Knock it off about the hair already.

I have found comments all over the web on Tony Stewart's hair. Not only that, but somebody mentions it every time they interview him on television, and his answer is,"The more people complain about my hair, the longer it will be before I cut it."
Please stop asking about it. I would hate to see something like this happen:

Budweiser Shootout! What a ride!

If you are driving down the interstate between the months of November and February and you see people just standing on the overpass watching traffic, chances are they are NASCAR racing fans.

If you have a neighbor who starts a lawnmower engine every Sunday throughout the Winter, he or she may tell you that they are just letting the oil circulate, but chances are, it is a NASCAR fan who is telling you that.

The person you caught painting numbers on the junkers in your auto salvage yard is a NASCAR fan.

And, if you were sitting in a bar watching the SuperBowl, and a guy asked you, "Who's playing?" that was probably me.

And yes, I am a NASCAR fan.

When the major sports series with the shortest off season goes on break, for a NASCAR fan that is the longest three months in ones life. Happily that three months has come to an end.

Was the much anticipated Budweiser Shootout worth the wait?

Final practice for the Shootout, Friday afternoon, certainly added to the level of anticipation. Newspapers and television broadcasters carried the story of the altercation between Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch to every household in the nation. NASCAR couldn't have paid for such publicity, but the more immediate effect was that the adreneline level of millions of race fans rose drastically at the news. Kurt Busch fans were certain that Stewart had done something to make their driver angry, and cheering him on for "showing Tony Stewart that the other drivers are tired of his crap."

Meanwhile Smoke fans were celebrating. We like our driver because of his passion, and when that passion shows, we love it. This morning there was a headline on a fellow Smoke fan's page that read, "Tony Stewart got in trouble already. That's our Smoke!"

We celebrate his passion because we know that it means that he is ready to win races and championships.

For all that, this morning's news indicated that we would not see a continuation of the battle that began Friday. The new Smoke, who we love as much as we love the old Smoke had this to say about his rival:

Stewart said Busch's fender-slamming wasn't a big deal.
``What Kurt did coming onto pit road ... I've done a lot worse than what he did, so I'm not going to throw stones,'' Stewart said in a statement. ``Kurt's emotion and desire and passion to win are much like mine. The easiest way for us to go out and do what we do is just agree to disagree and go on from there.
``The best thing to do is to go on and move forward and not let this linger between the two of us. We've met in the NASCAR trailer twice now and we're both past it and we're hoping that the media will respect that fact, too, and let us move on from it.''
Stewart called Busch a ``great driver.''
``He got here for a reason -- it's because he's got talent,'' he said in a TV interview. ``That passion is what makes us all as good as we are. That's part of racing. That's what happens. It's no different than going to any Saturday night short track. We both got our cars fixed for tonight and we're ready to go.''

Although that put an end to thoughts we might see more retaliation during the race, that is actually a good thing, because now we knew that it would be a clean race.

And it was a clean race. The new cars were wiggling all over the place and that in itself was nail-biting because of the proximity of the cars. But to our satisfaction, the cars could actually close on the cars in front of them without as much reliance on drafting partners as the older cars had. This meant that there was real wheel to wheel racing, even with restricter plates. There were plenty of lead changes and a lot of good racing throughout the pack. It was reminiscent of the pre-restricter plate races where the slingshot maneuver could be used to its full advantage.
So, the wiggling added to the thrill, as did the lead changes. We will remain interested in the wiggling attribute next week, as we see how it effects the racing when the tire runs are longer.

Dale Earnhardt, Jr fans once again proved that they were the majority of all the NASCAR fans, as their cheers could clearly be heard above the roar of the engines. Junior Nation will ensure another upsurge of NASCAR popularity this year with their interest and enthusiasm for their driver, because, if there really are 75 million NASCAR fans, 49 million of them are Jr. fans. This is bound to influence more markets and new fans.

The Formula N (CoT) car proved to be racier than we would have thought, considering what we saw from it last year. It seems there is more great racing to come as the engineers and crew chiefs from each team get it figured out. The talented drivers who can adapt to the way it drives can also promise us a great season.

So, was the Budweiser Shootout worth the wait? In my opinion, you bet it was!

A new direction for the Nationwide Series? You should read this!

I have been writing about, on and off, the need for the series now known as the Nationwide Series to find its own identity for over a year. I have had my say in what I think about it, but Racedriven has written an excellent proposal. Without any further elaboration, I direct you to his post here.

And so it begins....

It was only a practice session, and it wasn't even practice for a points race. Before the first competition green flag for the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup session, we saw the "Big One" at Daytona and the first Busch/Stewart altercation of the season.

It only underscores the competition level in the Cup series when, while looking for the perfect setup with which to run Saturday night's Budweiser Shootout, the 23 contestants for that event began racing each other during the final practice session.

