clamor for. He serves up hype, rock stars, rampant commercialism, and greed rather than high speed daredevils on the track that the fans want to see actually race and do battle with each other. Luckily for Faux King Brian, he cannot be overthrown and beheaded by the fans although I‘m sure there are probably some fans out there who would want to. However, the race fans have resorted to their own methods of “beheading” him by not going to the track, not buying food and beverages at the concession stands, not buying souvenirs, not listening on the radio, and not watching on TV. It’s just a matter of time before the “ax” falls and Faux King Brian is effectively “beheaded”.
Now, a little more pleasant history. Fireball Roberts use to be a duck hunter and rather than using a dog to retrieve the ducks he shot, he had his wife Doris retrieve them. One time when Fireball, Tiny Lund, and Doris went out duck hunting, Doris was hit on the head by a duck that Fireball had shot. When Doris told Fireball she had been hit in the head by the duck, Fireball told her not to let it get away. She kept trying to grab the duck and her waders filled up with water. Tiny felt sorry for Doris and loaned Fireball enough money to get a puppy. When they got it home, Tiny was excited about it but Doris thought they had a half-grown pony. It turns out that the pup was a Golden Retriever that they named Rusty. From that day forth, Doris no longer had to retrieve the ducks. My thanks to Wanda Lund for that bit of history.
Here’s an interesting Twitter from Jenna Fryer to Jeff Gluck: @jeff_gluck way to get him fined, gluck. That’s in reference to Denny Hamlin’s Double Secret Probation Fine. So now we know who let the cat out of the bag. And it appears that Claire B. Lang blasted him on Sirius radio for doing that too. I’d say he’s going to be having some problems with “peer pressure” for a while.
SMI reports that a 56% drop in attendance, a part of an overall drop of 16.7% in admission money versus last year. Part of the revenue losses also comes from the reduced price on some tickets. Hmmm, I wonder how big of a drop that is since Faux King Brian took over? I know I’ve been seeing empty seats at Charlotte since His Highness took over and there seems to be a definite connection between the two.
And speaking of SMI tracks, Atlanta lost one of its race dates, probably to Kentucky, depending on how the dates are shuffled up next season. That means that the Vegas date is still to be determined. The announcement about Kentucky will be sometime this week. Sad to see Atlanta losing that second date. Too bad the I$C tracks aren’t being held to the same standards of losing a date for not selling out. That would mean that Daytona would lose a date. But we know Daytona isn’t going to lose a date even if the only people at the track are the teams and the cleaning crews.
And it seems that the “most exciting track” on the schedule, Fontana, is losing a date to Joliet so they can have a date in the play-offs. Just what we fans wanted to see. A boring, clone track designed for Indy cars being replaced by a boring cookie cutter track designed for, well, let’s face it, lining NA$CAR and I$C’s pockets. It sure wasn’t designed for racing real stock cars or providing exciting racing like Martinsville, the Rock, Darlington, North Wilkesboro, or the old Bristol were.
Why do some of these lamestream media people keep saying “Insert Driver Name Here won Happy Hour”? There’s no race, no points, and no prize money given out. And drivers don’t win at Qualifying. You have the fastest qualifier who sits on the pole position. It’s like they’re, once again, trying to make a story where there is none.
"NASCAR has become the leader in the industry when it comes to safety, and it's because they've been very, very, very proactive in order to make it better," -The Mayor
If NA$CAR is so pro-active when it comes to safety Mayor McCheese, why don’t they have a traveling safety and medical crew like real racing series have had for decades? Why are Tony Roper, Adam Petty, Kenny Irwin Jr., and Dale Sr. dead? Why are the same safety problems that existed 20 years ago at Pocono still existing today? NA$CAR’s history on safety has always been re-active rather than pro-active. It took Fireball Roberts death to get the fire suits and fuel cells made mandatory even though the technology existed for years. Inner liners for racing tires were being tested back in the early 60’s and didn’t get instituted until much later. The full-face helmet was around for quite a while before it became mandatory. The HANS device was mandatory for a number of years in other racing series before it became part of NA$CAR’s safety program. The seat belt harness system had been around for a while before it was mandated to replace the standard lap belts in the mid to late 60‘s. So please, save the brown-nosing comments to curry favor with the Beach Boy Bubbas and the Kool Aid drinking media folks who aren’t smart enough to know better.
Hello? Your Highness? If the NY Times is seeing that there are problems, and we know how you want to be in NYC, then maybe it’s time you started working on the real problems instead of continuing to put lipstick on the pig called NA$CAR.
Frank brought up an interesting point with the engine that’s going to be run in Lola LMP2 car in the American Le Mans Series (ALMS). It’s a Ford V-6 EcoBoost engine that’s being handled by Roush-Yates. The EcoBoost engine is a production-line engine. Anyone can go buy one, unlike the purpose-built engines of NA$CAR. And that Lola is a sharp looking car, too. If they can build and run a V-6 EcoBoost engine in the ALMS Lola’s, how come NA$CAR can’t handle something as simple as fuel injection for their own cars? Putting something like an EcoBoost engine in a Cup or Busch car would definitely give back some brand identity. But that would also mean having to send some inspectors back to school and we know that’s not going to happen. Not if NA$CAR has to spend their own dime to do it.
Nothing against Austin Texas, but why are they
building an F1 track there? Austin isn’t exactly
known for being a hotbed of racing. And building
it out in the boonies away from the city itself on
what is basically a landfill; you have to wonder
about the smarts of the builders and F1. But
then, we are talking about Bernie the Buffoon
here so that might explain part of it. Does Bernie
really think he’s going to get all the beautiful
people who follow F1 to fly to the heart of Texas
to see a one-weekend-a-year race? Does he
think he’s going to get throngs from Central and
South America to make the trip? And what
happens when the newness wears off? Is Austin
going to get stuck with a white elephant? After F1’s last disaster here in America and the nasty taste in left in racing fans mouths, I’d say Bernie needs to be rethinking his plans.
“We’re competing against Disney and the local amusement parks.” - Andrew Giangola, NA$CAR’s Director of Business Communications
It must be tough having a Mickey Mouse operation competing against the original one.
“We made it clear that we want drivers to express their personalities” - Andrew Giangola, NA$CAR’s Director of Business Communications
No, you want the drivers to drink the Kool Aid, put on the rose colored glasses, lie about how good things are, and sing Everything is Beautiful in Victory Lane. Even Stevie Wonder can see things aren’t going that great in NA$CAR. So you expect the fans to believe it? Please. Don’t urinate on my back and tell me it’s rain.
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