The whos and the whats.....

Some recent musings about the goings-on in NASCAR:



- Why is Carl Edwards not suspended? The man almost kills a driver not once, but twice in the course of a season, and makes no bones about the fact that it was 100% intentional, yet all he gets docked is a few points in a series he’s not even running full time, and a few thousand bucks? Are you kidding me NASCAR? Where is the line? Does someone have to die in order for someone to be properly disciplined? Ok, don’t get me wrong. I love bumpin’ and rubbin’ as much as any guy. I grew up watching NASCAR in the 80s and 90s, I saw Dale Earnhardt at his best. Richmond in the 80s against Waltrip, Bristol in the 90s against Terry Labonte, I’ve seen him work. Those two examples are what I call rubbin’ and racin’. Neither driver was put in any true danger, and the result was nothing more than a few bruised egos and some harsh words. Flash forward to 2010, and you see Edwards taking out Keselowski at Atlanta, causing him to flip on his roof and land dangerously against the wall. Then flash forward to Gateway in the Nationwide Series, and here comes Edwards putting Keselowski in another precarious position, putting him perpendicular to the field (at speed no less), getting him broadsided by drivers who had no place else to go. That’s not rubbin’. That’s not racin’. That’s borderline attempted manslaughter, as Ryan Newman so eloquently put it. It’s one thing to bump a guy up a lane, or yes even spin him out harmlessly, in order to take the checkers. But to put a guy inches from death for no other reason than he rubbed you the wrong way the lap before, or in a race prior, that deserves a week or two off, and some stiff monetary penalties from NASCAR. Way to drop the ball again, France family.


- What ever happened to Bobby Labonte? I remember the late 90s when I was truly starting to get heavy into NASCAR after being a casual fan for the first part of my life, and the races always seemed to come down to Jeff Gordon, Jeff Burton, Mark Martin and Bobby Labonte. Those four drivers always seemed to be right there at the end, no matter the circumstances. It even culminated in a title for Big Bobby in 2000. But since then? Sure, Jeff Burton had a down period as well, where he went from constant title contender to also-ran. But the last couple years he’s picked things up back to where he’s a constant race contender. Mark Martin is the ageless wonder who just won’t go away no matter what. Jeff Gordon, well, he’s just Jeff Gordon, maybe not getting the W’s but he’s not having any shortage of top5s and 10s. But Bobby Labonte went from a top dawg, top driver in NASCAR to driving the #71 TaxSlayer.com Chevy part time, and just announced he’ll be taking over the #47 Toyota for JTG/Daugherty Racing from Marcos Ambrose. So what happened? I find it hard to believe he just suddenly lost his talent, or his drive to win. I always like to think once a driver loses one or both of those, he should just walk away (see: Kyle Petty 1995 and on….). I’m curious to see how he will do in the #47 as that has been proven by Ambrose on many occasion to be a decent, solid to 20 ride. Will Bobby show some promise and maybe get one last trip to victory lane, or will he fade into the sunlight as just another also-ran? I guess it’s just a wait and see.


- Kevin Conway is in line to win the Sprint Cup Rookie of the Year. Kevin. Conway. Just let that one settle in for a minute.


- Does anyone else find it hard to believe that a Ford has yet to reach victory lane this year? With a super-team like Roush out on the prowl, I find it hard to believe it myself. Chevy will always be top dawg in NASCAR for the fact that it always seems to be the most well represented manufacturer, regularly recording superior driver counts in the top 3 NASCAR series, therefore more wins and titles. However, up until the last decade, Ford has always been able to put out an equal product on the track, frequently winning just as many races as Chevy. In fact, through the history of NASCAR, Chevy only beats Ford in number of wins by just a shade under 70 (As of this writing, 661 for Chevy, 595 for Ford). This is a mere drop in the bucket in the history of racing. So whats the deal? Is it the new FR9 engine they debuted last month? I doubt that, as no wins have been lost because the new engine blew, and no one has complained about lack of horsepower to my knowledge. It shouldn’t be the car, since at this point we are racing Spec cars anyway with negligible differences. Hopefully soon I can examine this a little more in depth and see if I can figure it out, because I’m totally stumped.


- Kevin. Conway. Just saying.


- I read recently that Richard Petty may be losing his presence in the garage in 2011, with sponsorship hard to come by. Losing Kasey Kahne to Hendrick is a mighty blow. That’s a guy I’d love to build a team around. But when you surround him with the likes of “Dinger” and Elliott Sadler, it’s hard not to blame him for walking. But next year, Dinger isn’t signed. Sadler expressed a desire to not have to sue his owner in order to get a ride, so he’s out. The only driver that’s rumored to be coming to the crew is Marcos Ambrose, who is a decent #2 but no way would I ever market him as my top driver. My priority if I was Petty would be to sign Dinger ASAP, as my #2 driver, because he’s shown a ton of promise this year and a few times has been right there at the end. He could get a W this year, and in my eyes he will next year. Ambrose I would bring on as my #2a-#3 guy, because he’s got some good experience and can pull a good run out of his rear every now and again. But, who is out there to be the #1? Mark Martin is too old and still technically under contract with Hendrick, so don’t bother. Paul Menard is nothing more than sponsorship fluff since he’s just terrible. The only one that’s worth the while as a #1 would be Jamie McMurray. But with Jamie, DEI would be plain old stupid to let him go. Maybe someone will fall into their laps, but if a few deals don’t come to fruition, it is entirely possible that Richard Petty may not be in the garage area next season. And to that, I weap. The King is to NASCAR like John Madden is to the NFL. He’s almost as big a name as the sport itself, and to move on without him just doesn’t seem right. Good luck, Richard, I sure hope it all works out in the end and you have your team on the track next year!


- Ok. Seriously. Kevin Fucking Conway is the leading candidate for Rookie of the Year. How is anyone OK with this?????






Until next time……

Where’s Start ‘N’ Park?

Many of you have been wondering if we at Start ‘N’ Park made like our name, came out strong, then mailed it in for the check. True we’ve been a little quiet, but we’re cooking up some good items for you. But don’t be sad, I’ll touch on a few topics here now.

I can honestly say I did not get to watch most of the last race, so I couldn’t do any sort of recap that did it justice. I will say great run by Jamie McMurray and crew, and way to prove that Daytona 500 win wasn’t a fluke. It also reaffirmed that there is no real “Earnhardt” at Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing. Heck, I saw more of Felix Sabates that ghost owner Teresa Earnhardt. I don’t even associate that with being any remains of Dale Earnhardt Inc, and that’s sad because Dale Earnhardt built that into an empire just to have it crumble after he died. My proposal is that they just get rid of the “Earnhardt” in the name, Chip and Felix should just give Teresa a big check (like she needs another) and send her on her merry way.

Official, Bobby Labonte will drive the #47 Toyota next year for JTG Daugherty Racing next year. I like the move, the team has shown the ability to run up front. I believe I’m in the minority of people who thinks, if given a good car, Bobby Labonte can still race. Will he win? No, but I’m thinking he’ll collect a good number of top 10s next year. Well, he certainly can’t do any worse than this year. This all came to light because Marcos Ambrose. He took them as far as he could take them, and if the rumors are true, him heading to Richard Petty Motorsports, he’ll become the alpha dog. The best thing for RPM is to scale down to a two car team, maybe three if Paul Menard and his dad’s deep pockets want to stay. What’s the old motto? Less is more, and in racing that is the case. I think this team has stretched itself too thin the last few years just trying to keep four entries out there. Bring back AJ Allmendinger, maybe Menard and I stress maybe, and this could be a sleeper team out there.

With that in mind, unlike ESPN’s Marty Smith, I don’t believe Elliott Sadler has anything left in the tank. Not at the Cup level anyways. Here’s where I wish drivers who are almost too old would move down series, preferred the Camping World Truck Series. Best case is the dominate and win races, might not be paying the same as Cup, but at this point it shouldn’t be about the money. Remember when Mark Martin said he’d stop running Cup for the Trucks (ah, NASCAR's Brett Favre), then dominated the year before? That sort of thing. At what point is running at the back any fun? Bobby Hamilton showed that before he died, run the truck series and have fun. While re-reading this I realized I had gotten away from my original point of doing some Elliott Sadler bashing. Well, since pictures are worth a thousand words, here's a good one. And I thought he just looked goofy racing, I stand corrected.

You want to fix the Nationwide Series? Well, make it what it originally was, it’s own series! More stand alone races will discourage drivers from running both series. Any track that can’t get a Cup race should get the Nationwide and they should use that to reach all sorts of tracks, you know, like how it used to be?

I can understand if you just got stuck at the Sadler picture and can't stop laughing, but remember, you can always go back.

That sets me up for my last rant; Brian France wants to tinker with the Chase for the Cup again. During his reign he has done everything to appease casual fans and sponsors/people with money. All you have to do is go back to your core product to make ratings better, have people come out, and just produce something worth giving a crap about. I like NASCAR because it’s NOT football, baseball, hockey, or basketball. Stop trying to make it that way with this stupid playoff system. Ask the drivers what they like, everyone but Jimmie Johnson would say one point systems all year long. But alas, Brian France would rather line his already deep pockets but selling out the fans that made this sport what it is. Apparently he went through the same schooling as Teresa Earnhardt. Any irony in that he looks like a funeral director?

One last point, pending Verizon Wireless screwing up my order, I should have my brand new Droid X in the next few days. How does that benefit you? Well, there will be more posts and blogs because of it! Exciting, I know, and it will specifically be around Watkins Glen. Since I am going to the Saturday and Sunday festivities I plan on posting as much as I can to keep you all informed to what you’re missing. Joining me on the trip will be good friend Matt Bush (Jimmie Johnson fan), my father Kevin (Kevin Harvick fan), and an unnamed fourth person. So keep your eyes peeled for that in a few weeks, August 7th and 8th.

The GOAT Debate

Back in 2008 I was inspired to do the impossible. I set out to answer the unanswerable question, who is the greatest NASCAR driver of all time. At the time I was inspired by ESPN’s countdown of the “Greatest Driver In Motorsports,” and now some two years later I am re-inspired to have a go at it after thumbing through Terry Blount’s book The Blount Report: NASCAR’s most overrated and underrated. With that said, I was behind the eight ball to begin because of the fundamental flaw associated with a GOAT (greatest of all time) debate. There are many reasons why comparing different drivers, in this case, or other sports athletes is flawed and here’s a list of reasons in no particular order; schedule length, technology/money, and personal views.

Taking schedule length, for the Cup series before 1972 they ran as many as 62 races, which is about the equivalent of running one and three quarters seasons now a days. In other leagues, usually it has been an expanded schedule which causes problems, such as baseball’s home run record (performance enhancers aside), and more recently in football with undefeated seasons. Should one era of participants be penalized because of things out of their control? No, they shouldn’t, but records should then be taken with a grain of salt when analyzing them. Spoiler alert, my end all theory of picking the GOAT was drawn off of statistical analysis, which sounds more sophisticated than it was, but we’ll get into that soon enough.

Technology, well still talking general sports, training has gotten better, equipment used has gotten better and lighter, just think what Ty Cobb could do with the bats of today, or Pete Rose with the internet for all his gambling needs. In NASCAR the same is true, but the aspect I’m going to hit on is technology being more wide spread than in the early days. If you went to a race in the late 1960s and 1970s, odds were good that the winner’s name would end with Petty, Pearson, Allison, Yarborough, Baker, or Parsons. Arguments could be made for a few others, but that was it. Now, in 2010 the winner could be named Stewart, Gordon, Johnson, Hamlin, Busch, Edwards, Harvick, Burton, Bowyer, Kahne, Martin, and I could go on. Now there are teams that are dead even versus back then being across the board. With that, my third point, money is brought in because there is more money going around. Petty and Pearson dominated because they had sponsorships behind them, whereas the rest of the field had some here and there. Now, you just can’t compete without sponsorship (hint, hint, Robby Gordon). With more money influx, comes more technology, and thus closing the gap. The money/technology argument summarized is back then five or six drivers had to beat basically themselves where as now twenty or so drivers can win any race at any time.

Personal views is where most GOAT arguments lose steam, because you might just not want to debate with something that is set in their views. My first example of this is myself, who do I think is the greatest driver? Davey Allison, is he? No way, but why would I answer like that? Simple, growing up he was my favorite driver, I remember him dominating all the time, and winning. Obviously I’m not going to remember the crashes, the mid pack finishes, and all that. This was an extreme example, but I think we had a lot of that in 2001 after Dale Earnhardt died, that he was elevated to greatest driver because of the shock of what we lost. He’s up there, greatest? Well, not in my book and maybe not in my system, you’ll have to read on for that. Taking that outside the NASCAR bubble, this debate over the GOAT of other sports has this hurdle too. No Bulls fan will tell you Michael Jordan wasn’t the greatest, no Lakers fan will say that about Magic Johnson. Are they being objective? Maybe, they could probably rattle off some compelling stats, but there will always be that little bit that just pushes it up for you.

With that said, I’ll repose the question to myself. Who is the GOAT for NASCAR basing it on the statistics I know, the stories I’ve heard, and what my opinion is. No, not a shout out for Davey Allison here. My pick is David Pearson, and let me rattle off some numbers of my own such as 105 wins, 113 poles, 301 top 5s, 366 top 10s all in only 574 starts. What gets him over looked is that he only ran four full seasons. How many championships did he win during those four years? Three of them. With that track record I believe that had he raced full seasons for his entire career, he would be the “King of Stock Car Racing” or at least some sort of hierarchy of NASCAR. That didn’t happen, so we can only compare the statistics we do have which moves us into the calculation.

For the formula I am encompassing the three top NASCAR series (Sprint Cup, Nationwide Series, and Craftsman Truck). This allows modern drivers to gain up to 50 races a year, like in the old days. The formula I have created is broken down this way: if the driver won a Sprint Cup Series championship, he got 50 points per championship, a win in the series it is worth 30 points, a pole is worth 15 points, a top 5 earns 10 points, top 10 earns 5 points, for every start they get 1 point, and then the drivers’ winning percentage was multiplied by 3. For the Nationwide Series, I propose the use of the same format, except the points are 30, 15, 10, 6, 3, 1, and 2, respectively. For Craftsman Truck Series the values lower to 20, 10, 5, 3, 1, 1, and 1. Drivers were selected (because I did not want to go through every driver who has ever raced) based on three criteria. The first, was a championship in any one of the three series’. Obviously, there can be fluke wins (see Jody Ridley, Lake Speed, Greg Sacks, PP, etc), but it would be very rare to see a fluke season (Kurt Busch haters sit down, he did deserve it). If you are good enough for an entire season, you will be considered. The second criteria, was that the driver could have accumulated roughly 500 starts for the three series. This brought us Ricky Rudd, Dave Marcis, and Mark Martin to name a few. The last criteria, stipulated that the driver had to have had 15 or more victories across each series. That allowed Ryan Newman, Kyle Busch, and a few others to enter the debate.

Here’s the top 10:

1) Richard Petty – 18,489.51
2) David Pearson – 10,496.88
3) Mark Martin – 9,977.87
4) Bobby Allison – 9,977.44
5) Darrell Waltrip – 9,831.59
6) Dale Earnhardt – 9,722.65
7) Jeff Gordon – 9,360.55
8) Cale Yarborough – 8,380.44
9) Buck Baker – 7,111.22
10) Rusty Wallace – 6,877.23

So we see, I know nothing. King Richard got that name for a reason and the statistics back it up, despite what I try to do with them. Pearson being number two, can’t see anyone arguing that. Now, the dander will be raised with Mark Martin at number three. “How dare he make such a cruel formula! How does a driver with no championships get placed above those who have 1, 3, 4 and 7 titles!?” Simple, Mark has driven a lot of Cup races, Nationwide, and Truck races, oh and he’s won a good share of them. Greatest NASCAR driver, not just Cup is what I was going for, so by my parameters he’s up there. Allison and Waltrip fourth and fifth make sense, lots of starts, 84 wins a piece, and some championships. Earnhardt sixth was shocking to say the least, you’d think seven championships would have counted for something. But again, his Nationwide stats while good weren’t great, or I should say better than Martin’s. Gordon and Yarborough makes sense, each have similar number of titles and wins. Buck Baker in ninth, I guess he was better than I thought. And Rusty Wallace just squeaks in there.

When I updated this from 2008 some things came up that were interesting. Mark Martin went from 6th to 3rd now, five wins in 2009 didn’t hurt along with the extra starts. Jimmie Johnson was 33rd, adding two more titles and wins only jumped him to 21st. Twelve spots is good, but Kyle Busch went from 57th to 29th. Now could you say Johnson is better than Busch? Yeah, in cup he is, but Nationwide and Trucks, Kyle dominates. I might just do this again in a few years to see what else changes. Maybe we’ll get a new Greatest Driver? Probably not, the King has a hold on that he might never give up.

Running Diary - Sears Point 2010

Before Start ‘N’ Park became a reality, I sat down and did a running diary for the June 20, 2010 running of the Toyota/Save Mart 350 from Sears Point Raceway in Sonoma, CA. I was going to chuck it for being outdated, but then realized I can still post it.

2:51 pm – We’re here from the Rutgers Street headquarters where I’ll be joined by our special guest, my roommate Jeff for side commentary. According to the TV guide, coverage started at 2:00 pm. Note I waited 51 minutes before tuning in. It’s all the same stuff no matter the network, just a lot of blah blah blah. I long for the yester year coverage by ESPN where you heard from the pole winner, the championship leader, and one, maybe two, drivers. Now, like everything else, is a big production of nothing.

2:54 pm – I can’t wait to see what TNT shows are crammed down our throats throughout the coverage today.

2:54 pm – Jeff and I got something called a Garbage Plate earlier in the day. That’s a Styrofoam tray filled with a bottom layer of mac salad and French fries (home fries or baked beans also an option) then you put two cheeseburgers (or plain burger, hot dog, etc), cover in onions and meat sauce (or mustard), and apply Frank’s Red Hot liberally. Best thing ever created in Rochester, NY by far, well, other than me. I’m re-enjoying my plate as we speak. Pour Jeff housed his at the restaurant, sucker!

2:55 pm – I immediately regret not watching from 2:00 pm on. They just showed Lindsay Czarniak and she is looking fantastic today. Joining her right now is Kyle Petty and Larry McReynolds, and I’m sure they’re saying interesting things but I’m a bit distracted now…don’t show Larry! Go back to Lindsay!!!

2:56 pm – Is it me or does Phil Parsons sound like he was hit in the head or something?

2:56 pm – We get the picks of the race, Kyle says Jeff Gordon, Larry says Jeff Gordon, Lindsay says Marcos Ambrose, my pick is Tony Stewart (my dark horses being Ambrose, Robby Gordon, and Denny Hamlin), Jeff picks Carl Edwards.

2:57 pm – GEICO reminds us that Charlie Daniels is awesome.

2:58 pm – Looks like TNT is going all out with promos for Leverage and Memphis Beat. I want to not like Jason Lee because of this, but the man did do Mall Rats. (Final tally 6 commercials for Leverage and only 2 for Memphis Beat, this doesn’t count in race talking about them).

2:59 pm – Glad it only took TNT about ten years to figure out that AC/DC did a song called TNT that they can exploit in shameless self promotion.

3:00 pm – Finally the pre-race ceremonies start. Jeff comments on how all the drivers seem to have hot wives. I disagree, my favorite racing memories is seeing Jeremy “Say No To Drugs” Mayfield in victory lane at Pocono in 1998 for his first win. Maybe he can redeem himself and it was his sister, but that handsome women that kissed him after the race was pretty, yeah. Flash forward to 2000 and he wins twice, both times in victory circle a solid 8 looking chick.

3:02 pm – Robin Meade can’t sing, but Jeff and I approve, she is hot.

3:05 pm – Glad to see Mike O’Malley still getting work post GUTS and The Rick fame. If you don’t know what those two things are go onto youtube.com right now.

3:08 pm – Averages of the race I find to be a stupid statistic, you’re wasting your talents Larry!

3:13 pm – Calling the race is Adam Alexander, Wally Dallenbach, Jr., and Kyle Petty.

3:20 pm – When they show the pit reporters, Jeff asks “why do they have fire suits on?” Best I could come up with was to be cool like everyone else, you know, that and incase of fire.

3:21 pm – Jeff now complains about this broadcast being a real mast fest out there, I could not agree more.

3:22 pm – What is that thing? Oh it’s FINALLY the green flag!

3:24 pm – Jimmie Johnson leads the first lap as Denny Hamlin get knocked around like a pin ball out there.

3:30 pm – Ballsy move by Ambrose to overtake Kahne, he’s driving with purpose out there today.

3:35 pm – Johnson is up by four seconds, anyone else in the lead NASCAR would have been throwing debris cautions left and right to catch him up.

3:36 pm – Bowyer and McMurray get together, damage is on Kyle Busch, Sadler, and Allmendinger. Take that Kyle Busch!!! Adam Alexander keep shouting that it’s Harvick not Bowyer involved, the cars rears look similar, but that’s clearly Bowyer, shut up.

3:46 pm – McMurray’s day keeps getting better, spins out again.

3:47 pm – Jeff “ there’s your boy Newman” me “yeah, 9th place is good, but he’s not traditionally good at road course” Jeff “still plenty of time for him to f-ck up.” I hate that I agree with him.

3:48 pm – Newman passed by Montoya, and so it begins. The way they’re driving out there the winner might be the last car rolling.

3:52 pm – Johnson has a 2.8 second lead over Ambrose, he’s looking tough, almost robot like.

