2010 Coke 600 - Getting the itch

One month from tonight - May 30, 2010 - the green flag will unfurl on the 2010 Coca-Cola 600 at the re-renamed:

I realize most folks caved and for many years called the track by its now-gone hardware store name. But for me, its always been just "Charlotte".

If the good Lord's willing and the creek don't rise, I'll be at the 600 for the fifth time in six years. It'll be my seventh 600 and my ninth Charlotte race overall with visits to the fall race in 1992 and 1993.

My first 600 was in 1994 when Jeff Gordon won his first career Cup race. Look at about the 2:17 mark. Right in the center of the picture. Did you see me? I was the one booing.

For my first two or three 600s, my friend and I didn't get to do much tailgating. Oh, we had the celebratory Schaefer - no question. But we didn't take the time to do the full set-up.

That all changed about five years for me. We hooked up with a great crowd of folks from all over the place. Though I barely know any of them and only see them once per year, we always easily fall right back into having a great time.

So what do our plans look like? Maybe a bit like this:

Saturday

Listening to NASCAR stories and some purty-good original songs by syndicated NASCAR writer, Monte Dutton...

Nationwide race after lunch...

After the Nationwide race when the sun goes down? Well, Charlotte isn't Vegas. But in this case, what happens at the track will stay at the track.

Sunday

Super-competitive, no-holds-barred, knock-down-drag-out, steel-cage-match cornhole tournament...

Indy 500 on tailgating TV (just happened to think...when Danica falls out early ya reckon she'll make a beeline for Charlotte to see how the Cup guys git 'r done?)

Coca-Cola 600 Sprint Cup race...

The racing, story swapping, song singing, back slapping, and food eating are all critical elements of a top-shelf race weekend. And the reunion of the Schaefer Hall of Fame members is always a highlight of my visit. To complement all of the festivities, however, its a must-do to break out all the Schaefer swag including but not limited to...

Inflatable cans!

Schaefer koozies!

The race debut of the custom-painted, die-cast, Schaefer Buick of Al Loquasto built by the GaPettyFan!

The well-traveled, much-autographed, Schaefer ring of honor sign!

And the brew itself? Absolutely. Whadda have? Fully loaded? Or light on the calories?

And you better believe it'll be flowing freely. One of our HOFers has hit the jackpot in landing a Schaefer gold mine connection.

After cobbling this thing together, I'm jacked up and ready to roll! Can we head to the track right now?

TMC

Holey Cow! What a day, what a race!

Just a couple of hours or so after the 2010 Daytona 500 ended, and I'm still not sure how it will be remembered in the years to come.

Jamie McMurray did exactly what he was supposed to do. Prepare well, run well, draft well, pit smart, keep your nose clean and your tires up, be up front when it counts, and then win. He and his team did all of those things to perfection.

Plenty of bloggers, writers, radio guys, podcasters, and TV guys will analyze Jamie's win, the trivia point about the Earnhardt name being associated with the win (Teresa), his emotional victory lane interview, and the "aww man, so close" 2nd place finish by Dale Jr. So I'll leave that part of the race to them.

Instead, I'll focus on the other aspect of the race - and the one I think will stick to the race more than Jamie's win. The hole.

With plenty of Florida rain, wide ranging winter temperatures, a low race groove, and some great Goodyear traction, a pot hole developed between turns 1 and 2 about half-way through the race. After taking about 90 minutes to fix it, the drivers raced another 36 laps before the patchwork came undone. A second red flag period of about 45 minutes was needed to fix it a second time. Thankfully, the patch then held to allow the race to end with the great finish.

I'm not going to dog NASCAR or the track for the pothole or the repair. That kind of stuff happens, and it takes a while to repair it. While mildly embarrassing for the sport when view by NASCAR Noobs, its nothing to worry much about in the long term.

Race fans excel at finding ways to have a good time and find humor in all tough race situations. Rain delays. Fence or SAFER barrier repairs. Or potholes.

