Which Came First...

[JoeBob]

A topic on another board got me thinking about this one.

I'm curious about how/why people "fell in love" with racing, and started watching regularly.

Did you start to watch racing on TV after experiencing racing at a track, or did you start attending races because you liked what you saw on TV?

Chris Pook has talked a lot lately about bringing the races to the people to get them to take interest in a local event, and hope that they get hooked and start following the series.

[mnkywrch]

I started watching when I was four or five.

Given that my dad wasn't a big race fan, I was lucky to attend one day of Indy 500 practice a year when I drug him out to IMS.

It wasn't until 2000 that I attended an open wheel race outside of Indy (Cleveland for all the motive questioners).

If not for TV, I can't imagine being a big race fan. Racing to me would just be something that came through town once a year.

[JSR]

In the other thread you mentioned "love" of racing. I watched racing on tv before I ever attended a race. But I didn't truly love racing until I went to my first Indy500.

[JoeBob]

Yeah, you're right. I added a line to my original post in this thread to add that preface.

[cart7]

When I was just a lad, in the early-mid 60's, my Dad, who's not a race fan, took me to the Springfield mile during the Ill. state fair. I was hooked after that. Going to Indy was my first "BIG TIME" auto race.

[Napoleon]

Hey Joe Bob, about 6 months ago I did a similar poll at 7G. See if you can find it. The results were interesting.

[Dr. Corkski]

Got hooked on watching racing on TV long before I attended one. Attending the races just added to it. Frankly I don't know of anyone who became a hardcore fan just because they attended a street race.

[KLang]

I was a casual fan of racing until a street race came to my home town (Des Moines). The headliner was actually Trans Am. The experiance convinced me to go to see Cart at Road America and I've been going to 1-3 races a year ever since.

[FortyOneFord]

I used to watch the NHRA races out at Sears point. Very cool. Then, I heard about a race on the road course there, so I checked it out. Trans Am was cool, and hey, my football hero Walter Payton was driving. Also, they had a display featuring a Target "indy car", and it looked wicked. It was so small and fast looking; I decided at that point I had to see what "indy car" was all about. Saw a race live, and been hooked ever since. It took seeing them race in person to get me to follow them on tv and such.

[oddlycalm]

When I got interested in racing, there was no racing on TV. One race per year, the I500 was broadcast on radio, and the rest one had to read about long after the fact in print media.

We would listen to the race from Indy on the radio, and in the mid-1950's I began spectating at the local sports car circuit. My first race at Indy was in 1963. Regular TV coverage of any racing didn't come until quite a few years later, as most of you are aware.

A friend whose father had rebuilt a Porshe Carrera coupe, as well as an MG-TC, shared my interst and we attended everything from local sports car and ice races to Elkart Lake, Watkins Glen, Mosport and Brainerd for F1, Can Am, Trans Am and the various formula cars, and various venues in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin for dirt ovals. By the mid-60's we'd also made the first haj of several to Europe to attend (among others) the Isle of Man TT, Spa, Zandvoort (MotoGP), and the Nurburgring.

I'd become disenchanted with Indy by the mid-1970's and have only rarely returned. My disenchantment with the IMS pre-dated the split by two decades, and nothing that has happened since then has suprised me at all, or made me want to return. IMO, Indy is a lot more impressive if you've never been anywhere else.

I was much more interested in following the progress of those teams that raced and did development work year round rather than the single venue orientation that has impeded technical progress and racing development in the US.

[Gurneyflap]

Same for me, calmguy, no TV races until AFTER I started attending sportscar races at Meadowdale, Wilmot, RA...unless you count those Soldier Field stockcar races...some guy in #98 had roller skates on the roof, just in case. Think his name was Tony Bettenhausen!

[RTKar]

I was taken to a race when I was a toddler and for subsequent years there after, so I kind of grew up with it and have been attending ever since.

[Railbird]

I can't imagine becoming a racefan by watching it on TV. I know a lot of people have, it's just hard for me to grasp how.

I have to claim credit for bringing my family into the TV age though. My mother was still in the hospital after my birth in 1950 so my dad couldn't attend the race. He used that as an excuse to buy a TV so he could watch the live local broadcast on WFBM.

