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Originally Posted by Salamus
Sounds like a typical male teenager. I remember when I was in high school (4 years ago), my friends would tease me for watching motorsports.
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I don't remember being teased for watching motorsports. But I do remember being teased for watching other forms of motorsports than F1 and WRC. That's because it was and it's still all about F1 and WRC here in Finland. Or actually 35 years ago it was all about WRC, even Keke Rosberg was booed by the Finnish media before his championship season. Finnish media even had a nickname for him: "Keskeyttäjä-Keke", which means something like DNF-Keke. Or Keke D.N.F Rosberg.
Couple of years after his championship year Finnish media started to give him some recogniton, but it was too late. Now he does not speak to Finnish reporters except a few chosen ones and Nico does not speak Finnish. So if I were old enough, maybe I would've been teased for supporting Keke between 1978 and 1981.
But what I originally intended to say is that though Finnish drivers have been successful almost in every form of motorsports, only those ones who drive in F1 or WRC really get any recognition. And those fans who watch those 'minor leagues' are basically considered as weirdo's who eat children and sniff gasoline.
There are few exceptions; when JJ Lehto moved to US and started a new career in Champ Car (or CART in 1998) he had solid fanbase (though smaller than Häkkinen's) and we even saw the CART races live on national TV. I have no idea about the figures but I think those races were quite popular though harder to follow than F1 because of the -7...-10 or +7...+9 time differences. Of course when Lehto was sacked from CART, live coverages were gone and so was any wider knowledge about North American motorsports. And today to for the major audiences JJ is an F1-reject and the accident with a motorboat didn't excactly help with it.