Highest Paid Drivers, Restrictor Plates, Media Attacks, and Other Junk in the Trunk

Tell Me Again Why They Can’t Help Sam Ard?

The plaque Sam's holding was recently sold on E-Bay to pay medical bills

　
After the recent release on Forbes of the 10 Highest Paid Drivers in NA$CAR and the 10 teams worth the most money, I have to ask why they can’t step up and help out Sam Ard and his wife Jo? I will give Dale Jr and Mr Happy a sprout because they have helped out. But how about the other 8 drivers? It cost about $200,000 a year to keep somebody with Sam’s afflictions alive and maintain a minimal lifestyle. Let’s face it, Sam isn’t going out for dinner every night or hitting the dance floor on the weekends. He’s not out drinking “sodas” and hunting palm trees or rear ending somebody while driving and texting. He’s bed-ridden and will be for the rest of his life. Considering these drivers spend that much on fuel for their multi-million dollar corporate jets every year and live in estates worth mega-millions, how hard would it be for the remaining 8 drivers to kick in $200,000 a piece? And considering the value of the race teams listed, how hard would it be for just one team owner to help out the Ards? And consider the positive press and PR they could get out of it for helping out one of the legends and doing what the France family and NA$CAR won’t do. That alone would be priceless for them. How much positive press could Ford get if one of their teams helped? But no, something that could be a really big “feel good” story with the high dollar drivers or team owners helping Sam out won’t happen and instead it’ll be left up to the long time, die-hard fans who remember Sam and his contributions to NASCAR to help out.
　
Restrictor Plates
　
I had a question that would probably require a massive number of e-mails, snail mails, and phone calls to NA$CAR to actually accomplish the desired results. The question is, “Could somebody please put a restrictor plate on DW’s mouth?”.
　
Media Attacking Each Other
　
After Trevor Bayne’s win, some members of the media cheered. Well, it seems that Faux King Brian’s army of Kool Aid drinkers find that to be unacceptable and say that anyone with a media credential shouldn’t be cheering or rooting for any driver. If that’s the case, how come they aren’t attacking Jabber Jaws, Larry Mac, Crusty, Drab Brad, and other network analyst and commentators for their weekly cheerleading sessions for Faux King Brian’s Chosen Ones, the drivers of the teams they own, and the sons or brothers they have who are on the track? After all, they also have media credentials. Is there some sort of double standard here within the ranks of the media? Using the Kool Aid Crowd’s own word, they deem this behavior as “unprofessional”. Isn’t that what I’ve been saying all along about the Booth Buffoons? And what’s hilarious about this is that one of them doing the attacking is the same guy who turned over Hambone Hamlin’s twitters to NA$CAR. Now there’s a real trustworthy journalist for you. First rule of journalism is to protect your source.
　
Closing the Barn Door After the Horse is Gone
　
Rather than black flagging the co-owner of Motormouth Motorsports before he crossed the finish line or DQ-ing him after the race for his truck being out of compliance with NA$CAR’s rules, the win still stands. However, the crew chief has been fined $25,000 and the team docked 25 points. For some reason, no fine was issued or points taken away from The Human Shill with the official excuse being that he’s not running for points in that series. Now keep an eye on this folks should we see other Truck Trash come over from the Cup Series and their trucks don’t meet the rules after a win. Will they receive the same treatment or will they be fined and docked points? And also, pay attention to what happens to a regular Truck Series driver whose winning truck doesn’t meet the rules and what’s done to him, his crew chief, and team owner. Guess we’ll have to wait and see.
　
Who’d Have Thunk It
　
Despite being the perennial back markers running just ahead of the start & parks, Front Row Motorsports driver David Gilliland managed to put a car into the Top 3 at Daytona. Over the winter, Bob Jenkins spent some money on cars and engines to make the team a little more competitive this year. You can call it what you want to. Luck of the Irish, the restrictor plate crapshoot, or whatever you want to, the fact that this underfunded underdog team came in 3^rd can’t be refuted.
　
Daytona Opinions from the Fans
　
Terry from Delaware: What a joke. That is not a race; that was pirouhet (sic) choreographed dancing.


Russ from Virginia: My guess is that the afterglow of a shiny new winner wears off the slide will continue.
　
Unkle Phil: I was glad to see Trevor Bayne win in the Daytona 500, now maybe DW will shut the f*ck up about Dale Jr. and Jimmy Johnson; that is if he ever does shut-up. I was disappointed in the fact that there was not an interview with the Wood bros.; that was bull$hit as I have listened ever since I was a kid, prior to television, about the Woods bros. pit crew in the Indianapolis 500 of the radio.

