Holy crap....we still exist?

Ok, so I admit. I have been out of the NASCAR scene for probably 3 months now. Once Jimmie Johnson crapped out....I mean, capped off another title for Chad “I rape the Gray Area of the rule book like I'm Ben Roethlisberger” Knaus and the rest of the Hendrick organization, I decided I would take a little break from the Left Turn Legion that is NASCAR to focus on real life things that are far more important. Like video games. And brazilian fart fetish porn. No, seriously. Google that. Wait....on second thought, don't. However, I haven't totally been out of touch with things, and a few tidbits have somehow filtered through the cheesecloth to my ever-wanting ears. And I would like to take my literary talents to South Beach for you loyal S'n'P readers, and wax poetic about what I deem to be note worthy.

First, I'll get this out of the way right now. How hard up for cash is Joe Nemechek and the Nemco racing team? I actually considered a Freedom of Information Act request on his tax filings to find out. There is a pure and simple reason I ask this question. For that I point you here.

Now, before I go on, I'd like to point out that I am 100% sure that Kevin Freakin' Conway is a fine, upstanding American citizen (unlike that Barrack guy from Kenya....whats his name again?). He surely pays his taxes on time, saves many a kitten from burning trees, and assuredly helps lovely geriatric ladies cross busy streets. He's probably even an Eagle Scout.

But, of all things he is, a race car driver is not one of them. The guy couldn't win a foot race against a one legged man. He couldn't crack the top-5 in a go-kart race if there were only 3 other drivers. If this sport didn't rely so very much on the almighty dollar, there isn't an owner in NASCAR who would give this undeserved Rookie of the Year a spot on their clean-up crew yet alone a full time ride. Two former teams are suing him, and his tag-along sponsor, for petes sake! The only reason he's got a ride with Nemco is because Front Row Joe couldn't get a sponsor for a bowling team, yet alone a NASCAR team. So he had to run with the easy money, by bringing on a driver who had readilly available sponsorship. Since no one in their right mind who had a cent to their name would hire Kevin Freakin' Conway, he was open for Joe. Poor, poor Joe. I see only bad things in the future, in the way of either torn up cars, or Joe getting stiffed by Conways' sponsor, Extenze (hah! Get it? Stiffed by Extenze?). I'm calling it now. This one ends in a courtroom by the first Talladega race of 2011.

Ok. There. Now that I got that out of the way, I can move on to more pressing matters. I'll hopefully never have to revisit this Kevin Freakin' Conway thing ever again.

I'm also starting to see that Brian France is a complete idiot. If this wasn't obvious before, I'd like to just make it obvious now. Let me run down a few things that since this blunderfuck (sorry, I hate to swear but it's needed here) has taken point of the RMS Titanic....er.....NASCAR, the body has gone from one of the rising sports in the world to a slowly and sometimes rapidly sinking ship. This is where Brian could learn from other sports in a good way.

Let me first state here why I truly believe Brian France is the wrong man for this job. Outside of the obvious fact that he isn't his daddy (which is truly a shame, that man was a God amongst mortal men), he has a tendency to react quickly. Some might say “But if you don't react quickly, a problem can grow out of control to a point of ruin!” Yes, this is entirely true, if what you're reacting to is a problem to begin with. But most of what he keeps going after was never a problem to begin with!

What he seems to keep doing is knee jerk reactions, rather than calculated moves. This is causing the product that is NASCAR to be completely dragged behind the bus. The biggest example is the Chase itself. The Chase was conceived, partially, in the back of a dilapidated wagon behind the Shur-Fine as a product of a late night drunken grope fest and a broken prophelactic. That, and the fact that Matt Kenseth won the Cup title on the strength of one win on the season. To me, I don't find fault in that. Matt was a consistent force to be reckoned with that season. Sure, he only had 1 win to show for it, but the Cup isn't for the guy that wins the most races. See Bill Elliott, Rusty Wallace, Darrell Waltrip amongst others, that lost out on Cups despite winning the most races in the season, sometimes far and away over other competitors. The Cup should go to the guy that, over the course of a season, shows that he and his team are at the top of their game, and have the best SEASON. Not the best 10 race stretch. If that was the case, why not give Jeff Gordon another cup or two for winning 4 races in a row back in the mid 90's? Or throw another one Dale Sr's way, since I'm sure at some point he had a 10 race string that he utterly dominated just as well.

Texas Terry won a cup on the strength of a hard faught, top notch season that still only generated 2 wins. Is that now cheapened because we deemed Kenseths 1 win title season a reason to start the Chase? Examples abound.

France seems to think that any time any criticism comes about towards NASCAR, it is time for a change. But what he doesn't seem to understand is that sometimes, markets undergo a self correction. Sure Kenseth won a title with a single win season. However that is just an exception to the rule! 99 times out of a 100, the best guy will still creap to the top of the pile. It's the nature of things that occasionally, one will squeak through that may not be the fastest, may not be the strongest, but he's still going to be there at the end to take the title. That single time out of 100 is not reason to completely wipe the slate clean and start anew with this.....playoff....thing. If Kenseth won a handful of titles in a row, despite only getting a single win each season, then sure. Time for change may be here. But I assure you that would never have happened, and never will now. Reaction for the sake of reaction is causing havoc.

One thing that has always stuck in my craw about France is his usual rhetoric about wanting to be more “like the stick 'n ball sports”. I just have one thing to say to that. Brian.....do you even know what you're watching when you attend a race? Do you see drivers out there swinging bats or sticks? Do you see them throwing a ball or slapping a puck? Is there a hoop or a goal or a net somewhere out on the track that I don't see? No. You know why? Because this is Auto Racing. NASCAR is not played with a stick. It is not played with a ball. You know what it's played with? 43 men (and/or women) putting their lives on the line in 800hp cages of death with wheels, driving hundreds of miles for the chance at glory and a trophy. Where in that description do you see “stick and ball”? Stop trying to be like sports you are not, and go back to being the sport you were.

Greatness is still attainable, Mr. France. At this point, though, it's turning into a canker sore. Just like that canker sore, the more you play with it with your tongue, the worse it is going to get. If you just leave it alone, it will heal itself over time. This is what NASCAR can do. Leave it alone, and let it be, and it has a chance at becoming what it was in the 90s. Keep toying with it, and you're going to be left with 20-something tracks empty, and ratings lower than Keenan & Kel reruns on Tuesday nights.

Or better yet, just go away.

(apologies for no pictures or graphics, Blogspot is playing games with my browser and wont let me add them without crashing! I'll be better next time.)

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……