In just a few hours, The 2010 Daytona 500 will kick off, and if you're like me, it's the most exciting time of the year.
The NASCAR season is just kicking off, and I can't wait to hear the command to start engines. It's Daytona, the biggest race of the year, and there is just nothing quite like Daytona in February.
Who's going to win? I don't have a clue, but I'd put my money on guys like Tony Stewart, or Greg Biffle, or Kevin Harvick. Maybe even Jimmie Johnson, because JJ and Chad can seem to do no wrong.
Personally, I'm pulling for Dale Jr., because another win at the Daytona 500 would take the no-win monkey off his back so fast, it would make your head spin. Dale Jr. is due, and he's already won this race once. Dale Jr. has the equipment and hopefully the right people behind him, so who knows. It would be a great shot in the arm for not only Dale Jr. and the 88 team, but for NASCAR as well.
This is a day of celebration, NASCAR fans. Let's scream at the TV, enjoy a few of our favorite beverages, at least in moderation, and let's get excited! The 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup season is upon us, and let's get fired up! I am, and I invite you, no matter who your favorite driver is, to get fired up too. Cheer your driver on to victory lane, and let's get this puppy started up!
Early congratulations to whomever wins the Daytona 500 later today. The field is so tight, that just about anyone can win, if they're in the right place, at exactly the right time. That's the way it ought to be every week in this sport, and often is. Today is all about why we love racing and why we devote so much time and attention to it.
Today, the Daytona 500 will hopefully show us something: Racing at its very best.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Some People Ought To Know Better
I was listening to my local sports talk radio station yesterday, and late afternoons the station runs a popular talk show out of Charlotte, North Carolina. Since the show does originate in Charlotte, the host does pay some lip service to NASCAR, but 99 per cent of the time, the show is devoted to stick and ball sports.
The other day, however, the host went on a rant about Danica Patrick’s 6th place finish in Saturday’s ARCA race, and basically said that ARCA is a nothing series, more or less a sandlot league. The impression that he was trying to make was that even racing in the ARCA series proves nothing, because ANYBODY can race in ARCA.
My friends, that’s just not true. I understand the host’s frustration over the whole Danica phenomenon, because quite frankly, it’s being a little overdone in the media. But to act like ARCA is just some little dinky racing series is just idiotic, and quite frankly, this host ought to know better. Danica Patrick is not the first woman to race in NASCAR, not by a long shot. She’s obviously not the first open wheel driver to cross the bridge to race stock cars.
ARCA is not the most elite series in stock car racing. The most elite series is obviously the Sprint Cup. But nobody just soups up the old Chevy in the backyard and goes ARCA racing. Virtually all of the drivers in ARCA have raced their way up the ladder, beginning at their local bull rings, graduating on to regional series, and beyond. These folks are in ARCA because they’re all winning race car drivers at other levels. Danica Patrick did not become a Indy Racing League driver because she had a pretty face. She grew up racing, and was good enough to eventually reach the big leagues in open wheel racing.
The arrogance that seems to pervade the mainstream sports media where stock car racing is concerned is pathetic. Many prominent radio personalities simply scoff at the very idea that stock car racing is even a sport. “Anyone can drive a car around in circles,” they say. “Even my grandmother can do that. It’s not a sport.”
I’ve got a newsflash for those sports talk show hosts who just don’t get it. Not only is stock car racing a sport, it’s even more than that. Racing is the most brutal sport of all, because people actually die driving race cars. When is the last time you heard about a professional golfer suffering a broken neck on the 13th green at Augusta National? Turn 4 at Daytona International Speedway has claimed the lives of more great professional athletes than pretty much any other sporting venue in the country.
It’s much like the old saying: “Don’t criticize what you don’t understand.” I don’t understand all the nuances of the NFL, but I still like to watch it. Heck, I even watch curling, even though I don’t really get it.
Many racing haters say that stock car racing is just some stupid, redneck, hillbilly sport. That’s simply not true anymore. Judging by the readers of just this site, I have way more hits from California and New York than I have from North Carolina. Sports personalities, especially popular ones in Charlotte, North Carolina ought to know better. They do know better, but spouting ignorance such as what I heard the other day is more than pathetic.
