NASCAR: Has Our Love Affair With the Car Ended?

It is an axiom that Americans love cars. And here in North Carolina, we can think of NASCAR as one manifestation that of love. But in recent years NASCAR has been falling in popularity as a sport. This piece by Frank Deford, suggests NASCAR is declining because we don't love cars as much as previous generations do. It is not possible to tinker around with cars in the same way that our fathers might have. We have other things to occupy our time with and spend our dollars on. He also suggests for many people, driving is not fun, it is just a necessary evil to get from point A to point B, and we try to make it less painful by filling it with distractions, such as talking on our cell phone. In the days of the Model T, everyone was expected to be able to fix their car, but now cars have gotten very complicated and also very reliable. It is a common theme in the history of technology that as a technology develops, it gets simpler to use, but maybe the current ease of use of the car means that we don't love it as much.