The thing that was killing me throughout the telecast of the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard was ESPN’s constant repetition of the same clips showing Dale Jarrett and Jeff Gordon talking about kissing the bricks. Those are three words that I never, ever want to hear again thanks to ESPN. They managed to wear out those words so much that they’ve lost their flavor, like a wad of a gum that’s been chewed too long. Is there anyone that doubts the fact that it was in fact Dale Jarrett’s crew chief (at the time) Todd Parrott who came up with the idea to press their lips to those dirty, grimy bricks? UGH! I’m so over it. There’s only one way to ruin the prestige, legacy and honor of an event and that’s to talk about it ad nauseam.

I don’t even believe it anymore. After hearing everybody say how much they treasure it, I can’t feel the weight of it. And wasn’t it a bit of overkill to have Brent Musburger AND Suzy Kolber hosting the event?? I love both of them but it just seemed to be a bit much and a waste of Brent Musberger’s talent.

I’d believe it more if they did some of those pre-game in-depth interviews other networks always do before NFL games. I love those. They interview a guy at his home, or at practice, talk about whatever has happened during the season to date. The only thing we’ve gotten this year is that bit on Clint Bowyer and the obligatory stuff on Dale Earnhardt Jr. when he signed up with Hendrick. I’m not counting TNTs deals on the racers of NASCAR’s past. While I found those interviews highly enjoyable, I really wanna know about the stars of today, the guys that are coming up. Why hasn’t there been an interview with Michael Waltrip (loved his new, poking fun NAPA commercial), asking him about the car he wrecked near his house, and his slow-to-roll race team?? Or an interview with Jeremy Mayfield and his comments about Ray Evernham’s relationship with Erin Crocker? Why not Ray and Erin themselves? Or how about an in depth interview with Casey Mears? You could ask him about his win earlier this year and about his past, his thoughts on his future, yadda, yadda, yadda… ya know the basic interview stuff that for some perplexing reason has been severely lacking.

Those 2 minute pre-race interviews with the pit reporters are not cutting it.

(photo credit: Chris Graythen/Getty Images for NASCAR)

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I have been so bad this week about posting new entries. There have been a bunch of things that I’ve wanted to write about and just get out of my head but I haven’t had the time.

So in anticipation of this weekend’s race at the Brickyard, I give you my comments on random photos:

Why thank you Greg Biffle for speaking out about the Michael Vick case. It brings it into the world of NASCAR so that I may put in my two cents on this insanity. I just think it’s sad that someone with Vick’s talent has wasted it on something so stupid. I can’t believe he’d do this to innocent animals, no wait, I can believe he could do this to innocent animals, but it doesn’t make it ok in the least bit. I just think it’s a complete waste in every way.

The one thing I want to say though is that his behavior off the field has nothing to do with his QB career, and I don’t think it reflects negatively on the NFL. The only thing that would shine a negative light on the NFL is if they fail to act. It frustrates me as a sports fan to see things that have nothing to do with the sport at its core interfere with its reputation.

Ugh. Anyway, I hope we can all move on from the dog killers & cheating scandals and get back to just pure unfooled-around-with competition.

While the Nextel Cup Series was on a break this past weekend so was I. Part of it was self-imposed and the other was thrust upon me by the not-that-helpful-at-all people at Comcast. For the fifth time I had to have a Comcast service person come out to fix my internet connection. They came out on Sunday when it started working again on its own, but it’s down again.

For me not having an internet connection, or an unreliable one, is the same as not having electricity. Even if I’m not going to use any of my appliances I like knowing that I could if I needed to. I seriously feel wrong/weird not knowing if my internet connection is going to be working when I get home today. Peace of mind is everything.

Anyway, while drivers were spending their weekend off heading here and there (see below) I spent mine at a conference called WordCamp in San Francisco. The two-day event brought together bloggers and developers from all over the country who use WordPress as their blogging software of choice, me included. I only attended the first day but it was really fun to be around other people (tons of dudes) that were doing cool things with their blogs. I learned a lot of cool ways that I could enhance my site and I hope to implement some of those things soon. I think a slight redesign is in my future.

I’m not sure how much interest there is in this kind of information but I figured I’d list what I could about what some of Cup drivers did over their free weekend:

Kevin Harvick — Spent time at home with his wife DeLana.

“You know everybody has these trips planned to go this place and that place,” said Kevin. “Man, we go every week. I don’t know why you would want to leave home if you had a week off.”

Kasey Kahne — Went down to Mexico

Elliott Sadler - Played some golf and visited family & friends in Virginia.

Denny Hamlin — Denny hit up Miami.

Jimmie Johnson — Spent some quality time with his wife Chandra in Europe

Jeff Gordon — Practiced changing diapers at home with his wife Ingrid and newborn daughter Ella.

In other news…

Reed Sorenson won the Busch Series race at Gateway International Raceway in IL this weekend. All I can say is good for him. Although it would have been cool if Carl Edwards could have made it to the front again with that insanely banged up car but alas it wasn’t meant to be.

I can’t believe Reed is just 21 years old. What were you doing when you were 21? I highly doubt you were winning a nationally televised stock-car race. I’m 26 and I keep asking myself where the last 6 years of my life went. I vividly remember turning 21 and now I’m soon to be 27 and I have no clue what I’ve done with my life since then (well not completely but ya know, I am quite proud of a few things that I’ve done). For those same 6 years I’ve been a NASCAR fan. I had to quiz myself the other day on all the winners of the Cup Championship to make sure that I haven’t been in some weird sub-conscious coma. I’m happy to report that I was able to accurately name all of them.

A couple weekends ago I caught some of the Fox Sports Net series Beyond the Glory, it’s like Behind the Music but for sports. This particular installment was about Matt Kenseth. The content of the show was good, it talked about the year he won the Cup Championship and then the year following and Matt’s quest to prove that he could win races.

The thing that got me about this show was the voice over guy. His tone was terrible. He made everything sound so dark and depressing. Get this guy some Prozac. Jeez. I think they were going for some sort of edgy effect but it ended up just sounding completely uninspired and lame. Matt deserved better.

I caught the end of the IndyCar race at Nashville this past weekend and I have to say that it was pretty boring. I think that’s saying something coming from a racing fan. I mean, I don’t know what it is about those cars but it’s so not that interesting. They’re so far apart from each other, there isn’t that much side-by-side racing, plus there’s only like 18 cars on the track. That’s no where near as intriguing as if it were 43.

But anyway that being said I still watched the race, half-hoping that another post-race fight would break out to spice things up. Unfortunately no dice. The only thing that managed to get me worked up was the lap traffic that kept Danica Patrick from having a real chance at winning her first race. The IndyCar powers that be really need to take a look at this thing. It’s utterly insane to me have to a person that’s 3rd re-starting in the 13th position behind cars that are 1, 2 or 3 laps down. I know the lap cars are still racing for position but let’s be realistic, the person with an actual shot of winning and making the race fun to watch is more important. Not some dope trying to move from 17th to 16th.