NASCAR 2018

Dear NASCAR:

Could someone deep in the fake wood panel walled offices in Daytonner explain how it is that if a car goes
onto the track with its spoiler set 1/10,000th of a centimeter too high merits a driver points deduction, driver
and crew chief finin' & suspendin' while a car such as young Larson's here is able compete on the track
with its body work mangled, parts falling off, is little more than a mobile chicane creating a dangerous situation
for the other 40 drivers?

NASCAR, ya'll draw a mighty squiggly line when it comes to many, many matters but this one always gets me.
Please explain in 10,000 words or less the rationale behind these decisions and have it on my desk by the end
of the day.

BHW

 

End of race red mist, old tires, and an unfamiliar track. Note also the braking zone is in shade, so it has cooled more than the rest of the track. Interviews with the drivers, they all said the tires just didn't stick.

 

I'm sure the PR flacks with Goodyear will be happy to hear all this.

They'd run practice and qualifying sessions Friday and Saturday. Ran a pre-race warm-up and
no doubt had simulator experience of some sort going into the race. How are the unfamiliar with
the track?

Come now...

BHW

 

Who else, besides me, is excited about this new NASCAR rules package?

I really think they're on their way back now.

https://racer.com/2018/10/02/nascar-announces-revised-cup-rules-package-for-2019/

BHW

 

I swear that NASCAR is a bunch of crack heads!!! Like this is gonna bring them in!!!

 

I don't think it's going to do much for ratings, that ship has sailed. but I bet we see the return of the slingshot draft at Daytona and Talladega, which will be amusing.

and in case you haven't been paying attention, Brian and JC France are crackheads

 

I don't have an opinion, but Autoweek was less than convinced.....'we've seen this show before' kinda sums it up.

 

Autoweek needs to change their name to ........
Auto”every other” week, they have been going downhill.

 

I remember when I was a kid, I got Autoweek when it was in foldable newspaper format.
But, it was about the only way to get racing news on a more regular basis than the monthly's
and I was a subscriber for years starting around 1975 through 1985 or so.

It was during this era (must have been 1980/81) that Autoweek decided to run a cover feature
on New York City taxi cabs (or was it Detroit?) and, boy, this sure set a lot of people off with
many writing the editor that they were cancelling their subscriptions.

BHW

 

I've cancelled a couple times. One I remember was an article on the new Mustang which was driven INSIDE the (then new?) Mall of America.......just terrible. That said, I am pretty happy with it now. Subscriber since '71

 

I give them a whirl every 4-5 years or so. The newest version is complete garbage. Then again, so are most car mags.

 

What changes would make them better for you?

 

Autoweek. When it came as a newspaper and actually covered racing and had classifieds on racing cars and parts , it was to die for to read. Loved it!! Today...total fluff and no guts !!! Started mine in 72 and followed my favorite race car and series. It hasn't been the same for years. Where did the Turbopanzer era go??

 

Those were the days!

I likewise subscribed to Autoweek in '72 when a Super V racing team had stayed at a family friend's house
during race week at Sebring. The guys left a copy behind featuring the debut of the de Tomaso Pantera. It
was loaded with racing information and the subscription card was still inside. Back then, IIRC, the annual
subscription was like $4.95/year.

Autoweek was the only real way to keep up with racing, the reporting and photography was first rate and
in the mailbox once-a-week when I got home from school. I read it cover to cover, racing reports, classifieds,
all of it within a day. If I had paid attention to my studies as much as I did Autoweek, well let's just say all
that potential they said I had would have been fulfilled!

Other magazines like FORMULA (NE: RACER) and Grand Prix International were also great with their
glossy full color pages but they were monthly's.

This was all well before live TV and the Internet of course. With all due respect to National Speed Sport
News, the only way to get real racing news was through Autoweek. Live TV was rare, even the Indy 500
was shown on tape delay basis right up until (like what?) 1982 or so.

Reading about the races in print back in those days involved more theatre of the mind, imagining the
scenes which were done to great effect by the writers and photographers of the time. Can't remember
when I dropped Autoweek. On Track came along which was a bi-weekly racing specialist magazine
(and the first magazine to run my photography) whereas Autoweek became more akin to Motor Trend
and Road & Track.

Not too long after the Autoweek format change (early/mid 80s) from newspaper to gloss magazine and
the racing content dropped off to virtually nothing making for some very thin issues and haven't picked
one up in years.

Back to NASCAR, looks as though Kasey Kahne is out due to ongoing health issues. Pity, he's a talented
driver.

BHW

 

Almirola wins! take that, Danica.

 

Somehow I knew that would be mentioned. What is Danica up to anyway? Has her weekday afternoon
talk show been announced yet?

Reading elsewhere however that Almirola's win came at the expense of Kurt Busch whom, due to NASCAR's
manipulation of the race length with their "overtime" nonsense, ran out of fuel while leading at the end.

NASCAR, the only sports sanctioning body that makes up rules on the spot while events unfold. Calling their
races (insert name of ISC controlled track here) "500" but the race goes 510 miles so they may get their
scripted melancholy finish. What is the sense of having a strategy that gets the car to the finish line?

