February 11, 2009
By Larry Van Zandt
After watching the Bud Shootout on Sunday, I'm thinking they might want to rename it the 'Bud Demo Derby', promote it as such.
After watching that event, I'm a little puzzled as to what I'm feeling about the event; either the drivers forgot that this wasn't a points event, or the COSHAT (Car of some hideous alternate tomorrow) are so unstable at speed, that the cars simply 'get away' from the drivers when they are artificially bunched up like that. I'm recalling a few of the cars being somewhat by themselves and just losing it in the middle of a corner...but hey, according to NASCAR, there's nothing wrong with the car, right?
With as hot and heavy as the racing was during the Bud Shootout, and the resulting carnage....are there going to be enough cars left for the 500 on Sunday? While I would love the prospect of seeing 43 rental cars on the track, beating and banging, I think that teams will be awake from now until Sunday morning, beating and banging on cars in the pits, in order to make sure we have enough cars on the track to stage a proper 'big one' on or around lap 6.
Greg Biffle receives the 'I should have stayed in Washington' award of the race....I think I recall seeing him in at least two accidents, if not three....other than his recent 'carbon credit' purchases to help save the rest of us from Global Warming (which is a scam), I actually like the guy, and was pulling for him to win the Sprint Cup during the latter half of the 2008 season. Of course, to be honest, I would have been glad for anybody to win last season, other than Jimmie Johnson.
Next: ...Nashville City Paper...
This above story was posted on Insider Racing News....I think this was bigger news than most people give it credit for. Number 1 item; NASCAR is no longer sanctioning weekly events. Number 2 item; NASCAR is no longer sanctioning weekly events. Number 3 item; mufflers are now required.
Yes, I said one of those twice. I think that the Old Nashville Speedway has discovered that nobody cares whether or not NASCAR's name is splashed all over the fences, and no longer wishes to pay for the ad space. Who's next?
Concerning mufflers....this is quite possibly the dumbest thing I have seen at a race track since they started bringing non-talented 'talent' into NASCAR to sing their butchered versions of the 'Star-Strangled Banner'.
Mufflers on a race car?
I thought Freedom in America was about Life, Liberty, and The Pursuit To Lose All Of One's Hearing.
Gee, if they have to be THAT quiet, why not just buy three dozen Barbie PowerWheels Jeeps, slap two 12V car batteries on them, and have the drivers run those around the track for 50 laps? I have been amazed by the stupidity of people who are fully aware of there being a RACE TRACK being in their neighborhood, where LOUD CARS RACE ON A TRACK, yet buy houses and move in anyway?
I'm recalling a local track here in Portland, Oregon, Portland International Raceway, where the Top Fuel Nitromethane classes used to run on the drag-strip portion of the track...and local residents, who were too dumb to realize that they moved next to a track, complained to the point where those cars were no longer allowed to run there.
And in addition, if I'm recalling correctly, regular drag racing events require vehicles to have mufflers....when this track was built, nobody lived out there, it was merely an industrial area. And now, since Portland has insisted on shoving as many people as they can into one square acre (yay, row-houses!), now there are thousands of people piled into a tiny area of land that is about a mile away from the track...and even though most cars that run there require mufflers, idiot citizens are STILL complaining.
Well, that is enough of a rant for the week, I'm feeling a bit under the weather....however, I am definitely in the mood for jokes....so here we go with the....BAD NASCAR JOKES!!!
What does a Nun and a NASCAR official have in common? A Nun insists that God exists, and a NASCAR official insists that the official rule book exists....but that we also have to take their word for it....
A NASCAR official is the only person I know who if they won a Gold medal at the Olympics, they would come home and get it bronzed.
NASCAR officials are the only people I know who would go to a drive-in theater, go bonkers and rip up the seats.
Did you hear about the NASCAR official who crashed his bass boat full of red and black paint into an island? He was marooned.
Did you hear about the NASCAR official who died while out elephant hunting? He was crushed to death by a decoy.
See you next week.
You can contact Larry Van Zandt at Insider Racing News.
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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.
