teams are
the richest because they're the ones that just keep getting
all the prize money.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Well, you know, if all the teams were starting on
even footing, that might be the case. But in reality,
I mean, they're different deals for different teams, and some
of the longest running ones get tens of millions of
dollars just for showing up to the race. It doesn't
even matter if they win, huh.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
You know.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
And if you go back from like nineteen eighty one
all the way up to say twenty thirteen, all the
teams competed under the same financial deal. But then once
you started to see happening like these car manufacturers and
long running legacy teams, they started angling for these special
privileges and unique deals. And so the league finally cave
to this pressure because it was actually afraid these big
(30:53):
names would just walk away from the sport. So there
was this really interesting article in the New York Times,
and it was pretty insightful on the way that it
looked at this. This was back in twenty sixteen, and
there's one part that sums up the problem pretty nicely,
and I'll just read this to you. It says today,
even among the top teams, financial success does not correspond
directly with success on the track. Mercedes does not receive
(31:16):
as much money as Ferrari, the Italian team that's been
around since Formula One start in nineteen fifty and that
received seventy million dollars a year because of that legacy.
Ferrari's special payment just for taking part is more than
the total earnings of the bottom five teams and last year.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Oh man, I mean, that's a little discouraging, And I
do wonder if the average F one fan knows about
these dealings, right like, it seems like the kind of
thing that could really turn people off the sport.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Well definitely, And it all goes back to that sense
that the cars are the true stars in F one,
not really the drivers. And it's kind of a tough
pill to swallow for a lot of sports fans because
there's so much of their enjoyment that comes from reveling
in human ability. So it is kind of tough when
they're treated as almost interchangeable in the car itself is
really the only constant, So I guess that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
And I'd say that's only partially true, right, Like there
are obvious stars of the sport, and you read about
the seven minute pit stops where humans are making all
these like microscopic changes to tire pressure and alignment to
like corner a specific turn better. But I do get
your point, right, Like nobody watches tennis to see their
favorite racket in action.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
I don't know, there's nothing more beautiful than a really
elegant racket anyway.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
You know what's funny, as Andy Roddick actually used to
play with an old babbel At racket, but the company
used to paint it to look like a new model.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Which is oh really, it's so crazy playing with an
old racket. That's pretty weird.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Yeah, because you just got accustomed to it, all.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Right, Well, back to what we were talking about here,
so that there is something I hope that the F
one League does take note of. And this is for
the fans sake, because there's really a lot of skill
that goes into being a professional racer, and I don't
think most of us recognize that half as much as
we should.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Really, Yeah, I found an Atlantic article that was kind
of written in defense of motorsports, and there was one.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Quote that really stuck with me.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
It was about stock car racing, but I really think
it applies to all forms of motorsport, so I'm gonna
pull it up. It goes quote, The athletes who drive
these cars, and yes they are athletes, even though they
are sitting down, must possess steel nerves, quick reflexes, highly
developed small motor skills, and the mental acuity to develop
elaborate plans for dominating a track crowded with cars that
(33:27):
could kill them. And true fans understand the complexity of
the sport and can discuss in great detail the combination
of skills crucial for success.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Well, that kind of feels like the perfect place to
leave our discussion. But I do have a few more
racing facts dying to share these, So what do you say?
We had to the factop.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
So, I know people love to debate whether things like
NASCAR are actually sports, but I don't think there's any
debating that you have to be in good shape to
withstand some of what your body's experienced. So I was
looking into some of the numbers, and first of all,
the temperature in the car, and a NASCAR race is
often over one hundred degrees and on turns, the drivers
are feeling up to three g's of force on them.
That means three times the force of gravity. And also
(34:14):
drivers are losing up to ten pounds in sweat over
the course of a race.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Ten pounds in sweat, Yeah, that's crazy. I was actually
looking in Ato some of this too, And it's not only
these things, but like a driver's heart rate typically stays
between like one hundred and twenty and one hundred and
fifty beats per minute throughout the race. Now we're talking
three hours from all these races, and so that's actually
about the same as a serious marathon runner over that
period of time. And I realized this is about f one.
(34:40):
But some of the drivers can actually go two minutes
without blinking, that's how intense their concentration is.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
That's amazing. So here's a funny one. I saw a
fact that drivers in the major NASCAR races all have
to pass physicals and a drug test, and I guess
there's some sort of vetting process, but one thing they're
not required to show is a driver's license. So technically
you can have someone like tearing off the tracks and
nearly like two hundred miles per hour, who actually wouldn't
be able to drive to the grocery store after the race.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
I love the idea that that could possibly happen. Well,
so I've often wondered about the beating that the car
parts take during the races and how long these parts last.
Did you know the F one car engines actually only
last a couple of hours before they just blow entirely, Like,
that's a little bit shorter than the fifteen to twenty
years most of us expect that of our own car engines.
And also, not surprisingly, the tires only last about sixty
(35:30):
or so miles in each race. That's incredible.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Did you know there are actually no air bags in Formula
one cars?
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Wait? What is this just like to add an extra
element of danger or what?
Speaker 2 (35:39):
No, it just turns out that there's so many other
safety mechanisms that are more effective at keeping the driver safe. So,
I mean, it would be nearly impossible for a driver
to be ejected from the car because of how well
they're strapped in, like the crazy protective helmets and the
five point harnesses which keep the drivers from slamming into
the front of the car, which is really the main
point of an airbag. And all this on top of
(36:00):
the fact that the drivers inside is survival cell that's
designed to protect them in the vent of a crash.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
All right, well, here's another one I found. So there
are small planes that take off at slower speeds than
you'd find an F one car traveling during a race.
