NASCAR's new stock car

By DAVID GREEN

The debate goes on, in Mark Young's post, in other forums and in the media and NASCAR Nation at large, about the new NASCAR racecar. I suppose it's a necessary process, even though it's all so much hot air at this point -- and will be, as several observers have noted, until we have more than Bristol on which to base our comment and criticism.

I won't get into that, other than to dismiss the most radical criticism as hysteria and to note that I, for one, like the looks of the bigger, boxier car just fine. I don't mind the splitter and the wing, and I don't believe they are any more fragile than the airdams and blade spoilers they are replacing. I don't think they make the cars look any less stock than the airdams and the seven-inch-tall blades did, either.

And I'd like to weigh in on the debate about what to call NASCAR racecars, now that they supposedly are no longer "stock" cars. I vote for -- "stock cars."

The term "stock car" was always a contrived one. The notion that NASCAR machines came from vehicles that were in dealers' inventory, or "stock," was a stretch in the first place -- a convenient and functional one, but still a stretch. Nobody ever, ever referred to their street vehicle as a "stock car," because that term came into use to describe a type of racing vehicle.

It's like the word "overwhelm." It's not made up of a prefix attached to a commonly used, functioning word with which we were all familiar. It's a special word, the meaning of which 99 percent of English speakers intuitively understood (from context, or just from some innate obviousness) the very first time they heard or read it.

Likewise, the meaning of the term "stock car" quickly became a part of the lexicon a half-century or so ago. It refers to a racing vehicle with a full-fendered body that resembles a production passenger car.

That's precisely what a Nextel Cup machine is, both the new one and the one it is replacing.

I found it interesting that one of the big topics of discussion at Miami-Homestead Speedway this weekend is the matter of driver rivalries, between a pair of Brazilians (Helio Castroneves and Tony Kanaan) and between the winners of the last two Indy 500s (Sam Hornish Jr. and Dan Wheldon).

How refreshing -- that the buzz is about drivers racing against each other, and not the technical specs of their cars. Maybe someday we'll get to enjoy that again in stock car racing.

Before putting a "30" on this -- rest in peace, Eric Medlin, and may God comfort the Medlin family and all the folks at John Force Racing.