It’s actually embarrassing.
The other day, however, the host went on a rant about Danica Patrick’s 6th place finish in Saturday’s ARCA race, and basically said that ARCA is a nothing series, more or less a sandlot league. The impression that he was trying to make was that even racing in the ARCA series proves nothing, because ANYBODY can race in ARCA.
My friends, that’s just not true. I understand the host’s frustration over the whole Danica phenomenon, because quite frankly, it’s being a little overdone in the media. But to act like ARCA is just some little dinky racing series is just idiotic, and quite frankly, this host ought to know better. Danica Patrick is not the first woman to race in NASCAR, not by a long shot. She’s obviously not the first open wheel driver to cross the bridge to race stock cars.
ARCA is not the most elite series in stock car racing. The most elite series is obviously the Sprint Cup. But nobody just soups up the old Chevy in the backyard and goes ARCA racing. Virtually all of the drivers in ARCA have raced their way up the ladder, beginning at their local bull rings, graduating on to regional series, and beyond. These folks are in ARCA because they’re all winning race car drivers at other levels. Danica Patrick did not become a Indy Racing League driver because she had a pretty face. She grew up racing, and was good enough to eventually reach the big leagues in open wheel racing.
The arrogance that seems to pervade the mainstream sports media where stock car racing is concerned is pathetic. Many prominent radio personalities simply scoff at the very idea that stock car racing is even a sport. “Anyone can drive a car around in circles,” they say. “Even my grandmother can do that. It’s not a sport.”
I’ve got a newsflash for those sports talk show hosts who just don’t get it. Not only is stock car racing a sport, it’s even more than that. Racing is the most brutal sport of all, because people actually die driving race cars. When is the last time you heard about a professional golfer suffering a broken neck on the 13th green at Augusta National? Turn 4 at Daytona International Speedway has claimed the lives of more great professional athletes than pretty much any other sporting venue in the country.
It’s much like the old saying: “Don’t criticize what you don’t understand.” I don’t understand all the nuances of the NFL, but I still like to watch it. Heck, I even watch curling, even though I don’t really get it.
Many racing haters say that stock car racing is just some stupid, redneck, hillbilly sport. That’s simply not true anymore. Judging by the readers of just this site, I have way more hits from California and New York than I have from North Carolina. Sports personalities, especially popular ones in Charlotte, North Carolina ought to know better. They do know better, but spouting ignorance such as what I heard the other day is more than pathetic.
It’s actually embarrassing.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Budweiser Shootout Starts the 2010 Season Off With a Bang
Saturday night’s Bud Shootout was an interesting race, and for me, at least, entertaining as well.
The racing itself was good, what I would consider to be an improvement over last year’s race. There was quite a bit of passing, especially back in the pack, and the larger restrictor plates appeared to allow greater throttle response than in past plate races. This all adds up to more exciting racing.
Kudos have to go to NASCAR as well for retracting the rules for bump drafting. Any driver who gets pushed too hard into a corner is gong to complain about it, but it just makes for better racing when the drivers are free to bump and bang a little. Drivers at the Sprint Cup level are among the best in the world, and if they couldn’t handle a little physical contact, they would be doing something else for a living.
The bottom line is that the changes that NASCAR has made for racing at Daytona appear to promise a good Daytona 500 on Sunday. A better race means fans see a better product, and that’s really the most important priority.
Congratulations to Kevin Harvick, who, after being sick much of the week, pulled out the win on Saturday in a car in which he had not driven one practice lap. Perhaps Richard Childress Racing will turn a corner in performance in 2010 and get back to victory lane in the points racing.
