Courage, Bristol, Conspiracies, Deleted Comments, Logano, Dinger, & Other Stuff

Bristol



That had to be the best Bristol race since the introduction of the much cursed Car of Turmoil. Folks actually had to use their skills to navigate around slower traffic and to pass their competitors. None of this “Waah I need a whole race track to be able to pass” stuff. You were able to tell who the racers were and who the drivers were. The racers moved forwards on the track while the drivers depended on attrition and pit stops to move forward. Sure there were some wrecks. Some from blown tires, others from a driver’s lack of skills in close quarters racing, and some from Murphy’s Law. But because the racing was better, you can expect to see the grandstands to be not quite as empty as they have been over the last several years. It was a far cry form the first Car of Turmoil race at Bristol when fans were actually falling asleep in their seats.



Now if NA$CAR would just go back to something that actually resembled a stock car or improved the handling of the current generic race vehicle, they might get some more exciting racing which means more butts in the seats.



You Gotta Laugh



The Queen of Hype’s fans are nearly as demented as the fans of another highly hyped driver. You talk about conspiracy theories? Some have said that Sorenson intentionally “brake checked” her which is why she ran into the rear of him causing her to wreck at Indy during the Busch Series race. When the BSPN analysts have nothing to say other than she was at fault, you know she was at fault. And after 10+ years of racing experience, she could’ve easily have missed Sorenson when his car slid back across the track. All she had to do was slow down. It might have cost her a few positions but she wouldn’t have wrecked her car. I’ve seen genuine rookies miss the same sort of wrecks by simply hitting the brakes. If I can miss a 26 car wreck on an icy, foggy autobahn in Germany simply by slowing down and using my brakes, she could surely miss a car on an closed circuit with sunny warm weather.

　

The infamous shoe “bombing” incident in Montreal is being said to be a concerted effort to keep her from winning. It sounds like Hillary Clinton’s “vast right wing conspiracy” statement. Apparently track security caught the person who did it and tossed them from the track. The fact that her spotter was telling her to be careful and to watch for debris on the track and she hit the shoe anyways makes me wonder if she has a hearing problem or maybe has trouble processing verbal orders or comments. Eury Jr had told her several times to take care of the transmission but that didn’t seem to work too well either. The fact that the track bar came loose tells me it either wasn’t tightened down properly or that she hit the “curbs” either too hard or hit them one too many times.



The shoe incident made for some great commentary during the IndyCar race at Sonoma. The commentators said they needed a caution and that Robin Miller was spotted wearing only one sneaker in the pits and wondered when he’d throw his sneaker out on the track to cause a caution. It was an obvious dig at the Queen of Hype and her inability to miss the sneaker that was on the track at Montreal.



Perfect Record



So far, the Queen of Hype has a perfect record in the Cup Series races she’s run in this season. She’s manage to wreck in every one so far. Not exactly the kind of perfect record you want to have.



Tony Stewart to Compete in 2016 Olympics



With the addition of a new event for the 2016 Olympics and a fine exhibition of his skills at Bristol, Tony Stewart has secured a position and will be team captain for Team USA in Rio De Janeiro in the Helmet Toss Competition.



Focks Snorts Deleting Comments



It seems that the wonderful folks monitoring the Focks Snorts web site doesn’t like comments that don’t praise NA$CAR. Here’s a comment that was deleted regarding the recent penalties:



Sure enough it is typical NASCAR fairness through and through. One team gets their hand slapped and another belted and whipped.





I'm sure it has nothing at all to do with car maker, sponsors and who makes the chase. Nope, nada, none.





Is it a Coincidence that ever since a Childress put a Black #3 back on the track he has been getting nothing but fined? Humm Must be me.





The frame rails pass pre-race inspection but then NASCAR decides to post-race inspect a 10th place car and amazingly finds a needle in a haystack. I proud of you NASCAR and your Due Diligence. Keep it up!





The frame rails are inspected and certified at the super secret R&D facility when the Car of Turmoil (COT) is submitted for the $22,500 certification process. So how could the frame rail be sanctified and blessed at the R&D facility and then fail a post-race inspection? That says a lot about the certification process and it’s reliability and questions the integrity of both the COT’s that have been certified and of NA$CAR and the folks doing the certification.



But leave it to Focks Sports to delete a comment which questions NA$CAR’s integrity and criticizes them.



NA$CAR Integrity



I know, they have none. You look at the penalties for Paul Menard’s team and that of Shrubbery. Menard’s team get’s fined, suspensions, and docked points. Shrubbery didn’t have any points docked. Why not? All they got was a fine and probation for the crew chief. Menard on the other hand lost his crew & car chiefs until October 3^rd, his crew chief was fined, and the team got docked 25 driver & owner points for a frame rail which didn’t meet specs.



The frame rails have to be certified along with the rest of the Kit Car at the super secret R&D center. So if the frame rails were certified by NA$CAR and were later found not to meet spec, what does that say about the certification process and NA$CAR? You have to wonder if NA$CAR intentionally lets cars that won’t make spec through just so they can nail them later to put money into the NA$CAR Foundation in which NA$CAR only pays out 30% to charity.



Dinger Still in Talks



During the broadcast of the IndyCar race at Sonoma, one of the announcers stated that AJ Foyt was still in talks with Dinger about driving for him next season. I know Dinger’s heart was set on returning to NA$CAR next season but as I’ve mentioned before he’ll be treated like damaged goods. So it would be a much better career move to go to IndyCar next season and maybe return to NA$CAR at some point down the road.



Logano to Penske



By now it’s been announced that Joey the Giraffe is going to Penske. I’m not sure what car he’ll be driving. More than likely it’ll be a 3^rd team car. Why is that? Because Pennzoil has a clause in their contract which states that a champion will drive the car with their sponsorship. The only top tier champion on the Penske team is Sam Hornish Jr. with 3 IRL/IndyCar championships. Logano won the Camping World Series East Championship in 2007. Not quite the same thing or same level as Sam’s championships.

