NASCAR | The Recycle Bin

Is the Chase already over?

I thought this was an interesting article on how to keep Johnson from winning six Championships in a row. The premise is that Johnson is so good on the Chase tracks that title number four is in the bag; title number five is a sure thing because the 2010 schedule is already set. That leaves NASCAR with an opportunity to stop Johnson’s roll in 2011.

There are only a couple of things I agree with in the article. The season should end at Daytona, and the “regular” season points leader should get some type of bonus.

Would any of that change things right now? Probably not, but Gordon would have the title in 2007 if not for the stupid points reset. That year Gordon went from a commanding 317 points lead to a 20 point deficit to Johnson.

The race for the Chase is on!

With only nine “regular season” races to go until the Chase starts, the battle is on to fill the 10-12 spots. It is hard to believe just how tight these positions are, with only 5 points separating Kenseth, Martin, and JPM. Lurking in the wings is Kahne, who is only one point back, and Reutimann, who is within 12 points of striking distance.

[position, driver, points, points back]
10 Matt Kenseth 2054 -470
11 Mark Martin 2052 -472
12 Juan Pablo Montoya 2049 -475
13 Kasey Kahne 2048 -476
14 David Reutimann 2037 -487

I was disappointed yesterday that the rain kept Jeff Gordon from picking up a second win, and some much needed bonus points. While the above drivers have to “points race” to make the Chase, under the current format, second place does not do Gordon much good.

The next few weeks should be interesting. I would really like JPM to make a push and secure a spot.

Sunday is sports day.

Happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there, strolling through the virtual goodness of the internet. What better way to kick off Sunday morning than a cup of coffee, and a hefty portion of Sunday sports.

U.S. vs. Egypt – Confederations Cup
Team USA takes on Egypt this afternoon in Confederations Cup action. Forget about the U.S. advancing to the next round and all that jazz. While it is mathematically possible for the U.S. to advance, I do not see Team USA clearing on goal differential; the U.S. is just not that creative, lacks a serious attacking striker. Besides, the defense will let us down at some point in the game with a boneheaded mistake.

At this point I just want to see Team USA not completely embarrass itself against Egypt. I known Italy and Brazil are the best of the best (FIFA #4 and #5 respectively as of June 3), but we should not be out of our league against top competition. Egypt is ranked #40, so this afternoon is a good chance to show if we are going make a decent recovery or if we just want to pack up and go home with our tails tucked between our legs.

Silverstone no more?
I thought watching the British GP this morning would be a nice Father’s Day treat, but no, Fox has to start their annual 3-4 mid season delayed broadcasts. In this day and age of “I want everything now” I really do not care much for trying to avoid results until after lunch, and then watching a race that ended several hours ago. Instead I will probably watch the IRL Iowa Car IndyCar 250 (I shit you not; that is the name), but back to F1. Silverstone seems to get no respect, at a delayed broadcast is a fitting end to this historic track.

Infineon – NASCAR style
It is always fun watching the circle boys race at Sonoma. Going into qualifying I would have picked Jeff Gordon, JPM, Kyle Bush, Sam Hornish Jr., and Tony Stewart – in that order. After qualifying, I think these guys have a decent shot, but it is just as likely the checker will go to someone else. Who? Not sure, but Gordon has not had much luck this year, Montoya is too far back, Bush will be too aggressive and make a mistake, and Stewart will not have a strong road race project. Of course Stewart has been defying such predictions all year.

I would love to see Montoya make the Chase, but I think this is almost a must win for Gordon. He needs more bonus points; one race victory is going to leave him as at disadvantage to everyone else in the Chase.

Going with hired gun Boris Said would be the easy pick for a Chase buster, so I am going to go back to Gordon, Stewart, and JPM.

Sunday Racing Stuff.

This was a great weekend of racing action; on TV (real life and the PS3). First up, congratulations are in order to Corvette for taking first in GT1 today at Le Mans. I wanted a decent amount of SPEED’s coverage, but Le Mans is not the type of race where you just sit down and watch end-to-end. Not to mention the fact that the race is 24 hours, I do actually have a life and commitments outside of watching racing on TV.

Jeff Gordon managed his fuel to a surprise (really a gift) second place finish today in Michigan. He is a healthy second in the Chase, 47 or so points back of Stewart, but only having one win is going to hurt his chances.

