NASCAR: Who Makes the Rules?

In my Media and Culture class we are reading about cultural norms of societies and groups of people. We read an article about how Americans are obsessed with taking care of our appearance with the way we dress, caring about of our hygiene, and wanting to improve what we look like. Who gives us this image of what we're supposed to look like? What is idealist? With my mind always thinking about NASCAR, I drifted off and started to relate this to NASCAR. Go figure.

In the culture society of NASCAR, one of the social norms is that a fan usually die hard for one driver. They've got every kind of memorabilia you can think of and will purchase anything with just the driver's number or sponsors on it. But what if you're a fan of multiple drivers? You hardly see fans dressed up that have a Kurt Busch backpack with a Kevin Harvick hat and a Jeff Gordon t-shirt. Personally I would look at you like you were crazy. It's a social norm in NASCAR for fans to express their passion to one driver but not to many. It's acceptable if the drivers that they are pulling for are all apart of one organization or they all drive for the same manufacturer. Who creates these social norms in NASCAR? What constitutes what is right and what is wrong?

I am a fan of several drivers but I only feel acceptable to favoritism to a small group of drivers, narrowing it down to maybe two or three. I'm not sure why I feel that way. I like to be diverse and like many different drivers, but yet I limit myself to only those few. I am a NASCAR fan in general and support many other drivers whether it be on Twitter or watch them make guest appearances on television and so on and so on. I'm not sure why I limit myself to only publicly displaying that one driver that I pull for. Is it because I feel socially pressured to like the one driver that most all fans like?


Recently I have really started to like Brad Keselowski. I pulled for him when he was driving for JR Motorsports back in 2009. Once he moved to the Sprint Cup Series I didn't pull for him as much because he was driving for Penske Racing. I have always loved the Chevy drivers and did not feel very open to like another organization or manufacturer. I'm pursuing to work in NASCAR doing public relations and I need to become more diverse in the atmosphere opening myself and allowing myself to accept other drivers and learn about their organizations. I know this might be off topic but I relate this a lot to my sorority and the National Panhellenic Conference. NPC is our governing body and umbrella head while there are twenty-six organizations that fall under the NPC regulation. In NASCAR, NASCAR is the sanctioning body and there are several different teams and organizations within NASCAR. It's recruitment week for my sorority so that's been on my mind lately.

I really believe in breaking the barriers in the sport and creating new social norms and being more acceptable and diverse. If you want to wear multiple drivers paraphernalia, go for it. I shouldn't be the one to make judgement on if you like multiple drivers. I should encourage it so NASCAR can become more of a melting pot of diversity.