March 6, 2010
By Brenda Benedict
Last Sunday was tremendous day for sports on television.
The Olympic gold medal hockey game seemed to capture the attention of so many people across our country.
NASCAR, however, took a hit on viewership with ratings down 25% during the game. The ratings did rebound once the Canadians scored the final goal in overtime. But the Shelby American race did not do its part to garner viewership. The almost predictable finish had many fans in twitter land lamenting the lackluster race. One disgruntled fans spoke, " Nothing personal. I'm giving up Sprint Cup. Not interested in 5th Jimmie Johnson Champ. He's BORING. Thanks for everything."
Jimmie Johnson is continuing where he left off last November. Johnson made it look easy Sunday and when he won two in a row by winning the Shelby American at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Last Sunday's race had little excitement to offer fans to keep them on the edge of their seats.
There was another competition that had fans watching in February.
Tyler Hinton was going for his 6th championship in a row. Hinton had been dominating his sport in much the same way as Jimmie Johnson has dominated NASCAR. I asked Hinton this week about the difficulty of winning his tournament. He said, "To win even one time is difficult, and it's only gotten harder because the field has gotten stronger. I feel really proud of my five-win streak. I've certainly had a solid dose of luck along the way, in the form of barely catching my mistakes or my opponents not catching theirs.
Sounds like a typical week in NASCAR, doesn't it? But Tyler Hinton is far from the tracks of NASCAR. Hinton was not able to win the championship for the sixth time and went down in defeat to an up and coming star.
Hinton's sport involves solving crossword puzzles in competition with many other competitors in a timed situation. Scoring is based on accuracy and speed. The Tournament's web site says, " Evening games, guest speakers, and a wine and cheese reception allow solvers to meet each other in a relaxed and entertaining atmosphere."
Tyler Hinton is a five time champion for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. He says that the tournament varies greatly each year. "A solver might do really well one year, but encounter a couple of holes in his knowledge the next and fall back in the pack. So there's an element of luck there too." Sounds very similar to auto racing.
I asked Tyler Hinton if he could give any advice to Jimmie Johnson. He was hesitant to be giving advice to a professional driver but his words rang true to me.
"It feels strange for a 25-year-old crossword expert to be giving advice to a professional driver!," said Hinton. "But it's important to take it year by year, or even, in my case, puzzle by puzzle. Thinking about the streak and extending it would make me lose focus. The pressure is a double-edged sword. It fuels me because the nervous energy is converted to adrenaline. On the other side, knowing that everyone is gunning for you and that you're the man to beat doesn't help. One really has to ignore the bigger picture and just do whatever tasks are immediately at hand."
So to all you NASCAR fans who think the 5th championship is all wrapped up for Jimmie Johnson, don't be so quick to decide. Tyler Hinton's lesson tells us that being a long-time champion makes you the one everyone is gunning for.
I see a couple of drivers who I think can unseat Johnson and I'll share those names next week. What do you think? Who has a shot to be NASCAR champion this year and score the greatest upset to come along in a while in NASCAR?
You can follow me at Twitter @nascarfaithful
The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.