PS3 Gaming Update
All this racing action inspired me to try out some PS3 racing. These days I do not have a lot of free time for gaming, and my PS3 is extremely finicky with disc, randomly deciding to read/accept one. This weekend I managed to get in a few minutes with Gran Turismo 5: Prologue and Formula One Championship Edition.

Gran Turismo 5: Prologue
GT5 Prologue is an eye-candy pleasing, fun game, but to be honest, except for the graphics, I like GT4 better. Unfortunately, my two-year old son killed the GT4 disc; I assume I will buy another copy one of these days. I played around with Gt5 Prologue a little; just enough to make me chuckle a couple of times watching the lame AI race around the tracks. Good stuff.

Formula One Championship Edition
Next up was F1CE. This game is still a blast! The simulation mode is far from perfect, and while it is not as brutal as a “pure” simulation, it more than gets the job done. I had a great time just running hot laps in the time trial mode. This game has held up amazing well. It is too bad that there have been no downloadable options, other than rumble support. New circuits, teams, drivers … really any bonus content would be welcome. I think I read somewhere that Codemasters now holds the F1 license, but there is not currently a confirmed PS3 release in the works.

Ferrari Challege
I decided to order Ferrari Challenge for the PS3 from Amazon for $17.99; thanks to second day Prime shipping, the game will be here Wednesday. Sure the game has been out for a year, but that goes a long way to show how much my gaming patters have changed over the last couple of years. There was a time when this one would have been on my preorder list, but to be honest, these days I am so far removed from the gaming community that I assumed this was an arcade game similar the PSP version. Hell, even if was a pure arcade racer, there was a time when I would have had the game in hand on release day, played the heck out of it, offered up some initial impressions, and then go on a 5000+ word diatribe about the game. I digress. Those days are gone.

When I saw the cheap price, I headed to metacritic to check out the game. I am guessing that Ferrari Challenge got lost in the crowded field of other arcade racers – you know the GRID, DiRT, Need For Speed, Motor Storm, and to some degree the beautiful GT5: Prologue. I am going to guess that when everyone figured out you had to work for wins Ferrari Challenge fell by the wayside. Even if I hate the game, for less than $20, I figure that it is not a big loss.

Spinning the Dale – Eury Split.

I thought it was interesting that ESPN.com and RACER.com had different spins on the Dale Earnhardt Jr. / Tony Eury Jr. split.

First, yesterday ESPN.com had a link that stated Eury was fired, but it now states that Eury is “out” which are two slightly different takes on the situation. I don’t think I dreamed that it said fired, but I can no longer find the reference, so maybe I am mistaken. At any rate, ESPN.com has an interesting article on Lance McGrew, the new crew chief for Little E.

There is some thought within the sport that Eury and Earnhardt employed a different preparatory approach than that used by the other three Hendrick Motorsports teams. McGrew lent credence to that thought.

“I just believe there were some theories that they were using to making decisions by, that weren’t necessarily the same theory that’s on the rest of the complex,” McGrew said.

“The idea of having a multiple-car team is you can lean on your teammates. And you have to be within the same page to get any information. A lot of times they were not on the same page.”

I have always liked Junior, but other than Eury being “of the blood” I have never understood why Junior did not go after a top notch crew chief. I bet things turn around in a hurry.

RACER.com has a completely different take on the situation; read softer landing.

“Our performance hasn’t been where it should be,” said team-owner Rick Hendrick. “It’s impossible to pin that on any one factor, but a change is the right decision at this point. We have a plan in place, and we’re going to move forward with it.”

The rest of the article is mostly fluff and stuff about the Junior/Eury relationship. I have been impressed with the new RACER.com format, but this one was certainly not hard hitting news.

Monday morning sports quickie.

I guess I spoke too soon about UGA having any chance to win one for two from LSU. The Tigers quickly dispatched the Baseball Dawgs 16-0 (yes, not a mistake), and 3-2. I was trying to think of a way to make this sound respectable. Getting destroyed by the #3 team in the country, and eventual SEC Champion (LSU beat Vanderbilt in Sunday’s final) does not really help.

Jenson Button (Brawn) won a somewhat interesting Monaco Grand Prix; he was really never seriously challenged from the get to. To be fair, there is never a lot of passing at Monaco, but Massa tried to do his part to make things interesting, to no avail. Thanks to Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari finally managed its first podium spot of the 2009 season. Not sure if Ferrari was embarrassed to admit elation over a three-four finish, but I am sure there was much relief.

