I know that I should be writing something about the insanity that was the race at Kansas last weekend but I’m kinda not in the mood for it. That race perfectly illustrates one of the things that has always puzzled me about NASCAR. The rules and how NASCAR chooses to interpret them at any given time. It never seems to be the same all the time and I’m always confused. I don’t know why it isn’t cut and dry, like why didn’t they just call the race in the first place? And if they were so concerned with giving the fans and the drivers a complete race why not just move the race to Monday like they’ve done before? And then there’s the fact that Clint Bowyer should have been the winner of the race and not Greg Biffle. What was that about? At the end of the day NASCAR always has the last say and you can’t get around that, even when they’re wrong. It’s just stupid.

Ok, maybe I was in the mood to write about it after all.

Anyway… my real reason for writing today is because of this news item (if you can really call it that) about Alyssa Milano supposedly being done with dating athletes. On behalf of all of the single women out there that would love to date her sloppy seconds — Barry Zito in particular — I say thank you!

Oh and since I’m already off topic and on to baseball, I must share that I met Mike Piazza at the Virgin Megastore in San Francisco a few weeks ago. I was agog. I was shaking! Normally I don’t get that way about celebs for the most part. After all, they’re humans just like you and me, but this was Mike Piazza! He has always been one of my favorite baseball players (he wears my fave number 31 too) and so I felt like I couldn’t just leave without saying something to him. So I did and I was talking so fast he probably thought I was crazy. But that’s ok, it totally made my day.

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If you’re a regular reader of my blog I’m sure you’ve noticed the issues that I’ve encountered over the past few weeks. I was having hosting issues and this really icky spam lookin’ page was taking over my site. I’m happy to say that all of that has been resolved because I moved everything over to a new, fabulous hosting service. I can promise that from now on I shouldn’t have any outages.

After yesterday’s technical difficulties all is back to normal in Fast & Fabulous land. I’ll soon be moving this site and my others to a new host in the hopes of avoiding yesterdays service interruption. Yay.

Anyway, on to the news. Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Hendrick Motorsports will be revealing the last pieces of the puzzle next week when they announce who the major sponsors of Dale’s car will be and the number that will be on said car. Rumor has it that will be a combination of the energy drink Amp and the National Guard. I guess the National Guard seems likely since they’re the ones that currently co-sponsor the #25 that next year will turn into whatever number Hendrick has been able to get it’s hands on. I’m hoping they grabbed the 88, that’d make the most sense, and for those numbskulls out there that got the #8 tattooed on their bodies it would be easy (in theory) to add another 8.

I love Ashley Judd, I love her whole family (one of my first concerts was in fact a Judds show). The woman is just plain cool. If Dario Franchitti does in fact make the switch from IndyCar to NASCAR I’m all for it if it means we get to see Ashley. She’s so fun; it’ll be great to get her perspective and opinions on the competition. She gives her opinion on things whether or not it’s been asked for and I totally dig that, like last weekend when she called out the No. 23 team of Milka Duno for being so slow on the track, which in Ashley’s words was putting other drivers in danger. She wasn’t way off base, the announcers basically agreed with her, without actually saying so though.

Oh and while I’m on the subject of IndyCar, there’s one driver that I won’t be so excited to see in NASCAR and that’s Sam Hornish Jr. He is so friggin’ boring. I feel like taking a nap every time I hear him speak. He seems so lethargic and devoid of any personality. He never seems that excited about anything. He could just be a quiet, low key person, which I totally get ’cause I’m like that, but still show me something!

In other news…

– In an effort to not be outdone by Tiger Woods, Jeff Gordon has posted a gallery of photos of his daughter Ella.

– David Stremme has been dubbed “Mayor of the Infield.” But just when he gets props for being loved by fans he’s supposedly losing his ride. How screwed is that? Apparently it’s so screwed that even Juan Pablo Montoya is sad about it… although I doubt he’ll cry.

Fun Friday photo — worlds are colliding!:

Carl Edwards meets music artist 50 Cent while at Sirius Radio for Chase Media Day. (Photo Credit: Sirius Radio)

Everything is going on lately… You’ve got the chase standings to consider, team mergers, fines and all of the on/off-track accidents & incidents. There’s so much to digest. There’s so much stuff to read that actually getting around to read all of it could seriously be a full-time job. I wish I had enough time to devote to that.

So with that thought in mind, get this! I have this insanely awesome idea to go to every single race of the 2008 NASCAR Nextel Sprint Cup Series season. While I’m at the races and in between I would write in my blog as usual, and document the whole thing on video too. I’d then turn that video into a documentary.

The thing that you should know about me is that I am a true spectator. It’s what I’m good at (that and writing, of course). As a kid I had to go to all of my older sister’s sporting events. My sister is the athlete in my family. She did track (she was this close to going to the Olympics in the heptathlon), volleyball, and basketball. I was always content to sit in the stands and watch, or help out and take down the stats. I love events, it’s in my DNA. And I love sports in general, I appreciate and respect athletes and I love to root for them. Of course I’ve always thought about what it would be like to be an athlete myself, but I always knew that it just wasn’t me. I am the the person holding the finish line tape, not the person running through it.

This very simple, but yet totally complicated, idea came to me one day when I was sitting at home watching a NASCAR race. I was feeling frustrated with my life and the fact that everyday my job seems to move further out of line with my interests. I just thought to myself, “Where do I really want to be right now?” and the next thought that popped into my head was “I want to be there, at the races.”

