Not in it for the Money

Previously, I mentioned that JPM didn't go to NASCAR just for the money, that there is much more to be had for a driver who is in demand by other teams in the high-stakes world of Formula 1 racing. This article sort of vindicates that thought.

Ricky Rudd -- Back Where He Belongs

I am happy to see Ricky Rudd come out of retirement and go back with Yates Racing. According to this article, he will be racing for Yates with out-of-nowhere and possible ROTY sensation David Gilliland as his teammate. I was ready to bury the entire Yates team, when they were talking about selling all or part of the team to DEI, but I'm good at being wrong, and that is a good thing sometimes. Rudd has plenty of talent, and some of his best races were with Robert Yates. You go, Ricky! It's good to see him back.

Season's Greetings

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all. For my Christmas message, please click here Just a little video thing on line.

If Life is a play...

There seems to be a fine line between "Hero" and "Geeky sidekick." This is a fun quiz, which is the reason it's showing up here.

You scored as Hero. You're my hero! LOL Hero 79% Geeky Sidekick 57% Victim 36% Villain 29% Damsel-in-distress 21% If life is a play, what is your role? created with QuizFarm.com

If Brian Vickers Raced Bicycles...

Okay, not to pick on the guy, but I just couldn't resist. This isn't how I feel about Vickers, whom I think is an underrated driver, but this does go along with the perception that many people have of the kid since Talladega:

Please click here if you can't see the video.

Off-Season Dangerous for NASCAR Champs

2006 NASCAR Nextel Cup champion Jimmie Johnson broke his wrist last Sunday, and it was not in a racing incident. He was participating in a celebrity golf tournament, when the driver of his golf cart took a sharp turn, and Johnson fell out. This will prevent his participation in this year's Nations' Cup in Paris next weekend, a fun racing event featuring champions from all types of racing, but is not expected to prevent him from preseason testing at Daytona next month.
It should be noted that Tony Stewart, the 2005 champion, broke his wrist last year during the off season while racing in the Chili Bowl National Midget Series. At least he did it in a race car, while Johnson was the victim of a freak accident. The off season seems to have become dangerous for champions, any way you look at it.

It Must Be The Season

Football just isn't working for me. It hasn't worked since 1998, when the Broncos had their first Super Bowl victory, because that was the pinnacle of professional football and a team can't do anything more than that.
Anything else that happens after that is just a repeat of the same thing, win or lose, over and over again. Don't get me wrong--I follow football avidly, but I just can't watch hours of football on television with the same interest with which I watch auto racing.
You see, in football, you can't watch a game with the attitude that "if my team can't win the game, maybe the other team can win." That just seems silly, no matter how you look at it. In racing there are forty-three competing teams, and if a race fan's favorite driver can't win, then perhaps another driver whom the fan likes can. A football game can be considered over for the football fan when, entering the fourth quarter, that fan's team is behind 31-3. Granted, there can be a "miracle" set of circumstances in which there could be an incredible come-from-behind streak, but professional football is so predictable that such miracles are few and far between.
In NASCAR, on the other hand, nothing is predictable. Come-from-behind streaks are the rule, not the exception in racing. Where every football field is identical in dimension, no two race tracks are alike, creating a different set of circumstances in every race. Fuel and tires are as much an element in racing as are the drivers and their teams. Races have been won or lost due to pit strategies concerning fuel and tires during the course of the race. The situation of having forty-three teams--forty-four, counting the track itself--in the same game at the same time equals forty-three variables that effect the outcome of the game. Every competitor in racing, driver and team, has its own strategy and tactics, and there are forty-three different reactions to any given situation.
One thing that football and NASCAR have in common is the questionable or confusing calls of those officiating the game. This is definitely a random factor that could change the outcome of a game in either sport. In NASCAR, the rules are constantly changing, much to the dismay of the traditionalist NASCAR racing fans, but we watch anyway, because like it or not, the rule changes invariably add another element to the game, and often create more excitement. Some of the rule changes in NASCAR, such as adding restrictor plates on the carburetors for the Superspeedway races, are the equivalent of the NFL adding swinging giant sharpened titanium blades across the football field during the games. Restricting the air intake for the engines reduces the horsepower and torque of the engines, packing the cars close together at very high speeds and increasing the chances for a serious and even deadly accident.
NASCAR has the element that the NFL doesn't have--the underlying fear that something terrible could happen. Race fans don't want to see terrible things happen, but we watch with the fear that they could. A football player with the flu, a broken shoulder blade, or broken ribs will only see limited action during a game, if at all, while race car drivers often race, and sometimes win, while playing with an injury or illness. It is the intensity of the sport and the player that makes the difference. Any race car driver can tell you that driving fast in competition is a way of life, and an all-consuming addiction. The need for speed outweighs any illness or injury.
I'll be watching football for the rest of the season, but not with the same interest I watch NASCAR racing. The Broncos are not likely to make the playoffs, and the excitement of having a winning team isn't there. All in all, it is more thrilling to watch guys beating and banging on each other at nearly two-hundred miles per hour than it is to watch guys beating and banging on each other at seven or eight miles per hour.

NASCAR Fans Don't Do This:

We may throw a few beer cans, but you won't see anything like this at a NASCAR race:

Team Red Bull News

Doug Richert, one of the best crew chiefs in NASCAR will be Brian Vickers' Crew Chief for the 2007 season. Read about it here.
This means, that I may become a Brian Vickers fan of sorts, next year. It also means I don't have to try to like Greg Biffle any more.

This doesn't surprise me

ISC scraps plans to build NASCAR track on Staten Island. You can read the Foxsports.com article here
Trust me, you do not want a new NASCAR track in your town, if it is owned, in full or in partnership, by ISC. Colorado Springs and El Paso County already had the plans and the money in place to expand accessibility and traffic control, if ISC was to expand Pike's Peak International Raceway (PPIR). Instead of expanding it when they took full control of the track last year, ISC closed it and sold it, with the stipulation that the new owner would not have racing events of any kind on the property. There was really no good reason for this, except that they thought they would be able to build a track in Denver that would draw more people, at the site of the old Stapleton International Airport. That didn't happen.
ISC has a tendencey to count its chickens before the eggs are laid. PPIR hosted the Busch series race every year from 1998 until 2005, and, though the 42,000 seats were never sold out, attendence was usually 37,000-40,000 fans each year, and this was before the influx of the double duty drivers in the sport this year. Needless to say, I am very disappointed in ISC, and I cheer when they have failures such as the one in NYC.

Just So You Know

The polls on the sidebar of both this blog and my other blog are not paid advertisments, nor are they meant to trap anybody into spam or unwanted advertisments. Please feel free to participate.