The interesting thing about that is Sam had Pennzoil on his IRL car when he was a champion in the IRL. So there’s already a relationship established between Sam and Pennzoil. Who will Joey’s sponsor be? That remains to be seen.



Using Illegal Parts



Bad Brad said that The Felon’s teams were using illegal parts on the rear end of the car which allow the rear end to “turn”. If true, you have to ask yourself why didn’t NA$CAR’s crack team of officials catch it? When you’ve got Mr Magoo as your head official and the team owner is BFF’s with Faux King Brian, it’s easy for illegal parts to be missed during inspection.



Smoke Retracts Threats



Smoke retracted remarks he made after the race at Bristol about taking out Matt Kenseth every chance he (Smoke) got. Now why would he do that? When you announce to the world ahead of time that your going to take out another driver during a race, that’s considered to be pre-meditated and NA$CAR frowns on that. That’s a big Bozo No-No. Even if an incident occurred that wasn’t intentional, NA$CAR would take immediate action such as parking the driver, like they did with Mr Happy a while back, or bringing them into the pits and make them sit there for a number of laps. So will Smoke actual wreck Kenseth? Definitely. But he’ll probably use Iron Head’s rule. Wait about 4-5 races then take him out.




Courage



If you want to find out what courage really is, you need to read about Danny Pollock, who races sprint cars.

 https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10150691199195838&id=86077500837


http://www.dannypollock.com/

Mike's Loose Lugnuts

By Mike Sanders

Drunk, Lazy, And Stupid Is No Way To Go Through Life, Son...


Especially if you're the chairman and CEO of a major sports organization. But Brain Dead manages to pull it off. On May 19th, just before the Sprint All-Star Race, he stated that he's pleased with the 2012 season: "It's been a good, solid year". Really? For whom? Maybe for you, because you're making a boat-load of cash, and The Felon is keeping your liquor cabinet fully-stocked with his weekly "donations", but what about the fans? It doesn't appears to have been such a great year for most of them, if you go by TV ratings and race attendence. Almost every track now has several sections covered by flags, tarps, or sponsor banners to attempt to hide all of the empty seats. Blimp shots of the stands get cut off abruptly once the large sections of uncovered empty seats come into view. There are no official race attendence numbers; everything is fudged. That's why you'll see numbers like "100,000" or "80,000" for race attendence. Most are completely bogus and insult the intelligence of most of the fans at the race or those watching (in decreasing numbers) at home on TV. Speaking of the All-Star Race...

The All-Star Debacle

This season, the Sprint All-Star Race was advertised as the only major sport All-Star contest in which the participants are actually trying. Considering what the NFL Pro Bowl has degraded to lately, that wouldn't be a difficult statement to make. And it has that potential: no points are on the line, and the winner gets a cool million bucks. There won't be any "points racing", so everybody can just go for it. Well, that's not quite what happened this year. The winners of the first three segments played possum at the back of the field after they won their segment, and then raced hard during the final 10 lap segment that decided the race. It was a monumental pile of horse dung. I don't want to hear about how those three drivers were "employing strategy by not using their cars up". Bull crap! After Bent Sh!tcan won the first segment then started the second segment a full straightaway behind the field, driving about as fast as my 82 year old mother, the whole thing went to hell. Someone from NASCAR should have been on the phone to the 48 team and told them that if the 48 didn't move up to the pack and race like he had a pair, he would be parked for the remainder of the race. "Sorry...no balls, no million bucks. If we wanted to see someone drive like that, we'd have put your wife behind the wheel." My solution for this mess is a simple one: make it a 100 lap race with no segments. Period. No mandatory pit stops. Stop when you need to or under caution. Determining the participants would also be simple: anybody who won a race between last year's ASR and this year's ASR gets in, as do past ASR winners. That's it. No bogus fan vote, no heat races. I can dream, can't I?

An Update On The Best Female Driver In NASCAR

And of course, it's not The Bimbo. It's Johanna Long. I wrote about her after Daytona, and, after being prodded by a couple of readers after my last article, I'll do it again now, and I'll continue to do it later in the year. The recently-turned 20 year old from Pensacola, driving for the under-funded ML Motorsports in the number 70 car, has now run 8 races this year, with an average starting position of 21.0 and an average finish of 23.8 (skewed by a 37th place finish at Talladega in which she ran only 18 laps due to overheating). The Talladega race is her only DNF of the year. She's doing great considering the lack of funding she has to deal with. By contrast, The Bimbo, in just about the best equipment money can buy, has stats of 15.4-21.0 and 3 DNF's. The Bimbo also leads Johanna in excuses for non-performance by about 23 quadrillion to zero. And speaking of The Bimbo...

Payback Is A ... Well, You Know

Good for Sam Hornish, Jr. for not putting up with The Bimbo's crap. The Bimbo puts him into the wall on the cooldown lap at Talladega, Sam retaliates with a well-timed (and COMPLETELY UNINTENTIONAL *cough, cough*) tap at Dover that basically ends her day. Good going, Sam! Unfortunately, there was a bit of collateral damage, as Brad Sweet got caught up in it. Wrong place, wrong time, etc.

NASCAR Sends Another Message

NASCAR probation has been universally scoffed at and mocked. It is (or was) completely toothless; it was their way of saying "stop...or I'll say 'stop' again". It meant nothing. Well, their suspension of Maxi Douche after his incident with writer Bob Pockrass after the Dover Nationwide race was a message to all drivers: when you're on probation, don't piss us off, or we WILL do something about it. Message received (I think). BTW, if the NASCAR media were polled off the record, I'm sure most of them would rather interview Maxi or even Mini Douche (as long as they had taken their meds) than interview Bent Sh!tcan, whose grating monotone drives everybody up the wall.

A Job Lost, A Job Saved?

