Over and over we hear about how Bristol International Raceway - the original moniker before it was purchased by Bruton Smith - is the hardest ticket to get for NASCAR events, especially at the Winston Cup level. As the track celebrates its 45th anniversary this year, one is hard-pressed to understand why tickets there are so popular.
Bristol is a half-mile bowl, initially designed both for racing and to hold football games in its infield (the trioval grass at Daytona had a similar intent). Banked at 18 degrees when first built in 1961, the banking was increased to 36 degrees to make the track more of a superspeedway than a short track. "If you ask me, they ruined a perfectly good racetrack," Richard Petty said after a crash-plagued race there in July 1969.
The track was owned by Larry Carrier for the majority of its existence. In the late 1970s Gary Baker bought an ownership take and industrialist Warner Hodgedon bought the track along with several other short tracks in the early 1980s, before the collapse of his businesses ended his involvement in racing after 1984. Carrier reacquired the speedway, but in 1996 it was purchased by Bruton Smith.
The track was asphalt for its first 31 years but in 1992 Carrier switched to concrete, because of endless work treating the asphalt. The switch to concrete wiped out most of the old track's raceability, wiping out a consistent high groove. It has been a single-file track ever since.
But it is packed with crashes, and in March 2006 the crashes were plentiful amid periodic snow; in BGN's 300-lapper some 25 cars were involved, and it says something both about the determination of raceteams to finish races and about both the absurdity of said effort plus NASCAR's Lucky Dog rules that very few cars failed to finish the BGN event despite all the wreck damage.
The win by Kyle Busch is unlikely to have set off much fan rejoicing given the yongster's burgeoning unpopularity; it also graphically displays the BGN Series' weakness as a series, in the near-complete lack of competitive stand-alone series regulars. One of the few who did do something was John Andretti, driving PPC Racing's #10 Ford en route to ninth, his best finish in a NASCAR race in three years.
With the race's lack of up-front passing, one is hard-pressed to call it a good race. It nonetheless remains the hardest ticket in NASCAR.
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
This Un-Civil War
Okay, I know it's lame to shoehorn a Martina McBride song title into a blog about the Iraq war, but the title "This Un-Civil War" says it all.
So my shameless thievery from mass media continues when I use this well-worn Paul Newman cliche - what the MSM has here is failure to communicate - or more accurately, failure to communicate accurately. Iraq's un-civil war doesn't come close to what a real one looks like, not now and not then. Not only that, the coverage as usual ignores what's going right in Iraq as it continues to outright falsify incidents so the US is made to look bad.
I'll try to shoehorn some Michael Nesmith song titles into future blogs.
So my shameless thievery from mass media continues when I use this well-worn Paul Newman cliche - what the MSM has here is failure to communicate - or more accurately, failure to communicate accurately. Iraq's un-civil war doesn't come close to what a real one looks like, not now and not then. Not only that, the coverage as usual ignores what's going right in Iraq as it continues to outright falsify incidents so the US is made to look bad.
I'll try to shoehorn some Michael Nesmith song titles into future blogs.
Sunday, March 19, 2006
A War Worth Winning
Predictably there were protests on the third anniversary of the start of the liberation of Iraq. Of course the antiwar crowd tries to pretend it is motivated by sincere concern, but of course this is nonsensical. The Iraq War remains a war to be proud of.
One of the antiwar talking points is that Saddamite Iraq didn't back Al Qaida and thus had no role in the 2001 attacks on the US. Why people actually believe this is beyond puzzling since Iraq's alliance with Al Qaida was well known in the 1990s and more details of Saddamite Iraq's backing of international terrorism continue to emerge.
Of course a lot of ink is spilled about the standoff in Iraq, but this late February look at improvised explosives best sums up who is really on the defensive.
The question to ask is - why should America give up trying to win in Iraq?
One of the antiwar talking points is that Saddamite Iraq didn't back Al Qaida and thus had no role in the 2001 attacks on the US. Why people actually believe this is beyond puzzling since Iraq's alliance with Al Qaida was well known in the 1990s and more details of Saddamite Iraq's backing of international terrorism continue to emerge.
Of course a lot of ink is spilled about the standoff in Iraq, but this late February look at improvised explosives best sums up who is really on the defensive.
The question to ask is - why should America give up trying to win in Iraq?
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Todd Bodine Pulls Upset
So much for my proverbial mortgage.
The Daytona Truck 250 had by far the best racing so far in the season, but the finish of the year to date came at Atlanta. Mark Martin had won Daytona and Fontana, benefitting greatly from strong extra pre-race track time in his Nextel Cup car in the same fashion as when he was monopolizing BGN races run as companion events to WC, and in the Atlanta 200 he effortlessly stormed into the lead.
So there was little reason to expect anyone else to win the Atlanta 200 - yet Todd Bodine, the Truck Series' recent dominator in the Germain #30 Toyota, pulled off the upset. Bodine made perfect use of Atlanta's banking, pinching Martin to the bottom enough to stall him out coming off the corners, a classic strategy for high-banked speedways.
Bodine's upset is the biggest in Trucks in some time given the overwhelming edge Martin shows in Winston/Nextel Cup companion races. And it came in a surprisingly hard-fought race, as Bodine and Martin went at it side by side for the lead for several sustained periods. Bodine's decisive pass was as nervy as one can imagine, four-abreast between lapped traffic and sideways off Two to boot.
The Bodine-Martin showdown highlighted a race with strikingly little competitive depth, as the top two runners basically had the race to themselves. The only really noteworthy run other than Bodine and Martin was Bobby Hamilton, wrapping up his 2006 season with a respectable charge from midpack into 13th.
Other than Hamilton, there was little to discuss for anyone else. Bill Lester, the show-stealer in WC qualifying, never got untracked, had to pit with a vibration, and had another poor finish in Trucks. Erin Crocker likewise showed nothing from the start and was another lapped Truck. The Chevrolets as a group were largely MIA, while Martin's Ford was essentially alone on the speedway.
The finish, though, will be discussed for some time, particularly as the Atlanta 500 weekend proceeds.
The Daytona Truck 250 had by far the best racing so far in the season, but the finish of the year to date came at Atlanta. Mark Martin had won Daytona and Fontana, benefitting greatly from strong extra pre-race track time in his Nextel Cup car in the same fashion as when he was monopolizing BGN races run as companion events to WC, and in the Atlanta 200 he effortlessly stormed into the lead.
So there was little reason to expect anyone else to win the Atlanta 200 - yet Todd Bodine, the Truck Series' recent dominator in the Germain #30 Toyota, pulled off the upset. Bodine made perfect use of Atlanta's banking, pinching Martin to the bottom enough to stall him out coming off the corners, a classic strategy for high-banked speedways.
Bodine's upset is the biggest in Trucks in some time given the overwhelming edge Martin shows in Winston/Nextel Cup companion races. And it came in a surprisingly hard-fought race, as Bodine and Martin went at it side by side for the lead for several sustained periods. Bodine's decisive pass was as nervy as one can imagine, four-abreast between lapped traffic and sideways off Two to boot.
The Bodine-Martin showdown highlighted a race with strikingly little competitive depth, as the top two runners basically had the race to themselves. The only really noteworthy run other than Bodine and Martin was Bobby Hamilton, wrapping up his 2006 season with a respectable charge from midpack into 13th.
Other than Hamilton, there was little to discuss for anyone else. Bill Lester, the show-stealer in WC qualifying, never got untracked, had to pit with a vibration, and had another poor finish in Trucks. Erin Crocker likewise showed nothing from the start and was another lapped Truck. The Chevrolets as a group were largely MIA, while Martin's Ford was essentially alone on the speedway.
The finish, though, will be discussed for some time, particularly as the Atlanta 500 weekend proceeds.
Friday, March 17, 2006
Pre-Atlanta Miscellenia With Truck Prediction and Hamilton Shout-Out
It's that time again - the March tripleheader weekend at Atlanta. Entering the weekend NASCAR's three big league touring series have seen some action and some controversy - though the term "some" can be construed as an understatement.
Some miscelleneous observations entering Atlanta -
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The soap opera that is NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow continues to bubble with continuing trouble and doubt about the entire concept. Frankly, it will be a miracle if the concept ever sees a competitive lap in anger, this despite some rather pathetic spin in the concept's favor.
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The other soap opera remains the struggle of Dodge, a program out of control almost since it started and showing no sign of improvement, with questions worth asking about the leadership of John Fernandez and questions worth asking about where the One Team concept went. Two Dodge young guns are solidly in point contention but the bulk of the program remains racing for 20th at best when all five of Dodge's teams should be racing for top ten spots and race wins.
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I do not gamble and certainly do not endorse it, but bet the proverbial mortgage on Mark Martin winning the Craftsman Truck race at Atlanta. Between the strength of the Roush #6 and the extra practice time Mark gets from Nextel Cup practice, it is like when Mark ran BGN - the extra practice time of his WC program gave him so much extra realtime track knowledge that it became almost impossible for him to lose BGN races that were companion events with WC. The same thing is at work with his Truck program right now.
So bet the proverbial mortgage on Mark Martin in the Atlanta Truck race.
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Speaking of Trucks, a get well soon goes out to Bobby Hamilton, who after the Atlanta race will step out of his #18 Dodge Truck for awhile to get a health problem cured - a problem discovered when he went to the dentist to get a wisdom tooth treated. He should be back behind the wheel soon.
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For Nextel Cup qualifying, the story was Bill Lester, who picked up six MPH from practice - a pick-up beyond astonishing - and became the first black driver in a Nextel Cup event since Willy T. Ribbs' ill-fated drives for the moribund DiGard team in 1986.
As the weekend counts down, there will likely be more subjects to discuss as the NASCAR season heats up.
Some miscelleneous observations entering Atlanta -
--------------------------------------------------
The soap opera that is NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow continues to bubble with continuing trouble and doubt about the entire concept. Frankly, it will be a miracle if the concept ever sees a competitive lap in anger, this despite some rather pathetic spin in the concept's favor.
--------------------------------------------------
The other soap opera remains the struggle of Dodge, a program out of control almost since it started and showing no sign of improvement, with questions worth asking about the leadership of John Fernandez and questions worth asking about where the One Team concept went. Two Dodge young guns are solidly in point contention but the bulk of the program remains racing for 20th at best when all five of Dodge's teams should be racing for top ten spots and race wins.
-------------------------------------------------
I do not gamble and certainly do not endorse it, but bet the proverbial mortgage on Mark Martin winning the Craftsman Truck race at Atlanta. Between the strength of the Roush #6 and the extra practice time Mark gets from Nextel Cup practice, it is like when Mark ran BGN - the extra practice time of his WC program gave him so much extra realtime track knowledge that it became almost impossible for him to lose BGN races that were companion events with WC. The same thing is at work with his Truck program right now.
So bet the proverbial mortgage on Mark Martin in the Atlanta Truck race.
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Speaking of Trucks, a get well soon goes out to Bobby Hamilton, who after the Atlanta race will step out of his #18 Dodge Truck for awhile to get a health problem cured - a problem discovered when he went to the dentist to get a wisdom tooth treated. He should be back behind the wheel soon.
--------------------------------------------------
For Nextel Cup qualifying, the story was Bill Lester, who picked up six MPH from practice - a pick-up beyond astonishing - and became the first black driver in a Nextel Cup event since Willy T. Ribbs' ill-fated drives for the moribund DiGard team in 1986.
As the weekend counts down, there will likely be more subjects to discuss as the NASCAR season heats up.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
NASCAR Loop Statistics And NASCAR's Continuing Disconnect
NASCAR has a bevy of new statistics it has been pumping up based on the scoring loops it has around each racetrack. They show a lot of things like "quality passes" (passes for position within the top fifteen), straightaway speeds, etc. They have become a new angle of analysis of races in the same vein as passing yards, touchdowns, on-base percentage, and the like from football, baseball, etc.
But there is a glaring omission here - lead changes. NASCAR has these stats, but where are the lead changes? The number of lead changes is the only statistic, from scoring loops or otherwise, that is ultimately worth the paper it is printed on.
All those gaudy stats are of the same relevence as Peyton Manning's touchdown stats for the regular season - where it matters most they don't mean a thing.
But there is a glaring omission here - lead changes. NASCAR has these stats, but where are the lead changes? The number of lead changes is the only statistic, from scoring loops or otherwise, that is ultimately worth the paper it is printed on.
All those gaudy stats are of the same relevence as Peyton Manning's touchdown stats for the regular season - where it matters most they don't mean a thing.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
NASCAR's Las Vegas Gladiators
The actual Las Vegas Gladiators - the Arena Football League team - had their bye week the weekend of NASCAR's annual trip to Bruston Smith's Nevada speed palace, and NASCAR did a decent job of showing off its own gladiators in their stead.
It also showed off a championship showdown that looks to already be taking solid form. That NASCAR's Winston/Nextel Cup title fight after three races of 2006 is between Hendrick Motorsports and Roush Racing isn't exactly a shock. It isn't that often that a title chase establishes itself this early in the season, but right now Jimmie Johnson has become the all-too-clear leader of the chase. And beating the Roush squad on one of their best tracks can only burn Jack even more.
Jimmie Johnson's two wins so far have come with a substitute crew chief, which raises some questions about a long-held belief about driver-crew chief chemistry. Without longtime chief wrench Chad Knaus, Johnson hasn't missed a beat. So just how important is such chemistry between driver and crew chief? If one cites the DEI crew swap of 2005 as evidence of the importance of driver-crew chief chemistry, one is making a flawed argument. Dale Earnhardt Junior won six races in 2004 despite what is now known to be constant friction with his crew chief, which was part of the reason for the swap. The change didn't work not because the chemistry wasn't there, but because DEI had lost the performance edge it had found in the first half of the decade, a performance edge based on engineering more than driver-crew chief chemistry.
Then there is Ryan Newman and Matt Borland, whose chemistry is superb, yet they and their Penske #12 Dodge continues to fall further behind, due to a Dodge program that has spiraled out of control almost since it started in 2001, and because of the inability or outright refusal of Newman and company to adapt to the low downforce-soft tire package mandated after 2003.
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The exciting finish of the Vegas 400 made it easy to forget what had been an otherwise unremarkable race. NASCAR isn't making it better with its publication of bizarre statistics such as "quality passes" and "average running position" as if they meant something. Indeed, some in NASCAR may be hoping such stats help make a race look more exciting than it in fact is.
Vegas will bank up its turns to 21 degrees for 2007, inspired by Homestead's increased banking and amid calls for higher and progressive banking for Fontana, calls no doubt heard by California Speedway's Gillian Zucker during a visit to Vegas for the race. Lost amid this rush is that Homestead has seen some good racing with progressive banking but hardly as much as at Daytona, whose banking is uniform, and ignored entirely is the effect progressive banking will have on a track in future years as the surface wears and ages. It is quite easy to imagine a scenario where the only usable groove is up high, leading to a Darlington-type scenario.
The exciting Vegas finish also came amid some concern that expectations for the races are unrealistic. While there is certainly a level of validity in saying that too many people may expect too much from a race, it remains true that Daytona-style warfare for the win is supposed to be the common template for the racing throughout NASCAR. Simply put, there is nothing in the layouts of Fontana, Vegas, Pocono, Michigan, New Hampshire, Chicagoland, etc. that is precluding racing as competitive as seen at Daytona.
Bruton Smith's campaign for a second Las Vegas date will no doubt be accelerated by the exciting finish, meaning the old question about the schedule and whether it can afford not to expand again will be raised.
It also showed off a championship showdown that looks to already be taking solid form. That NASCAR's Winston/Nextel Cup title fight after three races of 2006 is between Hendrick Motorsports and Roush Racing isn't exactly a shock. It isn't that often that a title chase establishes itself this early in the season, but right now Jimmie Johnson has become the all-too-clear leader of the chase. And beating the Roush squad on one of their best tracks can only burn Jack even more.
Jimmie Johnson's two wins so far have come with a substitute crew chief, which raises some questions about a long-held belief about driver-crew chief chemistry. Without longtime chief wrench Chad Knaus, Johnson hasn't missed a beat. So just how important is such chemistry between driver and crew chief? If one cites the DEI crew swap of 2005 as evidence of the importance of driver-crew chief chemistry, one is making a flawed argument. Dale Earnhardt Junior won six races in 2004 despite what is now known to be constant friction with his crew chief, which was part of the reason for the swap. The change didn't work not because the chemistry wasn't there, but because DEI had lost the performance edge it had found in the first half of the decade, a performance edge based on engineering more than driver-crew chief chemistry.
