Wednesday night I stayed up past my bedtime (my workday bedtime) and watched NASCAR in Primetime on ABC.
Today I read a review of the show from the New York Times and I think the reviewer got it right — this documentary isn’t covering any new territory. But it’s still entertaining nevertheless.
I dig the fact that it follows lesser known teams — in the first episode we saw Johnny Sauter’s team struggle at Atlanta — and that you get to hear & see real fans talk about why they love NASCAR. That kid with the Carl Edwards hat on was so cute, and very knowledgeable about the drivers.
Oh and who knew Mark Martin was so freaking buff?? Jenkies Batman… I think he’s better looking now than when he was younger, and the same goes for Dale Jarrett. They’re total hotties as older gentlemen. Plus it’s not like they’re that old. Ah I’m rambling.
So overall I dig the fact that this documentary is even on TV at all, but at the same time I was hoping there’d be more to it. Something we haven’t seen before, or some other angle. I dunno… Maybe I’m asking for too much.
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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.
Where to begin… First I guess I’ll express my surprise that it had been over a year since Carl Edwards had won a Cup race. I didn’t realize it had been that long, so good for him. The fun thing about Carl Edwards is his mom. She’s at all of his races and she’s the only NASCAR driver’s mom that I can spot instantly. Like if I saw her at the grocery store I’d be like “hey there’s Carl Edwards’ mom!” If it’s anybody else’s mom I have no clue, their son would have to be standing next to them for me to put it together. I don’t know what it is about her but she stands out. I think it’s her hair. She’s got great hair. Or, duh, it could just be that she’s always there. I dunno though… Some of those guys’ girlfriends and wives are always there and I wouldn’t be able to pick them out of a crowd. It could just depend on who it is.
Ok, I totally went off on a weird tangent there.
In other news…
– I’ve been watching “Fast Cars & Superstars” (on ABC) here and there. I have it Tivo’d so I can watch it whenever. I like the fact that they’ve done this show period, because it proves that there’s so much more to NASCAR than just turning a wheel. While it doesn’t go into the whole strategy part of it, I think people get a sense of the skill involved.
– How nice was it to see Michael Waltrip back in a Cup race? And he finished 10th no less! That was very cool. I’m happy for him. It feels like his whole season has been marred by his little off track accident and the Daytona 500 shenanigans, which is really sad. I’d like to see his team be successful. I know they can be it’ll just take some time. But I just miss the old funny & slaphappy Mikey that we used to see every week.
– Casey Mears. He’s a guy that’s steadily moving up the points standings every week. At one point this year, a few weeks ago I believe, he was in 34th place and now he’s up to 19th. Ya never know, if they keep this up we could see Casey in the Chase this year. That’d be very, very cool.
– Please tell me I’m not the only person who dislikes Marc Fein and Bill Weber? I’d trade both of them in for Mike Joy and Allen Bestwick any day. They’re sooo annoying. I don’t understand Weber, it seems like he’s yelling all the time. He’s just too loud. And Fein seems like he’s not listening to people ’cause his comments after they make a point never seem to match up. Ugh. Luckily we only have 4 more races of them until we’re on to the ESPN/ABC coverage.
– The topic of Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s move to Hendrick Motorsports is starting to annoy even me. And I’m a big Dale Jr. fan. Maybe it’s because they seemed to extend the pre-race show for an extra hour and filled it with an interview of Junior and Rick Hendrick that shed absolutely NO new light on the situation. I’d rather they talk about Mikey Waltrip making it back into a race, or the Red Bull boys managing to qualify every week after a slow start to the season. Or why Juan Pablo Montoya seems to have stalled (which is totally fine by me) or what’s going on with Jeremy Mayfield (where the heck is he??).
– In case you’re thirsty for more speculation on the ramifications of Junior’s move to Hendrick, then you should check out this article “Is Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s big move good for NASCAR?” on Slate.com by John Swansburg. He digs my blog, so I’m giving him props. But really it’s a good article and you should read it.
I have to take back what I said about everybody loving rain delays. I don’t think I like them anymore. Especially in a broadcast that has Bill Weber as the lead announcer. And who the heck is that Marc Fein guy?? I’m not impressed, yet.
