Things I've Noticed

I’ve been around for a while  There’s actually quite a few things I’ve noticed.  Bear with me here, please.

I’ve noticed that old men who do play by play for college football are sometimes bleeding idiots.  Not specifically, but generally.  But that’s just me.

I’ve noticed that NASCAR seems to have bent over backward to allow dirty play back into the mix as far as winning championships go.  I Also just noticed that my chances of getting hired by NASCAR are about zero.

I’ve noticed that Dale Earnhardt Jr. fans are not respected very much.  I think that’s a shame.  I’m a Dale Jr. fan, but I’m also a Smoke fan and a Happy fan.  I assume that I’m still disrespected, but I’ve only got one thing to say to you haters.  Hammer You.   Thank you.  I feel much better now.

I notice that most people in the reporting business don’t take NASCAR very seriously.  But, seriously, how can one run at 200 MPH and throw the races, like most of the geniuses seem to think they do.  Does NASCAR have a master OFF switch that just cuts off a car that’s getting too competitive?  Strangely enough, some people will believe that.  Maybe I have some ocean front property in Oklahoma to sell them too.  Call me.  We’ll do lunch and talk about it.  Just imagine it.  You could be the first on the beach in Elk City.  Wouldn’t that be a kick!

Is it possible for people from certain parts of the North East to pronounce the letter “H?”  There’s a very good guy on the radio down here who pronounces words such as “Huge” as “Uge.”  I know it’s a regional thing, but it still bothers me.  God put 26 letters in the alphabet, so let’s use them, please!  I don’t want Sesame Street to be telling me that “H” is feeling left out.  That would probably make me cry.  You don’t want to see me cry.  It would be ugly and humiliating.  Or maybe, Umilitating. 

Is it possible for a guy named Brent, who’s been on ESPN for way too long, to quit calling the color guy “Herbie?”  Even I, sitting here at home feel embarrassed for this guy.  If you listen to ESPN or even other guys on the radio or TV, you’ve probably heard of him.

I notice that “Herbie’s voice gets shrill when he’s passionate about something.  Like when Auburn makes a mistake.  As I write this, I’m watching Auburn play Clemson.  So far, the score is 17-3, in favor of the Clemson Tigers.  So far, some Tigers are more equal to others.

I’ve noticed that most of the Kyle Busch Fans hate Dale Earnhardt Jr..  Huh.  I’m a genius, aren’t I?  Probably the reverse is true as well, but I’ve not met many true Kyle Busch fans.  I’m not saying that there aren’t any, I just haven’t met many.

On that note, I’ve also noticed that lately, the media types have been referring to Kyle Busch as the bad boy of NASCAR, but it seems to me that Carl Edwards has been involved in far more incidents lately.  Mostly with Brad Keselowski, which are the most popular incidents, but also with Denny  Hamlin as well, which happened most recently in Sunday’s New Hampshire race.  Speaking of New Hampshire, I can remember lying on the couch with my soon to be step daughter, who was about five years old at the time, watching a New Hampshire race.  She kept saying “New Hamster“,  I thought it was pretty cute, so I didn’t correct her.  Later, I found out that she had been quizzed at school, writing the names of the states down in their proper places.  I saw the big red X beside the word scrawled just above Massachusetts.  It said “New Hamster.”  Had I not had so much confidence in myself, I might have felt a little embarrassed.  I thought it was actually pretty funny, until I made the mistake of relating the story of  “New Hamster” to her mother, who was by then my wife.  For some reason, she didn’t think that was so funny.  I was then properly embarrassed.  Actually, it would be pretty cool to have a state named for some little furry animal, I think.  Maybe “New Poodle?” 

I’ve noticed that Dale Earnhardt Jr. had a fourth place finish in Sunday’s New Hamster, I mean Hampshire race.  I hope he can keep up that kind of performance for the next nine races.  It’s way better than 30 something, 3 or 5 laps down.  I’ve got some more things to say about Dale Earnhardt Jr., but I’ll wait until a future column to say them.

I’ve noticed that the South Carolina Highway Patrol has some officers assigned to this general area who seem to have way too much time on their hands.  I was recently in a convenience store on state Highway 81, which is a fairly major road leading from Anderson, South Carolina, to Greenville, South Carolina.  I was working on a computer problem for the owners of the store, and when I walked in at 10:00 AM, there was a trooper sitting at one of the tables eating donuts and drinking coffee while he read the newspaper.  I left the store at 1:30, and the trooper hadn’t moved, except to buy more donuts and coffee.  I work for myself, but even by my standards, that was a long coffee break, or lunch break or whatever it was.  I’ve also noticed that there are often as many as four or even five State Troopers on a certain stretch of Highway 81, often all within a 5 mile stretch.  I know, because I’ve asked, that there are no such things such as ticket quotas for these officers, but I was once told there are such things as “performance standards.”  Why one certain stretch of a state highway holds so much interest for these officers is rather mystifying to me, except for the fact that the speed limit changes quite a bit over this particular part of the highway.  I suppose it’s better to catch mom and pop in the family Buick doing 7 mph over the speed limit, than to catch possible drug smugglers out on Interstate 85, which is very nearby, and possibly take a bullet in the chest or head.  I’m not brave enough to do what they do, so I suppose catching speeders on Highway 81 makes sense when you think about it that way.   Whatever it is, it’s our tax dollars at work.  If you think I live in Hazard County, from the old Dukes Of Hazard show, you’d be just about right, I suppose.


