NASCAR to race in Australia, make right turns

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA — In recent times, no sport has done more to expand its audience than NASCAR. Once thought of as strictly a southern sport that appealed to rednecks with Confederate flags hanging in the windows of their trailer, lately the racing organization has grown faster than any other sport in America.

Look no further than where some of the races this season will take place – California, Las Vegas, Michigan, Delaware, Chicago and New York will all be home to NASCAR events this season. So it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that the most popular auto racing series in the United States will expand even further this season, this time taking its tires all the way to Australia.

To honor the first-ever American race down under, NASCAR will – for the first time – race the cars clockwise, with drivers taking right turns throughout the contest. In America, of course, the cars always race counter-clockwise, making left turns.

In a statement released Monday morning, NASCAR explains that the directional change was made to emphasize the uniqueness of racing in the Southern Hemisphere – “In deciding how to make this historic event one-of-a-kind, we decided to have our drivers go in a direction the Australian people may be more familiar with.”

NASCAR’s attempt to make Australians more comfortable is rooted in the fact that toilet water and hurricanes both spin clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere, whereas they rotate counter-clockwise here in America and the rest of the Northern Hemisphere. At least one driver is excited about the change.

“We don’t have a chance to make many right turns, except for coming out of the pit,” said Jeff Gordon. “So I’m excited to see what happens. But more than that, I just can’t wait to flush the toilet at our hotel. I can’t even really imagine what counter-clockwise flushing would look like.”