Let the Hype Begin
If you’ve seen the commercials for the Daytona 500 on Focks during the football play-offs, you’ll have noticed that it’s not the race that’s being hyped but NA$CAR’s celebrity spokesmodel that’s being hyped. She has yet to turn one competitive lap in a Cup car at Daytona and yet the hype is overwhelming. So when the race isn’t in the “All Waltrip All the Time” mode, it’ll be in the “All Danican’t All the Time” mode.
Cruel & Unusual Punishment?
For those fans who may have missed the announcement, Focks will have both of the Motormouth brothers on Focks during the race broadcast. As usual, Jabber Jaws will be in the booth with Motormouth Mikey being in the Hollyweird Motel bumping Hollyweird Hambone to the position of roving reporter. With both Motormouth brothers flapping their gums fast enough to break the sound barrier while they‘re cheerleading & shilling, don’t expect to hear anyone else get a word in edge-wise. Not even Larry Mac with his new Larry Mac to English Dictionary.
Could this be a deliberate attempt by Focks to drive their ratings down to rock bottom so when the TV contract renewal comes up they can go cheap? Something to think about.
Daytona Testing
When the Cup teams went to Daytona to test, Robin Pemberton stated that the teams would race in packs. That was a statement, not a suggestion, which means that once again NA$CAR is trying to mandate driver actions and help manipulate the race similar to what Bill France Sr did at Talladega back in the 60’s when the well-known drivers of the time went on strike because they felt the speeds were too high and that the tires couldn’t handle it leaving a bunch of relative unknowns to compete. Bill France Sr dictated how fast the cars would be driven. What we’re seeing now is the same sort of manipulation to make the race artificially exciting rather than let the drivers actually race, even if it is the two car Brokeback racing we’ve seen the last couple of years.
Missing from the pack racing practice on the last day was SHR which packed up and went home. Considering that NA$CAR’s Celebrity Spokesmodel didn’t have the opportunity to participate in the pack practice, odds are you can expect to see her involved in “The Big One”.
Lotus News
Simona Di Silvestro took the new Lotus Indy car through its paces at Palm Beach International Raceway and Sebring International Raceway. From what I’ve read, Lotus will be running both of their famous livery colors. The BRG & yellow and the black & gold. So for whichever era of Lotus racing you enjoyed, you’ll see a reminder of it.
Dragon Racing, owned by Jay Penske, will be fielding the new Lotus car with Sebastien Bourdais and Katherine Legge behind the wheel. That now makes 2 female drivers behind the wheels of Lotus cars in IndyCar. It’ll be interesting to see Katherine and Simona compare notes of their cars and set-ups while the new car is going through testing. Lotus plans to put 1,000 miles on the current test engine before the testing at Homestead on Jan 23-24. That’s about what Lotus figures to be about half the life cycle of the engine.
On the F-1 side of the Lotus effort, they pioneered an adjustable suspension system which works off of the braking system. Since the driver cannot make the adjustments from the cockpit, FIA has ruled it’s legal despite numerous complaints from other F-1 teams. Once again, we’re seeing racing innovation being made. Hello? NA$CAR?
Dakar Rally
While Robby Gordon didn’t win the rally, he did win a stage or two of it. However, despite having been passed, the sanctioning body said that Robby ran an illegal engine then changed it to illegal duct work doing their best imitation of NA$CAR changing rules in mid-race. Apparently politics came into play after Robby won the final stage of the Rally. It seems that Peterhansel (no, that’s not a German bedroom toy) was supposed to win the last stage but Robby rocked the boat on that one. In an earlier stage of the rally, Robby was trying to pass Peterhansel using the rally’s equivalent to a horn (called a sentinel) however Peterhansel refused to move over and allow the faster Gordon to pass him. Peterhansel should’ve been penalized but wasn’t. Robby had some “kind words” for the Dakar Rally sanctioning body, ASO. One was he might be back next year. The second was “They can kiss my a$$”. While it was a learning experience for Robby, he’s also found another sanctioning body that likes to change rules in mid-race.
RPM & Busch
In one of those “No Duh” statements, RPM stated that the reason they didn’t sign Busch the Elder was that he was poison to sponsors. And it took The King how long to figure that out? I guess he’s getting a little bit slower with age.