I notice that even though it’s more than half way through September, it’s still hot here in the South.  I’ve lived here for 47 years, so you would assume that I’m used to it.  I don’t think I am.  Right now, I’d rather be in Minnesota, preferably in the northern part, on a lake, fishing for northern, or muskies or something.  It would probably be cool during the day, and pretty darned cold at night.  I would consider that good weather to sleep in.  Eventually, we’ll have our winter here even in the South, and we’ll probably have our ice storms, and occasional snow storms even.  Then I’ll be complaining about the cold.  I’ve noticed that I’ve done that before.

I’ll probably do it again too.

A Few New Pet Peeves

I know, I should shut up about this, but I just can’t.  This is my site, so I guess I can get away with it this time.

What is it about people, of all ages, apparently, with the tattoo thing?  When I was a kid, the only people I ever saw with tattoos were old Navy veterans, and they had something on their arms that might have been a portrait of their mom, or maybe a portrait of Waylon Jennings when he was smoking a lot of dope.  We couldn’t really tell, to tell you the truth.

Now, it seems like everyone under the age of 35 has got to have a tat of some kind or other, and a lot of people my age, or even older have jumped onto this bandwagon.  I guess I’m just a little bit too old school for this entire deal.  I wouldn’t get a tattoo, any more than I’d get my ear pierced.  I’m watching a show on TV about tattoos.  Most of the people here are getting them to show friendship for their friends.  What ever happened to just being friendly to your friends?  Bake them a cake, or some brownies.  Watch their pets, collect their newspapers and mail when they go on vacation.  I’ve had a lot of friends in my life, but I never had the desire to have their names permanently attached to my epidermis.  I guess I just don’t get it.  Call me an old whatever, but I really don’t get that.  Had I gotten my wife’s name tattooed to my butt back in ‘94, I’d really feel like an idiot now.  There is a song that Duane Allman did back in the late 1960’s, and the first words of the song are “I ain’t seen my wife for two or three years, I’m a happily married man.”  In my case, try for 5 or 10 years.  I’m very happy I haven’t seen her during that time.  I hope I never see her again, to be honest about it.

I’m guessing that the tattoo removal business must be just about as lucrative as the tattoo installing business.  How many guys have had a few too many and had the name of some girl tattooed on their arm, chest, or whatever?  How many girls  have probably done the same thing?  6 months later, the Yellow Pages are out, and tattoo removal is probably the topic.  Like I said, I’m old, apparently, at 47.  I just don’t get the tattoo thing at all.

Another thing that irritates me is sports media, in general.  Yesterday, the entire world, it would seem, waited breathlessly while Brett Favre walked up to the podium, and said yes, indeed, he would play for the Minnesota Vikings in 2010.  Duh.  I knew he would.  So did the rest of the world.  Big deal.  Great for the Vikes, bad news for the Packers, probably.  Whatever.

Tiger Woods has been a major irritant to me this year as well.  Not so much that Tiger cheated on his wife, etc.  That’s his business.  I’m not in a position to judge him.  I do get irritated by the fact that most people who are supposedly in the know are writing off Tiger as a future winner in the PGA or any other golfing event, ever.  Tiger is the best golf player I’ve ever watched, except maybe for Jack Nicholas, but Tiger has had a pretty rough year.  I think he’ll be back, but I don’t see why there has to be 24 hour a day coverage on how bad Tiger’s season has sucked this year.  Tiger knows he sucked this year.  Anyone who watches golf knows that.  I don’t watch all the events, but even I know that.  I think Tiger will be back though.

I also get irritated by all the know it alls that have deemed Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s career as being “done, like a Christmas turkey.”  I actually heard that on the radio today.  I suppose it’s a tribute to Dale Jr.’s fame that the only thing that the usual stick and ball sports guy can say about stock car racing is that Dale Jr.’s done.  Dale Jr. isn’t even very close to being in the Chase right now.  Nobody on any of the radio stations I’ve listened to have talked about Kasey Kahne’s move, or Mark Martin’s dilemma, or the fact that Kevin Harvick has been the leader in the points race just about all season.  The only thing that the stick and ball guys can talk about is how Dale Jr. sucks.  It makes me want to ask myself why A-Rod didn’t suck when it took him about a month to hit his 600th home run.   What’s the matter, A-Rod?  Need a shot of steroids?

Speaking of Kevin Harvick, he’s one of the major unsung heroes of NASCAR this season.  Quietly, he’s been building up a substantial lead in the Cup series by scoring a lot of top 5’s and top 10’s.  That’s how it’s done.  A couple of wins doesn’t hurt either.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. has won 18 Cup races in his career, and more Nationwide races than that.  Dale Jr., in my humble opinion, doesn’t need to explain a darned thing to anyone.  He’s proven he can do it.  If you know Babe Ruth’s stats, year by year, by heart, but have never been to a NASCAR race, and yet you have a job on TV or radio talking about sports, please, quit talking about NASCAR, when you don’t have a clue about what you’re talking about.  Stick and ball dudes, most of really don’t have a clue:  Shut up.  Live it, learn it, earn it, and love it, and then I’ll listen to your idiocy.

