and the crowd goes mild!

8/6/2019 .....and the Crowd Goes Mild!

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.And the crowd goes mild!

Hello again, gang. Long time no see.

The collective bored yawn that will be heard as Jimmie Johnsons 4th Sprint Cup trophy in a row is

awarded to him at Homestead next week will be a round-the-world shot.

Why will there be no excitement, other than from certain media types wetting their pants as they try to

outdo each other concerning who will do the most-dramatic and sappy 4th

championship in a row!

story, or the Jimmie Johnson fan club? This lack of excitement also being the most-underreported story

of the 2009 season?

Because nobody cares about Johnsons 4th

Championship in a row

Hang on, I apologize, as I fell asleep typing that.

What is going to be the most-reported story of the 2009 Sprint Cup season? A simple statistic, Johnsons

4th championship in a row, is going to be the dominant headline from now until race 35 of the 2010

season. Will he repeat for a 5th

? Will history be made yet again?

A prediction: As in 2009, nobody will care about Johnson winning the championship for a record 5th

time

in 2010, either. I do suspect, however, that the number of Sunday daytime sleepers will drastically

increase by about the same amount that viewership during NASCAR races decreases during 2010.as

more people tune out NASCAR.

Rather than mention why 42 other teams cant get close to Johnson.and how the most equal sport in

the land aint so equal.the bulk of the media covering NASCAR will simply gush, ad-nauseum, about

how Johnson has won a historic 4th Championship in a row, when Johnsons victory next week should

instead be a clarion call, a deceased Canary in the Coal Mine of sorts, indicating something is horribly

amiss within the world of NASCAR racing. I will mention why this is important later on.

The second-most underreported story will be how the #48 team has finally figured out how to mate a

supposedly non-computerized NASCAR-series race car with a computer. Seeing Johnsons almost perfect

performances (last weeks accident at Texas Speedway was a hiccup, not a tuning problem) over the last

nine chase events makes me consider the possibility that Knaus and company have perfected the ability

to have a computer program set the car up for each individual track, without the benefit of having an

on-board computer.

I know this is beginning to delve into the realm of the tin-foil-wearing contingent, in addition, most ofwhat I am about to say is mere speculation, but I mention nothing conspiratorial; the #48 team simply

has the best of everything and can devote more resources into being able to create a program to

duplicate every possible track condition, and set the car up accordingly. You obviously cant program for

crashes or other random events, but nobody is thatconsistent with a car setup unless you have the

assistance of a good-sized, properly-programmed computer.


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The reason I mention this?

Ive spent a considerable amount of time watching Johnson since the beginning of the chase. He sails

around the track, week after week, with very few bobbles. The car looks flawless, if you can consider a

3500-pound, spoiler-equipped barn door flawless.while everyone else out there looks like theyre

driving on an entirely different track. In fact, I think I heard this very tidbit mentioned during the race atPhoenix on Sunday, how it appeared that Johnson was on another track.

I find it rather difficult to believe that nobody, not evenJimmie Johnsons own teammates have much of

anything for Jimmie Johnson whenever he hits clean air. Mark Martin represents the only possible

challenge to Johnsons quest, yet he cant get the job done on a consistent basis, either, and if anyone

can drive, its Mark Martin.

But even though Martin has a couple of wins in the chase.Johnson was always right there.

Im just finding it difficult to believe that the #48 is thatflawless, folks. Ive been watching various forms

of motorsports for over two decades, and the only sort of dominance I can compare it to is the JohnForce Racing juggernaut over in the NHRA, where John Force himself has won 14 national titles in Funny

Car, and now his driver Robert Hight has just won another. I am a fan of John Force, but his winning

almost everything for the better part of two decades isnt the best way to keep interest in the sport,

especially if its putting other teams out of business due to hardly any sponsor wanting much of anything

to do with investing in trying to topple John off of the top of the Nitromethane Funny Car ladder.

There is a reason why Im bringing this up.

The problem with this sort of year-in, year-out blowing everyone else out of the water business is that it

is bad for the sport in general. Nobody but Jimmie Johnsons fan club and Hendrick Racing themselves

wants to see Johnson win again and again; the problem in this case, however, is not the fault of the

teams, although they have to share some of the blame.

The problem with one car dominating, year after year, is that it turns people away from stock car racing,

or any other form of racing (unless hes a jerk, or really flamboyant). I am trying to remain objective

here, as I dont really favor any one driver over another.but its now to the point where Im sick of

seeing Johnsons forced victory grin, week after week, and I really dont give a flying bleep who else

wins at this point; I just want to see someone, anyone else win.

I am now about to infuriate the Jimmie Johnson fans, so Ill remind those of you who bleed #48 blue and

silver that my email address is at the bottom of the page.

I am not convinced that Jimmie Johnson is one of the great drivers.

I see a robot who is given an almost perfect car week in and week out (and to Johnsons credit, an idiot

could screw up a perfect race car, and has done so many times throughout the ages). Not perfect in the

sense that it doesnt have any problems, but perfect in that it isnt as big of a heap as everything else is

out there (remember that the Car of Some Hideous Alternate Tomorrow is an engineering disaster). I


3/5

think the #48 team, given its prodigious resources/war chest accumulated through 3 championship

seasons from sponsors who will pay through the nose to keep a championship team up front, has been

able to donate more resources than anyone else to the pursuit of being able to have a computer

program determine the setup week in and week out.

