93 replies to this topic

[Massa]

Danica leads them to the green tomorrow.

[JHS18]

Massa, on 24 February 2012 - 09:07 PM, said:

Danica leads them to the green tomorrow.

This is the perfect use for this:

[Massa]

So John King wins a race.

Real cheap, hollow win, eh?

Makes a really dumb mistake, wrecks Johnny Sauter.  Never ever has the lead, but NASCAR goes back to the last scoring loop, not the video, so where Todd Bodine had the lead, they give it to King who was second behind Sauter at the loop before he wrecked him.  King stayed there, another wreck happened, race done, King wins a race he never even led.

John King:

Quote

Golly, I flat freakin' wrecked him.

I'm more negative in this thread than I am on the F1 board.

[HandyNZL]

Time you took a long good look at yourself in the mirror then and do something about this negative attitude of yours then....

[Massa]

You know I did that with F1 (or maybe I just got so excited by reading Kobayashi's English language tweets; they're priceless).  I honestly would have disbanded this thread but I started it so I feel a need to keep posting in it.

[Massa]

Interesting tidbit: Kyle Busch Motorsports never got paid by Telcel for races in which they sponsored Germán Quiroga, Jr.  Telcel can be seen on the Sauber F1 cars, and their parent, Telmex, sponsors many Mexican drivers throughout the world (as well as Senna through Emrbatel, but that's all separate from this).  Just thought I'd pass that along...big-time sponsors stiff teams, too.

Also: NASCAR has a committee of fans that provide them with feedback.  It's not just a PR thing; they actually listen.  There have been ideas that NASCAR implemented that really came from the fans.  One of them was cutting this deal with Budweiser to sponsor the Duel races and release the Shootout, so that the Shootout could go back to the original format of just pole winners.  It isn't always instant, obviously; the Budweiser deal took years to negotiate.

However, their next project is eliminating the top thirty-five rule for 2013.  In Cup, the top thirty-five from the previous season's owner points (basically the points go to the car; so if the #67 car had eight drivers in 2011, all eight of their points in the #67 car are totaled up to the owner) are guaranteed in to the first five races of the next season...and then the top-thirty five at present are locked in each week.  This rule was made after a race in Atlanta back in 2005 or 2006 where two big-name sponsors, Valvoline and Caterpillar, FTQ'd from the race.  Back then, they used provisionals; thirty-seventh or thirty-ninth on back (forget which) were filled based on current owner points of the drivers that hadn't qualified among the fastest thirty-six.  If you had a lot of guys at the top of the points and perhaps a past champion that didn't make it on speed, quality mid-pack teams could end up going home.  Sponsors didn't like that...

...but fans really don't like the new system, where teams are buying and selling owner points from other teams in all sorts of deals (some even are three-way among different teams) that get more and more creative and confusing each year.  They want to see the fastest forty-three cars race and everyone else go home (I mean, let's face it, if a guy like Gordon or Junior FTQ'd, their sponsors would obviously buy out one of the cars already qualified...it's happened before at Indy even just last year, it's happened before in NASCAR with the Waltrips both having done it).

And for NASCAR, the pressure from fans is getting more and more increased, with attendance at tracks (many of which NASCAR owns) going down (ratings are stable; up last year for the first time in a while...though they are half of what they used to be at the peak).  A lot of sponsor deals were made in a time when everyone was richer than they really were, and NASCAR was on a bubble of sudden fan interest in the TV ratings, and races were sold-out, and tracks were adding seats and building new fan experiences and all that.  So they were really over-valued; NASCAR had to bend over backwards to people investing that much in the sport.  But as sponsorship values are half of what they used to be in the mid-2000s, and many big name brands are now NASCAR partners rather than sponsors of cars/teams, there's more pressure from to retain and gain fans (to drive sponsor values back up for NASCAR and help offset the total waste of money building up these tracks right before the economy's bubble and NASCAR's bubble burst).

Would make the Duels interesting next year...

[HandyNZL]

For a race series built around moonshine runners and a bunch of Billy-Bob's and Joe-Schmo's, the way the series runs sure is extremely complicated....

[JHS18]

HandyNZL, on 25 February 2012 - 07:24 PM, said:

For a race series built around moonshine runners and a bunch of Billy-Bob's and Joe-Schmo's, the way the series runs sure is extremely complicated....

You're telling me. I've been watching some of the action this week and haven't understood what's been going on 99.99% of the time. As I said to Eric, Americans sure do know how to make a sports event really drawn out and overly complicated. I'm looking at you, Super Bowl.

Saying that, I have been entertained.

I mean that in reference to Daytona btw, not the Superbowl.