The kind of aggressive driving that caused an eight car accident could be justified by the fact that the Formula N car has yet to be raced at Daytona, and the teams were attempting to gather data on their set ups in every possible situation. Thus the drivers were only following orders when they were practicing bump drafting and three-wide passing.

The incident was so spectacular that I first thought that maybe I was watching highlights from a previous Bud Shootout.
(Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)

"But," I ask, "what kind of useful information could a crew chief possibly get from having his driver block a car that is trying to pass him?"
I'm referring to the second incident, which caused a wreck between Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch.

Busch was riding the high groove when Stewart approached from behind and attempted to pass beneath him. For some reason, Busch moved down to block him. When Stewart moved back up the track, Dirty Kurty moved back up with him, and when he did, Stewart clipped him in the rear, and Busch's #2 car turned into the wall.

In my opinion, Kurt should not have moved down to block Tony when he was trying to pass beneath him, and there is no excuse for that, because there wasn't anyone in front of Busch to cause him to move down. When Tony went back up, and Kurt moved up again, there was no reason for that either, even if he says he moved up to let Tony by.

From the on board cameras in the 11, 9, and 96 cars, it really did look like Smoke hit the wall before he hit the 2 car, and may not have been in control at the time he made contact with Dirty Kurty. Denny Hamlin handled the incident very well, even though his car was caught up in the mess, saying it was just two cars going for the same real estate. Afterwards, several teams decided to call it quits for practice for fear that things had gotten out of hand.

But the on track incident isn't what bothered NASCAR, it was what happened on pit road. Stewart had already left the track and had entered the pit lane on his way to the garage. Busch raced his smoking car onto pit road and began running his car repeatedly into the side of the #20 car. Smoke stopped his car in the middle of the road, and prepared to deliver a Jimmy Spencer treatment to the clown in the #2 car, but Greg Zippadelli, Smoke's crew chief appeared near the car to calm him down and talk him into taking the car into the garage.
(AP Photo/Terry Renna)

Kurt Busch not only has a history of using his car as a weapon of retaliation on pit row, but he also has a reputation of carrying a grudge much farther than is practical or rational. You may remember the continuing altercations between Busch and Jimmy Spencer that carried over for twelve races during the 2002 and 2003 racing seasons.

Jim Hunter is quoted as saying that the drivers' histories would not be taken into consideration in taking action for the incident, but Busch was in meeting with the NASCAR officials much longer than Stewart was, which indicates that Dirty Kurty may be in much more trouble than Smoke. If Kurt Busch gets parked, I would not be surprised.
If nothing else, all the excitement during a mere practice session should guarantee an increased viewership of tonight's Bud Shootout. I know my adreniline level is up in anticipation of one heck of a race. The season has begun, and so far, it has not been disappointing.

Jr Fitting in with HMS

Okay, this isn't my fault. Not entirely anyway. All I did was post a thought on a thread in one of the forums I enjoy in which I mentioned "Jr," "I wish I had Photoshop," and "HMS unibrow," and a friend in that forum came up with this:

Sorry folks, I just couldn't resist!
For a very real outlook on what Dale Earnhardt, Jr. may do with Hendrick Motorsports, I refer you to yet another excellent item on the excellent blog "Trouble in Turn 2."

More pre season fun!

I had a great weekend. It was good watching cars go fast on television again. It didn't quite bring the satisfaction five-hundred miles of beatin' and bangin' brings us, but it was racing and it did bring some thrills, to break what seems like the longest 11 week off-season ever. We should be happy we aren't football fans, because eleven weeks is actually the shortest off season of any professional sport.
The Rolex Grand American Series 24 Hours at Daytona isn't, in reality, a NASCAR event, but most race fans are familiar with the names of some of the drivers, and the sights and sounds are a nice break in the tedium of off season.
There were some records broken. Team Ganassi chalked up an unprecedented third straight victory in the event, with the #01 drivers team of Memo Rojas, Dario Franchitti, Juan Paul Montoya, and Scott Pruett, each an excellent and experienced driver in his own field. Due partly to the weather, partly to mechanical failure, and partly to the advanced level of competition, the attrition rate was high, and the #01 car crossed the finish line two laps ahead of the closest competitor, the #99 team of Jimmie Johnson, Alex Gurney (the son of racing legend Dan Gurney), Jimmy Vasser, and Jon Fogarty. Fogarty and Gurney were the Rolex Series Champions at the end of last year's season.
There were 23 caution flags, and 16 lead changes, both new records.
Daytona testing didn't tell us a whole lot about the new (CoT) Formula N cars. Just that the engines were working good, and maybe working with wedge, trackbar, and alignment adjustments to find that comfort spot for the drivers. Everything else is mandated by NASCAR to be the same for every team at Daytona. But now, at Vegas, there are a few more things the teams can work with. There is much more the Crew Chiefs can do as far as aerodynamics adjustments go than they could do at Daytona. As explained very well by Larry McReynolds on Speed TV, the rear wing and the struts that support it can be adjusted in several ways, in addition to changing the shape of the struts. Plus the front splitter is adjustable, to change the downforce on the front end, as well as the suspension adjustments that couldn't be done at Daytona.
So, once everyone found out how the track and the tires worked, they went to work on set ups and experiments.
Some of the experiments obviously failed, as both Tony Stewart and Jeff Burton had equipment failures in the front suspension and crashed, leaving their teams with only one car for California testing Thursday and Friday. David Regan's crew chief accepted responsibility for a loose condition he set up in his driver's car.
This brings up a point about the new Formula N car that may not have been forseen in the developmental stages. The car was supposed to make racing affordable by all the teams, but it seems that nobody can afford to wreck one.