Imagine if this happened in any other stick and ball sport. The NFL added another 15:00 period. MLB
added 5 outs. NBA added a sixth man to the team all on the spot. There'd be a revolution. But, in
NASCAR, it's all in a day's work.

BHW

 

you mean like overtime or extra innings?



btw, you do know that NASCAR started the "overtime" g/w/c nonsense, along with the playoffs, in an attempt to be more like the stick and ball sports, right?

 

She's living in Green Bay, taking care of business and doing the domestic scene with a certain football player.

 

Uhm, yeah, right...

BHW

 

Hmmmm...what part doesn't fit for you?

If you’ve wondered what life is like in Green Bay for Danica Patrick since she started dating Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers — and let’s be honest, who hasn’t? — she offers a glimpse in an interview with ESPN.

The retired race car driver told NASCAR writer Bob Pockrass that she’s settled into a routine since the Green Bay Packers season has started.

“I have my routine in Green Bay and my friends at the gym and the time that I go,” she said in the interview, published this week. “I actually broke it today (Sept. 24). I slept in with (Rodgers), because they had a game yesterday (against the Washington Redskins) so they don’t have to start until a little later on Monday, so I actually slept until 8:30, which is really saying something for me.”

She admits she’s not very good at sitting around. Spending an entire day on the couch binge watching the first season of “The Sinner” was a first for her.

“For me, when I’m home, I turn music on. I watch a little bit of news in the morning. I go to the gym every morning, come back, have lunch, have something to eat,” she said. “I have grocery store runs, shipping things, signing things, calls, meetings, interviews … I’ll go out and walk the dogs for an hour or two. And I’ll make dinner and cook. Days go by.”

She has multiple businesses and projects that keep her busy, including her Warrior clothing line, her Somnium winery and the 2017 fitness book “Pretty Intense.”



Patrick, who also has homes in Chicago and Scottsdale, Arizona (the latter recently featured in Wine Spectator magazine), said she also enjoys weekend workouts at CrossFit gyms and going to farmers markets.

She doesn’t make a point of hiding when she’s out in public.

“People notice me, yes. Some people say something, yes. Some people say dumb things and I say really smart-ass things back to them and then other people are really nice,” she told ESPN. “I think that people are generally probably scared to say something more than anything. How do I say it nicely about myself? I don’t think I put off the come-say-hi-to-me-everybody look.”

Television cameras have shown her cheering for Rodgers and the Packers at Lambeau Field this season, and she has shared photos with family and friends from game weekends. She called the season opener against the Chicago Bears, in which an injured Rodgers led the team to an incredible comeback, “an absolute historic, amazing game.”

“The fun thing about them as a team is you just know they’ve got it in them, no matter what point in the game it is or what the score is or what the season is looking like. You always feel encouraged to cheer for them as a team. Aaron is a great leader and obviously an incredible player, and he’s got some good guys behind him.”

Patrick grew up in Roscoe, Illinois — just across the Wisconsin border — cheering for the Bears. Making the switch to a Packers fan has been an easy transition, she said, and it’s anything but a house divided with Rodgers.

“Anyone that wonders why I don’t cheer for the Bears, it’s not like it’s an in-house rivalry of like, ‘Oh, you cheer for this team, I cheer for that team.’ It’s like, ‘No, you play for that team. I can never understand when people are like, ‘Why don’t you cheer for the Bears still anymore?’ I’m like, ‘Well, for obvious reasons.’”

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Based upon this lifestyle...I am thinking she isn't from the area. Sounds like a Valley Girl to me! For sure....

 

Shakes fist at Rogers...

BHW

 

Hypergamy is not your friend !

 

Danica is history . . . maybe just a small footnote in history, if at all.

Back to "fixin" Nascar - I think a serious reset is in order. Fewer races and more "stock" cars (SUVs??) would help. Also - FEWER RULES and less draconian penalties when rules are broken. Stop scoring cars past 15th place. Stop allowing messed up cars to circle at the bottom of the track for points (see my 15th place remark). Start allowing fans in the paddock. Have any of you been to a race at Road America, such as IndyCar or IMSA? Paddock access is more or less unrestricted.

Sorry for the rant. Just a few ideas for a series I used to follow closely but now hardly ever.

 

Yeah, I still maintain that with a bit of polish, Danica's future is a day time talk show with all the
positivity, healthy lifestyle, work out, etc. That she's with a high profile boyfriend like Rogers
ensconces her in the eye sponsors and media. She's a media figure, that's her future.

Agreed, some NASCAR shakeup is in order. I wasn't aware fans weren't allowed in the paddocks.
It didn't used to be that way but perhaps things may have gotten out of hand and the paddocks
got overcrowded.

Agree 1000% about the points. NASCAR points makes absolutely no sense. What is the point
of winning a race if you're only getting one more point than second place? Even the car that
finishes last gets a point. In what other series on the planet would this be remotely acceptable?
Of course, with this "Chase" thing, the points system is fairly useless anyway since entry into
the "Chase" supposedly depends on race wins.

It's all so contrived that it hardly bears watching any more.

BHW