As it appears that airspace in the UK might be closing down again soon and perhaps even a new volcano may erupt and cause even greater disturbance than the first did, I thought I’d share some positives to my recent experience with being stranded in the UK.

Now what the hell do I do?

1. You can talk to just about anybody about F1 - In the U.S. I consume racing news throughout all my waking hours and can only discuss on this blog and via email with friends who have an interest. Unfortunately for my wife from time to time I must vent my opinions and she is nice enough to listen (or least make an attempt at pretending she’s listening). But in Europe I could bring up complex questions related to rules, drivers, or Bernie’s plans for the future to any random dude on the street and they’d have an opinion and time to talk about it. You can’t beat that with a stick!

2. Racing is on TV - Not just on some random motorsports channel but its on regular TV. Sky News covers the results from Practice and Qualifying and shows race highlights. Sky Sports, well they cover more. Can you imagine CNN reporting race results? Even NASCAR doesn’t get coverage unless Cousin Carl hits the fence at Talledega and nearly kills himself and a fan or two. They cover more than just race results too. I couldn’t sleep one night so I flipped through the channels to find a documentary about Aston Martin’s most recent attempt at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. I almost forgot I was stranded for an hour while I was completely sucked into this show.

3. Top Gear – That’s almost all I need to say. It’s on an it’s on all the time.

4. Top Gear – Yup, I’m putting it on twice.

5. Merchandise in Department Stores - SpeedGear is a great shop. Online and at the track they are the go to spot in the states for getting your Non-NASCAR motorsports stuff. Love ‘em! But, they’re pretty much it. So one of the days I was stranded I went shopping thinking I’d get something for my family back home that was feeling the effects of my absence just as much as I was. When you go shopping somewhere else you realize quickly that the world is a very small place. I wanted something uniquely London without going to the extremes of a shirt with Big Ben on it or that said, “My Husband Got Stuck in London and All I Got was this Lousy T Shirt”. This is a taller order than I thought. The shelves and racks of a department store are interchangeable pretty much no matter where you are (in the developed world as least). But what did I come across much to my suprise? The motorsports section on the SportsWear floor! Yup, right there they had kids-sized McLaren Fire Suits, Ferrari Helmet Key Chains, Aston Martin Racing hats. It was like standing in the middle of an inappropriate teen age race fan’s dream, except I was competely clothed and not surrounding by random people from my past.

Kurt Busch (photo cred: duane.schoon)

Jimmie Johnson is single handedly ruining NASCAR.  You know how I know?  Because I’m writing something positive about Kurt Busch.  A driver that I have hated from the first time I heard him speak.  I actually boycotted Miller Lite when he replaced Rusty Wallace.  That was tough, Miller Lite and I had been through a lot together.  Miller was guilty by association though, and we just couldn’t play together anymore. 

How do these things relate? I want so bad for someone to stop Jimmie Johnson from winning one more race, much less one more consecutive championship, that I have instituted an “anyone but Jimmie” mantra for this year.  Kurt Busch happens to not be Jimmie Johnson.  Therefore, I am now pulling for Kurt, his even more despised brother Kyle, and the 40 other drivers each Sunday that are not Jimmie. 

NASCAR can spin their ratings plateau on the economy.  I’m not buying it.  We all still have TVs and I’m guessing we’re watching them even more now that our discretionary income has dwindled and all we can afford to do is sit on the couch.  Now that may not help put behinds in the stands on race day, but that is only one part of the juggernaut that was NASCAR.  There are three things working against NASCAR on TV.  First is their vanilla, milk-toast four consecutive time champion, Jimmie Johnson.  Followed by the FOX networks hokie coverage.  Lastly is the rise of mixed martial arts(MMA). 

Someday I’ll write my ramblings on Larry Mac, DW, and MMA.  But today is reserved for Kurt Busch.  I still don’t like him.  I still wish I was courtside to see Jimmy Spencer try to punch him through the driver’s window at Michigan.  I was at the race, just not close enough to see the fear in Kurt’s eyes.  My anti-Jimmie tinted spectacles have opened my eyes to the decent qualities of other drivers though. 

