With Jimmie Johnson taking home his 2nd straight NASCAR Nextel Cup on Sunday, he may be pushing the sport away from it’s core fan-base by not being a good ‘ol boy from the south with a bad boy image.
Johnson, a native of El Cajon, Ca. has come on to dominate the sport that has traditionally been led by drivers from the Carolina’s with bag ‘em up images, such as that of pioneers Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt Sr. Some say this a negative, due to the fact the core fan-base can’t relate to California boys like Johnson and Jeff Gordon….that maybe a can of Skoal and an off-the-track lady chasin’ image suit the sport vs. the squeaky clean image.
But other unlikely opinions sort of disagree, like that of fellow driver and Carolinian Kyle Petty:
“The reason I say that it makes no difference is, was the racing any worse because there wasn’t a driver from North Carolina that won? Was racing a lot different? Did the game of hockey change because the Stanley Cup went to Texas?”
Well, Kyle….I’d tread lightly with the hockey analogy. Which, for those of you unaware of the status of ice hockey, is still a professional sport played and watched by a few many (Where? I’m not certain).
However, Kyle did have this observation about the Cal-bred champions,
“What hurts our ratings right now is you have two California guys driving for the same team, the same brand with the same personality doing the same thing…..best part about Dale Earnhardt, no matter who he was racing for the championship with, he was constantly kicking them, constantly aggravating them, constantly throwing something out there.” [LINK TO STORY]
Being from California, I could throw out some non-relevant statements about how our out-breeding wins out over in-breeding, that skin cancer rules over lung cancer, or that California’s median temperature is rad….but I won’t. I will say I love the fact that there’s a scenario where Californians are thought down upon for being categorized as more squeaky clean than people from the Sun Belt.