I love NASCAR, and won’t apologize for it.  I had a client a couple of years ago that ridiculed me for being a fan.  She was a fan of Indy League Racing.  Her sport raced “real cars.”  I said “What the heck are you driving home?”  She didn’t answer, after she’d given me a pretty dirty look.

Let’s give NASCAR another chance.  It’s worth it.

Go to Bristol!

There is a place on the Tennessee - Virginia border that is about the only place in the world where you can see awesome racing while sitting in a football stadium setting.  I’m talking about Bristol Motor Speedway, obviously.  Bristol is absolutely awesome, and for years you couldn’t get a ticket there, because they were all sold out.  Every race, every year.  This year, you could have a chance to go to what I consider one of the greatest tracks on the NASCAR circuit.

If you’ve never been to Bristol, I’d encourage you to go, if there is any way at all you can make it there.  I was lucky enough to get to go to the night race there a couple of years ago, and it was one of the greatest racing experiences I’ve ever had.

The track itself is spectacular.  It’s banking looks very intimidating, and the speeds the cars drive around the track look pretty much impossible.  You quickly understand why the  best drivers in the world race at this track, because very few other folks could last a lap here.

The seating, as I said before, is like a giant football stadium.  With 160,000 seats, it’s simply about the largest sporting event I have ever seen, and if you go, you will probably feel much the same way.  The racing is intense.  There is no drafting at Bristol, such as would happen at Talladega or Daytona.  Bristol is completely at the other end of the spectrum from those storied tracks.  If you watch a Bristol race, you’re watching what I consider to be stock car racing at its best.  These guys will beat and bang all day, rub and bump.  That’s how racing was born, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s how racing is meant to be.  If I could drive my truck around any track that NASCAR races on, Bristol would be my first choice.  I have a feeling that my Toyota Tacoma would probably roll over going through the turns though.

Bristol, at night, is simply spectacular.  If you live within 500, or maybe even 1000 miles, I’d advise you to get your derriere to the track this weekend.  I guarantee you won’t be sorry.

Bristol has been around for a long time.  It’s short track racing at its best.  It probably has been, and always will be, with apologies to Martinsville and Richmond.  The only thing missing for Bristol is the famous hot dogs at Martinsville.  You can buy those, by the way, at least the actual wieners.  Just look at your local grocer and specify pink.  Mention Jesse.  That will do it.

I’ve only been to Bristol once, but as far as I can see, there’s not a bad seat in the house.  That’s pretty impressive, considering that there are 160,000 seats there.  It’s a stadium, and you can see all from anywhere you sit, as far as I’ve been able to tell.

Bristol, Tennessee is almost middle America, but not quite.  Like I said before, it’s on the Tennessee border with Virginia, though it’s not that far from places like Cincinnati, Columbus, Atlanta, Charlotte, even Washington, DC.  You can easily get there in less than a day from all those places.

Bristol is worth every penny, as far as I’m concerned.  If you have to opportunity, get to it.  Do it.  You really won’t be sorry.

Stick and Ball Sports Versus Stock Car Racing

I, like many racing fans, was much more aware of baseball, football, basketball, and probably even soccer before I became a fan of racing.  I didn’t grow up in a racing family, and didn’t know anyone who went racing when I was a little kid.  Somehow, I discovered racing though.

My childhood friend was a kid named Thomas, who was the only kid who lived near my home in the rural Blue Ridge area of northern Greenville County in Upstate South Carolina.  We played all the regular sports, the aforementioned stick and ball sports, and had a pretty good time doing it.  We also rode our bikes, enjoying carving out off road trails where we could skid, slide, and maybe catch a little air from time to time.  We hiked, we went camping, and like all little boys, we went through our hatchet and BB gun phases.  There wasn’t a tree we wouldn’t chop, and there wasn’t a target that wasn’t suitable for our ‘rifles’ as we called our BB guns.  Well, maybe we wouldn’t shoot out our mother’s windows or put dimples in their cars, but pretty much everything else was fair game.

Somewhere along the line, when we weren’t out playing our own games, we would sit down in front of a TV on weekends and watch ABC’s Wide World of Sports, which was a weekly digest of all that was good in the sports world on a weekly basis.  Both Thomas and I enjoyed the NASCAR segments that highlighted the previous week’s race.  We became Petty fans, and also Pearson fans, and Yarborough fans, and maybe even Allison fans.  This was in the early 1970’s, and nobody around my neck of the woods had really ever heard of a kid named Earnhardt, or his old man.

Not all of the Upstate South Carolina area was as ignorant of the name Earnhardt though.  Ralph Earnhardt had been racing at Greenville-Pickens Speedway for years, had won some races there, and had developed a bit of a fan following even here in South Carolina, which is a tribute for a former mill worker from Kannapolis, North Carolina.  Ralph brought his kids to the track on Saturday nights, and often the kids would play with the kids of other drivers, and even the kids of the owners of the track, a family who’s name was Blackwell.  Later on, I worked for American Federal Bank in Greenville, South Carolina.  There was a guy in the mail room named Gary Blackwell.  When I knew Gary, his father was the owner of Greenville-Pickens Speedway.  He had played, as a child, with kids he knew as Danny, Randy, and Dale.  Dale was the oldest, and often lead the younger kids into trouble with their parents, it would seem.  As Dale grew older, he spent more time with his father in the pits, helping to set up the race car, learning what he could about racing.

I became a racing fan early in my childhood, I guess you could say.  There was not much coverage of the sport on TV when I was a kid, except for Wide World of Sports.  I found out that David Pearson was from nearby Spartanburg, South Carolina, and I began pulling for David.  He did not disappoint.  I still think that had David Pearson raced as many races as did Richard Petty, Pearson would be called the King, not Petty.

Over the years, I have followed all manner of sports.  I used to love baseball, but the doping era made it not as exciting as it used to be for me.  A couple of strikes also helped dim it’s charm for me.  I read in a Robert B. Parker book about how baseball was well suited to radio, or at least it used to be.  I feel like it is better suited to radio than TV.  I love to watch the sun going down, and listening to the Braves game on the radio.  Baseball, unfortunately, has lost much of it’s prestige for me though.  I don’t count the efforts of drug enhanced players to the legendary accomplishments of players like Mays, Mantle, Jackson, and others.  Baseball had it’s chance, but it blew it with me.

I love college football.  Next to stock car racing, college football is probably my favorite sport.  I live about 20 or so miles away from Clemson University, which won the national championship in football in 1981.  I graduated high school in 1981, so I was very aware of that January day in 1982 when Clemson did what was before and since considered the impossible.  Clemson’s head coach, who is originally from Alabama, and played under the legendary head coach Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant, led the 1981 squad to the ultimate victory in 1981.  His name is Danny Ford, and he’s retired from coaching now, but only lives a few miles away from me here in Anderson County.  Coach Danny’s got a farm here, and enjoys living here.  He’s a neighbor, of sorts.  He’s regularly seen around Anderson and Pickens counties, and is a nice guy.  Just a regular guy, taking care of his farm.

The National Football League is probably the most popular, and most watched sport in the USA.  I enjoy the NFL to a certain extent, because for the last few years I’ve been playing in a fantasy league with some of my former co-workers.  It’s fun, and it keeps up the interest, but for the most part, watching guys who get paid mega bucks to play football just doesn’t do it for me as much as college football does.  I know, these are the best football players in the world in the NFL, but I get tired of all the scandals that seem to plague these guys so much.  Ever hear of Michael Vick?  Ever hear of Chad Ocho Cinco?  I get tired of some of this stuff, pretty quickly.  Posturing, flaunting their affluence, seems to be the mark of professional athletes.  Some of these guys go a little overboard though doing it.

I loved the NBA back when Magic Johnson and Larry Bird were playing for the Lakers and the Celtics, respectively.  I used to enjoy the finals when it seemed that the NBA really mattered, at least to me.  Lately, I’ve gotten tired of all the ghetto thug aspect of the NBA.  I followed the Lebron James saga with some interest, but the fact that he’s trying to build a mega team with the Miami Heat just doesn’t get me excited anymore.  I could care less about the NBA, though I might tune in sometimes during the finals.  Other than that, the NBA holds absolutely no interest for me.

I know there is a small contingent of what the rest of the world calls ‘football’, but which we here in the USA call ‘soccer’.  I hate watching 90 minutes of anything that ends up in a 0 - 0 score.  I know, I don’t really appreciate the intricacies of the game.  I don’t really get hockey either.  To me, it’s the same as soccer, except played with sticks.  But I’m just a dumb Southerner who doesn’t know any better.

My passion, at least for the last few years, has been stock car racing.  I was a huge fan before Dale Earnhardt’s death in 2001.  I was a fan of Dale Jr. since about 1998.  I was a fan of Davey Allison when he died at Talladega in a helicopter accident.  I was a fan of Ron Hornaday when he came to Cup, and remembered that he had been the original driver of Dale Earnhardt’s Truck series team.  Ron went back to Trucks and has been awesome, driving for Kevin Harvick Inc.

NASCAR salutes the military.  NASCAR fans as a whole are patriotic.  Probably fans of other sports support the USA as well, but never so much as in NASCAR.  Where else do you see men and women in uniform so publicly praised as in any NASCAR event?

I get so tired of stick and ball sports guys on the radio and TV claiming that racing is not a sport.  It’s so old.  I get tired of hearing that Dale Jr. can’t drive a race car.  On a certain sports show based out of Charlotte, NC, it was announced that a certain NBA star beat Dale Jr. on the race track.  In fact, that was not true, though the stick and ball dudes at this station crowed about how inept Dale Jr. was on the track.  The fact is, there where two races.  The first race was five laps.  Dale Jr. started a lap down.  Five laps to make up a lap and beat the leader.  Dale Jr. did it, and whooped the NBA star’s fanny.  The next race was ten laps, and they started even, though the NBA star just had to drive the car as fast as he could.  Dale Jr. had to make two four tire pit stops, and adhere to the 35 MPH pit road speed while doing so.  Dale Jr. again whooped the butt of the NBA star.  Whoever reported the idiot comment on the Charlotte radio station should have his butt fired for being a complete idiot, if nothing else.  But as always, on the day those races happened, everyone joined in the bashing of  Dale Earnhardt Jr.   Nobody checked the facts.  But you know what?  Very few in the news media checks facts anyway.  They just report, and the more sensational the story, the better.  It’s better to report lies than it is to take a few minutes and find out the truth.  It’s easy to ridicule Dale Earnhardt Jr., but it’s hard to report the fact that he’s actually a pretty darn good race car driver.

