This whole thing with Jeff Gordon was little more than an effort to promote the new movie which was cobbled together by NA$CAR Media Group in hopes of pulling in some much needed cash. Gordon was the only one who actually showed some real interest in what was happening on the track while IBPN was doing their best to pander to the whims and whimsy of His Royal Highness by trying to hype up the new propaganda piece. I wonder how long it’ll be before we see another propaganda film in this same vein about Roush or Petty or Childress? How much longer do we have to wait for TNT to broadcast the races again? Way too long.
There were still thousands of good race tickets available as of Sunday morning for the Otto Klubb Speedway Chase for the Chumps race. The one size fits all car. High ticket prices. Boring races.
This guy definitely won’t be getting a Christmas card from His Royal Highness. He says some of the same things I’ve been saying and you know how endeared I am to the Beach Boy Bubbas. We need some more folks in the media with the testicular fortitude like Bill Center has to say what’s actually wrong with the sports entertainment we’re being served up and the problems that are actually going on instead of the controlled lamestream media pabulum we are fed week after week.
Based on Mike Mulhern’s figures, the grandstands at Otto Klubb Speedway were half full and with the fans in the infield, there may have been 60,000 people total there. Hello? Your Majesty? A gentle reminder here. “If you can’t sell out your races you don’t deserve two race dates”. Remember saying that? Sure the economy may be part of the problem, but this track plain and simply isn’t selling out and wasn’t even selling out before the economy turned sour. When His Highness is more worried about concerts and keeping people amused than he is about the quality of the racing that should tell folks his priorities are in the wrong place. LaLaLand may be a major market, have the Beautiful People, have Faux King Brian’s Western Palace, and his Brand Non-Sense marketing company, but the people there are extremely fickle. The luster has worn off the bling Your Highness. Might was well face it. As long as the track stays the way it is and you continue to use a brick for a race car, the races aren’t going to get any better. It’s time to get No Doze to be the track sponsor because unless you change things at the track and change that pig called “Race Car“, it‘ll be referred to as a Snooze Fest.
Great comment from Gilligan Sucker on the lack of attendance: "I don't know what attendance is."They walk among us, breed, and vote. When you have to hold a press conference in the middle of the race to apologize for the lack of attendance, something is very, very wrong. Maybe it’s time to take Bruton Smith up on his offer Gilligan. Being the captain of the Titanic isn’t helping your career any even with Princess Lesa as your protector.
And speaking of excitement, the IRL season championship came down to the last race and the last lap. No phony baloney artificial play-off system needed. And how about the ARCA season finale at The Rock? The last race of the season and 15 points separating 1st and 2nd place. Parker Kligerman gets the most laps and wins the race, but not the championship. Justin Lofton finished 3rd and won the Championship. Had he finished 4th, and he would’ve if the race had been 5 laps longer, he’d have finished 2 nd in the championship. No hype, no sham of a play-off system, just good, solid racing using old Cup cars. Hello? Is anyone in Daytona awake or are you still asleep from the Sleep-Eze 500 at Fontana? Exciting racing and exciting championships versus a play-off system that doesn’t work and cars that are as exciting as watching flies mate. Which do fans prefer?
One interesting bit of news that came out of The Rock was Kenny Schrader announced he’s going to run ARCA full time next season if he can get the sponsorship together. Kenny finished 4th at The Rock and could’ve been the spoiler in the ARCA championship. But leave it to Kenny to show some class.
A Fox Sports poll asked fans if NA$CAR creates “phantom” caution. 90% of the fans who voted said yes. Kasey Kahne complained about them at Fontana. Jimmy Johnson said a few words about them after the race. Other drivers have complained about them in the past. Will NA$CAR learn or will it continue on with the WWE on Wheels attitude?
Expect Ryan Newman to have some missing lug nuts that aren’t missing, a rough driving penalty even if he isn’t driving rough, or a speeding penalty on pit road even if he’s not speeding for his comments to Dustin Long regarding Talladega and the POS. NASCAR slowing cars for Talladega race
Three weeks in a row Johnson and Martin’s cars are going to the super secret R&D Center to be checked. OK, Johnson won, so his was mandatory. Martin's wasn’t. How come the rest of the Chase for the Chump cars aren’t being inspected like clockwork like these two Hendrick cars? The perception of favoritism is as dangerous as favoritism itself. Hello? Is anyone in Daytona paying attention?
When NA$CAR hires somebody to be their Vice President of Competition, they usually hire somebody with a lot of experience at exploiting the gray areas or outright cheating. So who will succeed Robin Pemberton when the time comes? More than likely it will be Chad Knaus. Providing he’s not still a crew chief by then or that the racer-tainment industry hasn‘t totally collapsed. Based on the number of penalties he’s had and the number of complaints from fans and in the garage area, he’ll be a worthy successor to Pemberton and the right man for the job. After all, it takes one to catch one.
