In defense of love handles

by tess

When I was a senior in high school, my best friend and I attended an Orioles game and (surprise!) drank far too much beer for a school night. Once home, we settled into a pot of coffee and our American Lit homework which included a paper entitled Willy Loman: American Tragic Hero. We hadn’t discussed our points of view on much of anything that night aside from the need for more beer and the relative cuteness of Cal Ripkin’s eyes versus his butt; and so we each completed our assignment. A few days later Sister Marylouise Whatevertheheck read two papers aloud. Always a pushover for a sob story, Kathleen was convinced that Willy embodied the tragic hero. And ever the castrating bitch, I condemned him as neither tragic nor heroic. Like an ancient Indian tripping on peyote, my inebriation had opened my mind to Aristotle’s elements of tragedy that I wouldn’t learn for another three years. And so two best friends lying only inches apart had claimed diametrically opposing views and had written so passionately about them that their papers were considered (in that small time and place) the defining arguments in one of modern American dramatic literature’s great debates.

This is not that. This is not my counterpoint to Gretchen’s anti-NASCAR diatribe. Honestly I am completely devoid of opinion about both NASCAR and Formula 1. I only feel compelled to comment because she’s so “batshit loonball” over-the-top in both her adoration of F1 and her disdain for NASCAR. Whenever someone expresses such intense conviction, my contrary nature demands that I disagree immediately and vociferously.

And so I will. But first: what’s perfect about Gretchen’s blog? She has purposely sprinkled her article with elitism: a dash of Porsche here, a smidgen of engineer there. References to the “complexity of racing” and “driving excitement” being far superior to both beer and “talking shit.” (While I’ve never actually heard shit talk, I’m damn intimate with beer, so I feel educated enough to take a side.) Gretchen vividly spotlights the exact differences between the 55 million worldwide F1 lovers and the 75 million (mostly American) fans who spend over $3 billion a year on NASCAR-licensed products.

NASCAR fans proudly believe that it’s okay to drink beer and talk shit. Most live their lives without higher education degrees and fancy foreign cars. So if it’s anything, maybe this is a declaration that it’s okay to be average. America loves Average (witness Joe the Plumber) and will choose Average over FancySchmancy any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Just like it’s acceptable that Willy Loman was a pathetic door-to-door sales-schmuck who couldn’t keep his fly closed rather than The Quintessential American Tragic Hero According to Aristotelian Theory, so too is it acceptable to embrace the simpler pleasures in life: an F-150, a Coors Light, love handles, … and NASCAR.

NASCAR productions aren’t engrossed in delicate nuance and technical cunning. NASCAR revels in its own escapism and entertainment value. Fans open their family rooms to people with whom they feel comfortable sharing a few hours away from the concerns of that big, bad world out there. Viewers become invested in the drivers, their failures and successes, their families and crews, their charities and sponsors, the guys they love, and the guys they love to hate.

I commend viewers like Gretchen who have acquired the specialized technical savvy to enjoy Formula One. But that doesn’t diminish my appreciation of a sport that grew out of bootlegging. And it doesn’t cheapen my respect for the NASCAR fans whom I might refer to as “average” but hail as the backbone of this country.