Archive for August, 2007

Morris Metcalfe, one of NASCAR’s longest-serving officials and a member of the organization’s timing and scoring department in five decades, died Thursday in Winston-Salem, N.C. Metcalfe, who retired as Chief of Timing and Scoring following the 2002 Daytona 500, was 81.

…

He is survived by two children, M. Lee Metcalfe Jr. and Laura Boblitz; five grand children and one great grandson.

Public services will be held at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 5 at Hayworth-Miller Funeral Home on Silas Creek Parkway in Winston-Salem. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the Nextel Cup Wives Auxiliary.

Rest In Peace, Morris.

– Powered By Stuffr! –

After Kurt Busch’s victory at Michigan, Dale Earnhardt Jr. knew he would have to answer with a strong finish at Bristol to stay in contention for the Chase for the Nextel Cup.

He did just that — finishing fifth on the challenging 0.533-mile track.

Unfortunately for Earnhardt, Busch finished right behind him, in sixth, to maintain a lead of 158 points with two races remaining in the Race to the Chase.

So what do you think? Will Jr. make the Chase? Ninth to 14th places are super close, who will make it and who won’t? I’d love to see Kurt, Ryan Newman and Jr. all make it.

– Powered By Stuffr! –

Holy Smoke!

Joe Gibbs Racing has scheduled a news conference for Wednesday and several published reports say the team will announce it has signed a deal to field Toyotas in the Nextel Cup series.

The reports, citing unidentified sources, said JGR will end its 16-year relationship with General Motors and give Toyota its first big name team in Cup.

Umm. Wow. I didn’t see that one coming. What on Earth possessed Joe Gibbs Racing to go with Toyota? I am shell shocked.

On this second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall, please take a moment to remember the victims. More than 1.1 million volunteers have responded to help but more are still needed, and many homes have still not been rebuilt.

Oh sure, everyone knows about the “refugees” of Hurricane Katrina, and many of us, myself included, have our own horror stories about “non-victims” who attempted to take advantage of the system or even demanded that people “take care of them”. But I am not concerned with those people now, as they have disappeared back into the slimy little holes they crawled out of. The people I am concerned about are the real victims of Katrina. The people who took all the proper precautions and fled when they knew the storm was bearing down on them.

Since the day of the disaster, Americans have donated over 14 million hours of volunteer service to help rebuild New Orleans and the other affected areas. This has been the single biggest volunteer response to a disaster in our nation’s history, but there are still many jobs to be done, lots of work to be completed, and many people who still cannot return to their homes.

Several people I know had homes in the affected areas, and luckily most of them have been able to return or have settled elsewhere around the country, but let’s take a moment out of our day and do what we can to help. Heck, I’m not asking you to volunteer, or even donate money, I’m simply asking you to help raise awareness so others will remember as well.

I never pictured NASCAR as the “negotiating” type anyway.

NASCAR’s once-promising negotiations with Subway to title sponsor its No. 2 series have hit the skids, sources say, and the sanctioning body has spent the past few weeks revisiting many of the brands that initially turned down the sponsorship.

KFC, Dunkin’ Donuts and Allstate, each of which had been contenders for the sponsorship earlier in the process, are among the companies NASCAR has approached in the past several weeks as it tries to replace Anheuser-Busch. A-B sponsored the Busch Series for 25 years before deciding to make this its final season.

Eh… The Subway series just doesn’t sound right anyway. Dunkin’ Donuts might be fun though, then when they do donuts after they win a race… ah… never mind… I’m tired.

Who do you think should sponsor the NASCAR minor leagues?

It looks like someone’s going to be paying the government for a long, long time.

A NASCAR team owner pleaded guilty Monday to defrauding the government of more than $34 million in taxes.

Gene Haas, the 54-year-old owner of Oxnard-based Haas Automation and NASCAR’s Haas CNC Racing, agreed to pay a fine, back taxes and interests totaling more than $70 million, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.

Haas pleaded guilty to a felony conspiracy charge for orchestrating a plan to list bogus expenses that could be written off as business costs and save Haas Automation millions in taxes.

[Source: Yahoo! Sports]

It was Lap 200 of the Sharpie 500 on Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway, and members of the local Emergency Response Team stood at the ready.

Well, not really.

One sat in a golf cart, dozing off. This guy actually was falling asleep while 43 Nextel Cup racecars roared through Turn 3 right in front of him, maybe a couple of football first downs away.

Was this really the night race at Bristol?

This evening’s race at Bristol had to be one of the worst races I have seen in NASCAR history. Why?

Well, for me it was a combination of factors. First, I can’t stand ESPN’s coverage of the pre-race show or the race itself. Rusty Wallace does a good job, but just about everyone else sounds fake, or like they’re trying to hard to make me believe they know what they are talking about.

Second, the resurfacing at Bristol has ruined it. Period. It sucked. I think the race went 125 laps (a quarter of the race) before the first caution came out, and that was due to a blown engine. WTF? It’s Bristol for God’s sake.

Where was the bumping? Where was the pushing? Where was the action? Man… It sucked.

NASCAR’s errant call against Kyle Busch was still being discussed Saturday, as drivers wondered what kind of recourse they have when they don’t agree with a call.

NASCAR said Busch crossed the commitment line for pit road — and then didn’t pit — during a caution in Friday night’s Busch Series race. He was ordered to forfeit his second-place position, and even though his Hendrick Motorsports team disagreed with the call, Busch served the penalty and dropped back to 28th.

Shortly after the race resumed, NASCAR said Busch did not cross the line and should not have been penalized. It was too late to rectify, though, and Busch had to drive through the field to finish fourth.

That’s a good question. What recourse do drivers have when NASCAR screws up? Why don’t they write something into their “rule book” to deal with it, since it seems they are doing a lot of stupid stuff lately.

The only thing that’s going to come from all this, if NASCAR keeps insisting on being stupid, is more fans, like myself are going to sign up with AT&T.

The fight between NASCAR and AT&T heated up Friday when the telecommunications giant refused to use a paint scheme or logos on Jeff Burton’s car at Bristol Motor Speedway.

AT&T is still sponsoring the car but had to remove its logos because the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned an injunction that had permitted their use.

At issue is if AT&T is allowed as a sponsor under NASCAR’s exclusivity agreement with series sponsor Sprint Nextel.

I think Jeff Burton summed it up best though.

‘I think reasonable people can come to reasonable solutions, and I’m still holding on to that,” Burton said. “In order for that to work, people have to be willing to be reasonable. Hopefully, we can get there. I can’t see where it is in the sport’s best interest to ask a sponsor who has been part of this thing for years to not be here.”

NASCAR may be trying to kill AT&T’s participation in Nextel Cup racing, but AT&T is having none of that.

After losing a court battle to keep its logo prominent in NASCAR — one of the nation’s biggest sports events and advertising bonanzas — telecom giant AT&T said Thursday the company is still studying how it will address the matter at this weekend’s race in Bristol, Tenn.

“We are still evaluating our options as to what we will run on Sunday,” said Mark Siegel, a spokesman for the company, whose wireless division — formerly Cingular — is based in Atlanta. “We remain committed to the sport and to our support for [driver] Jeff Burton,” Siegel said.

It sounds like AT&T is totally committed to Childress racing and Jeff Burton, and I hope they come out on top with this one. Other than fear, there is still no logical reason why Nextel/Sprint would not allow them to use their logo.