The only good thing about this switch to TNT coverage was that we got Wally Dallenbach back, and surprisingly Larry McReynolds from FOX. But I miss Darrell Waltrip desperately… Can we set up a campaign, petition, something, to get him on every single NASCAR broadcast no matter what network it’s on?? We need our DW fix.
There’s more random speculation about what team Dale Earnhardt Jr. will join next year. Lately people seem to think that he’ll go to a smaller operation like Ginn Racing. If he’s going to go that route then why not just start his own team? In theory I think it’d be very cool. It’s such a romantic thought to imagine him starting his own team, and being highly competitive straight out the box. Wouldn’t that be so much fun to watch? I’d love it. I don’t know how realistic that is, obviously it takes a tremendous amount of work (hello, Michael Waltrip) to get things going and then to be successful (win) seems to be another thing entirely.
And now for a super cute photo… This is Joe Nemechek and his son, John Hunter Nemechek, signing autographs at Pocono this past weekend. (photo credit: GinnRacing.com)
Since I didn’t get to watch the All-Star race festivities this weekend I don’t have much new to say, but I wanted to post something. So I give you this press release about the band Hinder. They’ve been tapped to cover the song “Born To Be Wild” for the new NASCAR on TNT theme song. Check it out below.
In other news…
My mind is racing with this incredibly great idea I came up with on Saturday. It involves me doing more blogging (we’re talking everyday, multiple times a day) and getting out to the races every weekend. I’m doing research on how I can make this happen and I’ll keep ya updated on what I find.
Hinder Remakes Rock Classic “Born To Be Wild” for TNT’s 2007 NASCAR Coverage
Exclusive premiere of full-length music video to debut on NASCAR.COM on June 6Turner Network Television (TNT) announced today that they have teamed with multi-platinum rockers Hinder to remake Steppenwolf’s classic hit single “Born to be Wild” as the network’s beat-driven anthem to promote its 2007 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series coverage. The song will serve as the primary musical bed for all six of TNT’s races, as well as for the network’s multiplatform marketing campaign surrounding its exclusive race coverage. To accompany Hinder’s cover of the rock-and-roll classic, the network is also producing a full-length music video of the song for the band that will debut exclusively on the Turner-operated Web site NASCAR.COM on June 6.
“When we were considering which music would anchor our NASCAR on TNT promos, we wanted to find a song that we thought would immediately resonate with NASCAR fans, and a band whose sound exemplified the muscle and energy of NASCAR,” said Craig Barry, Turner Sports VP/Creative Director. “Hinder is a true rock band on the rise. They have the sound and cross-over appeal that we were looking for to help us promote the high-energy and excitement of NASCAR on TNT.”
Hinder gained much attention with their 2006 ballad “Lips of an Angel,” the bands breakthrough single from their first album titled Extreme Behavior. In addition to topping the Billboard Pop 100 chart, the single climbed as high as the third spot on both Billboard’s Hot 100 and Mainstream Rock charts. The band is once again rising on the charts with their follow-up single, “Better than Me.”
From the full-length, hard-driving music video, Turner will produce several shorter spots in 30, 60 and/or 90-second lengths, as well as a three-minute version cut with NASCAR action highlights to serve as the feature NASCAR on TNT on-air promo. In addition, NASCAR.COM’s 24/7 Live host Riki Rachtman, formerly of MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball, will host a 15-minute behind-the-scenes look at the making of the video exclusively for the Web site. The spots will begin running on the network on June 6.
Previous musical pairings with TNT for its sports programming include Jay-Z (NBA), Fort Minor (2006 NBA Playoffs), Pharrell (2006 NBA All-Star Game), The Rolling Stones (NASCAR) and Fatty Koo (2005 NBA Playoffs).
To say that I’m miffed about that fact that the NASCAR Nextel Cup All-Star race is only being shown on the SPEED channel is a serious understatement.
I’m mad, annoyed, irritated. Obviously I don’t have the SPEED channel and therefore won’t be able to watch the festivities this weekend.
You’re probably thinking to yourself “Well if you’re such a big racing fan you should already subscribe to SPEED,” This is true but because cable costs an arm and a leg these days I’m not in any hurry to sign up and drive my cable costs up.
I just want it to go down for the record that I’m mad about this and I find it very stupid to put any All-Star anything on a premium cable channel. It should be on FOX or ABC, some channel that I could see for free with just rabbit ears on my TV.