Stick and ball guys always say that NASCAR isn’t a sport because anybody can drive a car around a track.  That’s true.

But can you drive a car around that track at 180 or 205 miles per hour, for 500 miles with 42 of  your best friends, who might be annoyed with you after the move you put on someone last week at another track?  To me NASCAR is the ultimate sport.  People die playing it.  All the drivers know in the back of their minds that they could die doing what they do.  They’ve all seen it happen.  Nobody wants it to happen, but it does, sometimes.  In the NFL, what’s the worst injury?  Maybe a broken leg or arm, or a torn ACL.  Baseball?  Probably the same.  NBA?  Sprained ankle or maybe a concussion when a player’s head hit’s the floor.  Or the backboard, or the hoop.  What ever.

Stock car racing involves the very real possibility of death.  Stock car racers feel like they are never going to die doing what they love to do, but in actuality, some of them do every year.  Not athletes, eh?  Try doing something you love, knowing that you might die for it.  NASCAR doesn’t have a hold on that deal, but stock car drivers are given a bum rap by the media in this country, most of whom simply sneer down their noses at a sport that people risk their lives in.

Shame to the media that doesn’t understand how brutal death can be, even in sports.  Shame to the so called experts that don’t understand what putting one’s life on the line in the pursuit of one’s job can be like.  Sit in your air conditioned studios and tell me that racing isn’t a sport.  Get in a car and try it sometime.

Then tell me that racing isn’t a sport.  If you’ve got any wind left, tell me that racing isn’t a sport after you’ve been four inches from the wall going 200 miles per hour.  Tell me that it was easy, that you didn’t sweat at all.  Tell me that you weren’t in fear for your life.  Racing isn’t a sport, right?  Seriously, go try it out and give me your opinion after you’ve actually done something besides talk into a microphone for your money.



Postscript:  My friend Thomas died on July 24th, 2010.  This one’s for you, buddy. 

Lip Service To NASCAR

It’s not big secret that for the most part, most of the networks that cover NASCAR really don’t care that much about the sport.  It’s easy to pay lip service once a week or so, but it’s not hard to figure out that most of the networks don’t really care about it.

ESPN does a heck of a job covering every sport from soccer to lacrosse.  They cover NASCAR, and do an admirable job.  But, if you listen to anything but Sports Center, or the one daily show, you’d never know NASCAR existed on ESPN.  That’s just on TV.

On ESPN Radio, you hear even less, except for the periodic Sports Center breaks.  Sporting News Radio is even worse.  Many of the personalities on both networks don’t even consider NASCAR a sport, and couldn’t name most of the current drivers, though they can recite Mickey Mantle’s statistics year by year throughout his career.  Most of these commentators weren’t even alive while Mickey was playing either.  That’s dedication, I tell you.

I know that stock car racing isn’t for everyone, but I can literally listen to the two sports radio stations on the radio here in the Upstate, South Carolina for 24 hours, and will never even hear a NASCAR mention, except on ESPN’s Sports Center, about every half hour.  Only the results of the latest race, and that’s about it.  If not for SPEED TV, I’d be basically lost when it concerns NASCAR most of the time.  ESPN does a credible job on its one daily show, but for the most part, nobody seems to give a fig about my favorite sport.

A week or so ago, I couldn’t sleep.  ESPN Radio apparently only takes phone calls from actual civilians such as me only late at night.  Listen to or watch Mike and Mike In The Morning, and notice that they only take a few e-mails from civilians.  Most of the other daily shows do as well.  Late at night, things can be a little different.  I called a couple of weeks ago to discuss NASCAR, and was told, rudely, by the call screener that not only did he, but also the host of the show, considered all car racing to be bogus.  “It’s not even a real sport.  It’s just dumb asses driving in circles.”   Next, I heard the click that every boyfriend has heard once or twice.  I’d been hung up on.

I find it interesting that ESPN and SPR pretty much only talk to their own reporters or columnists.  I’m sorry, but that makes for some pretty boring radio, as far as I’m concerned.  Who gives a crap about what the fans think?  It’s not like the fans are important anyway, are they?  Oh wait, don’t they buy the tickets?  Don’t they give the sport ratings on TV?  But by no means should they major networks answer more than a handful of questions from the fans, which are edited down to only the few that the dudes in front of the microphone can actually answer without embarrassing their particular network.

If you’re a network star, you probably don’t have to talk to too many people you’d rather not talk to.  As a fan, some of us have to talk to people we don’t want to talk to every day.  You know, people like bill collectors, people threatening to revoke your power, phone, or cable or satellite TV.  But can you get through to the stars, except a very occasional e-mail or text message?  When you hear your name on TV or radio, you probably feel like you won the lottery.  And in a way, you did.

All the networks have websites, and usually they have polls going 24 hours a day.  That’s the networks’ way of saying your voice will be heard.  Great.  I’m one voice among the other 38 thousand people who have responded.  Dang, I feel lucky tonight.

