[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 167 (Tuesday, November 18, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H11481-H11484]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2045
     EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING THE IMPORTANCE OF 
                              MOTORSPORTS

  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree 
to the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 320) expressing the sense of 
the Congress regarding the importance of motorsports.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                            H. Con. Res. 320

       Whereas on March 26, 1903, a century of motorsports was 
     inaugurated at an automobile race held on a beach in Volusia 
     County, Florida;
       Whereas motorsports are now the fastest growing sports in 
     the United States;
       Whereas races are conducted at numerous motorsports 
     facilities located in every State;
       Whereas racing fans are able to enjoy a wide variety of 
     motorsports sanctioned by organizations that include 
     Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART), Grand American Road 
     Racing (Grand Am), Indy Racing League (IRL), International 
     Motor Sports Association (IMSA), National Association for 
     Stock Car Automobile Racing (NASCAR), National Hot Rod 
     Association (NHRA), Sports Car Club of America (SCCA), and 
     United States Auto Club (USAC);
       Whereas the research and development of vehicles used in 
     motorsports competition directly contributes to improvements 
     of safety and technology in automobiles and other motor 
     vehicles used by millions of Americans;
       Whereas 13,000,000 fans will attend NASCAR races alone in 
     2003;
       Whereas fans of all ages spend a substantial amount of time 
     at motorsports facilities participating in a variety of 
     interactive theme and amusement activities surrounding the 
     races;
       Whereas motorsports facilities that provide these theme and 
     amusement activities contribute millions of dollars to local 
     and State economies as well as the national economy; and
       Whereas tens of millions of Americans enjoy the excitement 
     and speed of motorsports every week: Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate 
     concurring), That Congress recognizes the importance of 
     motorsports and its evolution over the past century and 
     honors those who have helped create and build this great 
     American pastime.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pearce). Pursuant to the rule, the 
gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) and the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Davis) each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen).


                             General Leave

  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend 
their remarks on the concurrent resolution under consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from Florida?
  There was no objection.
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, Americans have loved speed since anyone can remember, 
and that is why I commend the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Feeney) for 
introducing House Concurrent Resolution 320 that expresses the sense of 
the Congress regarding the importance of motorsports.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman 
from Florida (Mr. Feeney).
  (Mr. FEENEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks, and include extraneous material.)
  Mr. FEENEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. 
Ros-Lehtinen), who is a great friend of mine, for yielding me this 
time.
  House Concurrent Resolution 320 expresses the sense of Congress 
regarding the importance of motorsports in America. If we think about 
this, it is going to be a great 100-year centennial celebration. I also 
thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd), who is my cosponsor on 
this resolution and also helped me to introduce this resolution to 
honor the 100-year anniversary, which is very important to Americans.
  Mr. Speaker, 100 years ago the first sanctioned automobile race was 
held in Ormond Beach, Florida, on the beach, just slightly north of my 
district, in the district currently represented by the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Mica). We have come a long way in automobile racing and 
automobiles in the United States of America since then.
  In 1903, automobiles were mostly for the well-off, the rich. These 
races were sponsored by the Ormond Hotel Association. It was a seasonal 
gathering place for wealthy northerns down on the beach in Florida, 
which is a great place to vacation no matter what decade or year or 
century it happens to be.

[[Page H11482]]

