I read NA$CAR's propaganda release about this being the Golden Age of NA$CAR. What a crock. This is more like the "Fall of the Roman Empire". It didn't happen all at once, it didn't happen overnight, but over a period of time. And that's what we're seeing. If the fan complaints about the poor quality of racing today as compared to the old days isn't proof enough that it's on the decline, then the empty seats at the track and the falling TV ratings are pretty good indicators that things aren't right. Plus if you follow large corporations or other sports that are in trouble, they try to bolster themselves with a bunch of propaganda releases that attempt to make themselves look good. Look at Enron and some of the other big companies and the press releases they made before they went under.One of the things the NA$CAR PR people did was put in some statistics. There's an old saying about that. "There's lies, damned lies, and statistics". You can use statistics to prove almost anything or any point of view. Of course, since NA$CAR didn't bother bringing the stats from the pre-Winston days into the current record books, it hardly makes their statistics valid. Plus it makes accurate comparisons difficult. Then add in the "Age of Ms Terry DeBris". How many races were affected by the appearance of that caution flag that was thrown to bunch up the field and not for genuine, legitimate debris? That sort of adds a taint to the stats. Not to mention the races that had some backroom deals worked out between the sanctioning body, it's owners, and certain race teams.Until Tony Stewart ran up the BS Flag about the mystery debris cautions, we were lucky to see a driver get more than a 4 second lead on most tracks. If he was a Chosen One, he might get close to a half lap lead. And Tony was right. It wasn't racing, it was racertainment."Let's make things more exciting by bunching them up instead of letting the race takes it's own course". That's not what racing is about. It's not about manipulating the races to provide an exciting finish. That's what the WWE does. Racing is about the fast cars, smart drivers, intelligent crew chiefs, attrition, wrecks, and luck. Or a combination thereof. Had the races actually run their course without the mystery cautions, who would've actually run those races? The ones listed as the winners or somebody else? And would the winning driver have actually won by lapping the entire field? We'll never know because of the taint of the Ms Terry DeBris caution.Sure, there were some races in the old days that might be classified as stinkers by some people. Some folks think Ned Jarrett winning by 14 laps was a bit of a stinker. I thought it was pretty good. You look at the number of cars that fell out, the number of wrecks, and pit strategy, and you might be able to see how he could win by 14 laps. Other races, like the first Daytona 500, were a photo finish and that's exactly what it was. They had to examine photos of the cars coming across the finish line to determine the winner.Or how about Cale and the Allisons battling it out? You don't see that kind of racing nowadays. Guys beating and banging on each other lap after lap. Whoever had the strongest engine, fenders, and bumper didn't always win that battle. The guy who could think like a chess player didn't always win either. Murphy's Law has a way of playing into things. It was the luckiest smart guy on the track who won. Side by side racing, which can't really be done with the Can of Tuna, was a common thing in the pre-Winston days and into the Winston Era. The slingshot pass was done with finesse by Petty and Pearson. You don't see that with either the template racer or the Can of Tuna.Back in the pre-Winston days, you had cars from just about every US car company running in the field at some point in time; Hudsons, Studebakers, Lincolns, Cadillacs, Ford, Chevies, Pontiacs, Packards and a whole bunch more. You could look at a car and identify it as a Mercury or a Plymouth. Now, with the template racer, which is in its' last year of use, they look so much alike. They look like a used bar of soap. You have to look at the grill openings and what would be the rear passenger window to tell the difference. But that's not good enough. Now we have the COT in which every car does look alike. Just like the IROC cars. And they handle about the same way. Sure, it puts racing back in the driver's hands to a certain extent, but by doing that, it sort of goes against the idea of this being a team operation. More and more exposure and emphasis will be placed on the driver and less on the team who put the car on the track. Even back in the old days, there were fans who showed up to watch a car not so much for the driver, but for the mechanics and/or owners. And with NA$CAR's wishy-washy rules and "not written rules", they're taking the crew out of the equation. They're eliminating the "thinking man" from finding a way to make the car better and get more horsepower out of the engine. And NA$CAR's moving closer and closer to eliminating the engine and suspension from the equation. All they need to do is produce a turn-key car like the midget series did and they'll have done it. But they need to remember what happened to the midget car racing after they did that. They also need to look at how many butts were in the seats at IROC races since that's the direction NA$CAR's heading.And let's look at the drivers and garage folks themselves. Back in the pre-Winston days, you had characters in the garage and driving the cars. Curtis Turner racing in a business suit, Joe Weatherly putting rubber snakes in other drivers' cars, Tiny Lund handcuffing Tom Pistone to a fence. Tiny also took everybody's car keys just before driver intro at one race. Yes, they had actual car keys back then. Since Jimmy Spencer retired, we don't have anyone who is that kind of character. Sure, Tony does something once in a while. But the only way we hear about it is if the media happens to mention it. You don't