Joe, Flash’s Cohort: Yeah I was screaming loud enough for the neighbors to hear but what the hay i don't care this doesn't happen but once in a great while. That kid has a lot of driving smart's not to have anymore experience than he does usually the rookies are the first one's to cause the wreck's. I thought for sure tantrum Tony or Junior was gonna nail him driving like nobody else was on the track and junior told one of the media after the race he didn't care he was going to drive like he wanted and everyone better get use to it and tantrum had nothing to say must have been pouting in the trailer.

Submariner Bill: That was a VERY satisfying outcome. Seeing a Woods Brothers car in victory lane, with that paint scheme on it... How sweet.

If I recall correctly, Michael Waltrip who turned not one but two cars causing big wrecks, and then in the interview blamed it on the cars he turned. Awesome. The crowd looked bigger than last year.

Dean from Tenn.: Well another 500 has come and gone and I must say in my opinion it ranks up there with one of the worst. All of this 2 car pushing crap has got to go. Its bad enough when you've got Na$car, pit crews and such determining the outcome of a race, but now we how 2 car- hook ups. Please give me back the day when the best driver decided the outcome and not Na$car, crews, 2 car hook-ups and such. The only thing good about today's race was the Wood Bros. winning again, more so than Trevor, which he makes my point I've been saying for years. Here you have a totally inexperienced driver, but, put him in a good car, point him in the right direction and bingo, we have a winner.

As you can see, a variety of opinions and observations about the Daytona 500. These weren’t solicited by me either, so don’t think I went looking for strictly one-sided views.
　
Something to Ponder
　
If there really are 75 million NA$CAR fans and every single one of them tuned in to watch the Daytona 500, they still couldn’t match the NFL’s ratings of 111 million viewers for the Super Bowl.
　
Seating Figure Disparity
　
The seating capacity for Phoenix is 76,812 and yet the Arizona Republic newspaper said the track sold out the “50,000” seats. So if there’s 76,812 seats in the grandstands and they only sold 50,000, that means there’s a disparity of 26,812 seats. And I know for a fact that not all the seats were sold out. Tickets for the Cup race were being given away all the way back here to the East Coast. So that’s not a sell out.
　


　

Potpourri of Parts

Blackballing is Still Alive and Well in NASCAR
　
Over the last few years, there have been several accredited journalists who have sort of disappeared off of covering the weekly racer-tainment events. Nobody really thought to ask or gave a second thought about it because of the newspapers and some web sites laying off staff. I have recently found out that several of these journalist were in fact blackballed by someone within NASCAR’s media-handling function which in turn led to them being laid off because they could no longer cover the racer-tainment. Now that there are some new folks running the media and PR stuff, hopefully they’ll go back and take those blackballed journalists off the list. I don’t care if they’re Kool Aid drinkers or not, blackballing them just because of some personality conflicts or because they reported the truth about what’s happening is no reason to take away a person’s livelihood.
　
New Race Fan Council in the Works?　

Dustin Long, who covers the race circuit from February through November, wrote a recent piece called “Your Time to Be Heard NASCAR Nation”. In it, he proposes a group which will give their input to the real concerns of race fans instead of the current one that exists. In case you’re not familiar with the current Fan Council, it’s little more than a marketing survey group than a real council which voices fans concerns from what I’ve heard from several members of it. Dustin expects to have the first survey going out around January 21^st. Will the bosses in Daytona Beach listen for a change or will they continue to keep their heads buried in the sand like ostriches? That’s the multi-million dollar question.

A Reason Behind the Dislike of the Media?

　It seems that Tony Stewart, who is know to have an extreme dislike towards the media, seems to have been involved in an altercation in Australia. The only way we’re finding out about it here in the USA is because of, drum roll please, the media. That and the internet. I can understand Tony getting upset with reporters asking the same stupid question 14 different ways. I even enjoy some of his comebacks and snappy remarks to the less-than-stellar reporters. But to dislike the media as a whole because they have a job to do and questioning the current sad state of affairs that is NA$CAR? I’m sure there’s more to this Australia story that we’ll here about later and probably things we’ll never hear about regarding this. But in this day and age with reporters hungry for stories involving celebrities behaving badly, it’s better to err on the side of safety and behave yourself. Especially overseas. You could end up in a jail for a while before your case is even heard even on something involving physical assault. Or in the case of a celebrity, you could be deported, if you’re lucky. Maybe there will be more to this story as time progresses. I’m sure the media here will be chomping at the bit when Tony returns to query him as to what happened. And he’ll have the same inane reporters asking the same questions 14 different ways. I wonder if he’ll get a call from the Ivory Towers in Daytona Beach informing him he’s being fined for actions detrimental to stock car racing since it might tarnish NA$CAR’s image overseas? Maybe it’s time for Tony to go back to anger management again like he had to do when he was racing for Joe Gibbs?

