Nascar, F1 and IRL

SpeedTV is replaying the F1 Grand Prix at Bahrain. In an hour, the IRL goes road racing at St. Petersburg, and the pre-race nonsense on Fox is starting up for Nascar at Texas. Since these are all happening at the same time, I'm not splitting up the reviews for each event. Besides, I don't think I have enough to make it worth your while to read about the IRL and F1 races.

12:30 PM
We're on SpeedTV for F1 racing at Sakhir in the Kingdom of Bahrain. I know next to nothing about Bahrain, including the fact that it's an island nation. Here's a Wiki page for you about Bahrain. So, this post is educational and... um... well, it's not much else, but it is educational.

12:34 PM
Switched over to Fox and they're talking about Michael McDowell's wreck. I'm figuring that everybody's seen it by now, but here it is anyway. That's one of the worst wrecks I've ever seen. Check out how much air he gets when he goes flipping down the track after the hit. Without all the safety features in place now, from the SAFER barrier, to the new car, to the HANS type device, Michael McDowell would have been killed.

12:37 PM
You may think this is weird, and you're right, but I really like that $5 footlong song in the Subway commercial. It's very catchy. What are the awards called in the advertising world? Clios or something? That song ought to win some kind of award.

1:01 PM
I don't really know what Bill Murray is doing on my TV screen and what he's talking about, but I guess it's something about the gopher and I quickly change over to SpeedTV. The track looks like it's in the middle of the desert and a Pole is on the pole, Robert Kubica. Remember a few weeks ago I said how I really only needed to watch the first lap, or even the first corner of the first lap to know who's going to win an F1 race? Felipe Massa beat Kubica to the corner. Let's see if he wins the race.

Lewis Hamilton got off to a bad start and I think the lack of electronic aids had something to do with it, because I'd bet he spun the tires on the start.

1:18 PM
Some people can pull off wearing a cowboy hat. Dick Berggren is not one of those people.

1:23 PM
Here we go with explaining what loose and tight means. More on that later. I've said this before, but Neil Bonnett had a great explanation many years ago. "Push means you see the wreck. Loose means you are the wreck."

1:26 PM
Remember a few weeks ago when Jimmie Johnson said that the team was working on cars and setups for later in the year and that's why they weren't running up front? Yeah, I thought it was bunk then and it was.

1:27 PM
At Bahrain, Massa is leading and Raikkonen is running 2nd with 40 to go. Those 2 are exchanging fast laps, but Massa is still the leader.

1:34 PM
At Texas, Kyle Busch takes the lead and I expect the fawning over him to being any second now.

1:56 PM
With 20 to go at Bahrain, there are still no lead changes. Massa got the lead in the first corner and hasn't been challenged.

1:57 PM
Flipped over to ESPN for the IRL race on the streets of St. Petersburg. The track is wet, with standing water in places. One of the best F1 races I've seen was in 2006 at the Hungaroring in the rain. There were actual on track passes for the lead and everything.

2:07 PM
Lap 80 at Texas and green flag pit stops have started. DW starts in with the Kyle Busch love, showing him pushing Carl down the front stretch, and while it isn't as bad as in recent weeks, I'm so weary of the man-crush DW has on Kyle that I don't want to hear about how bored Kyle is in the race or whatever.

2:12 PM
Racing in the rain at St. Petersburg, which is pretty cool, especially when you get a lot of rain and see the cars throw up those big ol' rooster tails behind them.

2:21 PM
Jeff Hammond showing us about the backup electrical system reminds me of an annoyance (yes, another one) I have with racing broadcasts. We've seen this stuff before, many times. Why is it they need to show us and tell us about the same things every race? Every race, they tell us what tight and loose is. Every race, they tell us the same things they told us the week before. With football, do they tell us what offsides is every game? In baseball, do they tell us what a strike is every game? In basketball, do they tell us what a foul is every week? Why do they do this in racing?

2:24 PM
3 laps to go at Bahrain and Phil Massa, who apparently has been taking a beating in the Italian press, is leading the Bahrain Grand Prix. Evidently, Fred Alonso has a clause in his Renault contract that would let him out of it if a top ride opens up, and Ferrari and their fans, aka the Tifosi, would love nothing better than to get the 2-time world champion driving a Ferrari in 2009 and beyond. Massa's done this sort of thing before, winning a race after being under a ton of pressure going into the race. Kubica is going to wind up 3rd, which will mean that BMW Sauber is leading the Constructor's championship over the prohibitive top 2 teams, Ferrari and McLaren.

