Why NASCAR sucks now.....And the way to fix it.........

The letters stand for National Association of Stock Car racing. Now there's people who like Robert Duvall's Harry Hogge character in "Days of Thunder" will argue-that since the '50's-"There's nothing stock about a stock car." Their half-right. Yes-NASCAR racers have always had roll cages and beefed up suspensions and hopped up engines. But the fact remains-that the motto-"Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday" came from NASCAR success. Pontiac surged from sixth to third in U.S car sales in the late fifties and early sixties for two reasons. One-the new president of Pontiac-Semon E. "Bunkie" Knudsen-had a motto-"You can sell a young man's car to an old man, but you can't sell an old man's car to a young man."  Two-Smokey Yunick and Fireball Roberts were the scourge of NASCAR in their Fire-Breathing Pontiacs. Roberts won a record 22 races in the 1961-62 season-a record that stood until Richard Petty won 27 in 1967-68. People wanted to buy cars they saw their heroes driving. And many of our great performance cars came about only because the manufacturers wanted to homogolate them for racing-be it NASCAR, Trans-Am or NHRA drag racing. If it weren't for that there'd have been no Hemi Mopars, no Boss 302 or 429 Mustangs, no Z/28 Camaros-no Big-Block Chevys, no Ram Air IV Pontiacs-the list goes on and on. The bottom line is-yes-Grand National cars were Race cars, not street cars-but you could go to your local dealer and buy a Pontiac Catalina with a 421, a Ford Galaxie with a 406, a Plymouth Belvedere with a 413, and a Chevy Impala with a 409. Later in the '60's you could go to your local dealer and buy a 426 Hemi Charger. You could buy a Torino with a 429, a Chevelle with a 396 or 427. You could buy a Z/28 Camaro or Boss 302 Mustang just like Mark Donohue and Parnelli Jones drove. In the 1970's- even after the Hemis and big-blocks were outlawed you could buy the same cars your heroes drove at Daytona and Talledega-Richard Petty ran a 1974 Charger with great success until 1979. You could buy a Chevelle or Monte Carlo with a 350 V8, just like Cale Yarborough drove. You could buy a Mercury Montego or Cougar with a 351C just like David Pearson drove for the Wood brothers. You could buy an AMC Matador with a 360 V8. When Petty's Juggernaut Charger was outlawed for 1980-NASCAR rules said cars couldn't be more than 5 years old-he switched to a '77 Olds Cutlass-whose fastback roofline and slope nose was more aerodynamic than the flat nose Malibus and notchback Monte Carlos the other GM teams were running-and he kicked ass. The other teams protested because Team Petty was running the ubiquitous small-block Chevy race engine. They argued that he should have to run a 350 Olds engine-which would have been un-competitive. Petty successfully argued that GM was playing musical engines with their production cars-that you could buy off a dealer's lot-a Pontiac Firebird with a 350 Chevy or a 403 Olds engine,an Olds Cutlass with a 305 Chevy V8, a Buick Regal with a 301 Pontiac, and a Chevy Monte Carlo with a Buick V6. NASCAR ruled correctly-that since GM was selling cars to the public that way-race teams could run any GM engine in any GM body. Several teams switched to Cutlasses to keep up with Petty. Even in the 1980s-you could buy a Monte Carlo SS with a V8 just like Dale Earnhardt drove. You could buy a Thunderbird with a V8 just like Bill Elliott won the championship in.  Things went to hell in 1989 when GM discontinued the rear-drive "G" bodies-i.e.-Olds Cutlass, Buick Regal, Chevy Monte Carlo,Pontiac Gran Prix. Now GM still built Camaros and Firebirds which were rear-drive through 2002. Why NASCAR GM teams didn't run Camaros and Firebirds-I have no Idea. Instead the rules were changed and they started running Luminas and Berettas and stuff. Plastic bodies of Front-drive compacts on a tube chassis. Instead of running Mustangs and T-Birds-Ford started running Taurus bodies. Chrysler-who had no rear-drive cars at all started running Dodge Intrepids. So from the early 90's on you've had a '90's front-drive econobox body on a race car chassis that's running 1965 technology. Carburators? Flat-tappet cams? Pushrod engines??? When Toyota wanted to play-instead allowing them to run the I-Force V8 in a Lexus body-NASCAR forced Toyota to basically build their own small-block Chevy replica and run it in a Camry body. The Ford V8s in the Fusions are not 5.4 OHC Mod Motors or 5.0 Coyotes like you get in a Mustang or an F150. Their "Clevors"-again 1969 technology-351W blocks with big-port Cleveland heads. The Chryslers aren't modern 5.7 or 6.1 or 6.4 Hemis-there old-school 360s-a 1967 design. The Chevys aren't LS Motors like you get in a Camaro or a truck-their old-school 350s-just like they were running 40 years ago in 1975. The "Fuel Injection" that was finally allowed in 2014 isn't direct fuel injection like all cars have-it's a 4-barrel throttle body on a Edelbrock Victor Jr manifold-a glorified carburator. NASCAR needs to change the rules-cars need to be based on production models. GM guys could run LS engined Camaros, Ford guys Coyote Mustangs, Dodge Guys could run Hemi Challengers and Chargers, and Toyota could run a Lexus body. Nissan could play with a Infiniti body and the big V8 from the Titan Trucks. People would indentify with the brands and be excited again. Now you've got a bunch of cookie-cutter cars-( they all look like a Camry ) buzzing around with 1960's technology under their phony skins. Ho-Hum. If teams had to run what was in production that would energize things. Maybe if enough people write NASCAR they'll listen.....Mastermind