Go fast, turn left, and other intimate advice

NASCAR claims the second-largest viewing audience in America, right after pornography. And probably for the same reason: Sooner or later, somebody’s going to spin out and slam into the wall.

I’ll never understand the appeal, because what’s the point of watching somebody on TV doing something you do every day? (I’m talking about driving now. Get your mind out of the gutter. And thank you for even considering that I might be the kind of guy who’s doing it every day. Not driving—the other thing.)

OK, the guys on TV have a lot better equipment, do it really fast, and have a great team behind them (we’re back to driving now—try to keep up, for cryin’ out loud!). But still, once you put it on the screen, all you’re watching is a bunch of participants making a lot of noise and occasionally switching positions, and not even doing that all too often (again, we’re talking about cars here. Sheesh!).

If you want to watch machines in operation, you may as well go to a Laundromat and pull up a chair next to the dryers to watch the clothes tumble. Which would probably be more exciting, because if you look closely, you might even see a bra or some panties flash past (for those of you who are sick of talking about cars when there’s porn to consider).

According to Answers.com, “Demographics show that NASCAR is viewed by 215 million TV viewers each season.”

Answers.com is silent on the question of how many Americans watch pornography. Accurate numbers are hard to obtain for three reasons:

1. Men are liars.

2. More than 200 million Americans were too busy watching NASCAR to return the survey.

3. See #1.

Still, if you’re trying to assess the popularity of porn in America, here are some numbers from Answers.com to consider:

The USA produces 24 times more porn than any other country in the world.

Porn sales in the USA gross $12.62 billion dollars per year (2005).

The USA hosts 244 million ‘porn’ websites, or 89 percent of all such sites worldwide.

According to one news article, a 2009 researcher at Montreal University wanted to interview non-porn watchers in Canada, the US, and Britain, but was unable to find anyone who had never watched porn.

As unbelievable as that may sound, and just in case any researchers are reading this column, I am here today to state categorically and for all time: I have never watched NASCAR—which is, you’ll recall, the subject of this article. At least it was until your sick mind twisted it all around.

There are those who will claim that auto racing is a sport, which is a laugh-riot to the millions of boat-bedecked athletes waiting for bass fishing’s inclusion to the Olympic Games. (I’d say a few words about the importance of coordinated rod-handling during hook-ups, but I remember how juvenile you were just a few paragraphs ago with all the car/sex metaphors, so I won’t go there.)

I mean, I recognize that it takes coordination to speed around a track in a souped-up car, but does that make those drivers athletes? They’re just driving a car, for pete’s sake! I do that every day, and I have to put up with semis and gravel trucks that those NASCAR sissies never have to deal with. It takes coordination to toss quarters into a toll-booth basket, and even more coordination to slip through the narrow gap between your driver’s side door and the coin basket to bend over and retrieve a quarter from the pavement when you miss the toss while that cowboy in the Hummer behind you exercises his vocabulary, but I’m not waiting for my gold medal to show up in the mail.

But I lost you at “Hummer,” didn’t I?

I think NASCAR fans like to consider those races as a sport for one simple reason: Every American guy likes to think of himself as an athlete who could kick butt in his sport, if he could ever convince his wife that he should quit his stupid job and hit the circuit. And what other sport could most American guys lay claim to?

Basketball? Forget it—those guys are mutants. With lots of tattoos. And tattoos hurt.

Football? Well, maybe, after a few more seasons of bulking up on the couch with beer and hot wings. But not yet.

Soccer? Yeah, right.

No, driving would be the perfect sport for any American guy to try to convince his wife he could have a pro athletic career. After all, NASCAR races never require drivers to stop and ask directions once they master the concept of turning left at all times. And what guy hasn’t proven to his wife that he has the stamina to resist the urge to stop for directions?

So that’s why I think NASCAR is so popular in America—because all 215 million of those viewers are convinced that someday their wives will agree that they are undiscovered athletes with all the skills to win a big race.

And there’s a better chance of getting her to listen to that malarkey than it would be to get her to stop laughing when you tell her what a great porn star you would make.

---