LUKE'57
12-15-2005, 12:30 PM
Follow this closely all the way to the end boys and girls and I may be able to clear this up or at least bring some peace to the table.
Back in the early days, stock car racing, like special effects was kinda crude, rough around the edges and needed to be spiffed up for general consumption. Here, as in the special effects discussion, is where the fly with the twenty foot wingspan got in the ointment.
The early racer was a rough and tumble free spirit with a lot of flaws and faults, not the least of which, being not quite civilized was a main one. Now that Madison Ave. has cleaned up his image and re-made him in the image of Tom Cruise in "Days of Thunder", racing is now a mainstream pastime. There are no more fights with tire irons after the races, no more winning by 10 laps over the second place guy and no more lawless antics off the track. The races are usually decided by anywhere from two to eight drivers running nose to tail on the last lap. Then the driver crawls out of his car in victory lane and gives the "canned" speech that thanks all the sponsors and everybody goes home to get ready for the next one.
BUT!, even with those one sided finishes between a handful of finishers the old days had something that the new, highly competitive races lacked. HEART! Curtis Turner spins another driver to win the race in a hard fought battle and then gives him the trophy and the money because winning was what was important to him and not the money. A driver with a qualified car crashes another in practice and gives his ride to a middle of the pack driver who needed a break and he wins the Daytona 500. A driver that is in a close race for the championship crashes out of the last race of the season and looks to have lost the championship until a bunch of racers from a lot of different teams cut up a car that didn't qualify and use the parts to rebuild his car so that he can get back in the race and win the championship.
What I'm trying to say is that the new racing, like the new special effects, has the excitement of those close finishes. flashy cars and great role models that fit in today's society better than the misfit delinquents that were the early racers. But the new, more sanitary, cookie cutter cars and racers of today lack the charm, diversity, and personality of the rough and tumble pioneers much like the sterile CGI effects lack the charm and quaintness of the addition of the animator's own personalty of the stop motion effects of old.
The bottom line, and the point I am trying to make, is that I can enjoy the new racing for what it is and the old racing for what it was, pure magic! Just like fantasy movie making. A racer from Ireland, down for the Daytona 500, was introduced to the hair raising custom of "drafting", a practice where the lead car "tows" the car behind in his slipstream to conserve gas, which BTW is done at 180 MPH with about a foot between the cars. And his reply to the question about what he thought of it can also be applied to the art of special effects, both old and new. After coming in from his first drafting session he replied in a somewhat stunned manner, "It's a bloody black art!"
It was so much more fun when we didn't know exactly how everything was done and just went to the movies for fun and entertainment, and I'm probably one of the world's worst at that myself. Instead of sitting there and looking for all the techniques and flaws the next time you go to the movies, try just divorcing your cynical, well informed and educated self from the person in the seat and watch the movie like one of Jerry Clower's childhood friends, Marcel Ledbetter. As soon as the MGM lion came roaring on the screen he jumped up and shouted, "Go ahead and roar, Tarzan'll be out here in a little bit and he'll take care of you!".
After seeing many bad racing movies I know how hard it is to do but try to see the next movie as, instead of a well informed consumer, that little kid that once sat in the darkened theatre patting their feet in the Sugar Daddys and sticking to the floor (get your grandpa to explain) waiting for the magic to begin. Again, not trying to take up for poor film making, just trying to revive a little lost magic. If you agree with me then that's great. If you disagree with me then that's great too. At least you took the time to think about what I said.
Back in the early days, stock car racing, like special effects was kinda crude, rough around the edges and needed to be spiffed up for general consumption. Here, as in the special effects discussion, is where the fly with the twenty foot wingspan got in the ointment.
The early racer was a rough and tumble free spirit with a lot of flaws and faults, not the least of which, being not quite civilized was a main one. Now that Madison Ave. has cleaned up his image and re-made him in the image of Tom Cruise in "Days of Thunder", racing is now a mainstream pastime. There are no more fights with tire irons after the races, no more winning by 10 laps over the second place guy and no more lawless antics off the track. The races are usually decided by anywhere from two to eight drivers running nose to tail on the last lap. Then the driver crawls out of his car in victory lane and gives the "canned" speech that thanks all the sponsors and everybody goes home to get ready for the next one.
BUT!, even with those one sided finishes between a handful of finishers the old days had something that the new, highly competitive races lacked. HEART! Curtis Turner spins another driver to win the race in a hard fought battle and then gives him the trophy and the money because winning was what was important to him and not the money. A driver with a qualified car crashes another in practice and gives his ride to a middle of the pack driver who needed a break and he wins the Daytona 500. A driver that is in a close race for the championship crashes out of the last race of the season and looks to have lost the championship until a bunch of racers from a lot of different teams cut up a car that didn't qualify and use the parts to rebuild his car so that he can get back in the race and win the championship.
What I'm trying to say is that the new racing, like the new special effects, has the excitement of those close finishes. flashy cars and great role models that fit in today's society better than the misfit delinquents that were the early racers. But the new, more sanitary, cookie cutter cars and racers of today lack the charm, diversity, and personality of the rough and tumble pioneers much like the sterile CGI effects lack the charm and quaintness of the addition of the animator's own personalty of the stop motion effects of old.
The bottom line, and the point I am trying to make, is that I can enjoy the new racing for what it is and the old racing for what it was, pure magic! Just like fantasy movie making. A racer from Ireland, down for the Daytona 500, was introduced to the hair raising custom of "drafting", a practice where the lead car "tows" the car behind in his slipstream to conserve gas, which BTW is done at 180 MPH with about a foot between the cars. And his reply to the question about what he thought of it can also be applied to the art of special effects, both old and new. After coming in from his first drafting session he replied in a somewhat stunned manner, "It's a bloody black art!"
It was so much more fun when we didn't know exactly how everything was done and just went to the movies for fun and entertainment, and I'm probably one of the world's worst at that myself. Instead of sitting there and looking for all the techniques and flaws the next time you go to the movies, try just divorcing your cynical, well informed and educated self from the person in the seat and watch the movie like one of Jerry Clower's childhood friends, Marcel Ledbetter. As soon as the MGM lion came roaring on the screen he jumped up and shouted, "Go ahead and roar, Tarzan'll be out here in a little bit and he'll take care of you!".
After seeing many bad racing movies I know how hard it is to do but try to see the next movie as, instead of a well informed consumer, that little kid that once sat in the darkened theatre patting their feet in the Sugar Daddys and sticking to the floor (get your grandpa to explain) waiting for the magic to begin. Again, not trying to take up for poor film making, just trying to revive a little lost magic. If you agree with me then that's great. If you disagree with me then that's great too. At least you took the time to think about what I said.