The Big Bad Wolfe and Little (B)Rad Riding Hood

Paul Wolfe and Brad Keselowski looking a bit stressed during the race weekend at Martinsville. Courtesy of @Nateryan, this guy is full of good information, and a quite massive vocabulary.



Okay, I know my title is corny but I wanted something kind of funny. All my creative juices are running low at the moment, I just spit out a massive amount of b.s. writing a paper for school, plus the beer pong went a little overboard last night, but anyway back to Martinsville.

Bad Brad and Paul Wolfe really did an awesome job with the circumstances they were given in today race. Well not really given, but how Brad qualified anyway. Even though Brad played it extra cool, as he always does through all the interviews, you know that he knew how much of an uphill battle they were going to have today. Anyone who knows the sport knows the contenders at this track. Jimmie Johnson counting his win from today has competed at Martinsville in a Sprint Cup car a total of twenty-one times. Jimmie has amassed six wins, completing 99.5% of his laps ran, and leading 1789 laps. He leads almost 18% of the laps at the track when he shows up to race. That to me is outstanding. You have to lead laps to win, and that guy does it. But let's get back to Brad.

While I was watching the race, trying to recuperate from last night’s shenanigans, I grabbed some pen and paper so I could keep up with the calls that Paul Wolfe made from the pit-box. Usually they are outside the box, but other than the first caution around lap 58 when they took only driver's side tires, and jumped ten spots from 27th to 17th was the only time they did what they do. I was kind of worried for a while, because every time the positions would scroll across the screen, Brad would be stuck back in the late teens, most of the time 20's and up. Brad was saved from being lapped by one caution, and the third caution was when he started to make his move, especially getting off sequence with Gordon, Kyle Busch, and Truex staying out while the rest of the lead lap cars pitted, and Brad took two tires and came back out in 15th. It wasn't until the 7th caution when Brad stays out while some of the others pit, and finally breaks into the top-10 for the first time all day at lap 231. I'm not going to lie; I was relieved to see him in the top-10.

Now when we get to the last caution, and the top five comes in, I find myself sitting there waiting for the call, and I see Keselowski drive past the commit line. I was excited at first, because this is the stuff I like from this group, the chance to try and steal a win. When the dust settles though, it is just Keselowski, and Dale Jr. At that point I was worried, and images from the spring Martinsville race start to play through my head. Keselowski and Dale Jr. played Johnson and Gordon from the spring on old rubber, while the field was on new rubber again. In the spring, once the green flag flew, the chaos ensued. Much to my surprise, Keselowski held off Jimmie for a lot longer than I expected. I don't know why it surprised me honestly; everything he seems to do in a race car has been amazing when it comes to this year, and much more specific to the chase. Even though Brad was relegated to his sixth place finishing position, he was better off for the call since he was able to lead a lap, and get that one extra bonus point. I hate to be like everyone in the media, but I have to now. "Ask Carl about getting that bonus point."

So the Big Bad Wolfe, and Little (B)Rad pulled another one out of their bag of tricks today. It was especially huge because of the electrical problem that halted Denny Hamlin's shot at the Championship, but weirder things have happened I suppose. I am pulling for Brad, but I am all for the thrill of it coming down to Homestead and not knowing who is going to hoist the cup at the end. With that said good luck Brad, Paul, and the whole Penske Racing team in their quest. If you can pull it off, it will be that much sweeter with Jimmie, and Chad being on their game like they have been. I'll leave you with a picture from Dover and Brad celebrating with the guys after winning the AAA 400 for some good karma. Until next time.



Picture from the Chicagotribune.com

The smart thing would be to dumb down the cars

               Okay, I know you haven’t heard from me in a while, but I am on a roll and I have something on my mind. Just to give you a little bit of background, I was unfortunately laid off from my job last week, so other than applying for any job I can; I go to the gym, and hangout at home. That is why this blog was started, and why I have blown it up in two days already. Enough from my first paragraph of nothingness, which I guess will end up a staple of this blog.

Let’s talk about some of the crazy Aussies and V8 Supercars. I started watching them a couple of years ago off and on, mainly because I became obsessed with Holdens. I used to own a 2005 GTO, which I drag raced a ton. If you ever get bored, and want something to look at on YouTube, just type in DJ Pontiac GTO in the search bar, and it should pull up 4 or so videos. My car is black. But anyways, the GTO was sent over from Australia and rebadged. In Australia, they are a Holden Monaro. Well, the G8 before its demise was a rebadge Holden Commodore. Through me being a fan of NASCAR, around the same time Marcos Ambrose was working his way up the ranks, and his famous commercial with Kevin Harvick’s face coming alive on a t-shirt calling him “Kangaroo Meat” got me looking his way.

