A Voice For The Fans ~ Six Generations Of Cars And Fans
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Thoughts, prayers and sympathy are with the loved ones of legendary
Motorsports Racing Network broadcaster Barney Hall. May he rest in peace with
the Lord.
I bid you welcome gentle readers, and a warm welcome
as well to our assigned reader of all things NASCAR related today, wherever he
or she might be. A short while ago, several of us here on Race Fans Forever
were discussing the generations of cars as set by NASCAR and the generations of
fans that coincided with each.
The questions was posed whether anyone could explain
why the generations of cars evolved from one to the next, and did that
evolution correspond with the fans of that time. Well, that didn’t sound too
difficult a task, as I’ve been around for all of them. Sometimes, there is an
advantage to being a Senior Citizen you
know.
In the first four generations, the way the factories
built cars was directly influenced by the fans of the day, who of course, were
the same folks that were buying the cars rolling off the assembly lines. I’ve
done a simple breakdown of the car generations as delineated by NASCAR and I
believe they are pretty spot-on with where the breaks came. I have merely added
a bit about why the breaks came at any particular time.
Stated quite simply, there was always a direct
correlation between what the buyers wanted and what the factories built. That
part is simple economics. For decades, NASCAR followed suit and raced what the
factories built; for those first four generations, all was well and the sport
of stock car racing grew almost exponentially. Read on and you’ll see the
patterns as they developed, broken down by generations of both cars and fans.
Gen-1 – The Cars… The
"Strictly Stock” cars back in the beginning. Cars of the 1950s, with
drivers such as Lee Petty, Herb Thomas, Red Byron, Lloyd Seay, the Flock
brothers and a host of others. Cars included many makes and models no longer
available today... Hudson, Mercury, Oldsmobile, Chrysler, Studebaker, Buick,
Nash and more. Every auto maker wanted to race in the 1950s.
Gen-1 - The Fans… I can speak loud and clear for
my generation. The biggest influence by FAR was the end of WWII. After the
invasion of Pearl Harbor, all the factories in America, no matter what they had
manufactured before, were retooled to serve the "War effort" and the
huge automobile industry was no different. Throughout the years we were at war,
there were NO new cars built in America.
Once the war ended, the baby boom beat the new car
boom by a few years because humans didn't have to retool before manufacturing.
Hey, it's true!
When new cars started rolling off the assembly lines
again, it was a mania much bigger than Pong or Cabbage Patch Dolls and the
like. The latest X-Box is pale in comparison to a brand spanking new Hudson
Hornet, Kaiser, DeSoto or anything else that hadn't
been owned and driven by anyone else. By the mid-50s, the automobile was KING!
The parallel between new autos and stock car racing cannot be overlooked or
denied.
As teenagers, we lived for a driver's license. It was
a rite of passage, and the gateway to adulthood and independence. And yes, we
were independent at a much earlier age, even without the seemingly mandatory
college diploma of today. The war was over and we were anxious to grow up and
take our place in that bright new world we'd inherited from the "Greatest Generation." We
took that place driving in those beautiful, super-long, super-sleek automobiles
that came in matching colors, inside and out. They are still, to my eye, the
most stunning cars ever made, and make is not a factor; they were all
beautiful!
Gen-2 – The Cars… Moving
to the mid-1960s and well into the 1970s, these were the big cars, with the big
engines, most notably the Chrysler Hemi and the Ford 427. These are the boats
we old-school fans love to remember… the “Muscle Cars.” This was when the
car-makers first began to pay attention to aerodynamics, but had a long way to
go. Drivers of this era included Richard Petty, David Pearson and Cale
Yarborough, again with many, many more.
Gen-2 – The Fans… If there
is a discernible dividing line between these fans and those of the 1950s, it is
probably right around the middle of the 1960s. The early baby-boomers were
growing up, and like my generation before them, continued the romance with the
automobile.
(Mind you, we are speaking of race fans, and for the
most part they stood apart from the “Age of Aquarius”, “Tune in; turn on; drop
out” and the “Summer of Love” crowd of the same demographic)
In response, the cars grew larger, added a bit more
curve to the design as aerodynamics improved year by year, and were decidedly
much faster. Like a teen-age boy growing to manhood, the cars grew muscles,
without a doubt. Out on the race track, speed records fell like raindrops in a
thunderstorm. Drag racing, much of which had been conducted on the street when
I was a teen, moved to a more controlled environment and speed was King
everywhere.
Gen-3 – The Cars… These
were the smaller wheel-based cars of the 1980s... the ones that in the
beginning proved over and over that they could fly, which is not a good thing,
to be sure. Behind their steering wheels were drivers named Bill Elliott, Harry
Gant, Alan Kulwicki, Dale Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace and the rest of their
competition.
Gen-3 – The Fans… These
were in large part the offspring of my generation, almost grown and not so much
in need of an automobile as we had been. They had adoring parents, willing to
chauffeur them to wherever they needed to be. Still, there was that fascination
with mechanics and speed. The cars had grown more compact by demand, as the gas
crisis of the mid-70s crippled the nation and brought about gas rationing in
some areas. Gas, when one could get it, shot up to an unheard $1.25 a gallon in
some markets, and Detroit had to listen or lose their sales to the smaller and
more gas-friendly European and Eastern cars.