The aerodynamic science involved in creating that downward force, you know,
to keep them on the track. It's actually pretty amazing.
And by the way, F one cars can go from
zero to one hundred miles per hour back to zero
in about four seconds. WI is it? That's ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Yeah, So, as I heads up, one thing you do
not want to take with you to a race if
you get a chance to sit on the infield is
shelled peanuts. And there are many superstitions in racing, like
a friendly green cars are bad luck, But one of
the weirdest is this one around peanut halls. So there's
an article in Snopes that claims that the tradition possibly
dates back to a race in nineteen thirty seven where
(36:48):
peanut shells were found in a few cars that all
happen to crash in the race, and there are a
few other stories that have contributed to this, but trust me,
don't bring those shelled peanuts. I know you love to
crack over at baseball games.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Oh wow, right, well, I've got to tell you about
my favorite NASCAR driver of all time, and that's Dick Trickle.
I mean, his name alone is pretty great and horrible
at the same time, but so Dick loves smoking so
much that he drilled a hole in his helmet so
that he could smoke through his headgear. And he even
had a cigarette lighter installed into his car because he
(37:19):
didn't want to bother his pit crew every time for
a light.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
That's pretty great. So I think you have to take
home the prize with that one.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Thank you know. I think we did a pretty good
job in this episode of like debunking some of the
stereotypes and then we just came right back to it
with that last fact. But I'll take the victory either way.
I know we're both that much more excited to try
to get to a race. You know, we probably should
have come up with a contest like the listener that
gives us the best fact we would actually come to
(37:46):
visit them and then they could pay for us to
go to a NASCAR race, doesn't it seem great reasonable
to me? Or let us get on your yacht and
then we'll go to a Formula one race together. But
either way, if we forgot some great facts, and I
know we did, about either NASCAR or Formula one one
or any other type of racing, we'd love to hear
from you. As always, you can email us part Time
Genius at HowStuffWorks dot com. You can also call us
(38:07):
on our twenty four to seven fact hotline that's one
eight four four pt Genius, or hit us up on
Facebook or Twitter. We always love hearing from you, but
thanks so much for listening. Thanks again for listening. Part
(38:32):
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Speaker 2 (38:39):
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Speaker 2 (38:44):
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Speaker 1 (38:55):
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
And if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
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do we forget Jason? Jason who
Speaker 2 (39:11):
M
Guess what, Well, what's that? Mango?
Speaker 2 (00:01):
So I'm not really into car racing, you know this?
I mean I have watched Talladega Nights. I'm also familiar
with Pixar's Cars movie and Cars two. So actually not
how I say that. Basically, I'm an expert, but.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
I think you are an expert. That's fair to say.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
But as we were looking into the strange origins of
NASCAR and F one this week, I actually stumbled into
this story about TLC's Nascar Wives reality show.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Have you heard about this? I haven't. Was this like
Jersey Shore or Real Housewives or what? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I mean that was kind of the idea. But they
wanted to play on stereotypes and have all the usual
drama you have baked into these things, and the hope
was that would appeal to all the NASCAR fans out there.
But they actually had to cancel the show because the
wives gone along too well.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Isn't that great? That actually kind of makes me like
NASCAR even more.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I know, but today's show is really for outsiders like us,
Like what makes NASCAR and F one racing so appealing?
And why do people bring their yachts to one type
of car race? While family's caravan to the other. And
that's what today's show is all about. So let's dive in.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend Mangesh hot Ticketter and on the other side of
the soundproof glass, he's the only guy who wears driving
gloves while seated at a soundboard. Now that's our friend
and producer Tristan McNeil.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
I mean, in all fairness to Tristan, his chair does
have wheels on it.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
That's a good point. I didn't think about that well
either way. It's nice when he gets into the spirit
of the day's topic. And you know, as you might
have guessed, for this episode, we're headed off to the
races and we're going to take a look at two
of the world's most popular motor sports. Now we're talking
NASCAR and Formula One. But even though those sports may
seem similar on the surface, each one has its own
very distinct style, history and fan base. So today we're
(02:02):
going to break down the differences. And I really tried
to get a sense of how these vastly different racing
institutions have managed to share the road for I guess
it's about seven decades now.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
So you know, a few years back, I was chatting
with our friend Dan Riley, who's written some amazing stories
on F one for GQ, and one of the things
he told me was that when this F one champ
came to the US, he was actually taking selfies of
himself in Penn Station in New York City and no
one recognized him. He's like this insane superstar. And apparently
the TV audience for the races there is like five
(02:33):
hundred million viewers, which is like five Super Bowls. I mean,
it's incredible. But in the US he's totally anonymous. Actually,
the other thing he told me was that Dan actually
got to sit in the passenger seat as the driver
drove on an F one test course in Jersey City,
but he was driving a mini van, and he said
he was terrified, Like the driver knew exactly how to
(02:54):
handle all the curves and corners and straightaways, but he
was in total control. But still, minivans shouldn't go that fast.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Oh, that is terrifying. I can't say that I've ever
driven my minivan as fast as he was probably driving.
But you're right, I mean, they have such different audiences.
I actually remember going to Austin one year. I think
we were presenting it south By Southwest that year, and
I was talking to the clerk at the rental car
place and just made a comment just in passing that
south By has to be one of the worst times
of year for you, right, And he actually said, it's
(03:25):
nothing compared to when they have the F one races,
because you know, not only is there this insane crowd there,
but all these rich people just come in and buy
up all the houses so they have a place to party.
I was like, so what do they do with them
after that? And he said they actually just sell them
a couple months later. Like the audience is just that rich.