Edited by JHS18, 26 February 2012 - 12:01 AM.

[HandyNZL]

Ah, now American Football I can understand more than this whole Duel/Shootout/Pole/500 thing.

For American Football, think Rugby League* really slowed down.  For all this Daytona stuff, think psychedelic drugs....




* by far and away the best oval ball code in all of global sports

[JHS18]

Haha you're not wrong. I wondered what on earth it was I was watching by the end of the Nationwide race...

[Massa]

NFL is a hideously boring sport in concept, but the Super Bowl was a really exciting game this year.  Of course playoff anything is usually better...though never playoff baseball.  You know, hockey games are fast, so you can do a best of seven series and it is fantastic.  Football games are slow, so you can do single-game eliminations and they are fantastic.  But baseball games are both slow and they do a best of seven; it's just agonizing.  By the time they decide who is moving on to the next round, the next season has already started and you've stopped caring.

NFL takes three-and-one-half hours to play sixty minutes.  Daytona takes 500 miles to decide what effectively becomes a two-lap race.  Run eighteen races on short ovals, and eighteen races on road courses...Daytona just isn't racing to me.  The driver is totally out of it; you just get shuffled around and have no control over when you go and when you stop and when you wreck.  It's a damn shame to me that the biggest race in America is also the silliest.  To me, it isn't a "big event" because not everyone who wins it is a good driver, and not everyone who loses it is thought less of for never winning it.  Everyone knows it's a lottery that Derrike Cope and Michael Waltrip can win as easily as Dale Earnhardt or Jeff Gordon in this era of plate racing.

Just look at the Indy 500, and that event has fallen, too, but...no one cares that Hélio Castroneves has never won a championship.  He's a three-time Indy 500 champion!  Michael Andretti has more wins than anyone in the CART era, but he'll never be one of the greats because he never won the big one.  You think Scott Goodyear comes up in the conversation?  Hell no, he blew the 500 THREE times.  He'd never admit it but you know what Tony Stewart would trade to get Indy.  I'll give you that 1996-1999 had really weak fields due to the split and as such you may have gotten some guys winning that weren't that great, though Lazier, to his credit, did it with a broken back so he's got my respect (500 miles, in that position, with a freaking broken back, is that guy tough or what), Arie Luyendyk won a real 500, Eddie Cheever wasn't that bad though he's a weaker one, and Kenny Bräck won in the real beasts in CART with Rahal so he was alright in my book.

The Daytona 500 doesn't have that "feel" to it that Indy does.  Stewart is one of the greatest of all-time whether or not he wins Daytona; if he were a three-time IndyCar champion without ever winning Indy, he'd be a nobody, a fluke.  Cope and Waltrip still suck even though they've won it.

Are you going to look at John King and James Buescher and say "wow, those guys were real legends" or are you going to look back and laugh at how crazy and senseless their wins were?  Why do you think no one in the ARCA garage respects Bobby Gerhart?  He has 9 career wins, 8 are at Daytona, 1 is at Talladega (just like Daytona).  They'd care more if he'd won at Toledo or Salem or Pocono or DuQuoin or any other track you've never heard of.

I hate on IndyCar all year long and they get to the month of May and it's sunshine and rainbows for me.  The Indy 500 is everything that is good about IndyCar.  I love NASCAR all year and they get to Daytona and I'm a whiny little one.  The Daytona 500 is everything that is so awful about NASCAR, the exact reason no one outside NASCAR respects NASCAR.

This year I've been having a real "never meet your heroes moment" with Daytona the "hero."  There's just no substance to this stuff...

[HandyNZL]

Since you seem somewhat despondent there Eric, here are some video's to make you cheer up a little, and maybe reach out to your hockey self.  (And yeah, convert you away from your 210min "bores")

First off, a quick overview of the rules, if you didn't know them:

Like NFL, you get so many attempts with the ball before handing over to the other team, except in NFL you get 4 attempts to make 10-yards, in rugby league, you get 6-attempts to score a try, which, depending on your starting position, could be 100m, 50m, or 5m...
Unlike NFL, you can only pass to the rear
Unlike NFL, you don't wear helmets or plastic padding...some players who have had concussion wear soft helmets, like NFL guys like the Grey-Ghost wore in years of old
To score you have to touch the ball on the ground, whilst still in control of it
You are allowed to shoulder charge, which when running at top speed towards each other, results in big hits

[Massa]

Now I know where Tim Tebow/every college team in the U.S. gets their ideas.

Cheers Craig, that was interesting.

