Daniel J. Brush - NASCAR: An Interactive Guide to the World of Sports

N ASCAR by the numbers, huh?

With the possible exception of baseball, stock-car racing probably puts as much emphasis on numbers as any sport. Many fans can recite the numbers on the tops and sides of the cars. Several familiar jokes refer to fans counting by the numbers of the drivers: Truex, Kurt, Daaaaaallllle!

The number of the late Dale Earnhardt, 3, is as sacred to stock-car fans as the number, once worn by Babe Ruth, is to fans of the New York Yankees. There are no retired numbers in NASCAR, but since Earnhardts tragic death on February 18, 2001, no one has dared use it, not even Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Fans pay attention to the length of pit stops and the laps in the race. (For instance, 500 miles at Darlington is 367 laps.) They know the margin of victory, the laps under caution, the average speed, the pole speed, the pit-road speed limit, finishing positions, starting positions, positions improved, et al. They know how points are awarded, keep up with bonus points, and rely on television announcers to keep them abreast of what the point standings are in the middle of races!

Its all very high-tech. NASCAR officials have recently begun distributing packets of what is known as loop data, which are garnered from electronic instruments placed around each track. This data can get pretty arcane: quality passes, average speed in the turns, average running position, fastest drivers early in run, fastest drivers late in run, etc.

The term for maniacal baseball statistician is sabermetrician, derived from SABR, or Society for American Baseball Research. Perhaps a title should be similarly signed to devotees of stock-car statistics. Nascarmetrician?

On the surface, NASCAR would seem to have almost nothing in common with baseball. The sports have similarly fanatical fans, however.

The popularity of football is easy to understand. One doesnt have to know much about it to be entertained. This cant be said of baseball and NASCAR. A high percentage of fans revel in the numbers. To those who dont know enough to pay attention, baseball seems slow and boring. NASCAR detractors say its nothing more than a bunch of cars going around and around for three hours.

Both baseball and NASCAR reward those who pay attention. To the guy in the bleachers scribbling on a scorecard, baseball is pulsating because, well, little things mean a lot. The same can be said of racing, where thousands of fans sit in the grandstands wearing soundproof head phones and using scanners to monitor the radio conversations between drivers and crews. The high-speed intricacies make NASCAR just as intellectually stimulating.

NASCAR fans are often stereotyped as beer-swilling, flag-waving, T-shirt-wearing rednecks, but all in all, the atmosphere in the great speedways of the land isnt markedly different from the crowd at football stadiums, baseball parks, basketball coliseums, and hockey arenas.

More hangs in the superspeedway air than helium balloons and tire smoke. The average attendance is more than 120,000. Theres passion in those numbers.

Monte Dutton