Then there’s also the Roush Factor. Considering what Busch the Elder did and said about Roush when he drove for Roush racing, there’s still a lot of animosity there and since Roush builds the engines and cars for RPM, it’s a sure bet that The King wouldn’t have had any new cars or engines had he signed Busch the Elder.
Busch the Elder must be anticipating getting a number of black eyes this season as he’s signed with an eyewear company for sponsorship on the Phoenix Racing car. Last black eye I seem to remember Busch the Elder had came at the hands of Mr Excitement, Jimmy Spencer. However, Busch the Elder has given a number of black eyes to team owners & sponsors. So being able to hide a black eye is important and I’m sure those sunglasses will do a good job.
As to the length of Busch the Elder’s tenure at Phoenix Racing, I’d say it’ll last as long as his past chump provisionals are needed. Then he’ll get the boot the same way Bill Elliott did.
200 MPH Mustang Coming in 2014
When Ford revamps the Mustang for its 60th anniversary celebration, the GT-500 and Mustang Cobra will be equipped with turbo V-8’s that will allow this street car to reach 200 MPH. And as it will be a production model and meets the basic eligibility requirements of a production car, will NA$CAR allow this car to be raced? After all, it is a stock car and isn’t racing stock cars what NA$CAR is supposed to be about?
Bill Lester Rides Again
After being unceremoniously dumped by Autohaus despite a 2nd place season finish, Bill will be back on track in the #18 Muehlner Motorsports Porsche GT 3 for the 24 Hours of Daytona. As it currently stands, this is a one race deal however, I’m sure it will go beyond that based on Bill’s skills and previous experience.
Old Dog, Same Old Tricks
Johnny Benson was planning to make a comeback in 2012 in the Truck Series right up until his sponsor was stolen by NA$CAR’s conjoined incestuous twin I$C to sponsor a race at Michigan. NA$CAR and I$C stealing sponsors is nothing new. They’ve been doing it for decades. However, in these tough economic times, you’d think that with TV contract money coming in and having plenty of sponsors of their own, that they’d leave the sponsor of a popular and well-liked driver like Johnny Benson alone so he could help put butts in the grandstands. But greed trumps common sense once again in the Ivory Towers of Daytona.
Stolen Laptop
In case you missed it, there was a laptop containing drivers’ and NA$CAR officials names and other information that belonged to Aegis Labs that was stolen a while back. Naturally, NA$CAR & Aegis Labs said there was nothing important on the computer and that the laptop was probably in a pawn shop. Wouldn’t it be funny if it turned up on E-Bay with all that supposedly unimportant information on it going to the highest bidder? Or if somebody’s, like Faux King Brian’s, ID was stolen. I can just hear it now. His Royal Highness on the phone talking to Mister Card about a charge on his card. “What do you mean I sent Jeremy Mayfield two dozen roses, a box of chocolates, and a note saying ‘Come back. All is forgiven XOXOXO’?”. Or John Darby talking to American Excuse, “What do you mean I bought a lifetime membership in the Hair Club for Men?”. Or Shrubbery talking to Whiner’s Club, “What do you mean I sent a ton of M&M’s to a diabetic ward? Oh wait, I did. Never mind”.
I have never understood the Super Speedway mentality. Steve O'Donnell makes a point of telling us "these ARE THE GREATEST DRIVERS In THE WORLD" but the drivers apparently do not have the ability to determine on their own how fast they can safely operate their vehicle at Daytona and Talladega, so we have restrictor plates, or packs, or 2 car drafts. I for one am sick of restrictor plate racing and really could not care less what new rules they come up with this year or who is involved in "the big one". Also, I feel strongly that the races should be renamed to more accurately represent what we will see on the track. I am pushing for names like "The Half Throttle 400 at the Brickyard" or the "Fuel Saver 500 at Chicago". What ever happened to RACING?
ReplyDeleteIf they truly are the greatest drivers in the world, why can't they race in the rain like the world's most popular racing series (F-1)?
ReplyDeleteThe reason for the restrictor plate isn't for the drivers' safety. It's to keep the insurance rates down that NA$CAR & I$C have to pay for those tracks. The drivers need to be able to use the throttle to get themselves into & out of trouble. I've believed this for quite a while and I'm actaully surprised that Rusty wallace said it several years ago before he became a TV shill, I mean commentator.
