Rain shortened the boring Nationwide Race yesterday which was no big loss. I was okay missing some of KyBu’s domination. There wasn’t a lot of relevant action. Yeah the kids were battling insanely, but they’re rookies and very young. I don’t expect anything else, so its less than thrilling. To me it is the equivalent of watching 8 through 10 year olds battle for an adult’s attention. BOOOOORRRRRIIIINNNNNGGGG!!! The sun is shining in Phoenix today.
I watched some of the NASCAR Mexico Race on Friday night. It was madness! I enjoyed the race. It was a pleasure not to have to deal with Michael Waltrip or Larry McReynolds, so I could enjoy the television broadcast and those guys were really racing hard. Quite enjoyable. Unfortunately getting up at 3:45am, working all day, then trying to watch the race meant I didn’t make it to the end awake (though I did see the winning driver climb out of his car). I look forward to getting a chance to watch it on the dvr. I hope I got all of it.
I find FOX doing the pre-race show on FS2 instead of Race Day an interesting idea. I like having DW & Hammond doing the show, that’s nice, but unfortunately Michael Waltrip is there also. It feels as though FOX’s commitment to NASCAR is weaker than we, the fans, were led to believe when the switch was made from SPEEDTV to FS*. I don’t know if NASCAR was snookered, or if they snookered the fans. The scheduled coverage on FS* is disappointing. Apparently though the drivers show up all over the place, though I typically find out about it days or weeks later. It would be nice if there was a non-twitter, non-facebook way of getting that info, like an RSS feed or something or maybe a decent web page. I know that’s asking to much. I’m asking for them to put the technology they were using back in place and active for those of us without access to twitter or facebook. These days it seems everyone assumes that everyone has access to those things without acknowledging that, like IE 8, people may not have the latest and greatest technology at any given time.
I think I’ll be glad when the fascination with the children passes. It’s funny, at one point Scott Speed was going to bring in the hew fans. That didn’t pan out. Next it was Ricky Carmichael. That didn’t work out. Goat was followed by Joey Logano. Not so much. Recently Travis Pastrana was going to bring in the youth revolution. Grazers did what grazers do, grazed and moved on to other pastures. Now it’s a flood of talented youngsters driving over their heads on a weekly basis. That sounds like…….um…I’m sure fun is supposed to be the next word in that sentence, but to me it sounds costly and dangerous. Last year Kyle Larson proved he had no problem obviously wrecking someone at the finish line to win a race. His disregard for life and limb was displayed the following weekend as a car flew into the catch fence injuring fans. He was not totally responsible for that wreck, but he did contribute to it. NASCAR apparently had no problem with the actions of the current golden boy so I expect to see more of the same this season – put him in a box and watch him burn it down injuring innocent bystanders in the process. Though maybe someone had a talk with him and explained to him that he needed to be respectful of his fellow competitors. Nah, I doubt it.
Can we please make Michael Waltrip go away! The new Jeff Gordon Pepsi Max spot is fun. What amazes me is the heightened importance that FOX puts on ‘comedy’ in their sports programming. They are unable to find a funny person, but insist on putting some of the worst ‘comedians’ in the known universe on their sports programming. Between the unfunny ‘personalities’ and the yelling bimbos (why can’t they just read the sports – why must they yell it?) FOX Sports has a lot of mutable moments. They have the money, and some of the best talent, mixed in with some of the worst. What’s up with that? Did they just get lucky with the talented people?
As the field take the parade laps I see a bank of dark clouds in the background. Camera shot changes and there’s blue sky with a a couple light fluffy clouds. Now I’ve gotta check the forecast…looks like a mixture of clouds and sun, but no mention of rain. Okay.
Time to find the race on the radio, because Larry McReynolds is rattling like and old trap. Somebody needs to find his pause button, or the remote that works for him.
Competition Caution due to the rain last night at lap 35 of 312. Kharv is driving like rain is coming.
Snoozer of a race at lap 158 of 312. Another one of the, stuff happened, but ho hum.
Debris caution during a commercial break on lap 161 of 312. Brian Vickers hit the outside wall under caution. TV is still in commercial break. Oops. His crew says he cut a tire down and bounced it off the wall.
Looks like Danica, Justin Allgaier and Travis Kvapil bring out the caution on lap 171 of 312.
Another caution on lap of 312, during a commercial break, for Danica who spun around without hitting anything. She cut a tire down – probably a tire rub after the incident with Justin “Dewey Alligator” Allgaier.
It was 70 degrees here in the Atlanta area today. There’s a freeze warning tonight, so I decided to take advantage of the weather and have a walk. It was delightful outside. I arrived at the end of the final caution period. Apparently Kurt Busch’s engine let go. I saw the final 12 laps. The end of the race was as boring as the rest of the race. Kharv seems happy about the win. Dale Jr finished second. Jeff Gordon took fifth from Jimmie Johnson while he was fighting off a charge from Ryan Newman in the 31. Jimmie finished 6th.
I’ll have to look elsewhere to find out the unofficial results. I can’t read what’s on FOX.
Unofficial Results:
- Kevin Harvick
- Dale Earnhardt Jr.
- Brad Keselowski
- Joey Logano
- Jeff Gordon
- Jimmie Johnson
- Ryan Newman
- Carl Edwards
- Kyle Busch
- Jamie McMurray
- Kasey Kahne
- Matt Kenseth
06:10:57 PM
Next Race: Las Vegas