I think this might have been Maxi Douche's last chance. It's a good thing that the contract between him and car owner James Finch was a handshake deal and not in writing. Finch was already having a hard time finding sponsors for the 51, but now (with the possible exception of Jerry Springer's offer, which I think is just a publicity stunt...but what a fitting driver to sponsor) I doubt any top-tier or even mid-tier sponsor would touch the 51 with a 10 foot pole as long as Maxi is behind the wheel. On the other side of things, did the win at Pocono save Burnt Toast's job in the 20 car? As much as I'd like to say that it's The Coach's call on that one, sadly the call will probably be made by Home Depot. Yep, sponsors run NASCAR these days, especially big name sponsors like HD. If they want somebody else behind the wheel of the 20 next year (this is the final year of BT's contract), then The Coach will be forced to make a change. Gotta keep the big money guys happy.

Could It Happen?

We all know that the dreaded disease know as "The Chase for the Sprint Cup" was the kneejerk reaction to Matt Kenseth winning the 2003 championship going away despite only winning one race all year. Thus far in 2012, the most consistent driver in the Cup series is also one of the drivers who hasn't won this year: that's right, it's June Bug. Wouldn't it be a nice thumb in the eye of Brain Dead and the other chuckleheads-in-charge if June Bug won the championship this year and didn't win a race? You'd be able to hear the cementheads exploding all the way here in Orlando.

TNT Takes Charge
TNT telecasted the Pocono race and has the next five races before ESPN takes over. For the first time all year I could actually see more than two cars on the track at the same time. What a concept! And while the guys in the booth aren't as bad as FOX's crew, they've got some improving to do. Still, nothing beats a "boogity"-less green flag to start a race.

Loose Lug Nuts

Race Mama has been busy for the last month and is still busy. So the articles you normally find at Laidbackracing.com will be here for the next few weeks until the work backlog is cleared up.


By Mike Sanders


First Of All

It was good to meet Jo Ann and Jimmy and the gang at Darlington. I
already can't wait for next year.


Catching Up


Thoughts on a couple of older subjects:


1. Everybody remembers Reuty Tooty limping around Martinsville until
his car died and he brought out a caution just as Jeffy had passed
Bent Sh!tcan for the lead with just 3 laps to go. Reuty claims he
kept his car on track in an attempt to stay inside the top 35 in
owner's points (okay, we get that), but for his benefit and not the
benefit of The Bimbo. Sure Reuty, sure...we believe you. Or not.


2. Speaking of late race cautions: the late race phantom debris
caution at Richmond that probably cost Smokeless a win wasn't what
some people thought it was. More than a few observers thought that
caution was payback for the earlier penalty against Flipper, when he
jumped a restart due in part to bad communications by everybody
involved. I think what that caution really was, was NASCAR telling
the fans to STFU. If you remember, the two races immediately
preceding Richmond (Texas and Kansas) were relatively
boring...alright, they were DAMNED boring! Long green flag runs with
the cars spread out and not a whole lot of passing or even
side-by-side racing. Fans had started complaining again about boring
racing. To be honest, most of the Richmond race was less than
exhilarating as well. So I think the NASCAR chuckleheads-in-charge
said "okay, you think the racing is boring because there aren't
enough caution flags, well we're gonna throw one at the end of this
race that'll be so dubious that it'll have WWE fans shaking their
heads. Now shut up and just enjoy the racing". To make it worse,
NASCAR chucklehead-in-charge of competition Robin Pemberton said
"Sometimes, some people are a little more needy than others and they
want to see that (the debris) for whatever reason". Gee, Robin, ya
think? Richmond is a 3/4 mile short track, and FOX Sports has about 3
gazillion cameras stationed around the track (give or take a
gazillion). They should be able to see a mosquito's butthole. But
they can't see the debris that brings out a caution flag that
influences the outcome of a race? Yeah, we "needy" people want to see
the debris to see if the caution is on the level. A lot of people see
NASCAR as nothing more than the WWE on four wheels. You'd think that
as a high-level muckity muck in the organization you'd be more
concerned with the integrity of the sport, or the lack thereof. I
guess not.


R.I.P. Carroll Shelby


He passed away last week at the age of 89. He will be missed by
those of us who like to drive fast. He was quite the innovator.


Speaking of FOX's Camera Work At Richmond...


One other aspect of the coverage of the Richmond race: how is it
that you have 43 cars (until the start-and-park guys head for the
garage) on a 3/4 mile short track and the camera work is so atrocious
that you'd swear it was a qualifying session instead of a race because
all you see is one car at a time? It takes real talent to screw up the
production like that. If we were real lucky, we got to see two cars at
one time instead of just one. Part of it was an obvious attempt to
camouflage the fact that there were a lot of empty seats, but come
on. A six-year-old with a red crayon and five spare minutes could
have designed a better race coverage.


Did You Notice?


Aside from good camera work, did you notice the one other thing that
is missing from FOX's coverage this year? The Rodent is gone! Yes,
they killed Digger and the rest of the resident rodents. I guess FOX
finally gave up trying to pursue that all-important 6-8 year old
demographic.


Say It Ain't So


When you talk about races at Talladega and Darlington, one word that
is never (or at least rarely) used is "boring". Well, NASCAR has
outdone itself by making these two races boring. The pack racing was
back at Talladega, but the cars were usually spread out a bit, with a
car length or so between them. No bump drafting. The attempt to break
up the tandem drafting went too far, and cars were overheating after
the slightest bit of contact drafting. Until the last 45 laps or so,
it just wasn't the same as the old pack racing days. Darlington
started out with over 170 laps of green flag racing. Sitting in the
Tyler Tower, I kept scanning the track to see if there was any
side-by-side racing going on outside of the top 10 cars. None...well,
maybe not none, but very little. Much less than you'd usually see at
The Lady in Black. There weren't many drivers willing to take any
chances. Points racing, instead of going for the win, has brought us
to this point. And things are going to get worse as we get nearer to
The Chase.


For The Second Year In A Row...


The most excitement at Darlington occurred on pit road after the
race was over, and it involved one of the Douche brothers. Last year
it was Mini Douche and Kevin Harvick getting into it, this year it
was Maxi Douche mixing it up with Ryan Newman. Or at least their pit
crews were involved in most of it. I look at Mama Douche when she
accompanies her sons across the stage during driver intros and I
think she must be so proud to have raised two weapons grade d-bags
like her sons. Good going there, Mom.


