|
11-06-2007, 10:14 AM
| ||||
| ||||
| Dickies 500 Observations A new phrase: one of the announcers (Dr. Punch, I believe) labeled the rash of cautions in the first 35 laps as "Yellow Fever". I think he hit it on the head .. I understand there were 12 by the time the checkered fell. That's one every 41 miles or about every 27 laps. Then when you figure each time NA$CAR throws the yellow it takes at least 10 parade laps before the TV folks have bored us with commercials and replays and signaled NA$CAR to throw the green. That works out to about a third of the race at commercial. All I can say is they got their commercials worth during this race!!! Speaking of Commercials: while were on a "yellow fever" caused commercial break we got to watch the "race off pit road" then returned to commercials. While in the 2nd commercial break the green dropped so we knew we'd have hopefully one more commercial before we'd get to see the race again. But before the network could cram in any more commercials the yellow flew again!!! What a windfall!!! Didn't even miss a beat, another 10 minutes of commercials. And, I noticed something else: whenever the announcers all pause for a breath longer than 5 seconds, whoever's in the truck pushes the commercial button! Guess their reasoning is whenever those motormouths aren't talking, there's nothing to watch on the track and the pit reporters are between "human interest" stories... Stupid Interview Question: I about fell out of my chair laughing when Tony Gibson (Dale Jr.s crew chief) was asked before the race this question: "How hard are you guys working to get Jr. a win by the end of the season?" I was proud of this Tony for not smacking the pit reporter, thought I would have stood up and cheered had he!!! Quote of the Day: Spotter to driver - "It's not your job to think, you drive and you're doing a hell of a job of it!!! Deer Hunters Absent: Yeah, I saw a whole section of seats empty. They claimed there was 190K noses at the race, but they were missing a bunch. I heard on the radio over the weekend that the state had issued over a million dear hunting permits this year. And Saturday was opening season... In-Car Cameras: hmmm, did you notice all the in-car cameras were in Chevys? Denny's Frustrated: why else would he just drive into A.J. Almendinger? True, A.J.'s car was not performing well at that point, but it wasn't like he was suddenly sideways or something and Denny had no where to go... Considering he qualified 5th, A.J.'s day went down hill right after the green and ended much sooner than it needed to .. Denny didn't deliver the killing blow, but he wounded A.J.'s car badly enough it was only a matter of time. (Oh, BTW: Denny has fallen into a tie for last place in the chase .. maybe that's why he's "testy".) Quickies: Biff hits the cone; Tony & Happy wave at each other; Jeff Burton caught littering; and last but not least, Suzy Kolber speechless. Mikey's New NAPA Commercial: Mikey and Dale are sitting in a NAPA delivery truck .. which transforms into a blown dragster in trucks clothing .. when Dale asks if he can drive (shades of DW???), Mikey says "You've got your own truck." I'm beginning to think behind that big smile Mikey is pretty selfish... Announcers Can Make Mistakes too: as the camera shows the sun going down Dr. Punch comments on the beautiful sunset .. in "West Texas"! Somebody give him a map! Ft. Worth ain't in west Texas. I guess he was having a bad day also cause a bit prior to that one he tried to manufacture some concern/excitement when Gordo "narrowly escaped the big one". Problem is Gordo was half a straight in front of it! Mark's Bad Day: Mark was caught up in "the big one" (notice it's not capitalized 'cause it's not a restrictor plate race) and got a bent rear end among other things. Ryan Pemberton said it looked like it was "toe'd out about 8 inches" (that's very bad 'cause they are usually set at about 1/8 inch or so.) So they decided it was early enough in the race they could change it out and maybe manage a decent finish. Well, they worked their tails off and sent Mark back out .. as he was leaving the garage Mark noticed they had put in the wrong gears! Back into the garage (they hadn't even finished picking up their tools when he pulled back in!) Out with the wrong gears and in with the right ones. Mark re-entered the race 53 laps down. How about them last 25 laps? Doesn't matter who won, that was great racing. The way it's supposed to be: clean. Esteemed colleague - NASCAR - Yahoo! Sports And Now The Chase as of the Dickies 500:
__________________ Press One For English "It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others." - Steven Wright “If you have nothing to say, say nothing." - Mark Twain      |
|
11-06-2007, 01:38 PM
| ||||
| ||||
