If Jerry Seinfeld were a racecar driver, he'd be Dale Earnhardt.

At least that's what Penn State improvisation teacher Eliot Preschutti said.

"You look up to this guy. He's amazing. He's got such longevity and stamina, and his jokes are sweeping to an entire audience," he said.

Jerry Seinfeld will perform stand-up comedy at 7 p.m. Friday in Eisenhower Auditorium as part of his tour across the U.S. and parts of Canada. As of Sept. 15, there were still about 400 tickets left, according to Center for Performing Arts (CPA) officials.

Seinfeld's upcoming show follows a sold-out performance at Penn State in 2007, CPA director George Trudeau said.

"He had a very successful engagement," Trudeau said. "He remembers and was interested in coming back."

Preschutti, who toured the U.S. as a stand-up comedian from 1998 to 2004, said he briefly met Seinfeld once and described him as diligent.

"Now he is coming back on stage to State College, which is even more amazing, because he doesn't have to work," Preschutti said. "He's not doing this because someone's trying to take his house. He's doing it because he loves it."

Seinfeld isn't only known for acting on a television show. His stand-up comedy is admirable, Preschutti said, and if there is any comedian people should try to emulate, it's Seinfeld.

Second Floor Stand-up member Brandon Scott Wolf said that newer comedians like Daniel Tosh and Demetri Martin would be nothing without Seinfeld, Steve Martin or Billy Crystal -- the comedians who made it big in the '80s.

Preschutti said he is taking his Theater 297D (Comedic Improvisation/Comedy Improvisation) to the performance as a learning experience. Topics he teaches in his classes include stage presence, timing, how to listen to each other on stage and basically how to be really good performers, he said.

"I can't wait to see Jerry," he said. "It's going to be extremely exciting -- everything he does and every move he makes, I'm sure we'll all be in awe."

Trudeau thinks the performance will be "typical Jerry Seinfeld," meaning that though the comedian generally prepares in advance, he incorporates his setting and particular audience into some of his material.

"When he comes to a college campus like Penn State, he's going to read a little bit of Penn State material here and give people a great performance," he said.

Trudeau said he doesn't know how long the show will be, adding that Seinfeld has been very generous with his time based on past events.

Mark McColey, member of Full Ammo Improv, said the great thing about Seinfeld's comedy is that he doesn't really have a niche, like other comedians who stick to talking about politics or partying.

"Seinfeld doesn't seem to have a domain that he's limited to. He tends to look at life in a different way and kind of surprise people," he said. "The funniest thing is the truth -- we talk about that in improv comedy."

Wolf (junior-journalism) said he thinks another defining aspect of Seinfeld's comedy is that he makes "nothing" funny.

"The first thing that comes to mind for Seinfeld is the 'nothing' factor," Wolf said. "He makes small nuances in life seem hilarious."

Travis Czap, member of Second Floor Stand-up said he has never seen Seinfeld's stand-up live, but he's watched him on the Internet and has tickets for tomorrow's show.

He enjoys the legend's good delivery and said his stand-up speaks for itself.

"He's really intelligent, and he doesn't have to go out of his way to make it any funnier than it is, because it's already hilarious," Czap (junior-secondary education) said.

Wolf said he thinks people are more impacted by Seinfeld's television show and its popularity than his stand-up comedy -- but his stand-up is what got him to write a pilot for the TV show to begin with.

McColey knows Seinfeld for his popular sitcom, which ran from 1990 to 1998 and was created by Seinfeld and Larry David.

The show lasted nine seasons and featured a fictionalized version of Seinfeld himself and friends, including George Costanza (Jason Alexander), Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards) and Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus).

He said compared to other sitcoms of the time, Seinfeld characters were never really learning a lesson or changing their worldview.

"The thing that really made me like Seinfeld and changed sitcoms forever was there wasn't this big realization at the end of the episode, like The Brady Bunch. It was more that life happens, you're going to go through it and rarely is it going to be this life-changing experience," McColey said.

McColey said that the greatest part of the show was that it was never obvious and broke a lot of rules as a sitcom. Czap described the sitcom as part of his childhood.

"I'd be doing my homework at night, and my dad would be laughing at Seinfeld -- he ends up becoming a part of your life," Czap said.

Czap said his favorite episode, however difficult to choose, was the "Frogger" episode, though he said the "Soup Nazi" episode is also a classic.

The "Soup Nazi" episode features a soup kitchen with soup so good that people wait in line down the block for it.

The kitchen owner -- the Soup Nazi -- is obsessed with his ordering procedure, and dismisses anyone who strays from it in his line.

Elaine, fed up with the Nazi's antics, threatens to destroy his business upon the discovery of his recipes.

"Everyone kind of knows the whole gist of the 'Soup Nazi' episode, but the intricacies and the way they structure the plot is really interesting and never really predictable," McColey said.

The sitcom won an Emmy in 1993 for Outstanding Comedy Series, and Seinfeld himself won a Golden Globe in 1994 for Best Performance by an Actor in a TV Series for a Comedy, according to imdb.com.

The series also won three Screen Actors Guild awards in 1995, 1997 and 1998.

McColey said what Seinfeld pulled off well in his show is a technique known as the Herald. One of the most famous types of long-form improv, the Herald takes two or three sets of scenes that are completely unrelated but slowly weaves them into one concluding scene tying everything together.

"In improv comedy, especially in the Herald, one of the greatest things you can do is completely pull out something that ties everything together, and I think the show really did that," McColey said.

Tickets for the event can be purchased from ticketmaster.com, by calling 814-863-0255, at Eisenhower Auditorium, the Penn State Downtown Theatre Center, the HUB or the Bryce Jordan Center..