I just had the most wonderful experience. FOX Sports 1 began showing the Sprint Cup practice this morning (Saturday) with the audio from the track and WITHOUT the microphones of Chris Myers and Michael Waltrip. It was a blissful minute or two, but sadly did not last. Before they went to commercial a minute or two later the microphones kicked in. Sigh. But for a few glorious moments, there was just the sound of 800+ horsepower growling.
I realised when the microphones came on and Larry McReynolds began blabbing that NBC’s NASCAR coverage has the opportunity to become my favorite. If they can avoid Larry and Mikey and Myers and Krista and Adam Alexander and Daugherty and the other talentless hacks (Danielle Trotta, Rutledge Wood, Kyle Petty, and Matt Clark just to name a couple more) polluting the NASCAR airwaves they could trump my beloved Mike Joy and DW and Allen Bestwick and become my favorite NASCAR broadcast.
Anyhoo, cars are on the tracks and drivers are in front of microphones. NASCAR is underway, for real.
With all of the announced rules changes, there’s a bit of scattered focus, from the welcome back – what did you do for your winter vacation chat, to rules & life changes (who had babies, who healed from injuries, who got married or engaged), to how does your car feel? Okay. I’d kinda like a NASCAR interview show though during the evenings or something so that we could get full on interviews.
After an ice storm early in the week, Atlanta (and the hard hit Augusta area) was rattled by an earthquake last night. The 4.1 quake was centered 25 miles north of Augusta in Edgefield, SC. The area got slammed by the ice storm Tuesday through Thursday which left hundreds of thousands without power. Some are still awaiting power and running water.
It has been a rough winter. Two weeks ago Atlanta was crippled by a fast moving snowstorm. The frigid temperatures kept the snow-turned-ice around for several days. Because the meteorologists were predicting the snow would hit south of Atlanta, people went on with life as usual until about midday Tuesday when the snow started piling up. Then everybody, just about, left work or school and headed home. It took me two hours to travel 6.2 miles to pick up Bunny D and another two to get home. The second part of the trip was 20 miles so it was obviously a better commute than the first half. It was a problem with volume. Entirely too many people on icy roads. The vehicles used to treat the roads with gravel and salt were stuck in traffic along with everyone else. We were lucky. Many people spent 8 – 30 hours trying to get home. A lot of people simply ran out of gas and left their cars on the roads and walked to whatever shelter they could find as the temperatures plummeted overnight. So the next day everything was frozen over, including the cars. On Thursday officials began helping people get to their cars and get them going to try to clear the interstates in order to actually treat them for the ice to allow tractors & trailers to get going. It was a madhouse. This time the forecasters were overwrought in their attempts to make sure people understood the likelihood that Atlanta would get frozen precip and a lot of it. As a result schools were out on Tuesday before the brunt of the storm hit and people stayed off the roads overall. The storm wasn’t quite as bad as predicted though there was snow and ice and falling trees and power outages and lots of wrecks from icy roads. A couple of the accidents involved trucks treating the roads – one slid off into a ditch, another overturned. A few tractor-trailers were involved in accidents also, victims of the icy roads. Overall though most people stay off the roads. Those who did venture out typically had stories to tell that taught them they should’ve stayed off the roads. Today it is a windy 39 degrees in Atlanta. In Daytona, its breezy and 63 degrees. Global warming….
Hendrick Engines blowing up are the story of Saturday practice. Bobby Labonte, Smoke (Tony Stewart), and Danica Patrick all blew up. Dewey Alligator (Justin Allgaier) overheated at the end of his run. Little bit of panic building. Jamie McMurray was on his way to make a mock qualifying run and was called back to the garage (from pit road).
ARCA Race is coming up in a little while. Claire B. Lang was babbling about something to do with qualifying yesterday. From what she said five qualifying laps were disqualified leading to a major shuffle/kerfluffle with the starting line-up. Here’s one version of the story, and another one. In the end Dylan Kwasniewski has the pole.
Since its ARCA racing time, time for a new blog entry. 🙂 And probably another one for the Sprint Unlimited.
In NASCAR news this off-season:
- NASCAR announces 2014 rules changes.
- NASCAR Enhances Penalty Structure.
- NASCAR Rule Book Reveals More on Infractions.
- NASCAR Enhances Penalty Structure.
- Richard Petty Questions Patrick’s Chances of Winning.
- Chase Gets New Format.
- Drive For Diversity Selects 2014 Class.
- 2014 NASCAR Hall of Fame Class Inducted.
- NASCAR Alters Qualifying.
- All-Star Race Schedule Changed.
- Phoenix Racing is now HScott Motorsports.
- Evernham Leaves ESPN for New Endeavor.
- NASCAR Reinstates Ty Norris.
- Johnson Selected Driver of the Year.
- Letarte to Join NBC in 2015.
- NASCAR Names New Cup Series Managing Director.
- NASCAR Simplifies Manufacturer Points System.
- NASCAR Reinstates Todd Parrott.
- Mayfield Convicted on Three Counts .
- Reutimann, BK Racing Part Ways.
- NASCAR Bans Tandem Draft.
- The Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series each will change its qualifying format this season.
- Nemecheks Team for Full Truck Season.
- Motorsports Hall of Fame Moving to Daytona.
- Jimmie Johnson creates Wellness Challenge.
- Haas’ F1 Bid Likely Will Fail.