I'm not the most avid racing fan but I do enjoy watching an open-wheel race from CART or Formula 1. I would much rather watch a car race on a street course and watch how the drivers are challenged to maneuver through sharp turns and pass in tight quarters. Stock car racing is usually relegated to oval courses and NASCAR only runs a handful of street courses each season. It's a big reason why I haven't become a fan of the league. I simply don't find someone turning left for three hours that exciting. How weird is it for these guys to turn right on regular streets after the race? Is it the same kind of adjustment that a submarine pitcher has to make in his daily life? I'm assuming that if Oakland A's pitcher Chad Bradford gets asked for the keys to the car from his wife his first instinct is to wind up so low that his knuckles almost scrap along the kitchen floor and whip the keys to her at a rising level.

After examining NASCAR I came away with some general impressions:

I'm convinced your name has to end in a 'y' to be a NASCAR driver. It seems like almost every driver is named Ricky, Robby, Bobby, Terry or Rusty, or the exception to the rule, Dale.

You thought some interviews with eastern European hockey or basketball players with thick accents were hard to understand? Well you haven't heard anything yet until you've heard one of these good ol' southern boys give an interview after a race. It's a language onto its own. That's part of the reason that NASCAR is also referred to as NECKAR (no, not the former Ottawa Senators defenceman). The reference to Neck comes from the endearing term Red Neck. NASCAR enjoys its greatest popularity in the southern region of the US in areas like Georgia, Florida, South and North Carolina.

Maybe that's why Jeff Gordon is such a lauded character to NASCAR fans. He doesn't fit the stereotypical mold of a NASCAR driver: first, his name isn't one of the aforementioned and second, you can actually understand him when he talks.

	Bringing NASCAR to Vegas would be fun....for about five minutes.

The Daytona 500 is NASCAR's biggest event of the year, yet it's also the first race of the season. It's a little like the NFL playing the Super Bowl right off the bat and playing out the rest of the season just for the sake of seeing who finishes with the best record. Aren't fans going to be excited about the debut race of a new season anyway? Why play all your chips on the first hand? If NASCAR went to Vegas they'd be walking out of a casino five minutes later gloating how exciting it was betting $50,000 and losing it on one spin of roulette instead of thinking what a letdown the rest of the trip would be with no money or anything else to look forward to.

One area of business where NASCAR is proficient in is advertising and corporate sponsorship. Drivers and cars are shamelessly decked out in every imaginable logo; I mean the Yellow Pages doesn't even have anywhere near the amount of companies that are profiled on a racer's driving jump suit. When it comes to advertising, NASCAR shows the restraint of Glen Sather in free agency or Bryan Marchment around a kneecap.

	Being Mr. Consistency last season earned Kenseth a points title.

If you ever thought the tortoise & the hare fable was too far fetched to believe then you would have had trouble believing that a driver with one win could win the title last year. NASCAR has created a playoff type format this season titled "Chase for The Championship" geared towards creating some increased excitement in the culmination of a points champion. For the last 10 races of the season only those racers within 400 points of the lead or in the top 10 in points are eligible to win the overall points title. This change was created after last year's NASCAR champion Matt Kenseth won only one race all year but had 25 top 10 finishes. Competing driver Ryan Newman had a season high 8 wins last year but lost the points championship because of inconsistency. My only question is how do all the other racers feel during those last 10 races? It must be like having to take your ex out for another 10 dates after they've already told you they want to break up.

I think the biggest attraction to NASCAR has to be the crashes. I know what you're thinking: Wow, what a statement Johnny Obvious! Hear me out though. The reason that the crashes are the biggest part of the attraction of NASCAR is not because fans have a morbid obsession and want to see a weekly reenactment of Six Feet Under. Rather the crashes are the attraction because it's shock entertainment with little consequences. A car can flip over 20 times, hit the wall, take three other cars with it, land upside down and ignite into a huge ball of flames and 98% of the time the driver will still be able to get out of the car unscathed, give a big thumbs up to the crowd and be back to race the next week. It's the same attraction that has kept pro wrestling popular for years. A wrestler can get belted with a chair, sledgehammer or even a car and the fans can be entertained with a sound conscience because they know that the wrestler will be back next week to do it all over again.

I started out with a quest to understand what elements make NASCAR so popular and while I came away with a better understanding of the racing league, I'm still not a fan. I guess it's a little like the way hockey is viewed in the US. Regardless of how much you understand about the game, the popularity of the sport stretches farther past the game and is a revered aspect of our society. NASCAR is to the Southern United States what hockey is to us.