So the Super Bowl is history – mundo congrats to Peyton Manning becoming the winningest quarterback in history and the oldest Super Bowl winning quarterback and the comeback kid. So, normally, my mind would immediately turn to NASCAR. Didn’t happen. I hadn’t really thought much about the restart of racing until I was checking the list of recordings on my DVR looking for things to cull when much to my surprise I saw Sprint Cup practice. Does NASCAR need more coverage or does it need more talent?<\/p>\n
I tend to avoid those daily NASCAR shows. Danielle HOT-TO-TROTta is a hot mess and apparently incapable of learning to do this job she was so thoroughly untrained and unprepared for which leaves Race Hub unwatchable.<\/p>\n
Occasionally I’ve tried out the show on NBC and found it as varied in quality as it is varied in hosts. There’s a definite talent issue there – obviously since they hired Petty Kyle. The shows seem unfocused and tentative overall, though there is a woman who works the desk for NBC that’s not bad, and Parker Kligerman seems to be growing into a pretty good analyst. There’s hope for that one, but the growing pains are rather painful to view.<\/p>\n
Brian Vickers and Ty Dillon are subbing for Tony Stewart. I just found out Smoke got injured on January 31st and has a burst fracture. Whoa! Who know Vickers had medical clearance. Poor Smoke. His last year and he’s out with an injury at the start of it. I’d hoped he could go out on top like Jeff Gordon.<\/p>\n
The Jeff Gordon ‘Through the Years’ promo is cute. I’m glad they’re giving him a nice push.<\/p>\n
Danica – new crew chief – new sponsor – now, if that team had a new driver it might be able to get a win.<\/p>\n
Kenny Wallace is everywhere doing the intrepid reporter thing. Interesting. I guess Kenny has decided to seriously pursue a career as a broadcaster. He’s always seemed to enjoy his tv time, but I didn’t think he aspired to a career as a reporter. Well he does love to talk and he might be under the mistaken impression – as too many are these days – that talking is the main qualification for a good reporter. I wish him luck. He doesn’t have stiff competition for the best reporter on FS1, so he should move up the ranks quickly.<\/p>\n
What’s up with Wally and the scruff. I’m not digging it. It makes him look old and a bit like a mad scientist – not a good look for him. I’m glad to see Wally though. Hammond is Hammond – glad he’s in the house.<\/p>\n
Now, if we could grab Nicole Briscoe and Bestie for the desk, things would improve greatly at FS1. I love Mike Joy, DW and hope Big Daddy does well in the booth. Their booth talent is good – much improved with the addition of Jeff Gordon and the removal of Larry McReynolds. Now they need talent on the desk. The woman they have in the post-race show may be ready for the desk one day, but she isn’t yet. Nicole Briscoe and Allen Bestwick are great and it would be a big win to have them on the desk. Also I’m missing Marty Smith. He and Dr. Jerry Punch are two of the finest NASCAR reporters alive today. Seems like most of the talent departed with the SPEED Channel and NASCAR’s move from ABC.<\/p>\n
I need to find a reliable, watchable source for televised NASCAR news. I’m out of the loop.<\/p>\n
Jimmie is leading the field to the green, since Chad drew the pole position for this race.<\/p>\n
Vickers is trying to shoot the gap, up the middle, but the gap keeps closing and he’s almost caused at least two wrecks so far and we’re only on lap 10.<\/p>\n
Caution is out on lap 13 of 75 for a spin by Ricky Stenhouse. ‘It’ was leading, but the car is overheating and blowing water like mad. Denny Hamlin was hanging at the back, likely to avoid trouble, and Stinkhouse was back there with him, and hit him during the spin. He’s got some right side damage. Keselowski had some plastic on the grill of his car that apparently caused the overheating. He’d dropped out of the lead to try to get behind someone to clean the grill, then the caution came out for the Stinkhouse spin.<\/p>\n
