What's more American than NASCAR? Hating on NASCAR, that's what.

Henry Rollins once said that the KKK is not the most dangerous of the white power groups operating in America, but it's the most embarassing to wear as an American outside the country. Everyone, as he pointed out, knows what a Klansman looks like- you can picture him all dressed up in Mama's bedsheets and parading down Main Street of some ubiquitous Southern town, spouting some pseudo-racist statement about "protecting the rights of the white man." I think Rollins was spot on. I also think NASCAR is to international motorsports what the KKK is to international race relations.

Okay, that sounds a little harsh, but I'm not trying to accuse the Nextel Cup of outright bigotry. I'm just saying it's a massive point of ridicule among racing enthusiasts the world over.

Let's face it. NASCAR is no longer a motorsport any more than the vehicles involved are stock cars. Those are tube-frame racecars with pushrod V8's and big, cartoony number stickers peeking through a clusterfuck of sponsor logos. When Toyota joined the series a few years ago, they actually had to under-engineer their motors just to meet regulations, having never built a pushrod automobile engine before. That's staggering. Every other motorsport rewards innovation and holds up engineering skill as its highest value, allowing improvements in technology to determine the advancement of the series. Meanwhile, NASCAR crushes the same by making it a competition between drivers. A competition between drivers flying around in circles. It's like watching Richard Hammond run on a wheel.

To illustrate, let's compare NASCAR to the World Rally Championships, shall we?

Look back at the series' respective history.

In the 1970s, WRC gave us the Lancia Stratos, possibly the most outrageous-looking European car of all time. NASCAR gave us Richard Petty and cowboy hats with pheasant feathers, which is outrageous too, but not in a good way.

In the 1980's, WRC gave us all-wheel-drive in the form of the insane Audi Sport Quattros, which remain the most badass production-based off-road cars ever built. The new drive layout revolutionized the sport and rendered everything before it obsolete, and the cars sounded incredible to boot. NASCAR gave us Days of Thunder, a blatant (and less awesome) rip-off of Top Gun.

In the 1990's, WRC gave us the EVO, the STi, the EVO vs. STi war, anti-lag, computer-controlled differentials and AWD compact sedans with four doors and turbochargers on dealer lots. NASCAR gave us Jeff Gordon doused in Pepsi and an endless stream of airbrushed "#3 The Intimidator Forever" memorabilia.

And today, when the WRC has managed to bring those spectacular turbo rally cars to U.S. streets, NASCAR has still failed to spawn any innovation that goes into production on a road-legal vehicle. And how could it? Dodge won't be building chromoly Calibers anytime soon, or replacing real headlamps with stickers. In fact, the new short-track "car of the future" seems to have stolen the wing from your riceboy neighbor's Corolla rather than the other way round. NASCAR's biggest revolution in the last five years was the adoption of the HANS device after Dale Sr. went splat, and that thing isn't exactly going to be an accessory available at your local Chevy dealership.

Far be it from me, though, to argue with market forces. There's no denying NASCAR is a money-making phenomenon and generates untold millions as America's top spectator sport... but that's where it gets a bit hazy for me. Sports reward greatness, betterment, self-improvement. NASCAR, on the other hand, encourages an abnormally level playing field.

Take swimming. Michael Phelps comes along and beats everyone and proves, unequivocally, that he's the best in the world. Tiger Woods does the same in golf, LeBron James in basketball, Roger Federer in tennis. That kind of domination is natural from time to time in the real world of competitive sports. Ferrari was king of the F1 hill for a time, just as Audi was when they introduced quattro in WRC, and eventually the other teams adapted and caught up. The nature of sports is that they aren't equal and when the best emerge, they should be allowed to raise the discipline to another level. The engineers should be freed to create better cars and explore the limits of their abilities if NASCAR is to be called a motorsport.

Roundy-roundy racin' does have its high points, though. I have friends who are huge NASCAR fans and go on and on about the experience of attending a race, the atmosphere, the noise and the comraderie of being a part of an enormous crowd. It really does sound like a hell of a time, a whole weekend of cheap beer, barbecue and bare midriffs--all of which I wholeheartedly support. So I don't have a problem with NASCAR continuing to exist, or even becoming ever more popular and prosperous. I just don't think it deserves to be called a motorsport. So instead of claiming to be "America's most popular spectator sport," how about NASCAR starts telling it like it is?

"America's biggest party, every weekend, all summer long." Now that I can get behind.