200 For The Felon? BFD


Yeah yeah, Bent Sh!tcan gave The Felon his 200th win in NASCAR. How
many of them are tainted? Hard to tell, just as it's hard to tell how
many of Barry Bonds' home runs are tainted. You just know that all of
them aren't legit. But hey, The Felon's not doing too bad for a liar,
cheat, and crook.


Notes On The Bimbo


1. I've been to both of the Cup races that The Bimbo has
participated in. I have made it a point to peruse the crowd before,
during, and after the races to see how many fans are wearing her
gear, in order to gauge her (supposed) popularity. At the Daytona
500, I saw one lonely Bimbo fan wearing her gear. Out of thousands
and thousands of fans I saw. Underwhelming, of course. At Darlington,
her popularity had exploded! I mean it was an exponential increase!
There were actually four Bimbo fans in Bimbo t-shirts. Yep, she's
having a real impact...


2. Evidently, D.W. gave The Bimbo a grade of A+ for her 31st place,
6 laps down effort at Darlington, because it is a tough track and it
was only her second Cup Series start. I wonder what kind of grade
D.W. would give Trevor Bayne for HIS second Cup Series start: the
2011 Daytona 500. I've been led to believe that the Daytona 500 is
important or something, and the kid won the race. Maybe that earns
him a grade of A+++++++++. Nah, he drives a partial schedule for a
small, underfunded team. I guess he earns a C-.


3. One more piece of evidence that NASCAR is now all about style
over substance: 2003 Cup champion Matt Kenseth, who is still one of
the ten best drivers in the sport, has to fight for every sponsorship
dollar he can get; yet The Bimbo, who has accomplished nothing in
NASCAR, doesn't have a sponsor-related care in the world.




Military Sponsorships Under Fire Again


Remember early last year when Representative Betty McCollum
(Dirtbag-Minn.) tried (unsuccessfully) to get military sponsorship of
motorsports events done away with? Well, since every other fiscal
problem facing the country has evidently been solved, she's at it
again. This time she has help...Republican Jack Kingston of Georgia.
And the ban would be expanded to include not only motorsports but
fishing tournaments and wrestling events. Let's hope this attempt
gets shot down as well. Rep. Kingston should be ashamed of himself.
There are a lot of military bases in Georgia. You don't want to piss
off those guys and gals.

Homestead Press Conference Transcript

For those of you who missed Faux King Brian’s Homestead press conference, here are the official transcripts regarding the press conference. You’ll notice that instead of getting to pat himself on the back for the poor job he’s done this season, he spends a good chunk of his time being questioned about the Double Secret Probation Fines that have been issued and does a poor job of defending the the Double Secret Probation Fines. One little fib. he states there has been nothing in place to punish people saying bad things about NA$CAR. There has been something in place since the days of his grandfather Bill France Sr. It's called "blackballing" somebody. More recently, when KuBu made some comments about the officials when he was driving the #97 car, his hard card was pulled which meant KuBu had to sign in every time he went to a track. A member of the television media questioned some decisions of NA$CAR and was KuBu's sign-in buddy as his hard card was also pulled.

So put on your hipwaders and have your air sickness bags at the ready.

　

BRIAN FRANCE: Good afternoon, everyone. I would say a couple of things that I've said before in previous get-togethers with the media. That obviously we think the season has gone very well. TV ratings, attendance, still some issues, depending on what market you're talking about.

Obviously, the economy continues to weigh heavily on the sponsorship component of our sport. We rely more on sponsorships than anybody in sports, so that obviously has an effect on us.

But the quality of racing throughout the year, the emphasis on winning that we keep adjusting to, I think is undeniably it is paying dividends. I would also say one thing about that. There was some wisdom or conventional wisdom some time ago that if you put more on the line, you put more emphasis on winning in Motorsports, that that wouldn't make a big difference because they're all out racing as hard as they can every lap, and it wouldn't make that big of a difference. And that's not true. We now know that's just not true.

When there is more on the line, you're seeing every weekend Tony Stewart and Carl, and everybody elevate and their entire teams are elevating their performance and the competition gets better when that happens. You saw that last year with Denny and Jimmie.

So naturally we're going to continue to look at the point system in a way that -- and the other portions of how we regulate and conduct the events, with an emphasis on just that.

But one more thing as this weekend unfolds, and naturally we're all excited because we're fans too, to watch and see what happens on Sunday. But the other thing that is happening in the marketplace is some really, really good things.

We held a Green Summit for the first time in Miami Beach yesterday. Had a number of companies that are doing some really, really great things in our industry - they're environmentally smart and productive - share their experiences. And we had a lot of new companies that were interested in what NASCAR was up to in the space where their technologies and their emphasis is. So they joined us as well.

My hope is that we'll continue to march down that road and get better and smarter and we'll attract more companies as a result of that.

Then just this morning, we awarded a $250,000 check to the Homestead Hospital in the Neonatal Care Center, trying to invest in the hospital as part of our NASCAR Foundation, and my mother and so on was there to present that.

In addition to an exciting weekend, the industry is really celebrating the fact that they're here in South Florida and doing some great things. So, with that, I'll be happy to take some questions.

Q. Brian, in particular light to your comments about the winning. Eight years ago Matt Kenseth won the championship before the Chase, had one win for the season which seemed to cause an uproar, and thus the Chase format was developed. Carl has an opportunity on Sunday to again win a championship with only one race week win in the entire season. Why should that be looked on any different as what Matt Kenseth did in 203?

BRIAN FRANCE: Because we didn't change the point system because somebody had one win or a few wins. That was never the emphasis. The emphasis was that we could create bigger moments if we had a more playoff style atmosphere as opposed to a complete consistency model in the years past. And we've achieved that goal, not all the time because it's obviously out of our control.