Instead of being at the track, I was sitting comfortably at home building calluses on my fingers from participating on Twitter. Some fantastic, one-line zingers were tweeted about about the hole. Here's a sample:

• RyanMcGeeESPN - Just ordered "Holes" on NetFlix
• XIANITY - This year's Daytona 500 has more cautions than a Johnathan Edwards sermon.
• bobpockrass Dale Earnhardt Jr. has had so much free time today, he's shaved his beard and it's grown back.
• RyanMcGeeESPN If Tebow was still at Daytona he could've healed the hole with the water from his tears.
• bobpockrass Something tells me the word "D'OH" has been uttered more during the Daytona 500 than will be on The Simpsons tonight.
• TheDalyPlanet Hey, with all the folks watching, we could probably trend #holepacolypse"
• RyanMcGeeESPN Ordered my wife a dozen red roses from a Daytona florist for today. I may have accidentally ordered a dozen red flags. My bad.
• Kenneth_Douglas I thought the 24 hours of Daytona was a couple weeks ago?
• Jonathan_Howe Has NASCAR set up a number we can text to donate $10 to track repairs yet?
• brantjames This reminds me of time they had to stop the Super Bowl cause the field cave in. Oh, wait. That never happened
• TeamFordRacing Oh, it's looking like the Detroit highways.
• MartySmithESPN Maybe Courtney Love will come play a post-race concert. #Hole.
  

I even made an effort to join The Hole's Amateur Hour. At the risk of wrenching my shoulder while patting myself on the back, I thought these were pretty good:

• Waiting for next YouTube viral video Hole In The Ground / Looking like a fool / With your Hole in the Ground
• Boogity boogity boogity let's go pavin' boys!
• Daytona500 track repairs delayed as NASCAR awaits arrival of Recovery.org sign.

Did you hear or read any others? How about some fresh ones? Comment below.

Twitter may be silly. Twitter may be a trend. But during a long race day, Twitter sure was a place to have a lot of fun with friends, media, pundits, and even drivers. Join us for future races if you haven't already.

http://twitter.com/toomuchcountry

TMC

Talla-do-over? Ah let's just move on

The race? Fuhgetaboutit. Everyone else has covered it better and much more quickly than me, so I'll throw out another random list of what's on my mind.

Staying out late not a "best buy" for A.J.Allmendinger

The fallout from A.J. Ibeendrinkin's DUI arrest last week was surprisingly pretty minimal. The King is apparently standing behind him as is Best Buy (for 2010) and his multiple sponsors for rest of this year. Yet, it isn't good. You simply can't have race drivers getting arrested for DUI in 2009 - even if the sport's roots are grounded in 'shine runners back in 1949.

The relevance of Twitter

#1 - One of the funniest tweets I read about predictions for Halloween in the Talladega infield:


I haven't seen any pictures from the weekend to prove/disprove the prediction. Banktruck, however, said he saw someone dressed in a Wonder Bread driver uni. Close enough I think!

#2 - Denny Hamlin gave a shout-out to his supporters on Twitter in last week's Martinsville victory lane. He also uploaded a picture of a congratulatory sign left outside his Mooresville house to Twitpic.

#3 - Kyle Busch exclaimed "That. Just. Happened" ala Ricky Bobby after he won Saturday's truck race at Talladega. He was baited to do so by Jeff Gluck of SceneDaily.com. Gluck told us on Twitter about the challenge. KyBu has so far said he has no plans to sign-up for Twitter, but he did get a big kick out of folks responding to Gluck's dropped gautlet. Sure nuff, when he won on Saturday - at Talladega no less - he paid up by saying it.

Now if only the 88 driver can McGrow a pair again

So Lance McGrew finally gets named as the full-time, unenviable job of crew chief for Dale Jr. in 2010. What was his status before? Crew Chief Intern? When will they start calling Lance "Jim Dandy"?

