December 10, 2008
By Larry Van Zandt
As I lightly scour various racing news sites for story ideas, with of course Insider Racing News being my first stop, I discovered that I really didn’t have to look that hard for something to write about.
This week?
All I had to do was put a blindfold on, spin in a circle three times, and simply walk forward in any direction, and there were at least two or three stories to trip over.
Headline: NASCAR.com states ‘Potential Petty Merger A Wake-Up Call To Teams’, or as I would like to call it, ‘The DUH! Heard ‘round the world’.
Oh, really?
Gee, none of us saw that coming, did we? Nope, the hundreds of writers, who spoke of the potential problems as early as the start of the 2008 season (just to be fair), nope they didn’t see it coming, at least according to NASCAR, anyway. Nope, all of us were completely clueless as to what was going on. Nope, none of us saw that Petty was having sponsor troubles well before the ‘revealing’ article from NASCAR.com was released.
However, do you want to know what I found even more hilarious? This is a quote from the article:
“NASCAR without a Petty Enterprises? It's an idea that competitors were struggling to comprehend Thursday, in what should have been a celebratory atmosphere during Champions Week.”
I mean absolutely zero disrespect towards Petty Enterprises, but, uh…NASCAR has been without a competitive Petty Enterprises since, oh, uh….1992? Couple that with the hideously-expensive COSHAT (Car Of Some Hideous Alternate Tomorrow) platform….and now NASCAR being shocked that the resulting budgets needed to maintain this disaster of a car at even a remotely competitive level are too much for almost any sane sponsor to bear? I’d give a dollar to anyone who can be scientifically proven to have been ‘shocked’ by this announcement.
Petty Enterprises cars have been backmarkers at the very best, with the occasional win, or top-10 finish…so competitors haven’t actually noticed the Petty cars out there, unless they accidentally ran into one during an accident, or been the victim of a #43 die-cast car being thrown by an angry fan….which I just now realize that I shouldn’t have mentioned, since it gives angry fans a new idea about what to toss down onto the track whenever Jeff Gordon wins a race.
“D.W., are they tossing die-cast toys at Gordon’s car?”
“Boogity Boogity Boogity! Slash the tires and light the house fires! This here angry rioting crowd isn’t happy with only throwing toy cars at Gordon, so some really angry fans have jumped the fence, and are now chasing the #24 with…..poetry books!”
“Yep, DW, watching those book-wielding fans run after Gordon reminds me of the phrase. ‘Poetry in motion’…..”
Yes, well, I am relieved that at least I didn’t give the angry fans here the idea of tossing lawn darts at Gordon’s car…..oh, wait….oops….
As I think further about the article in question, it reminds me of a Fed-Ex commercial a couple of years ago, where there is a board meeting, and one of the younger employees suggests a detailed and intelligent-sounding plan to save the company money on shipping expenses, slightly waving his hands horizontally to emphasize his speech. However, everyone remains silent until the president of the company says exactly the same thing, but moves his hand up and down, instead of horizontally like the employee did. Here’s a link: youtube.com
Yep, basically, that video summarizes what I'm trying to say here....it isn’t news until NASCAR says it is.
After looking at the continuing blunders from the France Cartel, does anyone else have the mental image of watching Brian France standing on a set of railroad tracks, with a train bearing down on him, and a crowd of hundreds of people standing on either side of the track, screaming at him to get out of the way of the train….and Brian is ignoring them?
What’s different here? There are two trains heading toward him; one train called the ‘Economy Express’, and the train heading towards him from the other direction called the ‘COSHAT Limited’....with Brian about to be squashed in the middle. Oh, great, now I just gave fans the idea of throwing model railroad trains at Jeff Gordon....
Moving on….
Since I have nothing useful to offer NASCAR other than loads of ideas, I have yet another idea; change the format of the summer Daytona race.
Do remember that the Daytona track hosts more than just stock cars…they have the ’12 hours of Daytona’ and the ’24 hours of Daytona’ for sports cars, along with motorcycles that race on the same track. For those of you who might not know, Daytona also has a road-course section of track that ties into the main tri-oval. Parts of the tri-oval are used for those races, but the other half of the track is on the infield road course.
My idea for the summer race?
I’m going to infuriate fans everywhere….but run the road course section for the July race. That, or take away one of the ‘boring’ 1 ½-mile tracks (there’s so many to choose from), as I’m sure that the France Cartel wouldn’t mind running an extra event at their home track. That way, the Watkins Glen/Sears Point (Infineon Raceway) cars can be used for an extra event, and gives Juan Pablo Montoya another road course track to punt someone else off of…..
NASCAR Jokes:
A NASCAR official walks up to a parking meter, and puts two quarters in. The meter goes up to 120…. then he gasps, and says, “Wow, I just lost 80 pounds!”
Did you hear about the NASCAR driver that became a vegetarian?
He quit cold turkey.
Three railroad workers, a redhead, a gray-haired man, and the third being a part-time NASCAR official, were sitting down and having lunch one day. The redhead says, “Man, if I have ham and cheese sandwiches again, I’m going to throw myself in front of a train!” The gray-haired man replies with, “I’m so sick of chili…that’s all my wife ever packs for my lunch! If she does it again tomorrow, I’m joining you!” The part-time NASCAR official agrees, saying “I’m with you, too! I’m sick of bologna!”
Of course, lunch the next day consisted of ham and cheese, chili, and bologna….and all three men stepped out in front of a train.
Since the three men were extremely close friends, to save on funeral expenses, they had a single funeral for all three men. The redheaded man’s wife, still weeping, spoke to the other two wives after the funeral. “I didn’t know he was so sick of ham and cheese!” The gray-haired man’s wife replied, “I had no idea that my husband was so sick of chili, I thought he liked it!”
The wife of the part-time NASCAR official? She said, “I don’t know what to tell either of you, because my husband always packed his own lunch!”
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.
