I know many of you think of NASCAR as a sport filled with mulllet heads and would never want the Camaro name associated with it.The arrogance of this train of thought and the arrogance of some 5th gen owners in general (i.e. 5th gen car shows,5th gen clubs) is troublesome to me.If it weren't for the efforts of the owners of the 4 previous generations and the Camaro passion of the Fbodfather I doubt there would be a 5th gen Camaro.When I saw the new NASCAR Nationwide series cars and the names plates and front and back ends of Challenger, Mustang I was saddened that Chevy....excuse me.... Chevrolet made the marketing decision to place the Impala in both series. I'm old enough to remember the pony car wars and the Nationwide series seems like great place to keep the wars going.Camaro belongs on the track whether it's a drag strip,a road course or an oval.

 

Why the fuss? Everyone knows these cars have no resemblence to the real thing anyway. Does the NASCAR Mustang look anything like a production pony car or is it the spec "Car of Tomorrow" with Mustang-like stickers?

I don't think Chevy is missing out on a marketing opportunity for Camaro here at all. NASCAR has been about the drivers and personalities rather than the manufacturers and the cars for at least a decade now.

 

I find that NASCAR caters to the lowest common denominator of racing fans. Camaro is not a lowest common denominator sort of car, and so I prefer that it stick to racing series outside of NASCAR. I feel the same way about Corvette. Do you want that racing in NASCAR too?

Camaro is selling faster than anyone had ever hoped, so I'm not concerned about it not getting enough publicity.

NASCAR is supposed to be about racing full-size sedans. It should be Impala, Taurus, and Charger (and, if you must, Avalon -- not Camry). Mustang and Challenger are out of place there. NASCAR lost its interest for me when they went to templated bodies. There is not one single thing in common between the "Impala" that races at Daytona and the one I test drove back in December when I was shopping for cars. The SC in NASCAR stands for Stock Car, and there's nothing stock about them.

The NASCAR versions of Challenger and Mustang don't even remotely resemble Challengers or Mustangs. Camaro's styling cues would be completely lost on a template body. It would look awful. I'm happy to have Camaro show up as the pace car on occasion, but I don't want to a stickered-up COT with RS-style "headlights" and Camaro written across the hood. Frankly, it would look like ***.

If you want to see Camaros racing, I recommend you look at the Grand Am series.

My opinion has nothing to do with mullets.

 

Exactly. Remember when manufacturers actually had to manufacture and sell a certain number of special aero packages or other goodies that were included on the NASCAR-spec version of the same car? The Monte Carlo Aerocoupe instantly comes to mind. You couldn't build certain cars in the 60's without taking into account how it will perform on the NASCAR circuit. Those were the days when the series held some relevance to what's going on out there on the street. "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday" is completely obsolete now.

Might be viewed as "snobbish" to today's NASCAR fan but there actually are quite a few people who prefer the more "pure" racing circuits out there - and those are the types I'd like to see Camaro (and Mustang and Challenger) compete in.

 

I would much rather see Camaros in racing , where REAL camaros with LS based engines are used . I think Chevy made the right choice to NOT jump on the nascar bandwagon with the camaro . Save the Impala headlight and taillight stickers for Nascar .

 

I like to see Camaro, Mustang and Challenger square off in as many racing series as possible but NASCAR/Nationwide isn't the place. Instead of the cars winning because of their individual merits like engine, design or aero it's one teams COT with stickers beating other teams COT car with different stickers. The Camaro, Mustang and Challenger are such strong brand identities that they shouldn't be put in homogenized racing series that wants to stifle individualism between the makes for closer racing.
Pony cars need to be in racing venues that promote their strengths and fit their style. Road racing and drag racing do that better IMO as history has shown.
This is why save for IROC we haven't really had Pony cars in NASCAR. A wise decision IMO.

 

I find arrogance in your assumption as to why some of us don't want Camaro in NASCAR.

I for one watch NASCAR and consider myself a casual fan. My reasoning why I don't want Camaro in NASCAR are the same reasons I am only a casual fan. The cars have nothing to do with their showroom counterparts and have basically become billboards for advertisers. They're basically all the same bodies with stickers to make them "appear" to be equivalent to cars you see on the street. The sport has completely distanced itself from is origins. I for one "grew up" watching winged sprint-car racing on 1/4 mile dirt tracks. For me those are still where the roots of NASCAR racing and nothing is more exciting to watch in person. However that is now miles apart from where Sprint Cup and Nationwide cars/races are today, aside from the fact that with both forms the racing is more about the drivers than the cars themselves.

I'd love to see today's Camaros, Mustangs and Challengers battle it out on the track. However I'd much rather see cars that are far closer to their showroom shape than slapping some stickers on a current NASCAR spec body and calling it a "Camaro". (Which is essentially what the Nationwide Mustang and Challenger are.) For me Grand Sport and even Australian V8 Supercars are far closer to the conditions so-called ponycars should be competing in. Aside from drag racing of course.

 

I watched the Grand Am race at Mid-Ohio last week, and it was good to see Camaro and Mustang fender to fender fighting for apexes again.

NASCAR, I have no use for. Frankly, I don't even know why manufacturers even support it anymore. They should pull out and let NASCAR come up with their own 3 or 4 different headlight decals for what has become a ridiculous series.

 

I would love to see the 3 cars go at it again like the old Trans Am series.

NASCAR is a joke nowadays.

 

I love Camaro and I love NASCAR. As a lover of both I don't care if they use the Camaro or not. Like it has been pointed out...the cars in the race are not stock cars as the NASCAR name implies. I do agree though, it would be fun to square up the Camaro, Mustang, and Challenger (and I would guess the 370Z for Toyota) in a series.

 

Don't feed the troll.

 

I don't think he's being a troll.

 

370Z is a Nissan product.

 

We already have the Camaro/Mustang/Challenger race going.... actual cars.. not sticker cookie cutter cars.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_WWUJHjOtM

Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge

 

Maybe I missed it but I didn't see any Challengers in that clip.
And I kept seeing foreign cars.

I'm suggesting just Camaros, Mustangs,and Challengers.