The important thing to note is that there no on track passes for the lead. Massa got the lead in the first corner and he wasn't seriously challenged all day.

2:38 PM
St. Petersburg race. Nice little pass by Graham Rahal. Anybody remember the name Rahal? As in Bobby Rahal, 1986 Indianapolis 500 winner? That was one of the best Indy 500's ever. It was the first Indy 500 that was broadcast live and was broadcast a week late the next Saturday because of rain. Michael Andretti set an incredible pace early on. In a late race shootout, Bobby Rahal passed both Andretti and Rick Mears (I think) to win the race.

2:41 PM
I wasn't paying attention to what was on the screen, but I hear that song they play during the "Beef, it's what's for dinner commercials." mmmm... beef.

2:54 PM
It may be just me, but why do they talk about Jamie McMurray so much? There are other drivers we hardly ever hear them talk about, like Bobby Labonte, who has to be more popular than Jamie, but Jamie gets the air time. I don't understand.

2:58 PM
Digger tshirts are a hot thing? There's no accounting for taste, I guess. :smilewinkgrin:

3:02 PM
The #48 team doing a bunch of testing to get better just goes to show that I get something right once in a while. Even a blind pig finds a truffle now and then.

3:06 PM
Last week, I wondered whether Kenseth got penalized last week for dumping the #38. Question answered. Back in February, I questioned whether Nascar really wanted the drivers to show their emotions, and Matt said, "Nascar wanted us to show our emotions, so I did." Evidently, there's a Nascar-approved way to show emotions and spinning somebody out is not the Nascar-approved way.

3:14 PM
DW: You don't want to make Matt Kenseth mad.

Oooh... don't want to make Matt Kenseth mad. Everybody get out of the way for the great Matt Kenseth. Why do they say silly things like this?

JJ Yeley said that just ran out of talent and crashed the car. I suppose it's easy to run out of talent when you're short on it in the first place. :tongue3:

3:28 PM
I really like DW's analogy of the tires to basketballs.

Speaking of basketballs, I never have a problem watching North Carolina lose. Seeing KU build that 28 point lead last night was very enjoyable.

3:45 PM
Flipped to the IRL race, where they have just under 3 minutes to go. IRL racing has a time limit to run their race in, as does F1. They will either run the scheduled distance or the time limit, whichever comes first. I believe the time limit is 2 hours. 19 year old Graham Rahal is leading.

4:15 PM
In honor of the NCAA Tournament, I'm channeling Bill Raftery.

"Jimmie Johnson up against the wall... With a kiss!"

4:26 PM
Wrong, DW. The lid being off at Vegas was a big deal. I don't get why DW and Larry are Ok with cheating. Maybe they've both done enough cheating during their careers as driver and crew chief that they'd feel hypocritical if they said that cheating is wrong.

4:35 PM
More Jamie McMurray. Maybe both of his fans are paying Fox to show him, because I don't have any other explanation.

4:42 PM
Mike Joy said that Fox didn't want to overload the broadcast with Texas references. But, by all means, overload the Vegas race with gambling references.

4:51 PM
Carl Edwards wins again. If you're a fan of Carl, it was a good race. If you're not, the race wasn't so good.

 

I like this one better. It has more jokes in it.

I wondered what had happened, because I hit something while I was in the middle of writing and the browser acted like it was doing something, but I didn't know what it was doing and hit Stop, but obviously not before it posted.

For that blunder, I'm offering a full refund.

 

I don't have a problem with that either and I think it happened when I was taking my little catnap. At this point, everybody should just assume that I'll be taking a nap at some point during the race.

But, regardless, you're right, I completely missed it.

 

I want to give some props to DW and Larry Mac. Before the '07 season, in an article on Fox Sports, they were talking about the new car. This car is supposed to be less aero dependent, but it didn't make sense to DW and Larry how adding a splitter and a wing would make the car less aero dependent. If anything, it would make the car more aero dependent. I don't have a link to it, but I wish I did so everybody could read it for themselves.

I think he might be right about that. A few weeks ago, I posted a link to the finish of the Michigan race in August '91 where Dale Jarrett got his first win. If you go back and listen, you'll hear Davey Allison report that his car developed a push late in the race during the battle with DJ. He had just put on new tires, so it's highly unlikely it was a tire issue, but since he was running behind DJ at the time, it was probably an aero push.

It appears to be so.

:thumbs:

Yeah, you're right. I was just being lazy with it. Putting them all in the same post was not a good idea.