  The 3-day tournament of time trials was held in March 1903 for the 
first time and set seven American records and two world records. The 
Ormond Challenge Cup, one of the first times an American speed race 
took place, Bullet Number 1 was owned by Alexander Winton and car 
Number 2 was Pirate owned by Ransom Olds of Oldsmobile fame; and they 
dueled each other in what is now known as drag racing. Bullet Number 1 
won by two-tenths of a second.
  For 8 years, Ormond Beach was the place to go, but ultimately beach 
racing migrated south to Daytona Beach, which is now a district shared 
by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) and myself. In 1936, stock car 
racing began on a 3.2 mile beach course. Cars ran 1.5 miles north on 
the beach, took a banked sand turn, and ran 1.5 miles back on a paved 
raceway and returned to the beach.
  World War II stopped automobile racing; but at the end of World War 
II, a famous American racer, a hero to race fans, William ``Big Bill'' 
France, one of the first racers back in the 1930s, along with 18 other 
members, started NASCAR. NASCAR took root on the beach of Ponce Inlet, 
a beautiful place to visit whether a race fan or not. In 1948, NASCAR 
began racing there on a 2.2 mile track, one-half mile on the beach's 
hard-paved sands, and the other one-half mile on the paved South 
Atlantic Boulevard back.
  Ultimately, we decided to get off the beach because there were too 
many fans gathering around the beach races on an annual basis in the 
Daytona Beach area. It was Bill France and his family that led the way. 
They wanted to move racing from the beach to a specially designed, 
challenging race course.
  Starting in 1953, Mr. France started to build an inland race 
facility. The speedway opened in February 1959 with the first Daytona 
500, a race that is famous to this very day. There were 41,000 fans 
that witnessed that first race, and today we still watch and enjoy that 
race on an annual basis. This year there are some 13 million fans who 
will attend NASCAR events in the United States of America.
  But it is not just Daytona Beach and Ormond Beach; I am proud of my 
district's record in terms of establishing the first creative, exciting 
races for America, but the truth of the matter is now we have the 
Indianapolis 500. The first Indianapolis 500 was held in 1911, and the 
race was won with a top speed of 74.6 miles per hour. I note on a 
collateral basis, that is not enough to get a driver ahead of the next 
car on the Florida Turnpike today; but the truth is, we have come a 
long way.
  Today's auto racing facilities have come an awful long way from the 
early races on the beach. Motorsports entertainment complexes nowadays 
accommodate tens of thousands of fans on tracks that are safer for 
drivers and spectators alike. Facilities like Daytona Beach 
International Speedway and other facilities across the country have 
evolved into what we would have to consider full-fledged theme parks 
for constant year-around entertainment for families and racing 
enthusiasts alike.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to say that research and development of the 
vehicles that Americans use every day on the streets have been 
facilitated by the challenges that we have on NASCAR fast-track 
speedways around the country. What started as amusement for wealthy 
individuals in the Florida sunshine in the winter now provides not just 
entertainment for millions of Americans, but also helps us beef up our 
technological, our safety, and our capabilities across the board.
  I think it is fitting that we recognize a sport that on a daily basis 
gets TV ratings the same as any of the major football or basketball 
sports; and if we look at attendance at the parks where these NASCAR 
events are run, they are three times what we will get for the Super 
Bowl last year, this year, and every year; and they do that in some 31 
States that have these events.
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Feeney) 
that he confirmed what I heard from Danielle from the office of the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), and the soccer moms of the 1990s have 
been replaced by the NASCAR dads of this century, or the NASCAR 
families of this century.
  Mr. FEENEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
  Mr. FEENEY. Mr. Speaker, I would tell the gentlewoman from Florida 
that there is a November 10 article in National Review magazine that on 
the front cover refers to America now as ``NASCAR Nation,'' and I 
include a copy of that article for the Record.

                             NASCAR Nation


                 one journalist's journey of discovery

                          (By John Derbyshie)

       Forget about the Soccer Mom, object of obsessive interest 
     to political strategists in the last two presidential 
     elections. Two election cycles is as much concentrated 
     attention as a voter bloc can expect to get in these fast-
     changing times. The candidates of 2004 have fixed their 
     sights on a new quarry: the NASCAR Dad. So, at any rate, we 
     are told by Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, who coined the 
     term. A NASCAR Dad is a rural or small-town voter, most 
     likely white and living in the South. Once upon a time he was 
     a reliable Democrat, but he has been voting steadily 
     Republican in recent elections for ``cultural'' reasons--
     reasons having to do with guns, religion, patriotism, and 
     lifestyle. What, exactly, is his connection with NASCAR--the 
     National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing? In the hope 
     of finding out, I recently attended a major NASCAR event at 
     the Talladega track in Alabama. Before I report on what I 
     found, here is some background on the sport NASCAR 
     represents.
       The term ``stock car'' refers to a street automobile from a 
     dealer's stock, the kind you and I drive, as opposed to the 
     custom-built pod-and-strut mutants you see in Formula One 
     racing. When ordinary citizens began to purchase automobiles 
     in large numbers in the 1930s and 1940s, some of them were 
     taken with the urge to race against other drivers on unpaved 
     local dirt tracks. Spectators assembled to watch. Drivers 
     tinkered with their engines to give them more speed. This was 
     happening all over the country by the late 1940s, when NASCAR 
     was founded, but it was happening much more in the South than 
     elsewhere. Wherever it happened, though, it was from the 
     beginning mainly a working-class interest, taken up by young 
     men who liked fiddling with automobiles and exhibiting 
     physical courage among their peers.
       A notable early attempt to bring stock-car racing to wider 
     attention was Tom Wolfe's long article ``The Last American 
     Hero'' in the March 1965 issue of Esquire. Wolfe's subject 
     was Junior Johnson, who raced from 1953 to 1966, and was 
     thereafter involved in the sport as an owner until 1995. One 
     of stock-car racing's early superstars, Johnson had perfected 
     his skills by working as a driver for his father's moonshine 
     business in the Appalachian foothills, racing along remote 
     country roads by night to outwit the ``revenuers''--agents of 
     the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Johnson 
     Senior was one of the biggest operators of illegal whiskey 
     stills in the South.
       Tom Wolfe had no difficulty getting some color out of 
     Junior Johnson and his neighbors in Wilkes County, N.C. While 
     insisting that ``very few grits, Iron Boy overalls, 
     clodhoppers or hats with ventilation holes up near the crown 
     enter into this story,'' Wolfe nonetheless managed to leave 
     his readers with the impression that stock-car racing was a 
     sport favored pretty exclusively by white Southern rustics--
     the kind of people who keep coon dogs and, in common with the 
     late Hank Williams, believe that ``hill'' rhymes with 
     ``real.'' Junior Johnson's own take on the episode was of 
     course from the other side of the cultural divide: ``That 
     Wolfe guy was something else. He showed up down here in 
     Wilkes County talkin' funny with a New York accent [Wolfe is 
     from Virginia], and wearin' fancy clothes.''
       Officials of NASCAR nowadays wince at this Southern-rustic 
     image. Stock-car racing is, they insist, a sport for 
     everyone, an inclusive sport, a family sport. For 30 years 
     they have been trying to shake off those connotations of 
     liquor-running good ol' boys and big-haired women. They have 
     had some success in spreading interest around the country, 
     but they have not yet persuaded America's cognitive elites to 
     take stock-car racing seriously. This was apparent in 
     February 2001, when NASCAR superstar Dale Earnhardt was 
     killed in a crash at the Daytona 500. Earnhardt was mourned 
     extravagantly by millions of racing fans. Meanwhile, from 
     executive suites and faculty common rooms, from the wood-
     paneled corridors of prestigious law firms, from the 
     bustling, ``diversity''-obsessed editorial offices of 
     broadsheet newspapers and network-TV newsrooms, rose the 
     plaintive cry: ``Dale who?''
       Yet if you look at the numbers, this is not a minor sport. 
     NASCAR's Winston Cup, the biggest of the three ``major 
     league'' series in the stock-car-racing calendar, drew 6.7 
     million ticketed spectators for 36 events last year, an 
     average of 186,000 per event. By way of comparison, paid 
     attendance for the NFL in 2002 averaged 66,000 per event, for 
     major league base 28,000, for NBA basketball 17,000. TV 
     viewership for a NASCAR race runs around 15 to 20 million, 
     the same as for many major-league baseball playoff games.

[[Page H11483]]

       What is that all these people are watching? What's the 
     appeal? There must be some deep desire in the human psyche to 
     watch human beings race vehicles round a circuit. Chariot 
     races were, after all, an obsession of both the Romans and 
     the Byzantines. I went to Alabama seeking enlightenment.


