Day of racing

I'm going to do something a little different. Rather than one long post, I'm going to try to make many posts through the course of the race.


During the rain delay, Mike, Larry and DW are talking about Carl Long's ridiculous penalty and DW says something about Nascar's credibility. What credibility, DW? Nascar doesn't have credibility now and hasn't had it for years.


Chris Myers: You don't want to tear away your roots, what made the sport fun in the first place.

Where were you years ago, Chris, to tell them this? Nascar tore away their roots long ago.


Sorry, I don't believe this meeting Nascar's having with teams, drivers, etc. is anything more than a dog and pony show.

 

Cheers to Helio Castroneves for winning Indy for the 3rd time.

Boos to whoever the announcers were for Indy. Those guys talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked. They must have been paid by the word. It was even more noticeable as the laps wound down and they talked and talked and kept saying the same things over and over.

 

I don't know how long it takes weather systems to get from where I'm at to Charlotte, but if it's anymore than 4 hours, this race is going to get stopped, if it gets started in the first place. It has really been coming down for the last couple of hours.


Boo to Fox for never mentioning rain during their pre-race garbage. They never mentioned even once that it was raining until it was time to start the race.

 

I did catch the beginning of the F1 race at Monaco. You know how I always joke that you know who wins an F1 by knowing who led at the first corner? I saw earlier that Jenson Button won the race and Jeff Hammond just said it. Do you know who was on the pole and led after the first corner? Jenson Button.

 

I doubt it. ESPN's already seen how bad he is.

I can imagine how the conversation at ESPN went back in 2007 when they decided to hire him.


Executive A: "Rusty Wallace is retired."

Executive B: "Who?"

A: "Rusty Wallace. He was some kind of a great Nascar driver."

B: "Ok. So what?"

A: "We're going to get Nascar next year. We should hire him to be an analyst before somebody else does."

B: "Ok. Is he any good?"

A: "Does it matter? It's Nascar."

B: "I guess not. But, we won't have Nascar for another year. What are we going to do with him until then?"

A: "We'll have him write a column called 'Rusty Nailz It'."

B: "He's a writer?"

A: "I don't know. Does it matter? It's for Nascar fans. They'll read anything as long as one of their heroes writes it."

B: "What else are we going to do with him?"

A: "We'll have him be an analyst for that race in May."

B: "The Indianapolis 500?"

A: "Yeah, that's the one. He can be the analyst for it and for the whole season."

B: "Do they drive stock cars at the Indianapolis 500?"

A: "I don't know. Does it matter? Racing is racing, isn't it?"

He was, of course, dreadful as an Indycar analyst. Then, they made him the analyst for stock car racing and he actually made the races unwatchable. I mean, even more unwatchable than they already were in 2007.

BTW, Rusty really did have a column called Rusty Nailz It. It was wretched.

 

Would somebody please explain to me how choosing the outside of the front row on the start of a 400 lap race makes any difference whatsoever to how you finish?

 

40% of the 80% right now? Not sure what that's supposed to mean.

 

So, let's talk about this nonsense of the report cards for the teams.

First, why is DW afraid to say that the emperor has no clothes? The #88 team is bad. It doesn't matter whether the team's bad because of the driver, crew chief or crew. If it were any other team sitting 18th in the points, there's no way DW's apologizing for them. I guess he's afraid of getting ripped, but any Earnhardt fan who can't see that this team is bad is willfully blind.

Second, DW talks about how he can't judge intentions and can only judge what somebody does on the track. Then, he turns around and talks about how Kyle Busch's intentions are good, even though his behavior isn't. Listen, DW, you can't have it both ways. Kyle Busch acts like a brat sometimes when things don't go his way. Don't tell me about his intentions, because you can't read his intentions anymore than you can read mine.

"We judge ourselves on our intentions; everybody else judges us on our actions."

It took me a long time to understand the wisdom of that statement.

Third, DW can't seem to figure out how these grades work. They're supposed to be grading on this season, not on 1 year ago, or 10 years ago, but this season. Carl Edwards should probably be doing better, but he's not, and you don't raise his grade because you think he should be doing better.

Fourth, Jeff Hammond continues to be the consistent voice of reason on Fox. He correctly calls DW out about his intentions comments and questions why Stewart-Haas gets a better grade than JGR. Chris Myers also joins Hammond as a voice of reason. Who knew? Actually, this is nothing new. Hammond has continued to show that he knows what he's talking about. He's just overshadowed by someone who thinks he's more of the show than he should be.

Fifth, DW gives grades of C- to 4 teams, 1 of which includes Michael Waltrip Racing. Continuing with the theme of not seeming to understand the report cards, he talks about how these teams are better now than they were last year, thus that's why they get a C- instead of a D. But, that's not the point of the report cards, is it? Aren't they for judging this year on its merits? I don't understand.

 

So, Reutiman won, which I didn't find out about until much later because, after the 24 hours of Charlotte, I stopped watching on the last red flag.

I know that the only Earnhardt fan on this board is me, but since I'm the one writing, I want to bring this article up.

It's time for a change. I think Hendrick has done a great job not letting the fans pressure him into making a change. No matter what the sport, you can't let the fans run your organization. But, Earnhardt was abysmal yesterday.

Then, there's this article. I found this nugget interesting.

Right, because everybody knows that once you set a list of substances in stone that you're testing for that you can't change it.

 

None taken, because I'm not willfully blind. The #88 team is bad and everybody, including the driver, is a part of that. And the driver should get the lion's share of the blame. If you want to see how much of a difference a driver makes to a team, look no further than what Mark Martin has done in the #5 car. Casey Mears had 1 fluky win in that car in 3 years. Mark Martin's won twice in less than half a season.

I'd like to think this isn't true, but I have nothing to stand on. The mere fact that he went to Hendrick, when he could have easily stayed at DEI, suggests that he really does want to win, but, again, there are no results to back this up. Maybe Earnhardt doesn't really want to do what is necessary to win, but, seeing as how he's so popular, is just fine skating by on his name.

 

I know you meant no disrespect, Tom. No worries. :wavey:

I do, however, have serious doubts about my level of insight. :laugh: