[Racer Duck]

There were several “items” that will make this particular race a race to remember:

• Two different Fox cameramen have set records of sort, one for recording his 1 millionth lap (I'll let you figure out how many races that is...) and the other for the most laps with a hand held camera. My hope is that these guys love racing and their job, 'cause that's a long time to be doing something you don't care for...
• How many races have you seen where the race sponsor's “spotlight” car is the first out? Not often, but it does happen. And it happened again .. on lap 18. Ya gotta feel for Elliott Sadler. Especially since it appeared he had a top 10 car.
• This was the final race of the year for Fox Sports. And, because they were giving “report cards” to several, I thought I'd give them a report card.
  • Though the on-camera personalities generally fell into either the “love 'em” or “hate 'em” categories, I have to say, they bring a lot of experience in the sport with them and are knowledgeable in many areas the average broadcaster isn't. Some might call them experts.
  • My biggest gripes with Fox have included: the non-real time ticker at the beginning of the year; the continued difference between where the camera was pointed and who the announcers were talking about; the cutting away from one car's pit stop (who might be among the leaders) before it was half done to focus on one of their worshiped drivers who was an also ran that day; showing pit stop times was inconsistent at best; the fawning over “certain” drivers by a certain announcer; and finally the 27 instant replays of the accidents with the big names involved that finally convinced that certain announcer he was incorrect in his assessment of the blame (though he never admitted he was wrong.)
  • The common practice of cutting to commercials and not returning until after the race was restarted.. For some reason they thought giving partial coverage during yellow flag pit stops was OK, and they didn't even try to cover but 5 or 6 cars on green flag pit stops (and you can guess who they were.) Many times a car left the track for whatever reason, but they never mentioned it .. unless it was a “worshiped” driver. This caused many fans to seek other means to keep track of their favorite driver. Not only is it sad they were for the most part biased on their reporting, but other than initial lineup, many drives never got their name mentioned during the race.
  • The hours and hours of pre-race coverage with barely enough time after the race to show post race interviews, many times skipping a “non-worshiped” driver who finished in the top 5 to get the “just out of the car” interview with a “worshiped” driver.
  • Thus, my grade for Fox Sports coverage of the first third of the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup season is a C. And I think I'm being generous.

Quotes:

• “107% all day” - Greg Biffle
• “my fault .. I was within half a lap of Elliott and shouldn't have been.” - Tony Stewart
• “The great thing about (Kyle) Busch is his wallet hasn't gotten between his foot and the gas pedal.” - Buddy Baker

Commercials (I decided to ignore the Bad and the Ugly this week .. they were there, but I ignored them):

• Best of the Race: “Brownie Bribe” from Cars.com
• Honorable Mention: “The Michelin dog is lost!” - Michelin Tire
• An Oldie but a Goodie: “Q&A's with Jeff Burton” – Holiday Inn ( I particularly enjoyed the last two questions – that he didn't answer: “Does your helmet ever get stuck on your head?” and “How come you don't have a mullet?” .. obviously true race fans!)
• Finally, the Most Uplifting: “Maddy” - One Touch ( I know this was a commercial, but the message wasn't .. the message was about how you approach life.)

Speaking of commercials: while watching the “Remote Controlled Race Cars” commercial from 'Yota and seeing Tony Stewart throw his helmet at his errant race car, I wondered “Would NASCAR penalize a driver for throwing his helmet at his own car?” (Yeah, I often have off the wall thoughts like that.)

Sharing Pit Stalls: did ya catch the bit about Sorenson & Raines having to share pit stall #42? Seems Dover doesn't have enough room for 43 pit stalls, so the lowest qualifiers have to share. Can you imagine the chaos if both of them were race leaders? I know my idea will get a lot of pooh-poohing, but .... why not only start 42 cars? Or, even better: have a coin flip to see whether the last two qualifiers share a pit stall or the top 2 qualifiers!!! Where does it say they HAVE to start 43 cars, anyway? What would they do if only 40 showed up for a race? Allow Nationwide cars to “move up”? This is even more archaic than the Chosen and pretty much assures the teams sharing pit stalls will not finish well.

Coming UP out of the turn: great camera shots of the cars almost taking air coming (up) out of the corners. The announcers mentioned it in the pre-race and once or twice during the race, but it took a couple strategically placed cameras to show exactly how close the cars got to airborne. 'Course most viewers probably never noticed it....

Intentionally causing a Yellow: Is it better to take a penalty or risk tearing up your car trying to get to pit road as quickly as possible? Seems the penalty is not severe enough to discourage drivers from stopping on the track, or doing something else to cause a yellow flag. Of course I understand not wanting to tear your car up, but race car drivers should be capable of going slow enough to prevent that .. after all, they are highly paid “professionals”! How about automatic loss of a lap PLUS held in the pits until the race goes green? Think that would get their attention? Course, Raines was also sharing a pit space, so maybe he was just trying to get his turn sooner...