Then there is Ryan Newman and Matt Borland, whose chemistry is superb, yet they and their Penske #12 Dodge continues to fall further behind, due to a Dodge program that has spiraled out of control almost since it started in 2001, and because of the inability or outright refusal of Newman and company to adapt to the low downforce-soft tire package mandated after 2003.
----------------------------------------------
The exciting finish of the Vegas 400 made it easy to forget what had been an otherwise unremarkable race. NASCAR isn't making it better with its publication of bizarre statistics such as "quality passes" and "average running position" as if they meant something. Indeed, some in NASCAR may be hoping such stats help make a race look more exciting than it in fact is.
Vegas will bank up its turns to 21 degrees for 2007, inspired by Homestead's increased banking and amid calls for higher and progressive banking for Fontana, calls no doubt heard by California Speedway's Gillian Zucker during a visit to Vegas for the race. Lost amid this rush is that Homestead has seen some good racing with progressive banking but hardly as much as at Daytona, whose banking is uniform, and ignored entirely is the effect progressive banking will have on a track in future years as the surface wears and ages. It is quite easy to imagine a scenario where the only usable groove is up high, leading to a Darlington-type scenario.
The exciting Vegas finish also came amid some concern that expectations for the races are unrealistic. While there is certainly a level of validity in saying that too many people may expect too much from a race, it remains true that Daytona-style warfare for the win is supposed to be the common template for the racing throughout NASCAR. Simply put, there is nothing in the layouts of Fontana, Vegas, Pocono, Michigan, New Hampshire, Chicagoland, etc. that is precluding racing as competitive as seen at Daytona.
Bruton Smith's campaign for a second Las Vegas date will no doubt be accelerated by the exciting finish, meaning the old question about the schedule and whether it can afford not to expand again will be raised.
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Race Teams Getting On The Same Page
There are several reasons why multicar teams succeed or fail, and the effort is examined in this unusually sharp take with focus on the loss of control by Daimler-Chrysler of its NASCAR program. To make a long story short (I admit such is not necessarily wise), the teams of Dodge and the Dodge factory effort in general is not on the same page.
Of course with organizations like Penske Racing and Ganassi Racing, that may not be such a surprise, especially given suspicion of their ultimate loyalty to Dodge. One certainly should not feel it a mere coincidence that since Dodge got Roger Penske's NASCAR team into its fold, Penske South has been almost the only Dodge team to win races. From 2003 onward there have been sixteen wins by Dodges in Nextel Cup, and twelve of these have been by Penske Racing (eleven by Ryan Newman, one by Rusty Wallace); Ray Evernham Motorsports accounts for the other four wins.
The most revealing aspect of the Penske effort has been the drop in strength since NASCAR's ill-advised switch to lower downforce and softer tires after 2003 - a switch brought on by very public lobbying by Rusty Wallace, who was driven in very large part by near-endless squabbling with Newman. Newman has won just three races since the end of 2003, and right now appears ever farther away from recovering any kind of momentum.
Of the Dodge teams, Petty Enterprises, still looking form its first win with the Dodge program after five very frustrating seasons, may be in the best shape as far as drivers on the same page, given the similarities in driving styles between Bobby Labonte and Kyle Petty. Evernham Motorsports may be in the best overall shape among Dodge teams, but has continuing questions to ask itself about the viability of Jeremy Mayfield. Ganassi and Penske remain as they've been the last couple of seasons - among the wealthiest raceteams in NASCAR and yet still struggling to get on the same page.
Of course with organizations like Penske Racing and Ganassi Racing, that may not be such a surprise, especially given suspicion of their ultimate loyalty to Dodge. One certainly should not feel it a mere coincidence that since Dodge got Roger Penske's NASCAR team into its fold, Penske South has been almost the only Dodge team to win races. From 2003 onward there have been sixteen wins by Dodges in Nextel Cup, and twelve of these have been by Penske Racing (eleven by Ryan Newman, one by Rusty Wallace); Ray Evernham Motorsports accounts for the other four wins.
The most revealing aspect of the Penske effort has been the drop in strength since NASCAR's ill-advised switch to lower downforce and softer tires after 2003 - a switch brought on by very public lobbying by Rusty Wallace, who was driven in very large part by near-endless squabbling with Newman. Newman has won just three races since the end of 2003, and right now appears ever farther away from recovering any kind of momentum.
Of the Dodge teams, Petty Enterprises, still looking form its first win with the Dodge program after five very frustrating seasons, may be in the best shape as far as drivers on the same page, given the similarities in driving styles between Bobby Labonte and Kyle Petty. Evernham Motorsports may be in the best overall shape among Dodge teams, but has continuing questions to ask itself about the viability of Jeremy Mayfield. Ganassi and Penske remain as they've been the last couple of seasons - among the wealthiest raceteams in NASCAR and yet still struggling to get on the same page.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
More Global Warming Fraudulence
NASCAR, and automobiles in general, have taken a rap because of the alleged increase in global warming. The problem is the evidence for global warming is false. This of course won't stop the global warming lobby, but we really need to start getting more aggressive in countering them, because like all leftist causes they do not have genuine good in their heart.
Monday, March 06, 2006
Bring Back The Tire War
Winston Cup teams are using Hoosier tires to test around NASCAR's tire lease rule, a development that brings to mind an angle the sport has not dealt with since 1994 but which it may deal with again. The angle is the tire-exclusivity rule for Goodyear. Put in place following the 1994 Tire War, the deal basically locks out other tire manufacturers from participating in NASCAR's big leagues.
Of course the tire landscape is a lot different now, with Firestone a major racing force and the rumor never completely dying out that Firestone will enter NASCAR circles. It brings to mind the need for a tire war.
The idea of a tire war is considered verboten in many racing minds because of a supposed increase in injuries during such a time. Such "greater danger" arguments, however, fall flat after enduring years of consistent Goodyear failures, most notably in 2000 with Goodyear unable to make up its mind what compounds to bring to a race and with the endless game of "aggressive setups," a catch-all way to blame raceteams for frequent failures of right-front tires.
The danger level is not less now than it was during tire wars, and the advantages for the sport are numerous, most importantly in the ability of tire competition to break the quasi-monopolies that exist in the competitive field. Both times Hoosier Race Tire fought Goodyear - 1988-9 and 1994 - the number of different race winners increased dramatically, not only for drivers but for teams. The sport regularly saw more teams in contention for wins than has generally been the case with tire monopolies.
And there is certainly a need for an increase in competitive teams nowadays, given the lock on victories held by Hendrick Motorsports and Roush Racing and to a substantially lesser extent Joe Gibbs Racing. Dodge could potentially benefit the most from a tire war, getting the kind of competitive shot in the arm presently lacking for its program.
Hoosier's unofficial status as test tire supplier can be a road toward what more teams need in NASCAR circles.
Of course the tire landscape is a lot different now, with Firestone a major racing force and the rumor never completely dying out that Firestone will enter NASCAR circles. It brings to mind the need for a tire war.
The idea of a tire war is considered verboten in many racing minds because of a supposed increase in injuries during such a time. Such "greater danger" arguments, however, fall flat after enduring years of consistent Goodyear failures, most notably in 2000 with Goodyear unable to make up its mind what compounds to bring to a race and with the endless game of "aggressive setups," a catch-all way to blame raceteams for frequent failures of right-front tires.
The danger level is not less now than it was during tire wars, and the advantages for the sport are numerous, most importantly in the ability of tire competition to break the quasi-monopolies that exist in the competitive field. Both times Hoosier Race Tire fought Goodyear - 1988-9 and 1994 - the number of different race winners increased dramatically, not only for drivers but for teams. The sport regularly saw more teams in contention for wins than has generally been the case with tire monopolies.
And there is certainly a need for an increase in competitive teams nowadays, given the lock on victories held by Hendrick Motorsports and Roush Racing and to a substantially lesser extent Joe Gibbs Racing. Dodge could potentially benefit the most from a tire war, getting the kind of competitive shot in the arm presently lacking for its program.
Hoosier's unofficial status as test tire supplier can be a road toward what more teams need in NASCAR circles.
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Mexico And NASCAR's Disconnect
NASCAR's second annual Busch Series road race in Mexico transpired the first weekend of March, but in doing so it has raised new questions about its viability and also questions about NASCAR's support series.
The first running of this race occurred in 2005, and while it went off well, it has not lived up to what was expected of it in drawing sponsorships, and it is exceedingly difficult to see where it can ever do so, especially since, according to the AP, the crowd was smaller than in the 2005 running. This nonetheless has not stopped some from advocating removing a date from Martinsville to run a Nextel Cup race on a proposed short track near Mexico City. And just as Tony Stewart recklessly played the death card in griping about push-drafting at Daytona, so an advocate of a points race in Mexico is using the card of the end of the sport's growth if Mexico is kept off the Nextel Cup schedule.
The Busch race's lack of Nextel Cup stars, unusual for most BGN events nowadays, contributes to the disconnect involved here. Being a bye week for the Winston Cup guys, the Mexican race would be a natural venue for the biggest names in the sport. But they didn't show up last year and there seems no prospect for them to show up in future years, and one can expect a similar disconnect between hype and reality if the Busch Series races in Montreal as is expected in 2007 or '08. It is hard to see Canadian corporations forking over the $20-plus million per year now required for a Winston/Nextel Cup effort, even with Toyota involvement.
The present general disconnect in BGN is touched on extensively by Greg Pollex, owner of PPC Racing. As a follower of NASCAR's northeast-based Busch North and Whelen Modified Series, I've seen the disconnect between NASCAR's glittery facade and the economic crunch of its support series more directly - the indelible comment on this disconnect was by the late Tom Baldwin Sr. when he noted in 2002, "We need to get NASCAR out of the Modified Tour."
The prospect of Nextel Cup in Mexico is bound not to be popular with anyone - not raceteams for the costs involved, and not fans who have felt betrayed by the sport's loss of tracks like Rockingham and North Wilkesboro. And given the failure to attract new sponsors from Mexico, one strains to find a reason for such a venture.
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An additional comment -
The recently-settled strife in the NFL over a new Collective Bargaining Agreement has some relevence for NASCAR. Team owners have long agitated for a bigger slice of NASCAR's TV revenue because of the absurd costs that NASCAR has never succeeded in reducing - one wonders how hard NASCAR has truly tried to reduce costs. No one ever thought a CBA fight would ever develop in the NFL, the sports league considered the strongest and the one with the best plan for labor peace. That a CBA fight developed in the NFL is a sign that NASCAR should not be so smug as to assume something like that, or something like the 2005 USGP fiasco, can't happen in the top series. Of course the NFL got their act together and got their CBA done - if NASCAR faces a fight like that, what will they do?
The first running of this race occurred in 2005, and while it went off well, it has not lived up to what was expected of it in drawing sponsorships, and it is exceedingly difficult to see where it can ever do so, especially since, according to the AP, the crowd was smaller than in the 2005 running. This nonetheless has not stopped some from advocating removing a date from Martinsville to run a Nextel Cup race on a proposed short track near Mexico City. And just as Tony Stewart recklessly played the death card in griping about push-drafting at Daytona, so an advocate of a points race in Mexico is using the card of the end of the sport's growth if Mexico is kept off the Nextel Cup schedule.
The Busch race's lack of Nextel Cup stars, unusual for most BGN events nowadays, contributes to the disconnect involved here. Being a bye week for the Winston Cup guys, the Mexican race would be a natural venue for the biggest names in the sport. But they didn't show up last year and there seems no prospect for them to show up in future years, and one can expect a similar disconnect between hype and reality if the Busch Series races in Montreal as is expected in 2007 or '08. It is hard to see Canadian corporations forking over the $20-plus million per year now required for a Winston/Nextel Cup effort, even with Toyota involvement.
The present general disconnect in BGN is touched on extensively by Greg Pollex, owner of PPC Racing. As a follower of NASCAR's northeast-based Busch North and Whelen Modified Series, I've seen the disconnect between NASCAR's glittery facade and the economic crunch of its support series more directly - the indelible comment on this disconnect was by the late Tom Baldwin Sr. when he noted in 2002, "We need to get NASCAR out of the Modified Tour."
The prospect of Nextel Cup in Mexico is bound not to be popular with anyone - not raceteams for the costs involved, and not fans who have felt betrayed by the sport's loss of tracks like Rockingham and North Wilkesboro. And given the failure to attract new sponsors from Mexico, one strains to find a reason for such a venture.
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An additional comment -
The recently-settled strife in the NFL over a new Collective Bargaining Agreement has some relevence for NASCAR. Team owners have long agitated for a bigger slice of NASCAR's TV revenue because of the absurd costs that NASCAR has never succeeded in reducing - one wonders how hard NASCAR has truly tried to reduce costs. No one ever thought a CBA fight would ever develop in the NFL, the sports league considered the strongest and the one with the best plan for labor peace. That a CBA fight developed in the NFL is a sign that NASCAR should not be so smug as to assume something like that, or something like the 2005 USGP fiasco, can't happen in the top series. Of course the NFL got their act together and got their CBA done - if NASCAR faces a fight like that, what will they do?
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Race Driver Gets Beaten Up By Horse
You know your career may be in trouble if you get kicked by a horse. Well Michel Jourdain suffered that indignity during a publicity shoot for the Busch Series' Mexican road race.
Jourdain, a former CART driver, isn't the first to suffer such an indignity. In October 1977 Darrell Waltrip drove in IROC's event at Riverside International Raceway and crashed hard, injuring his ribs. Later he was involved in a parade for the American 500 at Rockingham; he was riding a mule that suddenly threw him off his back and kicked him in the chest.
"I ran into a wall and got kicked by a mule," Waltrip said at Rockingham that weekend. Needless to say, he was a sore race driver.
Jourdain, a former CART driver, isn't the first to suffer such an indignity. In October 1977 Darrell Waltrip drove in IROC's event at Riverside International Raceway and crashed hard, injuring his ribs. Later he was involved in a parade for the American 500 at Rockingham; he was riding a mule that suddenly threw him off his back and kicked him in the chest.
"I ran into a wall and got kicked by a mule," Waltrip said at Rockingham that weekend. Needless to say, he was a sore race driver.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
The Continuing Saga of Science Under Siege
Think we're proceeding through a period of unprecedented increases in hurricanes?
We aren't - and it's just one example of the continuing siege of real science by the MSM.
We aren't - and it's just one example of the continuing siege of real science by the MSM.
Monday, February 27, 2006
2006 California 500 Postscript
Roush Racing continues to grow at a rather frightening rate, and it continues to win. Matt Kenseth's California 500 win continues a recent near-monopoly by the Roush organization on intermediate superspeedways, and any thought that it would be derailed this time was dashed almost immediately. Roush also posted a rare sweep of all three NASCAR touring series on the same weekend when Mark Martin rather easily cruised to victory in the Trucks, then Greg Biffle led the way to win the BGN 300.
Roush Racing is for all practical purposes the only Ford organization in NASCAR, and its success in 2005's playoff format led to NASCAR's attempt to limit ownership of race teams, a fundamentally necessary idea that NASCAR needs to have the courage to prosecute to its end.
Roush so dominated the weekend that it made the blown engine of Tony Stewart and the continuing struggle of Dodge all the more graphic. Though Kasey Kahne had a good effort in his Ray Evernham Charger, that was largely it as far as Dodge went, as the Penske pair of Kurt Busch and Ryan Newman continued to struggle with the two-year-old Intrepid they brought to Fontana, a model Penske Racing's Don Miller has said will be raced as long as is allowed by Dodge.
One wonders if someone at Dodge has given up on the Charger - which if true may be a bad sign for Dodge's entire NASCAR program.
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Fontana's lack of good racing is wrongly blamed on the track's flat banking. Flattish speedways have been blamed for lack of good quality racing for some years now, and among the more villified has been New Hampshire International Speedway. Many point to Homestead as the model for how to respond. Homestead banked up to 20 degrees and went with progressive banking, and Fontana's new president has mentioned with regard to the California Speedway.