Today I caught an interview with Kurt Busch on the Jim Rome Show.  Kurt didn’t mix in some contrived, premeditated analogy as he usually does.  The guy is generally just a total dork in interviews, for lack of a better word.  He just gave a pretty straightforward interview, dropped in his sponsor a couple times, and spoke honestly of Carl Edwards joke of a punishment.  What actually intrigued me about the whole thing, was that during this off weekend for NASCAR Sprint Cup racing, Busch is going NHRA sanctioned drag racing with a buddy in a 1970 Challenger they built.  Maybe there is hope for the guy yet.  He has a dream job, and he is spending his free time just like so many of us say we would, if we were in the same position.  He didn’t make me like him, but he made me want to be him.  And that is something I never would have thought I would ever say about Kurt Busch.  To celebrate I’ll have to go pick up a sixer of Lite.  Now just don’t go back to full goober mode Kurt, and beat Jimmie.

Well she definitely got a lot of attention that is for damned sure!  After the past couple weeks at Daytona I’d say that its now just a matter of time before the girl wonder makes a permanent move from Indy Car to NASCAR.  Obviously she’s not ready to run a full cup schedule tomorrow and obviously it isn’t a given that she’ll do well.  What is a given is that she can bring a whole new group of fans to the sport, more sponsors, etc, etc.  And in through out all that she can make a boat load of dough!

All that aside Danica is a racer.  I don’t think she has much interest in being a showpiece and not a contender.  I also think she has unfinished business in IndyCar that she wants to take care of before going anywhere.  Winning at Motegi last year is great and all but if she wants to win in NASCAR first she must win in Indy Car on a more regular basis.  As Franchitti proved last year one does not easily beget the other.  Montoya is proof positive that switching between disciplines with success is absolutely possible but you have to be a good driver to do so.  She is a good driver but she’s not JPM.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no NASCAR honk.  When I say it’s hard to switch racing disciplines  I mean that in all directions.  I don’t think Jimmie Johnson could switch to Indy Cars and be competitive tomorrow.  It’s just different.  DW was quoted during the elongated coverage of the Daytona 500 as saying that (and I summarize) “racing here will help her when she goes back to Indy Cars.  Look what happened to Dario Franchitti… He went back and he won the championship.”  Now I don’t think for a minute that Dario won the Indy Car championship last year because of his short stint in NASCAR.  He was going to win that anyway.  But does it teach some things to race different types of cars?  I’m sure it does.

Either way you look at it this foray into NASCAR will be interesting to watch.  Fans will watch, nay-sayers will watch, lots of people will watch.  We’ll see what she can pull off.

So the speculation of will she or won’t she is over.  Now we can move onto will she succeed or won’t she.  Although the media outlets have been reporting it for days, it is finally official.  That is if you can believe her own words from her twitter, “I will see you all in indycar and nascar!!!! #7 go daddy car with jr motorsports.”  Talk about a power couple, Danica Patrick and Dale Earnhardt Jr.  As far as marketing power goes anyhow; maybe not so much for on track results though.

As afan of motorsports that transcend NASCAR, I wish she didn’t have to make this move.  However, for the Danica brand, she probably had to.  You have to make hay while the sun shines they say, and in the current state of American motorsports, the sun shines brightest in NASCAR.  There is definitely a risk involved.  She needs to produce at least mediocre results quickly and there is a laundry list of very accomplished open wheel drivers who have not been able to make the transition.

Word came out of Tokyo on November 4th that confirmed what many were expected.  Toyota will be withdrawing from Formula 1 competition.  The Toyota news release cited “… the current severe economic realities” as the reason for their exit from the pinnacle of open wheel motorsports.

Photo Credit: Sumisso

As far as the Japanese automakers future the release also reads, “In motor sports, it will not only race in various categories, but will also actively contribute to further development of motor sports by supporting grassroots races and planning events in which it is easy for people to participate.”  I found this quote very interesting.  To me it basically says that they’re pulling out of the most high profile and expensive form of motorsport world wide but we’re going to stay involved in other series and at the very bottom of the motorsports food chain, grassroots racing.  What an excellent kick to the Formula 1 snobs out there!

The world’s largest automaker is saying it’s going to focus on other series (i.e. NASCAR, Grand Am, NHRA, etc.) and what I consider the heart and soul of motorsports, johnny weekend racer.  They would rather spend their diminishing racing budgets in those places then at the “pinnacle” of motorsport.  That is saying a lot and I think it’s saying exactly the right thing.

Formula 1 is awesome, there is no question about that.  But is it about selling cars?  In the end to an automaker motorsports are about 3 things; marketing to your consumer, beating your competitors, and developing new technologies that can be used in passenger cars in the future.  So, lets break this down.

Marketing:

Are Toyota drivers really in the F1 demographic?  Yes, but it’s more likely Lexus drivers.

Does F1 get much attention in the US?  Not nearly as much as the tin tops.