The 17 of Ricky Stenhouse cut a right read tire and did some damage to the rear of the car when it came apart.<\/p>\n
There’s a mandated caution at lap 25.<\/p>\n
The 14 hit the wall hard, driver’s side, on lap 23. KHarv (Kevin Harvick) got some of that, Biffle (Greg “Mr Awesome” Biffle), and Bowyer (Clint “Drunk Daddy” Bowyer) also got some of it. Dale Earnhardt Jr got some of it. Vickers’ (Brian Vickers) right rear tire went and he went into Dale Jr’s 88 and tore a lot of the right side off. The car then spun backward and slammed into the wall driver’s side first. When it bounced back down the track Clint Bowyer in the 15 for H. Scott Racing caught a piece of it.<\/p>\n
It appears KuBu (Kurt Busch) and Dingdong (A.J. Allmendinger) got some damage in that also.<\/p>\n
Vickers and Bowyers were towed to the garage and are out of the race. Happy Harvick drove to the garage and is out.<\/p>\n
It’s been a relief to mostly NOT have to listen to Larry McReynolds yelling – unfortunately they have gone to him a couple of times interrupting the relief.<\/p>\n
Those pit stops counted as the mandated pit stop.<\/p>\n
‘It’ is back at the front and has picked up more debris.<\/p>\n
Caution is out on lap 44 for a spin by the 48. He went into the grass and tore the car up, ripping off lots of stuff on the front of the car. He’s going to take it to the garage.<\/p>\n
Jimmie said the hole was closing and he backed out of it, but got a shove from behind (“Kutey” Kyle Larson) and he just tried to keep from causing a big one.<\/p>\n
We have two perfectly fine folks in the booth, why is Mike Joy forced to keep talking to McDumdum? STOP IT!!! we have enough folks in the booth to talk to each other – we don’t need to keep going the D team.<\/p>\n
Caution is out on lap 56 for Jamie pushing Kasey around and turning him into AJ Allmendinger. Jamie said it was 100% his fault – he was trying to give him a push. It looks like Kasey got a little bit of Newman in the 31.<\/p>\n
Caution is out with 10 laps to go. Kasey Kahne was running in the back of the field and went up in smoke. Kasey headed to the garage.<\/p>\n
New overtime rules for 2016 – if a restart occurs with two or less laps to go. There’s a line on the back straightaway, if they reach that line under green then the next flag ends the race. We now have unlimited restart attempts until that leader passes that line cleanly, so fuel mileage could become an issue. Of course, this is in reaction to the debacle at Talladega last year.<\/p>\n
With three to go there’s a big one after KuBu hit the wall. Something happened at the front end of the field as we were watching KuBu at the back end of the field. Looks like Aric “Afterburner” Almirola, Carl Edwards, Casey Mears, Kyle “KyBu” Busch, Keselowski got it in the back, Austin Dillon possibly got some. Looked like Carl went up in front of ‘It’ and wasn’t quite clear which got him turned into the wall. It appeared Casey got into the back of ‘It’ possibly causing him to be unable to back off Carl – possibly.<\/p>\n
Another wreck at the tail end of the line, – caution is out and its over since they got to the line before the caution came out so he wins the race as they cross the start-finish line under caution.<\/p>\n
78 – Martin Truex, 20 – Matt Kenseth, 1 – Jamie McMurray, 2 – Brad Keselowski, 10 – Danica Patrick, all involved in the wreck at the end.<\/p>\n
The skid marks where Denny did his burn out were smoking after he drove off.<\/p>\n
In NASCAR news this week:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n So the Super Bowl is history – mundo congrats to Peyton Manning becoming the winningest quarterback in history and the oldest Super Bowl winning quarterback and the comeback kid. So, normally, my mind would immediately turn to NASCAR. Didn’t happen. I hadn’t really thought much about the restart of racing until I was checking the … <\/p>\n\n
Next Race: Daytona<\/h3>\n
GO 48!!!!<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"