I would tell you the one win that Carl had might make the difference though. He only leads by three points. The one win in Las Vegas may well make the difference tomorrow. I don't know.

Clearly we cannot make winning the only thing. There are 43 teams racing at every weekend. So this is not -- however, we can make sure that we emphasize that. We can make sure that we reward that. And we're pretty happy that that translates into better racing.

Q:Not taking anything away from Jimmie's great accomplishments of five straight there. How much do you think an uptick of interest that there's been to have a new face fighting out for the championship this year?

BRIAN FRANCE: I don't know. But I do know that this will mark the end of one of the historic runs in all of sports with five consecutive championships. I would have never thought I would witness that.

Jimmie it's just a marvelous achievement, and Carl and Tony both are very popular, so they're creating new moments and we'll have to see how it all plays out.

Q. There's been an uptick in the television ratings. I'm wondering is that what you expected? Is that a slow surge to what you think will be more? Is it less than you thought it would be? What are you working on in the off-season that would be your main goals for next year?

BRIAN FRANCE: We've always said that ratings go up and down because of many, many things. The things we can control are showcasing the racing, telling our story, and giving the drivers some big moments to race for. That will help us. You never know how it all percentage- wise what really matters the most.

But we know that that's the NASCAR we want. We want to see these elevated performances, and they're just fun to watch. We want to see what's happened. I'm confident if we do that, and do a lot of other things, we will have better ratings and better attendance.

Q. NASCAR has fined, at least four times that we know of, drivers for disparaging remarks they've made, and NASCAR did not go public with those fines. Other leagues do. They do publicly say you can't talk about the officials. You can't talk about this or the league. Why does NASCAR take the position that these matters should be private and not public? Are there others that we don't know about?

BRIAN FRANCE: There could be. That's why they're private, right? Well, let me tell you what we've done in the last couple of years. In the last couple of years we've taken a position that drivers are going to be able to speak their mind and criticize the sport way more than any other sport would allow. So let's start with that.

However, there have to be some limits. We thought those limits were being exceeded in the last couple of years because you can't denigrate the sport. You just can't do that. We're not going to accept that.

You know what is interesting, almost every driver has come up to me at one time or another and said I'm glad you did that, because I don't like it when somebody just says something that is irresponsible about the sport.

Let me say one other portion of this. They are perfectly fine to criticize anything we do, any call we make. They can say they don't like it, they disagree with it. We didn't make the right call. That's fine. But we're not going to let anyone denigrate the sport, and that's going to continue.

Whether we make the fines public or private, we didn't see a benefit to making them public. If there is some benefit to that, we'll take a look at it. But that is the reasoning behind the penalties.

Q. But don't you think there is harm when it comes out after and fans take the stance of why did they do this in secret? What else are they doing in secret? In fact we're talking about secret fines today instead of your big game seven moment?

BRIAN FRANCE: That's up to you to what to write and be interested about. I can only tell you that I take every question. I never say no comment. I've explained it. If there's a better way -- sort of this idea that there are a bunch of things going on behind the curtain. We've never been more transparent. We've never had more of anything, and that is the way it should be.

If there's a benefit to announcing them to the public and the media, we'll take a look at them. We just didn't see a benefit at the time. Maybe there is a benefit.

Q. How much did the Kyle Busch situation at Texas concern you? How do you balance boys-have-at-it in retaliation with what appears to be a non-definitive line?

BRIAN FRANCE: That's not accurate. It was very concerning to all of us. There was a swift and very is he penalty on that as you know. There is a line and the drivers, and they may walk around and say sometimes that they're not clear about it, but they know the line.

We have these conversations with them all the time. What you've got to remember is this is a contact sport. So you're going to -- we thought a couple years ago that we were overregulating the events. We wanted to give more authority back in the drivers' hands, and that's been good for NASCAR.

But there is always a limit. You can't do anything you want. We will look at it. We talked to the drivers. If they're close to the line, we have a conversation that day. If they go over the line, we'll deal with that too.

So this idea that there is no -- nobody knows where the line is, not true. Not accurate.

Q. Brian, corporations all across the United States have been raising funds for the last years or so while you guys are looking for sponsorships. What is NASCAR doing to get corporate treasurers to open up the purse strings and become sponsors at a time when NASCAR really needs the employment?

BRIAN FRANCE: If the President of the United States is not getting them to do that, I'm not sure what we're going to be able to do to figure that out. But having said that, obviously we just held a green summit. We were doing things that attract new companies, new technology to validate in our sport. We're renewing a lot of companies, and some companies -- and it happens all the time, every year for us, will pull back their sponsorship or commitments or leave all together.

That is just the reality of having hundreds of companies involved in this sport. But we're working harder than ever with the teams and their business groups to tell the NASCAR story and the value that it brings to sponsors. We're having success with that.

I think if you ask the individual team owners, we've never had a more offensive strategy doing it together to bring in as many new companies as possible.

Q. After the test you ran this week in Daytona, what are the goals you're looking for for Daytona in February, and is one of them a virtual complete elimination of the tandem drafting? Is that one of the things you're after?

BRIAN FRANCE: It is one of the things we are after. We would prefer to eliminate tandem racing in the manner it exists today. There is no question about that. We are working on rolling back the clock to traditional Daytona, Talladega races. We'll have to see how that goes. I think the majority of fans would like to see that and so would we.

Q. You mentioned that you answer every question and you don't duck anything. There was a time when your grandfather and your father attended every race. They did these press conferences almost every Saturday or Sunday behind the hauler or whatever. We don't see you very often. We wonder why is it that you think the sport that you're not needed at every weekend or just why are you not around more often for these press deals?

BRIAN FRANCE: I frequently say, and I've said this before, if I thought that I was the last one out of every event and I turn the light off on the way out that that would grow the sport in some way, I would do it.

What we have is a different sport than it was 10, 15 years ago, and that's real clear. I don't publish my schedule, but it's pretty busy. We feel like we're managing the sport. We know we're managing the sport the best way that we need to to grow the sport.

