who got him in the infield? Was it Rick Hendrick and his “Days of Thunder” connections or was it His Royal Highness and his love of having his LaLaLand Beautiful People “friends” there?
TNT is surprising me with their coverage. They must’ve read a lot of the fan complaints and decided to do something about them instead of having a pompous a$$ attitude like Focks. Webhead keeps his mouth shut more which makes what little he says sound almost smart. The conversations in the booth between the three sound more like fans talking about a race, which is refreshing when compared to the All-Seeing, All-Knowing, Self-Promoting Booth Buffoons from Focks. Jabber Jaws parrot can only talk when he’s asked to talk, so he can’t disrupt the flow of the conversation in the booth or shill for an official sponsor or provider. None of the ridiculous A$$.COM , I mean A$k.Com questions constantly popping up on the screen blocking out the racing. No Goopher popping up, no shilling for Goopher products, no conversations between Jabber Jaws and another imaginary character, no cheerleading for Scrub or June Bug or the Hendrick teams or the Japanese named manufacturer‘s cars or the Co-Owner of Motormouth Motorsports or trying to leave massive lip prints on the Imperial Backside. The one thing that would make the TNT coverage better is if they could do the split screen coverage and tell the Emperor of All Things NA$CAR to stick his mandated coverage. The best way to improve the racing coverage is to dump Focks and E$PN, give their Cup races to TNT, let them do the split screen coverage, and let them have the entire season and do the race coverage in the style they are now. Maybe then the ratings would improve some. Even flat ratings are better than the ratings Focks has had the last few years.
Congrats to Kasey Kahne on his first ever road course win. That was a pretty tough win having to hold Stewart off for 4 restarts. It was sort of strange though seeing the Real King in Victory Lane next to a car sponsored by a beer company, especially after all those years of not seeing any sort of beer decal on his cars because of a promise he made to his mother. And then to see him shuffled away (after years of him having a camera and mic shoved in his face for a comment, interview or opinion like he was a non-entity) really makes me wonder if Faux King Brian is trying to make his contributions to the sport’s history seem like a footnote instead of a major contribution. They’ll spend time with Rick Hendrick, Jack Roush, and Richard Childress, heck, they even keep those "caught in the headlight looking” Sprint girls in camera, but not The King? What’s wrong with this picture? Kahne deserves his recognition and normally when a team owner, even if it’s in name only, shows up, they usually give them a fair amount of recognition.
For you folks who are tired of seeing Scrub, I mean Shrub cry and whine when he doesn’t win a race, please send some Pampers, Ora-Gel, or pacifiers (even Royal Binkies) addressed to him in care of Joe Gibbs Racing.
If you’ve been reading the continuing saga of what Danica has been saying, she’s not talking about her abilities to be able to drive a “taxi cab”. She’s talking about her “brand”. Warning Will Robinson Warning! We’re not hearing about how she’ll tear up the track or how she’ll make Shrubby look like a saint or anything about the learning curve. We’re hearing about her “brand”. Bad enough we’ve got the Co-owner of Motormouth Motorsports, now there’s possibly a female version on the horizon? God help us. I know, I said she’s not coming to NA$CAR and I still feel that she‘s not. Not a single top team has stepped forward to hire her and Ganassi has enough problems keeping sponsorship on the one car he has. But when you read this latest round of rehashed interviews and press releases, you have to wonder a little. We’ll know for sure come October 11th after the IRL season is over. Maybe she should try F-1 instead. At least it’s open wheel and she would fit in rather well with the W(h)ine and Cheese crowd. And with Bernie the Beast and his mouth, I’m sure she’d have a nice lawsuit going in no time for sexual harassment. I can just hear Bernie now in the garage area, “Boy? Oh boy? Could you fetch me a cup of coffee please? And be a good lad and bring me some scones while you‘re at it.”
I read Jimmy Spencer’s piece about shortening the races. Yeah, Jimmy has drank the purple Kool Aid once too often. What a shame. If you want the races to be shorter Jimmy ("Don‘t be a 'dipstick' Jimmy" in a Scottish accent), then just have NA$CAR quit throwing the Ms Terry DeBris cautions. That alone should cut a good 30 minutes off the races. Michigan was going along fine until the Ms Terry DeBris cautions happened. They’d have been done about an hour early at the rate they were going. The only real caution was for David Stremme who wasn’t talked about all day. That was his only TV exposure during the race. Pretty bad when you have to wreck your car to get some air time. But that’s what happens when you have His Majesty’s Daytona Coverage Dictates in place. But I digress. If the Ms Terry DeBris cautions were eliminated, the races would get done much earlier. Of course, this means that some of the races are going to be worse than usual stinkers with everyone getting strung out. But the races would get over with earlier. Shortening the length of the race isn’t the answer. Getting NA$CAR to stop manipulating the races to generate artificial excitement and to quit saving the backsides of the Chosen Ones from getting lapped is.
Strange how ARCA honors Tim Richmond by naming a race after him but NA$CAR won’t even acknowledge his existence.
Also strange is the deal going on with Crusty the Race Team Owner and US Fidelis. Fidelis is Latin for faithful. And US Fidelis is supposedly a faith based organization in addition to the services it’s supposed to provide. The Daly Planet had a good piece on it and some great comments and replies.
http://dalyplanet.blogspot.com/2009/06/trouble-brewing-for-rusty-wallace-and.html
When it comes to getting a sponsor, I realize these are tough economic times, especially for the lower tiers which NA$CAR tends to ignore or only pay lip service to. However, and I speak from experience on this having worked with a few teams on sponsorship deals, it is the team’s responsibility to perform some “due diligence” on that sponsor. Had Crusty done this, he’d have found out the darker side of his sponsor and the legal problems they’re having. He might’ve passed them by. I know of a team in another series whose sponsor was a sham company who offered stock and “free advertising” to pay for their sponsorship of the car. The stock was worth less than a penny a share. This didn’t pay for the parts, tires, or gas. So as with any other consumer, the race teams also need to pay attention to the old phrase “buyer beware” when it comes to signing a sponsor.
