Faster, Faster, Don't Stop Now

NASCAR Things

1. Brian Vickers: Don't know who all watched the pre-race retrospective last Sunday at Martinsville (you know, the "it's been five years since The Crash" spiel). I was only paying attention to it halfway, because it's always the same things and it was sad, but they didn't mention the five year anniversary of Junior going to Daytona, so chill already, you know? And then, when I realized that Brian was on my screen...he doesn't talk about it. He'll talk about the happy times with Ricky, but he doesn't talk about it. And that little clip, with the LOOK that he gave. I nearly bawled for the boy.

2. AJ Allmendinger: *sigh* Imma kick his ass. Who wants to go with? (DWI, for those who haven't heard.)

3. David Ragan, Michael Waltrip, Kurt Busch, Denny Hamlin: OMG, while I'm not shocked that Denny is the dumbest of the bunch so far on Smarter Than A 5th Grader (he's barely smarter than a first grader), dudes. DUDES. We finally get a measurable sense of a Busch's brains, and he's dumber than Michael Waltrip? (Okay, for the record, Mikey is wicked smart and just hides it well as part of a schtick. But still. This is book learning we're talking about. This is supposed to be Kurt's area.) Tomorrow night is Carl. I have to admit, I'm not thrilled that we've got a whole week of guys and we didn't get Ryan Newman or Brian Vickers. Those two are supposedly the smartest in the garage. I've been dying to see how they stack up against Mikey. Couldn't we have done without Denny?

60 Most Beautiful People in NASCAR

Number 7: AJ Allmendinger



He's Dinger.

And he's got a cute dog and a hot wife.

Pretty much that says everything needed to explain his awesome. Between that and the twinkle in his eye, yep, total understanding of why he ranks number seven.

( Bonus picture )

Dear NASCAR Team Owners:

Why is it when I prepare for the drivers I know are going to get the shaft or might get the shaft, you hit me with one that no one saw coming?

God, I love AJ, and he was one of those that did get the shaft and didn't deserve to, but DAMN. Damn, GEM. Seriously. DAMN.

NASCAR News and Notes

1. In the ever-changing landscape of silly season, we have some notable changes for the rest of this year. Patrick Carpentier is out of the 10 effective immediately (Evernham being his douchey best) and AJ Allmendinger will be driving the 00 at Charlotte, then the 10 for the rest of the year. No news on either of them about next year.

2. Samantha Mae Mears was born yesterday. She's named after great-grandmother.

3. Elliott Sadler will be driving a pink car. Well, not totally pink. Pink and black. Okay, so more black than pink. *g* ( Wanna see what his uniform will look like? )

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NASCAR Icons

( Tony Stewart, Ward Burton, David Ragan, David Reutimann, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kevin Harvick, AJ Allmendinger, Brian Vickers, Bobby Labonte, Clint Bowyer, Jeff Gordon, Kyle Busch, Jamie McMurray, Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards, Jeff Burton )

NASCAR Race Day Notes

1. The media needs to step back and stop roasting Kyle Busch for not doing a post-race interview last week. They keep making comments about how him splitting showed his immaturity. Um, when you've just pointed out that Clint Bowyer and another Chase driver who had a bad day split as well? Shut. Up. Harp on the kid for something that's obvious and that he's the only one who did it. Don't single him out from a pack for something that he wasn't the only one doing it.

2. Scruff on 28-year-old Greg Biffle nearly just made me fall out of my chair. Damn!

3. NASCAR's new drug policy takes effect February 2009. I'd like to believe they're just aiming to do so because they want to be proactive, not reactive, and have realized the error of their thinking, plus it's best to institute it at the beginning of a season. The cynic in me is quite sure that they've found that a Chaser (and I have my suspicions) is doing some extracurricular drugging and they're giving him a chance to sober up before testing really starts. Not to mention that team that's widely known to snort up in the hauler as a group.