One major disappointment was the performance of the 88 Chevy, driven by Dale Earnhardt Jr. After running strong for a few laps, the 88 car faded back and Dale Jr. was complaining about a problem that plagued his team’s efforts in 2009. In Junior’s words, the car was “wrecking loose.” Though the Shootout is only the first race of the season, and fortunately carries no points considerations, the Junior Nation has to be somewhat dismayed by the handling problems on Saturday night. It’s not time to panic yet, however. Dale Jr. will be starting on the outside pole on Sunday, so he’s definitely got the horsepower to get to the front. Hopefully crew chief Lance McGrew and the team will get a better handle on the handling problems by Sunday.
With the Budweiser Shootout out of the way, and the twin qualifying races coming up later in the week, it finally feels like the long off season is indeed over.
I, for one, couldn’t be happier.
The racing itself was good, what I would consider to be an improvement over last year’s race. There was quite a bit of passing, especially back in the pack, and the larger restrictor plates appeared to allow greater throttle response than in past plate races. This all adds up to more exciting racing.
Kudos have to go to NASCAR as well for retracting the rules for bump drafting. Any driver who gets pushed too hard into a corner is gong to complain about it, but it just makes for better racing when the drivers are free to bump and bang a little. Drivers at the Sprint Cup level are among the best in the world, and if they couldn’t handle a little physical contact, they would be doing something else for a living.
The bottom line is that the changes that NASCAR has made for racing at Daytona appear to promise a good Daytona 500 on Sunday. A better race means fans see a better product, and that’s really the most important priority.
Congratulations to Kevin Harvick, who, after being sick much of the week, pulled out the win on Saturday in a car in which he had not driven one practice lap. Perhaps Richard Childress Racing will turn a corner in performance in 2010 and get back to victory lane in the points racing.
One major disappointment was the performance of the 88 Chevy, driven by Dale Earnhardt Jr. After running strong for a few laps, the 88 car faded back and Dale Jr. was complaining about a problem that plagued his team’s efforts in 2009. In Junior’s words, the car was “wrecking loose.” Though the Shootout is only the first race of the season, and fortunately carries no points considerations, the Junior Nation has to be somewhat dismayed by the handling problems on Saturday night. It’s not time to panic yet, however. Dale Jr. will be starting on the outside pole on Sunday, so he’s definitely got the horsepower to get to the front. Hopefully crew chief Lance McGrew and the team will get a better handle on the handling problems by Sunday.
With the Budweiser Shootout out of the way, and the twin qualifying races coming up later in the week, it finally feels like the long off season is indeed over.
I, for one, couldn’t be happier.
Friday, February 5, 2010
I'm Loving Me Some Daytona
I regularly listen to a local sports station, WCCP FM which is based in Clemson, South Carolina, and is the official radio station of the Clemson Tigers. Feel free to Google it. They’d love to have you listen online, if you don’t happen to be in the Upstate South Carolina area, and chances are you’re not.
A particular radio host who’s name is Walt Deptula, is on from 3:00 until 5:00 PM Eastern time. Walt is a walking, talking sports encyclopedia. If you ask Walt if he watched the basketball game between East Utah State and Northern Michigan, Walt will say “Of course.” Walt watches everything, as long as it’s stick and ball sports. You know, football, basketball, baseball, hockey, etc. Walt’s not a big fan of NASCAR, but he does talk about it from time to time, whenever there’s big news in the sport.
Walt does talk about basketball a lot though. Remember Dick Vitale? You know, he’s the basketball color guy that says “Yeah, baby!” and is very entertaining to listen to, or at least some people think so. Dicky V has a love relationship with Duke University, which usually has a great basketball program, and no matter what game Dick is calling, he inevitably brings Duke into the conversation.
Walt Deptula regularly has a contest on his show where callers can call in and guess about how far into the basketball game Dick Vitale will mention Duke University. Walt calls this contest “Dick Vitale’s I’m Loving me some Duke.”
Well, I’m loving me some Daytona right now. February, for quite a few years now, makes me get all tingly inside. With some tickets going for as low as $55.00, I’d be there in a heart beat, because I’ve never actually watched a race at Daytona International Speedway, at least in person. I’ve been to Atlanta, Charlotte, Darlington, Talladega, and some other tracks, which were all awesome, but Daytona is basically the Super Bowl of NASCAR. On Valentine’s day, Daytona is the place to be for any NASCAR fan.