The result of higher and progressive banking at Homestead has been faster speeds, but the increase in side-by-side racing has generally been less than promoted. Homestead's November 2005 400-miler saw some intense battling for the lead and a dramatic finish, but the previous two Homestead races were uninspiring affairs, particularly November 2004.
Some blame the scheduling of the first Fontana race to late February, within two weeks of NASCAR's annual trek to Las Vegas; others point to the fact the track now has two dates. Either way, it remains the lack of good racing that is the main problem here, and the track configuration isn't the reason.
One need look at Fontana's Indycar races, where the cars have more downforce, more tire, and in the late 1990s added air-displacement rails to the mix, making the draft more effective. Certainly the Busch Series package run at Daytona is worth looking at as far as tracks like Fontana go.
Roush Racing is for all practical purposes the only Ford organization in NASCAR, and its success in 2005's playoff format led to NASCAR's attempt to limit ownership of race teams, a fundamentally necessary idea that NASCAR needs to have the courage to prosecute to its end.
Roush so dominated the weekend that it made the blown engine of Tony Stewart and the continuing struggle of Dodge all the more graphic. Though Kasey Kahne had a good effort in his Ray Evernham Charger, that was largely it as far as Dodge went, as the Penske pair of Kurt Busch and Ryan Newman continued to struggle with the two-year-old Intrepid they brought to Fontana, a model Penske Racing's Don Miller has said will be raced as long as is allowed by Dodge.
One wonders if someone at Dodge has given up on the Charger - which if true may be a bad sign for Dodge's entire NASCAR program.
------------------------------------------------------
Fontana's lack of good racing is wrongly blamed on the track's flat banking. Flattish speedways have been blamed for lack of good quality racing for some years now, and among the more villified has been New Hampshire International Speedway. Many point to Homestead as the model for how to respond. Homestead banked up to 20 degrees and went with progressive banking, and Fontana's new president has mentioned with regard to the California Speedway.
The result of higher and progressive banking at Homestead has been faster speeds, but the increase in side-by-side racing has generally been less than promoted. Homestead's November 2005 400-miler saw some intense battling for the lead and a dramatic finish, but the previous two Homestead races were uninspiring affairs, particularly November 2004.
Some blame the scheduling of the first Fontana race to late February, within two weeks of NASCAR's annual trek to Las Vegas; others point to the fact the track now has two dates. Either way, it remains the lack of good racing that is the main problem here, and the track configuration isn't the reason.
One need look at Fontana's Indycar races, where the cars have more downforce, more tire, and in the late 1990s added air-displacement rails to the mix, making the draft more effective. Certainly the Busch Series package run at Daytona is worth looking at as far as tracks like Fontana go.
Saturday, February 25, 2006
"There Will Be Peace When They Love Their Children More Than They Hate Ours"
That rationality is in short supply in the Middle East is true enough, but a reminder of what the war between Israel and the Arab World is about is still necessary to understand the historical fiction that is "Palestine." But then it never helps that perpetuating the myth of "Palestine" continues when women name their children after fictitious atrocities.
NASCAR's Two-Time Loser Gets Banned
Shane Hmiel is gone from NASCAR. At least that's the word from NASCAR following failure of yet another drug test for Hmiel - he has received a "lifetime" suspension from the sport. Shane Hmiel first got in trouble in 2003 but bounced back and won at Las Vegas in the Truck Series, but got in bigger trouble in 2005 after driving Todd Braun's #32 for most of that year.
Curiously, this occurs in the wake of Ricky Williams' pending one-year suspension for failing the NFL's substance abuse policy. The Miami Dolphins rusher quit the league for 2004 to avoid a lengthy suspension for failing a drug test, then came back when the Dolphins sued to get back a massive signing bonus he received.
Now the psychology of people like Shane Hmiel and Ricky Williams can be complicated, but the question should still be asked - just what is it about drugs that is so important to them that they'd sacrifice lucrative sporting careers to indulge in such substances? Now I confess having no personal insight into addiction, but I think even people with a personal insight can be puzzled by cases like Shane Hmiel and Ricky Williams.
Being primarily a race fan, my own message to Shane Hmiel is simple - grow up. Whatever it is you're ingesting - and NASCAR isn't saying - stop ingesting it.
NASCAR may come in for some outside criticism for the harshness of their penalty, but if they do, so be it.
Curiously, this occurs in the wake of Ricky Williams' pending one-year suspension for failing the NFL's substance abuse policy. The Miami Dolphins rusher quit the league for 2004 to avoid a lengthy suspension for failing a drug test, then came back when the Dolphins sued to get back a massive signing bonus he received.
Now the psychology of people like Shane Hmiel and Ricky Williams can be complicated, but the question should still be asked - just what is it about drugs that is so important to them that they'd sacrifice lucrative sporting careers to indulge in such substances? Now I confess having no personal insight into addiction, but I think even people with a personal insight can be puzzled by cases like Shane Hmiel and Ricky Williams.
Being primarily a race fan, my own message to Shane Hmiel is simple - grow up. Whatever it is you're ingesting - and NASCAR isn't saying - stop ingesting it.
NASCAR may come in for some outside criticism for the harshness of their penalty, but if they do, so be it.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
The (Over)Selling Of Dale Earnhardt
It was a theme that if you tried to ignore it would come out and make sure you couldn't. It was five years ago that Dale Earnhardt died. It was a theme in coverage of Dale Earnhardt Jr. - can he win the Daytona 500 five years after his father's death? It was the subject of a SPEED Channel special that reinforced the impression that racing and its media are the most self-congradulatory industry out there. And it was the subject of many media pieces like this one.
I remain mystified that the sport continues to engage in historical revisionism on Dale Earnhardt, the biggest lightning rod of controversy the sport had ever seen. Nowadays many a driver is a lightning rod of controversy - Tony Stewart and Jimmie Johnson come to mind immediately - but in the 1980s and a lesser extent the 1990s it was not something the sport was quite used to.
In remembering Dale Earnhardt the sport does a disservice to its history, for it has glossed over very real shortcomings in Earnhardt in its effort to glorify him.
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The biggest disservice done to history is the glossing over of Earnhardt's on-track tactics. Tony Stewart set off the week-long controversy over "aggressive driving" during Speedweeks 2006 and then proved himself a supreme hypocrite once the shooting started. Dale Earnhardt was a common instigator of such controversies and certainly got an earful about it over the years.
"His mind goes out of gear when he turns on the motor." - Richard Petty, 1986
"If a man's got to put you out to beat you, that ain't what I call racing." - Bill Elliott, 1987
"I don't think NASCAR fined Dale Earnhardt for what he did at Richmond, I think they fined him for all the things he's done leading up to Richmond." - Darrell Waltrip, 1986
"Whoever wrecked us was driving a black car with a 3 on it." - Dick Trickle, 1992
"Why did he do that (wreck Al Unser Jr.)? He didn't have to do that." - Al Unser Sr., 1993
"He hasn't seen the last of me. I'm not going to stop racing him. I can tear up as many cars as I need to." - Mark Martin, 1993
"He's always the one who cries about the manufacturers championship, well he didn't help the Chevrolets today (at Phoenix)." - Ken Schrader, 1993
"He took the air off of me, then he hit me. It wasn't close at all." - Bobby Hamilton, 1996
"Has he ever said he meant to spin someone out?" - Terry Labonte, 1999
Earnhardt may have been the first NASCAR driver in history to be the subject of negative news coverage over his driving tactics - ABC News for one focused on that in 1987. And it led to an important anomoly - Earnhardt was perhaps the very first NASCAR driver ever who had a national fan club that was dedicated to opposing him. Fans Against Dale Earnhardt sold merchandise at all the NASCAR tracks before abruptly disbanding following his death.
Fan hatred of Earnhardt usually made him the most booed driver during introductions and led to several incidents, such as at The Winston 1994, where Earnhardt crashed against the wall in the trioval of Charlotte; roughly 100 fans gathered at the scene and many reportedly dumped beer on Earnhardt's head as he was climbing out of his car. There was also a near-riot at Bristol following his last-lap crashing encounter with Terry Labonte, where fans were seen burning Earnhardt merchandise in the track's parking lots afterward.
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There is also the frequent assertion about how much influence he had with NASCAR, about how when he spoke, NASCAR listened, and how he spoke for the drivers. Race drivers are a notoriously divided lot and Earnhardt usually spoke for himself, and was as big a hypocrite as any driver in the garage, particularly on restrictor plate racing, which Earnhardt always griped about yet so often excelled at.
As far as influence in the sport goes, one is hard-pressed to remember a single policy issue where NASCAR made changes because of Earnhardt. One can easily recall a recent policy change brought on by a driver's lobbying - NASCAR's change to lower downforce and softer tires from 2004 onward was a direct result of frantic and very public lobbying by Rusty Wallace, who was serially incensed at the fuel-mileage success with a package of high-downforce and hard tire compounds exhibited by his Penske Racing teammate Ryan Newman in 2003.
One can also recall the influence of another driver on the sport. Alan Kulwicki turned down offers of high-dollar NASCAR rides to build his own team; he won the 1992 NASCAR title as an owner-driver and following his death numerous NASCAR drivers, notably Geoff Bodine (who purchased the #7 Kulwicki team from his estate) and Ricky Rudd formed their own teams and became owner-drivers. Bodine and Rudd together won ten races in the 1994-8 period, a period where the balance of power had shifted toward the owner-driver.
One simply can't recall similarly dramatic influence by Dale Earnhardt.
------------------------------------------------
Earnhardt is sometimes called The Dominator, and it is periodically stated that he dominated his era of the sport. Yet a simple check of the sport's history proves this wrong. Including ties with other drivers, Richard Petty won the most races in a season on seven occassions - 1963, 1967-8, 1970-1, 1974-5. Darrell Waltrip did it six times - 1979, 1981-4, 1989. Jeff Gordon did it six times - 1995-9, 2001. David Pearson did it four times - 1966, 1968, 1973, 1976. Cale Yarborough did it four times - 1974, 1977-8, 1980. Bobby Allison did it twice - 1972, 1983. Rusty Wallace did it four times - 1988-9, 1993-4. Bill Elliott did it three times - 1985, 1988, 1992.
Dale Earnhardt did it only twice - 1987 and 1990.
One can also argue that Earnhardt's titles came amid less competition than that Richard Petty raced against. In the period of 1970-84, facing over 40 races with at least 40 official lead changes and another 30 with 35 or more lead changes, Petty had to race very, very hard to win. In contrast, Earnhardt's heyday of 1985-2001 saw just seven races with at least 40 lead changes and seven with at least 35. There are numerous reasons for this decline, but a major one undoubtedly is that Petty raced two generations of drivers who raced for the win while Earnhardt raced two generations who raced for points.
----------------------------------------------------
The sport did not see five-year retrospectives on the deaths of Davey Allison and Alan Kulwicki; it has not seen any recent retrospectives on the deaths of Adam Petty, Kenny Irwin, or Tony Roper; it has all but ignored Tim Richmond following his 1989 death; it has forgotten Ernie Irvan after injury ended his career. What retrospectives there have been have been low-key and quite dignified. The continuing rememberence of Dale Earnhardt, meanwhile, has become a continuing spectacle with an embarassing level of marketing behind it.
One has to ask when the sport will tone it down and be more honest about its past.
I remain mystified that the sport continues to engage in historical revisionism on Dale Earnhardt, the biggest lightning rod of controversy the sport had ever seen. Nowadays many a driver is a lightning rod of controversy - Tony Stewart and Jimmie Johnson come to mind immediately - but in the 1980s and a lesser extent the 1990s it was not something the sport was quite used to.
In remembering Dale Earnhardt the sport does a disservice to its history, for it has glossed over very real shortcomings in Earnhardt in its effort to glorify him.
----------------------------------------------------
The biggest disservice done to history is the glossing over of Earnhardt's on-track tactics. Tony Stewart set off the week-long controversy over "aggressive driving" during Speedweeks 2006 and then proved himself a supreme hypocrite once the shooting started. Dale Earnhardt was a common instigator of such controversies and certainly got an earful about it over the years.
"His mind goes out of gear when he turns on the motor." - Richard Petty, 1986
"If a man's got to put you out to beat you, that ain't what I call racing." - Bill Elliott, 1987
"I don't think NASCAR fined Dale Earnhardt for what he did at Richmond, I think they fined him for all the things he's done leading up to Richmond." - Darrell Waltrip, 1986
"Whoever wrecked us was driving a black car with a 3 on it." - Dick Trickle, 1992
"Why did he do that (wreck Al Unser Jr.)? He didn't have to do that." - Al Unser Sr., 1993
"He hasn't seen the last of me. I'm not going to stop racing him. I can tear up as many cars as I need to." - Mark Martin, 1993
"He's always the one who cries about the manufacturers championship, well he didn't help the Chevrolets today (at Phoenix)." - Ken Schrader, 1993
"He took the air off of me, then he hit me. It wasn't close at all." - Bobby Hamilton, 1996
"Has he ever said he meant to spin someone out?" - Terry Labonte, 1999
Earnhardt may have been the first NASCAR driver in history to be the subject of negative news coverage over his driving tactics - ABC News for one focused on that in 1987. And it led to an important anomoly - Earnhardt was perhaps the very first NASCAR driver ever who had a national fan club that was dedicated to opposing him. Fans Against Dale Earnhardt sold merchandise at all the NASCAR tracks before abruptly disbanding following his death.
Fan hatred of Earnhardt usually made him the most booed driver during introductions and led to several incidents, such as at The Winston 1994, where Earnhardt crashed against the wall in the trioval of Charlotte; roughly 100 fans gathered at the scene and many reportedly dumped beer on Earnhardt's head as he was climbing out of his car. There was also a near-riot at Bristol following his last-lap crashing encounter with Terry Labonte, where fans were seen burning Earnhardt merchandise in the track's parking lots afterward.
-----------------------------------------------------------
There is also the frequent assertion about how much influence he had with NASCAR, about how when he spoke, NASCAR listened, and how he spoke for the drivers. Race drivers are a notoriously divided lot and Earnhardt usually spoke for himself, and was as big a hypocrite as any driver in the garage, particularly on restrictor plate racing, which Earnhardt always griped about yet so often excelled at.
As far as influence in the sport goes, one is hard-pressed to remember a single policy issue where NASCAR made changes because of Earnhardt. One can easily recall a recent policy change brought on by a driver's lobbying - NASCAR's change to lower downforce and softer tires from 2004 onward was a direct result of frantic and very public lobbying by Rusty Wallace, who was serially incensed at the fuel-mileage success with a package of high-downforce and hard tire compounds exhibited by his Penske Racing teammate Ryan Newman in 2003.
One can also recall the influence of another driver on the sport. Alan Kulwicki turned down offers of high-dollar NASCAR rides to build his own team; he won the 1992 NASCAR title as an owner-driver and following his death numerous NASCAR drivers, notably Geoff Bodine (who purchased the #7 Kulwicki team from his estate) and Ricky Rudd formed their own teams and became owner-drivers. Bodine and Rudd together won ten races in the 1994-8 period, a period where the balance of power had shifted toward the owner-driver.
One simply can't recall similarly dramatic influence by Dale Earnhardt.
------------------------------------------------
Earnhardt is sometimes called The Dominator, and it is periodically stated that he dominated his era of the sport. Yet a simple check of the sport's history proves this wrong. Including ties with other drivers, Richard Petty won the most races in a season on seven occassions - 1963, 1967-8, 1970-1, 1974-5. Darrell Waltrip did it six times - 1979, 1981-4, 1989. Jeff Gordon did it six times - 1995-9, 2001. David Pearson did it four times - 1966, 1968, 1973, 1976. Cale Yarborough did it four times - 1974, 1977-8, 1980. Bobby Allison did it twice - 1972, 1983. Rusty Wallace did it four times - 1988-9, 1993-4. Bill Elliott did it three times - 1985, 1988, 1992.
Dale Earnhardt did it only twice - 1987 and 1990.
