Monday Musings, 10/24/11

Ah, the good old days at Daytona. No tandems. (Photo by Matthew Lowell Thompson)

Everyone went into this racing weekend with heavy hearts. We learned this week that, although the types of racing may be different, racers are all part of one big family. NASCAR and the V8 Supercar series had fitting tributes to Dan. It literally broke my heart today listening to Nicole Briscoe talk about Dan Wheldon during the prerace Sunday. Then what a moving memorial service to remember Dan Wheldon. Thanks to the Wheldon family for sharing that experience with the fans.

But racing did continue this week. Here are my thoughts on what I saw this weekend:

V8 Supercars - So have I mentioned how much I love V8 Supercars? The series picked up where they left off after the Bathurst 1000. It was tight, competitive racing to the very end. Congrats to Sebastian Bourdais, who won the inaugural Dan Wheldon trophy for top international driver.

As I learn more about the rules in V8 Supercars, I wonder how they would play in NASCAR. First, with four races left in the championship, the regular drivers must put their trust (and their championship hopes) in the hands of international drivers. What if the Sprint Cup drivers had to share their car with a driver from a non-NASCAR series? That could be pretty cool.

Also, drivers earn points only if they complete 75% of the laps. This is a great incentive for drivers to enter the race and be competitive, thus eliminating start and parks. Another interesting wrinkle -- all cars two or more laps down must go through pit lane on the restart so they don't impede the lead lap cars.

Sprint Cup - Do you miss the packs? Because I do. Denny Hamlin goes a lap down early because he literally was the odd man out. What kind of racing is that? It's kind of fun watching these guys find new partners when they lose their old one. It's a little like musical chairs. And regardless of whether it's tandems or packs, it's one car getting pushed over the start/finish line by one other car. But I'm still not sure I like it. This much I do know -- as a fan, I wouldn't necessarily be spending my money going to see a race at Talladega or Daytona at this point in time.

As far as the race goes, I was glad to see Clint Bowyer win, but I would have been happier to see Jeff Burton win. Looks like being patient and staying in the back didn't quite work out for Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. this time. And there's this talk of Trevor Bayne and team orders. But isn't that inevitable with tandem racing? Deals are made between spotters and crew chiefs, and the drivers abide by those agreements.

Truck Series - It's about time someone from the Wallace clan won a NASCAR race, although I'm not sure I thought it would have been Mike. This was Mike's first Truck Series win since 2000 and his first NASCAR win since 2004 (a Nationwide win in Daytona that my husband actually witnessed). Austin Dillon learned the same hard lesson that Marcos Ambrose learned at Infineon last year -- it's tricky playing the fuel mileage game and sometimes it can backfire on you.

Monday Musings, 10/3/2011



Photo by Matthew Lowell Thompson

 It was a busy weekend with championship chases heating up, a national record being set, a first-time winner, and another series closing out its season. I'm only slightly in denial about the fact that the end of the racing season is coming. I'll just ignore that for now. On to this past weekend's racing.

Nationwide Series


It's kind of become sport in our house for my husband and I to review the grand marshal's command to start engines. We're always looking for passion and excitement. And Mary McDowell, President and CEO of OneMain Financial, was one of the best in a long time. Sometimes CEOs and representatives from the title sponsors can be wet blankets when starting the race. But Mary blew the doors off the joint (you could even hear one of the drivers comment on her command on the radio during the ESPN broadcast).

Concrete Carl dominated the day, although that back flip was a little dicey looking. I was happy because Carl Edwards is my driver, but my husband was disappointed because Kyle Busch was not in the race at all. Maybe I missed something, but is Kyle concentrating more on the Sprint Cup Chase? I'm guessing running in the Nationwide series is not nearly as important when you can earn points in only one series.

Truck Series


Congrats to Ty Dillon on his first start in the Truck Series and a national NASCAR event. Ty has been tearing it up in ARCA with seven victories so far this year.

One driver Ty can learn from is winningest Truck driver Ron Hornaday, who won his 50th Truck Series event Saturday night.