The off season is over. It’s time to get back to some high octane racing fuel, the deafening sound of 43 racing engines screaming, making your eardrums bleed. As General George S. Patton once said about war, I’ll say the same thing about NASCAR: “God forgive me, but I do love it so.”
If there’s any way you can get to Daytona in the next couple of weeks, I would encourage you to do so. Ticket prices are probably lower this year than they have been in decades. Daytona International Speedway is an awesome place to see, even when you’re the only person inside the track. Imagine being there with a hundred plus thousand of your friends and neighbors. Imagine them all screaming, encouraging their drivers on, calling them home for the win, which may be the win of a lifetime. It may be the event of a lifetime for you or someone in your family.
A particular radio host who’s name is Walt Deptula, is on from 3:00 until 5:00 PM Eastern time. Walt is a walking, talking sports encyclopedia. If you ask Walt if he watched the basketball game between East Utah State and Northern Michigan, Walt will say “Of course.” Walt watches everything, as long as it’s stick and ball sports. You know, football, basketball, baseball, hockey, etc. Walt’s not a big fan of NASCAR, but he does talk about it from time to time, whenever there’s big news in the sport.
Walt does talk about basketball a lot though. Remember Dick Vitale? You know, he’s the basketball color guy that says “Yeah, baby!” and is very entertaining to listen to, or at least some people think so. Dicky V has a love relationship with Duke University, which usually has a great basketball program, and no matter what game Dick is calling, he inevitably brings Duke into the conversation.
Walt Deptula regularly has a contest on his show where callers can call in and guess about how far into the basketball game Dick Vitale will mention Duke University. Walt calls this contest “Dick Vitale’s I’m Loving me some Duke.”
Well, I’m loving me some Daytona right now. February, for quite a few years now, makes me get all tingly inside. With some tickets going for as low as $55.00, I’d be there in a heart beat, because I’ve never actually watched a race at Daytona International Speedway, at least in person. I’ve been to Atlanta, Charlotte, Darlington, Talladega, and some other tracks, which were all awesome, but Daytona is basically the Super Bowl of NASCAR. On Valentine’s day, Daytona is the place to be for any NASCAR fan.
The off season is over. It’s time to get back to some high octane racing fuel, the deafening sound of 43 racing engines screaming, making your eardrums bleed. As General George S. Patton once said about war, I’ll say the same thing about NASCAR: “God forgive me, but I do love it so.”
If there’s any way you can get to Daytona in the next couple of weeks, I would encourage you to do so. Ticket prices are probably lower this year than they have been in decades. Daytona International Speedway is an awesome place to see, even when you’re the only person inside the track. Imagine being there with a hundred plus thousand of your friends and neighbors. Imagine them all screaming, encouraging their drivers on, calling them home for the win, which may be the win of a lifetime. It may be the event of a lifetime for you or someone in your family.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Do You Feel The Need For Speed?
I know that I do. It’s racing season, and things are starting to get cranked up in Daytona. For me, at least, I can’t wait. I love speed weeks. I can’t say that enough, because speed weeks gets my blood flowing.
It’s like a spring thaw. Florida was hit with some of the coldest temperatures they’ve had in years, if forever. California has seen some of the worst rainstorms and snowstorms in decades. In other words, doomsday is near at hand, right?
NASCAR has the perfect solution to this bad weather, bad feeling that winter leaves behind. The Budweiser Shootout, the Twin races, and the actual Daytona 500 are just around the corner. We’ve got a ton of racing in NASCAR just around the corner, and it couldn’t come soon enough for me.
It’s been an unbelievably long off season, at least for me. It seems like it’s been years since the guys were on the track. I know it hasn’t been that long, but at the tender age of 46, I still believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. When I get older, maybe I’ll stop believing in the tooth fairy.