Beat your competitors:

Was Toyota beating their competitors?  This year they finished 5th in the points having bested BMW Sauber, William – Toyota (not much help), Renault,  Force Inda – Mercedes, and Torro Rosso – Ferrari.  Renault is a competitor in some markets but not one I believe Toyota fears and BMW is a competitor of note for Lexus.  Ok, so a little help here but is spending as much as an estimated $445 Million a year to run a Formula 1 team?  Hello NO!  Hop up a Camry or an IS F10 and go at it with BWM in ALMS GT2.  That would save you, oh I don’t know about $444.5 Million!

 Were they even racing against competitors?  For argument sake lets say they won the constructor’s championship this season.  In addition to the teams above who would they have beaten?  Mercedes, Renault, and Ferrari.  If they were called Panasonic Lexus Racing instead of Toyota I could see Mercedes, but they just aren’t competing with these guys for car sales.

Developing New Technologies

Were new technologies culled from their 8 seasons in F1?  I dunno.  Probably, but couldn’t you do the same thing in ALMS?  If you were running in GT2 you’d even have a chassis that was similar to a production car.  Hell, if it was Koni Challenge you could actual make money by selling race ready cars to teams.  Imagine that?  Whatever they learned must not have been worth the extra cost.

Thanks for humoring me as I ran through that.  I never like to see any OEM pull out of any racing series, but if they truly focus more on grass roots racing (ala Mazda) then I think this is great news for the motorsports community.  If a company the size of Toyota put its might behind a plan to build a ladder system similar to what Mazda has done this could open up doors to many wanna be drivers that never existed before.  You have to appreciate that.

Now, I know I referred to “Formula 1 snobs” earlier in the post.  I want F1 to do well, but I really want them to just get over themselves.  Yep, they race in some of the coolest places in the world (less and less now) and they have some of the premier manufacturers participating, that is all true.  But, the races are high speed parades, the budgets are out of control, and now that Toyota has withdrawn only 1 of the Top 10 automakers (by 2008 production) participated in the series, Fiat (Ferrari).

Seriously?  How can you be the premiere series if the 9 biggest auto makers don’t participate?  Major changes need to be made to preserve the good name and future of F1.  I hope they do it and soon.

You can read Toyota’s full press release here: 

http://pressroom.toyota.com/pr/tms/toyota-to-withdraw-from-f1-112039.aspx?ncid=12036

ESPN is reporting that Danica Patrick is nearing the completion of a deal to drive a partial schedule for JR Motorsports in the Nationwide series next year.  According to their sources she’ll be running 12-13 Nationwide races for the team in 2010 and may start as early as the ARCA race during Daytona Speedweeks.

Photo Credit: Phot Mojo

This has been talked about for some time and most have been aware that some sort of talks were going on.  Prior to her resigning with AGR there was wild speculation that she was looking to move to NASCAR full time.  I, much like others, figured this was just a stunt to get some attention and probably pump up her power at the AGR bargaining table.  But I totally missed the Go Daddy tie in with JR Motorsports.  This sponsor could only gain by moving one of their Go Daddy Girls into a more visible series.  Keselowski’s a great driver and all but whose a better fit for the Go Daddy car than Danica?

But…  I think this sucks.  I like Dale Jr, I like JR Motorsports, and I’m down with Danica.  I just don’t think this is the right move for her.  Dipping your toe in the waters of NASCAR isn’t really going to get you anywhere.  We’ve seen this with Paul Tracy in the past. He made some runs in the NASCAR feeder series and it didn’t get him anywhere.  Danica will need a full time ride most likely in ARCA to be brutally honest to have any chance at making it to a competitive position in Cup.  Scott Speed did that and he’s still not competitive (my money says he will be someday though).

I’ll be interested to see how this all pans out.  She’ll probably have the biggest merchandise trailer of any of the part timers that aren’t BushWhackers. What do you call them now that it’s the Nationwide Series?  NationWhackers?

You can check out the full story from ESPN here: 

http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/nascar/news/story?id=4622687

I’m callin’ it TacoGate!

For those of you that live under a rock I’ll cover the basics of this story first.  During last Saturday’s ESPN coverage of the Ohio State – Minnesota game Chris Spielman asked Bob Griese “where Montoya was?” a reference to his position in The Chase.  Griese doing his best impersonation of a completely uninformed xenophobe responded, “He’s out having a taco.”

