NASCAR to Shorten Races: Surging Gas Prices Spur Changes

NASCAR officials declared today that due to the current increase in gasoline prices, several races later this season will be shortened to save costs. According to the report issued, the money saving initiative will prevent a rise in ticket prices and allow the typical NASCAR fan to continue spending large amounts of cash on NASCAR apparel. Crude oil has topped seventy dollars a barrel this year and nationwide gas price averages sit above $3.00 a gallon. NASCAR stock cars get approximately two miles per gallon.

Only three races will be affected by the move, which has some racing enthusiasts blowing a gasket. The Aaron's 499 in Talladega will now be the Aaron's 495. The Subway 500 will cut some fat calories to become the Subway 475. The Coca Cola 600 will become a lot shorter and change sponsorships altogether. It will now be called the Levi 501. Several new sponsors are interested in signing contracts with NASCAR next year if any of the current sponsors decide to 'gas and go.' They include Slimfast, Stacker II, and the Yellow Pages, who's already expressed an interest in sponsoring their own Yellow Pages 411.

Mike Helton, President of NASCAR, insists that the move is a good one for the world of racing which will save money that can be used to improve NASCAR in the future. "Listen, everyone already knows that most people only watch the beginning and endings of the races. They may wake up from their drunken stupors briefly during the accidents, but most of the time all the laps in between are inconsequential."

"They are too consequential," demanded one angry fan sporting an orange #20 shirt. "The laps are always run in order!"

"I've been a NASCAR fan for 20 years," says Bill "Buckshot" O'Grady of Laporte, Indiana. "And I don't like this here idear of shortenin' the races. They already take almost three months off a year, leaving us poor fans nothing to watch but the crappy rodeos on the Outdoor Life Network. What if I was to say to you that baseball should only have seven innings instead of nine? All them overpaid pansy ballplayers would have a fit!"

Several NASCAR officials insist that 90% of race fans will never even notice the shortened races. The duration of the races will not change because more commercials will be added to the schedule lineups. That means we'll see more of the Big Brown Truck and several more cheek shots of Dale Jr. in his tight Wrangler jeans. Recent polls indicate that race fans enjoy commercials featuring their favorite drivers almost as much as multi-car pileups on a super speedway. The rare exception is any accident involving Jeff Gordon, which fans prefer by a scale of two-to-one over everything else, including adult movies, and five-to-one over any adult movie that stars someone who may look like Gordon.

"Bottom line is this saves us money. It also protects America. We are ending, or at least cutting back on our addiction to foreign oil," explained Helton from his private airline on his way to Baltimore to watch the Preakness.