Looking to Daytona

Mexdeaf, I agree with everything you've said.

Ever since the spring '04 Talladega race, I have complained about this notion of throwing a caution on the last lap. I suppose I'm Ok with freezing the field on any other lap, but not the last one. Let 'em race to the line on the last lap. It goes to show that Nascar doesn't think through the consequences of their rule changes as they should. If they had followed the previous scenarios, then the caution would have come out right about where the entrance to pit road was, and Mark would have been declared the winner based on an arbitrary, imaginary line that nobody can see.

I would have had no problem with Mark Martin winning. I'm not a big Mark Martin fan, but I was pulling for him to win, probably the first-time I ever wanted to see Mark win.

Or, maybe we should just go back to racing back to the line. Yes, it's dangerous, such as at DJ at Loudon in '03, but this is racing we're talking about. It's inherently dangerous.

American Idol? Is that a TV show or something? :smilewinkgrin:

I don't know about every race, but I enjoyed taking and writing those notes.

 

You are looking live at the Baptist Board where I have posted some notes about the Busch race at Fontana that ESPN2 showed tonight.

I always liked Brent Musberger's "you are looking live" routine. He seems a bit unsure of himself covering auto racing, but whether he volunteered to take on the hosting, or whether he was commanded to do it, it's cool to see people stretch themselves.

It's really like old times with ESPN2's pre-race. There was no-nonsense, no name-dropping, no pushing-the-stars, no talking to the stars just to talk to them. All of this is in stark contrast to Fox's pre-race, and especially TNT's pre-prace.

It is a great thing to hear Dr. Jerry Punch announcing a race. Both Fox and TNT wanted him on pit road, but he stayed with the network that gave him his break, though I'm sure it killed him not being on pit road the last 6 years.

And, as I wrote that in my notes, I found a perfect example of why ESPN's pre-race is so much better than what we have seen recently. Tony Stewart started 23rd in this race. I guarantee that if Fox or TNT had shown this race, they would have talked to him, but ESPN did not. Tony isn't a big story this week, so ESPN didn't talk to him because they're there to cover a sporting event. I didn't even know Tony was in the race until they showed the in-car camera.

If you were watching the race, you saw a perfect example of race analysis. Rusty was talking about Jeff Burton's entry into T1. It was a late entry and he pulled it down to the inside. It was an example of a great handling car and Rusty's discussion was a great piece of analysis.

The hardest hit of the night was Jason Leffler slamming the wall after he tried to slide up in front of Kenny Wallace, but hadn't cleared him. The replayed the radio and you could hear the spotter say, "Still there. Still there." Leffler went up anyway and hit so hard the car lifted off the ground. Leffler tried to play it off in the TV interview that Kenny spun him, but that clearly didn't happen. This incident shows why Leffler couldn't make it in Cup racing. Not only did he not listen to his spotter, he didn't take responsibility for his actions.

As I said earlier, it was a rather pedestrian race. Not much excitement, which is par for the course at Fontana. The coverage tonight got me looking forward to what ESPN brings to the last part of the season, beginning at the Brickyard.

 

Since I don't think there will be much to write about during the race, I'm watching the Fox pre-race, which I just can't believe I'm doing. The sacrifices I'm making for you people. :smilewinkgrin:

Sammy Hagar? Really? Washed-up, scruffy-looking, fatboy Sammy Hagar rocking like it's 1987? Scraping the bottom of the barrel, aren't we? What, David Lee Roth was unavailable? As my wife asked, why is it that we have to have rock shows before races anyway?

I guess Kevin Costner got confused about where he was, thinking he needed to do a speech on Oscar weekend before doing the GSYE. He must have not gotten the memo about McConaughey and Sandler's GSYE.

I didn't catch who it was that went 4-wide in T1, but somebody needs to tell him that, while you can't win a race in turn 1 on lap 1, you sure can lose one. That was a real boneheaded move.

Does anybody remember Mario Batali, "celebrity chef", making food for the Fox boys last year? He made them some chicken with some kind of weird sauce. My wife called it "chicken with c*** on it", and the Fox boys were gracious, polite, but not excited at all. Then, Greg Biffle showed up with Subway and they went nuts. There was the pretentious Batali, and if you've seen him on Food Network, you know that's what he is, getting shown up by Subway. Anyway, we've officially found somebody more out of place in the Nascar world than Batali, Wolfgang Puck.

Things can't get much worse for DEI than both their cars blowing up today.

