ok I will throw an Aussie spin on this.
Yes we have Nascar here in Australia.
it made its debut in 1988 won by the late neil Bonnett I believe.
basically we only have one oval here ..the Calder park thunderdome..there is one in Adelaide as well but it is very small and just plain hopeless.
we had a brief flirtation with it throughout the years but there wasnt alot of interest from the public or TV.
it is also only a summer series over here (christmas time here) which really should have helped it with the general motorsport fan being starved for action in the off months.
I dont really know why it didnt take off but now we dont run on the oval at all because of the track owner (Bob Jane) really having problems with our motorsport controlling body..I dont know the details because frankly they bore me to tears.
but we have this huge oval now that doesnt get used and right next to it is their road racing circuit which seems to be heading in the same direction.
Nascar is dead over here which is a huge shame as it is pretty exciting and we have some decent drivers in those cars here.
it lasted for about ten years and then died...no money , no cars and no TV didnt help.
BUT .......
this year they have been revived and called V8 stockcars and they only race on road circuits.
now i have said this before that i dont care for Nascar on road courses much because they just look out of place ..but I attended a meeting a month or so ago and they were running there ..and I gotta say i was impressed...very small field of only about 12 cars but the action was good and they exceeded my expectations by a mile and next year they claim that they will have up to 30 cars running the series ..so things could be looking up ..but i doubt they will ever return to the Calder oval..but as V8 stockcars they may just have future here.
all of this I might add is NOT sanctioned by Nascar and probably never will be but it is a piece of American muscle running elsewhere in the world ..and im sure some travelling Americans feel a little homesick if they see them at a race meet here.
anyway that doesnt really give an answer to the question as to why nascar arent sanctioning races elsewhere ..I guess its just a brief history of the sport down under.
anyway here is a pic i took at the meeting only a month ago of a bit of action from the V8 stockcars.
I dont know anything about the cars at all ..so maybe someone else could tell us what the heck it is