I grew up in the shadow of IMS in a family full of racefans. Lucky for me that my Dad and Grandfather were just as interested in Fangio as they were McGrath.

My first big time racing year was '59 with an Indy and Hoosier Hundred. As soon as IRP was opened I was introduced to the SCCA (Bird Cages and Ol' Yaller) and the NHRA. Doses of "the hills" were mixed in with the Stout Field circuit to give me a fairly well rounded racing education.

That may be why the television experience has always been a one dimensional frustration to me.

[Hot Rod Otis]

I'm in the other category. I grew up listening to the 500 and qualifying on WIBC, long before I ever went to a race. And the only races on TV I remember watching as a kid were the Wide World of Sports hatchet jobs that were mixed in with cliff diving from Acapulco and the National Rodeo Clown Championships. I used to hate those. It was Sid Collins on the radio that got me hooked. I remember sitting with my dad and listening to the 500 as far back as 1965. And we always used to do the Indy Star lap charts every year as well. I kept 500 lap charts for years, even into my 20's. I remember in 1980, I was @ Kadena AFB in Okinawa, listening to the 500 @ around 3AM, and yelling at my drunken roommates to shut the #$%^ up because Howdy Bell was giving the 140 lap rundown.

Oddly Calm, you described my feelings about IMS to a tee. I used to think Indy was the be-all to end-all. Then I enlisted in the Navy and moved away from Indiana and started going to other tracks. Now, to me, its just a race track. I'll take a CART 500 miler @ MIS(at least I used to) over the 500 anyday. The USGP? I have a great time there every year, but give me Mid-Ohio or Watkins Glen(to bad no series I give a hoot about races there anymore). I went back to the 500 in '02 for the 1st time in quite a while, and it wasn't that big a deal to me anymore, just a race. I enjoy the USGP much more than the 500 now. My 18 year old son who started going to IMSA races with me when he was 6, went to his 1st 500 in '02. He was definately underwhelmed by it and vows he'll never got to another one. Its a h*ll of a facility, but I no longer consider it "hallowed" ground, like I used to.

[Cam]

Watching Bathurst in the classic days is probably what really got me hooked.... That and when my old man took me to Claremont Speedway on Friday nights.

Cam.

[Railbird]

I had a "hollowed groined" one time, painfull as hell.

IMS is my childhood stomping grounds, I ran around the place as soon as was allowed out of eyesite. A friendly neighbor lady spotted me there by myself when I was seven. She took me home to a fairly stearn ass chewing since I wasn't supposed to have left the block.

I was back the next day.

Fortunately that life long thing has never depreciated my thoughts on other tracks. If walking into the vintage oval at Milwaukee or America's Spa at Elkhart Lake doesn't give you chills you ain't right.

[Sean O'Gorman]

My dad started going to races when Thrifty (offical car rental of Mid-Ohio, although nowadays its probably for no other reason than because of my dad) gave him free tickets, and then when he started taking me I became a fan. 15 years later hes just a casual observer while I'm an obsessed hardcore nut, and I'm sure he regrets ever bringing me to the track. :)

[911]

I saw the movie Grand Prix at the ripe old age of 3 (1967) and have been hooked ever since. My parents also clubed race the same year so I went to the races with them quite a bit.

[JT265]

I grew up a short bike ride away from Mosport in the 60's. A good friend of my Dad's was a signwriter, and IIRC correctly, Jack Brabham needed some decals replaced on his Repco, so next thing you know we were in the paddock, and I was hooked.

I can honestly say I have spent most of my fortune on racing.

The rest I just wasted. :p

For balance, Dad took me to Indy when in 1960 when I was 4, I remember track dogs and litte else.

If it runs and has no fenders, I'm in, particularly on a natural terrain road course.

[Lizzerd]

I voted other, because I don't remember.

I can say that I have been, as far back as I can remember, a fan of open wheel racing. My first experience AT a track was Pole Day at Indy, 1965. I was 8 years old. I remember sitting in the infield on a blanket with my parents and my 5 and 1 year old brothers. We were in the infield in the back straight towards turn 3. I told my dad that I liked the green car that made the funny sound when it went into the turn. He said that that just might be the car to keep an eye on. It was Jim Clark. Three years later, I cried when he was killed at Hockenheim. As a family, we never went back, though. My dad isn't much of a racing fan, and I don't really know why he took family there that day. Maybe it was just for the event, I don't know.