Q. Could there come a time in the future where all the penalties are transparent? That they're all black and white so it can be reported as normal rather than just finding things out on the internet secondhand? Secondly, Bob earlier mentioned the Kyle Busch incident. Can you explain to me other than Brian Vickers' situation last week where he was not under caution as Kyle Busch was with Ron Hornaday at Texas, why Brian Vickers, something wasn't done about him when he, in fact, just came out of nowhere and plowed into Matt Kenseth for no apparent reason other than retaliation?

BRIAN FRANCE: Well, there is something being done about that. We're having a conversation about that, and they are very different circumstances. One was on a mile and a half track, a lot faster. One was under caution, which is very significant different.

Racing accidents under green are always subjective. Even though you may say this one wasn't, but typically there is always a debate about who went where. Ron Hornaday was racing for a championship, and you know we value that greatly.

So there are lots of differences. It doesn't mean though that we didn't think the line was almost met or somewhat close, whereby, we would have a conversation to explain that. We will be having a conversation with both Brian and Matt regarding really what happened in Martinsville the week before, which is a short track.

A lot of contact happened in that particular race. Like I said earlier, there is a line. The drivers know where the line is. If we should be guessing about that for some reason, we're happy to sit down and walk them through it.

Q. Ricky Stenhouse is probably going to win the Nationwide championship tomorrow. The decision NASCAR made to limit drivers to one championship run, has NASCAR gotten what they want out of that or is that policy going to be reviewed at any point?

BRIAN FRANCE: All policies are reviewed, but I think it's worked the way we want it to. We want to showcase the young drivers in their own series and still have the participation with drivers with a lot of experience. That's exactly what we've gotten.

I think it's been good for the young drivers to get some different notoriety. The honor and prestige of winning a championship and the money that comes with that and all the rest has been a good thing.

Q. Going back to the driver fines things. When you say you don't see a benefit to that, can you explain why there is no benefit to that? It would seem like if you're punishing somebody for disparaging the sport, you would want to let people know we're punishing this guy because we don't like what he said. In this room, you're monitoring social media, all the fans want to know more about it and want to understand why. It just feeds to the perception that you're an autocratic regime that doles out punishment in a capricious manner. Why would you not want to tell people here's why we're doing it?

BRIAN FRANCE: Sure. I'll explain it. We went for 50-something years and never had a system to fine anybody for disparaging remarks in the sport. We're the only sport on the planet that had that. So we simply really in the last couple of years changed that policy because we thought we needed to.

. So it's a new policy. It's not something that's been around for a long time. But like I said, we're happy to look at that in the off-season. See what benefit there would be. When it comes to social media, nobody is investing more, doing more, encouraging the drivers and everybody in the industry to participate on social media. Say what you want and all the rest.

So, you know, we ought not look at one policy and try to define how NASCAR approaches things.

Q. What's the primary benefit to not telling people? BRIAN FRANCE: The way we looked at it, what would be the benefit? The drivers know exactly what we're after. We have these annual meetings with them, right? And then we have semi-annual meetings with them, and we meet with them every weekend at the track. We have formal meetings in the off-season.

So they know exactly what we expect out of them. When they don't handle that, the only way we can control that is obviously a fining system. But look, don't panic over this. We'll look at it in the off-season, if we need to change it, we'll change it. Not a big deal.

Q. You mentioned earlier about the Chase format and that you're always adjusting. Is there a good chance that the Chase format will be tweaked yet again for the following season?

BRIAN FRANCE: It's possible. I don't know. We take those ideas throughout the year. We really look at them as carefully as we can. Then what we do is we run them past the team owners and drivers and other -- everybody else in the industry in the off-season before we would do anything, and that's exactly what we did last year going into this year.

We looked at all kinds of things and settled on this as a nice step forward to simplifying the point system. Hopefully getting what we have, which is a more competitive Chase, and we'll look at it again. I don't know where we'll end up.

Q. As far as the Chase goes, it's been a really exciting Chase. As far as when you came up with the idea of the chase and then you tweaked it. Did you expect that kind of result what do you feel about the future?

BRIAN FRANCE: I actually expected more years like this, frankly. I couldn't imagine somebody as incredibly dominating as Jimmie has been in a five-year run, so you have to give him an enormous amount of credit.

But our expectation is that given the balance of things that we have 43 cars at every event and given the nature of auto racing and how it unfolds and some of the traditions that you have to obviously respect, I think the current system and more tweaks will always come and we'll just have to see what they are.

Q. We're here for the first time actually, so we're growing interesting in NASCAR covering, and I would like you to talk about the growing of NASCAR in other countries than the USA, like Brazil with Nelson Piquet and Miguel Paludo?

BRIAN FRANCE: I think it's great. I was in Mexico City Wednesday and Thursday working on that very issue. We've got an Hispanic driver from Mexico running in the truck race this weekend. Our diversity program focusing on that.

So any time we are able to attract a talented driver, Juan Pablo being an example or anyone else, I think that broadens up the sport. Makes us more relevant to whatever home country that they're from, and we view that as a very good thing.

Q. Specifically in terms of what Brad said as far as EFI goes, what was it about that that NASCAR thought crossed the line? It wasn't a case of what Denny did in impugning the integrity of the sanctioning body, but more or less expressing opinion on the technological direction of the sport at that particular point. Could you at least elaborate on that?

BRIAN FRANCE: I can't elaborate on that because we didn't issue a public fine on that. You can read into what people say just like I can. When you cross a line that denigrates the direction of the sport or the quality of the racing, we're not going to accept that. Not going to accept it.

Happy to have any other criticism, any other complaint, happy to hear them all. If I own a restaurant and I say you know what, the food in my restaurant is not very good, we're not going to accept it. It's as simple as that.

Q. In light of that, will you be issuing a secret fine to Jaime Allison of Ford Motor Company for saying almost the exact same thing as Brad Keselowski did this week?

BRIAN FRANCE: Jaime Allison doesn't participate in NASCAR. I mean, he does in his corporate role, but come on.