It's kind of insane. But that's what makes the comparison
(03:46):
between the two sports so interesting. And I didn't realize
before this episode that NASCAR and F one they actually
pretty much came up together mid century. And you know,
NASCAR was officially incorporated in the US in nineteen forty eight,
and then Formula one was just a couple of years
later than that in Europe.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
That's crazy, Like I never would have imagined that NASCAR
was older than Formula One. But yeah, it is interesting
to think about those like early post war years and
how I guess like the whole world was just itching
to get back to friendlier competitions, and I'm sure they
were also curious to see what some of the new
technology could do when it was put to more fun uses.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Well, you know, there's a lot of obvious stuff that's
similar between the two. But I do think we should
probably talk about, you know, what sets NASCAR and F
one apart from each other before we get too deep
into their history. So for starters, we definitely need to
take a look at the cars themselves, since that's ultimately
where the biggest differences lie. So, you know, right off
the bat, it's easy to tell an F one car
(04:42):
from a NASCAR just by the shape of the car.
You've got these nascars that look a little bit more
like the kind of car you see on the road
every day, you know, the boxy, more enclosed kind of
sedan type vehicle. And you know, I actually think your
car may even have the Giant Tide logo on the front.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
I mean, how great would it be if like Giant
Cup and these starts sponsoring people's daily commutes like if
teachers didn't have to pay for the gas to go
to work because it was all covered by folgers or something,
it'd be.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Great, nice idea.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
In fact, to the car design. You know, I love
boxy cars as a former Volvo station Wagon driver, but
F one racers are the ones that look completely different
than what you or I would drive, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
I mean there may be what most people would think
of when you're trying to picture a race car, and
they have that kind of that narrow, open cockpit design
and the wheels that stick out to the sides and
the big spoiler on the back, and overall they tend
to just look more sleek than their NASCAR counterparts. And
that sleek design is actually crucial because in F one racing,
the aerodynamics that's really of equal importance to the power
(05:41):
of the engine. So everything about the car is designed
to minimize the drag and maximize the speed. And this
also means that Formula one cars tend to be much lighter.
So looking at it's about fifteen hundred pounds on average
for an F one car, and that's compared to over
three thousand pounds for a typical NASCAR so it's twice
as heavy when you're talking about a NASCAR.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
That's funny, And I've actually read that like F one
drivers tend to be lighter, like they're like five eight
in size and on the lighter side. But like looking
at that weight comparison, like my expectation would be the
F one cars would be faster than.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
NASCAR cars, right, well not really. I mean the lighter
weight and sleeker design of the F one racers means,
you know, they can actually achieve these high speeds with
less powerful engines, but they do tend to be a
little bit faster than nascars, and both kinds of vehicles
top out in the range or around two hundred miles
an hour. But you can actually push an F one
to two hundred and five or even as high as
(06:34):
two hundred and fifteen miles an hour without as much trouble.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Well, that's crazy, and that is terrifying to me, like
those sorts of speeds. But you know what's funny is
like I was thinking about the cars cars to actually
a Pixar, and I just assumed that they made the
F one cars in the NASCAR cars about the same
speed because it would appeal to American audiences. I didn't
realize that it would be like factually accurate that they're
the same.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
But cars too is very factually accurate them credit well,
Vixar is.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Great at that, Like even up like that movie, they
actually used the number of balloons that would lift that
house like they oh circulated with engineers.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
But that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
But I do think there's something that's like exponentially more
dangerous about driving than anything else we do in our day.
And I can't imagine like driving at two hundred or
two hundred five miles per hour. It just seems insane.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Yeah, and you know, an F one racing in particular,
it was actually a pretty deadly sport when it first started.
In fact, just looking at the numbers, there were thirteen
drivers that were killed in the first decade of Formula
one races alone. But thankfully, you know, these safety standards
have been greatly improved over the years. And actually no
one has died behind the wheel of an F one
car since nineteen ninety four, so we're talking decades now
(07:45):
since there's been a fatality.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
That's pretty impressive. I wouldn't have imagined that. And of course,
if we're going to talk about the danger aspect of
high speed motorsports, we should also talk about something that
goes hand in hand with it, which is the spectacle
it provides, right, because, like you said at the top
of the show, so these are two of the biggest
motorsports in the world, both in terms of revenue and
in fan bases.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
All right, So I looked at this on the Formula
one side, and it really is an international sport in
terms of its audience. So you've got twenty or so
annual races that make up the Grand Prix series and
those actually take place in nineteen different countries, which is
pretty remarkable, and you got up to three hundred thousand
people gathering for a single event. Now, in terms of
overall viewership, you know, it's what you mentioned earlier. You've
(08:28):
got nearly half a billion people that watch at least
fifteen minutes of F one racing at some point during
any given season, and that's according to BBC's top Gear.