Getting back to the original topic, I say that if the NFL  has its own channel on cable TV, so should NASCAR.  Put all the races, Cup, Nationwide, Trucks, even regional series on your channel.  Hire the best in the business, only show exclusives on the other networks when the networks meet NASCAR’s demands.  Make it basic cable, but sell the crap out of it.  I’d pay for it.

Oh yes, I would, because I’d round up all the pennies and nickles in my house to do it.  NASCAR deserves it’s own channel.  SPEED TV does a great job, but NASCAR deserves better, because it is better than most other sports, in my humble opinion.

Stick and Ball Sports and Stock Car Racing

I, like many racing fans, was much more aware of baseball, football, basketball, and probably even soccer before I became a fan of racing.  I didn’t grow up in a racing family, and didn’t know anyone who went racing when I was a little kid.  Somehow, I discovered racing though.

My childhood friend was a kid named Thomas, who was the only kid who lived near my home in the rural Blue Ridge area of northern Greenville County in Upstate South Carolina.  We played all the regular sports, the aforementioned stick and ball sports, and had a pretty good time doing it.  We also rode our bikes, enjoying carving out off road trails where we could skid, slide, and maybe catch a little air from time to time.  We hiked, we went camping, and like all little boys, we went through our hatchet and BB gun phases.  There wasn’t a tree we wouldn’t chop, and there wasn’t a target that wasn’t suitable for our ‘rifles’ as we called our BB guns.  Well, maybe we wouldn’t shoot out our mother’s windows or put dimples in their cars, but pretty much everything else was fair game.

Somewhere along the line, when we weren’t out playing our own games, we would sit down in front of a TV on weekends and watch ABC’s Wide World of Sports, which was a weekly digest of all that was good in the sports world on a weekly basis.  Both Thomas and I enjoyed the NASCAR segments that highlighted the previous week’s race.  We became Petty fans, and also Pearson fans, and Yarborough fans, and maybe even Allison fans.  This was in the early 1970’s, and nobody around my neck of the woods had really ever heard of a kid named Earnhardt, or his old man.

Not all of the Upstate South Carolina area was as ignorant of the name Earnhardt though.  Ralph Earnhardt had been racing at Greenville-Pickens Speedway for years, had won some races there, and had developed a bit of a fan following even here in South Carolina, which is a tribute for a former mill worker from Kannapolis, North Carolina.  Ralph brought his kids to the track on Saturday nights, and often the kids would play with the kids of other drivers, and even the kids of the owners of the track, a family who’s name was Blackwell.  Later on, I worked for American Federal Bank in Greenville, South Carolina.  There was a guy in the mail room named Gary Blackwell.  When I knew Gary, his father was the owner of Greenville-Pickens Speedway.  He had played, as a child, with kids he knew as Danny, Randy, and Dale.  Dale was the oldest, and often lead the younger kids into trouble with their parents, it would seem.  As Dale grew older, he spent more time with his father in the pits, helping to set up the race car, learning what he could about racing.

I became a racing fan early in my childhood, I guess you could say.  There was not much coverage of the sport on TV when I was a kid, except for Wide World of Sports.  I found out that David Pearson was from nearby Spartanburg, South Carolina, and I began pulling for David.  He did not disappoint.  I still think that had David Pearson raced as many races as did Richard Petty, Pearson would be called the King, not Petty.

Over the years, I have followed all manner of sports.  I used to love baseball, but the doping era made it not as exciting as it used to be for me.  A couple of strikes also helped dim it’s charm for me.  I read in a Robert B. Parker book about how baseball was well suited to radio, or at least it used to be.  I feel like it is better suited to radio than TV.  I love to watch the sun going down, and listening to the Braves game on the radio.  Baseball, unfortunately, has lost much of it’s prestige for me though.  I don’t count the efforts of drug enhanced players to the legendary accomplishments of players like Mays, Mantle, Jackson, and others.  Baseball had it’s chance, but it blew it with me.

I love college football.  Next to stock car racing, college football is probably my favorite sport.  I live about 20 or so miles away from Clemson University, which won the national championship in football in 1981.  I graduated high school in 1981, so I was very aware of that January day in 1982 when Clemson did what was before and since considered the impossible.  Clemson’s head coach, who is originally from Alabama, and played under the legendary head coach Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant, led the 1981 squad to the ultimate victory in 1981.  His name is Danny Ford, and he’s retired from coaching now, but only lives a few miles away from me here in Anderson County.  Coach Danny’s got a farm here, and enjoys living here.  He’s a neighbor, of sorts.  He’s regularly seen around Anderson and Pickens counties, and is a nice guy.  Just a regular guy, taking care of his farm.

The National Football League is probably the most popular, and most watched sport in the USA.  I enjoy the NFL to a certain extent, because for the last few years I’ve been playing in a fantasy league with some of my former co-workers.  It’s fun, and it keeps up the interest, but for the most part, watching guys who get paid mega bucks to play football just doesn’t do it for me as much as college football does.  I know, these are the best football players in the world in the NFL, but I get tired of all the scandals that seem to plague these guys so much.  Ever hear of Michael Vick?  Ever hear of Chad Ocho Cinco?  I get tired of some of this stuff, pretty quickly.  Posturing, flaunting their affluence, seems to be the mark of professional athletes.  Some of these guys go a little overboard though doing it. 