And given the almost flawless performances during the 2009 Chase so far.with no other team beingeven in the same league.I know I am going to get emails from angry NASCAR fans suggesting I am an

idiot, that Johnsons team is simply doing everything right so far, other teams have been dominant in

the past with similar comments being thrown about it being unfair, that they are winning so much,

blah blah blah.

Please understand that I am agreeing with you, but I think they are doing everything right in a rather

unfair manner.

In the Car of Tomorrow, NASCAR forced a parity chassis design down the throats of the team owners

with the reassurances that it would produce closer racing, and that it would reduce costs for the teams

since everyone would have the same basic car.

Whoops. Oh, hey, whaddya know, this is a great segway into the the Deceased Canary in the Coal

Mine segment.

Either somebody lied, or the Brian trust down in Daytona Beach truly has no idea how to run this

series. In addition, I think the idiots down there have done so much to eradicate their own history, even

though creative crew chief after creative crew chief figured out ways around the rules, it never occurred

to them that a certain well-funded team could figure out a way around the Car of Tomorrow, which in

theory is supposed to be tamper-proof.

NASCAR spent money like a drunken sailor to improve anti-cheating technology (I dont really have a

better word for it right now), and ratcheted up the rules enforcement to the point where they thought

they had eliminated cheating in the ranks.

Heres a question for you folks: What if a team, a certain, well-funded team (who will remain unnamed,

yet I think we all know who were talking about), simply gave up on trying to cheat/explore grey area

to win, freeing up resources in the process.and instead focused that effort on trying to develop a

computer program to create reliable, almost perfect setups for races during the Chase?

Didnt think about that one, did you?

Im not suggesting that Knaus and company are or were cheating, although they have been caught doing

it before, with Knaus spending some quality time at home for a bit of engineering skullduggery a couple

of Daytona 500s ago.what Im saying is that I think they figured out a way around one of the most

setup-sensitive race cars in the history of racing, and until other teams figure out what how they are

doing it.get used to seeing Johnson dominating during the Chase.


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Provided that you have bulletproof engines, and the best of equipment, with a sanctioning body

determined to eradicate cheating, if it gets to the point where its no longer profitable to explore the

grey area of the NASCAR rulebook, why then a man, a smart man (cue in The Road Warrior theme

music), he will look at how to get around the problem of how to gain, and then maintain an unfair

advantage over everyone elsein a different way.

Most of the equipment to pull this off is already being used, and if I am judging this correctly, most of

what I am saying is already well known. What I think isnt well known is that it appears that the #48 has

been able to mind-meld the equipment and the car together to the point where the computer now has

enough data to give optimum setups for key tracks, and while they dont have to be spot-on, they are at

least close enough to where a few minor tweaks before and during the event will keep the car up front.

Most teams are now struggling, and dont have the funds for this sort of engineering feat.but Hendrick

Racing does.

The problem here? Most of this equipment (a multi-million dollar 7-post shaker rig?) should have never

been allowed. Limits on what a team can spend should have been set years ago. Both NASCAR and

teams in general are at fault for why the costs of operating a team have gotten to the breaking point;

NASCAR should have never allowed it to get out of hand, and more than a few teams should have had a

bit more foresight in not allowing the technology genie to get out of the bottle, by raising a stink when it

first appeared, staying home if need be. If enough teams bow out.

However, when one tries to keep up with the Joneses, something as paltry as the future tends to get

ignored.in addition to lessons taught by past history.

NASCAR is primarily at fault for the problems facing the sport. What they have done, by thinking they

were smarter than everyone else, and refusing to acknowledge their own history of countless crew

chiefs spending thousands of hours trying to figure out how to get around the rules, is foist a lackluster,tamper-proof car onto the huddled NASCAR masses , and then arrogantly dared them to try to get

around Da Rules.

It never occurred to Those Who Dwell In Daytona that a team would give up trying to cheat, and use the

weaknesses of the Car of Tomorrow against them, to show Those Who Dwell In Daytona just how flawed

and broken the sociology experiment that the COT represents is.

It never occurred to these troglodytes that an enterprising (and well-funded) team would develop all of

that expensive equipment into a weapon itself, and instead of cheating to get ahead, they would simply

go in another direction and improve upon already-existing technology to predict perfect setups.

Ironic, isnt it? NASCAR focuses on using the latest technology to eradicate cheating, and what they

havent figured out, is with the latest technology, cheating is soooo 20th

Century. The smart guys have

figured out that you dont need to cheat anymore to get ahead; with the temperamental Car of

Yesterdays Tomorrow, you simply have to get your setup just a little bit better than everyone elses.

Simple, really.


5/5

Cheating, like NASCAR themselves and their great equality racing experiment through the template

Car of Tomorrow, which was hawked as a method to improve the quality of competition throughout

the series, with the promise of closer racing.and has failed miserablythey both have

become.obsolete.

The problem is that NASCAR wont figure that one out until Johnson wins his 8th

or 9th

championship in arow.and has no one left to race.

and the crowd goes mild!

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