Are we supposed to believe this?

March 14, 2013 08:302 Comments

So, have you seen the “Pepsi MAX – Jeff Gordon” video?

It’s probably pretty obvious that the salesman was a little too quick to go from “I’m calling the cops” to “Let’s go again”. And the Pepsi can in the car – no comment? He had to be in on the joke.

But more importantly, did you notice that there was never a single shot of Jeff Gordon actually driving, except for the first two start/stop things? Smells like a stunt driver.

Also, at 3:01, there’s a very obvious Jeff Gordon voice over. Silly commercials, trying to be “real” and go “viral”.

UPDATE: Fakery semi-confirmed (no one should be surprised by this).

UPDATE 2: From a Nascar.com article

The debate quickly ensued over whether the video was real, partly staged or an outright fake. Gordon didn’t do his own driving, though he said he thought he could “pull off 90 percent of it,” but no matter how contrived the short film was or wasn’t, the court of YouTube opinion has judged it an online hit.

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Speaking of returning…

March 14, 2013 06:15Leave a Comment

NASCAR has reinstated Jeremy Clements (the driver who said “drive like an n-word, get treated like an n-word” to a reporter) after he completed “diversity counseling”.

It sort of reeks of B.S. – not sure two weeks of “diversity counseling” (whatever that means) actually changed his mind. I have a feeling that the two weeks of suspension made a much stronger point.

However, I do think NASCAR was put in a tough position. They can’t just have a driver say something like that and not do anything about it. This could have easily turned into a giant circus, but instead they took a strong stance and “made it go away” long enough for the media to forget about it.

The time it took to setup and complete the “diversity counseling” was probably just the right amount of time for the media storm to die down. So, problem solved, I guess.

Source: sbnation.com

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Allmendinger is returning

March 13, 2013 21:50Leave a Comment

For those who care, last week, AJ Allmendinger announced that he was going to be driving for Roger Penkse in the Indy 500. He will also drive another Indy Car race at the Barber Motorsports Park road course.

And, he’s back in the #51 cup car this weekend at Bristol.

Wonder what Mayfield is thinking right now.

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Vegas Ratings

March 13, 2013 05:45Leave a Comment

Fast on the heels of NASCAR’s claim that Vegas featured the most green flag passing ever recorded1 comes the news that Vegas garnered one of the lowest ratings since Fox started carrying the sport.

NASCAR and golf tied for Sunday’s lead, but it was golf on the upswing and NASCAR on the downswing. The final round of the WGC’s Tiger-boosted rating was up 44 percent from 2012 (3.1) and 84 percent from 2011 (2.4). NASCAR’s Las Vegas event, however, was down 4 percent from 2012 (4.6) and drew the second-lowest number for the race since Fox started broadcasting it 2001. That said, it was still tied for the weekend’s highest-rated sporting event.

From Sbnation.com

So, tied for the highest rated sporting event but still at its lowest ratings in a while. Is it just that people aren’t watching any sports or TV on Sunday? Or is it indicative of a problem with NASCAR TV broadcasting?

1 NASCAR used loop data to show that there were more green flag passes than ever previously recorded – except that the loop data records only go back to 2005. And every temporary change of position during the green flag pit stops was also counted as a “pass”.

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Controversial Vegas

March 12, 2013 06:37Leave a Comment

This week on the world’s best racing podcast, discuss the racing at Vegas, Keselowski’s jumped restarts, Danica Patrick’s “best” track, all the new cams (gyro, flying, thermo), Kyle Busch post race comments, & Matt Kenseth and Mike Bliss fun facts.

Picks for next week:

Rob: Brian Vickers.
Coach: The bottom 3 Hendrick drivers.

Posted in NASCAR, Opinion, PodcastTagged , ,

No more flyovers?

March 11, 2013 11:00Leave a Comment

Govt. sequestration takes its toll on flyovers:

Sunday’s military flyover before the Kobalt Tools 400 might have been the last flyover at a NASCAR race. With $85 billion in federal budget cuts possibly going into effect soon, flyovers would be grounded by the government’s sequestration process, which includes about 30 percent in military budget cuts.

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Vegas – now with more passing.

March 11, 2013 08:09Leave a Comment

Jayski reports that the number of passes for the lead on Sunday was the highest at Vegas since 2007.

The official race reports reads 22 lead changes among eight drivers, with the 22 lead changes being the most at Las Vegas since 2007, the year before the Gen-5 car (Car of Tomorrow) was introduced at intermediate race tracks. Beyond those numbers, NASCAR’s loop data (stats measured at the 10 scoring loops around the 1.5-mile track) showed a phenomenal 2,342 green-flag passes throughout the race, compared with 1,301 last year. In addition, there were 31 green-flag passes for the lead (including intra-lap passes scored at loops other than the finish line), the most since NASCAR started recording loop data in 2005.