But you know, when you add up all the revenue
from ticket sales and advertising, that F one industry makes
roughly about one and a half billion dollars a year.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Which isn't too shabby. And okay, so F one racing
definitely has global appeal on its side, but here in
the US, there's no question that NASCAR reigns supreme. In fact,
about seventy five million American adults consider themselves NASCAR fans,
which is one in every three people. And wow, of
that huge pool of fans, about three point five million
(09:05):
cran the cells into speedways around the country every year. Meanwhile,
NASCAR races are also broadcast to one hundred and fifty countries,
which helps drum up about three billion dollars in sponsorship money.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Well, I'm curious, like, did you get a sense for
who these fans are? I mean, and NASCAR fans tend
to be stereotyped pretty hard. I mean, you know, as
people from the rural South or Middle America who are
white and lower income. But I'm kind of hoping there's
a little more nuance there than most people might guess.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah, it's kind of interesting, and we'll talk about the
statistics in a second. But I know we've both driven
to the brickyard because we ended up on work trips
in Indianapolis. But you know, you're so close to Talladega
and Birmingham. Have you ever actually gone to a.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Race I've never actually been to a race, and I've
driven past Talladega so many times. It's right in between
the two cities that I spend a lot of time
in between, you know, Birmingham where I'm from, in Atlanta,
where our offices are, and every time I go by,
they have these massive flags that are flying nearby, and
it's just such an interesting place and have always wanted
to go to a race. But there is one thing
(10:06):
that I observe every single time I go by there,
and I'm really curious to look this up, but I
think they might be in the running for the largest
gathering of porta pottis in the world. I mean, it
is unbelievable. If you drive by there on a race week,
I swear it seems like there are just thousands of
these things out there. So I kind of want to
(10:26):
look into this at some point, just to see if
they might have that claim to fame.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
I like that NASCAR, you know, followers are just like
you and me. They also use the bathroom they too.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
You know, we're all alike, Mango. There's so much that
makes us in common.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
So I didn't find any statistics about that toilet situation.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
You're talking about.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
But I did find some statistics on NASCAR fans in
an Atlantic article, And while some of the stereotypes we
commonly associate with NASCAR are born out by the numbers,
some definitely aren't. So for instance, two political pulling groups
found that nineteen percent of all American voters identified themselves
NASCAR fans, and sixty percent of those fans live outside
(11:03):
the southeast US.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
I definitely wouldn't have predicted that. So, like, nineteen percent
of all American voters are NASCAR fans. That is unbelievable.
All right, so it's maybe more geographically diverse than we
might have thought. But what about other stuff like income
and gender and ethnicity, Like, are NASCAR fans more diverse
than those areas too?
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Well? Yes and no. So the stereotype about most NASCAR
fans being white is certainly true, and in fact, according
to Nielsen's data, NASCAR's audience actually has the highest share
of white people among all broadcast sports. It's a whopping
ninety four percent.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Like I couldn't believe. Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
But that said, NASCAR also boasts the highest share of
female viewers. Thirty seven percent of its audience is made
up of women and even in terms of finance, like
there's a greater degree of variety than we've been told. So,
for example, of the voters who self identify as NASCAR fans,
forty two percent earned between forty thousand and one hundred
thousand a year, which means like a good chunk of
(12:00):
NASCAR fans are wealthier than the average American.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
And to be frank like f.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
One drivers have actually talked about it. They claim they're
envious of some of the NASCAR audience because it's more
of a sport that families can watch together and instead
of something that feels like a little colder and just
about status. And even the drivers like they're more approachable.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
M well, all right, So so public opinion maybe a
little off base about NASCAR fans and in some ways,
and I guess pretty accurate in others. And I do
like that the sports styles itself is something made by
and for ordinary people. I mean, you think about it,
they're no Lamborghinis or Ferraris in the sport and said,
you're gonna find these cars by like Ford and General Motors,
And of course they've been modified after the fact so
(12:40):
they can hold their own on these races. But there's
still somewhat of a level of familiarity there, and I
guess it does make the sport feel more approachable.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
No kidding. You know, I've never been to either a
NASCAR or F one race, and I'd actually love to
go to both. But my friend Jeremy once told me
that you'd actually see Amish families come to Dover Downs
to watch races, and I think that's kind of amazing, right,
like something I never would have guessed. But I also
don't think you'd find the homage going to F one races,
right right. I knew you were talking about the wealth
(13:09):
that would fly into Austin, but I read this one
article that said the yachts people bring to Monaco or
Belgium or wherever are one hundred and fifty million dollar boats,
which is insanity, and you wonder, like why they're dropping
so much on a boat, and the author's answer was, well,
you need something to take to your private islands.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah. I mean it makes a good point. You got
you got to get there somehow.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
I know. But like that audience feels like such a
barrier of entry to me. I mean, like formula one
just feels as elitist as it.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Gets Yeah, I mean that that sounds pretty accurate. And
I've heard the sports compared, like you know, like hot
dogs versus or dervs or sometimes you know beer versus
champagne when you're thinking about the difference between the two.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
So obviously I get the connection between beer and Nascar,
but like champagne actually has a connection with Formula one, right, oh, definitely.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
I mean, you know, the idea of popping champagne bottles
has long been asssociated with huge wins or winning championships
in sports, and actually that active celebration got it start
from F one racing. So this goes back to nineteen fifty.
This is when the first French Grand Prix was held
in the country's Champagne region, and naturally, because of where
it was held, the winner of that year's race was
(14:16):
presented with this bottle of the region's trademark beverage. And
actually that's a custom that's still around today.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
I mean, that's a little like how Federer won a
milking cow for winning a tennis tournament in Switzerland.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
I think, did that really happen? Yeah, you didn't know
what to do with it. I can imagine like you're
gonna pack it and take it on the plane or what.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
But so so the winner just emptied the bottle into
the crowds or something like that. Seems like something that
would have really ticked off the audience.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Well not really. I mean, the first time an F
one racer sprayed the crowd with the champagne happened. It
was really more like a decade later. I think it
was in the sixties, and the locals were okay with
it because you know, this was actually a mistake. And
so Nick Carvel had this great article on it in GQ,
and he described the event this way, says, upon winning
the twenty four Hours of Laman in nineteen sixty six,
(15:03):
Joe Sipherd accidentally sprayed the crowd as the bottle of
champagne had been sitting out in the sun, causing pressure
to build up inside the magnum. The next year, Californian
racer Dan Gurney deliberately copied Stiffer's gesture when he won
the same race, and a tradition was born, which is.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Awesome, but like a magnum, like that's two wine bottles, right.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yeah, well, actually it's even more nowadays. So currently F
one winners receive a full Jeroboama champagne for the big win.
