Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Ravin' about the Humpy Show.

If you like to hear stories of racing, there is a new program on Speed TV that is made for you. The Humpy Show debuted Tuesday night and for me, at least, was an instant hit.
The program features race promotion legend Humpy Wheeler and a driver from NASCAR's past, along with a present star of NASCAR. Humpy's stated goal of the show is to "show the human side of these guys, and to bring the past and present together."
The premier featured Buddy Baker and, ironically, Kurt Busch. The irony is that much of the show's theme was about how the drivers deal with anger issues, and it was recorded before last Friday's altercation between Tony Stewart and the guest star.
The show was excellent, and is worth seeing. The discussion included stories about Buddy and Humpy boxing, Mrs. Lee Petty hitting Tiny Lund with her very heavy purse, and Kurt Busch losing a lap for each time he cussed the NASCAR officials for penalizing him--after he was already down 100 laps. It will be repeated this morning, Feb 13, at 10 AM
Eastern time. Be sure to set your TiVo, DVR, or VCR if you have to go to work, because you do not want to miss it.
Speaking of last Friday's altercation, If you haven't heard, both drivers were put on probation for six races. NASCAR didn't want to make it seem as though they weren't serious about letting drivers show their emotions, yet at the same time they couldn't let the pit road incident go unpunished. Since it was Dirty Kurty who started all the beating on pit road, doesn't this seem like a school suspending both the bully and the guy who got hit by the bully? Doesn't matter, Smoke is at his best when he is on probabtion. I'm not saying that he will win the next six races, but it should be remembered that he has won both of his Cup championships while under probation.
Meanwhile, I think both drivers will behave themselves. If Dirty Kurty wants to win a practice so badly, the other drivers on the track today (if it isn't raining) should let him do so. In fact, I will even predict that the elder Busch Brother will be the first driver in NASCAR history to win practice, just to make sure he doesn't lose his temper again.
Meanwhile, we have the Gatorade Duels to look forward to, and hopefully we will see more of the same kind of racing we saw Saturday at the Bud Shootout. Real racing is back at Daytona, and that is a good thing.

2 comments:

WARREN said...

have u heard any confirmation as to weather or not smoke put the peppers to the hedge in the hauler ? i guess we'll just have to wait till tomorrows duals to see if he is lookin' like a raccoon or not. haha NASCAR probably won't confirm till after the 500, the media would just compound things by going after smoke. u know how much he like reporters.

RevJim said...

I don't think we will ever hear confirmation on that. NASCAR insists that what happens in the NASCAR hauler stays there, and the drivers and press have to respect that. Kurt didn't call the cops like he did with Jimmy Spencer, so it may not have happened. There were no visible bruises I could see during the interviews on Saturday, but I like to think that John Darby told Smoke the same thing Bill France told Buddy Baker long ago--"If you hadn't have hit the SOB I would have hit him myself."