OT Canzano: NASCAR to Portland is a win for the sports scene and city

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I think gas usage should produce something like move goods or deliver building materials....just burning it up to drive in circles as fast as possible is not the best use of gasoline....

But it is not driving in circles, it is providing entertainment to millions around the world. In the grand scheme of things, moving the cars to the different tracks (just like shuttling NBA teams around the country) wastes way more energy than the event itself.

You people are arguing about the wrong thing. There is always a cost for anything, you just choose to concentrate on the small visible cost and avoid the hidden big costs. If you enjoy NBA competition, moving around 30 teams for 82 games and countless people for scouting is going to be more expensive than moving 17 NASCAR teams for 36 races.

A NASCAR race consumes 6,000 gallons of fuel. A flight from New York to California consumes 5,755 gallons of fuel. You are concentrating on the wrong things.
 
I think gas usage should produce something like move goods or deliver building materials....just burning it up to drive in circles as fast as possible is not the best use of gasoline....I think it's an incredible waste but I also think driving two blocks to get a gallon of milk is a big waste...we're a gas guzzling culture. my truck is parked unless it's moving material like straw or manure,etc...it's all just a life style for me that I've followed all my life...I use gasoline but I also have a Prius and a 4 wheel drive XTerra....the XTerra is my fishing rig and has my kayak racks so I use it to bring fish to the freezer or get down the mountain in the snow....my mechanic is a Nascar guy who has a crew and races down in Roseburg on weekends...I know it's popular and my lack of interest won't change that anytime soon...I'm sure it'll be a popular thing in Portland if it happens.

You could make the same point about the NBA. Teams fly around the country in big, jet fuel guzzling planes and the guys run around the court wasting energy that could be put to use doing manual labor. It would be a pretty boring world if every single thing was done only for practical purposes.
 
You could make the same point about the NBA. Teams fly around the country in big, jet fuel guzzling planes and the guys run around the court wasting energy that could be put to use doing manual labor. It would be a pretty boring world if every single thing was done only for practical purposes.
That's a stretch.....burning up hundreds of rubber tires for entertainment doesn't quite compare to wearing out tennis shoes and basketballs but if the people are running around the track I can enjoy it more than when the car does it...personal choice, plus....I LIKE BASKETBALL! I am OCD about my own carbon footprint though..admittedly....(corrected my fossil fuel mistake)
 
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That's a stretch...first jet fuel isn't fossil fuel...it's surface fuel from my understanding...closer to methane...burning up hundreds of rubber tires for entertainment doesn't quite compare to wearing out tennis shoes and basketballs but if the people are running around the track I can enjoy it more than when the car does it...personal choice, plus....I LIKE BASKETBALL! I am OCD about my own carbon footprint though..admittedly

Jet fuel produces more co2 per gallon that automotive fuel. You are way off in your estimates for the harm done by flights.
 
That's a stretch...first jet fuel isn't fossil fuel...it's surface fuel from my understanding...closer to methane...burning up hundreds of rubber tires for entertainment doesn't quite compare to wearing out tennis shoes and basketballs but if the people are running around the track I can enjoy it more than when the car does it...personal choice, plus....I LIKE BASKETBALL! I am OCD about my own carbon footprint though..admittedly

Sorry, but jet fuel is very much a fossil fuel, it’s refined from crude oil. I’m much more of a basketball fan and am not much impressed by NASCAR, but neither one is a green industry.

https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/ToxProfiles/tp76-c4.pdf
 
I said it before, racing can be a great research vehicle for environmental studies that is subsidized by entertainment.

A normal car's engine has 30% thermal efficiency. Formula 1 in 2014 had 44% thermal efficiency, the latest engines (2021) have 50% thermal efficiency. This is all research that will trickle down to the mass market. Formula-E is the highest form of EV only racing and it is in a very early stage, but it already has gone through a full redesign with the improvements of batteries and thermal management - and some of this stuff will trickle down as well.
 
Jet fuel produces more co2 per gallon that automotive fuel. You are way off in your estimates for the harm done by flights.
I don't think I said there was no harm from jet fuel....I just thought was surface compost and not petroleum based fuel from oil...I'm probably wrong about that but I'll look into it ...I thought it was more like a methane which is also terrible for the environment but much easier to harvest and refine...so my homework is whether jet fuel is plant compost based or subsurface fossil based I guess...
And after looking it up it is petroleum based...much like kerosene...learned something...I'll eat my crow now!
 
