The NASCAR Discussion Thread! Come in and discuss all things NASCAR!

Mak, thanks for saving me the trouble.

I've preached about alternating Road Courses for awhile; and I think we're all in agreement that Lousydon and Snorecono deserve to lose race dates well before any other track, including the cookie cutters at Vegas, KC, & Chicago-area.

I think the short tracks like Martinsville and Bristol have lost some of their luster because today's drivers have lost what's known as "The Art of Passing". Watch a replay of Rusty's pass for the lead: Pay attention to how he stalks Johnson, altering his line little by little, lap by lap, faking him into one defense while opening the opportunity for himself at the same time. It was beautiful to watch. But now-a-days they just knock them out of the way (a la Kurtsy Busch) and everyone has come to expect it. Kyle was doing the same thing to other drivers, moving up from 32nd to 13th before finishing 18th.

I think the two remaining short tracks (Richmond isn't really a short track and neither is Phoenix) must be be allowed to keep their 2 dates per year, as this is where we see the best driving, at least from some of the competitors. There is no Art of Passing at the cookie cutters, or Texas, or the reconfigured Atlanta. Those are F-1 style parades where a type of "natural selection" always moves the fast cars to the front because the surface was too smooth and too wide. This is why Darlington and Rockingham produced the finishes that they did and the other places do not (the Charlotte clones Atlanta & Texas are capable of side by side finishes for the win, but usually the rest of the field is too strung out from the parade style racing).

Still yet this opens another can of worms: With this lawsuit settled, how long will it be before another ownership group will try the same thing to steal a race date? For example- Dover Downs Inc- let's say that they want to host a Cup date at that craptacular atrocity called Nashville SuperSpeedway. All they have to do now is sue na$car for violation of the anti-trust statutes (which is what this Ferko lawsuit was all about) and unless the Frenchys want to spinoff ISC into an independent company or give up control of na$car, they'll have to give a date to that track. Because if they don't and it does go to court, more than likely they will lose control of both ISC & na$car. That's why they have opted for the settlement this time around. But now the door is open to many more lawsuits against them.

Again, thanks Mak.

So what was Hendrick's big announcement? Another Honda dealership to launder drug money through?

EDIT:
"Never forget your roots"- Nextel
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!
How stupid do they think we are?

 

The Hendrick announcement was that they picked up like 4 new guys. I believe all of them were from open-wheel. Whatever happened to picking up guys from the dirt and short tracks? And it looks like the predicted 20 Hendrick cars, 20 Roush cars field is moving along nicely.

Some Rockingham Notes/Comments: Rockingham has gone the way of North Wilkesboro. And Hickory. And Bowman Gray. And Raleigh. And Asheville-Weaverville. The news out of Daytona is, once again, sad. We will race no more at North Carolina Motor Speedway. NASCAR will sacrifice it for a second race at Texas as a part of a convoluted settlement of a convoluted lawsuit. NCMS will be dropped from the 2005 schedule. The next schedule will also be without one of the Darlington events, the old track finally losing out to progress and legal battles. Phoenix is expected to add a second race for the 2005 season as the sport continues a trend away from its Southern roots toward nationalism. The official announcements will not come until later in the summer, and few people in the sport were willing to talk as the news trickled out this week. People in and around Rockingham were more than willing. "We're mad, we're angry and we're disappointed that we weren't given a chance," Rockingham city manager Monty Crump said. "This was a done deal. We were set up to fail." There's a lot of truth behind Crump's claim. The races at Rockingham could've easily been saved by moving the winter race to the summer, by adding lights and by NASCAR acknowledging that North Carolina Motor Speedway was an important part of the sport.(more at the Roanoke Times)(4-23-2004)



AND ISC wants Bruton Smith to give up the all-star race, which has been at Smith's Charlotte track for nearly 20 years, a gift from R. J. Reynolds. Smith says he is adamant about keeping the race. However sources say that Smith has been offered a second Cup race at Las Vegas in exchange for the all-star race. The all-star race, after all, does belong to NASCAR, and it could easily be "repossessed." Whatever happens to the all-star race, it is not expected to remain as a race on a standalone weekend.(Winston Salem Journal)(4-23-2004)

Sure why not. Why don't you just give up one of the best races of the year to a track that doesn't even deserve one. God i'm sick of this crap!

