car sponsorship.
Despite saying the fans would have a say about the dreaded 3 B’s being screamed and their voting resoundingly against it, DW uttered those dreaded words just before the drop of the green flag. I wonder what he’ll do if the fans vote against it again next year? While it was great to see Mike Joy back in the booth, it was the usual Fox-ed up coverage we’ve come to know and expect. Granted, it’s better than the current ESPN coverage, but it’s a far cry from the great coverage by ESPN of old and the old TNN coverage.
One person you had to feel sorry for was Mr. Happy. He was stuck in the Hollyweird Hotel with Myers and Hammond. And Fox didn’t do him any justice either with their camera positioning and seating angles. They made him look like he had a huge head as compared to the two Hollyweird regulars. If this is how they do their guests in the Hotel, then maybe folks should think twice about being guest there. The one thing that was good though was we didn’t have nearly as much of the Hotel as we usually do during the regular season.
When the green flag dropped and we heard the dreaded 3 B’s, it was pretty much a normal plate race. Side by side, nose to tail, from the first car to the last one. Some of the cars towards the rear of the field dropped back a bit as they progressed during the first segment in order to avoid The Big One. The Booth Buffoons were doing their usual cheerleading. First Mikey, then Jr., then the Hendrick cars. They did step out of line when they actually said something decent about Dave Blaney and how he was doing. But I think that was the results of him being in a Toyota and not really because he’s done a great job for them. After all, we know DW was bought and paid for by Toyota. They had to highlight Johnson and Gordon who were running together well back in the field saying they were having problems with engines, handling, etc. Funny how they didn’t show DJ or Bill Elliott who were running towards the back. But then, they’re not Chosen Ones either or favorites of the Fox Cheerleading Squad.
Lap 15 of the first segment brought out the first caution of the night when Awesome Bill had a right front tire blow out on him and he hit the wall. When the car finally came to a stop, they weren’t able to use a tow truck to get the car out of there and had to have the teams pit early so they could do some improvising to get the car off of the track. Of course, since it was a blown tire, Larry Mac was quick to blame the teams for the tire failing rather than the tire. God forbid we should have a Brand Sense client (owned by HRH) give the teams a shoddy product. Need to start the spin early on in the season despite there being a lot of tire problems during testing over the winter at Daytona.
During the 10 minute break between segments, several of the drivers said that they were going faster under race conditions than they had during any of the testing. If that’s the case, then why didn’t Badyear develop a better tire? They started in October according to the Booth Buffoons, so why are they having tire failures now? Oh, that’s right. Since Tony called them on the Ms Terry DeBris cautions, we have to have something to cause the cars to wreck, liven things up and manipulate the races.
Once things got rolling again after the break, we didn’t get very far into the second segment to get to Caution #2. Denny Hamlin and Jamie McMurray, who was having a decent run, got together and McMurray hit the wall, tearing up the side of his car. Since it took a while for pit road to open and the teams would have to do a pit stop anyways at some point during the second segment, this was a good opportunity for some teams to take advantage of it.
One thing that DW brought up was the revelation that part of the problem that drivers were having was the lack of vision they have out the rear window and not being able to see what was going on behind them. Uh DW, this was brought up when the Can of Tuna was first tested by the teams so it’s not anything new. Lack of vision means lack of safety for the drivers and we all know how concerned the Royal Family of Daytona is about the drivers. Plexiglas or Lexan is the answer for the lack of vision caused by the wing, but that would make sense and we can‘t have that now can we?
When the teams went to pit, Mikey missed his pit box and had to go around. DW was quick to make the excuse that it was because they had a break between the end of last season and the start of the new season. Mikey’s been racing for how long and can’t find his pit box on an empty pit road? We all make mistakes, but this mistake pretty much eliminated Mikey from any chance at a win. Self-inflicted loss with quick spin from the other co-owner of Motormouth Motorsports.
On Lap 7 of the second segment, they went back to green. There was the usual shuffling back and forth of positions in the freight train. Kahne got stuck in the middle and dropped back. Other drivers moved around up front. I thought DW was going to wet himself when Jr. got the lead. Thank heavens he didn’t call him June Bug. That’s worn itself pretty thin.
Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart were running side by side and running nose to tail during various points in the race and apparently the talking to that the Royal Henchmen had with both of them after the practice session incident seemed to have worked for now. Of course, the Commentating Clowns had to try to spin that incident into one of a great rivalry like Petty and Pearson. At some point, Busch’s left rear made contact with Gilliland’s right front and this would eventually lead us to Caution #3 when Gilliland’s right front tire blew out. He smacked the wall and Biffle, Kahne, and Truex Jr. got collected in the process.
Caution #4 came out when Kurt Busch had a tire going down and he spun. He made a great save in the process. JJ Yeley and Mark Martin got together in the process of avoiding Busch. When they pitted, Mark apologized to his crew, which is a pretty decent thing to do.
Once they started up again, Jr. had the lead and you could almost hear DW’s pants getting sticky. One comment out of the Booth Buffoons was that Jr. was under a lot of pressure to win this race. By whom is what I want to know? His sponsor? His team owner? The Emperor of All Things NA$CAR? I guess if he didn’t win, he’d be blamed for something that went wrong at some point in the new season like lack of souvenir sales or falling TV ratings like happened at the end of last season. So let’s have a hypothetical situation here. Jr. wins a couple of races this year. Attendance and souvenir sales are still way off and the ratings continue their double-digit decline. Will he be blamed once again for all of NA$CAR’s woes? No need to respond. Just think about it, write down your thoughts, and look at them at the end of the year if His Majesty plays the blame game again over a dismal season.
After getting a good push from Jimmie Johnson, Jr. was able to keep himself up front and get the win. Once he was across the finish line, the Commentating Clowns pronounced the Camry of Tomorrow a resounding success and the whole spiel about how King Brian had stuck to his guns, yada, yada, yada. Obviously they didn’t watch the same races we did last year where the Camry of Tomorrow gave us the most boring races of the season. So you have to ask. If somebody who wasn’t a Chosen One had won the Shoot-Out, would we still have the Car of Turmoil being pronounced a success? You bet we would. On the Victory Lane show, they used the same words and description to describe the “success” of the car. It was scripted folks. Despite all the hype we’ve been hearing since they hatched this hair-brained scheme, it still doesn’t do what it’s supposed to and doesn’t deliver the way the hype says it will. Expect more of a snooze-fest than usual at Fontana.
During part of the wrap-up, DW was quick to add some more spin about Mikey and pronounced his efforts as being a win despite his finishing position. I guess it would be considering how many races he didn’t make last season and the poor finishes of the ones he did make. Must be nice to have your own spin-meister in the announcing booth at no cost to yourself. It’s going to be a long season with Fox coverage even though it‘s better than ESPN.
With the bulk of the primaries behind us, I looked
at some of the slogans of the candidates. One
was talking about Solutions for America, so I
looked around the house. I have antiseptic
solutions, carpet cleaning solutions, and
disinfecting solutions. So which ones are we
looking at here? Another one talked about
Change We Can Believe In. Well, I checked out
the change in my pocket and believe I had
enough to buy a pack of chewing gum after
paying my taxes this year. Slogans and political
promises don’t mean anything folks. Once the
primaries are over, take a good, long, hard look
at whoever your party affiliation is backing for
President. Check out their qualifications, voting records, political promises, pork barrel spending records, if they take money from special interest groups or PAC’s, and see if you really want them in the White House running our country. It’s our country and we deserve to have someone in the White House who will truly represent the people and not Corporate America or special interests groups.
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