3:56 pm – TNT shows a replay of damage on Hamlin’s car, the footage quality is all grainy and just terrible. It was like watching the JFK assassination footage, did they run out of real cameras? What was that?

4:00 pm – Newman update, 13th place.

4:01 pm – Ambrose starts the green flag pit stops, I think it’s too early, should have gone to lap 30.

4:11 pm – Montoya just passed Jeff Gordon on pit road, I’m pretty sure he was speeding or Gordon should just retire now. Johnson’s crew gives him a 14.5 second pit stop. Remember in the early 90s when 17 seconds was amazing, and the average stop was 19-20 seconds? Ah, the good old days.

4:12 pm – Hamlin’s crew bangs on his damage, then for some reason the official pulls it back up. I find this humorous for some reason and that it might come back to get Hamlin.

4:14 pm – No penalty for Montoya, begin the texts to Greg that Gordon should retire.

4:15 pm – Ambrose is in front of Johnson, I guess the strategy worked…for now.

4:15 pm – The leader is Mattias Ekstrom, many are confused.

4:16 pm – The Last Airbender? Too easy, we’ll stay above the fart jokes on here.

4:18 pm – Johnson is all over Ambrose, those fresher ties are too much.

4:20 pm – Yep, Johnson takes the position but its not for the lead. Since some guy is in front, let’s go to commercial, the fans do care about not-Jimmie Johnsons up front, right?

4:24 pm – I don’t want to say I told you so, but I told you so. Come back from commercial and Hamlin’s hood is up on his windshield. I don’t know how he’s still driving, but remember? I said that official poking around would come back on him!

4:30 pm – Johnson leads by 2.3 seconds, surprised TNT can pull themselves away for a commercial. It’s only been about ten minutes.

4:36 pm – Second green flag stop for Ambrose, lap 53, I think this sets him up to be junk at the end of the race or close on fuel.

4:43 pm – Second caution, surprise! It’s PP’s number 66 crap car, yeah, PP’s crap car! Shocked he didn’t pull it in after the green flag, get his check, then hop a flight back to North Carolina.

4:47 pm – Adam Alexander is oddly excited to yell out that “Jimmie Johnson leads!” except on the TV they show Boris Said leading, could Adam have been mistake or secretly rooting for him? Jeff says “I think he’s got a hard on for Johnson.” That’s my roommate folks.

4:50 pm – Jeff “who the f-ck is David Ragan (running 5th at the time)?” Me “sucks” Jeff “will he mess up soon?” me “I’m shocked it hasn’t happened during this conversation.”

4:51 pm – Johnson starts 7th on the restart, let’s see how his car is in traffic. Said tries to take everyone out.

4:54 pm – Ragan gets spun by J. Gordon, I look like a genius. Now J. Gordon takes more of his anger out on Martin Truex, Jr. I like the strategy Gordon’s going for “if I can’t win, no one will win damn it!”

5:04 pm – After Keslowski loses it to bring out the caution, Ambrose leads them to green on lap 66…and everyone crashes! Best drivers in the world, ladies and gentlemen.

5:11 pm – After seeing the replay, Jeff does his best impression of Sam Hornish, Jr. on that, which was screaming “cannon ball!!!” and mashing the gas pedal.

5:14 pm – Leave it to PP to do an interview with the 25th place crew chief (Greg Biffle), really wanted to know what the 25th place guy had for strategy, found out they’re not going to pit and go to the end. Thanks for the insight, PP, you’re just the best!

5:16 pm – TNT is doing everything they can to jinx Johnson, I approve.

5:18 pm – Great interview with Martin Truex, Jr., some highlights “everyone’s an idiot” I nod in agreement. Upon being told that Gordon was sorry about slamming into him, Truex remarks “does it matter? We’re on the trailer and he’s going for the win, we’ll get him.” I like it! Someone get him a car now! I don’t want to lose the passion!

5:29 – Biffle pits! But PP I thought you just reported they’re going to the end? More top notch insight from PP! Maybe he can now report about how the car that’s leading has a better chance of winning than one that has retired from the race.
5:35 pm – Back to green finally, lap 70.

5:41 pm – I don’t like you Race Buddy, now leave me alone.

5:46 pm – I hate to say this but I like Johnson’s strategy, ride Ambrose’s tail until he messes up. Little intimidation factor and I think it’ll work on Ambrose.

5:48 pm – Johnson pits before Ambrose! This could be the race, I thought he was going to stay out? Shows why I’m watching from my apartment and not from a pit box.