 

*hands over metal rod* Who wants this to use?

 

No no NO!!! Why oh why couldn't they have ditched Pocono or New Hampshire race instead?

Any news on if there will at least be ASA or ARCA races at The Rock?

 

No idea. Maybe if the hoped for senior division is formed, they'll race there.

The Busch race is in 10 minutes. I predict the big one will occur in under 10 laps.

 

Did anybody catch exactly what Bobby Allison said when he gave the command to fire engines?

 

What's going on? I missed the first 30 min. (mainly my own fault),

 

Well the big one finally happened.

Sorry, Mak, but Rusty won't be winning two in a row.

 

*bangs head on wall* Don't. Tell. Me. He's. Going. To. Win. AGAIN!!!!


Edit: now I'm going nuts!!!!!!!!!

 

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GORDON WINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TAKE THAT JR!

I don't care if it ended under caution, Jr. didn't win!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*happy dance*

 

Caution finishes certainly do suck.


While the replay did clearly show that Gordon was ahead when the wreck happened, Harvick was also clearly ahead of Johnson. I can't figure out why they put Harvick back to fourth.

 

Don't worry Herman, I knew when I woke up this morning that Rusty wasn't going to win today anyway. This is Talladega.

Everyone here knows i'm not a Jeff Gordon fan, but today...GO JEFF GORDON!

And it looks like those Talladega Earnhardt fans showed their true colors today. Throwing beer cans at the 24 car. Real classy.

 

And it looks like those Talladega Earnhardt fans showed their true colors today. Throwing beer cans at the 24 car. Real classy.


How do you know they were Earnhardt fans and not just the garden variety Gordon-haters?

And there certainly appeared to be more than just beer cans out there.


I wonder when the last time was that they ran a 500 mile race (okay, 499) without any green flag pit stops.

 

I'm not going to like the aftermath of this deal though. Because of the idiots who threw their cans on the track, pretty soon coolers will be banned. Forcing the normals to buy 5 dollar beers at the track.

 

Once I heard the booing, I turned the channel. :rolleyes I'm ashamed to say I was once a Jr. fan.

 

Ok, I know I haven't posted here in a hundred years, but I just felt the need to vent somewhere.

I belong to the group of ppl who do not like nor dislike Jr.

I am a Gordon fan to the end.

I am disgusted by the display of poor sportsmanship by the fans. All the boo'ing. Throwing of stuff onto the track. It's ridiculous. Why would you do something like that?!?!

I hate races finished under caution too, even if it means Jeff gets to win. I much prefer that they finish under green. But what's the mentalility of ppl like that? I'm glad that Jr. didn't win yet another restrictor plate race, but I certainly would NOT have booed him or threw stuff onto the track, he woulda won regardless of green or yellow, fair and square, and anyone who finishes at Talledaga is a winner!

[end rant]

 

I'm ashamed to say I was once a Jr. fan.


Why? Junior didn't do anything to be ashamed of.


I'd wager that most of what happened was a result of people shelling out a big wad of cash to watch a race only to see a five lap parade at the end.

 

What happened today reminded me of that crazy night down in Florida 2 years ago:

[image=http://www.nascar.com/2002/news/headlines/wc/07/07/race_finish/trash_xlarge.jpg]

I didn't throw anything though. I swear!

 

And it looks like those Talladega Earnhardt fans showed their true colors today. Throwing beer cans at the 24 car. Real classy.

They did what?!?!?!

*prepares for vengence*

I would have liked the race to end under green, too, but that would have given Jr. a chance to win and I dislike him more than I do caution end races.