Fortunately for stock car racing, this was also the
dawn of the Television era, as NASCAR was introduced to an entire nation and
warmly received by a large portion of it. Even those that had never seen a race
were fascinated with this “new” sport. Life and racing were good in the 1980s.
Gen-4 – The Cars… These would be the yet smaller
cars of the 1990s, which had by then lost much of their stock appearance in the
racing versions, and were decidedly race cars, no longer resembling the cars in
our driveways. This was the Jeff Gordon, Dale Jarrett, Bobby Labonte and Jeff
Burton era, though overlapped by drivers from the earlier decade like Earnhardt
and Wallace along with newcomers with names like Kenseth, Johnson and Newman.
Gen-4 – The Fans… Despite
the fact that the cars no longer pretended to be “Strictly Stock”, which in
truth they never quite were, the fans of the 1990s were still fascinated with
stock car racing, and could relate to everything their parents and/or
grandparents told them about the “Good ol’ days.”
This generation, like those before it, went racing with those elders in their
families and a good time was had by all. NASCAR from the beginning marketed
itself as a “Family sport” and it was, in more than one way. Families went
racing together as fans. Families went racing together as drivers, passing the
racing gene down from one generation to the next. Families such as the Allisons, the Bakers, the Pettys,
the Earnhardts and hundreds more participated in the
sport, with father racing son, brother racing brother and assorted other
combinations of uncles, nephews, daughters, nieces and sisters. NASCAR had come
fully of age in the decade of the 90s, and into the new millennium. NASCAR racing
stood as the #2 watched sport in America, and life was good.
Gen-5 – The cars… This was
the age of the “Car of Tomorrow.”(COT) In the wake of a rash of on-track deaths
in 2000 and 2001, this generation brought with it many safety features, both in
the car and on the track. But... and it's a really big but... the
COT, victim of severe scrutiny by NASCAR, produced cars that were identical in
every detail that could be controlled. It had a wing instead of a spoiler and
it had an ugly front splitter, held on with equally ugly braces. It was fat and
squat in appearance. “Squat COT! Beautiful... it was not!” It lost fan support
almost from the day it rolled out for competition in 2007. It lost manufacturer
support as well, as no one could tell what make of car they were seeing... the
only difference being the headlight decals.
Between the car itself, the mandating of HANS
restraints and the installation of SAFER barriers at all NASCAR tracks where
Cup cars run, racing was safer than before, but the racing itself, for lack of
a better word, pretty much stunk. The term "Aero push" has come to be
dreaded by all race fans, and the drivers are none too fond of it either. It
means that even though car 2 in line might be much faster, it is unable to pull
out and around car 1 in line without being sucked into the side of said car. In
short, it makes passing almost an impossibility. Six years of that was more
than enough.
Gen-5 - The Fans… This is
a generation that saw wholesale changes brought about in what seems in
retrospect like an instant, to the steady, static sport that had been so loved
by every generation before. As we entered the new millennium, this generation
saw Dale Earnhardt, the actual “Face of the sport” die on the Daytona track at
the end of the Daytona 500 in 2001. A short two years later, they bade farewell
to R.J. Reynolds, which had been in place as Series sponsor since before many
of them were born. As a very bitter icing on the cake, Bill France Jr. was
forced into retirement as he fought vainly that “battle with cancer” and as
with so many others, the disease won in the end.
There was NASCAR, the number 2 sport in the nation,
without its biggest star, without its over 30-year sponsor and its leader
stricken down by a cruel disease. If ever there were a time for a steady hand
at the helm of that good ship NASCAR, it was then. Enter Brian France! At the
very moment when the sport needed Robert Young from “Father Know Best” instead
it got Keith Richards, the most stoned member of the “Rolling Stones.” Anyone
following this generation never had a chance. Stock car racing as we knew it
for 5 generations is for all practical purposes dead and gone.
Gen-6 – The Cars… Perhaps
we should call this one the “Car of Today”… or maybe not. It came to be in
answer to the factory complaints that no one could tell one make from another
when the COT was on the track. Dodge had already bowed out of the NASCAR scene
and it was whispered that at least one of the big American makers threatened to
do so as well if the cars weren’t made to reflect the $millions spent on
designing and developing them as brand specific. NASCAR had to listen, and at
the beginning of 2013, just six short years after the Squat COT was the new kid
on the block, rolled out Generation-6. It was different in appearance, from its
predecessor and also from each of its contemporaries. A fan could actually tell
the difference between Ford, Chevy and Toyota by looking very closely at small
details. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better looking. The next question:
“Could it race?” To date, the answer to that one is “No!”
What follows is an excerpt taken from an article I
wrote about this car when it was first introduced. It had yet to be
race-tested, but it was the prettier sister to the COT, to be sure.
