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

Andrews, E. (2014, July 22). World's First Automotive Competition Held, 120 Years Ago. Retrieved July 06, 2017, from http://www.history.com/news/worlds-first-automotive-competition-held-120-years-ago

Automobile. (n.d.). Retrieved July 6, 2017, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/automobile

Deffree, S. (2017, July 03). Karl Benz drives the first automobile, July 3, 1886. Retrieved July 07, 2017, from http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/edn-moments/4376656/Karl-Benz-drives-the-first-automobile--July-3--1886

Eckermann, E. (2001). WORLD HISTORY OF THE AUTOMOBILE. Warrendale, PA: Society of Automotive Engineers.

Jacobs, C. (2017, February 28). NASCAR Is Ruining Stock Car Racing, One Rule Change At A Time. Retrieved July 02, 2017, from http://thefederalist.com/2017/02/24/nascar-ruining-stock-car-racing-one-rule-change-time/ Jacobs does a good job of illustrating NASCAR’s transition from traditional stock car racing to this overhyped, over represented, and over sponsored “stock” car racing. The new sport that regulates almost everything except the legitimacy of the cars. The sport is much more worried about which large manufacturer company is going to pay them the largest sump of money to use their “stock cars”. The sport, much like all the others, has turned in to a large business; a cesspool of crappy car bodies on top of beautifully engineered racing machines. If I were to compare it to anything I would compare it to putting athletes in morphsuits of the companies that sponsor them and taking all the credit away from the athletes.

Kibbe, R. (2011, June 15). When Stock Cars Ruled NASCAR and Why They Left. Retrieved July 01, 2017, from http://www.streetmusclemag.com/features/interviews/when-stock-cars-ruled-nascar-and-why-they-left/ This source takes a neutral stance on NASCAR racing and the change in time from completely stock to abstractly stock. I want to use it throughout my article to describe how the changes over time led to to the creation of the sport we have today. The most American sport of all time has to be NASCAR. The letters stand for National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing which is completely ironic because they don't race anything close to stock. Stock according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is “the inventory of goods of a merchant or manufacturer”, which when referring to a car basically means “straight from the manufacturer”; untouched, unmodified, and unregulated, which is not the case for NASCAR. In fact, according to this article, NASCAR’s cars are only considered stock because they use the chassis, the metal frame on the bottom of the car, the manufacturer gives them. Making the chassis the only requirement gives the NASCAR teams a lot of loopholes and opportunities to make the cars they're using anything but “stock”. The race cars are then custom made to fit on top of the chassis that are outfitted with a roll cage, a carbon fiber body made to look exactly like the car the chassis belongs too, and a racing motor. They begin by welding metal bars to the frame for rigidity, support, and most of all safety. They then went on to pull the nastiest rick of them all, making cars appear to be stock. They accomplished this feat by making replica bodies look exactly like the street legal counterparts using expensive lightweight materials such as fiberglass and kevlar. The last major thing NASCAR cars have that their replicas do not are high performance racing engines that end up costing more money than the price of an actual car. It appears to have been a complete evolution of innovation within the confines of a racing series. So, when it’s all said and done, the reason that “Stock Cars” no longer roll in NASCAR is a complex one, and certainly one that didn’t happen overnight. We love the racing we see on the track today, certainly, but the “gearheads" still  think of the days when stock cars wore real sheet metal and had a little more in common chassis-wise with their showroom counterpart. Even those cars weren’t really “stock” anyway, they sure looked cool.

McFarland, J., McGann, J., Holdener, R., & Hill, V. (2016, June 15). Engine Power Curves - Understanding Dyno Results - Circle Track Magazine. Retrieved July 15, 2017, from http://www.hotrod.com/articles/ctrp-0810-engine-power-curves/ These graphs demonstrate the power band (horsepower-lb.ft torque) of race car vs that of the same vehicle in stock form. This is done by Hot Rod magazine a reputable, unbiased source that appreciate cars at their most basic, simplest forms. The data was received through a dynamometer more commonly as a dyno. This machine accurately measures the total output of any engine. It can be hooked up to the car (less accurate because it is including the power lost in the drive train, gears and transmission of the vehicle) and it can also be hooked up directly to the engine. This specific test was very accurate because the power was measured by attaching it directly to the motor.

NASCAR. February 28, 2017 at 09. 00 AM. (2017, February 28). About NASCAR. Retrieved July 02, 2017, from http://www.nascar.com/en_us/news-media/articles/about-nascar.html The actual NASCAR website has an about us page that aims to give a history of the sport of stock car racing. I aim to use their own page against them to show how their sport revolves around the last two letter 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. This created a good market for quality cars that were self-evident through the sport of NASCAR. Somewhere along the lines the sport became corrupt and is now practically dominated and owned by Toyota, a Japanese car manufacturer. 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.

Peters, E. (2017, January 16). NASCAR and the Not-Stock Stock Car. Retrieved July 01, 2017, from http://www.westernfreepress.com/2017/01/16/nascar-not-stock-stock-car/ This source takes a stand and disagrees with the fact that NASCAR uses nothing remotely close to a stock car. I will incorporate it in to my texts to show the stark contrast between a “real car” and a race car. I hope to show reasons why using actual stock cars may be beneficial for the sport, the companies involved, and the automobile industry in general. Not only does competition further advance the technological breakthroughs we have today, but it also promotes friendly competition, better manufactured cars, and better entertainment for car enthusiasts. This article rips apart the way that NASCARs vaguely resemble the ones you can buy at your local dealership similar to the way I described in the other annotation except this one goes more in-depth. It elaborates more on what changes and how drastically it changes, it forgets to mention how and why sadly. The article talks about how the new Toyota Racing Camry Stock Car came out and how the headlights were painted on… That should be enough to have a person doubt and question the “stock-ness” of the vehicles NASCAR is using, but one might give reasoning for this doubt and think maybe NASCAR is doing it because the lights unnecessary because the cars usually race during the day-time, therefore the lights need to be removed to reduce weight. As one examines the car further they will also notice the stock car has no doors and or windows. It only has plexiglass panes for the front and rear windshield and 1 or 3 other windows for the passengers window and the rear seats if the case has one. The driver side window remains open throughout the entire race and has just a net covering it preventing large objects from getting in or out of the car unintentionally. After reading that article one might start thinking the only thing resemblance to the stock car are the vague things like the fact that it has four wheels and a motor.

Stock. (n.d.). Retrieved July 1, 2017, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stock