I loved the NBA back when Magic Johnson and Larry Bird were playing for the Lakers and the Celtics, respectively.  I used to enjoy the finals when it seemed that the NBA really mattered, at least to me.  Lately, I’ve gotten tired of all the ghetto thug aspect of the NBA.  I followed the Lebron James saga with some interest, but the fact that he’s trying to build a mega team with the Miami Heat just doesn’t get me excited anymore.  I could care less about the NBA, though I might tune in sometimes during the finals.  Other than that, the NBA holds absolutely no interest for me.

I know there is a small contingent of what the rest of the world calls ‘football’, but which we here in the USA call ‘soccer’.  I hate watching 90 minutes of anything that ends up in a 0 - 0 score.  I know, I don’t really appreciate the intricacies of the game.  I don’t really get hockey either.  To me, it’s the same as soccer, except played with sticks.  But I’m just a dumb Southerner who doesn’t know any better.

My passion, at least for the last few years, has been stock car racing.  I was a huge fan before Dale Earnhardt’s death in 2001.  I was a fan of Dale Jr. since about 1998.  I was a fan of Davey Allison when he died at Talladega in a helicopter accident.  I was a fan of Ron Hornaday when he came to Cup, and remembered that he had been the original driver of Dale Earnhardt’s Truck series team.  Ron went back to Trucks and has been awesome, driving for Kevin Harvick Inc. 

NASCAR salutes the military.  NASCAR fans as a whole are patriotic.  Probably fans of other sports support the USA as well, but never so much as in NASCAR.  Where else do you see men and women in uniform so publicly praised as in any NASCAR event?

I get so tired of stick and ball sports guys on the radio and TV claiming that racing is not a sport.  It’s so old.  I get tired of hearing that Dale Jr. can’t drive a race car.  On a certain sports show based out of Charlotte, NC, it was announced that a certain NBA star beat Dale Jr. on the race track.  In fact, that was not true, though the stick and ball dudes at this station crowed about how inept Dale Jr. was on the track.  The fact is, there where two races.  The first race was five laps.  Dale Jr. started a lap down.  Five laps to make up a lap and beat the leader.  Dale Jr. did it, and whooped the NBA star’s fanny.  The next race was ten laps, and they started even, though the NBA star just had to drive the car as fast as he could.  Dale Jr. had to make two four tire pit stops, and adhere to the 35 MPH pit road speed while doing so.  Dale Jr. again whooped the butt of the NBA star.  Whoever reported the idiot comment on the Charlotte radio station should have his butt fired for being a complete idiot, if nothing else.  But as always, on the day those races happened, everyone joined in the bashing of  Dale Earnhardt Jr.   Nobody checked the facts.  But you know what?  Very few in the news media checks facts anyway.  They just report, and the more sensational the story, the better.  It’s better to report lies than it is to take a few minutes and find out the truth.  It’s easy to ridicule Dale Earnhardt Jr., but it’s hard to report the fact that he’s actually a pretty darn good race car driver.

Stick and ball guys always say that NASCAR isn’t a sport because anybody can drive a car around a track.  That’s true.

But can you drive a car around that track at 180 or 205 miles per hour, for 500 miles with 42 of  your best friends, who might be annoyed with you after the move you put on someone last week at another track?  To me NASCAR is the ultimate sport.  People die playing it.  All the drivers know in the back of their minds that they could die doing what they do.  They’ve all seen it happen.  Nobody wants it to happen, but it does, sometimes.  In the NFL, what’s the worst injury?  Maybe a broken leg or arm, or a torn ACL.  Baseball?  Probably the same.  NBA?  Sprained ankle or maybe a concussion when a player’s head hit’s the floor.  Or the backboard, or the hoop.  What ever.

Stock car racing involves the very real possibility of death.  Stock car racers feel like they are never going to die doing what they love to do, but in actuality, some of them do every year.  Not athletes, eh?  Try doing something you love, knowing that you might die for it.  NASCAR doesn’t have a hold on that deal, but stock car drivers are given a bum rap by the media in this country, most of whom simply sneer down their noses at a sport that people risk their lives in.

Shame to the media that doesn’t understand how brutal death can be, even in sports.  Shame to the so called experts that don’t understand what putting one’s life on the line in the pursuit of one’s job can be like.  Sit in your air conditioned studios and tell me that racing isn’t a sport.  Get in a car and try it sometime.

Then tell me that racing isn’t a sport.  If you’ve got any wind left, tell me that racing isn’t a sport after you’ve been four inches from the wall going 200 miles per hour.  Tell me that it was easy, that you didn’t sweat at all.  Tell me that you weren’t in fear for your life.  Racing isn’t a sport, right?  Seriously, go try it out and give me your opinion after you’ve actually done something besides talk into a microphone for your money.



Postscript:  My friend Thomas died on July 24th, 2010.  This one’s for you, buddy.