One can also argue that Earnhardt's titles came amid less competition than that Richard Petty raced against. In the period of 1970-84, facing over 40 races with at least 40 official lead changes and another 30 with 35 or more lead changes, Petty had to race very, very hard to win. In contrast, Earnhardt's heyday of 1985-2001 saw just seven races with at least 40 lead changes and seven with at least 35. There are numerous reasons for this decline, but a major one undoubtedly is that Petty raced two generations of drivers who raced for the win while Earnhardt raced two generations who raced for points.
----------------------------------------------------
The sport did not see five-year retrospectives on the deaths of Davey Allison and Alan Kulwicki; it has not seen any recent retrospectives on the deaths of Adam Petty, Kenny Irwin, or Tony Roper; it has all but ignored Tim Richmond following his 1989 death; it has forgotten Ernie Irvan after injury ended his career. What retrospectives there have been have been low-key and quite dignified. The continuing rememberence of Dale Earnhardt, meanwhile, has become a continuing spectacle with an embarassing level of marketing behind it.
One has to ask when the sport will tone it down and be more honest about its past.
Monday, February 20, 2006
Will NASCAR Rethink The Whole Misbegotten Yellow-Line Rule?
Amid the varied topics for discussion after a very competitive Daytona 500 weekend, one worthy subject has gotten overlooked but requires attention. It is the rule that cars cannot pass other cars below the yellow line at restrictor plate tracks. Throughout the Daytona 500 we saw cars clip the yellow line trying to pass, and backing off to avoid drawing a penalty. The result was usually a jam-up behind the cars in question, including a near-wreck in the trioval when Mark Martin had to jump up the outside into the lead. It has made blocking more of an issue, especially since as Casey Mears put it before the Daytona 500 that has been more of a factor in wrecks rather than push-drafting - notably the jam-up leading to Steve Kinser's flight in the IROC race.
Will NASCAR rethink this whole misbegotten rule? History suggests not yet, but the absurdity of the rule continues to baffle. Put in place at Talladega in April 2001 immediately following the BGN 300, it was almost entirely a panicky rule because NASCAR was collectively scared to death of a wholesale driver park-out occurring during the Winston Cup 500. The rumor had been circulating in the weeks before that Talladega weekend of a driver boycott or park-out following the death of Dale Earnhardt and NASCAR's initial ruling that its roof spoiler package - all but openly blamed for Earnhardt's death in several media pieces, notably an infamously maukish piece by The Charlotte Observor's David Poole in the immediate week after Earnhardt's death - would remain in place.
Following Talladega's BGN 300 that weekend and a loud protest by Jimmy Spencer over drivers passing below the yellow line, NASCAR ruled it would flag drivers for going below the yellow line. It led to Tony Stewart's infamous confrontation with Winston-Salem Journal writer Mike Mulhern after the Firecracker 400 when Stewart passed below the line for fifth and was flagged to the rear in the final laps. Since then there have been numerous instances of drivers flagged for passing below the yellow line and a more-infamous no-call for Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Talladega in 2003 - there Earnhardt passed Matt Kenseth on the apron of Turn Three with five laps to go but was not flagged, NASCAR lamely claiming he had "already passed" Kenseth when he got below the line, never mind the two were still nose to nose when he hit the apron and Earnhardt had to go on the apron to clear Kenseth.
It was a lame non-call universally recognized as favoritism by NASCAR toward Junior then and later, poor officiating on a par with infamous no-calls and bad calls in NFL lore. But it also raised questions about the sagacity of the yellow-line rule to start with.
Now we've seen numerous near-wrecks by cars clipping the yellow line and having to hit the brakes to avoid penalty. So NASCAR has some serious rethinking to do here.
Will NASCAR rethink this whole misbegotten rule? History suggests not yet, but the absurdity of the rule continues to baffle. Put in place at Talladega in April 2001 immediately following the BGN 300, it was almost entirely a panicky rule because NASCAR was collectively scared to death of a wholesale driver park-out occurring during the Winston Cup 500. The rumor had been circulating in the weeks before that Talladega weekend of a driver boycott or park-out following the death of Dale Earnhardt and NASCAR's initial ruling that its roof spoiler package - all but openly blamed for Earnhardt's death in several media pieces, notably an infamously maukish piece by The Charlotte Observor's David Poole in the immediate week after Earnhardt's death - would remain in place.
Following Talladega's BGN 300 that weekend and a loud protest by Jimmy Spencer over drivers passing below the yellow line, NASCAR ruled it would flag drivers for going below the yellow line. It led to Tony Stewart's infamous confrontation with Winston-Salem Journal writer Mike Mulhern after the Firecracker 400 when Stewart passed below the line for fifth and was flagged to the rear in the final laps. Since then there have been numerous instances of drivers flagged for passing below the yellow line and a more-infamous no-call for Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Talladega in 2003 - there Earnhardt passed Matt Kenseth on the apron of Turn Three with five laps to go but was not flagged, NASCAR lamely claiming he had "already passed" Kenseth when he got below the line, never mind the two were still nose to nose when he hit the apron and Earnhardt had to go on the apron to clear Kenseth.
It was a lame non-call universally recognized as favoritism by NASCAR toward Junior then and later, poor officiating on a par with infamous no-calls and bad calls in NFL lore. But it also raised questions about the sagacity of the yellow-line rule to start with.
Now we've seen numerous near-wrecks by cars clipping the yellow line and having to hit the brakes to avoid penalty. So NASCAR has some serious rethinking to do here.
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Daytona Slap-Happy Hour, And More Dodge News
Final practice for the Daytona 500 went off without a hitch for the most part, other than some tire trouble for Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Brian Vickers painting the second-turn exit wall black ever so gently. Reading the Bull Sheet shows the speeds, but then that really doesn't say much, since the 500's weather is predicted to be some 15-20 degrees cooler than Saturday, more in line with Friday practice. Also, a striking aspect was how few cars ran the entire session - most ran the first quarter to third, then it steadily thinned out until only about half a dozen cars were still on the track by the session's end.
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Meanwhile, another Dodge team will run the Intrepid at Fontana, which would seem to be a factory call, and a no-confidence vote in the beleagured Charger. The blunt nose is being blamed, since it was designed for a higher-downforce harder-tire package than what NASCAR threw at everyone.
Dodge hopes to at least get some concession on spoiler, but the exercise is a symptom of a larger problem - the failure of the low-downforce package. Advertised as the way to eliminate the aeropush, it has had the opposite effect. And yet NASCAR is stubbornly sticking with it.
Dodge teams will press on, but there still remain issues to resolve before the racing gets back where it needs to be.
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Meanwhile, another Dodge team will run the Intrepid at Fontana, which would seem to be a factory call, and a no-confidence vote in the beleagured Charger. The blunt nose is being blamed, since it was designed for a higher-downforce harder-tire package than what NASCAR threw at everyone.
Dodge hopes to at least get some concession on spoiler, but the exercise is a symptom of a larger problem - the failure of the low-downforce package. Advertised as the way to eliminate the aeropush, it has had the opposite effect. And yet NASCAR is stubbornly sticking with it.
Dodge teams will press on, but there still remain issues to resolve before the racing gets back where it needs to be.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Tony Stewart Gets Some Comeuppance While NASCAR Chickens Out
A little-noticed occurance happened during Tony Stewart's pop-off about push-drafting at Daytona - he got a bit of comeuppance in the form of a writer asking, "Aren't you overreacting?" Stewart of course popped off along the lines of "Why don't you drive the car instead of me?" He even threatened to take Wednesday practice off.
Seeing Stewart pop off is a reason why, for all the improvement in his public deportment in 2005, he still can't be fully embraced as an ambassador for the sport. He still has a streak of overpaid underworked prima donna in him, and he's certainly not alone. When he played the death card with regard to push-drafting racing, not only was he overracting, he was insulting the intelligence of racing.
"Trust me, I did my share of push-drafting out there," Stewart acknowledged - which wasn't much given the all-too-obvious reality that he was as guilty of it as anyone else. But it does point to a level of hypocrisy involved - if he's so scared of that kind of racing, then why does he keep doing it? The old answer is "We're forced to do it." No, they're not, they do it of their own volition - because it is the best way to pass on the racetrack.
Too bad more of the NASCAR press corps doesn't take more drivers to task for acting like cowards in this fashion. Being taken to task is what the drivers need.
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Unfortunately, NASCAR has once again chickened out and taken some aggression out of the racing with the announcement that they will establish "no bump" zones in the corners at Daytona and presumably Talladega. Mike Wallace cuts to the chase - "How are you going to enforce it? What's the difference between bump-drafting and someone checking up in front of you?"
More to the point, will favoritism come into play as it does with NASCAR's yellow-line rule? Few forget that Dale Earnhardt Jr. got an indefenisbly favorable call on a pass below the yellow line at Talladega in 2003, solely because he is Dale Earnhardt Junior. Meanwhile, Mike Skinner, Tony Stewart, Kenny Wallace, and now Carl Edwards have been shafted by NASCAR calls on passing below the yellow line.
The yellow-line rule has never been plausibly defended by NASCAR or anyone else, and efforts to defend this new "no bump zone" rule will invariably strain credulity, because the whole controversy about push-drafting is overreaction by certain drivers.
And then there is research by NASCAR into a softer front bumper to dissuade teams from push-drafting without hurting the nose's aerodynamics. Softening the bumper is never a good idea for safety and is just more overreaction to Tony Stewart acting like a drama queen. The more NASCAR takes aggression out of racing, the worse the sport gets. It can't defend this rule or the yellow-line rule, and it makes taking drivers to task for cowardice all the more necessary.
Seeing Stewart pop off is a reason why, for all the improvement in his public deportment in 2005, he still can't be fully embraced as an ambassador for the sport. He still has a streak of overpaid underworked prima donna in him, and he's certainly not alone. When he played the death card with regard to push-drafting racing, not only was he overracting, he was insulting the intelligence of racing.
"Trust me, I did my share of push-drafting out there," Stewart acknowledged - which wasn't much given the all-too-obvious reality that he was as guilty of it as anyone else. But it does point to a level of hypocrisy involved - if he's so scared of that kind of racing, then why does he keep doing it? The old answer is "We're forced to do it." No, they're not, they do it of their own volition - because it is the best way to pass on the racetrack.
Too bad more of the NASCAR press corps doesn't take more drivers to task for acting like cowards in this fashion. Being taken to task is what the drivers need.
---------------------------------------
Unfortunately, NASCAR has once again chickened out and taken some aggression out of the racing with the announcement that they will establish "no bump" zones in the corners at Daytona and presumably Talladega. Mike Wallace cuts to the chase - "How are you going to enforce it? What's the difference between bump-drafting and someone checking up in front of you?"
More to the point, will favoritism come into play as it does with NASCAR's yellow-line rule? Few forget that Dale Earnhardt Jr. got an indefenisbly favorable call on a pass below the yellow line at Talladega in 2003, solely because he is Dale Earnhardt Junior. Meanwhile, Mike Skinner, Tony Stewart, Kenny Wallace, and now Carl Edwards have been shafted by NASCAR calls on passing below the yellow line.
The yellow-line rule has never been plausibly defended by NASCAR or anyone else, and efforts to defend this new "no bump zone" rule will invariably strain credulity, because the whole controversy about push-drafting is overreaction by certain drivers.
And then there is research by NASCAR into a softer front bumper to dissuade teams from push-drafting without hurting the nose's aerodynamics. Softening the bumper is never a good idea for safety and is just more overreaction to Tony Stewart acting like a drama queen. The more NASCAR takes aggression out of racing, the worse the sport gets. It can't defend this rule or the yellow-line rule, and it makes taking drivers to task for cowardice all the more necessary.
Monday, February 13, 2006
Chad Knaus Gets Push-Drafted Out Of The Garage
Daytona's first round of racing has wrapped up and two big stories promptly developed.
First, Ray Evernham's former car chief Chad Knaus lived up to his former boss' comment after being fined heavily for a cheating infraction around 1995: "I guess I'm this week's ass." Chad Knaus, though, got pushed clean out of the garage area, reminiscent of Talladega last October when Kevin Harvick's crew chief was likewise escorted out for cheating. The cause of this brouhaha was some illegal offset put into the right rear of Jimmie Johnson's #48 Chevrolet, offset that got noticed by smoke coming off Johnson's wheel wells during his 500 qualifying run.
In the same post-qualifying inspection, Terry Labonte, driving Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman's #96 Chevrolet, got his time disallowed for running a carburator with illegal modifications. Now we've seen things like this before - Staubach and Aikman's team is a Joe Gibbs Racing satellite effort with its engines from JGR's engine shop; years ago (I think it was 1997 at Talladega) Billy Standridge qualified at Talladega with a Tony Santanacola engine at a time when Santanacola was Cale Yarborough's head engine builder; the Santanacola engine run by Standridge was found to be less-than-legal.
The deal here in 2006 sounds like Hall Of Fame Racing (the Staubach-Aikman #96) became the fall guy for some experimentation by JGR's engine shop.
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The other story was the Daytona Shootout and JGR's double-header. First there was rookie Denny Hamlin winning the race, the first rookie to ever do so (the closest analogy was Jeff Gordon's 1994 win in the Busch Clash as a sophmore). The second part of the double-header was Tony Stewart's post-race commentary about how "dangerous" push-drafting is and how "NASCAR has to do something about it." Incredibily, Jim Hunter of NASCAR acknowledged Stewart's comments and talked vaguely about push-drafting being a problem.
Why does NASCAR have to do anything here? Push-drafting dates back to the 1960s and '70s - the old Car & Track television series filmed the 1974 Daytona 500 and that footage shows plenty of push-drafting; it also filmed circa-1972 NASCAR at Michigan and that footage shows Richard Petty punting Bobby Allison, Bobby Isaac, and others through the trioval area to pass other cars.
The wrecks that happened in the Shootout had nothing to do with push-drafting - even Kyle Busch's tag on Mark Martin wasn't about push-drafting, that was trying to knock Martin out of the way. For Stewart and anyone else - Jeff Gordon comes to mind immediately - to gripe about push-drafting is more hypocrisy from race drivers.
This was about the kind of terrific racing that has been in such short supply in NASCAR circles the last 20-plus years. There was the usual caveat that the 500 will be different, but we should hope it isn't different, as the sport can use a Daytona 500 as ferocious as last October at Talladega.
First, Ray Evernham's former car chief Chad Knaus lived up to his former boss' comment after being fined heavily for a cheating infraction around 1995: "I guess I'm this week's ass." Chad Knaus, though, got pushed clean out of the garage area, reminiscent of Talladega last October when Kevin Harvick's crew chief was likewise escorted out for cheating. The cause of this brouhaha was some illegal offset put into the right rear of Jimmie Johnson's #48 Chevrolet, offset that got noticed by smoke coming off Johnson's wheel wells during his 500 qualifying run.
In the same post-qualifying inspection, Terry Labonte, driving Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman's #96 Chevrolet, got his time disallowed for running a carburator with illegal modifications. Now we've seen things like this before - Staubach and Aikman's team is a Joe Gibbs Racing satellite effort with its engines from JGR's engine shop; years ago (I think it was 1997 at Talladega) Billy Standridge qualified at Talladega with a Tony Santanacola engine at a time when Santanacola was Cale Yarborough's head engine builder; the Santanacola engine run by Standridge was found to be less-than-legal.
The deal here in 2006 sounds like Hall Of Fame Racing (the Staubach-Aikman #96) became the fall guy for some experimentation by JGR's engine shop.
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The other story was the Daytona Shootout and JGR's double-header. First there was rookie Denny Hamlin winning the race, the first rookie to ever do so (the closest analogy was Jeff Gordon's 1994 win in the Busch Clash as a sophmore). The second part of the double-header was Tony Stewart's post-race commentary about how "dangerous" push-drafting is and how "NASCAR has to do something about it." Incredibily, Jim Hunter of NASCAR acknowledged Stewart's comments and talked vaguely about push-drafting being a problem.
Why does NASCAR have to do anything here? Push-drafting dates back to the 1960s and '70s - the old Car & Track television series filmed the 1974 Daytona 500 and that footage shows plenty of push-drafting; it also filmed circa-1972 NASCAR at Michigan and that footage shows Richard Petty punting Bobby Allison, Bobby Isaac, and others through the trioval area to pass other cars.