To me, February is the real Christmas, at least as far as racing goes. No, no, I still believe in Christmas on December 25th because that is the day of the birth of my savior Jesus Christ. But February 14th will have special meaning for me this year, because Valentine’s day coincides with the Daytona 500. I’m hopelessly romantic, and though I’ve got no sweetheart to spend Valentine’s day with, I will be wired and fired up for the Daytona 500.
For me, Daytona is the best part of the year. Gas fumes, burning rubber, can it get any better than this?
I don’t think so.
I’ll be back lots with more thoughts as Speed Weeks gets under way.
Whoever your favorite driver is, I wish him or her well this season.
It’s like a spring thaw. Florida was hit with some of the coldest temperatures they’ve had in years, if forever. California has seen some of the worst rainstorms and snowstorms in decades. In other words, doomsday is near at hand, right?
NASCAR has the perfect solution to this bad weather, bad feeling that winter leaves behind. The Budweiser Shootout, the Twin races, and the actual Daytona 500 are just around the corner. We’ve got a ton of racing in NASCAR just around the corner, and it couldn’t come soon enough for me.
It’s been an unbelievably long off season, at least for me. It seems like it’s been years since the guys were on the track. I know it hasn’t been that long, but at the tender age of 46, I still believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. When I get older, maybe I’ll stop believing in the tooth fairy.
To me, February is the real Christmas, at least as far as racing goes. No, no, I still believe in Christmas on December 25th because that is the day of the birth of my savior Jesus Christ. But February 14th will have special meaning for me this year, because Valentine’s day coincides with the Daytona 500. I’m hopelessly romantic, and though I’ve got no sweetheart to spend Valentine’s day with, I will be wired and fired up for the Daytona 500.
For me, Daytona is the best part of the year. Gas fumes, burning rubber, can it get any better than this?
I don’t think so.
I’ll be back lots with more thoughts as Speed Weeks gets under way.
Whoever your favorite driver is, I wish him or her well this season.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
What Makes a Great NASCAR Driver?
Probably every fan of any driver has a different template as to what it takes to be a great driver in NASCAR. Does it take a racing pedigree? Does it take a famous father? Does it just take a boat load of money?
Many drivers followed in their father’s footsteps to become racers. Many guys, such as Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and others have been around race cars since they could crawl. Climbing into a race car one day and going for the checkered flag was as natural for them as peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were for most of the rest of us when we were kids. When I was a kid, I was fortunate enough to live in a place, where besides the hated hours I spent inside a school classroom, I had the opportunity to walk in the woods, ride my bicycle, and my friends and I would play endless hours of football, baseball, or shoot hoops out on the driveway. Video games were still in their infancy, and quite frankly, boring to most of us.
On Saturday afternoons, we would gather in the living room and watch college teams play their various sports. We always looked forward to ABC’s Wide World of Sports, and once in a while, we saw snippets of NASCAR races from places like Darlington, Daytona, North Wilkesboro, or Riverside. I was born in 1963, so those of you who are old enough remember what NASCAR coverage was like back in the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s. Quite frankly, there wasn’t a lot of it, even here in South Carolina.
I read the newspapers when I was a kid, and always looked forward to reading the sports page on Monday mornings to see who had won yesterdays race. Many times, NASCAR events were covered on the evening news as well, but to me, NASCAR was a world away, a world that seemed like a great place, but one which I had never actually experienced.
Probably, most kids in North America grew up in similar environments back in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s. I grew up in a distinctly middle class family, and my father went to work every morning, and my mom stayed at home and took care of the house, and, of course, the kids. Many of my friends had mothers who worked full time, but that was probably the exception, rather than the rule in rural South Carolina in those days, especially for a white middle class kid like me.
As usual, I digress. Many kids throughout the South, and indeed, all over the continent, grew up with a garage that did not contain the family car. No, this garage housed a race car. In some instances, this race car provided a target to throw money at with little in the way of return, at least financially. Yet some homes had a garage with a race car sitting inside of it that generated the income which put the food on the table, and kept the lights on inside the house.
