National Association for "Stock" Cars That Look Stock But Actually Aren't Stock Automobile Racing

In 1886, Karl Benz was driving a motorized “horseless carriage”, yet there is not a single person officially credited with creating the first automobile (Deffree, 2017). According to the history channel the inventor of the automobile is a “matter of opinion”. Why is it a matter of opinion? Could the reason for this be because of poor record keeping during the 1800’s or could it be because of the ambiguity of what actually counts as an automobile? Merriam-Webster’s dictionary says that “an automobile is usually a four-wheeled automotive vehicle designed for passenger transportation”; the use of the word “usually” makes the definition feel so dubious. Definitions are almost always straightforward and tend to lack words like usually. It seems as if there is so much gray area when it comes to the most popular form of transportation in the world. Nonetheless, we can think of the automobile as planet Earth, we don’t know how it came to be or what created it, but like the history channel said the origins are “a matter of opinion”.

Despite the origins of the automobile being uncertain one thing can almost certainly be true, the first two automobiles probably raced. Racing has always been around, whether it was by foot or by horse or by train, so undoubtedly automobiles were no exception. Fast forward to the 20th century where automobile designs improved as a cause of friendly competition and advancements in technology, and we have official organizations set up just for cars to race (Andrews, 2014). The first “races” weren't even competitions; they were actually more of an exhibition to show off how well the car handles, its safety, and reliability (Andrews, 2014) This made sense for people with the mindset, “seeing is believing”, but one can wallow in complexity and wonder if maybe the cars they were exhibiting in the first races were better, upgraded versions of the car they were selling just for marketing purposes. The same can be said about cars today. Commercials, movies, and video games all show the vehicles doing things we expect our cars to replicate, yet this is not always the case. Backtracking a little bit, these exhibition races of “stock” cars eventually gained so much popularity and momentum amongst the people for being entertaining and informative that racing organizations were formed (Eckerman, 2001). These organizations had money to build tracks for the cars to race on and provided most of the marketing and advertising for the events where car manufacturers would bring their cars and race. These types of stock car races were so popular among people, especially Americans, that in 1947 the national association for stock car automobile racing was founded (NASCAR).

To understand what stock car racing is we must first define stock and car. According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, the word stock is “the inventory of goods of a merchant or manufacturer”. When referring to a car the word “stock” basically means “straight from the manufacturer”, untouched, unmodified, and unregulated. A car or an automobile was defined by Merriam-Webster as being a usually four wheel motorized vehicle. Therefore when the two words are put together it can be said that a stock car is a motorized vehicle that comes straight from the inventory of the manufacturer. That being said, one can analyze this information and already visualize what NASCAR races and cars look like based off of the information given without having even seen a race, right? Well if NASCAR is racing stock cars individuals can assume the stock cars come from manufacturers and are raced in front of an audience for marketing purposes so that thy can see the reliability and performance of the cars they could potentially buy. Analyzing this with a little common sense we can already start to assume what was going to happen with NASCAR; Large crowds of potential customers, perfect chance for manufacturers to market their cars… and this is what a NASCAR looks like now as opposed to the stock version of the same car model.

I find it funny that nowadays NASCAR only stays true to the last two letters in the acronym, automobile racing. In a 1000 word “about us” website they only mention the word “stock” about 11 time and only in conjunction with the word “car”. The entire sport was started for the sole purpose of racing stock, manufacture made vehicles because it was a good way to market quality cars and an even better way to improve the overall quality of factory manufactured cars in general (Eckerman, 2001). Unfortunately, somewhere along the lines the sport of Nascar seems to have lost its way and purpose. NASCAR disguises the quality for the manufacturers that are paying them the highest quantity of money.

Toyota was once a low-quality economic Japanese car manufacturer that slowly made its way to the American market and dominated here in the United States because of their good deals and clever marketing. The worst part was that the “about me” page had advertisements all over it about Toyota, some were even pop-ups. It had me thinking about the probable money tree behind all these shenanigans. NASCAR could potentially just be a giant marketing event, not even a sport anymore. Instead of taking passion in the craftsmanship of the manufacturer's cars, they now use the motor and wheels and parts from other companies and give all the credit to the company that happens to own the shell of the car. The Toyota Camry is now the widely used car body used in NASCAR so when people see the Toyota Camry coming down the track at speeds of up to 200mph they instantly think that if they buy one their car can do the same, or that it can be modified to potentially keep up with the NASCARs which is almost impossible; unless they decide to remove everything and use the chassis, then build a custom kevlar/carbon fiber body for it, swap out the little four-cylinder engine making a little over 100 horsepower for a racing one making over 500 horsepower, etc.

Since the birth of NASCAR in 1946 millions and millions of people have been watching automobiles drive around an oval track for entertainment. Actually, that’s a very ignorant and bad way to describe the sport. Fans have watched NASCAR races for entertainment and to get a feel for the sport, but most importantly, they were watching it to make informed decisions on which car to buy next. These races were like a show and tell for automakers where they could prove their cars worth. These races would also allow spectators to see how well the cars handle and perform under certain circumstances. This would allow buyers to make informed decisions before they bought the car. Nowadays, NASCAR uses fully built supercars that look like regular suburban mom cars on the exterior. The internals of the car look something straight out of fast and the furious, and the yet the outside is made to look like a car my abuela has; all because they want to appeal to potential customers. But why do they use that exterior? Why don’t they make the cars look like super cars? The reason for this is because NASCAR is supposed to be racing stock cars! Cars that you can purchase from your local dealership. Unfortunately, the sport was taken over by greedy investors and extremely wealthy car manufacturers and is now used as a cesspool of marketing; they market everything from the products they use to wash cars to the people that made the cars tires. They give credit and fame to all the companies with the money, not the companies actually working their butts off to make safe, reliable, and fun cars. This is something that both the spectators, the manufacturers, and the people in charge at NASCAR should consider.