Hey Everyone…
This past weekend I visited my grandparents. My grandfather is a HUGE Nacar fan. Now, I know this is an ever popular growing sport, but I personally don’t see the desire to sit in front of the TV for hours watching cars go around in circles, but whatever, not the point.
While my grandfather had the race on, I noticed a National Guard car. I asked him about it. I said, “Is that a National Guard car? Like from the governement?” He said, “Yup… Army, Navy and the Coast Guard has a car too.” I asked him who paid for these guys to race these cars. He said they are governement funded… Now, I’m not sure if he is 100% correct about this or not, soooo…
I came back in to work yesterday and talked to a fella I work with who is also big into racing. He likes drag racing though… Again, not my thing, can’t see the point in taking hours to watch cars take 2 seconds to go down the track. Don’t get my wrong, I’m a car guy. I love cars, and would love to drive any of these cars. Just not watch someone else drive them.
Anyway, back to the point. I was talking to this guy and in the NHRA there is I think a top fuel funny car sponsered by the Army. This fella I work with basically confirmed what my grandpa said. The Army, Navy, Coast Guard and National Guard all pay for this out of their advertising budgets.
Now, I don’t know if you know or not, but for Nascar he said that it costs anywhere from 30-60 million dollars a year to run one of those cars. So if we take those 4 cars, we are looking at 200 million dollars a year just so the government can race in Nascar. He said it’s about 5 million a year for them to race in the NHRA. So basically we are all paying for this and why?
From what he said they use it like a commercial or advertising… I think this is BULLSHIT!!! First off, you can make a commercial a lot cheaper and have a broader range of viewers and even if you run it at the super bowl it’s not going to cost anywhere near 200 million bucks… When I was in high school we had recruiters come around and talk to you. We didn’t see a race car on TV and say… Boy, I really think I want to join the coast guard because they have a really neat racing car!!! This is just stupid… Also, how many kids really watch racing? Maybe not kids even, but how many people that would actually join the military watch racing? I mean, I’m sure a few motor head kids watch it, but this, at least to me, seems like a very in-effective way to advertise for the military.
Also, why in the hell do these branches each have 30-60 million or more for advertising each year!!! HOLY SHIT!!! That is some serious advertising.
Ummmm… It’s just me, but couldn’t that 200 millionish dollars be used to provide people with health care or god for bid, lower taxes. I know in the whole grand scheme of things this probably isn’t a lot of money considering, but this is right out in our face… Whatelse do they spend money on that we don’t know about? Don’t even get my started on how many millions of dollars they spent on that damn broken robot they have on Mars…
Maybe I’m wrong about this, if so please tell me so I’m not ranting!!!
If I am right, I really think we all need to start paying very close attention at the up coming elections. Shit needs to get straightened out here and quick!!!