A bit perplexing are some of the comments from Ol' Junebug and McGrew about attitude, mental outlook, performance issues between the ears vs. under the hood, etc. Its also interesting about "changes" McGrew hopes to make in tandem with Alan Gustafson on Mark Martin's team. Think the Ageless Arkansan might raise a question or two about any planned restructuring?

One particular quote from Dale Jr. really made me laugh though.

“I can’t speak for everybody on the team, but my confidence was pretty down earlier,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “It’s gotten better."

When I read that quip, I was immediately reminded of one of the funniest scenes of Monty Python's The Search for the Holy Grail (most relevant part starting at 1:20 mark).

Maybe Rodney Dangerfield was right

Just want to make sure I understand. Joe Gibbs Racing started the 18 team with Dale Jarrett and had a lot of success. When DJ moved to Yates Racing, JGR hired Bobby Labonte who helped take the team to the next level with many wins and a championship. When Bobby left for Petty Enterprises, JGR hired...J.J. Yeley? Remember that? (And don't forget JGR hired Jason Leffler as the initial driver of the FedEx #11 team before Hamlin.)

Steve Addington was faced with the almost impossible challenge of keeping a championship-caliber team together with a driver having even less talent than Paul Menard after a bender. After surviving that period of time, JGR woke up and wisely signed an angry Kyle Busch. KyBu wanted to win early and often. More important to him, he wanted to beat the Hendrick cars into submission.

So what happened? Well, we know what took place. Its only been the last two years, right? They smoked 'em. Addington put a team under Shrub that allowed him and the 18 team to return to its DJ and Bobby days -maybe even higher.

But with the good came the bad. KyBu is not a stroker - we know that. But he is a sore loser, bad mouths his team on national TV, and often gives up if he's not on the point. As a result, he didn't win the Cup in 2008 and failed to make the top 12 cut at all in 2009. Rather than work through the challenges of what needs to happen in 2010, what does JGR do? Knock Addington off the box. I think this move is nonsensical.

You can hear the hurt and frustration in Steve's quotes about the change, his future plans, and the definition of "success" in today's Cup racing:

"I've got a lot of respect for this organization and the people in it," he said. "But you sit back and you wonder, what do you got to do because you beat a lot of great guys in this garage in the past 18 months. And you start questioning what do you got to do to be successful in this business?

I've been with the No. 18 car for five years and the past two years have been awesome, and I think it's just, you just question what you have to do to make it over here."

Dave Rogers is a great crew chief on the Nationwide series, and I'm surprised its taken him this long to get promoted to a Sunday gig. But to get the bump at the expense of Addington, man oh man I'm just not sure that's good for all involved.

Cue Queen's Another One Bites The Dust

Nashville Speedway (the half-mile fairgrounds track - not the under-attended Dover-owned speedway) used to be one of THE places in the south to cut your teeth in late models with the hopes of movin' on up. Darrell Waltrip, CooCoo and Sterling Marlin, Mike Alexander, Casey Atwood, Jeff Green, etc. all ran here regularly over the years. From 1959 to 1984, NASCAR brought its top Grand National/Winston Cup drivers to town - many seasons twice a year. But no more. The backasswards Metro Council gubmunt and Mayor have finally pulled the plug on what has been a colossal screw-up by those organizations over the last 25-30 years. The city will be shutting down all of the fairgrounds including the speedway in 2010.

To add insult to injury, Dover announced its shuttering Memphis Motorsports Park and moving its dates to Nashville Superspeedway and Gateway Raceway near St. Louis.

OK East Tennessee, its all up to you. Bristol is about all we have left - and that track is almost in Virginia. We even lost Atomic Speedway dirt track just outside of Knoxville a year or so ago. Tennessee went from a vibrant motorsports date to having almost nothing other than a few bullrings in just a few short years. Sadly, this reality is not limited to the Volunteer State. I just feel it more acutely because its the state I call home.