Anyway, my mom still has pictures of race cars that I've "designed". Pictures that I drew as a kid.

I used to set up my pup tent in the back yard and get in it with a radio during the Indy 500. I had a pitcher of Kool-Aid in the fridge. (No, not laced with cyanide, we're talking late '60's now).

As for TV, I can remember back then that they showed about a half hour or hour of the 500 a couple weeks later.

My first real live Champ Car race was Indy '73, still in the days of delayed/edited coverage. I don't recall any of the USAC races on TV at the time.

My first other live CART/Champ Car race was MIS in the mid '80's. Before that, I was watching races on TV, I think.

Bottom line to answer the question is... other, I think.

[RARules]

As a kid, I watched stock cars on television in the 60s, but that doesn't count.

My first real experience was at Road America when I was in college (~1972), and saw June Sprints and F5000. Friends got me involved. I was a small-time gearhead while getting my BSEE.

Sort of lost track of auto racing until I took my kids to the CART race at RA in 1999. I didn't even know that CART races were broadcast on television at that point. When I got back home, I caught the repeat on ESPN a few night later, and I've been hooked on CART ever since.

(I hardly even was aware of the split when it happened, as I have very little invested in Indy. (had only been there once in ~1973 or so)).

RA has happened every year on "college moving weekend", so it's been very tough to get there recently.

I'll be moving to the Washington DC area this winter, so the race attendance complection will change a lot.

There's nothing like being there in person! Soon I hope to get my wife there, too.

[Dave99]

Originally posted by Dr. Zhivago
Got hooked on watching racing on TV long before I attended one. Attending the races just added to it. Frankly I don't know of anyone who became a hardcore fan just because they attended a street race.
You have now. :)

My first race was the 1994 Long Beach Grand Prix and I was hooked instantly! I have spared you the rest of my default schpeil but I'd like to think I'm as hardcore as the rest here. :thumbup:

[pchall]

I fell in love with a race car pictured in a magazine.

The car was the Chaparral 2.

I was eight.

[Napoleon]

PC - I had the same experiance, except it was Raquel Welsh (sp?).

[Jag_Warrior]

I guess I was an "easy sell". All it took for me to get hooked was a little plastic toy race car, given to me by my uncle when I was five or so.

Watching stick and ball sports on TV as a youngin', I always had an "I could do that" attitude. But with racing... I don't guess I've ever had that same feeling. More an "I'd love to try" attitude, but never an "I could do that" one... especially after seeing Senna's qualifying laps at Monaco in the mid to late 80's. Even though I've always been athletic, I see top level racing as something far above my skill level... so I'm fascinated by it, and have tremendous admiration for the people who can do it really well.

And just as I'm about to hit send, look what pops up on Speed: Legends of Motorsport. Life is good. :)

[Napoleon]

I am not really sure. It must have been watching on TV first, but my parents took me to a few local races when I was a kid which I loved. I quit watching for a few years untill the very early 80's when I had a little spare cash and bought tickets to the Cleveland GP (so much for the Dr's theory).

[pchall]

Originally posted by Napoleon
PC - I had the same experiance, except it was Raquel Welsh (sp?).

Thirty-five or so years later I still would rather spend the weekend with a Chaparral 2 than Raquel Welch. How about you? ;)

[Napoleon]

Originally posted by pchall
Thirty-five or so year later I still would rather spend the weekend with a Chaparral 2 than Raquel Welch. How about you? ;)

Well maybe not in 2003 I would, but make it someone a little younger, I would still take the woman.

[Peter Olivola]

My first race was so long ago there was no TV coverage of any form of the sport.

[pchall]

Wow. You must be ancient, or at least older than me. ;)

My earliest memory of racing on TV would have to be of the 1963 or 64 Sebring 12 Hours as a highlight segment during programming on a Saturday afternoon.

[RaceGrrl]

When I was a kid, I would occasionally watch the stock car races with my dad. It wasn't until nrc took me to my first race at MidOhio in 1980 that I actually understood the appeal of racing. I've been hooked ever since. There really is nothing like the smell of methanol in the morning.