Watching a NASCAR event doesn’t inspire much excitement these days. There are a total of  forty-three cars on the field in any given race, which sounds great on paper, but models from only four different makes (counting Toyota) are competing against one another for the number one spot in the winner’s circle. To make matters worse, the racers are only going in two directions; straight, and left.

Ned Jarret's #11 catches fire while in the pits. Image: YouTube

We’re not disrespecting NASCAR, it’s drivers, or the teams. We have immense appreciation for what those guys (and Danica) do out there. It takes tremendous amount of talent to even handle an 800HP car for 500 laps around a racetrack for 2-3 hours, not to mention doing so while competing against forty-two others all fighting for the same thing.

But where’s the passion? The individuality? Since the late 1980’s or so, the stock cars used for these events all looked pretty much the same, and it just got worse as the years went on. They’re now at the point where to be able to actually identify a car, you have to look at the stick-on “lighting fixtures” and call-outs on the bumper. It’s a shame.

Fans of NASCAR have been complaining about this for quite some time, and according to the NASCAR rumor mill, the 2013 racing season will see changes in the body styling that will be closer to the production cars that they are based on. It’s not quite like how it was back in the ’60s, but it’s a start.

Thanks to the invention of YouTube, we have the ability to look back in time and watch videos of guys like Dan Gurney, AJ Foyt, and Junior Johnson compete in vintage competitions against one another in cars that looked like the ones you bought at the dealership. We found this video of the 1965 Motor Trend 500 (back when MT was still cool and actually liked American cars) held at the now defunct  Riverside Raceway.

What’s even cooler is that “back in the day,” some NASCAR events turned both left AND right, much like the Australian V8 Supercar Series of today. With recent news of the body transformations, we can only hope that one day NASCAR will eventually revert back to including road course racing for its upcoming seasons.