How bad have I got it?
I’m sitting here at work with a window for NASCAR.COM’s Live Leaderboard open, along with the TrackPass Scanner window. I’m listening to the Dale Earnhardt Jr. channel. This is what I must do because as tempting as it was to call in “sick” today so that I could watch the race live on TV, I couldn’t go through with it.
Is it just me or do Dale Jr. and his crew chief/cousin Tony Eury Jr. sound alike? It’s kinda freaky.
Anyway… all I can say is that Kurt Busch must be stopped!
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– It’s all been done before, hasn’t it? Tomorrow night is the premiere episode of ABC’s new five-part series “NASCAR in Primetime.” It’ll air on Wednesdays at 10 PM EST (check your local listings). ABC News is promising to “offer viewers a ‘behind the scenes’ look at the inner workings of stock-car racing.” The show followed Mark Martin, Tony Stewart, Jimmie Johnson, Juan Pablo Montoya and others over the course of five months. Juan Pablo will be on Good Morning America with his wife Connie tomorrow to promote the special.
– The mayor of David Stremme’s home town — South Bend, Indiana — has declared August 21st to be David Stremme Day. To celebrate the city is hosting a party, “Stremme Comes Home/Rally to Bristol,” that’s open to the public from 5 PM to 8 PM.
“I haven’t really been back home in South Bend to spend any quality time in about a year, so this party is for my fans, friends, family and I to catch up,” said Stremme, who now resides in Concord, N.C. “It’s pretty easy to get wrapped up with work when you’re spending as much time as we do on the road. I’m thrilled to be hosting this event at Century Center in South Bend, and am looking forward to catching up with everyone and just having a good evening together.”
The event will also raise funds for Coaches Vs. Cancer headed locally by Notre Dame Basketball coach Mike Brey, as well as St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital.
– Happy (sorta early) Birthday wishes to Carl Edwards, he turns 28 tomorrow.
– On Friday night feel free to give Kurt Busch a hard time on my behalf. He’ll be bartending at the Artesian Wells Sports Tavern in Cement City, Michigan from 8pm to 9pm. He’ll be there to raise money for charity.
– At this weekend’s Cup race in Michigan Casey Mears will be rocking a special 1957 Chevy paint scheme for his No. 25 National Guard/GMAC Monte Carlo SS. What’s the special occasion? To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1957 Chevrolet.
“I’ve always loved classic cars — I have a ‘61 Chevy Impala convertible and a couple of hot rods here and there. My dad is big into collector car shows, and that’s something I enjoy as well. Running the ‘57 paint scheme should be a lot of fun this weekend, and Michigan, being the home track for Chevrolet, is an especially fitting place for us to do it.”
– I had to post these quotes from Dale Earnhardt Jr. He is by no means out of the Race to the Chase:
“I’m sure some people are gonna write us off for the Chase after our problems at Watkins Glen,” said Earnhardt, who finished 42nd at the Glen because of engine problems.
“But, I think it’s foolish to do so because we’re a great team and we’re gonna do everything we can to scratch and claw and fight for wins and every position on every lap.
“We have four races coming up at four tracks where we’ve been very, very good lately. No one has been better or more consistent at Michigan than we have the last few years. We’re taking our favorite car – chassis No. 39 – that we’ve been using there and it just seems to really get up and go at Michigan.”
It’s OK Dale, I believe in you. 
Are you shocked? I’m not. There are worse things he could do.
And now I give you some things that you might want to know:
– If you’re a San Francisco Bay Area IndyCar fan you’ll be happy to know that Fior d’Italia Restaurant is giving $25 gift certificates to the first 40,000 fans that enter Infineon Raceway for the Motorola Indy 300, presented by Jackson Rancheria Casino & Hotel on Sunday, August 26. So make sure you get there early!
– NASCAR driver Ryan Newman will be a guest on the “Best Damn Sports Show Period” live from Lowe’s Motor Speedway on August 7th to announce the finalist for Kodak’s “Ink Ryan’s Ride” contest.
– Walk the track with Kurt & Kyle Busch, Jeff Gordon and Ernie Irvan at Pocono Raceway on Saturday:
Kurt will join brother Kyle and four-time Cup champ Jeff Gordon in Saturday’s LAPS Walk with Ernie Irvan at Pocono Raceway. Irvan, Gordon and the Busch Brothers will unite with NASCAR fans, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) survivors, and the Pennsylvania Army National Guard for a walk on the racetrack to raise awareness and needed funding to conquer TBI in America. The LAPS Walk festivities will kick off at 2:15 with a Q&A session and presentation to the top fundraiser of a signed helmet to recognize his/her outstanding effort for TBI awareness and prevention. Following the Q&A session, all participants, including Irvan and Kurt & Eva, will move down to the track where they will be joined by members of the National Guard for the opening ceremonies and a walk on the racetrack. For more information, please visit www.lapswalk.org or call the Brain Injury Association at 800.772.4323.
– I find this quote from Jimmie Johnson to be very interesting indeed. It’s about the resetting of the points once the Chase kicks in for the final ten races of the season.