OK, now that we’re all caught up we can move on to all the reasons this incident and the coverage of it piss me off.  After that we’ll get to the part that reaffirms why Juan Pablo is so friggin’ awesome in my book.

So this isn’t the first time a sportscaster has said something stupid, it definitely won’t be the last.  It should also be noted that this probably isn’t the worse offense ever committed by someone in this position.  I think the worst was probably Jimmy The Greek, but that’s just my opinion.  Immediately after the broadcast where Griese committed the offense he issued and apology.  I think he’s issued a bunch more since.  Who hasn’t said something completely stupid before?  We all have.  Who hasn’t offended someone with said stupid remark?  Yep, same group.  I think I  may have more than most.  (Don’t think so?  Keep reading dumb ass!)  The problem with this is that it had obvious ethnic overtones and what made it even more worse was that the ethnic overtones were completely wrong.

That’s what makes the whole thing so ridiculously drop on the flow, get a cramp in your gut, piss your pants funny.  It’s like Griese told a Jewish joke with a Polish Joke punch line.  It’s too bad that the rest of America seems to be equally uninformed because they all quickly picked up on it as offensive.

I guess I don’t have much more to say about this one.  Just same random angry ramblings.  I’ll close with two points.

Come on America, we can do better than this.  Our time on the top of the heap is limited so we’d better get off our asses and not only drop our prejudices about other cultures but maybe it wouldn’t hurt to learn a thing or two about them.  For Christ’s sake there is a guy from Colombia gunning for the 2009 Sprint Cup Championship, if that doesn’t tell you things are changing I don’t know what will.

And finally, throw up some devil horns for JPM.  When asked for a comment on the matter earlier in the week JPM simply stated that he had no comment and that, “I don’t even know who he is” of Griese.  Bad ass!  Add to that the tweet that he sent out around lunch time today, “Guess what I’m having for lunch…..TACOS!!!!!….and I’m serious about it!!!!”

Touche JPM, Touche!

Talladega, AL 4-08 Talladega Race Photo Credit: pamarama73

AJ Allmendinger was arrested for drunk driving early Thursday morning in Mooresville, North Carolina according to NC Police.  Allmendinger is the current driver of the number 44 for Richard Petty Motorsports in NASCAR Sprint Cup.  He is(was?) slated to move to the storied 43 car in 2010 with Best Buy sponsorship.  The RPM team had no comment at the time, and AJ basically said he hopes some good can come from the situation and people learn from his mistake.

Everyone knows that drinking and driving is bad.  Why anyone with the means to easily avoid this sort of situation would take the chance blows my mind.  It will be interesting to see if there are any NASCAR penalties forthcoming.

Penske Racing DHL RS Spyder 2007 ALMS Photo Credit: kptyson

Autoweek is reporting that Penske racing will campaign three Indycar entries, two NASCAR Nationwide series cars, and three Sprint Cup cars in 2010. Noticeably absent from that list is any sports car series entrants. Drivers Sam Hornish Jr. and Kurt Busch will return, with the addition of Brad Keselowski for Cup. Justin Allgaier will be joined by Keselowski for Nationwide. The Indycar drivers will be Ryan Briscoe, Helio Castroneves, and full time next year, Will Power.

It was enjoyable to see Penske campaigning sports cars the last few years under the Porsche banner. The successful organization brings credibility to any series they run. Plus Timo Bernhard and Romain Dumas are top notch sports car racers and deserve to be in elite cars. Surely they will land somewhere if The Captain can’t put something together last minute to keep them in the stable. Hopefully Penske will be back in road racing in the near future.

Could he go to F1? Should he go? Photo Credit: Big Ed's Photos

According to the article USF1 has had conversations with Kyle’s business people and Kyle has publicly said he would consider such a move, if only for a few years.  His contract with Gibbs goes through next year so nothing would happen prior to 2011.

I don’t know what to think about all this.  Bush is a good driver, you can’t deny that no matter how much we’d all like to.  His persona leaves a great deal to be desired but he’s made a great villain for NASCAR.  That in itself makes him an interesting choice for F1 where robot drivers reign supreme.  They thought JPM was outspoken and reckless just wait till they get a load of Rowdy!  An American in F1 would be great, a loud one would be good too, but it probably wouldn’t help our national image of the Ugly American.

Bush Lover!!!! Photo Credit: ph-stop

I watch both NASCAR and F1 so either way he’ll be popping up on my tube.  We’ll see how this one shakes out.

See the full article here:  http://www.usatoday.com/sports/motor/formula1/2009-10-21-us-f1-wants-kyle-busch_N.htm