The wrecks that happened in the Shootout had nothing to do with push-drafting - even Kyle Busch's tag on Mark Martin wasn't about push-drafting, that was trying to knock Martin out of the way. For Stewart and anyone else - Jeff Gordon comes to mind immediately - to gripe about push-drafting is more hypocrisy from race drivers.
This was about the kind of terrific racing that has been in such short supply in NASCAR circles the last 20-plus years. There was the usual caveat that the 500 will be different, but we should hope it isn't different, as the sport can use a Daytona 500 as ferocious as last October at Talladega.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Islam's Cartoon Violence
If you thought the infamous Peggy Charren was an enemy of cartoon violence, then you haven't seen anything yet. The violence over cartoons spoofing Muhammad says a lot about civilization versus savagery and it says a lot about the fundamental failure that is Islamo-Arab ideology. They may have military power and suicide bombers, but their lack of any redeeming societal quality makes their defeat a requirement.
Quick NASCAR Take With First Daytona Practice
It should of course be kept in mind that the following discusses one practice sesson for the Daytona 500, but glancing at first practice speeds before Daytona 500 qualifying, some quick thoughts -
1 - Talk about quick turnarounds. In 2005 RCR Enterprises Chevrolets were so down on power that they rented a couple of Hendrick Motorsports engines to test at Daytona. RCR later hired some personnel from Cosworth Engineering and it's showing up in Kevin Harvick's strong first practice run. Harvick's #29 led the first practice, while teammate Jeff Burton's #31 practiced 11th and rookie Clint Bowyer in the #07 clocked 16th.
The other quick turnaround were Petty Enterprises Dodges, as #45 Kyle Petty hit third and #43 Bobby Labonte hit ninth in the first practice. The key to watch with the Petty organization is that in Bobby Labonte they now have a driver whose temperment and driving style mesh with Kyle's. Petty Enterprises may also be in a much better position within Dodge's engineering totem pole given Toyota's pending arrival and related uncertainty about some other Dodge organizations.
2 - To no one's surprise the Hendrick Motorsports empire is all over strong practice speeds. #24 Jeff Gordon, the defending 500 champ, hit second; #48 Jimmie Johnson, perhaps smarting from Greg Biffle's preseason trash talking, hit fifth; #5 Kyle Busch hit a respectable 17th and #25 Brian Vickers overcame a blown engine in pre-Shootout practice and hit 23rd for 500 practice.
The Hendrick satellite teams also timed pretty well in the first practice. Morton-Bowers Motorsports, running Hendrick-built cars and engines, has three cars for the 500. #36 Bill Elliott hit seventh and #01 Joe Nemechek tenth, while the disappointment lay in #14 Sterling Marlin's 27th.
The other Hendrick satellite outfit is Gene Haas' #66 Chevy, and new driver Jeff Green reached 18th in the first practice.
3 - Joe Gibbs Racing won the Firecracker 400 last year and has won the Daytona 500 and once at Talladega, but their Chevrolets had a rather up-and-down practice. Rookies #11 Denny Hamlin and #18 J.J. Yeley hit the top 15 running, but defending NASCAR champ Tony Stewart was only 34th and JGR's satellite outfit, Hall of Fame Racing - how ironic that Washington Redskins coach Gibbs is helping Dallas Cowboys Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach, owners of the #96? - managed only 36th in the #96. One has to wonder if Gibbs' engine shop may be a little stretched right now.
4 - Petty Enterprises weren't the only Dodges showing something. Their engine benefactor, Evernham Motorsports, put #19 Jeremy Mayfield eighth in the practice session, while new teammate #10 Scott Riggs got in a decent practice time in 20th. However, the rest of Evernham wasn't so strong - #9 Kasey Kahne, who has generally plummetted since his breakthrough win at Richmond, was only 32nd.
The other high-profile Dodge teams are Penske Racing and Ganassi/SABCO Racing, and it is here that the Toyota cloud hangs closely - particularly with Ganassi, which won the 24 Hours of Daytona running Lexus racecars with Toyota's 2007 NASCAR engine design. Roger Penske's carpetbagging with manufacturers is well known - he ran Chevrolets then switched on little more than a whim to Mercedes, then when his CART effort eventually folded and moved to the IRL he ran Chevys then switched to Toyota. In NASCAR he ran Pontiacs when he came back in 1991, then switched to Ford to get more money and engineering help. He did it again when Dodge's NASCAR effort changed philosophies following Lou Patane's departure and the assumption by Stuttgart of control of the program. Dodge then went after Penske, cut back on helping their other teams (leading to the present Bill Davis Racing imbroglio), and Penske went with the money again. When Toyota enters, Penske is widely expected to switch again when his Dodge contract runs out - if not before.
Penske's Dodges were a mixed bag - Kurt Busch, fresh from resolving his traffic spat with Phoenix cops, clocked 13th in the practice while #12 Ryan Newman had a disappointing 31st. Of all the drivers in NASCAR Newman may be the most one-dimensional, as he exploded to eight wins in 2003 but has consistently struggled since the switch back to lower downforce and softer tires from 2004 onward.
Ganassi/SABCO were looking even less impressive with their new lineup following JGR's approach of two rookies led by a veteran. The veteran, #42 Casey Mears, was just 29th while rookie #41 Reed Sorenson was 28th and rookie #40 David Stremme was a lowly 39th.
5 - The crowd favorite remains Dale Earnhardt Jr., and amid some annoying maukish rememberences of Dale Sr. by the media, Junior didn't light up much in first practice as the #8 was 26th. DEI teammates were even worse - #1 Martin Truex was 40th and #15 Paul Menard, a former Andy Petree project, was 42nd.
DEI is paying for being too dependent on an aerodynamic gimmick to win on the plate tracks - aero work on the transmission tunnel and underside of the car. In the 2004 500 Michael Waltrip flipped and the underside of his Chevy was exposed and viewed to the world. Don't think rival teams didn't record that footage and glean something from footage of that underside.
6 - With Ford's program basically a Jack Roush effort, there aren't that many Fords to talk about. But some of them are pretty fast. Robert Yates' pair, with their engine program merged into Roush's, hit the track running and hit the top six together. #38 Elliott Sadler, though, may be feeling some pressure to perform, as he won twice in 2004 but has been disappointing quite a bit as well. #88 Dale Jarrett's comeback triumph at Talladega may be the shot in the arm he needs to run to the front more consistently.
The Roush fleet was up and down the first practice chart. #17 Matt Kenseth hit 15th and new teammate #26 Jamie McMurray was 19th. Perenially cheerful #99 Carl Edwards continues to ride the magic carpet as he clocked a decent 22nd, while loudmouth #16 Greg Biffle was 24th and is looking a bit surlier this year, and #6 Mark Martin in a year he wasn't scheduled to race was only 33rd.
The only other Ford of note is the Wood Brothers #21, beginning an ambitious alliance with Tad Geschteckter but getting off to an uninspiring start at 38th in practice for #21 Ken Schrader.
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One of only two other noteworthy teams is Bill Davis Racing, presently running Dodges, point man for Toyota come 2007, and struggling so far in 2006 - #22 Dave Blaney was only 45th, #23 Mike Skinner 47th, and new teammate, perennial loudmouth #55 Michael Waltrip, using BDR as springboard for his own team and presently allied with ex-Jasper Racing head Doug Bawel for the now-defunct #77's 2005 owner points, was an embarassing 50th.
The other noteworthy team is #4 Morgan-McClure Motorsports, the Chevy that won three Daytona 500s and two Firecracker 400s in the 1990s but is now a team priced out of contention by the bigger outfits. #4 Scott Wimmer was 43rd and needs a superb run in the 150s as they do not have owner points to fall back on for the 500 field.
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All this is of course subject to change as Speedweeks proceeds, so stay tuned.
1 - Talk about quick turnarounds. In 2005 RCR Enterprises Chevrolets were so down on power that they rented a couple of Hendrick Motorsports engines to test at Daytona. RCR later hired some personnel from Cosworth Engineering and it's showing up in Kevin Harvick's strong first practice run. Harvick's #29 led the first practice, while teammate Jeff Burton's #31 practiced 11th and rookie Clint Bowyer in the #07 clocked 16th.
The other quick turnaround were Petty Enterprises Dodges, as #45 Kyle Petty hit third and #43 Bobby Labonte hit ninth in the first practice. The key to watch with the Petty organization is that in Bobby Labonte they now have a driver whose temperment and driving style mesh with Kyle's. Petty Enterprises may also be in a much better position within Dodge's engineering totem pole given Toyota's pending arrival and related uncertainty about some other Dodge organizations.
2 - To no one's surprise the Hendrick Motorsports empire is all over strong practice speeds. #24 Jeff Gordon, the defending 500 champ, hit second; #48 Jimmie Johnson, perhaps smarting from Greg Biffle's preseason trash talking, hit fifth; #5 Kyle Busch hit a respectable 17th and #25 Brian Vickers overcame a blown engine in pre-Shootout practice and hit 23rd for 500 practice.
The Hendrick satellite teams also timed pretty well in the first practice. Morton-Bowers Motorsports, running Hendrick-built cars and engines, has three cars for the 500. #36 Bill Elliott hit seventh and #01 Joe Nemechek tenth, while the disappointment lay in #14 Sterling Marlin's 27th.
The other Hendrick satellite outfit is Gene Haas' #66 Chevy, and new driver Jeff Green reached 18th in the first practice.
3 - Joe Gibbs Racing won the Firecracker 400 last year and has won the Daytona 500 and once at Talladega, but their Chevrolets had a rather up-and-down practice. Rookies #11 Denny Hamlin and #18 J.J. Yeley hit the top 15 running, but defending NASCAR champ Tony Stewart was only 34th and JGR's satellite outfit, Hall of Fame Racing - how ironic that Washington Redskins coach Gibbs is helping Dallas Cowboys Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach, owners of the #96? - managed only 36th in the #96. One has to wonder if Gibbs' engine shop may be a little stretched right now.
4 - Petty Enterprises weren't the only Dodges showing something. Their engine benefactor, Evernham Motorsports, put #19 Jeremy Mayfield eighth in the practice session, while new teammate #10 Scott Riggs got in a decent practice time in 20th. However, the rest of Evernham wasn't so strong - #9 Kasey Kahne, who has generally plummetted since his breakthrough win at Richmond, was only 32nd.
The other high-profile Dodge teams are Penske Racing and Ganassi/SABCO Racing, and it is here that the Toyota cloud hangs closely - particularly with Ganassi, which won the 24 Hours of Daytona running Lexus racecars with Toyota's 2007 NASCAR engine design. Roger Penske's carpetbagging with manufacturers is well known - he ran Chevrolets then switched on little more than a whim to Mercedes, then when his CART effort eventually folded and moved to the IRL he ran Chevys then switched to Toyota. In NASCAR he ran Pontiacs when he came back in 1991, then switched to Ford to get more money and engineering help. He did it again when Dodge's NASCAR effort changed philosophies following Lou Patane's departure and the assumption by Stuttgart of control of the program. Dodge then went after Penske, cut back on helping their other teams (leading to the present Bill Davis Racing imbroglio), and Penske went with the money again. When Toyota enters, Penske is widely expected to switch again when his Dodge contract runs out - if not before.
Penske's Dodges were a mixed bag - Kurt Busch, fresh from resolving his traffic spat with Phoenix cops, clocked 13th in the practice while #12 Ryan Newman had a disappointing 31st. Of all the drivers in NASCAR Newman may be the most one-dimensional, as he exploded to eight wins in 2003 but has consistently struggled since the switch back to lower downforce and softer tires from 2004 onward.
Ganassi/SABCO were looking even less impressive with their new lineup following JGR's approach of two rookies led by a veteran. The veteran, #42 Casey Mears, was just 29th while rookie #41 Reed Sorenson was 28th and rookie #40 David Stremme was a lowly 39th.
5 - The crowd favorite remains Dale Earnhardt Jr., and amid some annoying maukish rememberences of Dale Sr. by the media, Junior didn't light up much in first practice as the #8 was 26th. DEI teammates were even worse - #1 Martin Truex was 40th and #15 Paul Menard, a former Andy Petree project, was 42nd.
DEI is paying for being too dependent on an aerodynamic gimmick to win on the plate tracks - aero work on the transmission tunnel and underside of the car. In the 2004 500 Michael Waltrip flipped and the underside of his Chevy was exposed and viewed to the world. Don't think rival teams didn't record that footage and glean something from footage of that underside.
6 - With Ford's program basically a Jack Roush effort, there aren't that many Fords to talk about. But some of them are pretty fast. Robert Yates' pair, with their engine program merged into Roush's, hit the track running and hit the top six together. #38 Elliott Sadler, though, may be feeling some pressure to perform, as he won twice in 2004 but has been disappointing quite a bit as well. #88 Dale Jarrett's comeback triumph at Talladega may be the shot in the arm he needs to run to the front more consistently.
The Roush fleet was up and down the first practice chart. #17 Matt Kenseth hit 15th and new teammate #26 Jamie McMurray was 19th. Perenially cheerful #99 Carl Edwards continues to ride the magic carpet as he clocked a decent 22nd, while loudmouth #16 Greg Biffle was 24th and is looking a bit surlier this year, and #6 Mark Martin in a year he wasn't scheduled to race was only 33rd.
The only other Ford of note is the Wood Brothers #21, beginning an ambitious alliance with Tad Geschteckter but getting off to an uninspiring start at 38th in practice for #21 Ken Schrader.
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One of only two other noteworthy teams is Bill Davis Racing, presently running Dodges, point man for Toyota come 2007, and struggling so far in 2006 - #22 Dave Blaney was only 45th, #23 Mike Skinner 47th, and new teammate, perennial loudmouth #55 Michael Waltrip, using BDR as springboard for his own team and presently allied with ex-Jasper Racing head Doug Bawel for the now-defunct #77's 2005 owner points, was an embarassing 50th.
The other noteworthy team is #4 Morgan-McClure Motorsports, the Chevy that won three Daytona 500s and two Firecracker 400s in the 1990s but is now a team priced out of contention by the bigger outfits. #4 Scott Wimmer was 43rd and needs a superb run in the 150s as they do not have owner points to fall back on for the 500 field.
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All this is of course subject to change as Speedweeks proceeds, so stay tuned.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
A Look At Iraq's Big Picture
Check out this look at Iraq after a fourth eyewitness tour for some genuine insight into the war.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Biffle Wrong About Push-Drafting
Greg Biffle's comments about push-drafting during the January NASCAR Media Tour further cement his growing reputation as someone who runs his mouth. "Jimmie Johnson better be careful, or somebody will break his neck," Biffle said in a continuing feud he has had with Jimmie Johnson. Biffle blasted Johnson for accidents at Daytona and Talladega in 2005, then played dumb by saying, "You can't point fingers. Jimmie is a great driver, and certainly didn't mean to cause them. Nobody means to cause a wreck." Biffle further played dumb when he said, "I'm not one to point fingers" about an encounter with Johnson at the Daytona 500.
Biffle sells the audience short here. First, he is one to point fingers and has done so throughout his career. Second, drivers DO in fact mean to cause wrecks. There is almost no such thing as causing a wreck by accident anymore, if there ever was such a thing. Wrecks happen because drivers have control of their cars and WANT to cause wrecks. Saying "it's so hard to see out of these cars with the headrests" as Biffle does won't cut it, because drivers have more control over their cars than many people think. As Bobby Allison once put it about Darrell Waltrip, "as he was going in there he was thinking, 'it sure wouldn't hurt to send him on a ride.'"
Biffle's osteinsible concern is push- (or bump) drafting. "Bump-drafting has gotten out of hand, and NASCAR needs to do something about it." Biffle is wrong. Push-drafting, a technique as old as superspeedways, is a very legitimate racing tactic and is often the only way to pass. The wrecks blamed on push-drafting are the fault of drivers, not the fault of rules or lack of rules. By blaming a tactic instead of the driver(s) involved, Biffle passes the buck and thus is dodging responsibility.
Biffle needs to talk less and race more.
Biffle sells the audience short here. First, he is one to point fingers and has done so throughout his career. Second, drivers DO in fact mean to cause wrecks. There is almost no such thing as causing a wreck by accident anymore, if there ever was such a thing. Wrecks happen because drivers have control of their cars and WANT to cause wrecks. Saying "it's so hard to see out of these cars with the headrests" as Biffle does won't cut it, because drivers have more control over their cars than many people think. As Bobby Allison once put it about Darrell Waltrip, "as he was going in there he was thinking, 'it sure wouldn't hurt to send him on a ride.'"