Such was the case in the humble Earnhardt home in Kannapolis, North Carolina back in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Like many Piedmont area cities back then, the local cotton mill was king. Virtually everyone in neighborhoods in many of these southern cities worked at the local mill. Ralph Earnhardt worked in the mill, just like all his neighbors, but went racing nights and weekends. Ralph got so good at racing that he eventually gave up his day job to race his cars and build cars for other racers full time.
Ralph had a son named Dale, and of course the rest is history. But Dale was a race car driver’s kid, and many of his father’s races were run in places like Columbia, South Carolina, or Myrtle Beach, and his father not only drove the race cars, he had to haul them back and forth to the race tracks. Dale went to as many races as he could, but obviously couldn’t go to all of them. Ralph would arrive home in the wee hours many mornings while Dale was asleep. Dale would rise early, while his parents and his brothers and sisters were still sleeping, and go out to the shop, just to look at the race car. If the car was banged up, or covered with mud, he knew his dad probably hadn’t had a good night. If the car was relatively clean, he knew his father had probably won last night’s race.
Many of today’s drivers could tell you similar stories. Dale Earnhardt sacrificed marriages to race. Will Dale Earnhardt ever be named father of the year by most of his kids? Probably not, but that was Dale Earnhardt’s passion: Racing.
When Dale Earnhardt finally made it to the big time, which of course means NASCAR, in 1979, he was broke, basically homeless. A couple of years later, after winning Rookie of the Year in 1979 and winning his first Winston Cup Championship in 1980, he was rich beyond his wildest dreams. Dale Earnhardt went on to win six more championships, and a total of 76 races, amassing fortunes that no one could spend in a lifetime or two.
It sounds like a cliche, but drivers who succeed in this sport are driven. It’s not always how much talent you have, it’s how you use it. It’s never so much what you’ve been given, but how you use it, and how much fire in the belly motivates you to get there.
Anybody can drive a car fast. Heck, even I can do it. But it’s what motivates you to get to the point that you can clothe yourself, feed your family, and keep a roof over your head that really matters.
Right now, I’m not doing so good in that arena, but I’ve got heroes like Dale Earnhardt to study and hopefully, I can follow his example.
I’m hungry, just like Dale Earnhardt was at one time. I want to succeed. I don’t want to simply survive, I want to win! I think I now know exactly how if feels to be a wannabe NASCAR driver. Losing is not an option. I’m here to Win!
Your thoughts and opinions are always appreciated here. If I don’t respond, don’t worry, I do read them all. I read them and think about them too, as an added bonus!
As always, thank you for all of your support!
Many drivers followed in their father’s footsteps to become racers. Many guys, such as Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and others have been around race cars since they could crawl. Climbing into a race car one day and going for the checkered flag was as natural for them as peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were for most of the rest of us when we were kids. When I was a kid, I was fortunate enough to live in a place, where besides the hated hours I spent inside a school classroom, I had the opportunity to walk in the woods, ride my bicycle, and my friends and I would play endless hours of football, baseball, or shoot hoops out on the driveway. Video games were still in their infancy, and quite frankly, boring to most of us.
On Saturday afternoons, we would gather in the living room and watch college teams play their various sports. We always looked forward to ABC’s Wide World of Sports, and once in a while, we saw snippets of NASCAR races from places like Darlington, Daytona, North Wilkesboro, or Riverside. I was born in 1963, so those of you who are old enough remember what NASCAR coverage was like back in the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s. Quite frankly, there wasn’t a lot of it, even here in South Carolina.
I read the newspapers when I was a kid, and always looked forward to reading the sports page on Monday mornings to see who had won yesterdays race. Many times, NASCAR events were covered on the evening news as well, but to me, NASCAR was a world away, a world that seemed like a great place, but one which I had never actually experienced.
Probably, most kids in North America grew up in similar environments back in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s. I grew up in a distinctly middle class family, and my father went to work every morning, and my mom stayed at home and took care of the house, and, of course, the kids. Many of my friends had mothers who worked full time, but that was probably the exception, rather than the rule in rural South Carolina in those days, especially for a white middle class kid like me.
