Funny story in one of the auto mags awhile back about Junior Johnson running his 64 Chevy Stock Car (with the 427 "Mystery" engine) at the Goodwood festival of speed in England. The crowd went wild for it but the funny thing is that he presented Lord Goodwood a couple of Jars of Peach MoonShine. Someone wondered how he got the moonshine through customs and someone else quipped "It wouldn't be the first time Junior smuggled a bit of "shine" in the trunk of his car".

 

I am not so sure I would make the claim that NASCAR has the largest fan base in all of racing. The point you make about the actual people attending a race is a little confusing too. What is the actual attendance of every NASCAR race for the whole season? I am sure someone knows this. Most of the races I have seen it looks like maybe 40k to 50k at the smaller tracks and maybe 70k to 80k for the larger tracks not including Indy. Then look at a F1 race and lets take Monza for example there attendance is some where in the 200k to 300k range just for race day. Seems to me that NASCAR would have to race every weekend in the month to even come close to just one F1 race. I don't know maybe my numbers are far off but I wouldn't say NASCAR is the largest fan base by any means without some serious facts to back me up.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Bieg
[B]

I for the record have never made fun of anyone for watching any type of racing.

 

How about an AVERAGE of over 190,000 fans per event over a 33 race season and those are 1998 figures.

Try these facts on for size;

http://www.hhmotorsports.com/demographics.htm

Now show me something that backs up YOUR argument.

 

It just about impossible to find F1 attendance stats but I did find this.

Today's Sports Business Daily wire showed that the F1 gate for two, 3 day, north american races totaled 534,000

Lets take your average at 200,000 per event and 33 races that is 6.6 million. Lets take 266,000 (which is half of American races and we all know F1 is stronger in Europe) at 16 races that is 4.256 million. If F1 had 33 races that put it at 8.7million+. That might not be to accurate but even if it is off a couple million it is still pretty close from where I see it.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by SanMarinoCpe
[B]It just about impossible to find F1 attendance stats but I did find this.

 

Here we go again Facts Facts Facts....If a pig had wings it would be a flying pig...maybe they would be eagles by 1998 figures but like you said I dont have my figures together to say anything relevant.