"The car that Jeff [Burton] crashed is junk -- it'll be easier to replace it than it would be to put it back together," (RCR crew chief Gil) Martin said. "Anyone who thinks these cars will be able to take a beating better than the [standard cars] is kidding themselves.

"With the [chassis] recertification process and the tolerances we have to meet, it's easier and cheaper to just build a new one than to go to the effort of repairing one."

(from NASCAR.com)
It also seems that the car that was supposed to allow the teams to use the same car for everything from road courses to the superspeedways does not actually exist. In a NASCAR.com article from California Speedway, Kevin Harvick answered a question pertaining to the multi usefulness of the new Formula N car.

When he was asked during Thursday's lunch break at California Speedway if the chassis that Sprint Cup teams must use this season will enable organizations to use the same cars at different tracks, Kevin Harvick said yes, but only to a point.
"With these cars, you could use the same thing from a track like Bristol [short track] to here at California [intermediate, downforce track]," Harvick said. "We're using the same cars we had at Las Vegas, with minor setup changes.
"As far as the other tracks, we'll always have road-course cars and we'll always have speedway cars [for Daytona and Talladega]. But the interesting thing is, one of the cars we have here is the center section from one of last year's road-course cars, with new front and rear clips."
Dave Rodman, NASCAR.COM

But we should remember that a similar situation came in play in the Rolex Grand Am Series in 2003 with the introduction of the Daytona Prototype (DP) car. As pointed out by Charlie Turner, of Bench Racing With Steve and Charlie--in an excellent article, by the way--the DP was suppose to be a safer and less expensive alternative for the teams than the purpose built sports cars that were being used in the series at the time. There were complaints and widespread non-acceptence, but after four years, the DP has made its own history. Perhaps this tells us we need to give the Formula N car a little more time.
So the experiments at Las Vegas testing resulted in the conclusion of "we know we better not do that again"
Once this week of testing is over, there is nothing left to do but begin the exciting, or, at least, much anticipated 2008 season. The Bud Shootout is a little more than a week away, with nothing in between now and then. Unless you want to watch that thing called the Daytona 500 of Professional Football, which I, personally can't get excited about. If they could only make the players about 3000 lbs heavier and 160 mph faster, maybe they could get me to watch.
Well I have rambled on enough now. This was supposed to have been posted by Tuesday at the latest, but it wasn't so I kept adding to it until I got this mess. Thank you all for bearing with me.

We're nearly there!

Are we ready for racing? I am, and there will be some real racing on television this coming weekend. The Rolex Grand Am Series 24 Hours at Daytona kicks off Saturday on Fox at 1 P.M.
"Why," you very well may ask, "should I be interested in sports car racing?"
My first answer would be that it is racing. It might not be the high speed bumpin' and bangin' that thrills us in the NASCAR races, but it still gives us a taste of some of that.
It really does amaze me how the drivers in both the Daytona Prototype (DP) and the GT classes start the race so aggressively, knowing that they have to make their equipment last 24 hours, but it is a race, and they not only have to make the car last, but they have to be the first one with the most laps to cross the finish line.
So the main reason to watch is to get that racin' fix. But even if that doesn't do it for you, the news that it means the Bud Shootout is only two weeks away will get you're adrenaline up! Yes! We're almost there!
Meanwhile in other news for those of you who, like myself, just cannot stay away from social networking sites, Infield Parking is back on line after a two week outage. Good to see them back, and I go there for fun while waiting for the season to start.
Also I have found a nice little forum whose logo I have placed on the side bar (it works now, for those of you who have tried it before, I had the link wrong, but it is repaired) Club Racing was founded for those who wish to get away from the troublemakers on the other forums. You have to register in order to see it, but, if you are known as a troublemaker on other forums, they know who you are and you won't be able to get in. Those of you who want a nice place to shoot the bull, check it out though. It is unique.