NO RACING ON PIT ROAD! That's the sign that's needed on Vickers' dashboard. Not only did he get caught going too fast leaving the pits near the end of the race, but then backed it up with another speeding penalty on the next caution!!! (I'd probably had “The Perfect Storm” in Fantasy racing this week without his heavy pit road foot: I had Shrub, Flipper, Biff and Vickers!) To his credit, Brian is perplexed that he could have been speeding since he has the #3 pit stall... But we all know computers don't lie .. intentionally.

Jack's Back! 3 of 5 in the top 4; 4 of 5 in the top 10; 5 of 5 in the top 15! HMS and RCR not even close. And Yates put both cars in top 16! Except for that 'Yota that nobody seems able to stop, the Blue Oval came out on top by a wide margin this week. But their pit stops need work...

The Coach strikes again: For Shrub's last pit stop, the Coach was heard motivating his pit crew to make it quick and good. And they didn't let him down. Shrub came out 3 seconds ahead of Flipper and proceeded to widen the gap.

Spotlight Teams: (in no particular order)

• #17 car is finally getting back into form .. and I think they're cautiously relieved getting a 4th at Dover..
• #15 car was running strong and was fast enough the leaders had a hard time passing all race long, but slid back to 22nd, four laps down at the finish.
• #28 car – Kvapil seems to have energized not only the 28 team but the whole Yates organization. His 11th place finish is just what the doctor ordered.
• #7 car – what can you say about a guy who races in one of the toughest off-road events of the year (Baja 500) on Saturday (they had a hub failure which caused an early retirement) then steps into a totally different vehicle on the other side of the country on Sunday and without any qualifying or practice laps and runs 400 miles on one of the toughest tracks on the NASCAR Sprint Cup schedule and finishes 19th! Awesome Robby!

The race is history and I can say I'm truly happy: my Fantasy picks were good this week, for the most part I enjoyed the race, but most of all NO MORE BOOGITY .. OR DIGGER!!!.

[wardfan]

I didn't catch them mentioning the shortage of pits this year. I knew they were short ONLY because 2 or maybe 3 years ago one of the"chosen", I forget who now, but they had to share a pit. So that was the only time I remember the announcers talking about it.

[NASCAR Gnome]

As usual, the Racer Duck does a masterful job with a succinct recap of this past weekend's action!

As an aside, Toyota won all three series this past weekend. Scott Speed in the Red Bull Toyota in CTS, Hamlin in the JGR Toyota in Nationwide and Kyle Busch in the Combos Toyota. The boys and girls at TRD in California must be very, very happy! Time to get HAMMERED on some warm SAKI!

The wreck looked like it was happening in slow motion even though it happened in real time! What a chain-reaction! Horrible!

Memo to Denny Hamlin: (in the Cup race) The GAS pedal is on right side, BRAKE pedal on left/middle NOT visa versa! Nice job SLAMMING into the pile there boyo!

Who said Paul Menard's not a good driver? Did you see his move to avoid the wreck? Very nice! David Ragan did a great job playing follow-the-leader to Menard and got out of that stinking pile safe and sound! Now, THAT's a perfect illustration of the saying: "Better lucky than good!"

Juan Pablo Montoya rebounded nicely from having his psyche stepped on by old Chippy this past few weeks to finish 12th after starting in 35th. I believe that race car drivers, like thoroughbred horses, are very finicky, emotional and temperamental and if you muck with their heads too much, you end up with drivers who don't give a poop and that will show in the race.

Kyle Busch was giving grief to Jason Leffler about getting wrecked in the NNS race. Uh, Kyle, that's your TEAMMATE (just for that race, of course) at Braun! Maybe you could be a little more considerate? Why would he deliberately take you out? Gotta love these kids!

And lastly, as big a JPM fan I am, I am also warming up to the "new" car #44 driver David Reutimann! I commented earlier this year that he was put in a huge pile of you-know-what when he left the #00 and at one point even had to qualify the #44 to make the race! He's now moved the #44 UPS Toyota into 28th in owner points and that shows you why he has won another fan in me!

[Racer Duck]

thanks gnome. I figured I'd leave the details of the escapes and near escapes to the pros.

I finally figured out who that yellow car was that slid between the wall and the wreck about the 5th replay. I kept trying to figure out if Denny had "stepped out for a smoke" or something 'cause he sure wasn't present the last 200 yards his car traveled before the "piling on" penalty.

Dunno know how I missed Juablo. He did, indeed, have a good day.

[j-man24fan]

i'll never know why people hate Boogity Boogity Boogity..... but i think its rediculouse that people already hate digger, it's only been 16 races in. i see no reason for the hate, and thats my opinion.

