Nascar's "All Star" Race

7:42 PM
We join the "festivities already going on with the introduction of drivers and crews. For some reason, the band is playing "Beat it". At least we don't have to watch guys dressed as crew members doing the overexaggerated drum playing like they did last year.


7:45 PM
They introduced Jeff Gordon and his eligibility for the race was listed as "2009 Texas winner". Really? That's the win that got him into this race? It wasn't his having won this race 3 times or, I don't know, his 4 championships? Shouldn't Jeff Gordon have a lifetime exemption to run this race? This is supposed to be the "All Star" race. Why Brad Keselowski is deemed a "star" and is in this race is beyond my comprehension. He may be a star someday, but he's not one today.


7:46 PM
The only thing that matters to me about Dale Jr is when will Rick Hendrick reach the tipping point on this team's horrible performance and change something. It seems like the crescendo reaches a new high every week and I give Rick credit for not bowing to the fans and making a change just to make one. If you're running a sports team, you don't make a change just because the fans want you to make one. But, something needs to happen here because they're terrible. Week in and week out, the #88 team is a bad team.


7:48 PM
Kurt Busch's crew has it backwards. You win the race, then you get to pour beer on everybody in celebrating the win.


7:51 PM
The Nature Boy Ric Flair introduces Joey Logano as the winner of the fan vote while Thus Spake Zarathrusta plays in the background. I'm speechless.


7:57 PM
My son is on Youtube playing the Kyle/Kurt wreck from a few years ago. Good times.


8:07 PM
Hold on while I go get some bungee cords. Why, you ask? Because Jeff Hammond says I have to tie my TV down. *insert eyeroll here*


8:08 PM
Last lap incidents? The closest we've had this race finish with a last lap incident the last few years was 2002 when Dale Earnhardt Jr didn't wreck Ryan Newman on the last lap. You have to go back to 1992 to find a last lap incident. But, DW guaranteed a last lap incident this year, so maybe he knows something I don't.


8:17 PM
Do you know how much of a difference it will make to start on the outside of the front row in a 100 lap race? Exactly zero. This isn't F1 racing we're talking about, where being the leader after you get through turn 1 means you're going to win.


8:20 PM
Yeah, Jeff Gordon's experimental setup is good. We can always tell on lap 3 when a setup is good. Or not.


8:22 PM
Junior can't be fading yet. It's only lap 8. He usually waits until after halfway for the car to fade.


8:31 PM
Why would the track be changing tonight in the span of 3 or 4 laps? It's not like the weather is changing. Could it be that the car is changing as fuel is burning and tires are wearing? Nah. Has to be the track.


8:36 PM
This is not a race. This is a parade. So far, we've had 0 passes for the lead.


8:48 PM
My son and I are watching old Daytona 500's on youtube instead of watching tonight's race.


9:02 PM
In 70 laps of "racing", there have been 0 passes for the lead.


9:15 PM
So, while this "race" is under caution, I'm doing a bit of surfing and I came across this article about Jeremy Mayfield.

How can Nascar suspend Mayfield without telling him what he tested positive for? You can't ruin somebody's life for failing a drug test and not tell him what they found. That is just asinine. Nascar continues to show what kind of a garbage organization they are.

Remember the Japanese Inspection scene in Days of Thunder? If you haven't seen it (and I don't recommend it), Big John calls Rowdy and Cole together and tells them that if they have another on-track incident, he's going to call for a special inspection of their cars to take place during the race. For effect, he tells them about Japanese Inspections.

What's to stop Nascar from holding drug test results over the drivers? How are they allowed to get away with this? Jeremy Mayfield may have taken a drug he shouldn't have, but maybe he didn't. Nascar must think it has some sort of credibility built up that everybody should just accept that they're right and Mayfield's wrong. The problem that Nascar appears unwilling to see is that the ever changing rules rob them of this credibility. If Mayfield really took something he shouldn't have, then Nascar should have no problem whatsoever in releasing that information. The fact that they haven't suggests something else. It suggests another way for Nascar to control the drivers. It's another type of Japanese Inspection.

The Japanese Inspection scene reminds me of something. Why did Nascar get behind the promotion of Days of Thunder anyway? Days of Thunder sort of celebrated everything that's wrong about Nascar. There's not one Nascar fan that watched the Japanese Inspection scene and thought it had A) never happened and B) could never happen.


9:19 PM
82 laps into a 100 lap race and we have the first pass for the lead.


9:39 PM
Wow. How profound, DW. DW sez that if a driver comes out of turn 2 with the lead, he's going to be the rabbit. IOW, he'll be the leader when he has the lead coming off of turn 2. Good thing DW's here to explain racing to us.


9:41 PM
Kyle Busch makes it 3-wide on the outside on a double-wide restart and Nascar announces that he can't do this. So, either A) DW and company don't know the rules, or B) Nascar's making up the rules as they go along, or C) both.

Wager heavily on C.


9:44 PM
DW, you can pay to watch this if you want, but this "race" has been an abomination.


9:49 PM
Mike Joy keeps talking about what they do at the local Saturday night short track. In this case, it's in relation to determining who the leader is when the caution flies. Why doesn't Nascar do this for the points paying races? Why do they have to use the "scoring loops"? It's not like anybody can tell where a scoring loop on the track is, so when the caution flies, it's really up to Nascar's discretion to decide who's leading and who isn't and... oh. Now I see.


9:58 PM
Why would Tony Stewart sit back and watch Kenseth and Busch race and not try to win it himself? If DW and company don't have anything to say but talk about how Tony Stewart should sit back and watch some other drivers battle for a win, then DW and company should say nothing.


10:06 PM
I don't care whether it's Kyle Busch or Dale Earnhardt Jr or Tony Stewart or whoever, Darrell Waltrip sounds like a moron cheering when a driver wins. Regardless, the last few laps of this race were a real race and that was enjoyable to watch.