So wait, what's a jeroboe. Well, it's actually the equivalent
of four standard wine bottles, So all the better to
soak the crowd with, I guess. But if for anyone
who wants to re enact their favorite F one victories,
the official champagne of the league is the gh Mom
(15:43):
cordon Rouge, so you can score your own Jeroboama of
it for about, yeah, like four hundred bucks.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Okay, so I can definitely see why the NFL just
sticks with buckets of Gatorade. But you know, Formula one
isn't the only motorsport with boozy roots, and in fact,
it is actually a strong case for thinking of NASA
car as an unintended product of the prohibition era.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
You know, I've read something about this before, but I
didn't really get the full story. So do you mind
just kind of walking us through this?
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Definitely, But first let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
You're listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about
the ins and outs of NASCAR, So mango drinking and
driving definitely don't go well together. But you were actually
saying there's a connection between the two that somehow gave
rise to NASCAR.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yeah, so, decades before NASCAR came along, Apple Ashian bootleggers
began running homemade whiskey up and down the East Coast
during Prohibition. And many of these guys were family farmers
who'd fallen on hard times and turned to moonshine as
a way to keep their heads above water. And of course,
desperate or not, what they were doing was very, very illegal,
so it helped to have a car that could make
(16:56):
some serious tracks whenever they cross paths with Federal Asians.
And so the biggest godsend for these bootleggers actually came
from Henry Ford in nineteen thirty two, and that's because
that's the year he debuted the V eight engine.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
This is kind of a weird connection though, because it
wasn't Ford a teetotaler. I mean, I actually think I'd
read that he made all his employees take a temperance
pledge just to work in his factories.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Right, Yeah, so he wouldn't have been too pleased to
learn that his flagship engine was basically driving the bootleging business.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
But yeah, the V eight was perfect for it.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Like it was fast enough to evade the law and
tough enough to withstand the strain of all those mountain roads.
And of course bootleggers didn't stop there for added security.
They actually started souping up their cars with all these
features straight out of like a speed racer cartoon.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
What I mean, like, I'm imagining the ability to like
press a button and spray oil all over the road
or stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Yeah, so I know you're joking, but I mean oil, slicks,
smoke screens, you name it. Like they even rigged up
that classic gag where like a bucket of tax is
spilled out onto the road. Now way straight out of
Super Mario cars. Seriously, except like they were high tailing
away from the cops. And also, this is a little aside,
but I remember this from mental Floss that when like
bootleggers would be on the run and have to flee
(18:09):
their cars, they actually had these shoes made that had
hoofprints on them, So basically they'd leave these deer tracks
in the mud instead of shoe prints. Isn't that like
super crafty?
Speaker 1 (18:18):
It is crafty, But I think we've got a little
off track here, Like, so what does this have to
do with NASCAR?
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Well, before prohibsion even ended, some of the bootleggers had
started having these informal races, you know.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Just for kicks. That does make sense. I mean, you've
got all these tricked out cars, it does seem like
it'd be pretty tempting to have some fun with them, exactly.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
And then in the nineteen thirties, like bootleggers started taking
their moonshine mobiles to local race tracks and even county fairgrounds,
and that's where they really started to build an audience
and eventually like tens of thousands of people would show
up to some of these races.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
All right, so this is kind of like the birth
of stock car racing in America. But the actual formalized
NASCAR league does it also have its ties with bootleggers.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
It does, so, so racing had become an organized sport
by the nineteen forties, and most of the people involved
in it had connections to bootlegging in one form and another.
There's actually a great book about this called Real Nascar,
and it talks about just how much of the sport
owes to moonshiner's. So the author rights quote what most
chroniclers of stock car racing and NASCAR have failed to
(19:19):
note is that a large percentage of the early mechanics,
car owners, promoters, and track owners had deep ties to
the illegal alcohol business. It would not be an exaggeration
to say that the sport was built on the proceeds
of the manufacturer transport and sales of hundreds of thousands,
if not millions, of cases of liquor, right, I mean,
that's amazing. So even if they weren't bootleggers themselves, like
(19:42):
the mechanics definitely knew they were working on bootleggers cars,
and similarly, all these track owners they were taking cuts
from illegal sales in exchange for use of their track.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
That connection definitely goes much deeper than I would have expected.
So what about the drivers though, Like, did any bootleggers
go on to become NASCAR drivers? Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (19:59):
And one of the most famous is Junior Johnson, who
came from a long line of North Carolina bootleggers and
went on to become a NASCAR Hall of Famer and
team owner. There's actually a great old story about him
in Esquire, and he and plenty of other former Moonshiners
were recruited as drivers in the late forties by a
fellow stock car driver, this guy named Bill Franz Senior,
and France actually became an important figure in all this.
(20:21):
He started promoting his drivers at different races in the
Daytona Beach area, but he was soon annoyed by how
much the racing rules varied from one event to another.
So in December of nineteen forty seven, France actually called
a meeting of all the top stock car drivers and
he got the mechanics and owners to come in as well,
and they all discussed how to standardize the rules, and
by the end of the meeting they agreed to form
(20:42):
the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, which is NASCAR.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
So that's what it stands for. Okay, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
And and Bill Franz Senior became the first president of
NASCAR once the league was officially incorporated, this is in
February nineteen forty eight. Under his leadership, the sport began
to distance itself from its boot like roots, and they
started going after corporate sponsorships and you know, building a
wider audience. And by the time his son, Bill Franz
Junior took over the presidency in nineteen seventy two, NASCAR
(21:10):
had become this incredibly popular regional sport in the South.