I don't think I said there was no harm from jet fuel....I just thought was surface compost and not petroleum based fuel from oil...I'm probably wrong about that but I'll look into it ...I thought it was more like a methane which is also terrible for the environment but much easier to harvest and refine...so my homework is whether jet fuel is plant compost based or subsurface fossil based I guess...
And after looking it up it is petroleum based...much like kerosene...learned something...I'll eat my crow now!

If you fry that crow in oil make sure you reuse it in your car.
 
As a person with children, the thought of accelerating the destruction of our planet for someone's entertainment is depressing. The thought of gas prices rising while these guys waste fuel is depressing. If you get an electric only league, fine.
You better not drive a car to go to a Blazer game then. How dare you accelerate the destruction of our planet for your own entertainment and waste fuel.
 
Not a fan of watching cars race at all...just my choice....don't like anything about the sport but a lot of folks apparently do. I'm just surprised they choose Portland....I could see this happening in Roseburg or Medford and it would fit...Portland and Nascar to me is an odd match...
What tracks in Roseburg or Medford do they have that's like PIR?
 
You better not drive a car to go to a Blazer game then. How dare you accelerate the destruction of our planet for your own entertainment and waste fuel.
It's a simple math equation. The people who drive to Nascar cancel out the people who drive to blazer games. The blazers playing basketball don't cancel out the Nascar vehicles operating for hours.
 
It's a simple math equation. The people who drive to Nascar cancel out the people who drive to blazer games. The blazers playing basketball don't cancel out the Nascar vehicles operating for hours.
I asked you what you thought was the percent of usage. Then posted a link detailing the environmental impact of nascar. I don't think it is what you think it is. :)
 
It's a simple math equation. The people who drive to Nascar cancel out the people who drive to blazer games. The blazers playing basketball don't cancel out the Nascar vehicles operating for hours.

The math is not so simple. You ignore the cost of air travel and the fact that the NBA has almost twice as many teams to move to more than twice as many games (races). When the entire field's fuel consumption over a race weekend is the same as long distance flight for a single plane (which it is) - the NBA is much worse for the environment than NASCAR.
 
I would go on a long winded rant here with multiple links on the subject but listen, you'll just have to take my word for it ok and if you don't like that then you can do the research and look it up yourself!

so… basically fake news then huh? :)
 
BS. You're not kidding. Prove it!!
I'm not really wanting to get into the discussion because i kind of want Portland to get nice things like this.
However. You could counter the travel by teams and games with it takes many people on the NASCAR "Team" that need to travel as well as moving as many as three cars in trucks with tools from race to race. Setting up for lets say "Darlington" or "Bristol" in consecutive weeks uses a bunch of logistics. NBA Teams playing three games in Texas over a week or even in the New York Philly Boston area don't have nearly the Carbon footprint a Nascar circuit race and all the trimmings have.

I'll leave the rest to you guys to iron out.
Global Warming= "Bad"
Nascar for Portland economy = "Good"
 
What tracks in Roseburg or Medford do they have that's like PIR?
No idea....just know that's where my mechanic races his cars on weekends....I don't follow the sport and have only spent one night in Medford on my way to Ashland and only stopped for gas in Roseburg...not my idea of a good time...I doubt if it's NASCAR...it's probably just a local race scene.....they had them in the county where I grew up in Iowa too....
 
I'm not really wanting to get into the discussion because i kind of want Portland to get nice things like this.
However. You could counter the travel by teams and games with it takes many people on the NASCAR "Team" that need to travel as well as moving as many as three cars in trucks with tools from race to race. Setting up for lets say "Darlington" or "Bristol" in consecutive weeks uses a bunch of logistics. NBA Teams playing three games in Texas over a week or even in the New York Philly Boston area don't have nearly the Carbon footprint a Nascar circuit race and all the trimmings have.

I'll leave the rest to you guys to iron out.
Global Warming= "Bad"
Nascar for Portland economy = "Good"

I worked at the Best Western there by PIR for a couple years in the early 00's and when the IndySeries came to town it was a solid 10 days boom for us and everything in the area. Hotel rooms were going for 3x what they normally did and restaurants were packed. Was a great time to be a shuttle driver and all the tips that came with it. More entertainment options for Portland (whether you enjoy them or not) are always going to be a good thing in my book and that's from someone that doesn't understand the appeal of car racing but I know people are passionate about it. I can't stand soccer either but you won't find me shitting on the Timbers, for the same reason.
 

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