Talladega

I'm back with Talladega notes. Let's get right to it.

1:12 PM
We had a lunch at church today and got home later than usual, so I missed most of pre-race. :thumbs:

However, one thing I did catch annoyed me. I heard them report on Dale Jr's new nightclub he opened last week. I don't want to talk about the nightclub, but my question is, what does this have to do with racing? That's right, nothing. This is why I can't stand pre-race, because they talk about things that have nothing to do with racing.

1:15 PM
DW's talking to Front Row Joe and says he'll talk to Tony and learn his strategy and then tell it to Joe. I already know Tony's strategy, and I suspect Joe does to. The strategy is "go to the front."

1:20 PM
I've never heard of a team running qualifying without an alternator belt, but I wonder if they all do that all the time and Front Row Joe's team decided to gamble on getting an early caution.

1:22 PM
Larry Mac: "They have to treat the yellow line like it's out of bounds."

Uh, Larry? They have to treat it like it's out of bounds because it is.

1:38 PM
Subway commercial with that great song I really like. Maybe it's because I haven't watched enough TV lately, but are companies starting to figure out that it would be better if they didn't run commercials into the ground? I don't know how long Subway's had that campaign going, but I don't hate the song and commercials yet.

1:43 PM
Here's what you say when get behind the wheel of a Ford: "Why am I driving this piece of garbage?" :laugh: Just kidding, Ford fans!

1:46 PM
Matt Kenseth is Charlie Brown's teacher? You couldn't understand a word he said during the "interview" with that helmet on.

1:49 PM
Mirror driving: Not that it's like real racing, but when I race at Talladega in sim-racing, I do the exact same thing of looking in my mirror all the time.

1:58 PM
DW says that they didn't crank up the microphones when Junior took the lead, but it's hard to believe they didn't because it's so much louder.

1:58 PM
Junior can hear the fans cheering for him? Really? Wow. That's just amazing.

2:00 PM
I don't blame Jeff Gordon for not wanting the #15 running behind him.

2:13 PM
The latest Montoya "I'm nobody's puppet" commercial is great.

2:34 PM
Lap 83, and I'm calling a Tony Stewart win.

2:34 PM
I say that and Jimmie and Junior blow right by him. You could say that I'm not as smart as I think I am, but it's not an insult because I agree with you.

2:35 PM
DW just said that Dale Earnhardt would frequently move back in the field and then drive back up to the front. Really? When did he do this on purpose? Name 1 race where he did this. I have a really good memory and I don't remember Earnhardt ever doing this on purpose in any race. Earnhardt didn't like to be passed and would have led every lap if he could have. What DW said about Earnhardt "practicing" going through the field is complete crap.

2:38 PM
I'm still annoyed by what DW said. Do we really have to make stuff up about Earnhardt to prove how great he was?

2:50 PM
Not much racing going on. Lots of single-file driving. I don't think we'll see any actual racing until lap 168. Editor's note: Save this single-file driving line for later.

3:01 PM
I just want to make sure I'm awake for the last few laps of the race so I can see some actual racing.

3:04 PM
Here's what I don't get about the Vault commercial. When the 3 guys are chasing the 1 guy in paintball and he runs up the rock and jumps over them backwards, why didn't they just shoot him before he got to the rock? They have guns in their hand and they're chasing him. What's the point of having guns? That commercial makes no sense.

3:07 PM
Didn't catch the crew he's on, but somebody has a crewman named Shaggy. No report on whether there's a Fred, Daphne, Velma or Scooby?

3:11 PM
What? Jeff Hammond just wasted our time and told us about the roof flaps. Roof flaps were introduced before the 1995 season and we're being told about them yet again. Is there nothing else to talk about other than the things that have been around for 13 years?

3:27 PM
We didn't have to wait until 5 to go to see 3 and 4 wide racing. There's 51 to go and we're seeing it.

3:45 PM
What race is DW watching? There's been plenty of "riding around" today. I even commented on it almost an hour ago (see the 2:50pm entry). BTW, I know it's a huge shock, but I have no editor. I thought that if I said that, it would make this post more impressive, but, really, these posts aren't impressive in the first place.

3:56 PM
DW: "You know what makes that an exciting race? It's an impound race."

Really? That's what makes it exciting? I always thought the action on the track is what made a race exciting, but I guess I'm wrong.

4:04 PM
Ryan Newman... who won the Daytona 500.

Did you guys know that Ryan Newman won the Daytona 500? No, seriously, he did. Did you also know that nearly every time they mention Ryan Newman, winner of the Daytona 500, they remind us that he won the Daytona 500?

4:06 PM
DW just said that there are 250,000 fans at Talladega. That's an eye-popping number. A quarter of a million people are at Talladega? I didn't believe that, so I went to my favorite search engine and typed "Talladega seating capacity". The very first site I found was some site called Tickco, which looks like a place you can buy tickets to any number of sporting events. Here's what Tickco had to say about Talladega.

Far less than quarter of a million. Oh, and don't take my word for it. Here's the link.

4:09 PM
I don't know how they didn't wreck when Kyle Busch went up the track.

4:11 PM
And, there's the big wreck.

4:13 PM
Junior's done. Another non-winning race. *sighs sadly*

4:19 PM
I suppose you can say that somebody should have backed off going into the turn, but you show me a driver who backs off in that spot and I'll show you a driver who doesn't win.

4:21 PM
DW: "These cars are so flat, you just get a huge side draft."

This from the guy who declared at Daytona that there was no longer such a thing as a side draft anymore.

4:25 PM
Here we go again with the rehashing of information we already know. For the 1,000th time Nascar fans, the start/finish line at Talladega isn't in the tri-oval. What I'd like to know is why everybody assumes that we'll all think this is a weird thing, so they feel like they have to tell us again and again and again and again and again (insert the word again 995 more times)? So what if the S/F line isn't in the trioval? Why would we think it odd that it's down a few hundred feet from there?

4:27 PM
Great run by Michael Waltrip, but he's a sitting duck as the leader with 5 to go.

4:28 PM
Great shot in-car of Michael mirror driving.

4:28 PM
Ok, here's the controversy of the day. I don't believe that Kyle Busch was forced below the line. I think he went under and forced Jimmie Johnson out of the way. As expected, the Kyle Busch Apologists in the booth think otherwise.

4:30 PM
One of them said that Jeff Gordon wants to win because Kyle Busch used to be his teammate. Bull. Jeff Gordon wants to win because there's a race. I don't believe for 1 second that he cares whether or not Kyle Busch was his teammate in 2007.

4:31 PM
The President of the Kyle Busch Fan Club will be happy today.

4:32 PM
DW: "If I was a betting man, I would have bet that we ended like this."

DW, when you call the wreck before it happens, then you'll earn a bit of respect for the prediction. But, telling us that you would have bet on it after it already happened causes me to lose respect.

DW is really starting to get on my nerves.

"Rowdy" Busch. I just threw up in my mouth.

 

What should they do? In 20 years, there hasn't been a suitable alternative found to restrictor plates. As distasteful as it is to many fans, I agree with swaim about the alternatives, and neither one is any good.