It just doesn't have the same ring to it.
And the meddling wouldn't stop there. Government martinets can't stand to see anyone having fun or doing what they want to. They think we aren't smart enough to make our own decisions. They think we need guidance. They think they have to hector us for our own good.
The next thing you know, they'd be issuing new rules requiring stock-car and drag-race drivers to fill their gas tanks with E-85 or to race hybrid vehicles.
“Drivers, start your Priuses!”
How about an eight-hour pit stop to recharge a battery? Sure, you could switch out the dead one for a charged one, but, still, it's all so wussified.
Eventually, they'd mandate high-occupancy vehicles and Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards and Kevin Harvick would have to share a car if they wanted to drive in the HOV lane.
But even that wouldn't be good enough. No, to make the bureaucrats happy who don't know anything about car-racing and wouldn't like it if they did, the drivers would all have to embrace mass transit and ride around the track together in a single solar-powered bus.
Sure, there'd be no winners, but there'd be no losers either. Cooperation would triumph over competition, everything would be green and boring, and ordinary folk who used to enjoy the sport would start searching for some other soon-to-be-forbidden pleasure.
It would be a marshmallow world, which is fine if you like marshmallows.
That dread fate has been averted, for now. Thanks to Patrick Morrisey and other state attorneys generals who objected to the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed rule to require certified motor vehicles, engines, and emission control devices to remain in their certified configuration even if altered vehicles are used exclusively for competition or non-road purposes, the EPA has withdrawn the rule.
They'll try again, of course, when they think they can get away with it. And that's when we'll start our engines.