zero to pointless in 3.5 seconds

8/6/2019 Zero To Pointless In 3.5 Seconds.

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NASCAR Racing: Zero to Pointless in 3.5 Seconds

Hello again, gang.

Even though I had a busy work weekend, I still managed to squeeze in being able to watchfourraces

between Friday and Monday, from four different racing series.

And after viewing said races, NASCAR needs to pray to God Almighty that the bulk of the television

viewing audience that hasntbailed from watching every weeks Rainout 500 doesnt discover that

there are indeed othertypes of racing out there.

I dont know if someone slipped me a videotape of NASCAR Bleeps and Blunders as a joke or

something, but most of what I saw during the Heluva Bad Race 500 at the scenic Watkins Glen facility

was nothing more than morons and desperate idiots trying to muscle a bloated car (that didnt

particularly enjoy being driven that way) around a road course, with the bulk of the 43 drivers on the

track falling into two categories; the first group I just described, and the poor guys who just happened to

accidentally get in their way.

Even worse? I watched the Rolex Grand-Am series event at the very same track on Friday.which was

the worst mistake of my race-viewing career. The race wasnt horrible; far from it, actually. Even though

lack of sponsor support has decimated the budgets of most everyone out on the track, and the France

cartel has their hands all over this race series too, I constantly found myself on the edge of my couch

saying such classic utterances as Bleep bleeping BLEEP!!, and Holy bleep, I thought they were going

to bleeping BLEEP!!!, as there was extremely close racing during the entire event. At times, there were

as many as three to four cars trying for the lead in Daytona Prototype, with these cars having to both

fight each other, and dodge the slower cars on the track belonging to the GT class (Porsche, Mazda,

Pontiac, BMW, Corvette).

What was the problem, then?

Watching both NASCAR and Grand-Am race on the same track, during the same weekend.

On Friday, I watched the light Daytona Prototypes, and the latest and greatest from automobile

manufacturers (wait, isnt that what NASCAR was supposed to be doing?). And with that race fresh on

my mind, I then watched the NASCAR gang run the same race course on Monday.

I stepped away from the race for the first three laps, and when I got back, I was wondering if they were

still on a pace lap.only to discover that there was indeed some racing going on.

I am glad that NASCAR visits at least two road courses during a Sprint Cup championship season.it

breaks the monotony of the series, and also throws a monkey wrench into the works; almost all of the

drivers come from circle-track-only backgrounds, so this separates the great drivers from the pretty-

darn-good ones, with the great drivers being able to adapt to both left-and-right turns.


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After seeing this event, and comparing it to cars that race full time on road-course circuits.Im thinking

that the road courses should either be canned from the schedule, or allow the cars to drop 500-1000

pounds before letting them compete.which might not be a bad idea for the entire season.otherwise,

it is getting to be a bit pathetic watching these 3500-pound rolling billboards slide all over the track like

a production of Disneys Drunken Hobos On Ice skating event.

You know, Im curious about something, and I didnt think about it until I visited someones office earlier

today. Plastered all over his walls were pics of Dale Juniors #88.and come to find out, the guy was a

hard-core NASCAR fan. After watching the Heluva Slide-a-thon 500 at Watkins Glen, with the wreck-

fest that occurred during the event, along with most of the stinkers of races that have occurred this

season, and noting just how ponderous these cars are when you match them to most anything else out

there burning laps around a race track.at what point do we acknowledge that something is definitely

wrong with NASCAR racing in general, and quit ignoring this bushel instead of trying to hide this fact

behind a show of brightly-colored ribbons in support of our favorite driver?

Im not knocking anyone for having a favorite driver out there.Im still rooting for the Old Man, Mark

Martin, myself.Im just curious as to when the most hard-core of fans will have finally had enough of

the failed sociology experiment in the COT, by staging an anti-health-care-reform-style of revolt, and

stay home from the track until NASCAR quits screwing around with a turd of a car that produces racing

excitement on-par with watching a blindfolded-and-handcuffed 30-man Battle Royale during WWE

Wrestlings Monday Night Blah.

Moving on.

Death of a racing series?