A Few Errant NASCAR Thoughts

Personally, I think the “Let the boys race philosophy that NASCAR has adopted this year has meant better racing.  I’m not too happy about the current Brad Keselowski vs. Carl Edwards feud, because it seems to be coming very dangerous, but overall, I’m pretty happy with the racing I’ve seen this season.  Some of the Carl and Brad stuff is a little over the top, and I just pray and hope that nobody gets hurt in this quarrel.

Can Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s luck get any worse?  He had a decent top 20 going at Indy, but got caught up in Juan Pablo Montoya’s debacle with trying to make up spots because of going with four tires instead of two.  I’m not faulting Juan, he should have won that race, but pit strategy raised its ugly head and effectively ended the day for both drivers.

I make no apologies for being a Junior fan.  I’ve been a fan of his since 1998.  I was a fan of his father, whom I still refuse to call Dale Sr., even though that may be technically true.  To me, the father was Dale Earnhardt.  The son will always be Dale Jr.  I’m happy with that, but I’m getting tired of the ‘senior’ tag, though I know it makes it easier for the media types to designate between the two.

I miss the Dale Jr. Pit Stop.  I still read it from time to time, but I haven’t been able to get my password to work on there in almost a year now.  Jim, if you read this, have mercy on me!  I only get online a couple of times a week now, and never on Sundays, but I miss the prayer before the race, and the check in after the invocation.  It was fun seeing people from all over the country, and even all over the world joining in the fun of watching the race and talking about it.  Happy days, all over for me now, I guess.

I’m glad that NASCAR seems to be at least one major sporting event in the country that respects God, our country, and our military brothers and sisters who protect our freedom.  Where there’s NASCAR, there seems to be hope for our country, and our world.

Is it just me, or has Kyle Busch mellowed out a little this year?  I’m actually finding myself enjoying his commercials this year.  For the most part, Kyle’s face after a race is a perfect mirror for his emotions.  When he doesn’t win, he shows the disappointment, very visibly.  That’s not a bad thing.  It’s way better than the tantrums of yesteryear, or the on-track retaliation.  Maybe engagement is agreeing with our favorite driver to dislike.  I have to admit, I dislike him less this year that I ever have.  That’s not exactly glowing praise, but it’s a lot better than my opinion of him last year.  We just have to take this a race at a time, I suppose.  Kyle is still a spectacular driver, but like his brother, eventually anyone can mature, it would seem.  Personally, I’m glad to see it.  I don’t like to hate anyone, but two years ago, I hated Kyle Busch.  This year, I find myself only feeling a slight dislike for him.  Every day in every way, we’re all getting better and better!

Are you excited about the count down to the Chase?  I am.  I can’t wait to see who’s in, and who’s out.  I don’t know that I like the idea of knockout racing, and I’m still not exactly sold on the Chase itself, but it is what we have.  It is what it is.

As I write this, I’m watching the Nationwide race at Iowa.  That is a great track.  I’d love to see the Cup guys on this track one day.  I’d also like to see them racing at Kentucky, but, well, you know, that’s how it goes.

Does it irritate you that many convenience store workers have no grasp of English, and an even less grasp of mathematics?  I just went down to the local gas station and the dude tried to charge me $29.95 for a 16 ounce Pepsi.  I argued with him for a while, but gave up when it became apparent that he didn’t speak English.  I walked away, and bought one for a buck at the store across the street.  Dale Jr., Jeff, Jimmie, Mark, your street level sales staff suck.  Why put someone on the counter of a store that doesn’t even understand the most common language in this country?  I’m not saying that we should all speak English, but it wouldn’t hurt in a retail environment.  Screaming at me in your dialect really didn’t help your overall sales model.  Just saying, dude.

I know that the above mentioned drivers didn’t really have a part in this.  It could be Pepsi, Coke, whatever.  It’s just kinda sad when you can’t understand the guy who’s trying to sell you something, because he doesn’t speak my language at all.  I know, I know, I should make myself bilingual.  Right.  I was born here, and it is necessary that I learn how to speak Spanish, Hindi, and whatever other languages that are spoken in the local BP gas station.  Bull bumkis.

The dude in the BP station was pretty smooth.  He even offered to pour the Pepsi over a Styrofoam cup full of ice.  Oooooohhhhhh.   How could I resist?  Somehow, I managed.

While I was walking out the door, I was treated to what can be called a profusion of Hindi curses.  I didn’t mind too much.  I’m more or less a Baptist.  Or maybe a Methodist.  I went to an Episcopalian school too.  Does that count?

Elliot Sadler is out of t he 19 car at the end of 2010 and going to exactly where?  Mark Martin is in the 5 car for Rick Hendrick, but will he be there in 2011, or will Kasey Kahne be in that car?  Some of you feel that Dale Earnhardt Jr. should be the sacrificial lamb in this deal, because he hasn’t performed up to expectations thus far.  Should Rick Hendrick let Dale Jr. go to provide space for both Kahne and Martin in 2011?

If I had the answers to any of these questions, I’d be living in Palm Beach, and you’d never hear from me again.

Bobby Labonte will be driving the 47 Toyota which will be vacated by Marcos Ambrose at the end of 2010.  Ambrose will reportedly be driving either the 9 or 19 car for Richard Petty Motorsports, which may or may not be a lateral move.  I’m still trying to figure out the advantages and disadvantages involved with this move.

It’s August, and it’s time to roll!  Let’s go!