As usual, I digress. Many kids throughout the South, and indeed, all over the continent, grew up with a garage that did not contain the family car. No, this garage housed a race car. In some instances, this race car provided a target to throw money at with little in the way of return, at least financially. Yet some homes had a garage with a race car sitting inside of it that generated the income which put the food on the table, and kept the lights on inside the house.
Such was the case in the humble Earnhardt home in Kannapolis, North Carolina back in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Like many Piedmont area cities back then, the local cotton mill was king. Virtually everyone in neighborhoods in many of these southern cities worked at the local mill. Ralph Earnhardt worked in the mill, just like all his neighbors, but went racing nights and weekends. Ralph got so good at racing that he eventually gave up his day job to race his cars and build cars for other racers full time.
Ralph had a son named Dale, and of course the rest is history. But Dale was a race car driver’s kid, and many of his father’s races were run in places like Columbia, South Carolina, or Myrtle Beach, and his father not only drove the race cars, he had to haul them back and forth to the race tracks. Dale went to as many races as he could, but obviously couldn’t go to all of them. Ralph would arrive home in the wee hours many mornings while Dale was asleep. Dale would rise early, while his parents and his brothers and sisters were still sleeping, and go out to the shop, just to look at the race car. If the car was banged up, or covered with mud, he knew his dad probably hadn’t had a good night. If the car was relatively clean, he knew his father had probably won last night’s race.
Many of today’s drivers could tell you similar stories. Dale Earnhardt sacrificed marriages to race. Will Dale Earnhardt ever be named father of the year by most of his kids? Probably not, but that was Dale Earnhardt’s passion: Racing.
When Dale Earnhardt finally made it to the big time, which of course means NASCAR, in 1979, he was broke, basically homeless. A couple of years later, after winning Rookie of the Year in 1979 and winning his first Winston Cup Championship in 1980, he was rich beyond his wildest dreams. Dale Earnhardt went on to win six more championships, and a total of 76 races, amassing fortunes that no one could spend in a lifetime or two.
It sounds like a cliche, but drivers who succeed in this sport are driven. It’s not always how much talent you have, it’s how you use it. It’s never so much what you’ve been given, but how you use it, and how much fire in the belly motivates you to get there.
Anybody can drive a car fast. Heck, even I can do it. But it’s what motivates you to get to the point that you can clothe yourself, feed your family, and keep a roof over your head that really matters.
Right now, I’m not doing so good in that arena, but I’ve got heroes like Dale Earnhardt to study and hopefully, I can follow his example.
I’m hungry, just like Dale Earnhardt was at one time. I want to succeed. I don’t want to simply survive, I want to win! I think I now know exactly how if feels to be a wannabe NASCAR driver. Losing is not an option. I’m here to Win!
Your thoughts and opinions are always appreciated here. If I don’t respond, don’t worry, I do read them all. I read them and think about them too, as an added bonus!
As always, thank you for all of your support!
Sunday, January 17, 2010
NASCAR To Bring Back Spoilers to Sprint Cup?
One of the most intriguing stories that I’ve seen over the last few days is the possibility that NASCAR will remove the infamous wings from Sprint Cup cars as soon as this year. Possibly, the spoilers could be back, but it is unknown whether this will only be for certain races or if the sanctioning body will remove the wings altogether in the future.
Personally, I find this news to be encouraging, and I believe that most of the drivers and teams would much rather deal with spoilers than wings on the rear of their race cars. In the preseason promotion at Daytona International Speedway televised by SPEED TV yesterday, several drivers, when asked, seemed to be whole heartedly in favor of the return to spoilers. Some of the drivers questioned included Ryan Newman, Matt Kenseth, and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Many, if not most of the Cup teams have had a difficult time getting a handle on setting up the handling for the winged cars since their introduction at the beginning of the 2008 season. Personally, I’ve felt that the wings have been a hindrance to NASCAR’s never ending quest for safety, not only for the drivers, but also the fans.
