At last, finally, I'll join the conversation here
First of all
@Matski @Beemer B773ER
Thanks a lot for sharing thoughs and information about NASCAR and keeping this place alive. Not many Non-F1 racing fans around here
I don't have too many thoughts on NASCAR at this point. It's a few years since I watched it before, and the race format, the cars, and a number of the drivers have changed. The season so far has been beset by weather issues, with lots of delays and postponements, which makes it tough (race broadcast time here is Sunday night... it can easily be 2-3am when the races finish, which has always been a problem for me). I also don't really have a driver/team to support yet. Before I'd always been a Montoya fan, but obviously he's not there anymore so... I thought about following 7 time champ Jimmie Johnson, but he's retiring from NASCAR at the end of the season - and is having a tough final year!
Nice! I understand how frustrating it is to have a different time zone affecting your race following. Before moving to the States, that was among the main reasons that prevented me from following, in addition mainly to my big lack of knowledge about the series and the unavailability of a platform to watch the races. Also, driver shuffling is very common on series with large number of cars so it's kinda hard to know to follow, so you usually try to look for the big names.
The races are now divided up into three segments, if you do ever get round to dipping your toe into NASCAR, you can probably just watch the 3rd segment to begin with... often the most excitement is with 20 laps to go or so. As you begin to understand it a little more, you might find it more interesting to see how the whole race unfolds... there's also the chance that you'd find it dull. I find it pretty track dependent personally.
Good to know
I'll try to keep an eye on that.
I've been completely into NASCAR since the start of the '08 seasons, so it's been a while now. It is very different to all the other forms of motorsports. To a casual observer going around in circles seems stupid and pretty easy to do, but as with anything, the easier something is to do, the harder it is to differentiate yourself from the next person, so you then start focusing on very small details that make very small differences. As
@Matski alluded to, while many of the tracks look very similar in terms of layout/dimensions/size/shape, they all are quite different in terms of how flat (or banked) the corners are, the turning radius, and also how smooth or rough the racing surface is. Again, these aren't huge differences, but when you're focusing or small details, a small change makes a big difference.
Great details and observations, man
A quick story: when I was a teen back in the late 90's and early 2000's I used to play car games (GT, Formula 1 of 1999, NFS, etc...). I was a bad gamer, so when I play something like NFS or other similar games that I can't remember, I preferred to play the oval circuits as I pick a powerful car and drive past the rest and win the race. That's how bad arcade games make you think of oval racing.
My discovery of NASCAR was through a magazine called Sport Auto, which I think is the oldest car magazine in the Middle East. It used to cover different motorsport series, and although I didn't understand much of the technical content I was reading, I was fascinated by the colorful livery of the cars (M & M's, Tide, DuPont, etc...) At that time I remember it was being called Winston series, and Jeff Gordon was the star, but then all of a sudden he stopped winning, and then other stars rose to the top, but that's about it.
I will say, NASCAR does put a greater focus on the entertainment value of motorsports, rather than purely focusing on 'the fastest car wins' like F1 or DTM. While many endurance series use some sort of BoP to level the playing field, NASCAR just has the teams operate in a very tight box of rules, so again, very small differences can make all the difference after going around in circle for 3.5 hours.
Good to know
As a racing fan, I grew to appreciate the different racing series, and I don't like the mocking of the series as a left turners that crash into each other, and that people come to watch the accidents. I also remember a long time ago, I got an issue of Auto Week that had the calendar of the series (maybe 2004), and noticed the unique shapes of the ovals.
Although I believe Top Gear had some role in that, Hammond's NASCAR bit was entertaining and fair.
I like the competitiveness of the series and the non stop action. To be fair, I remember seeing a highlights report on TV about some race, and was amazed by the amount of overtaking that possibly outnumbered the overtaking of a whole F1 season. I've said it before, but highly advanced cars, while sound awesome on paper and from a technical point of view, are inversely proportional to the "on-track" action during the race.
I'm a big fan of GT3, but I have to admit that some of the races make me sleep, LITERALLY! DTM had some really bad races until they decided to reduce the downforce levels and simplify the cars, which improved racing considerably, but with current $#!+ situation of the series, I don't know what will happen, which is sad.
Don't get me started about F1
If you'd like to learn more, just list a bunch of questions you have about NASCAR, and how it differs to other racing series, and I'd be glad to give my thoughts.
Awesome, man
I'll try to do that soon. Looking forward to learn more about it and share something here!
End of part 1
I'm thinking of a new avatar, and the new livery of the 330i is nice 