As evidenced right before the demise of Trans-Am racing, and CART, where one driver won almost all ofthe races during the last season or two before the two series collapsed (with Tommy Kendall finally

eclipsing Mark Donahues single-season win record in the Trans-Am series.whoopie-freaking-doo, as

now he doesnt have a ride anywhere.just like Paul Tracy from CART) , Ron Hornadays success in

NASCAR Truck competition makes me wonder if we arent seeing the end of Camping World Truck

unfold before our very eyes.

Ive watched three out of the last five events; nobodyhas anything for Ron Hornaday. While I dont mind

someone dominating.with a series that has been so decimated by the departure of three auto

manufacturers (and their support).one guy running away with the show will only drive away the rest of

any potential sponsors.of any substance, anyway. By the way, aside from me or a few other people in

the auto repair world out there, who has actually used products from sponsors such as

Strutmasters.com?

If Ron continues to dominate in the weakest of the top-level professional NASCAR race series venues,

most anyone who might actually have something of a budget for a successful racing team will go into

advertising their wares in other markets, as the cost of trying to make a team good enough to beat the

#33 whoever-is-sponsoring-it-this-week Chevrolet Silverado driven by Ron Hornaday will greatly exceed


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any logical investment vs. return balance sheet, especially since there isnt much prize money to be

won, anyway.

Down and dirty at Eldora Speedway

The World of Outlaws Kings Royal was run at Tony Stewarts Eldora Speedway this last Saturday night

(or Sunday night?).and Donny Schatz didnt disappoint his boss.Tony Stewart. The Armor-All car

owned by Stewart only had competition at one point during the 40-lap feature event; Dale Blamey, prior

winner of the Royal, and brother to other prior winner Dave Blamey (they are the only two brothers to

have both won this race), with Dales team racing on a shoestring budget (one car and one engine),

Blamey managed to give Donny Schatz a run for his money for a few laps during the dash for $50,000,

but as Dale wore his tires out early, Donny caught Blamey, passing him and never looked back, with

Schatz getting the check for $50,000, and a seat on the wooden throne (flush handle removed).

Stewart was also in attendance, but he drove the Armor-All-prepared black Corvette to the track, the

same car as seen in one of Tonys most-recent commercials, and as in the commercial he once again was

distracted and entranced by the shine of the car for twelve straight hours, with Stewart not being able

to notice this time that instead of a blonde woman doing her very best to kiss Tony to death, he was

being pelted with hundreds of pounds of mud, rocks, and hot-dog wrappers during the race as the 430-

cubic-inch, nine-hundred-horsepower cars shot around the track. And in addition to not noticing that he

was being drilled by ground-and-food-container-based shrapnel, he also failed to notice that his driver

won the Kings Royal until they shut the track lights off.

The #9 Budweiser sprint car owned by Kasey Kahne, and driven by Joey Saldana, was the favorite to win,

but Joeys ragged-edge flirting with the wall bit him in both a heat race, where he somehow recovered

from smacking the outside retaining wall to finish third, and then early on in the Royal feature, where he

again smacked the wall, but this time put himself out of contention, putting an early and heartbreakingend to his evening, as evidenced by Saldana beating himself up in the pits (Fight-Club-style) during an

interview right after the incident.

And in other news, multiple-Royal-winner and World of Outlaws God Steve Kinser mysteriously punted

his #11 Quaker-State car backwards into the inside wall about halfway through the event, ending his 26th

attempt at winning the Kings Royal early in the race.

On a side note: If you havent ever watched World of Outlaws.youre missing one Heluva race series.

Viewing an Outlaws sprint car race is like watching a tornado in a trailer park, but since theres a fence

around it, its safe to pull up and let the kids get out to watch the plastic flamingos, empty beer cans,

and disabled primered Camaros fly around violently in the air.

The show that almost nobody is watching.

Have any of you seen Pinks All-Out, on Speed channel?

Im not sure why Im insisting on watching it, especially since I dont have a lot of free time lately, but I

have a few ideas as to what might be pulling me into viewing as often as I can.


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First, this show drastically removes the white-trash element from the regular Pinks show, as Pinks

tended to pit two teams of greasy-looking race teams against each other, with the winner getting both

cars.with the prize usually having a grenaded engine, or something else or another blown to pieces.

