Mayfield Appeal, Twitter, & Excuses for the Weekend

Mayfield Appeal Filing
　
This is from Bob Pockrass regarding the appeal that Jeremy Mayfield filed:
　
NASCAR has denied all of Mayfield's claims in past filings, and NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston on Wednesday disputed a theme of the appeal that NASCAR didn't want Mayfield to compete with the SmallSponsor.com sponsorship.
　
“On the contrary, NASCAR wants more qualified competitors and sponsors involved in the sport, not less," Poston said. "The more involvement by drivers and sponsors, the better it is for the entire sport.”

　The “new & improved” politically correct NA$CAR has denied it had anything to do with moonshine and yet its’ very roots come from moonshine. Bill France Sr. borrowed money from Raymond Parks Jr. on several occasions to keep NASCAR afloat and where did Parks get the majority of his money from? Selling moonshine. One of the tracks that Bill France Sr. was involved in had a still in the infield. So NA$CAR denying Mayfield’s claims is to be expected.
　
As to the deal with SmallSponsor.com, I’ve mentioned in the past how teams have had their sponsors “re-assigned” to teams other than the ones who originally signed them up or were “re-assigned” to NA$CAR itself. Remember when Jack Roush snagged Crown Royal and wasn‘t allowed to have them on his car for an entire year but they were the official liquor sponsor of some ISC tracks? Or how some sponsors have left because of the strong-armed tactics used by both NA$CAR and the networks to force them into a sponsorship and commercial deal?
　
And just what did the Propaganda Minister mean by “more qualified competitors and sponsors”? I’ve seen teams trying to get off the ground with very competent drivers and sponsors only to have their sponsorship snagged or "re-assigned" and were never able to get to the track to run their first race. I’ve also know of one incident where a sponsor’s color scheme was redesigned by NA$CAR itself to the point where it wasn’t recognizable by the sponsor causing the sponsor to cancel their sponsorship deal with the team. And who can forget about the Redneckjunk.com incident? A perfectly qualified sponsor but because Faux King Brian doesn’t like the word “redneck”, he wouldn’t allow the sponsorship to appear on the car. So don’t go trying to blow smoke up our tailpipes.
　
You Have to Wonder Twitter Statements　

@Elliott_Sadler: FOX does a great job but it’s hard to show how fast and how banked Bristol is... that place is crazy in person
　
Does anyone else think this qualifies Sadler to be drug tested?

@AllWaltrip (Darrell Waltrip): Bristol now produces "good" racing, old Bristol produced "bad" racing, more side by side racing, you can pass someone without wrecking them!
　
If the racing is so good why are there so many empty seats and the TV ratings down 25% versus last season?


@AllWaltrip: Let's keep everything in perspective, the place holds 166,000 people, today there was probably 100,000 people there, still a huge crowd!
　
100,000? I think maybe it’s time to get your eyes checked. The official capacity is nowhere near 166,000. There may have been 90,000, maybe, and that’s being generous.


@AllWaltrip: Appreciate this sport and the people that support it so we can have racing, at least we don't have millionaires fighting with billionaires!
　
As it’s sports entertainment, why should it be appreciated? And do we really having racing? On TV it’s hard to tell if it’s racing, practice sessions, or highlight reels. And there are millionaires fighting billionaires. Roger Penske is a billionaire. Richard Childress, Jack Roush, and Rick Hendrick are millionaires. And they’re al fighting for the same thing. A championship.


@mw55 (Michael Waltrip): Why must we focus on the empty seats? There were a whole lot of full ones. I watched basketball game after game that had empty seats.
　
When you have a race that sold out for decades and there are massive amounts of empty seats, that’s a sure sign that’s something is really wrong. We’ve seen more and more empty seats the last few years. And don’t try to change the subject to basketball. We’re talking NA$CAR here.


@AllWaltrip: Gas is $3.75 a gal. We don't have the extra cash laying around to spend on attending a race, it's not the racing, it's not Nascar, it's the economy.


Even with gas at $3.75 a gallon, folks would actually go to Bristol if it hadn’t been reconfigured and the COT wasn’t being run. The combination of the two really killed off what use to be the two most exciting races of the year and placed it into the same status as Otto Klubb Speedway in Fontucky.

@AllWaltrip: Bristol was short track drama, Cali. will be high speed suspense,2-0-10 off into the corner this week, that'll get your attention !
　
Drama? What drama? It can’t be drama because it’s not on TNT. After all, TNT knows drama. They say so in their commercials. I’ve read so many fans complaints about how boring the Bristol race was it’s not even funny. Fontucky is a high speed cure for insomnia laughingly passed off as a race. Going shopping under the grandstands before the race Jabber Jaws?
　
This came out on Thursday, March 24^th, on Twitter:
　
Crash Gladys
I live in Los Angeles, but I'm not hearing any promos 4 NASCAR @ Cali Spdwy this wknd. Hearing a ton more about IndyCar

 And they wonder why they can’t fill the grandstands or even get the grandstands half full.
　
Excuses for the Weekend
　
The grandstands were empty because of the economy.
　
The grandstands were empty because of high gasoline prices.
　
The grandstands were empty because of radiation from Japan.
　
The TV ratings were down because of the economy.
　
The TV ratings were down because of F-1, IndyCar, and the Sweet 16 being broadcast.
　
　
Bristol Attendance Update
　
According to the local law enforcement folks at Bristol, there were maybe 75,000-80,000 people in attendance. That’s a far cry from the 120,000 NA$CAR claims were there and closer to my generous estimate of 90,000. So, if NA$CAR over-estimates by 40,000 people, that makes the attendance figures for most other races very suspect, which most of us pretty much have guessed anyways.