This week’s pit stall selection order was determined by last week’s qualifying order as the Cup series qualifies and races on the same day for the first time in 45 years according to Rick Allen. Too much babbling on tv right now, time to turn on MRN. You know I don’t know if its the speed, or tone of the talk on tv that results in the babbling sensation or a combination of both. Of course, radio has a reason to speak everything they see. Television doesn’t. The majority of the audience can see what’s happening on tv, so everything little thing should not get narrated. The major action, sure, but the announcers should bring us what we can’t see sometimes – like what’s going on inside the car or inside the driver’s head – instead of stating the obvious. Most of the MRN guys have broadcast voices – on-air vocal presentations – that lend an air of authority, veracity, and professionalism to their utterings. They sound like grown men, adults, who have not spent the morning chasing 5-hour Energy with Monster, Red Bull and expresso. Letarte seems to be trying to say everything that ‘shiny-squirrels’ across his mind and ends up stammering and stumbling. At least I believe him to be an honest person and therefore attribute his stammering and stumbling to that reason. In the case of Kyle Petty and Dale Jarrett the same behaviour brings up questions of veracity. I rarely believe a thing out of either of their mouths. Far too often their personal issues and grievances are on display and directed against those of whom they are envious. They spew ‘Hatorade’ and provide zero insight into 2017 NASCAR Cup racing and racers. We get a bellyful of “I’m here because I’m the son of a great driver with whom I could not contend”. Jeff Burton sounds as though he’s having an ongoing argument with someone and has become aggravated in the process of winning said argument. Now I know that Burton and Letarte are not veteran broadcasters. That said, I do expect them, under the circumstances, to do like Nicole Briscoe and learn the job and improve their performance every time they are on-air. Rusty Wallace, Ned Jarrett, and Buddy Baker were also not professional broadcasters, but you can\/could hear their work in that area in their on-air performances. None of them were blessed with a ‘Rick Allen’ voice, but they were able to convert the less-than optimal broadcast potential, into professional vocal stylings. It’s something Larry McReynolds have never managed. I expect more from both Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte. I have faith that both can become legit broadcast professionals. And I hope they don’t become the overwrought, screaming variety of tv talking heads. Lately it seems Chris Berman’s lack of talent and inexplicable\/lucky success has led folks to believe shouting indicates and generates excitement. I find constant shouting leaves me ignoring the announcer. The story of the boy who cried wolf is a timeless tale which illustrates that particular cause and effect. Stepping off my soapbox concerning the in inadequate on-air folks.<\/p>\n
Kyle Busch has the pole for the second week in a row and the fifth time this season.<\/p>\n
They’re showing, again, the encounter on pit road between Adam Stevens and couple of Truex’s crew members from last week. We didn’t actually get to see it last weekend, but since action has been taken against the crewmen, we’ve seen it a lot over the past couple days. The story goes that Adam was walking to the garage and as he passed the 78 box one of the crewmen was clapping following Truex accidentally taking himself and KyBu out of the race in a wreck. Adam Stevens stepped over to confront the guy. Words were exchanged and another crewman felt the need to step over and into the fray, grabbing Adam Stevens and repositioning him. JGR suspended the crewman. Barney Visser released a statement that since JGR trains and manages the crew of the 78 he supported JGR’s decision. I don’t know of any corporation that will allow a managee to publicly get in the face of a manager, lay hands on the manager, scream profanities at the manager and shout insubordination at the manager. In my experience one of those actions would be cause for punishment. The collected actions would leave the guy in charge no choice but to mete out harsh penalties in almost any workplace. Contrary to what NASCAR would like to portray – what most professional sports outfits would like to imply – professional sports organizations and participants are corporate entities that follow typical corporate culture and policies. Joe Gibbs frequently touts his corporate partners and the number of his employees. He rarely misses an opportunity to talk about his corporation and their corporate ties. When KyBu decided to take a corporate gift for a very speedy test drive<\/a> the results were corporate punishment. I don’t remember any surprise or outrage on the part of anyone in that incident. For some reason though it seems that people are surprised that the crew guys, captured on video breaking all the rules of protocol for interactions with a manager of their company, were suspended for behaving badly. Then again, Donald Trump is the current resident of the White House. Unacceptable\/embarrassing behaviour is apparently ‘in’ right now.<\/p>\n Hmmm, seems as though soapboxes are ‘in’ for me right now.<\/p>\n Congrats to Ryan Preece on his first NASCAR Xfinity series pole and win yesterday at Iowa. Talk about making the best of limited opportunities; Ryan was allotted two races this season for JGR. He reportedly turned down other opportunities for these rides. He performed admirably finishing second in his first race in the JGR car and winning this one. Ryan Preece took the checkered flag in the nineteenth race of the Xfinity series season. Congrats also to JJ Yeley on his sixth place finish. JJ drives for TriStar Motorsports who’s founder, Mark Smith, died last Sunday from cancer.