Back in the 70’s all the way through the early to mid-90’s motorsports fans cheered week after week. They went to the racetrack, they bought merchandise, and they followed religiously. It could be NASCAR, Indy, or drag racing, the fan had their guy/girl. Then in the 90’s we really saw a huge swing to the corporate dollars that continues today. We have drivers that sound like robots in interviews, pushing the sponsors and being politically correct. Add that to the fact that the racing isn’t as good, and you have a recipe for disaster. Long gone are the days of Dale in NASCAR, or the feuds between Pat & Tony, or the Warren Johnson’s of the world. Gone are the days of supporting your driver and already knowing who their sponsor was. You knew the black #3 or the Castrol Ford or the Popeye car. They were larger than life people that you could relate to.

This is where Street Outlaws took the reigns and ran with it. Street racing is nothing new and it’s been happening since the first two cars were ever invented. The idea of two drivers going head to head on the street to see who is the baddest of the bad is something that even I partook in more times than I can count. The difference now is that it is bringing back what fans of those decades got and then lost. It’s the personalities and the cars. Yeah racing is cool, but people within the motorsports world connect with two things, the driver and the car. Street Outlaws is the modern-day version of what we had then. You have larger than life characters that you see on television every week with cars that look like normal cars. They aren’t all 2019 Camaros with the same damn engine in them, and they aren’t some bullshit supercars that the average blue-collar worker making $18 an hour can’t relate to.

When I talk to people like Mills, Swanstrom, Bruder, etc they tell me how great the NPK series is as well. I can’t sit here and be a damn hypocrite by bitching about street racing and then bitching about them taking it to the track. Do I think a lot of the bullshit that happens is for TV? Absolutely, but that’s what I must remember about this stuff. I was reminded by a friend last weekend, Street Outlaws and NPK are TV shows. Yes, they are races, but they are also production television. I want to believe that the fans are drag racing fans, but I know damn good and well that a lot of them are most likely celebrity fans. There is nothing wrong with that now that I think about it more. It doesn’t matter what kind of fan it is as long as the sport of drag racing is in front of their eyes, it’s a good thing, right?