I agree with you Shadow on the names of the races. It's called "Truth in Advertising". But as Steve O'Donnell stated on a sworn affidavit that NA$CAR is sports entertainment, like the WWE, I don't know if it applies.
If they did accurately name the races, we'd have the "Fontana Snoozefest 400", "The Bristol Boredom 500", "The Goodyear Blown Tires 400", "The Sunoco Fuel Contaminated With Water 400", etc.
Unfortunately for us race fans, racing in NA$CAR has taken a back seat to marketing, hype, shilling, & promotions. But what do you expect when the leadership of NA$CAR is made up of marketing weenies rather than racers.
Good article today. Hit a lot of good points. Keep up the good works. The world doesnt need any more "Jr. is the worlds greatest driver!" or "Mark Martin is nice to old people" articles.
ReplyDeleteMike.............do you notice just how much John Darby looks like Mr. Magoo?
ReplyDeleteDenny S.
The lamestream media was in a frenzy over NASCAR's own version of the "Honey Badger". Were there no original nicknames available? I have a suggestion:
ReplyDeleteThe Honey Wagon
I listened to Claire B. Lang's (SiriusXM NASCAR) interview DW and Stevie Waltrip after the HOF induction. I wish DW could be the THAT person in the broadcast booth. Maybe it was Stevie's presence, I don't know. Believe it or not, I could have listened to DW talk for another hour. That was the DW of old. I miss that DW.
SHR will give Danica owner points to make Daytona. Whether it's Tony's owner points or buying a Top 35 teams owner's points.
Poor Robby Gordon. At least he's having fun doing things his own way.
I saw Bill Lester running in an open wheel race (maybe last year) somewhere. Too bad NASCAR didn't try to keep Bill around, especially after they promoted the hell out of him for their own selfish agenda.
BTW: What do Danica, Carl Edwards, and Denny Hamlin have in common?
All 3 have gotten paid to take their clothes off.
Thanks Anon. Since I'm not on the e-mail list for NASCAR's PR sheets or have credentials, I don't have to follow the Daytona Dictates. I wouldn't want to anyways.
ReplyDeleteI always thought Darby looked more like Yoda than Mr Magoo. I may have to take a second look at him Denny.
I had thought of using "the honey wagon" for her also Shayne. Great minds thinking alike? The Honey Wagon sitting on the Honey Bucket. I've heard DW before when he wasn't in the booth and I could almost tolerate him. Maybe there's some switch on his butt that clicks when he sits in the booth that puts him into "idiot mode"? I figure Tony will either sacrifice his or Newman's points to get Danica into the 500 or they'll find a team that's just in the Top 35 and "buy a ride". Of course, by doing that, they have to race the car they bought the ride from which means she'll probably have to start from the back of the field due to multiple parts changes.
I expect Robby to continue on doing things his way til he finally gets fed up with whatever series he's racing in and then he'll devote more time to the other series that hold his interests.
I've liked Bill since I first met him about 12 years ago at Texas Motor Speedway when he was driving for Bobby Hamilton Sr. Bill could've done more for the Diversity Program than what NASCAR has done with it. I guess you could say age discrimination came into play in his case as that was about the time NASCAR started forcing the older drivers out in favor of the pretty young faces.
Good point about the clothing. I hadn't thought about that.
Mikie,
ReplyDeleteCheck this out:
http://eye-on-nascar.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/view/19681720/5
http://www.cbssports.com/mcc/messages/chrono/34550208
Much better than Mayfield, sealed divorce documents, and unpaid vet bills.
Shayne, I've said time and again Raymond Parks Jr and Red Byron needed to be in the HOF. They should've been in the first induction group. I think some others deserve to be in there before Buck Baker. Curtis Turner, Tim Flock, Red Vogt, and several others. But then you have to remember that NASCAR doesn't listen to the fans. they want "star power" in the mistaken idea that it will attract fans to the HOF. A lot of old timers won't go to the HOF because of how the process has been done so far. As it stands right now, unless Rex White and/or Tiger Tom Pistone were inducted in the next clas or two, you won't catch me going there. The only reason I'd show up for the induction of those two is as a sign of support for my friends.
ReplyDelete