thing. And it is rather fitting to mention it in the same context as The Emperor of All things NA$CAR. He is a faux king. He’s given the teams a faux car. He’s given us faux excitement. And half the season we see faux racing presented by Faux Sports courtesy of His Royal Highness, Faux King Brian. Yes, NA$CAR has become a totally fauxed up racing series under His Majesty’s faux leadership.
With the announcement that Government Motors (GM) will be cutting back funding to the Truck and Cup Lite teams, you have to wonder if either series will be able to continue? As it is, Faux King Brian treats the most exciting series under Brian’s Three Ring Circus as the illegitimate red-headed step-child. Then there’s Cup Lite. With the cutbacks coming out of Detroit, will the independents and start and parks even be able to afford to stick around? With the perversion, I mean conversion next season to Clone Car II, The Sequel, there may not be any independents or start and parks left just from that move alone. And you know the big buck GM Cup teams won’t really stick around if they have no real financial incentive from GM to be there. As it is, they may not stick around because of Clone Car II for the same reasons that the independents and start and parks. They still haven’t recovered from the conversion to the original Clone Car in the Cup series. If one of these series has to go, I’d have to choose the Cup Lite Series over the Truck Series simply because of the action we get on a consistent basis from the Truck Series and not the stink factor that the Cup teams cause in the Cup Lite Series.
With the update on Jayski that GM is cutting back on all 3 series, this doesn’t look like a good sign for any of the GM teams, much less the independents and start and parks.
There was a time where if you wanted to start a team, you went to the old GM and they cut you a deal. At one point, you could’ve called the Busch Series the GM Series because of how many GM cars were on the track. Not any more. GM has been replaced by the Japanese named manufacturer in that role. Take a look at the number of Truck and Cup Lite teams that have switched over to the Japanese named manufacturer not to mention the number of teams they started up. I said before how it could come down to just two makes and with GM pulling their support, which could be coming closer to a reality than just a thought of mine. Another step closer to IROC.
I decided to go back and read the requirements again for the so-called “citizen journalist” that The Emperor of All Things NA$CAR is looking for. One of the requirements is professionalism. I’m definitely not a professional. At least not a professional like the bulk of the lamestream media. I’m not going to prostitute myself just to get a story or credentials, which are pretty much what some of them do and we all know how prostitutes earn a living. I haven’t figured out though if that’s before or after they drink the Kool Aid. I will put in plugs for things, people, or causes that I think are worthwhile but it’s not because I’m getting anything out of it. It’s just the right thing to do.
One of the other criteria is commentary and reporting. I definitely give my two cents worth when it comes to commentary. But because I don’t drink the Kool Aid or pucker up to kiss the Imperial “la fleur du derriere”, I’m not the kind of person His Highness or his stooges are looking for. I looked death in the eye in my military profession and came away in one piece. As I told one of our readers, “What’s the worse NA$CAR can do to me? Take away my birthday, cancel Easter and Christmas, and ban me from the track?”. I’m not planning to change my commentary just to fill a square towards becoming a “citizen journalist”. I do have some self-respect and integrity. As to reporting, well, I don’t know if I report or not. I do pass along things I find out from various folks in and around the garage area. But that’s more like passing along information than true reporting. Besides, I’m an official curmudgeon (I have the certificate to prove it) and am allowed to urinate in His Majesty’s corn flakes on a regular basis. That falls outside the purview of what a journalist is supposed to do.