[LSC9901]

Originally Posted by j-man24fan

i don't see why people hate Boogity Boogity Boogity..... but i think its rediculouse that you already hate digger. i see no reason for that

J-man ... don't take our opinions personally. I, personally, do not care for DW because he is loud and over bearing. Boogity might have been cute if he had done it once but the thrill of it has worn off just as other "hooks" have worn away with other companies. McDonalds wasn't always "Lovin' it". When "You deserve a break today" had been used enough they changed it. DW shows his favoritism in too many directions and he is very blatant about it. So much so that to many viewers he comes off as a real Bozo and most anything connected to him is tainted in some way.

Does everyone dislike "Boogity" ??? Not at all. I for one can respect your opinion for enjoying it but .... it is "MY" opinion and it isn't ridiculous. Those are a few of my reasons and they are very logical for me. Others choose to dislike Boogity for other reasons, dislike DW for other reasons and even choose to dislike Digger. None of their reasons are ridiculous and like it or not you need to respectfully disagree and move on. Calling our opinions ridiculous will get you nowhere positive among the NASCAR forum.

State your opinion, disagree with mine but leave the term ridiculous, in reference to my opinions, out of your postings. OK ???

[Racer Duck]

j-man24fan, sorry you don't appreciate my opinion. but then I do understand yours. however, I will not call yours "ridiculous"... perhaps you used the wrong word to express your puzzlement?

I do not characterize my emotion as "hate" or even "intense dislike" for either "Boogity..." nor "Digger". the shine has worn off both: hearing the same worn out phrase uttered with the glee of a 2 year old who just found the toothpaste tube uncapped and the toilet seat up, plus seeing the same mindless cartoon a couple dozen times per race for, how many? a dozen races?, has become unsavory to me.

but then I don't care for Saturday morning cartoons either.

[j-man24fan]

sorry bout that, it's not rediculous. as my opinion is that i think its rediculous to start hating digger as early as he has been on FOX. sorry about that. i'm getting to sound too aggressive on my posts, so i'm calming down now.

[j-man24fan]

Originally Posted by Racer Duck

j-man24fan, sorry you don't appreciate my opinion. but then I do understand yours. however, I will not call yours "ridiculous"... perhaps you used the wrong word to express your puzzlement?

I do not characterize my emotion as "hate" or even "intense dislike" for either "Boogity..." nor "Digger". the shine has worn off both: hearing the same worn out phrase uttered with the glee of a 2 year old who just found the toothpaste tube uncapped and the toilet seat up, plus seeing the same mindless cartoon a couple dozen times per race for, how many? a dozen races?, has become unsavory to me.

but then I don't care for Saturday morning cartoons either.

i'm just wondering. if you dislike digger cause he appears too many times, does that meen you dislike draft Trax?

[Lefty Noob]

Originally Posted by j-man24fan

i'm just wondering. if you dislike digger cause he appears too many times, does that meen you dislike draft Trax?

I know from reading comments on the past that, yes, there are quite a few folks around here who dislike that thing as well.

[j-man24fan]

Originally Posted by Lefty Noob

I know from reading comments on the past that, yes, there are quite a few folks around here who dislike that thing as well.

hahaha! glad i'm not the only one who extreemly dislikes that thing. I mean every lap they'd show that thing...

[Bob Tanner]

Originally Posted by j-man24fan

i'm just wondering. if you dislike digger cause he appears too many times, does that meen you dislike draft Trax?

I know you directed this at Duck but, speaking only for myself, I find ABC/ESPN/Disney's Draft Trax confusing, inaccurate, unattractive and just plain useless.

As far as the animated thing on FOX, I basically dislike cartoons in just about every form. The concept probably wouldn't have been so disliked if the idiots in the booth (Mike Joy excepted) didn't absolutely fawn over the darn thing.

IMNSVHO, things like that reduce watching a program to the lowest common denominator.

But, there are legions that apparently like it. That doesn't make them bad, or wrong. It just reinforces the fact that there are differing opinions on just about everything.

[Racer Duck]

Originally Posted by j-man24fan

i'm just wondering. if you dislike digger cause he appears too many times, does that meen you dislike draft Trax?

with a passion!

[j-man24fan]

you know, i don't think they used digger that much! i really don't think they overused him.

[Racer Duck]

Originally Posted by Bob Tanner

As far as the animated thing on FOX, I basically dislike cartoons in just about every form. The concept probably wouldn't have been so disliked if the idiots in the booth (Mike Joy excepted) didn't absolutely fawn over the darn thing.

I don't dislike every animation, but it has to have a purpose, even humor is a purpose. unfortunately, besides the obvious childlike fawning by certain announcer-idiots, "Digger" was used indiscriminately and was many times "run over" by the cars before he ever ducked back into his hole (I have this thing about "plausibility and continuity".) the "Digger"-Cam was a good idea and gives a completely different perspective of the race. the guy in charge of the "Digger" button was asleep at the wheel way too many times. Thus it became like Draft Trax and "Boogity" and a lot of other things these people come up with that, if used properly, would enhance the event, but, instead, ended up irritating.