With about 40 to go, the Fox boys are talking like we're going to have a green flag run to the end of the race. At the time, I wrote: "I guarantee that Nascar will find some debris with about 20 laps to go."

Then, there was a caution with 25 to go.

I noticed that Fox didn't even bother trying to figure out where the debris was. Nascar put a good show of it, as I caught a glimpse of the jet blower in T2 where the "debris" was supposed to be.

Kid playing the computer game to Mark Martin: When are you going to retire?

Mark Martin: When are you going to take your diaper off?

Ha! :laugh:

I guess it was more interesting to have it end like it did, but only marginally so at California. Maybe the reconfiguration of Las Vegas will give us a race worth watching in 2 weeks.

BTW, I know some of you are now re-arranging your Baptist Board thread reading to catch these notes, yeah right :smilewinkgrin: ,but I wanted to let you know that I won't be watching or writing anything about the Busch race in Mexico next week.

 

Hasn't been a Nascar post in over a week, so let's have one.

JPM turns Pruett at Mexico and went on to win. Pruett called it dirty. Montoya was sorry about it. Nascar was happy that JP won at Mexico. Was it dirty? No. Was it overaggressive? No doubt. By all accounts that I've read (I didn't watch it either), JP had the faster car with fresher tires and was going to win anyway. Evidently, JP didn't see it that way.

I just wonder how many Internet message board servers would have melted down from the ferocity of posts if JP had spun Dale Jr.

From David Poole's article on thatsracin.com:

I'll take the over on that action. :wavey:

 

Las Vegas Notes

Somebody at Fox reads David Poole, which isn't a big surprise, I suppose, but it's interesting. Last Friday, DP wrote that the over/under on gambling puns this week was 114. So, I sat down with my laptop ready to start a running clock on the gambling puns. There were some, but not nearly as many as I expected. I think somebody at Fox told the gang, especially Chris Myers, to cool it on the gambling puns. I have to assume this was because of what DP wrote.

Anyway, I started watching to keep a running clock, but after Blue Man Group vs. Showgirls on a pit stop; Greg Biffle on playing craps (which I still didn't understand after he "explained" it); and celebrities showing up pretending to be interested in Nascar, but only interested in promoting their latest movie (looking at you Mark Wahlberg), I wrote, "Enough of this. I'm not watching this Fox pre-race garbage." I promptly fell asleep and my son woke me up to tell me the race had just started.

I just couldn't stomach it anymore. So, it's unlikely that you guys will be getting any notes from me about the pre-race "show" anymore, unless ESPN rescues the pre-race show from it's current state of utter stupidity.

I do enjoy the commercial where Jimmie Johnson shows Elliott Sadler his Nextel Cup trophy. I know that if I were him, that's exactly what I would do. I think that's what a guy like Jeff Gordon says whenever Internet Idiots like me have something to say about his driving. "What's that you say? My 4 Nascar championships are clogging up my ears." :laugh:

BTW, I was going to write "Nextel Cup", expect for the fact that it doesn't look like a cup. I've always wondered who the genius was that decided the Nextel Cup trophy shouldn't look cup-like. The Stanley Cup is a cup. The Winston Cup had a cup on it. The Nextel Cup has no cup. What's up with that?

I thought we might see a number of cautions when the tires were old and then we get 3 in 17 laps. Sheesh.

In wrecking, Robby Gordon just showed why he's never been, nor ever will be, anything other than an average to below-average driver in the cup (or maybe non-cup?) series. I fully understand the sentiment that says that what you do in the early laps, and the track position you have early, has an impact on the rest of the race. And heaven knows I'm all for racing at any time, but sticking the car under a guy that aggressively on lap 8? Robby's been around long enough that he should know better.

Around the time that Kyle Busch was driving so hard, I wondered how long it would be before he wrecked. The answer came to me about 100 laps later. Kyle Busch is the poster-child for the phrase, "It's a lot easier to get them to slow down than it is to get them to go faster." Time will tell whether he follows the path of Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart, or that of Todd Bodine.

Pizza Hut just had a commercial and one of the hooks was being able to watch streaming video, I assume TV as well, on the "Chocolate" phone. I don't get it. Who wants to watch TV, or any kind of video on their phone? BTW, is it just me, or does anybody else hear John Heard, Paul in "Big" saying, "I don't get it, I don't get it." whenever they hear that phrase? Just me? Ok.

It's the first-time I've seen it, but I love that Chuck Norris commercial. I'm looking to CBS playing it and playing it and playing it endlessly during the NCAA Tournament. Tune in a few weeks from now when I say that I hate that Chuck Norris commercial.

