Given the threads about the health and future of the NHRA, and the interest or lack thereof of today's youth, here's some food for thought. CNBC just interviewed the CEO of Formula E, a new racing series with cars that look like F1 but are electric. I hate to say it, but they're pretty badass. 0-60 under 3 sec and 170 top speed. They asked a lot of good questions, even about the lack of loud engines. He said, in so many words, that today's youth (who they are targeting) don't want the loud cars. They're into iPads, iPhones and video games. These cars are like a video game come to life. His feeling is, while electric and fuel cars can coexist, in 20 years the technology for e-cars will be so advanced, that's all people will want. Leo Dicaprio has a team, and I believe so does Andretti. They also have a $5mil points fund for this year. For me, NOTHING will ever replace the sound of an engine, especially nitro. But, is this the future? Again, food for thought...
Future of Motorsports (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Nunz
- Start date
StockersRock
Nitro Member
If there's enough of a crowd that will support an entirely new viceral experience at a racetrack, then there is a big possiblity of this technology taking hold, particularly if it's satisfactory to ever increasing EPA/DEP demands. This could very well be an alternative and/or solution to racetracks of all kinds closing down due to noise issues.
vegasnitro
Nitro Member
Big Daddy is building an electric dragster too.
Joe, like it or not, motorsports, like everything else we grew up with, is different today than when we were kids, and will certainly be different in 10-20-30 years. I started this thread because I found that interview on CNBC to be interesting and thought provoking. Actually, the electric Formula style cars might be cool, and the "whirring" sound they make is unique, different than the high-pitched 15,000RPM (or whatever they turn) F1 cars. While Big going 200 in his E-dragster would be impressive (and that car is badass looking), I know it can NEVER replace the experience a nitro car provides. Again, I don't believe at all that the motorsports world is ending, but it's already changed a lot, and certainly will continue to, especially considering the pace at which the world is changing.
Nunzio this has been brought up 100 times in here, Future of Drag racing, Motorsports, etc...There aint anything you or I can do about it!
Jimbo
Nitro Member
For me it's kind of like being at a drag race and trying to image the fans making no noise at all just complete silence. How the hell do you get excited about that?
It's always been about the smell, noise, excitement, the ground shaking experience that really hit you. Some how when there is no noise or sound the whole thing just seems very boring to me.
Next time you watch either drag racing or Nascar on TV just mute the sound and tell me if that appeals to you?
Just my opinion. Jim Hill
It's always been about the smell, noise, excitement, the ground shaking experience that really hit you. Some how when there is no noise or sound the whole thing just seems very boring to me.
Next time you watch either drag racing or Nascar on TV just mute the sound and tell me if that appeals to you?
Just my opinion. Jim Hill
DrRocket
Nitro Member
The noise is still important to a lot of people. There's quite a bit of controversy over in F1 about the new turbo V-6 engines, and how quiet they are compared to the old V8s. Of course, when they switched from the V10s to the V8s, there was quite a bit of carping then as well.
I have never liked the idea of a sport changing to chase an audience in any sport. Historically what has happened is that the loyal fans hate the changes and quit caring and the "fad-of-the-day" fans the sport was hoping to attract still don't care enough to watch anyway. Would you guys change for a new girlfriend? A new boss? New teacher? Every time you change, you lose a small piece of what made it great to start with. When you change a successful formula, ask yourself why. Change to learn a new skill or lose bad habits is always a good thing. Changing just to impress someone is usually done for someone not worth impressing. Drag racing was once a great sport to watch, and a great sport to be a part of, at any level. Then came money. Money changed the cars into nothing more than billboards designed by ad committees and the drivers into bland, sponsor-pandering pitch men. Today, the drivers matter so little that nobody really cares when one gets swapped for another. Winning cars still win, also-rans are still also-rans regardless of who's sitting in the seat. How did this happen? Because nobody cared enough to control the changes to keep the cars under control cost-wise when the computer age hit. Wind-tunnels, engineers, CNC machines and super-teams have become needed to win. They cost money. Money has always been hard to come by in racing, but when it was easier, teams were allowed to spend all they could get their hands on, after all, there's no salary cap in racing, is there? But then the money fountain started to run dry, and all of sudden there's no money left to feed the winning machine with the exception of a couple teams that pretty much own nearly half the fuel field. Who was minding the rule book when the second fuel pump got bolted to the first nitro engine? Or the second mag? Or the barn-door wing? How about when funny cars stopped looking anything at all like something sold in a dealer's showroom? The answer is, "nobody". We all believed the crap about how fans love records so we all watched as cars went faster and quicker nearly every week. Wanna see how much fans love records? Ask even the most seasoned fan what the E.T. record is for any pro class without looking it up. It's all hype. People by nature commit important things to memory, nobody knows the records by heart because they aren't important enough to waste the extra brain space on. So now we have blazingly fast race cars nobody can afford, the heroes that built the sport have been shoved aside ("thanks, WJ, now close the door on your way out") and we really can't figure out why nobody wants to watch? Lets not destroy the whats left of our sport by chasing down the MTV's latest reality show-addicted crowd. But since NHRA is apparently letting ESPN show it whenever they can't find anything else, who'll really be left to notice?
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