In addition, the screaming matches between both teams as they accused each other of every nefarious

trick in the book harkened back to my occasional accidental viewing of Jerry Springer; at any givenmoment, during a slurred, angry tirade from the obvious spokesman of one team or the other, I fully

expected a pregnant-and-tattooed woman, with cigarette in mouth, to burst out onto the track and

demand why her brother refused to claim the baby as his.

Oh joy, qualityviewing.

Pinks All-Out is an obvious departure from its early, Jenny Jones-roots; while you still get an occasional

rather-excitable driver out there who doesnt quite have all of his teeth intact (okay, 7-10 split), the

manufactured drama is.gone. You have both men andwomen competing. The show is darn-near jam-

packed with drag-racing, and to be honest, professional drag racing (via the NHRA) could learn a thing

or two from Pinks all-out about how to show an event on TV; minus the over-boisterous commentary of

a couple of the guys on the new show.the action keeps moving, even in face of an oil-down.

Instead of two low-rent teams trying to out-sandbag each other, as they try to scam the other team into

somehow losing, as with the original show.All-Out is pretty simple; its basic drag racing with a little

little cash betting involved, and entirely run whatcha brung. No bracket racing, throttle stops, or delay

boxes.you launch it, and then run your car out the back door. The producers try to keep the racing as

close as possible by pairing cars with similar elapsed times together, so you dont have disparate

differences during every race between competitors; unless someone breaks, or gets out of the

groove.its almost always close racing.

You want to sandbag, and hold back a bit, to save something for the final? Nope, sorry, thats

considered cheating, as they are also monitoring the racers elapsed times. The fans are paying to see

drag racers run the wheels off of their cars, and if someones trying to pull something, with the prime

example being sandbagging or nailing the brakes (like they do in regular/yawn bracket racing) theyre

booted immediately if theyre discovered to be pulling something funny. No ifs, ands or buts.youre

outta there.

The show is not without its own problems; during the event in Texas, even after being warned with

being banned for two years if they were caught with regular anti-freeze in their cars (nobody, If I recall

correctly, including NASCAR, allows regular anti-freeze on a race track, as its almost impossible to clean

up from the track surface) two mental troglodytes were busted (and banned, with the second guy

almost being banned for life) early on for spraying the track with anti-freeze.

The first guy, I might be able to see where he screwed up, as he just came from Oklahoma, where the

night-time temps were still below freezing only a week prior to this event.the second guy should have

been banned for life, simply because he was so damned ugly.


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The Pinks All-Out trip to newly-built Z-Max Dragway, on the grounds of Charlotte Motor

Speedway/Lowes Motor Speedway.just in case nobodys noticed.the drag strip hasfourlanes.

Thats right,fourcars running down a drag strip at a time.

It looks trippy seeing four cars run at a time.but while its a great thing for moving the racing along at a

quick pace, as I think the original plan was to continue with two-car racing, but have two tracks to use in

case of an engine explosion/oildown, that way you can simply switch sides if someone oils down the

track.it makes the cars harder to see for the fans in the stands. The jury is out as to whether or not its

worth it.but for now, I like it. It was great to see all four lanes being used, as it allowed early rounds to

go through a lot faster, vs. going two at a time.but it also removes the mano e mano draw of a basic

two-car drag race.

If you havent seen Pinks All-Out yet.give it a try sometime. Its interesting seeing the only show on

television that actually shows racing at the most basic of levels, and Im not sure theres anything out

there on TV quite like it that gets the grassroots level more involved.the guys you see on Pinks all-out

could be anybody. No multi-million-dollar sponsors. No 18-wheeler car haulers. No back-up race car in

the trailer. You dont have teams of engineers swarming all over the car. No PR guy standing behind you,

pinching you as a reminder to mention your corporate sponsors.

While the cars represented are usually the result of modest budgets.almost anyone out there,

provided they work smart and hard to build a competitive car, its entirely possible that they could make

it into the show. So yes, anyone can compete. It could be your neighbor, a family member, the grocery-

store owner three blocks over, or that creepy axe-murderer-looking guy two doors down out there on

the track that you see next on Pinks All Out.

Whatever theyre doing to make the show interesting; I do know one thing.they are definitely packingthe stands.

See you next week.

zero to pointless in 3.5 seconds

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