Sept 13: A stock car?

This past weekend was spent at the NASCAR race in Richmond, Virginia. Every Fall for the past 15 years, my friend and I have taken in a race south of the border  -  New Hampshire, Dover (Delaware), Rockingham (North Carolina), Atlanta, Charlotte and Martinsville (Virginia). Now we tend to go exclusively to Virginia or North Carolina  -  I like those areas and it usually gives us one last shot of warm weather before we button down for the cold months ahead. This was earlier than normal for us, but we hadn't been to Richmond before and it's usually an exciting race  -  it didn't disappoint.

This is called "stock car" racing, but anyone should know that the only thing "stock" about these cars are their names  -  pure racecars thru and thru. It wasn't always like this as the following pic from around 1960 shows.....

Note that all the chrome bumpers are in place and they look almost exactly as one would see them on the street. Buy a big engined model from the dealer, work it over, add racing tires, improved suspension, a roll bar, tie down the hood and hit the track. Pretty sparse sponsor id as well. Now how about this approx 20 years later........

This Chevy and Buick still resembled their street counterparts, but really the entire car was purpose built for racing. I believe the roof and glass were supposed to be stock. Note that the sponsorship was now a dominant part of the paint scheme. Now let's skip forward another 20 years or so......

Now there is absolutely nothing stock about these cars and to identify them, one has to read the name on the front fascia. The headlights are decals, which kind of resemble their street counterpart. Still the name "stock cars" has stuck. These days it's hard to find any space on the car where a sponsor's name has not been placed. Progress  -  you decide.

Until next time...........