Racing Of The United States Variety

[Massa 0]

American Conor Daly starts second in the GP3 race. Michael Lewis finished tenth in the first F3 EuroSeries race. Félix Serralles, who I think is a guest dirver, was eighth.

[HandyNZL 1]

Ohh...that reminds me to check the results for Mitch...(I didn't wake up early enough to watch the delayed coverage - shame on me for watch the GP2 race (which I fell asleep in at lap three....)

[HandyNZL 1]

Ohhh yeah.....go to gp3series.com and there's this little runty kid with his thumbs up holding a trophy...good lad!! Go Mitch!

[Massa 0]

You'd think with all the tracks being round, they'd know how to round...

[HandyNZL 1]

Connor Daly got the win in race 2 of GP3 Eric....cue the Team America theme song

[Massa 0]

Well, yeah, he better have won, he's in year two and the field's pretty weak other than Mitch Evans who I almost called Mitch Cunningham, but then I corrected myself. I guess I was busy thinking about guys who ran a few Indy Lights races, as Conor Daly did, and you'd think there'd only be one racing driver named Mitch from all of New Zealand...

Good for him. Not my favorite of the American crew but he's a decent guy and only he and Rossi really have a chance. Rossi, being with Caterham, and Daly, having his father, who is good friends with Ecclestone, and thus they get to spend a lot of time in the garages networking with the teams.

[Massa 0]

Missed this yesterday, but May 12...

May 12, 2000. Adam Petty lost his life in a practice crash for the NASCAR Nationwide race at Loudon, New Hampshire. He was 19. Son of Kyle, grandson of Richard, great-grandson of Lee.

I don't know what Adam's legacy would have been on the racing side. I think, candidly, that his talents were over-exaggerated after his death. Nevertheless, doesn't change how sad it was for that family. I was 7, I knew it was sad, I knew he was young, but it really hits me now, being 19, just how damn young and quick that is. He was to move to Cup in 2001, driving the #45 (Lee drove 42, Richard 43, Kyle 44, and Adam 45).

But Adam had an interest outside of racing. He really cared about children and he had a dream about helping them through charity. His dream was the Victory Junction Gang Camp, and his parents, Kyle and Patti, made it happen. NASCAR drivers have donated millions of dollars and a lot of time to the project. It really united everyone in the sport behind a good cause for the first time.

I've shared this before, I'll share it again. It's not the best quality; filming the TV. But it's worth watching.

Adam and Lee both passed in 2000. The family's had some...differences in the last few years. The team, Petty Enterprises, is gone. Management struggles at Victory Junction have left Patti Petty, the real driving force behind this, on the outs, and a dispute over health insurance (Patti suffers from Parkinson's) has just made that a lot worse as Kyle and son Austin stand behind the decision. It's sad.

But for a while there, Adam did something really special. Great guy.

[Massa 0]

I guess this happened at Darlington on Saturday night. NASCAR is investigating.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab863eeCMvE

Kurt Busch also hit Newman on pit road, and did a burnout through Newman's pit stall as he was exiting pit road following his spin. Newman used the phrase "chemical imbalance" when describing Busch.

[Massa 0]

I'm fine with the DW12 at Indy, because I'd be fine with anything at Indy, but wow...this Lola...

[Massa 0]

Part of me says, no, don't post this. Why? Because it's from a show called Race Hub and you will see how insanely stupid it is. The fat guy with the fake hair, Jimmy Spencer, is a great reflection of SPEED's audience (why do you think SPEED is dissolving into a sports network? Demographics are awful). The other guy, Steve Byrnes, who doesn't talk in the clip got in a Twitter fight with a NASCAR journalist, Jeff Gluck, who himself can be a little bit annoying online but when you meet him he's a cool guy, who wrote an article criticizing NASCAR on FOX's coverage after he was unable to attend a race and therefore watched it on TV for the first time in a while (you might think a journalist would watch the race on tape after attending it to make sure he/she sees everything, but Gluck doesn't actually like auto racing, he was just told to cover it really. That's not a dig at Gluck at all; it happens). Anyway, Steve Byrnes blew up at Jeff Gluck, then deleted his Twitter, little man that he is. A fake Steve Byrnes appeared on Twitter after that, and Gluck said he knew that account was fake because the real Byrnes would never be man enough to apologize. Which is completely true. In summary, this is a show where two assclowns act as caricatures of themselves, thus making themselves even more substantial and less entertaining assclowns than they were in the first place.

