Digger: NASCAR’s F1-hating gopher (Video)
14 March 2009 by Keith Collantine
Gather round young ‘uns! Digger’s gonna teach y’all’ ’bout the evils of foreigners and their funny-lookin’ racin’ cars…
NASCAR’s cartoon gopher Digger lampoons F1 in this hilariously bad cartoon from a recent race.
Yeah, it sucks, but it’s a lot better than Talladega Nights…
In case you’re wondering what a gopher called Digger has to do with NASCAR, apparently it comes from the ‘gopher cam’ which is mounted at kerb height to give an impression of the speed of the cars. That’s an idea F1 should definitely nick.
F1 has had socalled gopher cams in several years. They are mounted inside the kerbs, in the groove. They just do´t use them very much
the ones on the chicanes in magny cour were awesome
That’s always the way isn’t it? We had thermal imaging cameras once or twice last year, but hardly ever after that. They had crash helmet cameras in 1994 but we hardly saw them again until Coulthard last year.
Hell, you can watch Digger in HD but not F1…
Strange that they have a French-gopher to stand for everything that’s Formula One.
and americans wonder why we take the ****. jeez.
Let these american people to enjoy cars doing circles- It’s even faster than carousel…- F1 is the queen of motorsport, NASCAR is a fat, scruffy-looking, slow king!
what on earth did I just watch? I’m speechless!
The video has been taken off YouTube
No it hasn’t.
That’s probably a good thing, Phil. I’m not sure if I can handle any more shame and guilt as an American than I’m already dealing with!
Classic sporting xenophobism! Love it!
F1 fans are as guilty as well, but at the end of the day, I see it all as good natured banter. Except when it’s not good natured. Then it makes makes me sad.
I can’t watch 10 mins of a nascar race, since 5 mins is caution because someone spinned.
I think the French gopher actually sold F1 pretty well.
Here, here!
Apart from the fact that the French gopher was a crap driver (or a good one since he was playing a guitar while driving!) the Yankee lost that argument.
I’m not saying that NASCAR fans are more racist that other sport type fans… but I SWEAR I hear something different when they sing: “Digger.. the little digger“
i heard it too. and yes, nascar fans are plenty racist – they can’t stand northerners, never mind foreigners (which are all french) and non-whites (which are, apparently, diggers).
rupert murdoch is under the impression the lowest common denominator need not be a whole number.
hmm… I think we’re in danger of reading too much into this!
C’mon…that wasn’t bad. It was good natured and they both made fun of each other.
They did get one thing right: the only way a souped-up Chevy could beat a Renault F1 would be if a tree fell on the Renault.
You’re right. Not all NASCAR fans are racist. That would be a generalization, but if a Lewis Hamilton ever entered the sport I think people dressing as gorillas would be the least of his problems.
The racing hasn’t evolved much over the last 50 years, neither have some of its following.
Ha Ha Ha. You’ve got to laugh really, a cartoon?
Why not put a NASCAR driver in an F1 car and ‘THEN’ compare the two series! Still highly amusing, and as I have always suggested, this is why F1 will never be
hugely popular in America the same way soccer isn’t
compared to the NFL and the World Series.
The reason I am upbeat, is that I know for a fact that
‘REAL’ racing fans don’t care as long as they are
being entertained, whether it be the IRL or F1 or NASCAR.
As one of the proposed founders of America’s new F1 team said recently that ‘NASCAR has only just conquered
the United States in terms of viewers where as F1 is
watched globally, and races globally’.
Also, F1 has a whole array of drivers from different
nations and continents, not just Europe. The two are
about as alike as soccer and cricket, thats about it!
And with stunts like this being seen on the internet, lots of luck getting the rest of the world interested in NASCAR Y’ALL!
in the immortal words of lurch from the adams family: uuuuuuuurrrrrrgggggghhhhhhh.
gotta hand it to them, though…like all the rest of nascar they sure do know their fan base. i think there will be triple decker chili nacho cheese bacon jalapeno barbeque tater tot stuffed road kill gopher burgers on the menu at talladega!
but i gotta put you straight, keith. it’s spelled as it sounds —-they’re furriners, not foreigners.
Ah well I’ll know next time!
Nascar is a lot like every other American sport….by Americans, for Americans. Albeit the world does pay slight interest in it, the sport is directed at the American market and if they win their respective sport all of a sudden they are the best in the world at it. eg:
1) Baseball
2) Ice Hockey
3) Gridiron ( a football is round you freakin idiots)
4) Basketball
5) Nascar (North American Smash Cars and Repair sums it up quiet nicely)
I don’t think ice hockey belongs in your list.
My brother who’s a NASCAR fan cannot stand ‘Digger’. We can both agree that it’s stupid stuff like this that give all US racing a bad name.
fox has tons of this crap all over their sports coverage. as a matter of fact, it’s all over their news and everything else.
Say what you will about Bernie and FOM, Keith.
But this atrociousness actually spent ten minutes on debut during the pre-race show on FOX for the Daytona 500. Something tells me if you were American and could watch F1 from afar and NASCAR every week with its endless hours of brainless programming (other than the actual race, but even then, you get this) you wouldn’t have such a fascination with it.
I watch every week and I have all my life but I’m not sure why if this is what FOX deems connects its fans.