hear the other drivers talking about it. And what about nicknames? Well, Tony has Smoke. Elliott Sadler was the Candyman when he drove the M&M's car. Bill Elliott is Awesome Bill from Dawsonville. Jimmy Spencer is Mr Excitement, but he's not driving. You don't have guys like "Tiger" Tom or The Clown Prince of Racing. "Tiny" wasn't exactly tiny. He was 6'4" and weighed around 240 pounds. There was Fast Freddie. Junior Johnson's first name isn't actually Junior. Marvin Panch's nickname was Pancho. The PC Crowd would have a fit over that one. The Silver Fox was a Fox but wasn't silver back then. You had guys in the garage named "Slick". We have a Bootie nowadays. Fireball wasn't called that because he was fast, but because of his pitching skills. There's nobody in the garage or on the track nowadays called Pops like in the old days. Nicknames gave the drivers, crew chiefs, and crew members some character and were something of a reflection of themselves.Drivers and crew chiefs back in the pre-Winston and into the early days of the Winston Era wouldn't think twice about going out behind the garage and settling their differences. They wouldn't think twice about using the chrome horn on each other. They'd publicly say somebody was a #$%&*!!! whether there were fans and media present or not. They spoke their minds. Nowadays, it's all "Sanitized for Your Protection". The human element is missing. It's all about being PC, not upsetting the sponsors or the sensitive fans, and praising NA$CAR and HRH King Brian to the high heavens. In the old days, a driver could tell Big Bill what he thought of him. Curtis Turner did on several occasions. Earnhardt Sr was known to have some talks with Bill Jr and tell him what was on his mind. He looked out for the drivers, fans, and the sport. Try that with His Royal Highness King Brian. The last driver that did, it took his majesty several days to figure out he'd been insulted. (Think HRH might be a little slow "qualifying"?) That might explain why that driver had a tough time finding a ride for a couple of years once his majesty finally had it translated into something he could actually understand.Of course, going along with being "Sanitized for Your Protection", is the difference in tracks. If this is the Golden Age with so many cookie cutter tracks, what was it when they raced on so many different tracks and track surfaces? Great dirt tracks, like Jacksonville, Bristol (before it was paved), North Wilkesboro (before it was paved), Hickory, Charlotte (the 1/2 mile track) and so many more? Or paved tracks like The Rock, North Wilkesboro, Augusta International Raceway, and Riverside? Can you compare Dan Gurney, the only really successful road course ringer, to Ron Fellows? Can you compare a dirt track win at Bristol by Joe Weatherly to a paved track win at Bristol by Matt Kenseth or Kurt Busch? Or a win at Watkins Glen, under it's old configuration, by Billy Wade to a win by Steve Park under the new configuration? You can't. You can look at the old track configuration or surface and compare that era of driver to other drivers of that era. You can't really compare speeds and track times or even the cars. Billy Wade won in a car that was bought off the showroom floor. Steve Parks won in a car that was built in a race shop using templates, computers, and engineers that didn't come close to the actual street version of what the car was supposed to be.And when it comes to cars and handling, talk to Geoff Bodine. Don't laugh. Geoff was a decent driver back in the day and helped to put Hendrick Motorsports on the map. Geoff would be a good person to talk to about the cars and they're handling in the Winston Era. Geoff drove both before and after the introduction of power assisted steering. He was the driver who got power assisted steering into NA$CAR. After his power assisted steering failed, Dale Jr said it was interesting but he wouldn't want to race like that every week and he didn't see how the drivers in the old days did it. Ryan Newman had his go out a couple years back and won the race driving that way. He was whooped after the race.Now lets go back to the pre-Winston days. Backbefore anyone even thought about power steeringor power assisted steering in a race car. JoeWeatherly, Curtis Turner, and Tiny Lund wouldliterally bend the steering wheels and steeringcolumns trying to get their cars to turn. Theseweren't exactly small men or little wallflowers.Along came a short guy who walked with a limpwho changed the way cars handled back thenand even today. Some of his innovations are stillin use today. Things like using camber to helpturn a car. The jackscrews in the back of the carto help get more traction and improve the carshandling. Odds and ends pieces on the front end which help the car turn or help keep it on the racing surface. He pioneered all these advances long before there were windtunnels to test race cars in. He did it by eyeball, sweat, and perseverance. It wasn't done with a computer, a team of PHD's, and a bunch of air conditioned "suits". And he wasn't financed by some big multi-billion dollar corporation either. It was all done in a garage with the smell of dirt, grease, gas, and oil in the air. He helped to advance auto racing quite a bit through his pioneering efforts.When it comes to knowledge, folks refer to people like Socrates and Aristotle and their era as being the Golden Age of Learning. The early drivers laid the groundwork, learned things about racing, race cars, and people that are still being used today. They were the ones who got stock car racing off the ground. They were the ones who helped to advance it. Their fans are the ones who supported it. If I had to define a Golden Age of NA$CAR, it would have to be the early days. Like the great Greek thinkers, mathematicians, inventors, and philosophers, the pioneers of NA$CAR's early decades were the modern day racing equivalent to the great Greeks and as such should have their era defined as being the real "Golden Age".