And now a random fact about Chuck Norris:
Chuck Norris can strangle you with a cordless phone.

Continuing with the commercial vein for a minute, does anybody else like this commercial or is just me?

Dad: Are you going with Jenny?
Girl: Let me check. (Holding her empty hand to her ear like she has a cell) Hey, Jenny. It's meee!

I mean, who doesn't want to smack that little snot? But, her delivery of that line is soo funny, I laugh in spite of myself.

Ok, back to racing, sorry.

About halfway through the race or so, it was pretty obvious that Jimmie Johnson was going to win. He was threatening to run away with it. It was at this point that I wrote, "Rest assured, Nascar will find plenty of debris on the track to ensure that this doesn't happen."

Run Kasey, Run! Get away from the crazy stalker girls!

Another random fact about Chuck Norris:
If a tree falls in the middle of the forest and no one is anywhere around, rest assured that Chuck Norris heard it.

Mike Joy just noted that there haven't been any debris cautions. Mike ol' buddy, please don't say things like that. You can't mess with sports-karma. I don't think that Nascar has figured out that debris cautions make them look less like they're running a sporting event, and more like they're following a script.

Another random fact about Chuck Norris:
Chuck Norris knows how much wood a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

If you want to know what I'm talking about, google "Chuck Norris Facts". The Chuck Norris Facts website is down, but there's an entry in Wikipedia about it, which I think is funny. Be warned that there is language that most of us find offensive, which is why I'm not linking to it.

Would somebody tell me why Mike Joy is making excuses for Dale Earnhardt Jr.? Jr. just goofed when he came in. He said as much on the radio. I love how the guys in the truck showed contempt for what Mike was saying by coming up with an angle that showed that Dale Jr. should have seen the red light indicating that pit road was closed. It's hard enough to gain points in Cup racing and you just can't give them away like Jr. did.

I can tell you this. Dale Jr's daddy wouldn't have made that kind of mistake. He was notorious for knowing every rule inside and out, not only to see what advantage he could gain for himself, but also to make sure he didn't beat himself, which is what Dale Jr. did by making that stop. Very disappointing to see him give away 30+ points like that.

And, wouldn't you know it, Nascar didn't throw a single debris caution. Every caution was justified. When was the last time that happened? Moreover, it was a pretty good race. When there 3 were cautions in the first 15 laps, I thought we were looking at a race like Dover a few years ago, where a quarter of the race was under caution. Instead, it was pretty good.

I just read an article on Nascar.com about how tough the drivers had it. I understand what they're saying, and I'm not unsympathetic, but it doesn't hurt them to have a day where they're skills get challenged like they were yesterday. I like the changes that were made at Vegas. That was easily the best race Vegas has ever had.

More of the same please.

 

You're welcome and thanks for the compliment.

The rule is that tires taken off during a pit stop must stay on the side of the car closest to the wall. During that particular pit stop, the left rear tire wasn't set completely down and it sort of bounced away. I'm as cynical about Nascar as anybody, but that was a clear rules violation. After they got penalized, Chad Knaus read his crew the riot act.

BTW, I'm setting aside the Cheater Knaus moniker temporarily. After the fiasco he caused at Daytona last year, Knaus settled down and, as far as I can remember, there were no cheating allegations the rest of the season, and there haven't been any so far this year. I reserve the right to pull that moniker back out, if necessary.

I really thought Nascar was going to find some debris and generate some drama, but they showed good restraint. Hopefully, they're seeing the light. I'd rather have an honest race that's a runaway, than a race decided by a photo finish because Nascar needed to throw debris cautions solely to generate drama.

There are pretty much only 2 things that I like about Atlanta. #1, the HOV lane and #2, the racetrack. You can't watch that race and not come away with the impression that those guys are a) crazy and b) have.. um, a lot of guts. :wavey:

 

Atlanta Notes

On Sat. night/Sunday morning, I worked from 11:15pm to 5:15am and stayed awake enough to play piano Sunday morning. If you notice the time gaps in my notes, this is why, because I was so tired Sunday afternoon.

On with the race notes.

One of the few things that will wake me up from a sound sleep are the words, "Lunch is ready." So, when my wife said those magic words, I woke up to the funny American Idol parody. That was a great bit. I loved it. DW saying "Brother, where art thou?" was a hoot. More bits like that, please, Fox.

I've always like Jeff Burton, even when he drove for Jack Roush. After going through what he went through the last few years, it's great to see him have some success this year and last.