Smoke beating Jr. in T-shirt sales? Could Smoke be replacing Jr. as the Most Popular Driver? I guess that’ll depend on what type of voting it is. If it’s electronic voting, Jr. will win. If it’s hard earned cash product sales, right now it’s Smoke. If it comes to the All Star Race, it’s whomever Faux King Brian picks, not the electronic votes race fans cast. It’ll be interesting to see if Smoke steals the crown from Jr. as the Most Popular Driver come vote time.
In the “They’re Only in it for the Money Department”, it seems that Robby Gordon had a nice chat with the folks at Morgan-McClure about using the #4 on his second Sears Point car and they gave him two thumbs up on it since they still hold the number. Well, Robby gets to Sears Point with the car and Ebenezer Scrooge, NA$CAR’s Chief Accountant and Rainer on Parades, brings everything to a screeching halt. “According to the NA$CAR Rule on page “We don’t Care What Morgan-McClure Said”, Section “Get Out Your Checkbook“, paragraph “Make the Check Out for Big Bucks”, sub-paragraph “And Make it Payable to His Royal Highness” you can’t do that. So in addition to what Robby would’ve normally had to pay for inspection fees, despite the clearance and blessings to run the car with the #4 number from Morgan-McClure, Robby also got hosed for some additional big bucks plus had to pay for a new race wrap for his car which now has the #04 on it in addition to the big bucks he laid out for the original race wrap. You just gotta love how High Royal Highness is looking out for the little guys.
When Robby decided to use the crew from his Baja racing team, NA$CAR had a fit. Here were a bunch of guys with tattoos, piercing, and Mohawk haircuts showing up in pit lane wearing a conglomeration of pit suits that Robby grabbed from his shop in Charlotte. The entire weekend, NA$CAR gave them heck and harassed them for their appearance. They weren’t exactly the “clean cut” image NA$CAR wants in the garage area. Unless NA$CAR decides to create some grooming and appearance standards like the military has, I don’t see a problem with guys looking like this. If they can do the job, they could have pink hair and wear purple flame retardant tutus for all I care.
And speaking of “little guys”, there’s a rumor that a certain (im)potentate ruling a certain racing series decided to spend the cost of a postage stamp on the product produced by the sponsor of Joe Nemechek’s Busch Series car. According to the rumor, his hat size increased by threefold. But this is only a rumor.
It’s still funny, as in ironic, to see folks just now writing about things I wrote about years ago. The latest one is about sponsors and how NA$CAR steals them from the teams. The most famous one of recent times was Crown Royal. Roush had them all lined up and NA$CAR decided to steal them for themselves until they drained them dry for their own purposes. Then Roush got them. Today, the latest victim is Mr. Happy. NA$CAR stole Camping World from him. This has left him scrambling to find sponsors for both his Truck and Busch Series teams. With teams having a tough time finding sponsors, you’d think Faux King Brian would be appreciative of somebody willing to sponsor a team. But then, I’m thinking about a normal person with normal values and normal morals and a normal sense of decency. Instead, it’s the greedy attitude of His Highness that prevails. It reminds me of a Bugs Bunny cartoon in which Bugs finds Aladdin’s lamp and Daffy Duck runs around screaming that everything is his. “Mine, mine, mine. Gimme, gimme, gimme.” Bugs gives up the treasure and Daffy has a curse placed on him which shrinks him in size. In the end, Daffy tries to claim a pearl that Bugs finds in an oyster, which is about the size of a basketball in proportion to Daffy’s miniature size from being shrunk by the curse. The moral? It’s a pretty small person who is so danged greedy.
When the Japanese named manufacturer first showed up, I wrote a little something about their past track record. One thing in particular was how after they threw all this money around and got folks dependent on it, they’d cut the purse strings and eventually pull out leaving whatever racing series it was high and dry after they had come in and ruined it. Well, it seems that they’re cutting their support to the Truck and Busch Series teams after they came in, spread their money around, bought the rule book, got everyone hooked on their money and support and now is reverting to their old habits. Leopards don’t change their spots folks. So now you have to wonder when the “other shoe” will drop and that’s them totally pulling out leaving not only a lot of Cup teams high and dry but also Faux King Brian who so enjoyed their money enough to make wholesale changes to the sport and ruin it just to accommodate one manufacturer.
In light of this, you can expect to see several
Truck and Busch Series teams folding up their
tents come this winter and if this wasn’t bad
enough, His Royal Highness is pushing for the
Clone Car II to be run at 5 races next year for
the Busch Series. At $250,000 a pop, you can
bet there will be teams closing their doors
because they won’t be able to afford to convert
over. Some teams may just skip the road course
and restrictor plate races next year because
they won’t have the cars to race at them. Let’s
see how His Royal Highness tries to explain the
short fields in both series come next season.
I want to thank Ron for his service to our country
during WW II in the Merchant Marine. He lied about his age to serve our country. Something that doesn’t happen much any more. So a little recognition and thanks to him for the sacrifices he made at a time when our country faced a very trying world.
Motherhood, Apple Pie, and John Wayne
Mad Mikie, Curmudgeon at Large
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