In response to “Go to hell, NASCAR (and stay there),” April 3:\nThat’s it, Andrew Shaffer. I am putting my foot down. On a daily basis it becomes ever more excruciatingly painful to hear the opinions of a wannabe, god-awful sportswriter. Thanks for the picture in the IDS, as you appear to be wearing an MLB hat, but I have a gut feeling you never played a sport in your life. Maybe you played intramural basketball where you wore a pink polo shirt, but that doesn’t count. I bet you never ran 25 straight suicides during basketball practice, went through football two-a-days during the scorching months of an Indiana summer or dove for a fly ball. It’s sad to read the work of a sportswriter who received his limited knowledge by reading his old man’s Sports Illustrateds on the john. I sense that you and John Clayton would become fast friends.\nAndrew Shaffer writing about NASCAR is like Steve Irwin swimming with stingrays; they don’t mix. How the hell does someone from New Jersey even write about NASCAR? Shaffer said NASCAR should go to hell, but 75 million fans would disagree. NASCAR is the fastest growing American sport with drivers who possess the skill and coordination to handle speeds of 190 on 31 degree embankments for four hours. NASCAR is a multi-billion-dollar-a-year business, yet still embodies down-home blue-collar values.\nShaffer wouldn’t understand these values, as growing up in New Jersey he probably only ate caviar and filet mignons after riding in his daddy’s Mercedes. He writes about Americans glamorizing the Jiffy Lube guy, but I would bet a good amount of cash he doesn’t talk crap about him when he is changing the oil in the Lexus his parents bought.\nThank you, Andrew, for hating NASCAR, as I would never sit by someone at a race who is using hand sanitizer and drinking wine coolers while I’m pounding Budweiser cheering on the No. 8 Chevrolet of Dale Jr. with my shirt off. Andrew, maybe if I come to New Jersey, we can hang out with the Gotti boys and swap G-Unit chains and flat-billed Yankees hats.
Ben Kappes\nSenior