The last thing that NA$CAR is looking for is use of social networking tools. Just what are those? In the old days, it would mean going to a cocktail party and rubbing elbows with the “wheelers and dealers”. Well today, they’re looking for folks who have those Face Space web pages. As I’ve said before, I’ve got the perfect face for radio, so putting my face on Face Space would permanently crash their servers. Another social tool they’re looking for is Twitter. I’m not a twit, I’m not a bird so I don’t tweet, so I don’t twitter. They’re also looking for web casting and pod casting. See the comment above about Face Space. The closest thing to a networking tool I use is e-mail and my phone. I answer e-mails from other race fans, keep in touch with family members, exchange jokes, and get information from various people about what’s happening in and around the garage area and shops and also try to stay up on various drivers‘ reunions and get togethers. I also try to keep up with things that are going on with North Wilkesboro Speedway as it holds a place near and dear to my heart. The only person I text on a regular basis is my better half and that’s not very often. It’s easier to talk with her than to text her. Besides, my fingers don’t exactly fit those tiny keys. I don’t do conference calls. I can barely switch lines when somebody calls in and I’m on the phone. So it doesn’t look like I’ve got the “social networking” tools they’re looking for. “Boo Frickiddy Hoo” as Dr. Evil would say. I guess I’m not “citizen journalist” material LOL
No surprises that the Pocono TV ratings were down. Ratings have been down all year long. But since TNT is a cable channel and not an open air wave channel, you would think this might get served up as an excuse, but it hasn’t. Come to think of it, the ratings have been in trouble since the second year of the Chase for the Chumps. And as compared to the Focks season, Pocono was a breath of fresh air, almost like the old ESPN coverage. I did say almost. There’s a message here Your Highness. The question is, are you getting it?
Still no word out of the Ivory Towers about a meeting with the fans. Is it because they’re scared of us or is it because His Highness thinks we peasants have cooties? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what we race fans want. Just go to any forum or fan site and check out their posts. If that’s too much like work, then just go back over what I’ve been writing for the last few years. That pretty much sums it up. You can add one new thing fans want to the list. That’s replacing Faux King Brian with Humpy Wheeler. Humpy appreciates the fans and the history of the sport. Plus he enjoys real racing. Not only that, but he actually knows something about the sport this is supposed to be. I can’t say the same for the Emperor of All Things NA$CAR. Humpy likes being around the fans. You won’t see His Highness anywhere near the drivers, much less the fans unless it‘s for a photo op. Then he’s gone faster than Junior Johnson hauling a load of moonshine once the photos are taken. So add Humpy to our “list of demands” to improve the sport. You better get crackin’ before the IRL snaps him up.
Something I wrote about a year or two ago was that a fan advocate position should be created by His Royal Highness to address the concerns of the fans. Naturally, no reply, no answer and it has never been addressed by the Ivory Tower Gang. If NA$CAR really is listening to the fans like so many “learned” lamestream journalists have been saying they are, then why not create this position?
Charles and I exchanged a few more e-mails, this time regarding the NA$CAR HOF Museum in Charlotte. Did you know that any tourist or race fan that stays in a hotel/motel in the Charlotte area is helping to pay for it with a 2% hotel tax? What’s surprising is that it’s listed right on the web site. One of the other things on the web site is they haven’t figured out the price of admission. With the economy being what it is, they better not be charging the outrageous prices that I$C tends to charge for their “Motorsports amusement parks“. You also have to wonder just where all they’re going to get their exhibits from, especially the cars. You have to figure they’ll pull some from Talladega, Daytona, and Darlington. But that only accounts for a limited number of cars. Indy has a decent museum. There are 2 museums in Mooresville. Plus there are the team museums and a large number of race cars in private collections not to mention the replicas that are out there.
And you have to wonder just how accurate the exhibits and descriptions will be with Faux King Brian’s penchant for revising history. To this day, NA$CAR still won’t acknowledge the fact that the very first meeting to establish NASCAR (before it became the money hungry, uncaring series it is today) was held at the Wilkes Hotel in North Wilkesboro. Will cars that are exhibited have their true “pedigree“ or ownership trail shown? The reason I ask this is because there are cars which have been restored to either their Fred Lorenzen or David Pearson color schemes that were also run by Wendell Scott. One car restored to its’ Benny Parsons colors was owned by Wendell. Will NA$CAR bring in the Wood Brothers, Red Farmer, Lee Holman, The King, and others to help verify the various vehicles’ pedigrees? And just what sort of history will be presented? Will it be the revisionist history of NA$CAR or will it be the real racing history that occurred? Will the replicas be presented as replicas or will they be passed off as the real deal? Too many unanswered questions for my taste. I guess we’ll find out when the HOF museum finally opens up.
