Wednesdiversions For The Third Week Of April
Written by Patterson Belser, Wednesday April 15 2009
by Patterson Belser
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Another Wednesday is here and that brings us to the weekly week dump. We are coming out of an off-weekend for the Cup Series, and leading into a long stretch with no more off-weekends. We also get our first Saturday night race of the season this coming weekend, which I always enjoy.
It is good to be back home in Chicago after the trip to New York for Passover. The trip, though, was a rousing success. We made it into Manhattan for a night and did a solid food tour of the Lower East Side on Saturday afternoon. It was great to catch up with some friends and get to hang out in the greatest city in the world. But, now that I am back, it is time to catch up on all of the news I missed over the past week.
Jeff Hammond wrote a piece about which teams should have used the off-weekend to examine their seasons up to this point. Hammond points his finger in the direction of the entire Rousch-Fenway and Earnhardt-Ganassi teams, along with Dale Earnhardt, Jr. This comes as no surprise whatsoever.
As the Cup Series had an off-weekend, the Nationwide Series did not rest and pulled into Nashville for the Pepsi 300. Joey Logano emerged victorious for his first Nationwide win of the season, the second of his career. This could be just the jolt that Logano needs to help him gain some confidence for the Cup Series. We shall see.
While I missed Saturday’s race due to the previously mentioned trip to the City, I did come across this great clip of Joe Nemechek flipping his car during the race, and continuing on, after the car righted itself. While the wreck brought out the red flag in order to clean up the mess that was caused, it still amazes me when I see a wreck like this, and not only is no one injured, but Nemechek was able to continue running for a while.
Kyle Busch was also quite outspoken, again, in his post-race interview after his second place finish. He complained about finishing second, which I understand. He also chastised the fans that came to the driver area and requested multiple items be autographed, which I also understand. It is just obnoxious to expect someone to sign many autographs for one person. It is time consuming, and one has to assume that some of these items will just wind up on eBay.
The off-weekend for the Cup Series, in observance of Easter, is questioned by James G. via the “From The Marbles” blog, and makes a really good point, if you ask me. I really have no clue why there is no race on Easter. But, I guess that NASCAR seems to know what they are doing.
Speaking of the good people within NASCAR knowing what they are doing, Jim France will leave his role as CEO of International Speedway Corporation. But, worry ye not, oh loyal fans, another France family member will be taking over the job. Lesa France will be the new CEO effective June 1st.
I think that all of us big NASCAR fans out there watch the races each week, and we all can identify certain things within the sport that we would love to change. The folks over at Bump-Drafts took some feedback from the readers and put together a list of some changes that could be made to the sport to benefit the fanbase. This is definitely not the first article of this nature that I have seen, but it is a good one. I really want to believe that with the number of complaints from the fanbase, that NASCAR will have to sit up and listen at some point, hopefully sooner than later.
Jay Busbee puts together one of my favorite recurring segments on his blog about NASCAR gear called “They make it ‘cause we buy it”, which features often strange items that NASCAR attempts to sell to the fans. Over the past week, two items were featured. One is a giant Jimmie Johnson mat and the sexy NASCAR costume. Oh, the crap they will put in the market.
That Bruton Smith just refuses to stay out of the news as of recent. Luckily, since I have to report at least one story per week that has to do with the rotten economy, I can tie in Bruton Smith with the terrible economic story of the week, care of the NASCAR Insiders.
One of these days, the economy will cycle back to the good side of things, and we can all join hands and sing freakin’ “Kumbaya”. But, until the day comes for the smiles to return to American faces nationwide, we will all have to just laugh out loud at the goodness at LOLNASCAR, such as this, this and, of course, this.
To keep the smiles going, the feel good story of the year has to be A.J. Allmendinger. When the season began, Allmendinger was only supposed to run the first nine races of the season. That would have put an end to his season after Talladega. But, the kid has fought and fought, and now has secured sponsorship until September. At this rate, he may even get to finish the season.
One more upbeat story comes from the Jerry Bonkowski camp, as Bonkowski has been hired by ESPNChicago.com. He will be covering Chicago based sports, as the sports site is branching out to make individual city sites, with our fair Chicago being the first city to receive one of these sites. Congrats, Jerry!
Prepare to wipe those smiles off of your faces. According to Fox Sports, the NASCAR All-Star race has signed a band to play a concert for the race weekend. O.A.R. will bring their brand of crap pop (yeah, I truly believe that is a genre – iTunes, I want a credit when you start tagging bands with this) to Charlotte for an event scheduled a few days previous to the All-Star race. Ugh…O.A.R.? Was Dexy’s Midnight Runners booked for another gig? O.A.R. STINKS!
That is all for this week. Let us hope that Phoenix is a good time, as I am looking forward to the first night race of the season. Have a great week, everyone!
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2 comments
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I laugh every week at LOLNASCAR! Thanks for the read, as I generally link back to yall's site on a weekly basis.
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Thx for the kind words regarding the blog. I'm glad you enjoy it :-)