Now that the Super Bowl is over, Daytona 500 commercials are starting to be more prevalent. One thing that jumps out of all these ads is that they talk about the "Sprint Cup." This, of course, is the name for the NASCAR driver's championship, previously known as the Nextel Cup, and before that, the Winston Cup.
I understand the reasons behind the changes (tobacco advertising laws the first time, a merger this time), but it still seems like a phenomenally stupid thing to do. For some perspective, imagine the NFL changed the name of the Super Bowl three times in five years. It would be a little confusing, right? College football does something similar when they change the names of bowls, but the major bowls generally don't change names, just sponsors. Anyway, if you're defending an action by comparing it to the bowl system, you've lost the argument.
The other problem with the latest move is that it confuses me every time I hear the name. As someone who watched a lot of SPEED Channel during college, I know that sprint cars are something totally different from stock cars. Giving your stock car series the same name as another type of car is just dumb. It's unfortunate that your sponsor has a name that's both a verb and a type of car, but you can't name your series the Sprint Cup.
This is a sprint car.What about the fact that individual NASCAR races, let alone the 9 month NASCAR season, bear no resemblance to a "sprint." Naming the series the Marathon Cup would have made more sense.
I'm sure I'll get used to the new name in a few weeks, but for now it's driving me crazy.
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On a related note, if you guys want to catch some sprint car races up in Hagerstown some time, let me know.
I thought it was called the Piston Cup
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