But it was Bill Junior who really made the sport huge.
He had this three decade run as president, and that's
when the sport transformed into a multi billion dollar global industry.
That's what you know of it today.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
And I'm guessing like sponsorship probably played the biggest role
in this transition. Huh.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Yeah. So the turning point of that actually came in
nineteen seventy and that's when Junior Johnson approached the RJ.
Reynolds Tobacco Company. So Johnson had retired as a driver
by at this point, but he stayed in the league
as an owner, and he hoped that the cigarette company
might want to sponsor his car in the upcoming season.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
So, I mean, why would this be an unprecedented move?
Was it just that it was a tobacco company or what.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
So I looked into this because I was confused about
it too. But the thing is, like President Nixon had
actually signed a bill in April nineteen seventy they had
banned all cigarette advertising on TV beginning of the following year,
so Johnson knew the company would be looking for new
ways to spend its advertising budget the next year. And
of course Johnson liked to live dangerously, you know, like
cigarette advertising didn't bother him at all.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
But RJ.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Reynolds was a long shot. Like until that point, most
of NASCAR's sponsorships were limited to local or regional businesses,
and a company as big as RJ. Reynolds would that'd
be like a huge win for the sport. But instead
of just sponsoring like one car, Reynolds decided to turn
down that offer and they put their money behind one
hundred thousand dollars championship series called the Winston Cup. It
(22:35):
was this super smart marketing move for them, and until
two thousand and three it remained the top series in
NASCAR until it took on a new sponsor. It became
the next Tel Cup, and then like it changed hands
to the Sprint Cup. And I think it's now like
the Monster Energy Cup.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
The Monster Energy Cup. All right, Well, you know, if
boos and cigarettes acted as NASCAR's backbone for the first
what three or four decades of its existence, like, how
do we eventually get from this to Tide and Monster
Energy drinks?
Speaker 2 (23:03):
So that change actually happened in the mid eighties, and
this is when Procter and Gamble decided to sponsor a
few cars with brands like UH, Crisco and Folgers. And
this is when Tide comes into the mix as well.
And once other companies had heard how the logo branded
cars had boosted P andng's sales, they all decided to
throw their hats in the ring as well. So, you know,
you fast forward thirty years and everything from like Cheerios
(23:25):
to Spam to even the cartoon Network is out a car.
It's amazing, and they've paid pretty handsomely for that honor.
Like I think a primary sponsorship, which is when the
logo is on the hood of a car and it's
also on the racing team's uniforms, that runs between ten
and twenty five million dollars.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Oh wow, I mean, And so is it worth it
for these companies to spend that much money?
Speaker 2 (23:47):
You know, you always ask these things, and I looked
into it. But the market research bears out like NASCAR
fans are apparently three times more likely as non fans
to buy products from companies that sponsored their sport of choice.
Part of the reason is that they're so attached to
the drivers that they're also attrached to the driver sponsors.
But another big part is just how much exposure these
(24:08):
brands get. So like the Las Vegas Review Journal reported
that the average screen time for a car's primary sponsor
during a race is about twelve and a half minutes. Like,
imagine how many millions of dollars it would cost to
eric commercial that long. And that exposure only goes up
if a sponsor's driver wins or sadly Rex's car like
In fact, a pr man for the Richard Childress Racing
(24:29):
team once told a reporter quote, if you crash, crash fabulously,
and make sure your logo is not wrinkled up.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
So class. All right, well speaking which we should probably
take some time now to talk about the history of
NASCAR is more posh counterpart, But before we do that,
let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Welcome back to parton genius. All right, will, So, what's
the story behind Formula One? Like? Was it started by
smugglers or maybe some jewel thieves?
Speaker 1 (25:08):
You know, that might be a nice story, but there's
actually no criminal component for this one. And instead what
we get with Formula One is a professional racing league
that really gradually grew from those pioneering car races in France,
that these were taking place back before nineteen hundred. I mean,
think about that, these were the earliest days of motor racing.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
So explain this to me, Like, if racing was that
popular from the start over there, why did it takes
so long for F one to be formalized.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Well, it's actually because the beginning of World War two.
You know, you had European racing that had continued growing
in popularity through the early decades of the twentieth century,
and this was right up until the Germans began to
dominate in the nineteen thirties. So although there were plans
for an official Formula one championship, and they'd already been
discussed by this point, they had to be set aside
until after the war.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
So once again there's a pesky world war that spoils
our fun.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Spoils all the fun. But you know, by nineteen forty six,
the term Formula one was formally defined and these plans
were put in motion for the Sports owned Drivers Championship. Now,
it did take a few years to figure out all
the details, but it was in nineteen fifty that's when
the very first F one World Championship was finally held
and this was at the Silverstone Circuit in England.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Okay, so don't laugh, but you just mentioned that Formula
one was officially defined at one point, and it occurs
to me that I have no idea what the term
really means, Like, does it refer to a certain kind
of fuel the cars use or maybe a certain kind
of motor oil?
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Oh, good guesses, but actually not accurate on that. And
I can't laugh at you because I didn't know this
either until I looked it up. But you know, the
formula and Formula one racing actually refers to the rules
that govern the car's design. So you go back to
the beginning on this. That formula was taken from the
pre war regulations that really pertained the engine's capacity, and
it was first known as Formula A. Now, over the years,
(26:51):
the formula's been tweaked a good bit and now it
counts for both like new technology and environmental concerns, but
it's still based on the car's engine. So, for example,
the current formula is built around this hybrid power unit
that actually includes the turbocharge V six engine, but it's
electrically assisted by this power generated from kinetic energy as well.
