OT Canzano: NASCAR to Portland is a win for the sports scene and city

I do not think you need to boycott the NBA, just like there is no need to boycott NASCAR or any other industry. Providing services (entertainment or otherwise) is going to take some investment - and it is only fair to judge services based on return on investment. There are a lot of people that enjoy NASCAR - and the cost, environmentally does not seem out of whack, certainly seems to be better than the NBA overall and at least in the USA, on a per viewer basis.

So, your argument was just unreasonable. It is easy to blame the "racing" series for being environmentally unfriendly - when in reality, they are not as bad as other entertainment products, might even be better than some.

For the record, I am not a NASCAR fan, I am a racing fan - but NASCAR just does not do it for me. If I was still living in Portland - I doubt I would go to watch a NASCAR race, but I was delighted to go see Champcars (the precursor to the current Indycar series) when they raced PIR.

 

that's a huge problem....stop eating burgers damnit!

 

well several have been listed here. Cruise ships, large trucks in metro area used for commuting and never hauling anything.. id have to think about it for more, but those come to the mind right off the bat.

Baseball busses?

all the minor league teams and all the travel?

 

I disagree completely with the difference in carbon footprint ...burning rubber tires alone...not just gas...and noise as well....people enjoy car racing, motor cycle racing and tractor pulls,demolition derby etc but I'm sorry...these are adrenaline rushes for some but they are not very environmentally friendly sports....and I think basketball air travel is ridiculous as well but I don't smell gas or burning rubber at a basketball game...I do at the races...choices. In America I'll never convince anyone that racing is a dumb sport but myself...I was probably the only kid in my county who didn't like racing or fast cars as entertainment....that's nothing new...I won't boycott the sport, I just won't walk across the street to watch it. Not my thing. Never had to swap out my tires on the lawnmower to finish mowing...

 

The reality is we have technologies which can power ALL OF THESE without negatively impacting the climate.

Stopping living our lives is not necessary. We just need proper incentives and laws to encourage the adoption of clean alternatives.

 

About the noise - don't go to the races.

As for the carbon footprint, you can agree or disagree as much as you want, 60 cars x 37 races x 4 sets a race is not a huge carbon footprint issue in the grand scheme of things - tires mostly create carbon on incineration - but race tracks, surprisingly actually reuse tires as safety devices.

Since you raised this issue I actually did some research on NASCAR specific used tires (simply since it is interesting) - and it seems that there is a company called Liberty Tire recycling that recycles every tire used by NASCAR (not just the top level, all the way to the local levels, that would be like NBA, College, AAU, School level etc...) with the idea that none of these tires end at land-fills but are reused.

https://green.nascar.com/news-media...cosystem-of-nascar-green-with-goodyear-tires/

Again, not liking Racing is fine, but equating racing with waste / environmental issues is out of touch with reality.

Racing is supported by car manufacturers that deal with environmental issues all the time and have been in the public eye on these issues for many years, a lot more than most other industries. Of course they care about it, they know what it is to be the scorn of the public - and they work at it. But like most things in life, perception usually takes decades to catch up to reality.
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BTW - Just to show that the big issue is transportation to the events and not the racing itself, F1 which is at the fore-front of going green and has been for years has many projects to track it - the latest report I have seen shows that the main issue is not the cars themselves, which accounted for only 0.7 per cent of the sport’s emissions in 2019.

 

great post!

 

My family recycles like crazy. I counter this by driving a car with a V8 and I fucking love it!

 

My wife is a director at an energy efficiency company - so as you can imagine - this is very important to our family as well as energy efficiency is a specific field in the environmental industry.

As for driving, I am guilty of having 2 very old carbureted cars that when driven pollute a lot more than modern cars. On the other hand, I use them so infrequently - that it does not matter. Since my wife works only 2 days in the office nowadays and the rest from home - it means that during the week the only car we really use is her electric car - so I do not feel bad at all at driving my old "disgusting" cars a couple of times a month.

Heck the pandemic and the use of the electric car most of the time means that I actually make sure to drive my own daily driver car once a week just so the battery remains charged.