5:49 pm – Ambrose pits, lap 80. Can he get out in front of Johnson will be the question; I think this will be the race too. Unless Gordon dumps some more people while trying to get to the front.

5:50 pm – He beat him! Ambrose got out in front of Johnson!

5:55 pm – Caution lap 85, Montoya turns Logano, I don’t like to see the caution but I do like seeing Logano spin. Will Joey’s dad go fight for his son’s honor against Montoya now?

6:02 pm – Six cars pit for tires, Johnson and Ambrose stay out. Call it now, there’s going to be another pile up upon going green again.

6:03 pm – And just like that Said over runs turn 1, comes back, three wide into the corner, Robby Gordon turns Keselowski, and Ambrose and Johnson get away.

6:10 pm – Not the pile up I predicted, but Ekstrom gets spun by Keselowski, then Edwards spins Gilliland.

6:15 pm – 16 laps to go, Ambrose leads still.

6:22 pm – Bowyer and Sadler spin, and Jeff Gordon adds another tally to cars spun.

6:26 pm – Caution, Keselowski and Yeley spin, 8 to go, Ambrose loses his 2 second lead.

6:28 pm – Robby Gordon is near the front, he needs a win, I bet he spins someone to try and get it.

6:29 pm – AMBROSE STOPS ON THE TRACK!!!! What is going on!?!?! NASCAR puts him back to 7th place, what an absolute brain fart! He was trying to save fuel when he didn’t need to! Johnson was just handed the race! This also moves up Robby Gordon to second place, please see last note.

6:35 pm – Johnson is cruising, Ambrose fighting his way back dumps Burton.

6:38 pm – Two laps to go, Johnson up by 2.4 seconds, Robby Gordon is doing a great job of holding up Harvick, flash backs to 2001 anyone?

6:40 pm – Johnson wins, followed by Robby Gordon, Harvick, Kahne, Jeff Gordon, and Ambrose.

I did say Johnson got a gift, but he did drive his tail off this race. Good interview with Ambrose, you really feel for the guy. He’ll bounce back and get one. Well this was fun time to take the remainder of my night and not think about work tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by!

Rapid Reaction: Chicagoland

Rapid Reaction to the LifeLock.com 400 from Chicagoland Speedway.

- The TNT coverage does not bother me personally. I have an Article planned to discuss the various networks that cover NASCAR (Fox, ESPN, Speed, and TNT). What does bother me is Phil Parsons. His driving career was annoying and now his pit reporting career is more annoying. Why? Because instead of ignoring him driving (as in not looking at race results from 30th on back), I’ve got to hear him during the races. Most of the time he provides information that shows no insight of someone on pit road but of someone watching the race on TV. I have no proof, but my theory is just before halfway he goes for a hot dog and soda break and keeps tabs on a TV in the infield. And what’s with the monotone voice? You’d think from listening to him he’s in line at the DMV and not in pit road during a race. That’s my take while looking past his start and park (thanks for the name idea) team that is undermining the integrity of NASCAR. Thus going forward he will simply be referred to as PP.

- I do support the use of hot females such as Lindsay Czarniak (TNT) and Nicole Briscoe (ESPN). Makes me want to actually watch the pre-race shows. Side note, if you’re reading this Lindsay you can reach me at MMetzger28@gmail.com, you should definitely send me a message.

- It was good to see Jimmie Johnson have some mental mistakes (missing pit road on a green flag pits stop) and have some bad luck (spun and then had a tire go down to brush the wall and lose two laps). He is human…or someone spilt water on him and it shorted his circuits.

- On lap 163, my boy PP pointed out that David Ragan needed a good run and was having it. My bet is on him fading and finishing between 25th and 35th. How good am I? He finished 12th, I guess I won’t give up my day job just yet.

- Jeff Gordon running upfront reminds me of how much I hated him in the ‘90s for winning so much. Then about two years ago my opinion flipped. I reviewed his stats and I wanted to him to do good again (win races and championships) so I can witness history. Jimmie Johnson’s domination doesn’t count as he’s on my hate list. Maybe in the coming years I’ll get over it and appreciate it as well….nah, screw Johnson. And yes, I know what I just said.

- Side jump to Nationwide, saw Danica Patrick had a 24th place finish and people were jumping up and down for her. Well get used to it, that’s about what she’ll do with more experience or not. She’s a good driver, not bad, but not great. Not to mention a ton of pressure on her so anything she does short of winning every weekend will be disappointment.