When I look at the Camry, with the
grille area split by the Toyota insignia, the car appears to me to have flared
nostrils, much like a horse will demonstrate when snorting. With my half-Arab,
that usually indicated that he'd had about enough of whatever I was doing to
him... or that a fly had bitten him. In short, the Camry shows attitude!
The Chevy front view is very different.
No split grille on this one, and it "almost" appears to be smiling,
save for those upturned corners behind the headlights. Those give it a classic
"mean" look that the Monte Carlos have passed down to the new SS, closely
resembling the upturned corners on the domino mask worn by "Cat
Woman." If the Toyota has 'Tude, the Chevy is
Leona Helmsley, the “Queen of Mean.”
Looking the Ford Fusion straight in the
eye, one doesn't get quite the same feeling. The other two look threatening,
while the Fusion looks confident. I see in this one that Smiley with the
sunglasses that just oozes confidence, giving the impression that he is
standing with hands on hips, looking down at you while delivering the message,
"Don't mess with me!"
Gen-6 – The Fans… This one
gets a bit tricky for someone my age. A large number of today’s “new fans” are
the age of my grandchildren, and a generation unlike any this senior citizen
has ever encountered. They are, for want of a better description, “plugged in.”
They walk and even drive… those that do… with an “earbud” in one or both ears,
listening to music, narrated books, narrated school lessons and who knows what
else?
They go nowhere, even to bed, without their “phone.”
They are attached to it in the same manner in which I am attached to my heart.
It is the core of their existence and they simply cannot function or live
without it. They don’t need a radio; they have an iPod. They don’t need TV;
they have a phone, or a “pad”, which is a miniature version of a computer… I
think. Everywhere they go, they are accompanied by one, or more likely by both
apparatuses. What they do need and cannot function without, is WiFi and a place to recharge.
This is not a joke. At Christmas, I gave my daughter,
my son-in-law and my two granddaughters portable phone chargers. I gave them
other things of course, but those little chargers were the hit of the day.
Remember how I explained that in my day, the automobile meant freedom to my
generation? Well, to this one, freedom is a portable phone charger, so you
never have to hunt for a wall plug.
Yes, I can see that marketing a 3 or 4-hour race to
this bunch could present a problem. WiFi at every
track is a must, and maybe having portable chargers at the concession stands
would be an asset. Many tracks are scrambling for the honor of having the
biggest TV screen in their infield. To them I say, “Save your time and money.”
The old fans, if any still come to your track, will
complain that it blocks their sight-line across or around the track. The new
ones won’t even look up. There is a race on the track that they paid to see,
but if they watch at all, it will be on a 4” phone screen. That phone will
never leave their hands, but it won’t always be showing the race. They have the
attention span of gnats and could never sit still for the duration of a stock
car race without their phone to keep them tuned in to life.
A large percentage of them don’t own an automobile,
and wouldn’t know how to drive it if they did. They depend on others, parents,
friends or public transportation to get to places they absolutely must be. The
automobile means almost nothing to them, and the idea of racing automobiles
seems archaic and might even be described as “cute”, which has slowly evolved into a term of sarcasm and amused
derision.
That’s all I’ve got gentle readers. Will there be a Gen-7
car? I honestly cannot say, but probably so. Will there be a Gen-7 fan base?
That is seriously debatable. To these aged eyes, it would appear that perhaps
the change has gone too far; the evolution has met itself coming back and there
is nothing more in which to evolve. History tells us that once the automobile
took hold and flourished, our dependence on the horse quickly vanished, and
today, horses are regarded solely as pets or bets, nothing more. The old adage
is that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
End of words; time for music and our Classic Country
Closeout. Today, for no special reason other than that I thought of them, we’ll
be hearing some of the old trail songs of the Golden West. These all come from
the age of the “Westerns” at your neighborhood movie theater, so grab some
popcorn and maybe a box of Mild Duds, and settle back for a little trip down
the Western fork of Memory Lane.
First up is one that every cowboy or pseudo cowboy
recorded at some time. This one is done by one of our “singing cowboys”, Gene
Autry, with his version of “The Old Chisholm Trail.”
Next we’ll hear the very distinctive voice of Vaughn
Monroe singing, not “Riders in the Sky” for which he is best remembered in
Western circles, but a beautiful rendition of “Blue Shadows on the Trail.”
This one comes from the unforgettable Tex Ritter, as
he takes us back to the days of “Gunsmoke” and the
theme song, “Gunsmoke Trail.” This offering gives
us glimpses of the past with James Arness, Amanda
Blake and the rest of the Gunsmoke gang. Please
enjoy…
Here’s a bit of a treat and a recording I had not
heard before. This is Clint Eastwood, aka Rowdy Yates on Rawhide, singing “Twilight
on the Trail.” Clint does a beautiful job with this old Cowboy Classic.
Oh, what to do; what to do? I have two songs left and
just one spot. I have the Sons of the Pioneers singing “Along the Santa Fe Trail”
and Roy Rogers and Dale Evans singing “Happy Trails to You.” Close your
eyes Jim, so you don’t see the double play.
Be well
gentle readers, and remember to keep smiling. It looks so good on you!
~PattyKay