Biffle's osteinsible concern is push- (or bump) drafting. "Bump-drafting has gotten out of hand, and NASCAR needs to do something about it." Biffle is wrong. Push-drafting, a technique as old as superspeedways, is a very legitimate racing tactic and is often the only way to pass. The wrecks blamed on push-drafting are the fault of drivers, not the fault of rules or lack of rules. By blaming a tactic instead of the driver(s) involved, Biffle passes the buck and thus is dodging responsibility.
Biffle needs to talk less and race more.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Toyota Comes To NASCAR's Big Leagues
The worst-kept secret in NASCAR was finally broken in late January 2006 with the confirmation that Toyota will field entries in NASCAR's Winston (aka Nextel) Cup and Busch Series racing divisions. "It's going to be an important point in our history," said NASCAR's Brian France, who further noted that Toyota will come in to win races immediately (as though anyone ever expected otherwise) and will "market the sport; you'll see commercials and promotions."
But how much more promotion does the sport really need? If anything, the sport needs LESS promotion and more of an effort at improving the product it fields. Commercials and promotion isn't high on NASCAR's necessities list.
Toyota has long scared other NASCAR manufacturers because of its enormous edge in resources - "Toyota has plenty of cash and American rivals Ford and GM don't," as one motorsports scribe puts it.
The most outspoken about the issue so far has been Jack Roush - "We have to keep American manufacturers involved; we can't make it a Japanese-owned manufacturers series.....We have to.....not let Toyota have things that will obsolete everything else. If NASCAR has a way to stop that, that's wonderful. But if NASCAR manages to get in front of Toyota and enforce it, they'll be the first sanctioning body that ever did that." Roush further adds that Ford, GM, and Dodge may cut back their NASCAR efforts or quit altogether, even though "racing is not a luxury."
Toyota first entered the Craftsman Truck Series in 2004, and in 2005 it won some 40% of the Truck Series' races. While Toyota has been stepping up, the other brands have not - Dodge has cut back to basically Bobby Hamilton's outfit while Ford and Chevy programs have not grown at all since Toyota entered. It is in keeping with Toyota's reputation for pricing other brands out of contention. It seems to make nonsense of Brian France's blithe assertion that Toyota "has learned out culture and how we do business. They know they have to play on a level playing field, and they're very comfortable with that."
Even less sanguine than Roush is fellow Ford man Doug Yates, front man for Roush's engine alliance with Robert Yates - "(Toyota) can put the series out of business like they've done in the past (in other forms of racing).....they spend to buy all the best players, then how is NASCAR going to control the racing?"
It is somewhat reminiscent of when NASCAR allowed Hoosier Race Tire to field tires in Winston Cup in 1988 amid the attempted takeover of Goodyear by the anti-racing businessman Sir James Goldsmith - NASCAR wanted to cover itself in case Goodyear quit. But Toyota is no small company, it is the company that ruined a lot of racing around the world.
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Amid Toyota's announcements, opposition to NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow continues to harden. The tone of comments from Ray Evernham, Felix Sabates, and Jack Roush strongly suggests it was an unaccounced boycott by raceteams to NASCAR's Daytona test of the COT, and one has to wonder whether it will get worse - and leaves one wondering if the COT will, despite NASCAR announcements, ever see a competitive lap in anger.
But how much more promotion does the sport really need? If anything, the sport needs LESS promotion and more of an effort at improving the product it fields. Commercials and promotion isn't high on NASCAR's necessities list.
Toyota has long scared other NASCAR manufacturers because of its enormous edge in resources - "Toyota has plenty of cash and American rivals Ford and GM don't," as one motorsports scribe puts it.
The most outspoken about the issue so far has been Jack Roush - "We have to keep American manufacturers involved; we can't make it a Japanese-owned manufacturers series.....We have to.....not let Toyota have things that will obsolete everything else. If NASCAR has a way to stop that, that's wonderful. But if NASCAR manages to get in front of Toyota and enforce it, they'll be the first sanctioning body that ever did that." Roush further adds that Ford, GM, and Dodge may cut back their NASCAR efforts or quit altogether, even though "racing is not a luxury."
Toyota first entered the Craftsman Truck Series in 2004, and in 2005 it won some 40% of the Truck Series' races. While Toyota has been stepping up, the other brands have not - Dodge has cut back to basically Bobby Hamilton's outfit while Ford and Chevy programs have not grown at all since Toyota entered. It is in keeping with Toyota's reputation for pricing other brands out of contention. It seems to make nonsense of Brian France's blithe assertion that Toyota "has learned out culture and how we do business. They know they have to play on a level playing field, and they're very comfortable with that."
Even less sanguine than Roush is fellow Ford man Doug Yates, front man for Roush's engine alliance with Robert Yates - "(Toyota) can put the series out of business like they've done in the past (in other forms of racing).....they spend to buy all the best players, then how is NASCAR going to control the racing?"
It is somewhat reminiscent of when NASCAR allowed Hoosier Race Tire to field tires in Winston Cup in 1988 amid the attempted takeover of Goodyear by the anti-racing businessman Sir James Goldsmith - NASCAR wanted to cover itself in case Goodyear quit. But Toyota is no small company, it is the company that ruined a lot of racing around the world.
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Amid Toyota's announcements, opposition to NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow continues to harden. The tone of comments from Ray Evernham, Felix Sabates, and Jack Roush strongly suggests it was an unaccounced boycott by raceteams to NASCAR's Daytona test of the COT, and one has to wonder whether it will get worse - and leaves one wondering if the COT will, despite NASCAR announcements, ever see a competitive lap in anger.
Monday, January 16, 2006
Just Shut Up, Cronkite
Who does Walter Cronkite think he is? He wants the US to quit Iraq "with honor," echoing his infamous demand to withdraw from Vietnam, never mind that he was wrong about Vietnam and is wrong about Iraq. Does he not understand that WINNING is the only viable option here? What does Cronkite have against winning a war?
It is little wonder that the credibility of the Mainstream Media no longer exists. Cronkite helped begin the destruction of the Mainstream Media's credibility in the Vietnam war and he continues it today.
It is little wonder that the credibility of the Mainstream Media no longer exists. Cronkite helped begin the destruction of the Mainstream Media's credibility in the Vietnam war and he continues it today.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
NASCAR's "Car Of Tomorrow" A Bad Idea
NASCAR has made a lot of noise about its Car Of Tomorrow, a rather serious redeisgn of a racing stock car intended to be fielded by raceteams for 2007, with a tentative debut at Talladega in October 2006. The Car Of Tomorrow - COT for short - sports a noticably bigger roofline, slightly wider overall body, redesigned rear deck area and rear spoiler, and a slightly blunter nose. The biggest change is in the airdam - instead of the flush airdam of years past, the COT airdam has a large gap with a thin splitter on the bottom. According to DEI racing director Steve Hmiel, this is designed to limit what kind of shocks teams run; if teams run shocks with a lot of travel it will grind the lip away and wipe out front downforce, thus teams are limited to shock packages that don't bottom out the nose of the car.
However, NASCAR has not been able to sell the idea to raceteams or to Detroit, and the rumor has picked up steam that the entire project may wither away before it ever sees a competitive lap.
The reasons why the project may never see a competitive lap in anger despite NASCAR spin that the project is still on are several - to convert their fleets to COTs raceteams would have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars building new cars, as present-day cars cannot be converted to COT specs. They'd also need new transporters, as the bigger rooflines make present day haulers too small.
Then there are performance issues with the design. As Speedway Illustrated noted in its February 2006 issue, when tested in traffic at Atlanta in late 2005 the COTs ran well by themselves but were junk in traffic. Noted Doug Gore, quoting from one of the project leaders involved, "The car performed better than expected on the track, but only in clean air. In traffic it performed worse than (raceteams') current models..." - so much so that according to the Winston-Salem Journal's online racing page at the time, teams had to use rear spoilers nearly seven inches in height to get the cars to run stably.
NASCAR, though, continues to test the idea - a day after the first round of NASCAR preseason testing at Daytona, Brett Bodine, a former driver with one Winston Cup win and five BGN wins to his credit in a two-decade career, tested a NASCAR-built COT prototype and experimented with a bizarre new angle - a rear wing instead of the spoiler blade. NASCAR said it hoped that other teams that tested at Daytona in mid-January would bring their COT prototypes with them for a scheduled test. However, only Kyle Petty participated.
Based on Indycar wings and also the wings used on some classes of sports-car racing, it is doubtful that the rear wing will improve handling in traffic, as Indycars in particular had proven less than raceable on ovals with such wings until air-displacement ailerons were added to the rear wings to make drafting more effective. One wonders what NASCAR could hope to accomplish with a rear wing.
The more the Car Of Tomorrow is run, the less impressive it becomes.
However, NASCAR has not been able to sell the idea to raceteams or to Detroit, and the rumor has picked up steam that the entire project may wither away before it ever sees a competitive lap.
The reasons why the project may never see a competitive lap in anger despite NASCAR spin that the project is still on are several - to convert their fleets to COTs raceteams would have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars building new cars, as present-day cars cannot be converted to COT specs. They'd also need new transporters, as the bigger rooflines make present day haulers too small.
Then there are performance issues with the design. As Speedway Illustrated noted in its February 2006 issue, when tested in traffic at Atlanta in late 2005 the COTs ran well by themselves but were junk in traffic. Noted Doug Gore, quoting from one of the project leaders involved, "The car performed better than expected on the track, but only in clean air. In traffic it performed worse than (raceteams') current models..." - so much so that according to the Winston-Salem Journal's online racing page at the time, teams had to use rear spoilers nearly seven inches in height to get the cars to run stably.
NASCAR, though, continues to test the idea - a day after the first round of NASCAR preseason testing at Daytona, Brett Bodine, a former driver with one Winston Cup win and five BGN wins to his credit in a two-decade career, tested a NASCAR-built COT prototype and experimented with a bizarre new angle - a rear wing instead of the spoiler blade. NASCAR said it hoped that other teams that tested at Daytona in mid-January would bring their COT prototypes with them for a scheduled test. However, only Kyle Petty participated.
Based on Indycar wings and also the wings used on some classes of sports-car racing, it is doubtful that the rear wing will improve handling in traffic, as Indycars in particular had proven less than raceable on ovals with such wings until air-displacement ailerons were added to the rear wings to make drafting more effective. One wonders what NASCAR could hope to accomplish with a rear wing.
The more the Car Of Tomorrow is run, the less impressive it becomes.
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Nashville Needs Nesmith
The CMA Awards went down and not everyone was pleased with it. That modern country is basically MOR pop with twangy guitars and occassional fiddle is true enough, but what makes it such a frustrating subject among fans is that the overall quality of its biggest groups, and some of its lesser-known stars, is at best debatable. Certainly, listening to Lee Ann Womack or Sugarland or Keith Urban et al doesn't bring that much pleasure - Sugarland in particular is a textbook case of MOR country and the blandness contained within; their biggest hit to date is Love, Your Baby Girl, a vocal letter from the song's subject matter on her quest to make it in music. It's not a bad song, it's just not inspired - blandly sung, lacking any kind of interesting hook, bereft of what makes songs great.
SheDaisy, to date empty handed in CMAs, is an even worse example - sporting a tough veneer, SheDaisy isn't very tough at all. The Utah-born Osborn sisters have pretty harmonies but dreadful material, all of it composed or co-composed by eldest sis Kristyn. Their first album The Whole Shebang had freshness to it, but their follow-ups have been boring.
And it appears lead songwriter Kristyn Osborn is a little thin-skinned. SheDaisy's most recent hit, the I'm A Believer rip-off Passenger Seat, was the subject of an incredibly stupid article on the Slate website that accused the song and its accompanying album of promoting female passivity - as though the song's subject, enjoying friendship and also life when in love, somehow can be equated with condoning anything resembling a belligerent dominating relationship by a man toward a woman.
Well from the group's new single "I'm Taking The Wheel" it appears such criticism got to Kristyn - which isn't the first time feminazi whining kowtowed a pop singer into concocting a PC follow-up to a mildly racy single. Sheena Easton scored a hit in the late 1970s with Morning Train but came under fire from feminazis who claimed the song promoted passivity and dependance on a husband - and it kowtowed Easton into recording Modern Girl, which made a point of emphasizing its subject lady's independance but still stayed within believable parameters.
Not that I'm Taking The Wheel is a bad song - it actually covers the same ground as Passenger Seat. All the same, Kristyn should have stood up to such critics and pointed out that Passenger Seat contains a positive outlook on life that most people can associate with.
----------------------------------------------------
One can trace the MOR-ization of country to the late 1960s and the fusion of California country with rock music. It is here that we find the unheralded pioneer of this fusion, Michael Nesmith. Unlike modern MOR country, Mike Nesmith had strong qualities that remain superior today - a baritone mixing tenderness with genuine force, innovative lyrical content, strong musical hooks, and innovative studio production. Mike's Monkees-era country-rock anthem Sweet Young Thing is an intoxicating fusion of fiddle and fuzztone, a level of quality he maintained throughout his stint with Micky Dolenz and pals and on through his 1970s solo efforts.
Nashville has recently begun mining old MOR pop tunes as covers for modern country songs - here are some song ideas -
Little Red Rider
The Crippled Lion
Silver Moon (Martina McBride would be perfect for this song)
Grand Ennui
Nevada Fighter
Tomorrow & Me
Two Different Roads
Keep On Keeping On
Roll With The Flow
Some Of Shelley's Blues
And there are more - Nashville needs Nez.
Eugene McCarthy, Sirhan Sirhan Sympathizer
We'll bet you didn't know this about Eugene McCarthy. Yet after Robert Kennedy's assassination, McCarthy said that Kennedy's support for Israel provoked Sirhan Sirhan to assassinate him.
Of course the MSM glossed over this little fact, but it is in keeping with McCarthy's despicable ideology, an ideology that sympathized with America and the Free World's enemies instead of with the defenders of civilization. This same ideology lives in the perennial antiwar movement, where not a word of blame was or is directed at Islamo-Arab imperialism, Soviet/Chinese/Vietnamese/Latin American Communism - any of America's enemies. It shows also in the decades of condemnation for the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, never mind that these were legitimate acts of retaliatory war against an imperial predator that had slaughtered 20 million people and was continuing to massacre hundreds of thousands across Asia to the very end of World War II.
Many years ago National Review wrote a one-line eulogy for a very high-ranking North Vietnamese leader after his passing - "The father of the boat people died in Indochina." It is an appropriate summation of Eugene McCarthy and his ilk.
Saturday, December 03, 2005
Winning Iraq: The Untold Story
Check the local FOX News listings for Winning Iraq: The Untold Story a much-needed visual defense of the liberation of Iraq and the fight to finish off Islamo-Arab imperial fighters within.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Ineptitude Worldwide
The CIA has been engaged in the active sabotage of the War Against Islamo-Arab imperialism for at least three years, and their preferred method is leaking . The harm this anti-US disinformation campaign has caused needs more exposure.
The ineptitude of the CIA is mirrored by the continuing failure of the UN, this time in Cyprus. And the intellectual ineptitude of denunciations of "torture" by the US against Islamo-Arab terrorists gets a much-needed comeuppance.
The ineptitude of the CIA is mirrored by the continuing failure of the UN, this time in Cyprus. And the intellectual ineptitude of denunciations of "torture" by the US against Islamo-Arab terrorists gets a much-needed comeuppance.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
The Stupidity Of Danica Mania
During NASCAR's awards banquet weekend in New York, Bobby Rahal defended Danica Patrick, this despite a near-total void of criticism of her. "Patrick won three poles and had two top fives.....Her fourth-place finish at the Indianapolis 500......vaulted her to the cover of Sports Illustrated."
The story neglects to mention that she never finished in the top five again in the 2005 IRL season and fell out of the top ten in points from Indy on, this despite having one of the strongest cars in the field week after week.
And here we see the nonsense of Bobby Rahal's assertion that "Women face every negative that there is out there." It is difficult to square this assertion with reality, where press coverage of female racers is consistently fawning and criticism is all but nowhere to be found.