I know the Indy 500 was all about three time winner Helio Castroneves, but I thought the post race interview with Danica Patrick was telling. I have always thought she was sort of spoiled; at least that is what I have gathered from various articles and interviews. You would think she would have been happy with her career best (at Indy) third place finish, but it took her at least a minute and a half into the interview to say she was happy with third. Good grief.

Coca-Cola 600 moved to noon today due to rain.

Because everyone loves a quickie. Happy Memorial Day Monday!

Greatest racing day of the year.

There are several events that I look forward to each year, and two of them happen to occur today: The Monaco Grand Prix, and the Indianapolis 500. If you throw in the Coca Cola 600, you have one hell of a day of racing. Something like 9 hours of back-to-back racing fun. Throw some good meat on the grill, pop open a can (or bottle) of two of some cold ones, and the makings are there for a wonderful racing day.

Finally! Gordon takes a checkered flag!

With his victory today in Texas, Jeff Gordon finally ended a winless streak that dated all the way back to October 2007. Good grief, 47 races, and the kicker was that he had never won at Texas Motor Speedway in 16 previous tries, until today.

Gordon heads into the Easter weekend off week with 162 points in hand over second place Jimmie Johnson.

Johnson steals Martinsville, but Gordon still leads the Chase.

Not that it matters because the points will be reset. This format screws consistency. Thanks Kenseth.

Jimmy Johnson made a hell of a move on Denny Hamlin to take over first and never look back. Gordon lead early, and fooled me into believing that he would put his winless streak to an end, but not so much. At the end of the day, a fourth place finish is not too shabby. Especially when you consider that Gordon entered Martinsville with a 76 point lead over Kurt Busch, but left with a 89 points cushion over Clint Bowyer.

As I said, it is really all for naught unless the 24 car starts winning some races. The points bonus will be too much to overcome once they enter the Chase.

Jenson takes Melbourne. Will Gordon finally finish first?

As I mentioned yesterday, I am getting much too old to try to do the late night (early morning) F1 races, so I did not get to see Button take first earlier today. I also missed both Ferraris failing to finish the race. I guess I will also settle for recaps for the next couple of races, and maybe then get excited.

Of course now I actually sort of have a jones to take out my PS3 F1 game; wonder if a new version has been released. I have been completely disconnected from video gaming for several months now, but I digress.

Gordon has the Martinsville pole, thanks to being in first in the points, and a nice little rainout of qualification. Hopefully he can break his 46 race winless streak.

Indy Racing League Gets Interesting

I have always been a casual fan of the IRL – I do not follow the series very closely, but I do appreciate the exciting racing action, and of course the Indy 500. I have always thoughts that the IRL suffered for two reasons. First, the marketing arm of the IRL does not strongly promote their drivers in the way that NASCAR promotes their top guys. In my opinion, people love NASCAR because of the driver personalities – many are larger than life. Second, the IRL suffers because it is perceived by many casual fans as just another form of oval racing. Oval racing = NASCAR in much the same way that video games = PlayStation.

The reality is much different. As a racing fan I know the IRL’s top teams, top drivers, and understand how difficult it is to setup an open wheel racer to fly around an oval. It is not just driving around in circles. NASCAR is so ingrained in the casual racing community that the IRL is little more than an afterthought. Hopefully that will change. I have written about this before, but many NASCAR fans fail to realize that series has top drivers that started in the IRL.

F1 is by far my favorite form of motor racing. I love F1 because I like road courses, I love the pageantry, and I love the technology. Nothing else comes in as a close second. I follow all sorts of racing circuits – Le Mans, GT, Rally, you name it, but F1 is near and dear to me.

Of course I follow NASCAR – it is kind of hard to live in the South and not follow NASCAR, but it does not engage me in the same way that F1 manages to suck away my Sunday mornings. Except for the Indy 500, I only watch IRL races when there is nothing else on TV that I would rather watch. That is pretty much the same for all other racing except for a few Le Mans races that I always watch if I have the time. Sad and pathetic, but true.

The Indy Racing League just got more interesting. In early August the IRL announced that Infineon Raceway (California) and Watkins Glen (New York) were being added to the calendar in addition to 14 or so oval courses. Yesterday the IRL announced that addition of St. Petersburg, a street circuit race, to the 2005 schedule.

This is great news. The IRL now has ovals, two road courses, and a street circuit. Smells like roses to me. I hope that other racing fans take notice.