I'm a Nascar fan, but if your like a lot of people, you probably wonder why in the world anyone would like a racing event where the drivers do nothing but drive in circles for hours at a time. Much less, why would you want to play a video game where all you do is turn left.. drive straight.. turn left. Well it's hard to explain, but I guess the sport really comes alive when you put your full "fanship" behind a particular driver or couple of drivers. Lots of people inherit their drivers from their parents, sortof the same way football team loyalty is passed down through the generations.

My parents were never big racing fans, but strangely I've always been a fan of sorts. I watched Indy Car racing throughout high school and went to a few go-cart and midget races around town here. In the past few years, my wife has inherited Nascar's Tony Stewart as "her" driver. We got tickets to Talledega last year, and the rest is history. Seeing a race in real life is a great experience that I'd recommend to anybody. Once you start to get to know some of the drivers' personalities, you begin to get interested in who's winning, who's crashing, and how the races play out.

Tony Stewart is widely known as a hot-head. He races just about anything with four wheels on a weekly basis (Nextel Cup, Busch Series, Open wheel racing, Dirt tracks) even if he's got the money to just stick with Nascar-only events. Stewart's post race media sessions have been known to get lively if he feels he's been wronged in any way. He usually gets himself into trouble because he'll tell the media exactly what's on his mind, even if it has to do with problems with the Nascar organization itself. It's thought that Nascar has tamed him a bit in the last couple of years, however the personality still will show itself every few races. He's actually known to be a nice guy though and is quick to give most of the credit to his pit crew and team owner after a win.

There's other drivers I like. Dale Jr. is a good ole boy who really defines the mold most Nascar fans like in a driver. Jr's really hard not to like, if not for anything other than the fact of who his dad was. Mark Martin is a guy I really like as a person and driver. Jeff Gordon is fun to hate, his pretty boy, clean cut, proper speaking image isn't something a lot of people find appealing. Not to mention he's a damn good driver. At Talledega last year there were a number of Jeff Gordon cutouts with certain parts of the female anatomy glued on to the chest area (I believe "bitch tits" would be the politically correct term). I suppose it's true when they say a picture is worth a thousand words.

On the 23 of this month (07/23/07) the first Nascar game will be released for the Xbox 360, EA Sports Nascar '08 with a picture of Tony Stewart and his #20 car gracing the cover. I'm looking forward to this racing game more than any of the others mainly because of my interest in Nascar. Will it prove good enough to buy the wireless steering wheel controller? I'm not sure, however I am looking forward to racing 11-15 other people around the recently fresh paved Talledega Superspeedway on XBL. In previous Xbox versions of Nascar, dirt track racing, as well as road course races were also available to those who find the traditional oval tracks to be less than desireable.

Among some of the other new things, the game will feature the "Car of Tomorrow". The 'CoT' is Nascar's latest design that was sparked in part because of Dale Earnhardt Sr's death at the wheel of the #3 car. Some of the features offer enhanced safety and performance of the car. One example of the changes made are that the drivers seat is positioned a few inches more towards the right to provide more crush space in the event of a crash. The vehicles' front and rear bumpers are also designed to fit perfectly with each other to allow vehicles to bump each other with less likelyhood of a spin-out. This aims at providing a little more safety to the practice of "bump drafting" where drivers actually push each other forward through the pack in a tightly matched restrictor plate race.

Forza is a fantastic game, however, I'm not sure I'd feel as connected to it as I would a Nascar game, and to boot, they've put the #20 on the front cover so it'll be hard for me to look the other way when the release date comes. To me Nascar is 50% about the people and 50% about racing. It's when you understand that relationship that you become a true fan. Add XBL to the mix and I'm looking forward to many redneck conversations of "Jr. vs. Gordon" in my future.