<\/p>\n Hmm, 38 cars in the field. As the season continues, the field dwindles. I miss the days of go or go home qualifying with three or more cars missing the 43 car field. Qualifying was more exciting back. Single car qualifying allowed the focus to be on every car that qualified – so every sponsor, and cars with a lack thereof, had tv time and it sometimes seemed a miracle was possible.<\/p>\n Seeing the replay of the Adam Stevens thing again I notice one of his guys steps over to the fracas. Adam gives him a lot – and possibly a word – and he simply stands there, not interfering. When the confrontation is ended, he walks away with Adam. The guy who was most on camera yapping did not appear to initially be involved in the situation at all, as Adam was talking to another crewman, who had his say and turned his back to Adam. The second crewman stepped over and grabbed Adams arms. He had to know better – had to – unless this is his first real job.<\/p>\n Caution on lap 1 for a multi-vehicle wreck that includes Aric ‘Afterburner’ Almirola, Austin ‘Frankenstein’ Dillon, Danica ‘Lil Dude’ Patrick, AJ ‘Ding Dong’ Allmendinger, Chris Buescher, Matt ‘Matti D’ DiBenedetto, Matt Kenseth, Michael McDowell and Paul Menard who tapped teammate Dillon’s rear-end when Frankenstein checked up. Afterburner is out headed to the infield care center. Matt Kenseth got loose and spun, bumped Jimmie Johnson a little, and the wreck occurred behind them. Eight cars officially involved. Kenseth and McDowell’s teams are saying they didn’t get much damage.<\/p>\n Restarting on lap 6 of 160.<\/p>\n It’s funny when they ask drivers what happened in an incident, they always say they don’t know until they see the replay, yet for some unknown reason the tv broadcast insists on spending way too much time showing us their view of the race. I don’t understand how it isn’t obvious that if the drivers can’t see the race from the car, the viewer also can’t see ‘what we want to know’ from the same viewpoint. This obsession with in-car views is inexplicable to me. Apparently I called it up, as they say, since they’re now showing us some driver driving. There are very few things as boring as watching someone drive from the passenger seat when there’s action outside the car that could be viewed – if only the poor stuck passenger\/viewer had the opportunity. I can hardly wait for NASCAR to return to FOX – in spite of the aggravation of Larry McReynolds and Michael Waltrip and the shorter coverage. At least they have a better notion of how to shoot\/air\/broadcast a race and recognize the extreme limitations of the view from the cockpit.<\/p>\n Looks like the laps are 50-50-60 for this race.<\/p>\n KyBu wins stage one. Kenseth tried to ride out his pit stop and trap everybody down a lap, but while that didn’t work out, he will lead the field to the green for stage two since his pit stop was so late he could stay out at stage end.<\/p>\n Restarting on lap 55 of 160.<\/p>\n Caution is out on lap 56 for the 48 into the wall. Kasey Kahne got into his left rear.<\/p>\n Chadley is marching toward the garage.<\/p>\n Kenseth went 39 laps on the last run of stage one.<\/p>\n Restarting on lap 61 of 160.<\/p>\n Looks like Ryan ‘Son’ Blaney got a little front-end damage after bumping a bit with Erik ‘Da Brat’ Jones and is on pit road on lap 63. They have a tire rub and don’t want to chance it. They had a lug-nut hang on the previous pit stop putting them into that position near ‘Da Brat’.<\/p>\n Jimmie says “it was just a racing thing and he knows there was no way it was intentional.”<\/p>\n The 21 crew didn’t get the sheet-metal cleared, so he went back out and still had the rub and had to come in again losing a second lap on the field.<\/p>\n The second place car is five seconds behind the leader. That’s not a race, its a parade.<\/p>\n Caution for Kutey Kyle Larson losing the drive shaft on lap 70 of 160. It simply flew from under the back of the car.<\/p>\n Restarting on lap 73 of 160. Frankenstein and Jr stayed out on that pit stop and lead the field to green.<\/p>\n Maybe I figured it out. When the race is too boring to talk about they stick us with the more boring in-car view so we don’t notice how boring the on-track ‘lack of action’ is.<\/p>\n Kutey Kyle is back on track after repairs more than a dozen laps down.<\/p>\n Clint ‘Drunk Daddy’ Bowyer wins stage two.<\/p>\n Due to all the folks who did pit stops just before the stage end pit closure ten cars stayed out and Bowyer who won the race off pit road will start eleventh.<\/p>\n Restarting on lap 106 of 160. A number of penalties on those pit stops including Kasey Kahne, Ricky ‘Stinkhouse’ Stenhouse and others.<\/p>\n We’re down to seven laps in this parade they’re calling a race. This has been an astoundingly boring race. It seems tv is even more bored than I am since they keep coming up with various gimmicks instead of showing the track including Rutledge Wood standing somewhere babbling about something and Burton and Stevie standing beside a large monitor displaying a tweet. The race has to be mind numbing if looking at a picture of a screenshot of a tweet is more interesting than what is happening on track.<\/p>\n White flag is out – finally.<\/p>\n KyBu wins. Now maybe the media can talk about something else for a while.<\/p>\n Congrats to Clint Bowyer on a sixth place finish and to Daniel Suarez on a seventh place finish.<\/p>\n It’s hard for me to believe Pocono used to be one of my favorite races. Then again, there used to be racing. Now it feels as though Donald Trump decided to make Pocono great again and turned back the clock to the days when the races finished with only a few cars on the lead laps. While there were more cars on the lead lap, overall few were actually competitive with the 18 of Kyle ‘KyBu’ Busch.<\/p>\n NASCAR News:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n This week’s pit stall selection order was determined by last week’s qualifying order as the Cup series qualifies and races on the same day for the first time in 45 years according to Rick Allen. Too much babbling on tv right now, time to turn on MRN. You know I don’t know if its the … <\/p>\n\n
Next Race: Watkins Glen<\/h3>\n
GO 48!!!!<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"