Marcos Ambrose from his V8Supercar days at Bathurst.

Photo from V8Supercars.com.au

           

Marcos Ambrose worked his way up the ranks being born originally in Tasmania, through the V8Supercar series. If you are a motorsports fan of any kind, you need to watch what these guys offer. Their style of racing is more of a short sprint style, and they usually break up their weekend by having two separate races like say a practice, qualifying, and race on Saturday, and do the same thing again on Sunday. Anyways I will talk more about these guys in the future, because they are coming to Austin in 2013, and this guy will be there with three of his friends. I can’t wait, but they have some interesting rules that could be applied to NASCAR to help some of the underfunded be able to compete on a higher level. 

Parody helps the product of what the fans see, whether they spend the money to have a seat at the track, or they decide to watch the race at home. The Aussie’s just finished up their Enduro series, which consist of races that range from 600km, to 1000km and each team has their main driver, and they hire a co-driver. They too have a feeder series, so picture it like this. If the Sprint Cup had an endure race, some parings may be Jimmie Johnson – Regan Smith, Dale Jr. – Danica Patrick, Jeff Gordon – Justin Allgaier, and Kasey Kahne – Cole Whitt. I just used these off of affiliation through Hendrick Motorsports, but you get the idea. Well, these teams have practices, and qualifying for each driver of the car, so newbies have a practice, and their own qualifying, and the main drivers have the same. Let’s say that the newbie wrecks the car, then what? If it is America, they would go to a backup car. Perfect example of this is when Denny Hamlin wrecked his primary car in tire testing at Kansas, and pulled his backup car out while another car was on the way to be a backup to his backup. Are you with me still?

            The Australian V8 Supercars rules and regulations are posted on their website, so I wanted to find out what they would do in this situation. During the Enduros, a couple of teams wrecked their cars on one day, and frantically thrashed to get it fixed for the next day. I just thought that they all had backup cars until this, why not pull it out? Well in their rulebook, it says, “C3.9 No Replacement Cars – Unless otherwise specified in the supplementary regulations, replacement cars are not permitted, and a Competitor must only use the one (1) car which had been originally entered for the Meeting.”

            This amazes me, and is so simple that it could save the teams so much money. Watching the telecast of qualifying from Martinsville, a quarter of the teams built new cars for this race, and we are changing the bodies in four races for next year. Here is what I suggest for NASCAR moving forward. Change the regulations so that the templates require the same thing whether the cars are at Talladega, Atlanta, or Bristol. Change the height of the tire to the same on both sides, so no more stagger allowed. Decrease the allowable amount of camber on the front tires, so that there is less of a chance of blowouts. Don’t allow these teams to cock-eye the car with offsetting the rear end to allow it to turn, make the car track straight. The teams are only allowed to have two cars built at a time, and only take one to the racetrack with them for a race weekend. If a driver wrecks, and needs a ride, then let them do like the old days and buy a lesser ride from an independent to garner their points for that weekend. F1 has an engine rule, and those guys can only use eight engines throughout the year, or face a 10-spot grid penalty. Install a rev-limiter on the cars, keeping the ceiling on a Sprint Cup motor to 9k. Have a meeting with everyone to agree on a number, but let’s say they must use a motor over 3-5 race weekends. The biggest thing I propose and I am just going where NASCAR already went in the Nationwide series, cut down the available spots to race to 36. If the field is cut down, then the racing will get better because only the best cars will be racing, and more money will be distributed to less people. I think James Finch was onto something; hopefully this move would get rid of the dreaded start and parks.

            I know this sounds like a lot of rambling and whatnot, but it is just a few thoughts I had going on in my head, that would help someone like Phoenix Racing, and Burger King Racing to compete with the bigger guys, since their checkbooks won’t be stretched so thin anymore. Let us have more moments like Regan Smith winning the Southern 500 last year more often. Leveling the playing field, while taking a lot of the mechanical advantages of the bigger teams with a huge engineering budget away will let this get back to the roots of the sport, where the underdog can jump up on the wheel and go get a win. Also, if the sport didn’t cost as much, then more sponsorship opportunities would present themselves, and may help the sport to new heights. Until next time.

Picture from speedwaymedia.com