                            far from disney

       Your first impression of Talladega speedway is of sheer 
     size. The track is an approximate oval, with grandstands at 
     both the long sides. Seen from one grandstand, the opposite 
     one seems to shimmer in the misty distance. It is in fact 
     only three-fifths of a mile away, but appears farther because 
     of the haze generated by huge quantities of traffic all 
     around, and by barbecue grills on the infield. Oh, the 
     infield--I had better explain about the Talladega infield.
       The infield--212 acres at Talladega--is the interior of the 
     oval. You get to it by driving through one of three tunnels 
     under the track. Much of the infield is taken up with 
     maintenance areas, garages, administrative buildings, and 
     access roads, but the remainder--around 120 acres--is 
     available to fans. And here they are, the hard core of stock-
     car-racing fandom. And here are their vehicles: Your second 
     impression of the speedways is that you have never in your 
     life seen so many RVs (that is, recreational vehicles, 
     campers) all in one place. The infield fan areas are filled 
     with folk who arrive typically a day or two before the big 
     race and just camp out there in the infield. Some of the RVs 
     are improvised. One popular model consists of an old school 
     bus painted some improbable color, with metal railings welded 
     around the roof so the occupants can stand up there to watch 
     the race.
       NASCAR's attempts to Disneyfy their sport have made little 
     headway in the Talladega infield. The crowd is noisy and 
     beery. They wear denim shorts and T-shirts, baseball caps or 
     bandannas. I see a lot of tattoos and a lot of Confederate 
     flags. The track's security people inspect the interior of 
     each vehicle before allowing it to park, and I was told it 
     has been ``some years'' since there was a shooting on the 
     infield, but things still get rowdy, particularly the night 
     before a big race. (Among the track's other administrative 
     facilities is a small jail.) Rowdy, and raunchy too: The 
     Mardi Gras custom of beads for skin (you give the lady a 
     string of beads, she briefly exposes her chest) has come up 
     to Talladega, and it is common to see girls with several 
     strings of beads round their necks--although, as one of my 
     NASCAR minders noted wistfully, ``The girls you'd like to see 
     doing it aren't the ones doing it.''
       I watched the first few minutes of the race from the 
     infield, near the starting line. The 43 competing vehicles 
     circle the track slowly, two by two, behind a pace car. Each 
     car's position in line has been determined by pre-race 
     qualifying laps. As they come to the starting line, the pace 
     car pulls off the track, a green flag is waved and the 
     drivers throttle up to full power. Everyone had told me that 
     this is the most thrilling moment of a race, and they did not 
     lie. That mighty surge of engines, the even mightier roar of 
     the crowd, the smell of gasoline and rubber, all combine into 
     an extraordinary sensory experience. What follows is 
     necessarily something of anticlimax, especially as it goes on 
     for three hours or more. The lead cars tend to form a large 
     ``pack,'' so you get a small reprise of that starting thrill 
     each time the pack passes your viewing point, but after half 
     of an hour or so, as the faster cars lapped the slower ones. 
     I lost track of who was leading.
       I wandered down to the pit area. Cars need to be refueled 
     as several points in a 500-mile race, and wheels need to be 
     changed. A driver loses position when he makes a pit stop, of 
     course, and part of the strategy of racing--there is a great 
     deal of strategy in this sport--is judging the best time to 
     make your stops. The pit work is done with terrific dispatch, 
     by teams who practice endlessly at shaving tenths of a 
     second off their turnaround time. The team I watched--it 
     was driver Bill Elliott's--changed four wheels and 
     refueled the car all in less than 15 seconds. They have a 
     trick of pre-fixing the lugs in place on the replacement 
     wheels with an elastic cement. Then, when the old wheel is 
     off, on goes the new one, bang!, and the power wrench 
     secures the lugs, DZ!-DZ!-DZ!-DZ!-DZ! ``Slicker 'n snot on 
     a doorknob,'' pronounced the team leader with satisfaction 
     as Elliott vroomed away.
       Up close the cars look surprisingly small and flimsy. Their 
     ``stock'' nature is, at this point in the evolution of the 
     sport, highly theoretical. Eligible models in the Winston Cup 
     series are the Chevy Monte Carlo, Pontiac Grand Prix, Ford 
     Taurus, and Dodge Intrepid, but none of the cars I saw bore 
     much resemblance to the street models of those marques. None 
     of their side bodywork panels paused to include a door, for 
     instance; the driver climbs in and out through his side 
     window (which has no glass). An owner I spoke with, who had a 
     Monte Carlo entered in the race, described to me in loving 
     detail how his mechanics hand-tool all the care parts in his 
     75,000-square-foot machine shop. I interrupted him to ask: 
     ``You hand-make everything? So where, exactly, does Chevrolet 
     come in?'' He looked a little flustered. ``Oh, you know, they 
     supply some parts . . . the chassis design . . . ''
       It is commonly said that car-racing fans go to the track in 
     the hope of seeing a grisly crash. From my own encounters 
     with fans on the infield and in the stands, I don't believe 
     this. Aside from the sensory thrills of speed and noise, and 
     the rude social pleasures of the infield, the main appeal of 
     the sport, for most fans, lies in rooting for their favorite 