American LeMans Series


The Audis and Peugeots returned to the track in ALMS. I tried keeping up with race on Saturday on ESPN3 and Twitter. But are you like me and wish that this race was not on tape delay (or all the ALS races for that matter)? If nothing else, ESPN and its family of networks should figure out a way to broadcast the 12 Hours of Sebring and the Petit LeMans live on television. In my heart, I know college football will win out every time. (And don't even get me started on the fact that ABC ran the Baltimore ALMS race on tape delay up against the live broadcast of the Baltimore IndyCar race.)

Sprint Cup


First and foremost, who knew that Jan from The Office could sing?!? Nice job with the National Anthem, Melora Hardin!

But having attended the Dover races several times, I'm disappointed by the number of empty seats at the track. My husband always says that everyone is out buying souvenirs, but I think that's just wishful thinking. Dover is a great place for fans because you can see the whole track from almost every seat in the house. And the banking is crazy -- we found that out a few years ago when we did the fan walk there.

Smoke loses the point lead to Harvick and Edwards (although Harvick technically has the lead because of a tiebreaker), and there's movement up and down the leaderboard. The top 9 are separated by only 19 points. This is getting good. The new points values might just work.

IndyCar

Maybe there's always this much drama, but it seems there was a lot going on off the track in IndyCar. First, Sam Schmidt Motorsports announced that Dan Wheldon would replace Alex Tagliani in the 77 car in Kentucky in order to prepare for the $5 million run in Vegas. Then Helio Castroneves was fined $30,000 for his tweets criticizing the officiating in Japan. Then Al Unser, Jr. was suspended indefinitely following his DUI arrest this week.

But thankfully, there was a switch to the on-track drama this weekend, focusing on the points battle between Will Power and Dario Franchitti. Franchitti regained the point lead, making the race in Vegas very interesting. But my congrats go to Ed Carpenter, who pulled off his first first IndyCar win by a nose (literally). Maybe baby Zoe is a good luck charm for Sarah Fisher Racing!

NHRA


The good news? Antron Brown got a national record in Top Fuel, running a 3.766. The bad news? Rain postpones the finish of eliminations to Monday. (Guess it's a good thing I didn't talk my husband into going to Maple Grove this weekend.)

Monday Musings, 9/26/2011

So here's the plan. Every Monday, I'm going to let you know my thoughts (or musings) on the weekend of racing. Again, no hard-hitting analysis.  Just my observations from my point of view.
Hopefully I'll be posting my blog Monday mornings. But this week's blog was little delayed because my husband and I went to the local casino to try and win a Subaru WRX STI.  Unfortunately, no luck on the car, but my husband did win a couple hundred bucks.
My musings for the week:

• F1: Congrats to Paul DiResta on his sixth place finish at Singapore. Nice finish, especially since he's never run there before. To be honest, I've never really given DiResta much thought. That is, until my husband and I met a father and son from Scotland while we were at the Baltimore Grand Prix. They were guests of Dario Franchitti. They spoke with such pride of the drivers who have come out of their country, including DiResta. And now that I've been paying attention? I would love to see what he could do in a better car. Oh, and if you're wondering whether winning gets old, just ask Sebastian Vettel.
• Sprint Cup: How about that Tony Stewart?!? Seems as though just a couple of weeks ago that would have been him running out of fuel again with a lap to go. The luck seems to be swinging in Smoke's direction. Is it too early in the Chase to get excited? Although Carl Edwards is my driver, I really like Tony too. Anyone who can stop the Jimmie Johnson Express is fine with me.
• Camping World Trucks: Yeah, Kyle Busch dominated the Truck race at New Hampshire, but my MVP for the day? Nine-year-old Christopher Duffley. Duffley, who is both blind and autistic, sang the National Anthem. I've watched a lot of anthems in my day, but this was one of the few times it actually brought tears to my eyes (and my big old husband too). It was inspirational to say the very least.
• NHRA: Kudos to Bob Vandergriff for his first Top Fuel win! And you'll get 'em next time, Alexis DeJoria. We need a little more Tequila Patron in Nitro Funny Car!

So what did you think of this weekend's racing?