 

don't spill it on your Naugahyde while fiddling with your 8-track

 

I put about 5,000 miles a year on my car. Just can’t believe I will ever get an electric one. Those old batteries are going to be around for millions of years though right?

 

Well, I suspect that everything in the universe is going to be around forever at the atomic level.

As far as recycling them - there are tons of places where they will be useful - EV batteries need to be able to discharge a lot of energy in a hurry and recharge in a hurry - a lot of the degradation that happens with these is not just capacity - but these attributes as well. But, even if you lose these qualities - you can still use them in other places.

I am willing to bet you will see tons of them reused as storage devices for renewable sources that you can not use easily now - like solar and wind generated energy - for example, see the Tesla Powerwall - https://www.tesla.com/powerwall

Now think about putting these in places where you can put a lot of them to store energy that is created in unpredictable fashion - like wind farms, solar farms etc...

Other places where you will be able to use them - Nissan / Renault are using the really crappy first generation air-cooled batteries from the 1st generation Leaf in utility vehicles in their factories. I am sure there will be a lot of places where you can use these - just put a ton of these sub-par old batteries in the school buses - they do not need to go far nor do they need to go fast - so even the crappy batteries you would not want in personal vehicles will have lots of places where they will be used.

 

trust me...I never have nor will...don't like loud cars, burning rubber or the smell of gasoline.....so it's all good..enjoy your sport but my assertion that unnecessary driving is not good for the environment is a fact in my view....people have always found ways to justify driving two blocks to the store for milk or 3 blocks to the weight loss center...we're a car addicted culture. Are there other carbon footprints that are unnecessary...of course. That is a given. Question for racing fans....do you also enjoy driving at high speeds? I have a gas powered tools but drive a hybrid for most trips ....my gross 6 cylinder SUV is necessary for winter and moving kayaks to fish...my sport.....I put 3 thousand miles on it over the pandemic and like you , have to drive it once a week to keep the battery charged

 

I raced a lot when I lived in Portland. PIR is in town and is a public facility which is awesome - and there is a big rallying culture in Portland (I love racing in the dirt). I was also younger and as you can imagine my racing went down once I started having kids.

I raced a bit when I lived in the bay area, Sears Point (Sonoma raceway) was about 45 minutes from home for me, not as good as the 20 minutes it took me to get to PIR, but not horrible).

Once we moved to SoCal my racing days are pretty much over. Nearest race track in in Pomona which is 2 hours away. Add the fact that I moved to racing vintage (much cheaper, just in tire costs) - and I do not have a truck and a trailer - I am not going to drive 2 hours in a 52 years old car, race it and drive 2 hours back. It's a non-starter - and I guess racing is not important enough for me anymore that I am going to buy a truck and a trailer.

A friend that used to go to the SCCA nationals every year (in other words, very successful at the amateur level) said I was a good driver and a shit mechanic - because I did not set my car very well. So, when by sheer luck my car matched the track - I was in contention for a win or running up-front, but most races I would be mid-pack. On race tracks - when it was very slippery I was usually competitive - because quite often car setup details are less important if you get the big picture right - and it is easier to compensate with driving.

 

for me its not about the high speeds it a lbout the corners. If i had my way all tracks would be a form of a slalom course.

hence my rollover incident in the go cart.

I get a rush from high speeds but dont have a safe avenue to release the rush. Im not one of the fools on the highway playing slalom. Thats just insane to me.

 

I used to live near SIR and they have the full on drag races. And it would boom for miles. Three towns over.
The noise is real. But short lived. Few hours later and its over for nascar.
The drags would last all weekend.
And it also had an annual highschool drags for all the kids in highschool with muscle cars.

 

im full of shit most of the time.
I bet my carbon print is excessive.

 

I do not...I think it's from my 20 years of commuting on a motorcycle that cured me of any need for speed although I never had that itch really....I'm in no hurry

 

Motorcycle riders (or past riders) make for the best drivers, for sure. I sold my bikes when we left Portland (less things to take with us) - but once I saw how people drive in California, I am not getting one. Maybe one day I will get a little pickup truck and a dirt bike and go riding in the dirt - but I am not riding on the roads around here. I am not that brave.