4. There's a new NASCAR discrimination lawsuit. This one won't get anywhere and I'm scared that it could hurt Mauricia Grant. She alleged in her lawsuit that another official, Dean Duckett, was fired for "exchanging hostile words with a white coworker", with the implication being that things said by both parties were angry and on the same level and the only reason Duckett was fired was because he was black. Turns out, what Duckett said (which he states in his lawsuit) was "I'm going to cut you". He claims he'd never said that before, didn't know why he said that then, had no knife on him and when he cooled down, he apologized to the other guy. What I don't get is, why did he think that he wasn't going to get in trouble for that? It's not the same as "I'm going to kick your ass", which doesn't involve weapons (unless they're a professional boxer/martial artist). There's an escalated level of hostility in that statement that, no matter if you apologize, it has to be reported to supervisors and I know for a fact that NASCAR and their teams do fire people regularly for that kind of thing. (Neighbor was on the verge of firing because someone *claimed* he said he was going to kick his ass. Merely from a claim. That wasn't even true. Thankfully the prosecuting attorney got fed up and dropped the case when he realized the dude making the claim was full of it.)

5. Does a bitch have to fly to Austria to get word on what's going on with AJ Allmendinger? And it appears to be a common theme that Red Bull fans are torn, because we adore AJ and like Scott Speed as well, so we don't want to choose between them. We just want three teams.

New Year's Resolutions

Um, I kinda did nothing in August. I was going to do one thing, but I was so exhausted that weekend that it didn't happen. In my defense, the Olympics sapped my brain. And kickball has been taking up a ton of time.

So this month I have to do two things. Which means I need to run an errand to Williams Sonoma at some point, see what their cooking classes are for the month. *sigh*

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NASCAR Picspam

In honor of this past weekend's race (wherein the caution light brought out a caution and Biffle finished second and AJ is now 31st in owner's points), I bring you the picspam of lulz because apparently California brings out the nuts.

Oh, and apparently, as it was Jeff Burton's 500th start, they roasted him. Where is the video of this????

( Four pictures, but oh so bizarre )

Work Today

I'm not getting any work done today, and the reason can be summed up as ( this ). Yep. Dog came to work with me. This is what happens when the air conditioning breaks at home.

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Horse Racing

Big Brown probably winning the Triple Crown is kind of a let down this year. For one, he's owned by a conglomerate. For another, it's just a crappy horse year. And there's the fact that the emphasis on fast over sturdy when breeding (and lineage over going outside the "accepted" gene pool). Smarty Jones was a great horse in the horse world because he wasn't the status quo.

So to pick myself up slightly (cause I'm still bummed over Eight Belles), a reminder of the two horses that encompass everything I fell in love with in regards to the Triple Crown.

( Sunday Silence )

( Charismatic )

Oddly enough, I just realized that my favorite horses were from 1989 and 1999. Which bodes well for next year.

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All Star Race

My family (me, mom, dad, sister) went to the All Star Race on Saturday night. This was my parents' first race. And they have little interest in racing. *g*

So, the annoying first - chain smoking obnoxious drunks that constantly hit you in the head and kick you in the ass for the. entire. race. And a family with ADD that doesn't pay attention when you tell them "the merchandise trailers are thataway" and proceed to walk through the gates, into the track. (Which means we got to our seats at 4:00. And I didn't get to use the FanView I was loaned. Or get to go by the Team Red Bull trailer. Overall, I got screwed.)

The great was pretty much everything else.

The Showdown

1. I screamed muchly when people were introduced. My family was amused.

2. AJ winning was AWESOME. Twould have been awesomer if Brian or David Ragan had been second, but I'll take what I can get.

3. They didn't show on TV that AJ was exceedingly apologetic to Ellyut. He got loose and the car walked up the track, which, hey, the cars don't wreck as easily as they used to. But it meant he got into Ellyut, which ended Ellyut's day, and AJ felt so very bad about it. He spent a great amount of time apologizing, even more time than he spent celebrating.

4. When AJ got done with his SPEED interview, he turned around and Brian was right there to congratulate him. They did lots of manly hugging.

The Burnout Competition

1. It smelled bad. *g*

2. Jimmie's tires exploding was loud. We all jumped.

3. Kevin's tires didn't explode as loudly.

The All Star Race

1. I made my mother pay particular attention to Junior's introduction. She was very amused by the crowd reaction.

2. I also made her pay attention to Kyle Busch's introduction. She said the crowd was mean. I pointed out that Kyle pretty much asks for it. (Although I did find the crowd mean for booing Kyle's pit crew at the Pit Crew Challenge. They're not Kyle.)

3. I spotted Kasey's pit crew before he was announced as the fan vote winner, which I was able to tell the preteen girl in front of me sporting a Kasey Kahne hat, carrying a fan sign. Hey, if it couldn't have been Ellyut and wasn't Brian or David Ragan, at least the kid got her guy in.