It certainly looks like I’ll be a big beneficiary of it (resetting the points) and with the way that it is, I’ll take that forgiveness the way the point system is structured right now and try to capitalize on it. But when you look at Jeff’s (Gordon) point situation and how strong he has been, deep down inside there is still a part of me that says, ‘Man, the guy’s had a great year and deserves to be the champion and have it re-racked with everybody on top of him again probably isn’t fair.’ But it’s the way it is. The Chase does a lot of positive things for our sport. I’m in a position where I could capitalize on a tough summer. So you deal with the situation, as it exists. Just falling back on the way racing has always been and the way we’ve all raced through the season and had every point add up to equal a champion, if Jeff doesn’t win the championship I’m sure he’ll have a lot of heartburn over it. And I think us racers, deep down inside, might not think that it’s exactly right. But it’s different racing today than it was years back.
– Greg Biffle will be running a special “Dog the Bounty Hunter” paint scheme on his No. 16 Ford Fusion at Pocono. Uhm, yea, I’ve got nothing.
– All I can say about this is that I hope either A.J. Allmendinger or Brian Vickers can make it into this race or else this visit will be kinda awkward and embarrassing. I got my fingers crossed for ‘em!
Two members of the New York Red Bulls, the MLS team that plays its home matches at Giants Stadium, will make the 90-mile journey from East Rutherford, N.J., to Pocono Raceway to absorb the sights and sounds of NASCAR racing.
Midfielder Joe Vide and midfielder/forward Clint Mathis will get a true taste of what stock-car racing is all about. They’ll hang out on the grid and in the pits, and the fleet-footed duo will meet Red Bull Racing’s two drivers for lunch Sunday morning.
This week has been a rollercoaster of emotions for NASCAR fans. First you have the great high — the victory for Martin Truex Jr. at Dover, his first-ever Cup win.
And then the great low of losing Bill France Jr. the former chairman of NASCAR. After his father (NASCAR’s founder) died, France took charge of his family’s business and grew NASCAR to be the national, ever-growing and highly profitable sport we know today. You have to respect someone who took risks and was dedicated to seeing this league grow. I don’t know the complete history of the France family (of course I’m learning more and more every day) but you’d have to think that building this sport/company must have been a fun ride.
In other news…
– In what I think is the most current issue of ESPN The Magazine they have an article about the new ABC show “Fast Cars & Superstars.” The show comes on tonight and features various celebrities attempting to race stock cars. Carl Edwards, Jimmie Johnson, and Kurt Busch serve as coaches. Serena Williams, Jon Cena, Tony Hawk are some of the celebs participating. This should be fun to watch. I like seeing people realize that it really is harder than you think to “drive around in circles all day.”
– I never got around to writing about Dover. There really isn’t much for me to say about it since I didn’t get to watch it live. A note to Mother Nature: Please stop raining on NASCAR! Some of us have jobs and can’t stay at home on Monday to watch the race.
– At any rate I was very happy to see that Martin Truex Jr. won Dover. I always knew he could do it, and it bothers me to see headlines saying things like “Truex shows DEI’s more than just Junior” because everybody knew that there was more to DEI than just Junior. I don’t remember saying that, do you remember saying that??
And now for some photo goodness:
Ryan Newman carries a piece of his car after a wreck during the Nextel Prelude to the Dream on June 6, 2007 at Eldora Speedway in New Weston, Ohio. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images for Eldora Speedway)
Carl Edwards #99 leads Jeff Gordon #24 on the pace lap prior to the start of the Nextel Prelude to the Dream on June 6, 2007 at Eldora Speedway in New Weston, Ohio. (Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for Eldora Speedway)
Aric Almirola gets ready to drive during the Nextel Prelude to the Dream on June 6, 2007 at Eldora Speedway in New Weston, Ohio. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images for Eldora Speedway)
Martin Truex Jr. sprays champagne on the trophy for winning the Autism Speaks 400 Presented by Visa at the Monster Mile, Dover International Speedway. (Photo Credit: Jerry Markland / Getty Images for NASCAR)
AJ Allmendinger takes a break during practice at Dover International Speedway. (Photo Credit: Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR)
I’m so sad that I missed the Busch brothers wreck each other at the All-Star race last weekend. Sounds like it was a good time. Although I don’t yet believe that all is well between the Busch brothers — at least I don’t want to believe that it is — we’ll see what happens on Sunday. I would like to see more proof that Kyle Busch is a little punk with an attitude problem. I doubt Kyle will fail me on this one, but ya never know, he did do the right thing last weekend by hiding from the media after the accident with his brother and not saying anything until he could put a good script together.
In other news…
Ryan Newman is on the pole for the Coca-Cola 600 this weekend! And I couldn’t be any happier! If I had found out that it was Jeff Gordon again I would of had to gauge my eyes out with a blunt object. Ok, maybe it’s not that serious but it was nice to see something good happen for Newman this year. He’s been pretty under the radar and pretty far outside of the Championship talks.
Yes, for a brief moment in time Dale Earnhardt Jr. was atop the pole for the Sony HD 500 tomorrow. He was knocked off of it by Kurt Busch. If you’ve read my previous blog posts you know how much that pained me to see. At any rate, I’m still excited that Junior will start the race in the 6th position. That lends great hope to him securing a place in the Chase this year.
In other news…
Bill Lester, who’s originally from Oakland, Calif., ended up not making it into the field for the race tomorrow. He flat spotted his tires and spun out, but still tried to make it around the track for his second qualifying lap. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to get into the top 43. It’s a tough break, I was really rooting for him, but I’m sure this isn’t the last we’ll see of him in Nextel Cup racing.
I now have a photo gallery of my weekend at California, I’ll be updating it periodically tomorrow as well.