| Re: Dickies 500 Observations Once again, nice job RacerDuck. I hope you don't mind if I use your thread to make a few observations from the track last weekend, instead of starting a new thread. You could not get near a Jr. merchandise trailer all day Saturday and all day Sunday up until race time. The multiple lines were so long, you couldn't walk around them, you had to walk through them to get past them. The t-shirts were selling for $5.00 to $10.00 and the hats were selling for next to nothing. I don't know about anything else because that's all I could see from a distance, and I wasn't about to get in line to buy anything. I'll bet by the time they get to Homestead, you can get a #8 Budweiser Chevy Dale Jr shirt for $3.00, if you want it. All of the other drivers who are changing teams also had "Close Out Sale" on their stuff, but the lines were small. The only drivers who had long lines were Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon, but nothing like the #8. On race day...during the pre-race ceremonies, the President of Texas Motor Speedway got to the microphone to give his pep talk. At one point he mentioned Bruton Smith's name, which brought out a lot of "boos' from the crowd. So many I'd say, that it was quite noticeable. Stone Cold Steve Austin was great introducing the top 10 drivers and got a bigger reaction from the stands than anyone other than some of the drivers. There were a number of empty seats around the track, but nothing like the empty seats at Fontana on Labor Day, even considering it was the opening weekend of deer season in Texas. They rolled the cars out of pit lane and backed them up in a row facing the front stretch stands. The drivers then came out to their cars and that's where they stood for the invocation and the National Anthem, and also where they started their engines. I thought this was a nice touch. The top 20 cars were located in order of their starting position at the exit of pit road, where we were sitting. The rest of the cars were located at the entrance of pit road. And that is where they rolled off from. Fun to watch them punch it and let off, waiting to get going as their turn came up to leave. Believe it or not, there was a lot of good racing Sunday, all the way from the back through the middle to the front. Up front, I lost count with all the lead changes. It was such a pleasure to see all that going on. There were a few wrecks, but they all happened so fast, if you weren't looking that way when they happened, you missed them. Except for the big wreck. That one was not hard to miss. And the jumbo screens they have replay all the wrecks anyway, so no big deal. And it was so refreshing and exciting to watch all that racing without ABC's aggravating coverage. For most of the day, the #5 car was hard to beat. He was driving a rocket ship. After a restart from a caution, he took off like he had nitro and nobody could catch him. I thought surely he had the race won the way his car was running, but it just didn't last that way. Jr's was another fast car...during the day, especially when he ran up top. But when the sun started going down, things changed. The girl sitting next to me was a Jr fan. She had his frequency on her scanner and kept me updated all day with what he was saying. When his car started going south, he was cussing like a sailor about his front end and the person who put it in. Needless to say he was not happy about it. But apparently, there was nothing they could do about it, so he was negated to just doing the best he could with a poor driving car. One of the last things he said was, "I'm gettin' really hungry. Somebody needs to get us some ribs after this is over." When Clint Bowyer came in for his second pit stop to change tires, I think everyone knew he was done for the day. There was a collective "damn" coming from the stands. It seemed to me that the majority of people who were there, no matter who their favorite driver was (except the #24 and the #48 fans) were pulling for Clint to have a great race and pass both Jeff and Jimmy. It's like the whole place felt the let-down Clint and his team were probably feeling. The pit crews remind me of firemen. One minute you're sitting around relaxing, shooting the breeze with your buds, the next minute you're going as fast as you can to get the job done. When it's all over, you're back to sitting around relaxing, shooting the breeze with your buds, waiting for the bell to ring again. These guys are incredible, and it's fun to watch them do their thing. The race between Jimmie Johnson and Matt Kenseth was AWSOME to watch live. I had my binoculars on them all the way to the end. Those two guys raced hard and they raced fast. Slippin' and slidin', banging and racing side by side. Back and forth until Jimmy finally made the last pass for the win. And even though I didn't like who won, my hats off to both of them for the exciting show they put on and the way they raced each other. Nobody in the the stands were sitting down. And they were getting standing ovations every time they came by. Oh, and did I say awesome racing? All in all, it was a great weekend. Perfect weather. Great fans. Great racing. And no goof balls on TV or commercials to break into all the action going on, or during all those cautions. |
| Sponsored Links |
|
11-06-2007, 02:49 PM
| ||||
| ||||
| Re: Dickies 500 Observations 3fan, that was a terrific addition to the Observations thread. Maybe we need to send you to every race  |
 |
| Thread Tools | |
| Display Modes | |
|
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 07:57 PM.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Linear Mode