Out of curiosity, do you find that there are less concussions (injuries, too, but mostly concussions) because of the lack of padding?  A lot of people are attributing the pads to the huge concussion issue in ice hockey (one for how damaging pad-to-head can be at the speeds these guys are skating, and two for how having helmets and pads has taken a lot of respect out of the game).

[HandyNZL]

Yeah concussions are pretty much on the low side.  The head is a no go zone, and any arms that drift up in a tackle towards the head will be penalised.  Also things like spear tackles are outlawed (these being where you lift the guy up, turn him upside down and drop him on his head).  Also the guys are taught to tackle properly.  NFL guys would call it "open field tackling".  The purpose being to wrap the guy up, ground him, and ensure he doesn't get a pass away.

Most concussions come from head to head contact (like the Paramatta player in the yellow and blue top that is in the still of the vid clip).  The other concussions come from a fist...

And of course, they're tough b#####ds

[JHS18]

Getting back to the 500 for a moment, and it doesn't look like there's much chance of the race taking place today. Heavy rain.

[Massa]

HandyNZL, on 26 February 2012 - 06:34 PM, said:

Yeah concussions are pretty much on the low side.  The head is a no go zone, and any arms that drift up in a tackle towards the head will be penalised.  Also things like spear tackles are outlawed (these being where you lift the guy up, turn him upside down and drop him on his head).  Also the guys are taught to tackle properly.  NFL guys would call it "open field tackling".  The purpose being to wrap the guy up, ground him, and ensure he doesn't get a pass away.

Most concussions come from head to head contact (like the Paramatta player in the yellow and blue top that is in the still of the vid clip).  The other concussions come from a fist...

And of course, they're tough b#####ds

Interesting, thanks.  A lot of people figure if you have no padding, it hurts to throw the hit as much as it does to receive it, and it takes out the dumb stuff (though it doesn't really work on ice surrounded by boards).  They got the cheap stuff out for the most part since every headshot is a suspension (loss of salary and all that).  Always figured you dress 10 forwards instead of 12...three lines and a spare...teams won't employ "goons" anymore because they can't, and the extra workload will slow the game down juuuuuuuuuust a bit with added fatigue.

I like that Rugby League seemingly has more action.  The NFL format is very dramatic with the pauses, so it's fine for the Super Bowl or a really close game, but most of the time, it's just boring.  Especially in person...very much made-for-TV.  Not sure how they ever sell them out; you're just paying to go get drunk when you could have done that for free.  More people under the bleachers at high school football games than in them...weird sport.

And then Jimmy thinks he can just walk on in and talk about Daytona.

[JHS18]

Massa, on 26 February 2012 - 08:53 PM, said:

And then Jimmy thinks he can just walk on in and talk about Daytona.

Sorry for not giving a sh*t about any other sport other than motorsport. j/k

So it's postponed till tomorrow apparently. Hope it rains tomorrow too, otherwise there's no way I'm going to see it. I have a two hour seminar timetabled for when it is supposed to start - then commuting back home, eating...yep, RAIN!!!

If it does happen, I guess I'll just have to catch some action on the 'Tube. Which'd suck, seeing as I had really wanted to see this, and then my enthusiasm for NASCAR will die out of frustration and then I'll say every F1 race is crap and go and cry alone in my BTCC topic...

Maybe.

Edited by JHS18, 27 February 2012 - 08:16 AM.

[Massa]

Motorsport?  This is motortainment, kiddo.

According to John Roberts on FOX, the race is actually canceled.

NASCAR's weatherman says there's a window between 6 PM and 8 PM Daytona time...but that's enough time to dry the track.  Not to actually go racing.  There's no way they do this tomorrow at noon.

They'll race Tuesday.

[JHS18]

Massa, on 27 February 2012 - 12:35 AM, said:

Motorsport?  This is motortainment, kiddo.

According to John Roberts on FOX, the race is actually canceled.

NASCAR's weatherman says there's a window between 6 PM and 8 PM Daytona time...but that's enough time to dry the track.  Not to actually go racing.  There's no way they do this tomorrow at noon.

They'll race Tuesday.

Thought NASCAR are totally against a Tuesday race due to potential logistical issues they'll have for the next races?

I say they stop being such wusses and just race in the rain. j/k

[Massa]

Depends.  I guess getting to Phoenix would be hard but when it came up at Watkins Glen, they said they'd do Tuesday if they had to.  In reality, the cars racing at Daytona aren't the ones racing at Phoenix, so it's not like they haven't already sent out different haulers of different cars.

They should race in the rain on road courses in Cup.  Obviously they can't on ovals as you are well aware.

Start time is scheduled for 7:02 PM ET.  That's 00:02 where you are Jimmy.  Should be able to get the whole thing in, but they have to get it dry.