With that, here is Kurt Busch's weekend in review. I like the contrast to Jeff Gordon at the end. Gordon's a total class act. Language is censored out but be aware of your surroundings. Don't watch it at work, not because it's particularly offensive, but because you shouldn't be on TF1 at work so go back and get working.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3_8LsVfFxc

And if you want a talent comparison, Gordon was a few seconds off in an F1 demonstration. Sir Frank Williams and Bernie Ecclestone both wanted him back, mostly for money reasons, but still. Sir Jackie Stewart had offered him an F1 seat in the 90s as well (and later looked at Tony Stewart, but by then the team was becoming Jaguar, and Stewart wouldn't have done it anyway. He wanted a one-off at the USGP which wasn't really something that was going to happen. Stewart, for the record, was much smaller back then). Kurt Busch was even more seconds off on a shorter track in a Champ Car demonstration. Ford and Bobby Rahal never asked him to come back. That's a very unscientific measure of ability but still.

[Massa 0]

And after all that criticism for Jimmy Spencer...

He announced he is retiring so he can ride a train across Canada, then go to Europe, then spend time gardening at home. He wants to retire now (age 55) before he has health problems (which, I don't want to say are inevitable, but, a guy who smokes cigars, considers doughnuts his favorite food, and carries that much girth is probably going to run into a few more issues or issues sooner than most...)

[JHS18 0]

Wow. Wasn't Kurt Busch supposed to be taking anger management classes? Your job is so hard, you only earn a few million dollars a season, end the misery now Kurt...

What a d*ck. I'm glad there aren't many drivers like that in F1...or at least none that we know of.

[Massa 0]

I'm not convinced that Kurt Busch is the most mentally well person in the world. It's easy to say he's a **** because, well, he acts like one, but I have a feeling that Kurt Busch should really be talking to some people in the health industry. I don't mean to speculate or fuel rumors, which already exist. Just an observation from someone who knows only a small, small amount about it, but I think someone in his life needs to get past the "Kurt's a very angry man, this is great for TV" phase and into the "what's causing these behaviors?" phase because quite honestly I'm having a hard time just saying "Kurt's bad, Jeff Gordon's good." I'm more inclined to think "Jeff Gordon's mentally sound, Kurt Busch is struggling with something."

[Massa 0]

Leaked: Chevrolet testing their 2013 car. It's an SS, which is a Holden Commodore. So that's what the new Commodore looks like: a bloated Chevy Malibu. Which looks vaguely like it was influenced by a capybara. Nice one, GM.

http://www.autoblog.com/photos/2013-chevrolet-ss-nascar-racer-camouflaged/

We've seen the Ford and the Dodge, if you remember, and the Toyota will be unveiled either this week or next. I hope the new cars do something for the racing because I just can't seem to care about it this year.

[Massa 0]

Andretti Autosport to NASCAR rumors...we had these last year...

http://msn.foxsports.com/motor/story/Could-Michael-Andretti-expand-to-NASCAR-Cup-ranks-051712

The Ilmor Engineering thing is interesting. Lee Spencer, for the record, is not someone I trust. But Ilmor would make sense because Roger Penske, who owns Ilmor now, builds the Dodge engines at present. However, he's moving to Ford next year, but there were still rumors he'd build Dodge engines, and he still had the 2013 Dodge Charger model in his race shop even after he announced he was going to Ford. Could Ilmor be Roger's way of keeping his Dodge engine program?

[Massa 0]

Military sponsorships have been eliminated. This includes Ryan Newman and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. in NASCAR and J.R. Hildebrand in IndyCar. I hate to see teams lose funding, but politically, I completely agree that funding racing teams isn't what we need to be doing right now. Anyway, I don't want to make it political in here, just wanted to share:

http://www.usatoday....hips/55040336/1

It makes more sense now that Tony Stewart told Newman he was free to look around, and that Newman is being linked to this new Dodge team, Andretti or otherwise, with Kurt Busch.