NASCAR Sportsman Series team owner Tad Geschtickter chimes in by saying, "She (Patrick) can't be a novelty, she can't be a gimmick." Trouble is she can be a gimmick - she was irrelevent to the IRL season once the field figured her out, and Rahal misses the point when he says, "there will be the complete expectation that she is going to win," because in 2005 she was able to sneak up on the field; now she can't.
Danica Mania helped get Erin Crocker into NASCAR and she responded by wrecking in all her BGN and Truck starts in 2005. Rahal claims female racers are held to a higher standard to define success, but the utter lack of criticism of Patrick shows otherwise, and Geschtickter's defense of Erin Crocker shows the real standard held to female racers - "if you looked at them closely, I'll bet you 80 percent of them were because people were driving over their heads around her. They were saying, 'I've gotta pass her, I've gotta pass her.'"
This is fraudulence, because in her wrecks she lost control, not other cars. At Richmond she spun out in practice and again in the race. At Memphis she tried to force the issue entering a corner even though Steve Grissom had the corner, and the result was another wreck.
Far from being held to a higher standard, female racers are not held to any serious standard of success. Any kind of criticism is met with scorn and defensiveness, utterly lacking any kind of objectivity. It showed very graphically in Deborah Renshaw's excuse for a career and it shows again with Erin Crocker and Danica Patrick.
Racing is supposed to be about tough guys - guys like Tomas Scheckter, the Foyts, the Andrettis, Sam Hornish, Tony Stewart, the Pettys, the Woods, the Earnhardts, etc. Danica Patrick is making motorsports LESS appealing instead of more.
The story neglects to mention that she never finished in the top five again in the 2005 IRL season and fell out of the top ten in points from Indy on, this despite having one of the strongest cars in the field week after week.
And here we see the nonsense of Bobby Rahal's assertion that "Women face every negative that there is out there." It is difficult to square this assertion with reality, where press coverage of female racers is consistently fawning and criticism is all but nowhere to be found.
NASCAR Sportsman Series team owner Tad Geschtickter chimes in by saying, "She (Patrick) can't be a novelty, she can't be a gimmick." Trouble is she can be a gimmick - she was irrelevent to the IRL season once the field figured her out, and Rahal misses the point when he says, "there will be the complete expectation that she is going to win," because in 2005 she was able to sneak up on the field; now she can't.
Danica Mania helped get Erin Crocker into NASCAR and she responded by wrecking in all her BGN and Truck starts in 2005. Rahal claims female racers are held to a higher standard to define success, but the utter lack of criticism of Patrick shows otherwise, and Geschtickter's defense of Erin Crocker shows the real standard held to female racers - "if you looked at them closely, I'll bet you 80 percent of them were because people were driving over their heads around her. They were saying, 'I've gotta pass her, I've gotta pass her.'"
This is fraudulence, because in her wrecks she lost control, not other cars. At Richmond she spun out in practice and again in the race. At Memphis she tried to force the issue entering a corner even though Steve Grissom had the corner, and the result was another wreck.
Far from being held to a higher standard, female racers are not held to any serious standard of success. Any kind of criticism is met with scorn and defensiveness, utterly lacking any kind of objectivity. It showed very graphically in Deborah Renshaw's excuse for a career and it shows again with Erin Crocker and Danica Patrick.
Racing is supposed to be about tough guys - guys like Tomas Scheckter, the Foyts, the Andrettis, Sam Hornish, Tony Stewart, the Pettys, the Woods, the Earnhardts, etc. Danica Patrick is making motorsports LESS appealing instead of more.
Friday, November 25, 2005
White Lies About White Phosphorus
An Italian TV network recently released an internet "documentary" titled Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre alleging the US sprayed white phosphorus on civilians, killing many, during the US offensive to clean out Islamo-Arab terrorist cells within the city. Trouble is that the piece is false, as shown here and also by a witness to Fallujah. And speaking of "witnesses," the credibility of the primary accuser in the Fallujah film has to be questioned.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
John Murtha Isn't That Stupid, Is He?
What is Pennsylvania representative John Murtha talking about? His recent call for withdrawal from Iraq is based on the assertion that "US troops have become the primary targets of the insurgency." This, though, is palpably false - US troops are on the offensive, not sitting idly by waiting to be attacked, and the main target of the insurgency has been civilians, because the insurgency CAN'T make US troops its primary target - espeically when Al Qaida's recent bombing attacks reek of desperation to turn around a situation improving for the Allies.
Murtha served in Vietnam, so why he would say something any Vietnam veteran worth his salt would see as brainless stupidity is baffling.
Murtha served in Vietnam, so why he would say something any Vietnam veteran worth his salt would see as brainless stupidity is baffling.
Saturday, November 19, 2005
More Myths & Realities In Iraq
Continuing to set the record in Iraq straight, "Mac" Owens took a look at the big picture while we also look back atwinning over ordinary Iraqis little by little.
Myths and realities aren't confined to Iraq - since Iraq is pivotal to the war on Islamo-Arab terror, looking back at myths about the war on Islamo-Arab terror is also in order.
Myths and realities aren't confined to Iraq - since Iraq is pivotal to the war on Islamo-Arab terror, looking back at myths about the war on Islamo-Arab terror is also in order.
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Liberals Get Rove-d
So liberals are up in arms about Karl Rove's speech mentioning how MoveOn fought against the War On Terror. So typical - liberals always play dumb when caught out. Of course playing dumb was just part of Senator Ted Kennedy's whining during recent Congresional testimony by Donald Rumsfeld, just the latest such hysteria that consistently forgets when liberals ran the recent Yugoslav war and also wallows in the pity brought about by "multiculturalism." It's yet another reason why liberals cannot be trusted to defending ourselves.
Of course Senator Chappaquiddick wasn't the only idiot - Chuck Hagel made a fool of himself claiming the US is losing in Iraq. As usual the facts prove otherwise. And kudos to The Belmont Club for catching a telling accidental admission from war critic Carl Levin - an admission of a relationship between the US advance into Iraq and the blossoming of democracy there - a vindication of the Bush Doctrine amid continued doubt about it in political circles.
Getting back to Karl Rove, the liberals expected an indictment of Rove over the "outing" of Valerie Plame - except there never was any outing. There's been a lot of doubletalk about this bogus "outing," but the reality is the "case" was a fraud.
Of course Senator Chappaquiddick wasn't the only idiot - Chuck Hagel made a fool of himself claiming the US is losing in Iraq. As usual the facts prove otherwise. And kudos to The Belmont Club for catching a telling accidental admission from war critic Carl Levin - an admission of a relationship between the US advance into Iraq and the blossoming of democracy there - a vindication of the Bush Doctrine amid continued doubt about it in political circles.
Getting back to Karl Rove, the liberals expected an indictment of Rove over the "outing" of Valerie Plame - except there never was any outing. There's been a lot of doubletalk about this bogus "outing," but the reality is the "case" was a fraud.
Friday, November 11, 2005
Is Erin Crocker - And NASCAR Diversity - A Fraud?
We've now had three races in NASCAR's BGN series for highly-touted lady racer Erin Crocker, a driver for the powerful Evernham Motorsports team. To this we can add a Craftsman Truck race at Phoenix, AZ in early November. And in those races the result has been the same -
RICHMOND - DNF - Crash
DOVER - DNF - Crash
MEMPHIS - DNF - Crash
PHOENIX Trucks - Crash
It's just three races, but the record in those three races is disturbing enough to warrant questions about Erin Crocker's judgement and ability to drive a NASCAR racecar - in the Richmond wreck she'd already crashed in practice and in the race lost it by herself and took another car with her. At Memphis she tagged Steve Grissom and took him and herself into the wall - and tried to blame it on Grissom even though he had the corner.
Crocker ran in the ARCA Supercar Series in Evernham Dodges and had several top five finishes, but lost here is that ARCA is a series so starved of resources and money that only about six or seven cars in that series are any good.
It also raises questions about NASCAR's recent quest for "diversity." Crocker is part of Dodge's extensive driver diversity initiatve, an initiative that dovetails nicely with NASCAR President Brian France and his mildly obsessive quest for "diversity" in the sport.
Dodge's diversity efforts have been going since 2001, when they slotted Willy T. Ribbs in one of Bobby Hamilton's Dodge Trucks. Willy T. attempted to run in NASCAR in the late-1970s and mid-1980s. In 1978 he was slotted for a drive with Will Cronkite in an ex-Bud Moore Ford at Charlotte, a deal arranged by Bruton Smith. But Ribbs failed to appear at two scheduled practice sessions and was later arrested for driving the wrong way on a one-way street with a car rented by the speedway. He was canned from the ride and local short-tracker Dale Earnhardt drove Cronkite's Ford.
Ribbs tried again in 1986 with DiGard Racing, a team on its last legs at that time, and the effort went nowhere. Ribbs also tried CART Indycars with a team co-owned by Bill Cosby, and went nowhere. In the Hamilton #8 Dodge, the form chart took over again - he went nowhere and was gone by the end of the year.
More recently the Hamilton #8 has been driven by Deborah Renshaw, who raced at the Nashville Fairgrounds speedway and became a cause celebre when she was disqualified following a rancorous protest of the cars driven by her and her teammate; some very tedentious media coverage made the incident to be a sexist conspiracy by other racers against Renshaw because she'd briefly led the track's point standings.
Renshaw made it to ARCA in late 2002 and everything blew up in the savage crash at Charlotte during an ARCA practice session that killed racer Eric Martin. Martin spun to a stop on Charlotte's frontstretch and several cars split around him. He was stalled but none the worse for wear - until some fifteen seconds later Renshaw blasted full speed out of the corner and T-boned Martin through the left side door.
Again, tedentious media coverage passed the buck away from Renshaw, focusing on the "lack of spotters during practice sessions," raising questions about the visibility of the caution lights - everything but the fundamental judgement of Deborah Renshaw as a racer. NASCAR passed a new rule requiring spotters during any time a racecar is on the track at speed, never mind the fact that the wreck happened because Renshaw refused to pay attention to the caution lights or even past the nose of her racecar.
Of course this season saw Danica Mania, as Danica Patrick was slotted into one of the IRL's strongest cars, the primary Bobby Rahal-David Letterman car #16. Patrick snuck up on the other drivers and posted two stunning fourth-place finishes, including at Indy. But after that her performances dropped dramatically, especially on open-throttle drafting tracks where she was skittish in traffic and showed no consistent ability to pass anyone. Her season began with a bad wreck at Homestead in which she never cracked the throttle and instead bludgeoned into the wreck scene, and it ended with a hard wreck at Fontana.
Racing, however, seems determined to press on with "diversity" despite the fact it adds nothing to the sport, nor does it add anything to any serious endeavor.
RICHMOND - DNF - Crash
DOVER - DNF - Crash
MEMPHIS - DNF - Crash
PHOENIX Trucks - Crash
It's just three races, but the record in those three races is disturbing enough to warrant questions about Erin Crocker's judgement and ability to drive a NASCAR racecar - in the Richmond wreck she'd already crashed in practice and in the race lost it by herself and took another car with her. At Memphis she tagged Steve Grissom and took him and herself into the wall - and tried to blame it on Grissom even though he had the corner.
Crocker ran in the ARCA Supercar Series in Evernham Dodges and had several top five finishes, but lost here is that ARCA is a series so starved of resources and money that only about six or seven cars in that series are any good.
It also raises questions about NASCAR's recent quest for "diversity." Crocker is part of Dodge's extensive driver diversity initiatve, an initiative that dovetails nicely with NASCAR President Brian France and his mildly obsessive quest for "diversity" in the sport.
Dodge's diversity efforts have been going since 2001, when they slotted Willy T. Ribbs in one of Bobby Hamilton's Dodge Trucks. Willy T. attempted to run in NASCAR in the late-1970s and mid-1980s. In 1978 he was slotted for a drive with Will Cronkite in an ex-Bud Moore Ford at Charlotte, a deal arranged by Bruton Smith. But Ribbs failed to appear at two scheduled practice sessions and was later arrested for driving the wrong way on a one-way street with a car rented by the speedway. He was canned from the ride and local short-tracker Dale Earnhardt drove Cronkite's Ford.
Ribbs tried again in 1986 with DiGard Racing, a team on its last legs at that time, and the effort went nowhere. Ribbs also tried CART Indycars with a team co-owned by Bill Cosby, and went nowhere. In the Hamilton #8 Dodge, the form chart took over again - he went nowhere and was gone by the end of the year.
More recently the Hamilton #8 has been driven by Deborah Renshaw, who raced at the Nashville Fairgrounds speedway and became a cause celebre when she was disqualified following a rancorous protest of the cars driven by her and her teammate; some very tedentious media coverage made the incident to be a sexist conspiracy by other racers against Renshaw because she'd briefly led the track's point standings.
Renshaw made it to ARCA in late 2002 and everything blew up in the savage crash at Charlotte during an ARCA practice session that killed racer Eric Martin. Martin spun to a stop on Charlotte's frontstretch and several cars split around him. He was stalled but none the worse for wear - until some fifteen seconds later Renshaw blasted full speed out of the corner and T-boned Martin through the left side door.
Again, tedentious media coverage passed the buck away from Renshaw, focusing on the "lack of spotters during practice sessions," raising questions about the visibility of the caution lights - everything but the fundamental judgement of Deborah Renshaw as a racer. NASCAR passed a new rule requiring spotters during any time a racecar is on the track at speed, never mind the fact that the wreck happened because Renshaw refused to pay attention to the caution lights or even past the nose of her racecar.
Of course this season saw Danica Mania, as Danica Patrick was slotted into one of the IRL's strongest cars, the primary Bobby Rahal-David Letterman car #16. Patrick snuck up on the other drivers and posted two stunning fourth-place finishes, including at Indy. But after that her performances dropped dramatically, especially on open-throttle drafting tracks where she was skittish in traffic and showed no consistent ability to pass anyone. Her season began with a bad wreck at Homestead in which she never cracked the throttle and instead bludgeoned into the wreck scene, and it ended with a hard wreck at Fontana.
Racing, however, seems determined to press on with "diversity" despite the fact it adds nothing to the sport, nor does it add anything to any serious endeavor.
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Unhinged Dishonesty
First we had the insanity that was Harry Reid's grandstanding about hearings into Iraq war intelligence and then we had a typical New York Times disinformation campiagn in the form of a butchered letter from a pro-war GI. And we wonder where honesty went - though we know there is no honesty to be found in fawning media coverage of Broadway Joe Wilson and his bogus tales about George W. Bush, tales that are part and parcel of the disinformation campaign of a CIA acting to undermine American victory.
Saturday, October 29, 2005
They Couldn't Start 53 Cars At Atlanta?
53 cars entered the Dixie 500 at Atlanta but only 43 made the race. Among the cars that didn't make it were Robby Gordon, Bobby Hamilton Jr., and Mike Wallace, all drivers who entered every race and worked harder than the one-off teams that did make the race.
It is a continuing flaw in the NASCAR system - why couldn't they have started all entries? It isn't that Atlanta can't fit 53 cars on pit road - especially with multicar teams like Hendrick and Roush that can easily afford to have some of their teams share pits. It isn't that the cars that didn't make the race were so slow they could not keep up in race conditions.
It has been a problem since the early 1990s when new teams began entering the sport at a growing rate and more and more of them were squeezed out of the sport because of qualifying. NASCAR's quasi-official newspaper Winston Cup Scene editorialized years back that this flaw in the system was somehow good for the system because it supposedly showed the intense competitiveness of NASCAR - except that it is number of lead changes in the race that show competitiveness. Sending teams home after qualifying has never improved any facet of the sport - it didn't make those teams better, since denying them track time guarantees they can't improve as teams.
And with NASCAR wanting new teams to come in - i.e. Toyota teams on the absurd notion that the notoriously predatory Toyota motorsports program will somehow infuse new money into a sport that is living up to Robert Yates' famous analysis of the flaws of DiGard Racing, "If there is such a thing as too much money, we (DiGard) had it" - the sanctioning body has even more reason to reevaluate sending anyone home after qualifying.
