The camera was following Dale Jr all over the place. It’s as though this is his final race, as opposed to his final Daytona race as a full-time Cup driver. Dude. Overkill. NBC has us chasing the coverage today. Oooh a band is doing the National Anthem. That’s always a relief from the American Idol wanna-bes murdering the song. Cool flyover too. Earlier Jr got the Squires treatment as I like to call it. Ken Squire did a piece on him. I imagine we’re going to see that piece a lot throughout the rest of the season if the recent retirement videos are any indication. I look forward to the end of NBC’s growing pains. I want them to become a good, if not great, broadcast. At this point they have a couple of good elements and a few good ideas, but by hiring the folks they have they’re killing their product with B grade ‘talent’. They need to up their game in that area. The camera work is typically lacking, the broadcast desk work is lacking, the pit reporting is lacking, the booth talent is learning on the job. NBC can afford to do better I’m sure. DALE JR leads the field to the green flag. Chase Elliott is on the outside pole. Kasey Kahne is starting in the top five. Jimmie starts in 12th. Go Hendrick Motorsports! Continue reading “2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Race Seventeen Daytona”
2017 NASCAR Xfinity Cup Series Race Fifteen Daytona
Xfinity race day two. The race began last evening and got through eleven laps before the heavens opened up. So here we are midday Saturday with mostly blue skies, some clouds in the distance and a few fluffy white ones overhead. Actually looking at the clouds in the distance it looks more like rain and clouds in the distance, so who knows what will happen with the end of this race, not to mention tonight’s scheduled Cup race. Summer in Florida – rain can be expected. Of course it has been an unusually rainy, and cool summer here in northwest Georgia. I’m not sure if the same can be said for Florida, but I have a feeling it has been experiencing similar unusual conditions. Blake Koch did a pre-race interview holding his son. Who knew Blake had a son? I find it amusing that the old Cup drivers were party boys in their 20s and early 30s and the current crop in that age group is walking around with wives and kids. Maybe its an example of the generation gap, but that seems an awful waste of youth to me. Better to gain experience and its accompanying wisdom before attempting to usher your progeny into adulthood rather than attempt to grow up while raising them. I’m seeing a whole lot more of that these days. I rather believe my and my parents generation learned that lesson and we lived that lesson. Somehow the lesson didn’t propagate properly. Drivers are in their cars. I just saw a radar on the television broadcast. Continue reading “2017 NASCAR Xfinity Cup Series Race Fifteen Daytona”
2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Race Sixteen Sononma
Beautiful sunny day at Sonoma. The racr has been a bit more interesting than usual, though I only caught parts of stage one on the radio as well as stage two. Once we got home and started watching the television broadcast there have been some points of interest. I’ll miss Mike Joy, DW and Jeff Gordon the rest of the season and will really look forward to the Daytona 500 and the return of the top booth team. Next week begins the NBC debacle. I will try to gain some optimism about it – by next weekend, but I’m dreading it at the moment. Continue reading “2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Race Sixteen Sononma”
2017 NASCAR Xfinity Cup Series Race Fourteen Iowa
The Xfinity kids are taking on Iowa this evening. John Hunter Nemechek made it two in a row in the Camping World Truck series. Congrats. Christopher Bell will lead the field to the green capturing his first Xfinity series pole.
Christoper Bell won the first stage.
Caution in stage two as Sideways Sam Hornish spins around on lap 20 of 60 in the stage. Continue reading “2017 NASCAR Xfinity Cup Series Race Fourteen Iowa”
2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Race Fifteen Michigan
I ended up missing the end of the 24-hours of Le Mans – totally overslept. Booo. I got to catch a bit of it yesterday between NASCAR races. I find it a very enjoyable race. I miss the old SpeedTV days when they’d run pretty much the whole race. The overnight coverage would often be lots of fun. And watching the sun come up on the race – amazing. I miss the extended coverage Speed could provide that FS* doesn’t. They’re constantly overbooked it seems. Yesterday the beginning of Truck qualifying due to a baseball game which hadn’t concluded. The scroll indicated it was being shown in FOX Sports Go. I’m not sure of the value of that – tried to figure out Fox Sports Go – couldn’t – moved on. That was a few years ago. Now when I see that scroll it means ‘you can’t see it’, so its the equivalent of then simply not airing it. I’m getting a late start on my race day. I don’t enjoy the televised pre-race shows anymore since the folks on the desk tend to be incredibly aggravating and boring so I was watching some fun recorded stuff and forgot about the race until just before the green flag. Oops! I find that to be a bad thing. I have been a devoted fan. I watched the Speed coverage – usually all of it. Now I tend to often forget to watch or choose not to watch. It feels as though I no longer matter as a fan to NASCAR and the alienation is leading to less affection. The stages are 60-60-80 today. Continue reading “2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Race Fifteen Michigan”