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
And do most F one teams build and modify their
own engines like NASCAR teams. Also, this isn't aside, but
I think it's funny that F one is so fancy,
like partially because I remember that in that documentary about
Senna the driver, which is honestly so good, the way
he came up in F one was by raising go
karts like go cars feel so everyk in the world.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
I know, I love that. It definitely feels that way.
But you know what's funny is that unlike NASCAR, there
there really isn't much room for improvisation in F one,
and I kind of wonder if the improv part is
is maybe that American influence on the sport. But instead
you've got these eleven official F one teams and they
all get their power trains from one of four engine manufacturers.
(27:50):
So you've got Ferrari, Honda, Mercedes, Benz, and Renault. And
even if an F one team doesn't build their own engine,
they're still responsible for much of the does of the car.
And honestly, I mean that's the part that seems to
count for the most and Formula one. Yeah, so one thing.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
I've always heard about f one is the huge emphasis
that plays on like top of the line tech and
this efficient design. Like some people swear that the whole
thing is just this elaborate pet project of technicians and
engineers masquerading as a sport. It's almost like the racing
is secondary to these design teams getting to experiment and
mess around.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Well, I mean, I think for some there's probably a
lot of truth to that. You know, many longtime fans
really think the focus on the car itself has long
since eclipse the actual drivers. And huh, this is something
that first started happening back as early as the seventies,
and these cars had steadily grown faster and more sleek
since those very early days of the sport and all
the r and D for this constant quest to reduce
(28:47):
drag and increase cornering speeds. It was starting to get
super expensive, you know, so much so that by the
seventies there were really no private entries in this sport
because it was just so expensive.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
I mean, that's almost a shame. Yeah, I'm curious though,
like how much do these cars actually cost?
Speaker 1 (29:03):
So it varies, of course, but a good rule of
thumb is to take a team's entire racing budget for
a year and then cut that in half. So for
the top teams, we're talking about spending upwards of two
hundred and fifty million dollars on the sport each year. Yeah,
so that's about one hundred and twenty five million of
that that goes toward the car for that season. And
even the bottom teams are dropping huge dollars on this,
(29:25):
anywhere from like twenty to fifty million dollars on average.
I mean, that's insanity to me. So why are these expensive?
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Like are the materials just that pricey?
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Well, it's not so much the individual parts that cost
so much. It's actually, you know, the entire labor force
needed to design and develop and build, and then even
beyond that, just to constantly modify the product, and this
massive amount of cash needed to keep pace with the
wealthier teams. It's actually really starting to affect the outcomes
of the races. I mean, if you look at the
highest ranking teams in the league, they also happen to
(29:57):
be the ones with the most money. And then on
the other end of the spectrum, the last place finishers
are typically the poorest teams. And there's no coincidence to that.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
So I remember hearing that the cash prizes in Formula
one are among the highest in all of organized sports.
So couldn't it just be that the winning teams are
the richest because they're the ones that just keep getting
all the prize money.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Well, you know, if all the teams were starting on
even footing, that might be the case. But in reality,
I mean, they're different deals for different teams, and some
of the longest running ones get tens of millions of
dollars just for showing up to the race. It doesn't
even matter if they win, huh.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
You know.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
And if you go back from like nineteen eighty one
all the way up to say twenty thirteen, all the
teams competed under the same financial deal. But then once
you started to see happening like these car manufacturers and
long running legacy teams, they started angling for these special
privileges and unique deals. And so the league finally cave
to this pressure because it was actually afraid these big
(30:53):
names would just walk away from the sport. So there
was this really interesting article in the New York Times,
and it was pretty insightful on the way that it
looked at this. This was back in twenty sixteen, and
there's one part that sums up the problem pretty nicely,
and I'll just read this to you. It says today,
even among the top teams, financial success does not correspond
directly with success on the track. Mercedes does not receive
(31:16):
as much money as Ferrari, the Italian team that's been
around since Formula One start in nineteen fifty and that
received seventy million dollars a year because of that legacy.
Ferrari's special payment just for taking part is more than
the total earnings of the bottom five teams and last year.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Oh man, I mean, that's a little discouraging, And I
do wonder if the average F one fan knows about
these dealings, right like, it seems like the kind of
thing that could really turn people off the sport.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Well definitely, And it all goes back to that sense
that the cars are the true stars in F one,
not really the drivers. And it's kind of a tough
pill to swallow for a lot of sports fans because
there's so much of their enjoyment that comes from reveling
in human ability. So it is kind of tough when
they're treated as almost interchangeable in the car itself is
really the only constant, So I guess that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
And I'd say that's only partially true, right, Like there
are obvious stars of the sport, and you read about
the seven minute pit stops where humans are making all
these like microscopic changes to tire pressure and alignment to
like corner a specific turn better. But I do get
your point, right, Like nobody watches tennis to see their
favorite racket in action.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
I don't know, there's nothing more beautiful than a really
elegant racket anyway.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
You know what's funny, as Andy Roddick actually used to
play with an old babbel At racket, but the company
used to paint it to look like a new model.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Which is oh really, it's so crazy playing with an
old racket. That's pretty weird.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Yeah, because you just got accustomed to it, all.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Right, Well, back to what we were talking about here,
so that there is something I hope that the F
one League does take note of. And this is for
the fans sake, because there's really a lot of skill
that goes into being a professional racer, and I don't
think most of us recognize that half as much as
we should.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Really, Yeah, I found an Atlantic article that was kind
of written in defense of motorsports, and there was one.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Quote that really stuck with me.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
It was about stock car racing, but I really think
it applies to all forms of motorsport, so I'm gonna
pull it up. It goes quote, The athletes who drive
these cars, and yes they are athletes, even though they
are sitting down, must possess steel nerves, quick reflexes, highly
developed small motor skills, and the mental acuity to develop
elaborate plans for dominating a track crowded with cars that
(33:27):
could kill them. And true fans understand the complexity of
the sport and can discuss in great detail the combination
of skills crucial for success.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Well, that kind of feels like the perfect place to
leave our discussion. But I do have a few more
racing facts dying to share these, So what do you say?