     drivers. Each one has some points of character, personal 
     history, or driving style that endear him to, or repel, some 
     section of the fan base. A few are wildly popular with 
     practically everyone: Dale Earnhardt Sr. was, and his son, 
     Dale Jr., now is. (``On account of his daddy,'' a lady fan in 
     the stands said fondly when I asked why.) A few are widely 
     disliked. Kurt Busch, a fast-rising young star known for . . 
     . unorthodox driving tactics, is a villain to 
     traditionalists, and to the kind of Southerner who believes 
     in maintaining the exquisite manners of the region even when 
     you are trying to kill someone. When the drivers were 
     individually announced during the pre-race proceedings at 
     Talladega, his name was greeted with a great outbreak of 
     booing from the fans.
       What then of those stereotypes the NASCAR suits so 
     strenuously try to distance themselves from? The Southern 
     bias, for example? Since Talladega, smack plumb in the heart 
     of the Heart of Dixie, is the only track I have ever been to, 
     my personal experience of the sport has not been well 
     balanced, and I shall dutifully report that you can attend a 
     stock-car race in any part of the country. There are major 
     tracks in California, Kansas, and New Hampshire. The 
     mathematician in me wants to check the numbers, though, and 
     the numbers suggest the following broad truth: Half of this 
     sport belongs to the South, while the other half is spread 
     out among all the rest of us.
       Take the location of tracks, for example. Defining the 
     South to be the old Confederacy plus Kentucky, of the 21 
     major tracks (not counting road courses) in the U.S., 11 are 
     in the South. These Southern tracks have 15.4 of the 
     available 32 miles of roadway and 1.31 million of the total 
     2.46 million grandstand sets. Over a half, nearly a half, and 
     over a half. It is the same with the 43 drivers at Talladega: 
     I tallied 21 drivers from the South; the next biggest 
     regional group was from the Midwest, with 11 drivers.
       Every one of these 43 drivers, by the way, was a white 
     male. None had a Hispanic surname, though Christian 
     Fittipaldi is from Sao Paulo, Brazil. The median age of the 
     drivers was over 39--older than I would have expected. Every 
     one older than 34 was married, with a median 3.5 children.
       The Southernness, whiteness, maleness, and (though I am 
     going out on a limb here) heterosexuality of the sport offer 
     obvious openings to PC inquisitors. Last June, for example, a 
     board member of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH operation told 
     reporters that stock-car racing is ``the last bastion of 
     white supremacy.'' This was a counterstrike in a campaign by 
     Jackson's critics to get NASCAR to stop contributing to 
     Rainbow/PUSH, on the grounds that the funds end up mostly in 
     the pockets of Jackson, his relatives, and his mistresses. 
     The campaign was eventually successful and NASCAR stopped 
     their contributions. In the conversations I had at Talladega, 
     fan approval was unanimous.
       There was nothing racist about that approval, though. Among 
     the celebrities introduced onstage during the pre-game show 
     at Talladega were the current Miss America and football great 
     Reggie White, both black. They were cheered as loudly as 
     anyone--Reggie White especially so, for having taken a strong 
     anti-Jackson line in the summer's controversy. It is true 
     that NASCAR fans are overwhelmingly white, but they have 
     nothing against black people. It is only that, like much of 
     the rest of the country, they are sick of the racial-guilt 
     industry, and most particularly of Jesse Jackson and his 
     self-enriching shakedown schemes. And although NASCAR has cut 
     the tie with Jackson, it maintains a busy program of 
     ``diversity internships'' for minority college students.
       The reason for the paucity of black drivers and owners--
     there are a handful--is captured by Adam Bellow in his book 
     In Praise of Nepotism: ``In auto racing, an equipment-
     intensive sport with a high financial barrier to entry, it 
     pays to have family connections.'' In fact, the NASCAR 
     personnel database reads like the First Book of Chronicles, 
     with drivers begetting drivers and owners in apparently 
     endless succession.
       The social appeal of stock-car racing is wider than it used 
     to be, and getting still wider, with college logos now 
     featuring among the ads that festoon race-car bodywork. A 
     sport built around such a strong network of family 
     connections is, however, going to grow away from its roots 
     only very gradually. This remains a conservative sport. That 
     does not mean, of course, that its fan base can be guaranteed 
     to vote for conservatives. The folk I mingled with at 
     Talladega the other day were still largely working- and 
     lower-middle-class. If they were to lose their jobs in a 
     major recession, they would not stop to ask whether the 
     President in charge at the time called himself a conservative 
     or a liberal. Likewise, while they will cheer on their 
     commander in chief if he pursues a determined war against our 
     nation's enemies, they will not long tolerate U.S. fatalities 
     in a drawn-out politicized conflict where vigorous action is 
     restrained by deference to the opinions of foreigner hecklers 
     or self-anointed domestic elites.
       I am going to leave it to professional analysts to decide 
     whether NASCAR Dads will be decisive in the 2004 elections, 
     and just register the following impression that I brought 
     away from Talladega with me: Whoever comes into stock-car 
     racing, whether as driver, or owner, or fan, or political 
     pollster, or