Q. Sort of following up on that. One of the problems with the EFI, the electronic fuel injection topic, I think is the economy's bad and it's going to be expensive or be another expense. I think that's what Brad was talking about and we've been talking about in here and engine builders have been talking about. It is an extra expense at a bad time. Is it something that could be postponed for another year or so? Does it have to be right now?

BRIAN FRANCE: Well, we announced it several years ago. These are not the things that you can just pull off the shelf and put them back on and off. We have agreements with suppliers that have to be met.

You've got to remember why are we doing that? Because we want to be more relevant to the car manufacturers and other green technologies as well. We always said that we will do that in a balanced way. We're not going to be like some other divisions around the world that are heavily emphasized on that on technology.

But we're going to have to do more than we did in the past. It's not because we feel like doing it or want to put additional costs on anyone, but because they're accepting a lot of money from the car manufacturers, and that's what's under the hood on cars today, and we have to be mindful of that as we make policy.

Shrub & His Bush League Move‏ - by Dawg Chapman

By now everyone knows all about Shrub having stepped in it once again.
Maybe stepped in it is a little mild. It's more like dived in head first, &
wallowed in it.

After reflecting on it, he issued a very sincere, & contrite sounding statement. Of course he did, after all, practice makes perfect, & we know he's had plenty of practice at being sincere, & contrite. After the fact.

The statement he gave after the mugging was way closer to the real Kyle
Bush. "I brushed the wall, but my truck was hurt where I don't think we could have
won." Kyle went on to say that Hornaday could see that they were going to be
three wide, & should have backed off. It would seem to me that Kyle could
also have seen the same thing, & as the truck behind as well as the one on
the outside. He was the one more in position to back off.

What I heard from this defiant self-serving statement was Me, Me, Me, It's
All About Me. He then went on to ask, Who's going to fix my truck, after it wrecked the first time? I found this pretty laughable, as neither truck sustained much
damage before he wantonly, & willfully destroyed both trucks.

So much for the so called, "new" Busch. He's once again shown us the real person, hiding behind the attempt to polish his image.
He again proved to be petulant, egotistical, & totally self-centered, with a huge sense of entitlement.This is not the first instance of him going down to another series, & wrecking someone on purpose who's running for points.

The first statement that Kyle gave with no hint of apology, & trying to
shift the blame to Ron Hornaday was Kyle trying to justify something that
was, & is totally unjustifiable.

The second one with apologies all around, was most probably written by some
PR guy, trying to do damage control. After everyone from NASCAR, to his
sponsor had weighed in.

I now see that NASCAR has levied a fine, on top of the suspension.
Nice to see them finally grow a set, & do what they were supposed to
have been doing all along.

Joe Gibbs issued a statement saying in essence, that they were weighing
their options. Coach really doesn't have a very enviable record of dealing with problem behavior within the organization. I would guess what that really means is
that he's got his finger in the wind.

There's no doubt that this whole sorry deal has been a huge embarrassment
for NASCAR, Gibbs, Toyota, & Mars. It would seem to be primarily up to Mars what happens now.

Some have suggested that Kyle should be parked for the rest of the season.
I think we all know that's not going to happen.

What I think really needs to happen is for Shrub to grow up.
He seems to be way behind the maturity curve, & quite frankly,
I don't have a clue what it's going to take, for him to catch up.

But, I've said this before, & I'll say it again.
Shrub just doesn't seem to me to be the ideal candy salesman.

Matt Kenseth on the other hand, could still get them their TV
time. Without the controversy, Hmmm.