TMC

Monday's Mumblings

What a weak title. But it's late, and I invested my time in typing the following vs. titling it. Who says Twitter is useless? I won a Best Buy Racing hat on Twitter for my submission of this picture I took of Elliott Sadler's #19 Best Buy Dodge at Richard Petty Motorsports shop back in May. Not on Twitter yet? C'mon and join us. Follow TMC there as well as Best Buy Racing.

  Denny Hamlin had some unbelievable horsepower Sunday at Martinsville. He needed it too with several late race re-starts against Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, and Juan Pablo Montoya. With his FedEx sponsorship, it was as if he opted for same day air delivery vs. 2-day ground. Dave Despain aired a new Speed TV show Sunday night titled "On Assignment". The debut show featured the building of Talladega. I'm pretty sure, however, the folks at Comcast didn't get the clear message about who visioned and built the track.

Let's see, Little Brian would have been about 7 years old when Dega opened. I'm reasonably sure he could not have accomplished the feat of building the track and then standing up against the gaggle of drivers who refused to race on it. The guy may have been dumb smart enough to develop the Chase for the Championship, but track building at such a young age still seems a far fetched idea. 

Richard Childress recently had an open house at Richard Childress Racing in Welcome, NC. The best quote of the gathering came from MRN Radio's Barney Hall. His quote about meeting Richard Childress for the first time: "He was so green he thought Johnny Cash was a pay toilet." 

Writer Dustin Long recently sat down with Kyle Petty, Larry McReynolds, and Jimmy Spencer to talk about the state of the sport. Some really interesting and candid comments were made by the three of them - many of which didn't exactly make the boys at the beach jump with joy. [Click here] for the 6th and final report in the series. The article includes links to parts 1 through 5. Read 'em all. 

Juan Pablo Montoya continues to impress me with his versatility on the varied Chase tracks. His on-track aggressiveness makes some of the drivers uncomfortable. For me, I applaud it. If it takes a new school driver to return old school racing, so be it. Rarely is anyone else willing to lay the wood to any of the HMS cars so it's good to see JPM and his take-no-prisoners approach. 

It's beyond me how Jeff Gordon can whine about getting roughed up by JPM. Gordon's a vet who remembers racing with Rusty, Earnhardt Sr., Rudd, etc. - or maybe he's forgotten with all the old guard gone by now. 

On the flip-side, Joey "J-Lo" Logano and Brad Keselowski thinks they've earned their stripes enough to run over folks whenever they damn well please. A suggestion to ya boys - 2 words: Ernie Irvan. Don't become him. 

Rick Houston of Stock Car History Online recently recorded his debut podcast. Do you like old school racing - or just want to learn more about the history of the sport and its characters from the past? Sample the podcast at SCHO, then give it a listen with iTunes, and subscribe to future podcasts. 

Our Nashville Predators NHL franchise and Baker-Curb Racing recently announced a cross-promotional marketing agreement. For now, a Predators emblazoned BCR Nationwide car will be at the Sommet Center, home of the Preds.

  Whether a Preds car hits the track itself in 2010 is uncertain. I hope to get by the BCR shop again soon and take some up close photos. Also, I've been planning to blog about my ideas for an NHL/NASCAR cross-promotion relationship for over a year. I need to get that written - perhaps after these last 4 races are run. Stay tuned. 

 TMC

To Tweat or not to Tweat...

...that is the question I ask of theet.

I don't really get Twitter. But admittedly, I haven't tried it. I didn't think I'd like blogging, yet here I am. But I'm thinking about giving Twitter a trial run.

I'm going to Charlotte Memorial Day weekend for the 300/600 race combo. I'm thinking about taking my laptop with a Verizon wireless card and twittering over the 2 days from the track and any shop tours we might take.

Sitting here in an air conditioned office with that idea sounds plausible. But once I get there - in the sunlight - with Schaefer flowing freely - well, I'm not so sure I'd get into it after all. I'm not a Blackberry or iPhone guy yet. If I was, the decision might be easier to make because I wouldn't be fooling around with a laptop wondering about the glare from the sun or whether someone might poach it from my truck.

Any thoughts? Comment and/or answer the poll question.

TMC