We had to the factop.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
So, I know people love to debate whether things like
NASCAR are actually sports, but I don't think there's any
debating that you have to be in good shape to
withstand some of what your body's experienced. So I was
looking into some of the numbers, and first of all,
the temperature in the car, and a NASCAR race is
often over one hundred degrees and on turns, the drivers
are feeling up to three g's of force on them.
That means three times the force of gravity. And also
(34:14):
drivers are losing up to ten pounds in sweat over
the course of a race.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Ten pounds in sweat, Yeah, that's crazy. I was actually
looking in Ato some of this too, And it's not only
these things, but like a driver's heart rate typically stays
between like one hundred and twenty and one hundred and
fifty beats per minute throughout the race. Now we're talking
three hours from all these races, and so that's actually
about the same as a serious marathon runner over that
period of time. And I realized this is about f one.
(34:40):
But some of the drivers can actually go two minutes
without blinking, that's how intense their concentration is.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
That's amazing. So here's a funny one. I saw a
fact that drivers in the major NASCAR races all have
to pass physicals and a drug test, and I guess
there's some sort of vetting process, but one thing they're
not required to show is a driver's license. So technically
you can have someone like tearing off the tracks and
nearly like two hundred miles per hour, who actually wouldn't
be able to drive to the grocery store after the race.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
I love the idea that that could possibly happen. Well,
so I've often wondered about the beating that the car
parts take during the races and how long these parts last.
Did you know the F one car engines actually only
last a couple of hours before they just blow entirely, Like,
that's a little bit shorter than the fifteen to twenty
years most of us expect that of our own car engines.
And also, not surprisingly, the tires only last about sixty
(35:30):
or so miles in each race. That's incredible.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Did you know there are actually no air bags in Formula
one cars?
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Wait? What is this just like to add an extra
element of danger or what?
Speaker 2 (35:39):
No, it just turns out that there's so many other
safety mechanisms that are more effective at keeping the driver safe. So,
I mean, it would be nearly impossible for a driver
to be ejected from the car because of how well
they're strapped in, like the crazy protective helmets and the
five point harnesses which keep the drivers from slamming into
the front of the car, which is really the main
point of an airbag. And all this on top of
(36:00):
the fact that the drivers inside is survival cell that's
designed to protect them in the vent of a crash.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
All right, well, here's another one I found. So there
are small planes that take off at slower speeds than
you'd find an F one car traveling during a race.
The aerodynamic science involved in creating that downward force, you know,
to keep them on the track. It's actually pretty amazing.
And by the way, F one cars can go from
zero to one hundred miles per hour back to zero
in about four seconds. WI is it? That's ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Yeah, So, as I heads up, one thing you do
not want to take with you to a race if
you get a chance to sit on the infield is
shelled peanuts. And there are many superstitions in racing, like
a friendly green cars are bad luck, But one of
the weirdest is this one around peanut halls. So there's
an article in Snopes that claims that the tradition possibly
dates back to a race in nineteen thirty seven where
(36:48):
peanut shells were found in a few cars that all
happen to crash in the race, and there are a
few other stories that have contributed to this, but trust me,
don't bring those shelled peanuts. I know you love to
crack over at baseball games.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Oh wow, right, well, I've got to tell you about
my favorite NASCAR driver of all time, and that's Dick Trickle.
I mean, his name alone is pretty great and horrible
at the same time, but so Dick loves smoking so
much that he drilled a hole in his helmet so
that he could smoke through his headgear. And he even
had a cigarette lighter installed into his car because he
(37:19):
didn't want to bother his pit crew every time for
a light.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
That's pretty great. So I think you have to take
home the prize with that one.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Thank you know. I think we did a pretty good
job in this episode of like debunking some of the
stereotypes and then we just came right back to it
with that last fact. But I'll take the victory either way.
I know we're both that much more excited to try
to get to a race. You know, we probably should
have come up with a contest like the listener that
gives us the best fact we would actually come to
(37:46):
visit them and then they could pay for us to
go to a NASCAR race, doesn't it seem great reasonable
to me? Or let us get on your yacht and
then we'll go to a Formula one race together. But
either way, if we forgot some great facts, and I
know we did, about either NASCAR or Formula one one
or any other type of racing, we'd love to hear
from you. As always, you can email us part Time
Genius at HowStuffWorks dot com. You can also call us
(38:07):
on our twenty four to seven fact hotline that's one
eight four four pt Genius, or hit us up on
Facebook or Twitter. We always love hearing from you, but
thanks so much for listening. Thanks again for listening. Part
(38:32):
Time Genius is a production of How Stuff Works and
wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the
important things we couldn't even begin to understand.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
CHRISTA McNeil does the editing thing.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Noel Brown made the theme song and does the mixy
mixy sound thing.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Jerry Roland does the exact producer thing.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Gabeluzier is our lead researcher, with support from the Research
Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eves.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Jeffcok gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
And if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
you could leave a good review for us. Do we
do we forget Jason? Jason who
Speaker 2 (39:11):
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