excerpt:
Given the company’s recent interest in motorsport and the steady cash-flow and V-8 engine provided by its new Genesis sedan, sources indicate that NASCAR is pinging Hyundai to gauge the Korean company’s interest in occupying a spot in NASCAR.
Good thing I checked the date on this breaking news story.
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/aprilfool/
Oh well ... some of these are interesting April Fool's pranks..
#24: Drunk Driving on the Internet 1994: An article by John Dvorak in PC Computing magazine described a bill going through Congress that would make it illegal to use the internet while drunk, or to discuss sexual matters over a public network. The bill was supposedly numbered 040194 (i.e. 04/01/94), and the contact person was listed as Lirpa Sloof (April Fools backwards). The article said that the FBI was going to use the bill to tap the phone line of anyone who "uses or abuses alcohol" while accessing the internet. Passage of the bill was felt to be certain because "Who wants to come out and support drunkenness and computer sex?" The article offered this explanation for the origin of the bill: "The moniker 'Information Highway' itself seems to be responsible for SB 040194... I know how silly this sounds, but Congress apparently thinks being drunk on a highway is bad no matter what kind of highway it is." The article generated so many outraged phone calls to Congress that Senator Edward Kennedy's office had to release an official denial of the rumor that he was a sponsor of the bill.
Boom Boom,
If you think that was funny you should see how the rightie wing boards lit up with that one today. Much confusion with many saying it must be April Fools right? but many others not so much. There were titles like 'The Socialist Experiment Contines, Obama Screws with NASCAR and lots of comments along the lines of damn him! The South will rise again! It was comedy gold. Then on one site when they finally figured out that yes for sure it WAS a joke and people yelling at people to calm the heck down someone said 'well you know this might be a joke but I really think that it's going to happen anyways'. Then it was off to the races again with some convincing themselves that yes indeedy this joke was actually going to be real eventually and getting all worked up about that. Then there was a whole other set that was actually soooo disappointed that it wasn't true because they were sure that it would have been the catalyst for revolution! It was hilarious. Well in a really pathetic hilarious sort of way.
I guess that's why it was withdrawn.
Politically, it would be impossible for Obama to pull auto company support from NASCAR. But the fact is that some portion of government bailout money is ending up in NASCAR's pockets and that is insane.
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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]
It is insane, because isn't Nascar a hugely profitable corporation?
As for the original C&D article (which I saved) it was a clever April Fool's piece, especially the idea of Hyundai being asked to participate in the race series. (since that company has a new potent V8 it may just be a matter of time before we see a V8 powered Elantra in the series, and that was one of the ideas being bantered around in the article).
I occasionally read the online car mags, but I have zero interest in race series like Nascar, Indy, or Gran Prix. They're tremendously wasteful and nowadays seem to cater to a segment of society that doesn't give a fig for the health of the planet. I'd like to see car racing banned outright.
It is insane, because isn't Nascar a hugely profitable corporation?
It's not insane because NASCAR is "hugely profitable". It's insane because NASCAR is a private industry.
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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]
I knew there was something I was missing - thanks, Sven.