As to why dislike Jr. when he did nothing wrong, I'm tired of him winning every single Talladega race! It's over and over and over again.

I sat there thinking Nascar was going to rule Jr. in the lead and Vickers was going to see me after him! I guess they thought Gordon was too ahead of Jr. to rule otherwise.

*ends rant*

 

I saw that the crowd down there was mostly wearing red and were obviously cheering for Jr. And I heard the boos starting with 3 caution laps left, once it became clear that the race would finish under caution.

Does anyone here honestly think that if Jr. had been in the lead when the caution flag flew and the race was called, that there would've been booing heard from the stands? I don't. THAT'S why I'm ashamed to say I was a Jr. fan. I'm not a big Gordon fan either, but I sure as heck wasn't sitting in my living room boo'ing.

 

Does anyone here honestly think that if Jr. had been in the lead when the caution flag flew and the race was called, that there would've been booing heard from the stands?

Heck no.

I don't really like when people boo the winner of the race, unless the guy won the race by making a foul move to get it. And throwing stuff on the track is totally crossing the line. And isn't nascar going to try to investigate this? I remember a Cleveland Browns game from a few years back, the refs made a bad call and the fans threw beer bottles at them as they were running off the field. The NFL investigated it from footage, and a few guys got arrested. Can't nascar and the authorities at least try to catch some of these idiots?

Earlier, J-A-S posted a picture of the Tony Stewart figure that comes with a figure of Donkey from Shrek. Well, who looked like a jackass out there today? He's causing more trouble than Johnny Sauter out there as of late. And then his pathetic "this kind of racing" excuse. The type of racing doesn't cause accidents. Drivers making mistakes causes accidents.

And I don't know about the rest of you, but what's with Fox showing the crowd every time Earnhardt takes the lead? They've done this for quite a while now. Yes they love him, we know.

And Herman, the finishing order was corrected. Harvick is now 3rd, and JJ goes to 4th. So they got that right anyway.

 

And Herman, the finishing order was corrected. Harvick is now 3rd, and JJ goes to 4th. So they got that right anyway.


Thank goodness.


I noticed that the "unofficial" standings they showed after the race was over were quite a bit different than the "unofficial" standings currently at nascar.com

 

I was at the Busch yesterday...does that count for anything?

 

How do you know they were Earnhardt fans and not just the garden variety Gordon-haters?

1-It's Talladega, which if you didn't know is Native American for "Earnhardtville".

2-Look at where the trash came from. The grandstand was mostly... people wearing red! Now I'm sure that all of those people were not Earnhardt fans... they were there to show their strong support for Morgan-McClure Racing's 2 car effort this weekend.

3-The same crowd was cheering until Gordon assumed the lead after the 1st lap for that last caution.

My brother said that the reson they finished under yellow was because by the time na$car figured out there wasn't any way to award the lead to Earnhardt, there weren't enough laps left to justify going back to green.

Jeff Gordon just improved his standing in my book for the very simple fact that he did doughnuts over the Budweiser cans.

But he's still a tool for even suggesting in Victory Lane that he didn't know what they were throwing at him.

"I didn't know if those were Pepsi cans or beer cans being thrown."

C'mon Jeffy, call a spade a spade. You can expect a phone call from the PR department of Pepsi tomorrow morning informing you that Pepsi has not been sold in a white can since 1994.

 

I HATE NASCAR!!!!!!!!!!!!! I used to love it and I still do, But I hate what Mike Helton and company are doing to OUR sport! Loosing both races at Rockingham and one @ Darlington. Those tracks have alot better races than anything @ Pocono(Which STILL has 2 races) and New Hampshier (Which has 2 races) I just don't get this stupid CRAP! I hate Mike Helton! and I don't get why the Nextel Cup series dosn't have the Gree-White -Checkard rule like the truck series. They owe it to the fans who travel hundreds of miles and spend HUNDREDS of dollars to see the races.



Does anyone agree?