- And now a word from our sponsors…The ads for Sorcerer’s Apprentice painfully reminds me that Nicholas Cage should stop acting, or whatever it is you’d call what he does. Annoying at first those Aflac commercials with the duck I now enjoy. Now if they could only do a cross over where the Aflac Duck eats the GEICO lizard. What is annoying is those Ford commercials where the post the words to the script Dennis Leary is reading. We can hear you idiots, and if we didn’t I’m sure we’d have closed captioning. Ballsy too since I didn’t picture the Ford trucks demographic being people who can read. Finally, Coors Light reminds me that beer = good.

- 10:10 PM Greg says he’s a closet David Reutimann fan. It wasn’t what I expected him to be in the closet for, but close enough. On a serious note I would like to see him pull out a win tonight or sometime to get him out of the “Fluke Winners” list. Such notables as Casey Mears, Ron Bouchard, and PP himself.

- Wally Dallenbach, Jr. and Kyle Petty prove that bad drivers can be good at something. Somewhere Ward Burton and Loy Allen, Jr. are high fiving. Side note, I give Kyle credit, I thought he’d race forever like Morgan Shepherd, except in the Cup series and with his left blinker on. Side note number two, I got to watch in person Ward win the 2002 Daytona 500, or as historians would later call it, the worst Daytona 500 ever.

- What is Office Depot doing? It’s July! This is not the time for a back to school paint scheme!

- If Robby Gordon didn’t have bad luck, I’m pretty sure he’d have no luck at all. That’s what would cause one to slam into a parked car. A Robby fan, I did want Bill Elliott to try and throw down in fisticuffs with Robby. Robby’s scrappy, but I think Elliott would take him.

- Scott Speed’s one I’m pulling for to get consistent with his finishes, here again running 19th and spins coming into the pits.

- With four laps to go Kyle Petty does his best to yell “JINX” without saying it about David Reutimann leading. Was interesting to hear Wally Dallenbach, Jr. talk about winning, let me look up how many Cup wins he has….oh, nevermind.

- Our Top 10 and others of interest, David Reutimann (Greg’s closet boy), Carl Edwards, Jeff Gordon (Greg’s out of the closet boy), Clint Bowyer, Jamie McMurray, Kasey Kahne, Jeff Burton, Denny Hamlin, Tony Stewart, and Paul Menard. My boy Ryan Newman puttered home in 22nd and superstar Joe Nemechek shockingly finished 43rd.

- I approve on this win by David Reutimann, he’s not only a good driver but a good guy who deserved a break and got it from Michael Waltrip. Happy for the team too, they’ve come a long way in three years. Now Reutimann just needs one more win to elevate him from Derrike Cope status.

- The Sprint Cup Series might have a week off, but keep checking here for updates as we never have weeks off.

Intro Part Deux

Last night I quickly tossed out an opening post to this blog to tell you how this idea was conceived, and unlike myself, it didn’t involve Captain Morgan and the movie Top Gun. Now that you know that, let me go a little bit more into what you’ll see here. Here at Start ‘N’ Park we will provide you with three types of blog updates.

The first is something I call “Rapid Reaction.” This will be post-race or qualifying thoughts for all series, although the emphasis will be on the Cup series. The Truck series gets lost since I always forget what channel Speed is on my TV. Observations about the race, random thoughts about what’s going on, and even commenting on commercials will be found here, mostly posted during the race weekends.

The second is “Rants.” These will be non-sequitur sort rants about various topics that might come up in a given week. Be it from a news announcement, rumor that came up, or maybe Greg and I got into a heated debate in the break room. Mostly likely during the week you’ll see these bad boys pop up.

Finally, you will see “Articles.” This is defined as longer than rants and will feature actual research and use of big words. Time table on these is just as they come up, the goal being having one every few weeks.

Welcome to Start 'N' Park!

I just wanted to welcome you to an all new blogging experience! Start 'N' Park would founded in the later afternoon on July 9, 2010 by co-workers Michael Metzger and Greg Netherwood. These two dashing young men thought that they needed a forum to spout their opinions on their shared passion, NASCAR. “The world deserves to hear our views,” said Greg taking a long sip from his can of Mountain Dew, “and that’s what we’ll use Blogger for.” At the conclusion of the work day, the looks and brains of the operation Michael, went home and signed up the account and worked on this nifty little intro. There are many ideas being bounced around for blogging ideas, now that we have a site, its finding the time to get our thoughts to paper. Well, computer, you get the idea. So check back often to see what’s new!