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Jeff Burton speaking freely

March 8, 2013 07:15Leave a Comment

From SBNation.com. I cracked up at the first sentence:

Jeff Burton has long been known for being a straight shooter. While younger drivers like Brad Keselowski and Denny Hamlin try to find the perfect balance between honesty and tact, Burton carries with him an aura of respect.

When has Brad Keselowski ever been tactful? And Hamlin just got fined. I would have picked other drivers to compare against when I want to make my driver look more outspoken.

However, this quote caught my eye:

“I think the Gen-6 car is mostly hype. You’re never going to get these cars to pass as long as we’re running 200 mph on speedways where it’s easy to get spread out. People just have to understand that it’s not meant to be easy to pass. I think increasing the downforce and adding grip will improve the racing but only marginally.”

Expect a call from NASCAR any day now for that one.

Also:

I believe that having more short tracks would mean an increase in more entertaining races. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that short tracks represent a better quality of racing. You see that every Saturday night at your local speedway.

JEFF BURTON AGREES WITH ME ABOUT SHORT TRACKS! ARE YOU LISTENING NASCAR? Also, he says I’m probably not a rocket scientist. Fair ’nuff.

So, Denny Hamlin saying “the Gen-6 car doesn’t race as well as the Gen-5 car because we haven’t figured it out yet” is cause for a fine, yet Jeff Burton calling the Gen-6 “mostly hype” is allowed to stand unchallenged? I guess SBNation is lucky that it didn’t also do a live TV broadcast.

Posted in NASCAR, Opinion, SBNationTagged , ,

Hamlin’s Statement

March 8, 2013 06:45Leave a Comment

The short of the long of it is I believe I was severely disrespected by NASCAR by getting fined. I believe that the simple fact of us not even having a conversation about this issue before I was hit with a fine has something to say about our relationship. What I said was 1 sentence taken completely out of context. Most drivers will tell you that we constantly have our AND nascars best interest in mind when speaking. On the other hand I am a person that worked very hard from the BOTTOM to get where I am today and someone telling me that I can['t] give my 100 percent honest opinion really bothers me. Since being fined in 2010 I have been a lot more careful about what I say to media and I felt this past weekend felt completely in my rights to give a assessment of the question asked. I feel as if today NASCAR lost one of its biggest supporters vocally of where our sport is headed. So in the end there are no winners. I said today I would not pay the fine. I stand by that and will go through the process of appealing. Trust me, this is not about the money.. It’s much deeper. I will now shift my focus on giving FedEx and my team what they deserve this weekend, a win.

I’d like to see what NASCAR will do now. Will they actually suspend Hamlin to save face? Will the appeal work? NASCAR has dug themselves into a hole with this one.

Hamlin should fly the elusive double bird and say “React to this”. Maybe he already has.

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NASCAR Spokesholes

March 8, 2013 06:15Leave a Comment

NASCAR has fined Denny Hamlin $25,000 for “actions detrimental to stock-car racing.”

What comments were these?

“I don’t want to be the pessimist, but it did not race as good as our Generation-5 cars,” Hamlin said. “This is more like what the Generation-5 was at the beginning. The teams hadn’t figured out how to get the aero balance right. Right now, you just run single-file and you cannot get around the guy in front of you.”

That seems to be pretty tame. But Robin Pemberton, VP of competition, said:

“We give (drivers) quite a bit of latitude, but you can’t slam your racing, you can’t slam your product,” Pemberton said. “That’s where it crosses a line.”

Please. NASCAR has handed out secret fines for all kinds of stupid things. And, ohh by the way, fining Hamlin and making a big deal out of it is bringing these comments further out into the open. I was not aware of them (I missed post race interviews) until today.

Hamlin says he won’t pay the fine. NASCAR is talking about garnishing winnings, but who knows how this will play out.

“We communicated to teams about three years ago, I think it was in 2010 in January, that you can voice your opinion about a lot of things in this sport,” said NASCAR spokeshole Kerry Tharp. “And we feel like we give our competitors a great deal of leeway when it comes to that. However, denigrating the racing is an area that we’re going to have a reaction to.”

Soooo, you said something once 3 years ago, and expect the drivers to toe a very precise line? Hamlin provided pretty much the only action on or off the track this week, so you feel the need to fine him?

I don’t know what asshats actually are, but right now NASCAR and its spokesholes Robin Pemberton and Kerry Tharp seem to be providing a clearer picture.

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