[[Page H11484]]

     just inquisitive outsider, will find a sport in which 
     physical courage is admired, family bonds are treasured, the 
     nation's flag is honored, and the proper point of balance 
     between courteous restraint and necessary aggression is 
     constantly debated. I greatly enjoyed my day at the races. If 
     NASCAR fans really do form a voting bloc, I would much rather 
     they were on my side than the other. I am glad to have made 
     the acquaintance of a thrilling, noisy, colorful, commercial, 
     very American sport.

  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Con. Res. 320 and commend the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Feeney) for introducing this legislation.
  Since March 26, 1903, when the first automobile race was held on a 
beach in Volusia County, Florida, motorsports races have been held in 
every American State. Millions of Americans enjoy the excitement and 
speed of motorsports brought to them by such organizations as the 
Championship Auto Racing Teams, Grand American Road Racing, Indy Racing 
League, the Sports Club of America, the National Association of Stock 
Car Automobile Racing, and others.
  The research and development of vehicles used in motorsports 
competition contribute to the improvement of safety and technology of 
motor vehicles used by the general public. Additionally, motorsports 
activities contribute millions of dollars to local and State economies 
as well as to the national economy.
  As America continues to grow and develop and as we continue to 
exercise our creativity and ingenuity, and as we find additional ways 
for recreation, many people are beginning to view this as not only a 
spectator sport but also something that they would learn to participate 
in themselves.
  Again I commend the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Feeney) for 
introducing this resolution and urge its swift passage.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) that the House suspend the 
rules and agree to the concurrent resolution, H. Con. Res. 320.
  The question was taken.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds of 
those present have voted in the affirmative.
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the 
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be 
postponed.

                          ____________________