Really impressed with your attitude and your vision, Dennis. I am glad
to find that others think like me (however dismayed some people may be by
that prospect). Also look what happenned to that droup of Northern
California guys who took their hotrods out to that dry salt lake a few
years ago...and how about thase few who rented the whole road up the side
of that mountain in Colorado for a little informal speed fun?
I think we are living in a resurgence of the automotive '60s and just
about any motorsport which is properly promoted can develope a spectator
following.
Jon FP 73
On Fri, 23 Jun 2000 09:31:10 -0400 dg50@daimlerchrysler.com writes:
> John Eagan <johneagan@toltbbs.com> wrote:
>
> > On a final note, I've grown a fairly healthy respect for Dennis
> Grant
> > over recent history
>
> Thanks.
>
> > but the bit about wanting to make a living as a pro
> > autocrosser strikes me as blowing right past "extremely
> optimistic" with
> > throttle stuck wide open and shooting deep into "delusional".
>
> Nobody ever said it'd be easy....
>
> Consider this: You've got a bunch of good ol' boys with their cars
> hotrodded, 'cause they all run moonshine as their extra source of
> income,
> and they need to be able to outrun the local federales. They start
> racing
> each other at the local fairgrounds, and on the beach at some place
> called
> "Daytona".
>
> 50 years later, they have the largest spectator sport on the planet,
> and
> more money than God.
>
> Now if you went back 50 years and told Lee Petty what NASCAR would
> be like
> for his grandson, he'd probably tell you to spend more time driving
> and
> less time sampling the cargo. But yet, here it is. It happened.
>
> Now I don't seriously expect that what we do (or some permutation)
> can ever
> wind up _that_ big. I think we're missing some elements (pit stops,
> crashes, wheel-to-wheel racing, crashes, very high speeds, crashes)
> that
> broaden NASCAR's fan appeal beyond what we'd ever be able to expect.
> I
> think our "fans" would be more akin to the NHRA fans, and I see the
> way our
> sport is developing is more akin to the NHRA than NASCAR. I see
> strong
> parallels between modern Solo and the early NHRA.
>
> Well that's fine. There is a "big show" in the NHRA that, while it's
> nowhere near as big as NASCAR, is certainly "big enough". And then
> there's
> that I'm finding as I build my car, it's slowly (very slowly!)
> turning into
> something akin to an FIA WRC car. Well there's a sport that's even
> more
> bizzare and harder to follow than we are, but yet there's no
> shortage of
> money and fans there either.
>
> Yes, it's not an easy thing. No, it's not going to happen overnight
> - and
> may not happen for _me_ at all (but maybe CJ Sharp or Clemens Minor)
> But it
> _is_ doable.
>
> So I'll buy into "extremely optimistic", but "delusional" is just
> defeatest. When are y'all going to realize that we can do anything
> we want
> to if we're just willing to work hard at it?
>
> DG
>
>
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