My wife laughed and laughed at Jeff Gordon and his obvious new hair plugs. She thinks he looks like a total dweeb anyway and now even more so. The kids at school are always saying, "Mrs. Robinson, you're so funny." And she is. If you knew us, you'd like her more than you would me.

The great thing about today and next week is that I can flip back and forth between basketball and racing during that stupid DLP commercial that I hate so much. I'm not sure what they were shooting for, but they hit pretentious right on the mark.

"Drive", a new series coming for a few weeks to Fox before they cancel it because it stinks. Ever hear of a Fox series called "Standoff"? Yeah, that's what I thought.

I've seen every race at Atlanta since they reconfigured the track and it always amazes me how fast they go. I wasn't in favor of the reconfiguration at the time, because it seemed like Bruton was fixing something that wasn't broken, but some of the best finishes we've ever seen have come at the quad-oval track.

BTW, my wife just said that she thinks Jeff Gordon is taking pre-natal vitamins, as his wife probably is, considering how much hair he has now.

While watching Virginia lose to Tennessee, I'm reminded of the incredible Ohio State-Xavier game yesterday. That 3 pointer with 2 seconds left is what March Madness is all about. Thus far, the OSU game is the game of the tournament.

Well, well, well, here's our first "debris" caution. I love how Fox didn't even bother to try and find it. During the caution, I flipped to Florida v. Purdue, and hear the great team of Verne Lundquist and Bill Raftery. I didn't get to hear Raftery say, "They open up... inthemantaman!", but I did get to hear, "Send it in!" I've always loved Lundquist and Raftery. It's like the tournament doesn't begin until you hear those guys.

Michael Waltrip to Sammy Hagar: Do you think you could turn down the amp?

Sammy Hagar: Do you think you could drive faster?

Ha! :laugh:

With 265 to go, Stewart is threatening to run away and hide. I expect a number of "debris" cautions will take care of this.

I think I missed about 100 laps to a nap, and when I woke up, they were talking about Harry Gant. Gotta love Harry Gant. Harry has a couple claims to fame that I can think of right off the top of my head. These things happened in 1991 and 1992. Anybody care to guess?

They're not talking about Montoya, and I saw last week where he said that he was surprised to have been invited into the motor homes of several competitors, because that never happens in F1 racing. He also made a great point about the schedule. While they have half as many races in F1 as they do Nascar, the teams fill up their schedules with testing. AFAIK, the FIA has no limits on testing in F1.

Came back from watching Florida beating Purdue to see a glorious sight, Jeff Gordon being passed.

It's a good thing that Toyota got Dale Jarrett to drive for them so they can guarantee having at least one Toy in the field until DJ uses up his past champion provisionals.

The Richard Petty wreck that Mike Joy referred to when talking about the window nets was in 1970 at the spring Darlington race. You can find it here. BTW, after playing that one, Youtube showed me another racing related clip, the famous "Pass in the Grass" during The Winston in 1987. This clip shows more than just the pass and was truly Earnhardt at his best. You can see it here.

I didn't know that the F1 drivers don't even talk to their crew. It wasn't surprising to find out that the drivers don't help each other in any way in F1 racing.

If we haven't done it already, it's time to declare Kasey Kahne as the year's most disappointing driver. On a frustrating note, I'm in a fantasy racing league with some guys at work. 3 of the drivers I chose were involved in the wreck, and Kasey was one of them. :BangHead:

The vote for the best Atlanta finish will be Earnhardt/Labonte 2000 or Harvick/Gordon 2001. I think Earnhardt/Labonte will win, but my vote is Harvick/Gordon.

Why wouldn't Jeff Gordon think about speeding on pit road to beat the pace car out and not go a lap down? I do a lot of sim racing (at least one race a day) and there have been many races that I've sped down pit road just to beat the pace car. Better to start at the end of the longest line than to be a lap down. Does this make me smarter than Jeff Gordon? Why yes, I think it does. :laugh:

Speaking of Mike Joy's joke about GPS saying, "Turn left now", did anybody else catch Dale Jr's SportsCenter commercial where he gives one of the SportsCenter guys directions? Very funny. See it here.

I just laughed at Montoya complaining that Jeff Gordon is making him loose. I get that he's complaining that Jeff is a lap down doing this, but, come on, cry me a river.

Oh, the Harvick/Gordon finish got the most votes, which I found surprising.

And what a surprise. Nascar found some debris and manufactured some drama. :tonofbricks:

Again, Fox didn't even bother trying to find it.

Great driving by Jimmie Johnson to win the race. You might say that he outdrove Tony Stewart.