It was like a ginormous light blub went off over my head and I felt instantly better knowing that that’s what I really wanted.

I got to thinking about those guys that went to all of the MLB parks (30 in total) in 38 days in 1998. I’ve always thought that that would be such a cool thing to do. Just the thought of having nothing holding me back, being able to devote each and everyday to one thing that I’m seriously passionate about. It makes me sincerely giddy just thinking about it. I’m excited about the thought of traveling, going from hotel to hotel and track to track and seizing the opportunity to meet people that I’ve only seen on TV.

So now I’ve put together the details.

This would be a life-changing event for me. The goal here is to make the leap from my current day job to writing for my blog full-time. I’m currently seeking sponsors to help fund this endeavor, and that’s where you come in.

If you know anyone who works for a company that’s looking to target the NASCAR fan population or you work for a company that you think could benefit from the exposure my blog (and eventually the documentary) can give them then please feel free to forward this blog post to them. You can email or call me. The deadline to become a sponsor is October 31st, 2007. All of my contact information is on my new sponsorship page.

an angel loses its… ah, nevermind.

Much to my dismay Martin Truex Jr. wasn’t able to skip past Kurt Busch for the win today. Dale Earnhardt Jr. managed to jump up to 13th in the points with his 12th place finish but he’s still a ways back in the points. Which, for the record, sucks a big one. Ugh.

Even though I only got to listen to the last 30 laps or so of the race (and at work no less) I still had fun listening to Dale Jr.’s scanner chatter. This exchange between Junior, Tony Eury Jr. and spotter Steve Hmiel was very funny (synopsis courtesy of Jade Gurss):

The Bud car started each run after a pit stop with very loose handling characteristics, and then would eventually get tighter as the run went along. Sometimes the transition between the two conditions was an abrupt one. Dale Jr. spoke with Tony Jr. during a late caution period on lap 189.
Dale Jr: “I was (expeletive) wreckin! What place are we in?”
Eury Jr: “12th. The 83 (B. Vickers) is your next spot.”
Dale Jr: “I’m gonna tell ya, I was spinnin’-out looooooooooose! I don’t know why - maybe it’s that spring we put in the right front, but it’s loose loose loose the first six laps or so, and then I go into the next corner and all of a sudden, it’s tight! (to spotter Hmiel) “I know the 07 (C. Bowyer) is mad at me, but I didn’t hit him! He was loose on his own! Tell his spotter!”
Hmiel: “I know, I told him.”
Dale Jr: “I’m not sure I believe ya. I mean, I was on the brakes too.”
Eury Jr: (laughing) “Lemme tell ya, my wife will be proud of me. She always gets on me and says I can never make you loose…”
Dale Jr: “I’m so loose, I should be fast…”
Hmiel: “Boy, that 17 (M. Kenseth) cleaned the 24’s (J. Gordon) clock!”
Dale Jr: “Well, he had it comin.’”
Hmiel: “Yeah, that’s the truth. And I’d take a lie detector test on that.”

In other news…

– People have commented on my blog and expressed their dislike of Teresa Earnhardt for being stingy with the No. 8, but I have to say one thing: If you’re going to call the woman an expletive at least spell her name right. I love you guys but lets make sure we get it right the first time.

– All of the photos that I have access to from the extra-long race weekend were pretty boring and pedestrian — I didn’t think anyone wanted photos of drivers talking to each other — except for this one of Clint Bowyer and his girlfriend Athena Barber. They’re so cute together.

(Getty Images for NASCAR)

I can always count on Kyle Busch to give a good quote.

At the press conference announcing his arrival at Joe Gibbs Racing on Tuesday he dropped this little gem when asked if he was misunderstood.

I’ve done a very good job of tricking everybody. I show them the bad side, I don’t show them the good side. Why
show the good side? Then I’d be Carl Edwards or something. No! I’m kidding! Maybe with all the money J.D. is paying me, I’ll have to pay some more people to polish me up a bit … soften up my edges.

Charlotte Observer writer David Poole wrote in his blog that NASCAR doesn’t need 25 guys that are all like Carl Edwards, nor do they need 25 of any one type of guy. I agree, but here’s the thing. Fans are not asking for all of the drivers in NASCAR to be the same. I think we all know that that would be incredibly boring. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with expressing our displeasure with someone who seems to whine all the time, even when he’s gets what he wants. I don’t think that fans want Kyle to not be himself or to be more like Carl; we just want him to be a better man, to take the high road from time to time.

The thing that bugs me the most is when people talk about “bad guys” like Kyle or Barry Bonds and they say “but he’s such a talented driver/player” So what? I think it’s safe to assume that anyone who is playing professional sports today is talented. You have to be; you can’t suck and play in the big leagues. Just because someone is super talented doesn’t mean they get a free pass to be a tool or a prima donna.

Kyle is 22, and I’m sure as each year passes he’ll gain more and more maturity. If he wants to look to someone as an example, just look at Jeff Gordon after last week’s race at Watkins Glen. After the race he waited 45 minutes before speaking to the press. I’m sure he used that time to cool off and compose himself. It was obvious he was upset with his performance. If he had spoke to people immediately following that race he probably would have had a shorter fuse and said something he’d later regret.