4. DJ and that UPS truck was even more awesome in person.

5. "God Bless America" sounded worse in person, but thankfully "The Star Spangled Banner" sounded great.

6. Drums on TV - good. Drums in person - way too echoy.

7. The crowd often had no clue what was going on. So our first indication that Kyle was in trouble was when his car stayed on pit road after the mandatory 10 minute period. The cheer you heard on TV when they started pushing it back down pit road was because that's when we found out he was out. It was AWESOME.

8. My dad laughed his ass off when Junior took the lead. Mainly because the crowd went nuts.

9. My dad turned to me after the last pit stop and said "Junior's in trouble for taking that long, he won't win". If my dad, who only has a slight clue about racing, can tell that a four tire stop is bad, how come the driver and crew couldn't figure it out? I know the car was wicked loose, but damn!

10. My family got tired of me screaming "GO BIFFLE" for the last two segments. They had to deal.

11. The most incredible moment of the night came post-race, while they were dragging out the victory stage. DJ was put up on the big screen as he was getting out of his car. If you thought he was teary during the anthem, that was nothing compared to the crying he was doing after the race. I admit to getting teary-eyed myself.

Brian Vickers

Go ahead and challenge him. Brian Vickers knows the question is coming when he talks about the environment, so ask away. How can someone who races cars claim to be environmentally friendly? "Does that mean I should not do anything because I drive a race car on Sunday?" Vickers said. "That sounds pretty stupid. That's not going to get us an answer. "The way I see it is, yeah, I burn a little extra gasoline racing on Sunday, but... it gives me a platform to speak about these things to inform people about the problems going on." Ask drivers about a controversial topic and many will decline to answer, fearing they'll offend sponsors or fans... or both. Vickers doesn't hide when it comes to global warming. He admits that many argue global warming and climate change are not something to worry about. He does. It's why he drives a hybrid car, donates to environmental causes and is looking to install solar panels to his house. Vickers knows some say Al Gore's environmental film, "An Inconvenient Truth," features exaggerations about climate change. Vickers doesn't care. "He got the point across," Vickers said. "He got the masses around the country and around the world motivated to do something." Some people back corn-grain ethanol as an alternative fuel. Vickers rolls his eyes. "Whoever thought that taking land to grow food to produce energy was a good idea didn't really think that one out too well," he said. "Energy is important, but if you die because you can't eat, I don't think driving somewhere is going to do you much good." -- Virginian-Pilot

*loves some Brian*

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AJ Allmendinger

Team Red Bull is possibly going to pull AJ from the car "for a few races" so they can evaluate what's going wrong. Argh! No! Not my AJ!

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Carl Edwards

Carl failed post-race inspection. Iiiiinteresting.

More interesting - during the All Star race his car will feature a marriage proposal. It's some thing that Harlequin is doing with Office Depot. (And no, Carl isn't the one proposing.)

Current bug bite count: 16

Droughts are evil, cause only 4 of the dang bites are mosquitoes. The rest are fleas. From sitting in my grandmother's back yard. And the little dog that belongs to my upstairs neighbor. And because Chester managed to get a few again less than a week after a major flea bath.

Just found another bite on my arm. That's 17. Joy!

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Things Of The Good From This Week's Race

Junior finished 5th.

Vickers finished 8th.

Allmendinger not only finished the race, if there'd been a caution there near the end he'd have finished on the lead lap. And he was the second highest finishing Toyota.

Mikey did not end up fried.

Biffle's crew member did not get badly hurt (the one he ran over).

Things Of The Bad From This Week's Race

Really boring races at night just make me want to sleep that much more.

Neighbors who pop in to watch a race aren't nearly as fun as Bubbles because they read too much into the announcers being dirty. As in, me cracking up over a "hot and slick" statement leads to the neighbor thinking I'm hitting on him. *sigh*

Jimmie Johnson won.

Kurt Busch didn't wreck. And only has to finish 36th or higher to clinch a Chase berth. (I think that's considering if Junior wins the race.)

Harvick took a tumble in the standings and feasibly, with much long shot, if Junior were to get into the Chase (by some miracle), it could be Harvick that was knocked out. THIS IS NOT GOOD. I want Kurt out, not Kevin. I don't want to have to sacrifice one of my boys for the other. (Then again, if DEI had given Junior better engines earlier in the year, this wouldn't be an issue.)