You can contact Dawg  here

Marketing, Poor Taste & Other Stuff

Who’s the Marketable Chump Going to Be?
　
Looking at the current points standings and who’s actually got a shot at being this year’s chumpion, who is the most marketable? Cousin/Crazy Carl with his big toothy grin, his “aw shucks” demeanor, and his time with the BSPN Booth Buffoons definitely makes him marketable. His Roush teammate, Matt Kenseth on the other hand isn’t that marketable as Faux King Brian and his band of mental midgets found out when Matt won the last real Cup championship. Bad Brad is an articulate kid with an expensive smile but he doesn’t have the name recognition that Cousin/Crazy Carl does outside of his supposedly continuing bad blood with Cousin/Crazy Carl. That’s a key point in marketing. Name recognition. Tony Stewart’s got name recognition but between the changes in his expanding and contracting girth, some whining the last couple of seasons, and not being marketed the way he was when he was at JGR, he might be a little more difficult to market. Mr Happy isn’t so happy this season despite KHI performing well. The commercials he was in for his previous sponsor showed he can do commercials but was it enough to get more folks to buy their product? Not that I can find. He does have some name recognition but not enough to really make him a highly marketable chump. Neither Busch brother is that marketable. Despite both being in commercials, their on-track antics and comments don’t exactly endear them to many folks outside of their fan base. Some race fans have written their sponsors to let them know they will no longer use/buy their products because of their attitude, antics, and comments. And after the elder Busch became the first chump in the Chase for the Chumps, Faux King Brian and company found out that the elder Busch wasn’t very marketable at all. Normally NA$CAR cranks out a lot of PR, pounds their chest, and does more than the usual late night show appearances. With the elder Busch, it was like he didn’t exist. Folks are tired of Jimmie Johnson. And his chances of being a 6 time chump have all but evaporated. And as Faux King Brian has found out, JJ has become less and less marketable after each chumpionship he’s won even though he’s got name recognition. It’s like the Head-On commercial. Folks get tired of the repetition. Plus it doesn’t help to have the likes of the Focks Sports and BSPN Booth Buffoons yammering on and on time and again about “ole 5 time”. That’s probably been a big detriment to him despite being on the cover of Sports Illustrated. As the rest of the drivers in the points standing don’t have a snowballs chance of winning, I’m not going to address them.
　
I’m not slamming these guys. Just pointing out their marketability. So it comes down to Cousin/Crazy Carl being the most marketable of the bunch should he be this years chumpion. I know some folks won’t be happy about that. And should his Roush teammate be this years chump, the folks in NA$CAR’s marketing conglomerate will be sweating bullets and having nightmares on how they can market him. For me, from a marketing standpoint, the perfect 2011 chump would be Matt simply because of the headaches it’s going to cause the Ivory Tower gang.
　
Poor Taste Department　
DuPont has been running some commercials on radio recently with two supposedly fictional characters named “Fireball” and “Hardhead”. In the background, you can hear Indy cars running. The first time these ads were heard, from what I can find out, was the day after Dan Wheldon’s fiery crash and death. Not to mention Fireball Roberts, who’s death was caused by a fiery crash at Charlotte Motor Speedway back in 1964, and Iron Head, aka Dale Sr, whose death I don’t need to go into.
　
You’ve Got to Wonder　
IndyCar, F-1, and the FIA world sanctioning body are all looking at what could’ve cause Dan Wheldon’s death and what can be done to prevent something like that happening again. And yet outside of some Cup drivers making some donations to the Wheldon fundraising auction and some comments about his loss, we see absolutely nothing out of NA$CAR saying there are things that could be learned or offering up any sort of assistance in analyzing the wreck data or helping to improve the design of the DW 12 car which is currently undergoing testing. While the rest of the world’s racing community has come together to prevent something like Wheldon’s wreck from happening again, NA$CAR remains aloof.
　
Point To Ponder　
By now most folks are aware that OOPS, currently on David Regan’s car, is going to be an “official sponsor” of NA$CAR and an associate sponsor on Cousin/Crazy Carl’s car. What happens when somebody becomes an “official sponsor/product/service provider” of NA$CAR, like with Badyear, Splint, or Sumoco? It means there’s usually an “exclusivity deal” that goes along with it. And what happens when there’s an exclusivity deal? It means that businesses in that same field cannot sponsor a car unless they’re “grandfathered”, the way AT&T & Alltel were in the past. So, if OOPS is the official delivery provider of NA$CAR, that means that Fed-Up isn’t, which means that Fed-Up will be grandfathered until their contract with JGR runs out, which means once their contract runs out there will be one less team sponsor which in turn will mean one less team if what’s happening to Roush and what happened to Robby Gordon with Motorola is an indication.
　
From Deep in the Heart of Texas　
This is from my old racing buddy Dave from down in the Dallas area:
　
TMS is touting a "4 Pack" for this week's race. For one price you get all 4 events. What's that you say? There's only 3 races? As far as they are concerned, Thursday's practice and Truck Qualifying is an official "event". Ignore the fact that there are coupons in the paper for free admission to Thursday's "event". Anyway, the "4 Pack" is $121.00. This gets you a row 1 - 10 seat for the events. Oh. You don't want to sit behind the concrete wall and see nothing? Then the "4 Pack" is $176.00 for rows 11 - 20. They have plenty of them, they said. (No kidding.) And one more thing. This package is considered a "mini season ticket" (that's what they said on the phone - with a straight face too), so........there is a $15 fee added. The fee is added whether you buy the ticket on the phone or at the box office. Nice, eh?
　
Oh, and one more thing. All the ticket prices were raised this week. The cheap seats went up $5.00 (for the Truck and Nationwide races) and more (they wouldn't say how much for the Cup tickets) for the rest. Hey, if you can't sell them at regular price - raise it the week of the event, right? There are $10 off coupons for the Truck race, which are buried in the Metro section of the Sunday Dallas Morning News with no heading, no nothing. Just two coupons on the bottom of the page. The speedway couldn't tell me if there were coupons as no one there had actually seen one, and no one knew anything about them.
　
And they wonder why the place isn't full??????
　
Tell me again why the media keeps telling me Eddie Gossage is a marketing genius?
　
Real Stock Car Racing Coming to Sears Point　
In 2012, the FIA World Touring Championship will be racing at Sears Point. The series involves real cars with real bodies and real fenders and bodies that are easily identifiable to a specific make. They’ll be running 2 thirty minute races which means you’ll be seeing short track action on a road course. Bumping, banging, and fenders rubbing. Whether or not it’ll be shown here is a different matter. It’s going to be carried on Eurovision. I know in the past Speed TV has carried some Eurovision broadcasts related to racing so maybe we’ll get lucky and be able to see some stock looking cars racing each other just like the Aussie V-8 Series. What a concept. Stock cars racing each other. Oh wait. Isn’t that what the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing is supposed to be? Stock car racing?
　
Don’t Be Fooled　
Despite all the “happy happy joy joy” things being written about the ratings being up, they’re still down by 5+ million viewers since 2008. Step back from the Kool Aid boys & girls and quit using the “1984” Doublespeak Dictionary to make things look better than they truly are.
　
Around the Web　
After the Martinsville race, I went to a number of web sites and read comments regarding the race at Martinsville. Overall fan feel for the race was, “Why aren’t there more races like Martinsville?”. They enjoyed the beating and banging that went on. Well, it comes down to a very simple reason. Faux King Brian has all but eliminated the short tracks and the unique designed tracks which gave us a lot of exciting racing in favor of his much ballyhooed and beloved 1.5 mile cookie cutter tracks. Darlington got cut back to one race. Rockingham was dropped off the schedule altogether. The formerly much beloved Bristol was turned into a shadow of it’s former self when it was reconfigured because the drivers, not racers, complained that they couldn’t race there because they had to beat and bang on each other to actually get ahead a position. In other words do some bare knuckle racing.
But not all the blame should be levied against Faux King Brian. A lot of the blame can also be placed on his dad and his grandfather when Winston and the networks showed up. Tracks like Columbia, Occoneechee, Hickory, Nashville Fairgrounds, and Bowman-Gray were dropped from the schedule. Short tracks with a lot of action. But because they were either dirt or didn’t have the amenities that Winston and the networks wanted, they got dropped.
　
Where Are Your Tax Dollars Going?　
If this isn’t enough to make you want to call or write your congressmen I don’t know what will:

　
　http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/cerabino-politicians-ought-to-put-brakes-on-nascar-1936006.html