Honestly, I think they lucked out.  They'll get more viewers in prime time than they would have in the afternoon, though they still lose their big money-making event television wise (and their one chance to showcase NASCAR to non-NASCAR fans in an effort to convert them).

[JHS18]

Eh, a bit better than a 5pm start for me, but with it being on so late, I doubt I'll stop up for the entire 200 laps. Even though I have two days off.

Yeah, just race it Tuesday.

[Massa]

00:13 for you now Jimmy, pushed back 11 minutes.

[JHS18]

Better be worth it.

[Massa]

This is so damn cool.  Please read this.

http://www.sbnation....elay/in/2539160

Landon Cassill is such a nice guy he's even said my jokes were hilarious (no really).  I've always liked him a lot.

One of the guys in the photo in the Burger King and referenced in the article is a guy I talk to all the time online.  He got to play mini-golf with a NASCAR driver and the writer of the article, Jeff Gluck.  Gluck is in our fantasy NASCAR league, too.  Honestly he's probably a really nice guy, though he blocked all of us on Twitter.

[JHS18]

First wreck (see I got the lingo and everything ) takes Jimmie Johnson out on lap 2.

Edited by JHS18, 28 February 2012 - 12:21 AM.

[Massa]

I don't even remember what I watched.  Notes taken from my Twitter, so they start well after the race began (watched on TV, brought laptop down at some point):

Darrell Waltrip called Casey Mears a "good little driver."

I typo'd "gentlemen" as "gentleman" twice.

David Stremme spun.  Mears was the first off pit lane.

Montoya did what he's best at.

They talked about Mears.

Brian Barnhart and I were ready to go racing.

Waltrip says he's seen it all, figure that means he should retire.

All the older drivers were standing around Danica.

Danica went to go to the bathroom and the cameras followed her.

Terry and Bobby Labonte never left Danica's side.

FOX did "side-by-side" commercials where they show the race and the commercial...but they only did it under yellow and under the red flag.  Green?  Full commercials.  What.

Waltrip wasn't wearing an undershirt.

Commentators couldn't stop talking about Brad Keselowski having a cell phone.

Casey Mears tried to join the big circle of drivers talking.  He walked in with total sexface, stood there for a few seconds, then walked away.  Poor guy.

There was a rather butch female cop who shoved Danica back into her car.

Labonte and Danica laughed at something.

Commercial with "The Heat Is On" after the fire.

Guy wearing flood pants.

Mears had a fuel pickup problem.  My night was substantially worse for it.

Then he wrecked.

Bobby, Paul, and Landon were all I had.  None of them did anything.

Pansy Greg Biffle too afraid to take a risk, just blocked for his teammate Kenseth to win, least exciting way to end a really bizarre race.  I am mad.

[Massa]

TV numbers.

RAIN DELAY coverage of the Daytona 500 on Sunday: 4.5 overnight.
RACE DAY coverage of the 2011 Indianapolis 500 on a Sunday: 4.3 overnight.

Truck race, Friday night, SPEED: 1.63 final

Bud Shootout, Saturday night, FOX: 4.0 overnight (7.8 mil)

Nationwide, Saturday afternoon, ESPN: no clue.

Daytona 500, Monday night, FOX: 7.7 overnight; after the red flag, which ended just after midnight U.S. time, a 7.3.

Tuesday at 1 AM and they had a 7.3.  Most viewers for a Monday night on FOX in a very, very, very long time...maybe ever.  If you totaled the ratings of every single IndyCar race last year outside of the 500, you wouldn't even get a 7.3.  Big event.

And IndyCar tries to be something other than a niche sport.  Know your role, Indy.  Cater to people who like racing, not to people in general, because the people in general have spoken.

The race got an 8.2 on Sunday afternoon last year.  In 2010, they had a huge delay to fix the track; that scored a 7.0 (again, Sunday afternoon into night).

They should do more Monday night races.  Run a 300-miler or something in primetime.  It's fun.  Only thing I enjoyed about Speedweeks was watching that late at night and tweeting with the racing buddies.  Had they run it Sunday, I don't think I even would have watched until the last 20 laps.

[Massa]

Wrongly titled, here is Dale Earnhardt, Jr. racing Brad Keselowski to the restroom last night.

[Massa]

Numbers translate to 36,500,000 U.S. viewers for the Daytona 500.

[JHS18]

Massa, on 28 February 2012 - 07:07 PM, said:

Wrongly titled, here is Dale Earnhardt, Jr. racing Brad Keselowski to the restroom last night.

I like how easily amused the crowd are. But I guess by that stage, a high proportion of them were slightly intoxicated.