Ten reasons why racing is better than baseball

This past week has been enough for some folks to possibly stop following and watching sports altogether.

	Tim Packman

First, a few thousand fans sitting on their comfy Pepsi cushions at Daytona last Saturday night seemed upset that the Pepsi 400 ended under caution. So they gave up their tush-cush and tossed them on the track in protest.

Then the all-stars of Major League Baseball gathered in Milwaukee to showcase their talents. But they ran out of pitchers and the game ended in a tie.

If MLB wasn't having enough problems with that, steroid accusations and possibly closing down some teams -- now the word "strike" is being used by someone besides umpires.

With that in mind, my own pea brain started to wander and I decided that even though we may have a caution finish in racing, our sport is still way better than baseball. And, here are the top 10 reasons why I feel that way:

10. In racing, we would never run out of drivers and have to end a race early. People want to race so badly they invest their own money and work long hours just to win $100.

9. Our fans toss beer cans, cushions and cameras. Baseball fans toss paper cups and bobbleheads.

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8. Baseball players take two games off for hangnails, sore toes and if their hair hurts. In racing, drivers will climb into cars with broken bones, cracked ribs and hurl themselves around a track at 180 mph for several hours.

7. You will never see a driver sit out because of a contract dispute.

6. We race on an asphalt track. Baseball is played in a field.

5. A seventh-inning stretch? In racing, a driver gets to stop for 15 seconds and get a drink. But he has to keep his foot on the brake, keep revving the engine and be sure not to hit anyone as he heads back out onto the track.

4. You can pronounce all the names of the drivers and crew members.

3. Drivers will never go on strike. If one driver doesn't want to race, there are 20 guys with helmets in hand to jump in that seat.

2. You never see tarps pulled over grandstand seats at a Winston Cup race because nobody is using them.

1. I have never seen a driver get out of a car in Victory Lane and have his butt patted by his crew chief.

If baseball is America's pastime, then NASCAR is America's fastime.

But if baseball does go on strike again, it could very well become America's Past Time. As far as racing goes, drop the green -- we're always ready to go.

Tim Packman's column appears every Saturday on NASCAR.com. The opinions listed here are solely those of the writer.