It is a continuing flaw in the NASCAR system - why couldn't they have started all entries? It isn't that Atlanta can't fit 53 cars on pit road - especially with multicar teams like Hendrick and Roush that can easily afford to have some of their teams share pits. It isn't that the cars that didn't make the race were so slow they could not keep up in race conditions.
It has been a problem since the early 1990s when new teams began entering the sport at a growing rate and more and more of them were squeezed out of the sport because of qualifying. NASCAR's quasi-official newspaper Winston Cup Scene editorialized years back that this flaw in the system was somehow good for the system because it supposedly showed the intense competitiveness of NASCAR - except that it is number of lead changes in the race that show competitiveness. Sending teams home after qualifying has never improved any facet of the sport - it didn't make those teams better, since denying them track time guarantees they can't improve as teams.
And with NASCAR wanting new teams to come in - i.e. Toyota teams on the absurd notion that the notoriously predatory Toyota motorsports program will somehow infuse new money into a sport that is living up to Robert Yates' famous analysis of the flaws of DiGard Racing, "If there is such a thing as too much money, we (DiGard) had it" - the sanctioning body has even more reason to reevaluate sending anyone home after qualifying.
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Al Qaida In The News Again
Al Qaida made the news again with its July London terrorist attack, a tragedy that ironically also showed how much weaker the organization is compared to six years ago, given the crudity of the bombs used compared to their previous strikes. With these guys back in the news we have continued denial of their alliance with Saddam Hussein's Iraq in some circles, even as the evidence continues to prove Iraq's alliance with Al Qaida. As for the oft-repeated claim by the Left that the liberation of Iraq has caused an increase in Al Qaida activity, the facts prove otherwise, and they include the inevitable decline in enemy aggression after two years of fruitless wastage.
Add to this the recent stories about Able Danger, the US Army's data-mining project that in 2000 identified Mohammed Atta and several other terrorists who would do the dirty work of the September 2001 hijackings, only to be rebuffed by a Clinton administration unwilling to take terrorism seriously (which some have speculated is the reason for Sandy Berger's destruction of archives after the Clintons left the White House, for which he got caught). As The Weekly Standard points out, German police arrested several Iraqi intelligence agents in February 2001 and found they were working with Osama Bin Laden, and also notes the illogic behind the 9/11 Commission's agnostic conclusion about the meeting of an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague in April 2001 with Mohammed Atta, a conclusion recklessly cited by the antiwar crowd to deny Iraq's alliance with Al Qaida.
It has to be said again - 9/11 was an act of war against the US.
Add to this the recent stories about Able Danger, the US Army's data-mining project that in 2000 identified Mohammed Atta and several other terrorists who would do the dirty work of the September 2001 hijackings, only to be rebuffed by a Clinton administration unwilling to take terrorism seriously (which some have speculated is the reason for Sandy Berger's destruction of archives after the Clintons left the White House, for which he got caught). As The Weekly Standard points out, German police arrested several Iraqi intelligence agents in February 2001 and found they were working with Osama Bin Laden, and also notes the illogic behind the 9/11 Commission's agnostic conclusion about the meeting of an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague in April 2001 with Mohammed Atta, a conclusion recklessly cited by the antiwar crowd to deny Iraq's alliance with Al Qaida.
It has to be said again - 9/11 was an act of war against the US.
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Hurricane Stein Destroys Katrina Monday-AM Quarterbacking
It was inevitable that Hurricane Katrina would lead to endless Monday morning quarterbacking from the Bush bashers, an activity that gets its comeuppance here and gets an even nastier comeuppance to novelist Anne Rice.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
De-commison The 9/11 Commission
The credibility of the 9/11 Commission has taken a severe mauling lately, and it's about time.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
A "Disaster" To Be Proud Of
While working my day job back in June I came across a mail room employee at a company in Brighton, MA, who is an avid Air America fan and who apparantly no longer works there, as he has not been seen in my subsequent visits. (Yes, believe it or not, there are fans of Radio Moscow Redux) On the air was Stephanie Miller, who mixes being generally obnoxious with a high-pitched whiney voice more appropriate for WEEI's equally useless Michael Felger. Miller was talking about the "disaster in Iraq" and "George and Dick's excellent adventure," which might actually be funny if Air America didn't always play dumb by whining about "mean-spirited" Republicans.
What is amazing is that Comrade Steph cited US News & World Report to buttress an argument about terrorism in general - as if the Mainstream Media has any credibility anymore. Certainly the "disaster" in Iraq can only be called such by taking MSM seriously - which can't be done since the "disaster" isn't. The credibility of the MSM has long been absymal, especially on their military coverage.
Meanwhile, further disproving the kidiots of Air Amerika was the continuing Good News From Iraq, from several months ago, from more recently, and from the end of August. (Kudos to Winds Of Change) There is also the utter lack of logic in the Left's serial complaint about "breeding more terrorists" - a claim they've been making every time the US fights back against the enemy from the 1986 bombing of Libyan military bases after the Libyan-backed bombing of a Berlin discoteque (they also tried to deny Libyan involvement there, too) onward. It reminds me of a brief mini-popularity back in the 1970s among some psychiatrists against fighting back against rapists, their logic being that rapists become more violent and liable to kill if women fight back. No, it doesn't make any sense, and the new version of don't-fight-back perpetuated by the Left is akin to that.
It all boils down to that we have irresponsible people belitting what is truly a noble cause.
What is amazing is that Comrade Steph cited US News & World Report to buttress an argument about terrorism in general - as if the Mainstream Media has any credibility anymore. Certainly the "disaster" in Iraq can only be called such by taking MSM seriously - which can't be done since the "disaster" isn't. The credibility of the MSM has long been absymal, especially on their military coverage.
Meanwhile, further disproving the kidiots of Air Amerika was the continuing Good News From Iraq, from several months ago, from more recently, and from the end of August. (Kudos to Winds Of Change) There is also the utter lack of logic in the Left's serial complaint about "breeding more terrorists" - a claim they've been making every time the US fights back against the enemy from the 1986 bombing of Libyan military bases after the Libyan-backed bombing of a Berlin discoteque (they also tried to deny Libyan involvement there, too) onward. It reminds me of a brief mini-popularity back in the 1970s among some psychiatrists against fighting back against rapists, their logic being that rapists become more violent and liable to kill if women fight back. No, it doesn't make any sense, and the new version of don't-fight-back perpetuated by the Left is akin to that.
It all boils down to that we have irresponsible people belitting what is truly a noble cause.
Saturday, August 27, 2005
The Monkees And Robert Moog
With the passing of synthesized keyboard designer Robert Moog, numerous retrospectives have noted how music groups of the latter 1960s made use of his revolutionary compact Moog synthesizer. Virtually all these retrospectives note how The Beatles used the Moog synthesizer in 1969 and how it got substantial usage in the early-70s' progressive rock phase.
And I have yet to find a national retrospective that notes the group that introduced the Moog to pop records - The Monkees. In 1967 Micky Dolenz was among the first people to purchase a Moog synthesizer, and he integrated it into the making of the group's fourth long-player album, Pisces Aquarius Capricorn & Jones Ltd. Micky played the Moog for the album's cryptic exploration of 1967 rioting on Sunset Strip Daily Nightly while Moog retailer Paul Beaver handled the keyboards for the group's rip-roaring put-down of groupies Star Collector. The use of the Moog on the album was a mixed blessing; Micky's random Moog riffing on Daily Nightly is ultimately a distraction despite showing some cleverness, while Beaver's perfectly synched riffing on Star Collector (other than on the song's admittedly overblown and prolonged ending) adds enormously to the song's power.
It was the first time a Moog synthesizer found use on a mainstream pop album, and yet this fact goes unmentioned in media retrospectives. As Michael Nesmith once put it about media coverage of the Sunset Strip rioting, it is one of the goofball moments in press coverage.
And I have yet to find a national retrospective that notes the group that introduced the Moog to pop records - The Monkees. In 1967 Micky Dolenz was among the first people to purchase a Moog synthesizer, and he integrated it into the making of the group's fourth long-player album, Pisces Aquarius Capricorn & Jones Ltd. Micky played the Moog for the album's cryptic exploration of 1967 rioting on Sunset Strip Daily Nightly while Moog retailer Paul Beaver handled the keyboards for the group's rip-roaring put-down of groupies Star Collector. The use of the Moog on the album was a mixed blessing; Micky's random Moog riffing on Daily Nightly is ultimately a distraction despite showing some cleverness, while Beaver's perfectly synched riffing on Star Collector (other than on the song's admittedly overblown and prolonged ending) adds enormously to the song's power.
It was the first time a Moog synthesizer found use on a mainstream pop album, and yet this fact goes unmentioned in media retrospectives. As Michael Nesmith once put it about media coverage of the Sunset Strip rioting, it is one of the goofball moments in press coverage.
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Wanted: Iraq War's Peter Braestrup
"Mac" Owens took a look at the recent river campaign by Allied forces in shutting down ratlines from Syria and elsewhere trying to resupply Islamo-Arab guerrillas in Iraq. In discussing this campaign, Owens notes how recent coverage by the Boston Globe is inaccurate, and it is just the latest such example, going with a claim that "indig" Iraqi units aren't combat ready. And if coverage isn't just misleading (did you know that the US is REDUCING its forces in Iraq? I didn't, either, until I found this out away from the MSM) it is downright dishonest, and not only with regard to "indigs," but even more so to pre-war intelligence memos, and to Iraq's alliance with Al Qaida. And on that angle the deniers of Iraq's alliance with Al Qaida won't quit, nor are the know-it-alls of the press quitting about Guantanamo, even though there never was any "torture".
It all leads to a depressing reality - that even with the proliferation of media and the decentralization of media, the hard-left Main-Stream Media still holds sway in coverage of the war and the world, and it brings to mind the late Peter Braestrup, the reporter and scholar whose landmark 1977 book "Big Story" showed in vivid detail the sensationalism and inaccuracy that permeated media coverage of the 1968 Tet Offensive, covering what was a calamitous Communist defeat and portraying it as a colossal enemy victory.
The Iraq war is in need of a Peter Braestrup.
It all leads to a depressing reality - that even with the proliferation of media and the decentralization of media, the hard-left Main-Stream Media still holds sway in coverage of the war and the world, and it brings to mind the late Peter Braestrup, the reporter and scholar whose landmark 1977 book "Big Story" showed in vivid detail the sensationalism and inaccuracy that permeated media coverage of the 1968 Tet Offensive, covering what was a calamitous Communist defeat and portraying it as a colossal enemy victory.
The Iraq war is in need of a Peter Braestrup.
Saturday, July 23, 2005
Joe Wilson And Iraq's Niger Uranium
Why the left keeps denying Saddamite Iraq was building nuclear weapons is a rhetorical mystery - I say rhetorical because the reason they deny it is obvious - to acknowledge that Iraq was building nuclear weapons is to acknowledge that Bush was right, the liberals' eight-year policy of refusing to act on the building threat was wrong, and the philosophy behind the popular bumper sticker "War is NOT the answer" is not just wrong, but dishonest.
Which leads to this look back at the 500 tons of weapons-grade "yellowcake" uranium (which had zero peaceful application and had undergone some enrichment) found by the US Army at the Al-Tuwaitha nuclear research center (see also this 2008 followup). As the piece's author Rick Moran notes, the site where the Iraqi weapons uranium was stored was under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which ostensibly was charged with making sure Iraq didn't use it for weapons but basically didn't try to stop Iraq from stockpiling such "yellowcake" uranium, and it offers some insight (conspicuously missing from mainstream coverage of "Broadway Joe" Wilson and his phony search for Iraqi efforts to acquire yellowcake from Niger) into why there is such a bureaucratic snit over President Bush's remarks that Iraq sought this yellowcake from Niger.
Basically what is coming out is that Broadway Joe Wilson was not a courageous whistleblower, but an errand boy for an intelligence agency that wanted to spike data supporting war. The CIA suddenly found it had underestimated the enemy's potential and worked to cover its butt - Saddamite Iraq was trying to build nuclear weapons and the CIA, Joe Wilson, and his wife Valerie Plame were fighting against US interests on this matter.
And they accuse Bush of politicizing intelligence?
Which leads to this look back at the 500 tons of weapons-grade "yellowcake" uranium (which had zero peaceful application and had undergone some enrichment) found by the US Army at the Al-Tuwaitha nuclear research center (see also this 2008 followup). As the piece's author Rick Moran notes, the site where the Iraqi weapons uranium was stored was under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which ostensibly was charged with making sure Iraq didn't use it for weapons but basically didn't try to stop Iraq from stockpiling such "yellowcake" uranium, and it offers some insight (conspicuously missing from mainstream coverage of "Broadway Joe" Wilson and his phony search for Iraqi efforts to acquire yellowcake from Niger) into why there is such a bureaucratic snit over President Bush's remarks that Iraq sought this yellowcake from Niger.
Basically what is coming out is that Broadway Joe Wilson was not a courageous whistleblower, but an errand boy for an intelligence agency that wanted to spike data supporting war. The CIA suddenly found it had underestimated the enemy's potential and worked to cover its butt - Saddamite Iraq was trying to build nuclear weapons and the CIA, Joe Wilson, and his wife Valerie Plame were fighting against US interests on this matter.
And they accuse Bush of politicizing intelligence?
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Remember Fallujah?
Remember Fallujah? It was the biggest base for Iraq-based terrorists fighting Allied forces in 2004. Needing to wait until after the election to take it down (and it says a lot about the integrity of the Democratic Party and their Main-Stream Media allies that he had to), George W. Bush promptly did so in November 2004, and the war against Islamo-Arab redoubts in Iraq has steadily gone better for Allied forces since.
Well it's been a while since we heard about Fallujah, as the above-mentioned MSM continues to focus on car bombings and the like while living up to George Orwell's observation about propaganda being what gets left out - such as this look at Fallujah in rebuilding.
Then there is Baghdad, where there are still bombings but also continued rebuilding and a steady return to normality, such as resumption of intercity air travel.
Well it's been a while since we heard about Fallujah, as the above-mentioned MSM continues to focus on car bombings and the like while living up to George Orwell's observation about propaganda being what gets left out - such as this look at Fallujah in rebuilding.
Then there is Baghdad, where there are still bombings but also continued rebuilding and a steady return to normality, such as resumption of intercity air travel.
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Let's You And Him Fight, Kevin and Greg
Following the Chicago BGN 300, Greg Biffle exploded at race winner Kevin Harvick, calling him a punk etc., over supposedly blocking him off at varied points of the race. Harvick answered in kind, and it reminded me of something - I root for the Petty team precisely because the Petty team doesn't have this kind of low-class buffoonery. Occassionally Kyle Petty gets into a spat, notably at P.J. Jones at Sears Point, and Jeff Green had his spat with Michael Waltrip, but such outbursts are rare.
For Harvick and Biffle, this kind of nastiness is par for the course. Of course given Harvick's status at RCR in their Goodwrench car, the sponsor's low-class legacy has to be upheld (don't forget that Harvick is still the only driver at the Winston Cup level to be suspended for a race for rough driving in the last several years), so Harvick's mouthiness is to be expected.
Biffle's mouthiness has become more of an issue, as the always unlikeable Northwest native has been running his mouth a lot this year. Of course he's been winning a lot as well. That he benefitted the most from NASCAR's ill-advised low downforce changes is something Jack Roush readily admitted during the Chicago weekend, so The Biffster can thank NASCAR for what had been a less than productive career until they started cutting downforce.
So Kevin Harvick and Greg Biffle can kill each other in victory circle for all I care about them.
For Harvick and Biffle, this kind of nastiness is par for the course. Of course given Harvick's status at RCR in their Goodwrench car, the sponsor's low-class legacy has to be upheld (don't forget that Harvick is still the only driver at the Winston Cup level to be suspended for a race for rough driving in the last several years), so Harvick's mouthiness is to be expected.
Biffle's mouthiness has become more of an issue, as the always unlikeable Northwest native has been running his mouth a lot this year. Of course he's been winning a lot as well. That he benefitted the most from NASCAR's ill-advised low downforce changes is something Jack Roush readily admitted during the Chicago weekend, so The Biffster can thank NASCAR for what had been a less than productive career until they started cutting downforce.
So Kevin Harvick and Greg Biffle can kill each other in victory circle for all I care about them.
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