http://www.speedcafe.com.au/2011/01/15/stewart-interviewed-by-parramatta-police/
 
Buyer Beware, Chapter 2

　The same personality as in the last episode tried luring a person from another sport into a partnership for a race team. Everything seemed to be fine as long as the NA$CAR personality was in talks with this sports figure. The sports figure’s financial adviser asked to see all the paperwork regarding the team, sponsorship, and contracts surrounding this proposed team. As soon as that happened, the NA$CAR personality immediately started talking trash about the sports figure. Promotional materials that were at the NA$CAR personality’s business were tossed out. Meanwhile, the sports figure’s boss, who also had the NA$CAR personality as an employee, heard about what was going on and immediately terminated the NA$CAR personality’s contract with that organization.
　
The Daily Show Strikes!

　I don’t know how many folks watch The Daily Show but they did a piece on NA$CAR. And as The Daily Show is a semi-comedy news show (semi-comedy because it’s only funny half the time) which uses satire, some of it you have to take tongue-in-cheek. Here’s the link to the YouTube clip:


http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-january-13-2011/you-re-welcome---nascar

Now while there’s some funny and outlandish things in the clip, there is a nugget of truth. How to get NA$CAR back to being NASCAR. Return back to the roots of what was once a sport instead of the current racer-tainment we‘re served up and expected to swallow and enjoy. Sort of like Kevin Bacon in Animal House when he’s bent over getting paddled as a part of his pledging a fraternity. (“Thanks you sir may I have another?”) That means cars that resemble what we actually drive, my usual rants about TV coverage, real leadership, real racers, catering to the Short Attention Span Crowd, etc. Hey Jon Stewart, if you need some more ideas on improving NA$CAR, drop me a line.

　Blast From the Past

I had wondered how Ray Evernham had gotten the UAW to sponsor his cars back when he owned the team and how the UAW was able to sponsor races. This seems to answer the question of where the actual sponsor money came from. This is from the Mackinac Archives:

http://www.mackinac.org/archives/2001/s2001-02.pdf

“The UAW also operates joint funds with each of the Big Three automakers for the retraining of laid-off workers. The funds were set up in the early 1980’s, when recession and foreign competition led to large-scale layoffs, then expanded tremendously when the automakers recovered and prospered.

The joint funds have made questionable expenditures such as sponsoring NASCAR racers Bill Elliott and Casey Atwood (sponsorship of a NASCAR racer cost between $8 million and $16 million annually) and two NASCAR races, the UAW-GM Quality 500 and the UAW Daimler/Chrysler 400. The autoworkers union also teamed up with Daimler/Chrysler to put on a “Hollywood Showcase” at the 2000 Democratic Convention. A UAW-Ford conference in Las Vegas reportedly drew 3,000 delegates and guests.”

And who was and still is the marketing company for Dodge? Why none other than the one owned by Faux King Brian. Talk about some folks not doing any due diligence on this sponsorship. Daimler/Chrysler missed it as Evernham was the flagship Dodge team at the time, Faux King Brian’s marketing company missed it as Dodge‘s marketing company, Ray Evernham missed it, and NA$CAR missed it on the team and race sponsorships.


Restrictor Plates

 For those who have forgotten the real reason behind the restrictor plate, it goes back to following the money trail. It’s not so much to slow the cars down to keep the fans and drivers safe but to keep the track’s and sanctioning body’s insurance rates down. And don’t forget, the restrictor plate is just a temporary measure to slow the cars down until the sanctioning body can figure out another means to do so. Restrictor plates… a temporary solution since 1987.

　
It Hasn’t Gotten Ugly Yet　

While it hasn’t turned ugly yet, more and more writers are starting to question the marketing genius in charge of the sanctioning body down in the Ivory Towers of Daytona Beach. More and more articles are appearing about shortening the schedule, dumping the play-off system in favor of a 36 race season with more points being given to race winners, and the newest item to be added to the racer-tainment, ethanol. And it’s not just fans or bloggers writing about it. There have been a few of the accredited journalists questioning the infinite wisdom of the Ivory Towers. This is a step in the right direction in my opinion. The more the accredited and respected journalists start questioning the way things are being run and the more of them that get on board, the better for the sport and the fans if it can result in the needed changes to save what was once the most thrilling form of motorsports around.
 
Save the Nashville Fairgrounds

I don’t know how many folks ever had the chance to see the racing at the old fairgrounds speedway. Some of the greats like David Pearson, The King, and others provided a lot of excited racing there. Now, the city wants to turn it into a development. If you’re tired of seeing decent, historical short tracks disappear, then go to the web site and sign the petition to keep this piece of history alive. We’ve already lost too many historic tracks as it is.