[HandyNZL 1]

Leaked: Chevrolet testing their 2013 car. It's an SS, which is a Holden Commodore. So that's what the new Commodore looks like: a bloated Chevy Malibu. Which looks vaguely like it was influenced by a capybara. Nice one, GM.

http://www.autoblog....er-camouflaged/

We've seen the Ford and the Dodge, if you remember, and the Toyota will be unveiled either this week or next. I hope the new cars do something for the racing because I just can't seem to care about it this year.

Holden from 2001/02 maybe....

Holden of 2011...

[Massa 0]

It's the Holden of 2014. It's getting restyled. We haven't seen the 2014 Commodore road car yet, but it's then being translated into a 2014 Chevrolet SS which will probably not look too similar because Chevy have a very uniform fascia, which is then being translated into a 2013 Cup car.

[HandyNZL 1]

I was trying to find the article on a local newspaper site that had the "spy photo's" of the 2013/14/15 Holden, but then I couldn't find it because their archive system sucks, so you had to make do with the current HSV model.

So there.

Nur Nur.

[Massa 0]

I saw one of the renders. It looked like a Chevy Volt. I was displeased.

[HandyNZL 1]

And so you should be...a Volt gets like 40miles to a charge....on what planet is that of any use?

[Massa 0]

I'd make it one-way to college. Never get home again.

You could power the thing with dreams and I still would never pay $45,000 for a Chevrolet. I don't think I'd own a Chevrolet if I were getting paid $45,000 to drive it. Wouldn't look outside Honda, Toyota, Mazda, Hyundai, or Kia as far as cars sold in the U.S. go, and the last four are all in a tier slightly below (Toyota didn't used to be until their company got bloated here...a lot of things get bloated here...). I only spend about $1,080 per year on gas (only drive 5,400 miles per year or so; 20 mpg highway, which is what I do mostly, in my SUV...waaah waaah waaah I'm a horrible killer of maritime bears. That and it snows a lot here and I'm too unskilled to drive a normal person's car in snow and above all, I get carsick in anything that is too low to the ground because I'm so used to SUVs now that I will never change my ways or else I'll puke so ).

Certainly not worth sacrificing convenience to be part of some terrible experiment for me. I always trust that whatever Chevrolet's idea about the future of automobiles is, that's what the future of automobiles won't be.

[Massa 0]

Bobby Santos won the USAC Silver Crown season opener in Clermont, IN last night. Absolutely dominated. Here's his battle with Kody Swanson for the lead and eventual win, he ducked inside on a restart, and fought him off:

That 17 car is significant. Santos will drive it in all the pavement races. At the wheel for the dirt races? Bryan Clauson, Indianapolis 500 rookie with Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing this year. The 17's sponsors, Rotondo Weirich and CURB/Agajanian are also sponsors of Clauson at Indy.

Santos is a great guy; he's a local guy to me, too (like extremely local), so I may be biased, but the general consensus on this guy is that he's one of the best pavement short-track racers in the country and has been for years. He's won in Silver Crown, Midgets, Sprint Cars, NASCAR Whelen Modifieds (won the 2010 championship), IMSA Supermodifieds, NEMA winged midgets, and would have won a stock car race in ARCA had a lapped car not ended his dominant performance (he did win a few poles and finished as high as third in that series). Santos will be running in the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Daytona this July, driving for Tommy Baldwin, who fields Cup cars for Dave Blaney and David Reutimann (as well as a part-time Nationwide entry for Santos, Ryan Blaney, and Ryan Truex). Everyone who has worked with this guy on his team absolutely loves him, even after he's gone from the team and that says a lot. Nice guy, soft-spoken, incredible talent. I saw him come from dead last to first in a 25-lap race midget race on a 1/3 mile track. That's...that's just not possible...and he did it...we all thought "his car must be illegal," but nope, he passed tech, car was perfectly legal. Driver was just too damn good for the field. Ryan Newman called him the "next A.J. Foyt," Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards are both really high on his talent, but he's never had much money or been really great at getting sponsors.

He was a few seconds/lap quicker in go-karts than I was, too.

Anyway, that's more than you'll ever care to read but USAC is awesome and the drivers are awesome and I hope to see a lot of guys, not just Santos, in NASCAR and Indy 500 fields in years to come because there is so much talent in USAC.

[Massa 0]

Justin Lofton won his first ever Camping World Truck Series race Friday night. It's significant because:

[Massa 0]

I'm pretty sure this is a 2013 Cup car. Whoa.