Kim, Marybeth, and I have been exchanging e-mails regarding NA$CAR’s drug policy and the ensuing Mayfield saga. It seems that no one writer has put together a “complete package”. They address the drug policy, they address Mayfield’s situation, some have already tried Mayfield, some touch on the false positives, but no one seems to have put the whole deal together. One writer did a piece regarding amphetamines and meth. Nice piece but it didn’t address the whole issue. Along with this, there seems to be a group of people going from web site to web site trashing Mayfield even though he has yet to be heard in court. They say the same thing no matter where they go and false positives aren’t even a consideration. They sound like the kangaroo court that Carl Long faced in his appeal. As I said before, we’ll know more once this thing comes out in court and just who all the players really are.
I heard from a different David regarding Texas Motor Speedway:
The report on TMS is I think somewhat flawed. I have been a season ticket holder since they opened in 1997. We camp in the campground reserved camping. Every time I am there I see people working on the restrooms and the area under the grandstand keeping the place clean. And for the water, we are in drought conditions here and the faucets are required for saving water, there are one or two handicapped sinks in each restroom that have on and off faucets. And for the soap and hand dryers I do not know because I do not use them. I will add that TMS is the only major track I have been to, but I have heard horror stories about other tracks. This is just another opinion for the record.
I can’t really say much about the grandstands restrooms as I’ve only used the ones in the garage area at TMS. But it sounds like the two Davids are using two different facilities at two different tracks. I know about the drought there as I bought a house about 60 miles from the track back in 1991 and they were in a drought back then. I think my ex has something to do with it as she still lives there LOL. But seriously, I’m putting this out there like a certain news network in order to be fair and balanced. This David is right about some other tracks being horror stories when it comes to their facilities. Race Mama has documented these and they tend to be the I$C tracks. One track, Daytona, is still using some of the original facilities that were built when the track was built and they still haven’t been updated. But they can build a $16 million amusement park and “zoo” in the infield. Plus the I$C tracks as a whole don’t do a good job on re-supplying the TP on race weekends, so take your own roll with you when you go just in case.
Marlene e-mailed me about the upcoming Firecracker 400. The backstretch grandstand is closed. They do have $55 tickets but aren’t really saying where they are. I guess they must’ve harnessed the hot air coming out of the Ivory Towers and used it to evaporate the water that covered the track from the monsoon-like rains they had there.
I heard from one of the single car team owners and while he applauds the idea of going to stock sheet metal, there’s a certain financial reality when it comes to the single car teams. And that is that they still haven’t recovered from converting to the BOW WOW. And His Majesty said it would save the teams all sorts of money. He’d never lie now would he? This particular team is still in the red from the conversion. And I imagine that the other single and some two car teams are as well. By converting to the stock sheet metal for the BOW WOW and making it look like a real car, the single car teams would go under. I still think it could be done but either NA$CAR (and you know they won’t pay for it) or the manufacturers or both would have to pay for it. If they’re going to keep going with the “Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday” philosophy, then they need to pick up the tab for the conversion. The fans want to see stock looking cars on the track again and Faux King Brian is supposedly listening, so let’s see if he really is.
Something that hasn’t been addressed yet with
Clone Car II, The Sequel, is just what models will
the new Uni-Car supposedly represent? Will it be
the same as what the Cup cars are supposed to
be or will they be representing the pony cars? If
it’s going to be the pony cars, let’s see here.
Ford has the Mustang, GM has the Camaro, Fiat
has the Cuda, and the Japanese manufacturers
have what? Nothing because there’s not a single
pony car manufactured by any of the Japanese
car companies. And no, Your Highness, the
Lexus and Solara don’t qualify as pony cars. So
they better get busy creating one if NA$CAR
plans on going the pony car route. Heavens
forbid you tried passing off a Solara as a pony car. That would be deceptive advertising. Almost as much as saying that the BOW WOW is what the street versions are.
I was actually surprised to read about this on an actual news web site. The folks at Camp Tillman, named after former NFL player and soldier Pat Tillman who was killed in Afghanistan, are providing many things to the locals in the area. They build, schools, provide medical care, and build wells for local villages. This is the first time in a long time I’ve actually found something on a major media web site talking about the good work our troops are doing, so to Fox News and the folks of Camp Tillman, thanks for a job well done.
Motherhood, Apple Pie, and John Wayne
Mad Mikie, Curmudgeon at Large
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