We all remember the scary rides that Carl Edwards and Ryan Newman took at Talladega last year. In Newman’s case, his car did not hit the catch fence, but had his car flipped upside down closer to the wall, it would have been easy for his car to have landed high up on the fence. In Carl Edward’s case, his car did disintegrate when it hit the fence, and though the fence kept most of the car out of the crowd, at least one fan was badly injured by pieces of flying sheet metal.
Cars landing in the fence are nothing new at Talladega or Daytona. One has to wonder, however, if the wing, which provides such tremendous down force on a car moving in a forward direction, does not also provide a tremendous amount of lift when the car is going backwards? Keeping the cars out of the grandstands has to be NASCAR’s primary concern at any track, and it seems to me that the wing is clearly counterproductive to that goal.
The word being circulated by those in the know about NASCAR’s consideration of bringing back the spoilers has been centered mostly on the competitive advantages rather than possible safety gains. Which ever way you look at it, bringing back the spoiler will be in NASCAR’s best interests to provide a better product for its fans in 2010 and beyond.
Besides, I’ve always thought those wings look rather silly, and as petty as that opinion sounds, it’s also part of what has to be the ultimate goal for NASCAR, which is of course producing happy fans who feel they’ve gotten their moneys worth. To me, the COT, as it was known, was ungainly compared to the pre COT car, which I consider a thing of beauty, if not a true work of art. I own several die cast models of pre COT cars, but I’ve not really been motivated to spend money on any COT replicas, mostly because they just don’t have the eye appeal that many of their ancestors had. Putting a spoiler back on the new car will make it look better, at least in my opinion. Spending money on merchandise is a tradition for NASCAR loyalists, and has helped the sport explode in popularity over the last fifteen or twenty years.
Personally, I find this news to be encouraging, and I believe that most of the drivers and teams would much rather deal with spoilers than wings on the rear of their race cars. In the preseason promotion at Daytona International Speedway televised by SPEED TV yesterday, several drivers, when asked, seemed to be whole heartedly in favor of the return to spoilers. Some of the drivers questioned included Ryan Newman, Matt Kenseth, and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Many, if not most of the Cup teams have had a difficult time getting a handle on setting up the handling for the winged cars since their introduction at the beginning of the 2008 season. Personally, I’ve felt that the wings have been a hindrance to NASCAR’s never ending quest for safety, not only for the drivers, but also the fans.
We all remember the scary rides that Carl Edwards and Ryan Newman took at Talladega last year. In Newman’s case, his car did not hit the catch fence, but had his car flipped upside down closer to the wall, it would have been easy for his car to have landed high up on the fence. In Carl Edward’s case, his car did disintegrate when it hit the fence, and though the fence kept most of the car out of the crowd, at least one fan was badly injured by pieces of flying sheet metal.
Cars landing in the fence are nothing new at Talladega or Daytona. One has to wonder, however, if the wing, which provides such tremendous down force on a car moving in a forward direction, does not also provide a tremendous amount of lift when the car is going backwards? Keeping the cars out of the grandstands has to be NASCAR’s primary concern at any track, and it seems to me that the wing is clearly counterproductive to that goal.
The word being circulated by those in the know about NASCAR’s consideration of bringing back the spoilers has been centered mostly on the competitive advantages rather than possible safety gains. Which ever way you look at it, bringing back the spoiler will be in NASCAR’s best interests to provide a better product for its fans in 2010 and beyond.
Besides, I’ve always thought those wings look rather silly, and as petty as that opinion sounds, it’s also part of what has to be the ultimate goal for NASCAR, which is of course producing happy fans who feel they’ve gotten their moneys worth. To me, the COT, as it was known, was ungainly compared to the pre COT car, which I consider a thing of beauty, if not a true work of art. I own several die cast models of pre COT cars, but I’ve not really been motivated to spend money on any COT replicas, mostly because they just don’t have the eye appeal that many of their ancestors had. Putting a spoiler back on the new car will make it look better, at least in my opinion. Spending money on merchandise is a tradition for NASCAR loyalists, and has helped the sport explode in popularity over the last fifteen or twenty years.
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