Come round to Nascar

Harsh economic times have been cited as the reasons for their withdrawals, but a strongly worded statement from Ferrari this week suggested that the blame lies with the terrible twins running the sport - Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley.

At the same time that they are clamping down on the amounts spent on car development and testing - all in the name of saving money - they're steadily moving the sport away from its true fan base by extorting huge amounts from the traditional tracks to keep their racing dates and moving races to new venues in the East, where promoters are willing to pay obscene amounts to get a grand prix.

The emergence of Brawn and Red Bull to challenge the supremacy of Ferrari and McLaren at the beginning of the season was due to changes in the technical rules, and Jenson Button's painfully careful emergence as world champion meant there was little true racing done over the last few months.

Night racing was introduced to ensure that the events at the new tracks fell within the TV time slots of the mostly European audience. It became yet another boring procession round an unknown track.

To satisfy my inner petrolhead, I've found myself watching more Nascar than F1 this season. My image of the National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing was formed long before I actually watched a race. A Mad magazine strip had an avid fan watching the cars go round and round an oval, watching the lengthy yellow-flag periods when those souped-up production cars go round and round the oval slowly behind the safety car, and then falling asleep during the few seconds he'd been waiting for: the spectacular crash.

Despite all the downsides to Nascar racing - the redneck drivers and fans, the yellow flags (one race had 20 this year, meaning there were far more laps behind the safety car than under green) and the interminable ad breaks - it is competitive and there's always at least one "Big One".

That's when the cars go flying through the air and into walls in a crazy few moments of deadly dodgem cars. Forget the intricacies of track-bar adjustments and tyre pressure, it's for the visceral thrill of watching the crash that most people tune in. Human safety is high on the agenda, and no one has been killed in a Nascar race since 2001. The mortality rate among cars remains delightfully high.

Like all Southern dramas, Nascar had its share of controversy this year: a driver banned for taking drugs - for once I'm with the authorities on that one - and the public destruction of a trophy. The latter happened after the Nationwide race in Nashville. Race winner Kyle Busch, whose only resemblance to Pete Townshend is a big nose, decided to go all rock 'n roll when presented with his hand-painted Gibson electric guitar and smash it into pieces on the podium.

The latest round of the Sprint Cup series, from Fort Worth, Texas, is at 10.15pm on Sunday on ESPN.