Anyone think there might be a little envy in Daytona with Rush Limbaugh trying to buy a football team?
Don’t expect to see Kid Rock back at any NA$CAR race in the foreseeable future. It seems he was just supposed to be there for his promotion of Operation Homefront and Jim Beam. Out of the blue, NA$CAR tells him he’s got to do a 30 minutes performance without any prior arrangements, contracts, practice, etc. Kid Rock enjoys racing. What he doesn’t enjoy is being railroaded into doing a performance. So once again, His Royal Highness has managed to PO somebody who could actually be beneficial to the racing community. Great job Your Highness. What next? Forcing the Marine Corps Band to do a rap version of the National Anthem? Making the president of Ford do a parade lap in a hybrid pace car manufactured by somebody other than Ford? His Highness doing a PSA against driving under the influence while PO-ing MADD?
Part of the deal with Charlotte taking the HOF deal was that NA$CAR’s headquarters would be moved from Daytona to Charlotte. Guess what? That didn’t happen. His Infernal Incontinence is building a new headquarters building right there in Daytona. You have to wonder how many more surprises the Charlotte city fathers are going to get sprung on them the closer they get to complete the HOF itself.
I$C 3rd Quarter profits were down by 89%. Hello? Is there anybody at the helm of this ship? Revenue down 19% versus last year. Obviously the Royal Family of Daytona must have their brains on hiatus if things are going this bad with their finances. What this means in plain English is that I$C is no longer a billion dollar company. They are now considered a small cap company and not a very high quality one at that. They have very little volume and few stocks which are only held by a few people. They’re still trying to hedge their bets though but that will come back to bite them in the backside. It looks like Faux King Brian better give up on his plans to buy an NFL team for LaLaLand and hope he’s got enough money to buy cigarettes when he joins the Orange Jumpsuit Club after the Mayfield lawsuit. Liars figure and figures lie, but you cannot fool the market forever. My thanks to the financial guru. www.cnbc.com/id/33221464/site/14081545
When asked about changing some races to Saturday night, this is what the Emperor of All things NA$CAR had to say:
Of course we talked about it. There are lots of issues. Saturday night from a level standpoint, I think it's the lowest night on television. It comes with other issues and you would still have college football which is pretty strong programming. So there's that. Then you have the host track who may not want to run it at night. So David Hill [Fox Sports] said traditions, and we have a lot of traditional things that happen in terms of Sunday afternoons that worked quite well. So we're not, obviously, when the ratings go up or down, you're taking note of that. We are, but we're not going to make any big, rash changes to try to chase that. We'll just keep building our story lines and try to look at good racing.
Most of the issues come from the fact that you’ve totally screwed things up Your Imperial Incontinence. Cars that don’t look like cars, a play-off system that doesn’t work, TV coverage that isn’t about racing but about marketing, moving around race dates, shutting down exciting race tracks, and not listening to the fans. David Hill also said he doesn’t care what the fans want. And the fans are concerned about traditions as well as good race coverage. So you know whatever Hill is saying is suspect. College Football never bothered you before Your Highness. You actually thought you could beat the NFL in ratings. So now
College Football is threatening you? Building
story lines? That’s what the WWE does. Are you
finally saying that NA$CAR has become the
WWE on Wheels? If you want to look at good
racing, then you had best be looking at ARCA,
the Hooters Pro-Cup Series, or the Truck Series
because you’ve turned the Cup Series into a
nightmare. It’s not racing. It’s a 3-4 hour
infomercial briefly interrupted with a smidgen of
something that’s supposed to be racing. If you
want things to work well on a Sunday afternoon,
then you had better make all the Sunday day
races start at 1 pm Eastern. Otherwise, you’re
going to continue to suffer from the double digit
ratings losses like you are now. Especially come
the fall when football is going on. Fans will tune into a football game at noon and totally forget about a race that starts at 3 pm. providing the race actually starts at on time and not the 1-2 hour pre-race gobbledygook that we normally have to suffer through that sometimes is passed off as the race start time by Focks. Time to face the music Your Highness. You’ve made a big mess of things because you didn’t bother to listen to the people who know more about racing than you do. The fans.
Robby Gordon will be sporting Freightliner as his primary sponsor at Charlotte. Freightliner is going to be more involved with Robby’s racing efforts.
For you folks who are into Twitter, if you want to follow Marvin Panch, here’s his Twitter address:
In case you’re wondering, Marvette is Marvin’s daughter and she handles Marvin‘s appearances and PR stuff for him. She’s a great lady if you’ve never met her
Our nation’s highest award for bravery in the military is the Medal of Honor. This medal is very rarely awarded and not all those who receive this medal are alive to get it. To be awarded the Medal of Honor is considered to be such a great honor that even the Command-in-Chief, the President of the United States, salutes the person who wears it.
Motherhood, Apple Pie, and John Wayne
Mad Mikie, Curmudgeon at Large
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