NASCAR

[NancysSummerSip]

Yes, I am listening to the Indycar race at Detroit's Belle Isle (that's the track Iggy is referring to, I think), and this is often an issue with asphalt that's been reworked prior to a race. The material needs time to cure, and this particular circuit has had several races this weekend already. The patches get softened up and eventually come up.

I've worked the Indycar race at Detroit, but not this circuit; I worked the old street course downtown.

[NancysSummerSip]

And the drivers were happy as heck that 1) the race was shortened and 2) the patches held up. And that kind of thing has also happened at several NASCAR tracks; I recall issues at Richmond, Fontana (CA) and Pocono, where water seepage broke the asphalt and stopped events.

[NancysSummerSip]

And Kurt Busch is now suspended for next week's race, and on probation for the rest of the year. Those two dinkleheads (him and his brother) just never learn. Ripping on a member of the media? Sheesh, dude. As if abusing his crew and other drivers and their crew wasn't enough. His team owner needs to park his sorry butt for longer than a week to teach him a lesson, good driver or not. He's replaceable.

[NancysSummerSip]

Well, since we have a NASCAR thread already, I did not want to risk mod ire by starting a new one. So I'll continue to use this one.

Danica Patrick scored a first as the first woman to sit on a Cup pole, earning the starting position for the Daytona 500. Well done for her! Oh, and for the record, I think she and Ricky Stenhouse don't stand a chance together as a couple. It's just too cutesy to last.

[mtman]

Feb 17, 2013 16:39:05 GMT -5 NancysSummerSip said:

Danica Patrick scored a first as the first woman to sit on a Cup pole, earning the starting position for the Daytona 500. Well done for her! Oh, and for the record, I think she and Ricky Stenhouse don't stand a chance together as a couple.

I agree with you.....On both points.

[NancysSummerSip]

It does seem very contrived to see them together. I hope they are happy, but I don't think it will work. Work and romance are not a good mix in this case. Wait until one of them takes the other out in a race. Talk about real sparks flying!

[unrepentant_spendthrift]

Is it horrible that every time I hear about this story I imagine an announcer going "Danica Patrick is sitting on the pole.."?

[NancysSummerSip]

Feb 17, 2013 17:57:01 GMT -5 unrepentant_spendthrift said:

Is it horrible that every time I hear about this story I imagine an announcer going "Danica Patrick is sitting on the pole.."?

Yes, yes it is. And funny as hell.

I guess sitting on it beats dancing on it, no?

[b2r]

 
    Drivers..........and Danica....Start Your Engines!

[NancysSummerSip]

Sure did see it. Been there, experienced that kind of thing. As a race worker, I've had a car come over a catch fence. The whole car, not just pieces of it. Back then, I was younger and faster and was able to get out of the way. No one was hurt in that incident, but yesterday's incident was a reminder that there's no such thing as a safe place on a race track. And you never, ever turn your back on a "hot" track. Things can change in a second.

And I hope Danica does well today. They just went under caution again, with 60 laps to go, and she is in ninth.

[ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ]

Well she finished in 8th place - not too shabby at all. It really made my day that she beat out Jeff Gordon. He was ahead of her through the first half of race, but he was way behind when all was said and done (20th, I think).

[daisylu]

James Franco is just weird. <BR><BR>We were having a late lunch/early supper at Texas Roadhouse when the Nationwide accident happened. I was able to see it as it happened, and it looked horrific. Saw fan footage last night of someone who was recording it as it happened, and was about 5 feet from where the tire landed.   <IMG alt=" " src="http://images.proboards.com/new/shocked.gif" width=18 height=18 text="">

[b2r]

[steff]

Yesterday was the Coca Cola 600 (longest race in Nascar & always same day at the Indy 500).
Early in the race, the camera that hangs over the track & stands somehow the guide line/drive line broke & the cables came down in the stands & across the track where several cars ran over it & caused damage. 

10 people in the stands were injured, 7 minor (checked & released) 3 to the hospital for observation (all 3 were released last night).

Here's a video taken from the stands as the camera cable came down on them. 

[NancysSummerSip]

I did not stay up for the whole race (I had a 5K this morning), but I'm wondering about the future of this particular camera technology because of this mishap. I think the NASCAR officials did the best they could under the circumstances, but what do you say or do to make it up to the drivers who had major damage and whose points standings are now affected?

[steff]

May 27, 2013 18:28:21 GMT -5 NancysSummerSip said:

I did not stay up for the whole race (I had a 5K this morning), but I'm wondering about the future of this particular camera technology because of this mishap. I think the NASCAR officials did the best they could under the circumstances, but what do you say or do to make it up to the drivers who had major damage and whose points standings are now affected?

Fox Sports plans to do an internal investigation to find out why the camera line broke, until they know for sure, the camera system will NOT be used again.  They hope to find out the problem, fix it & be able to use the overhead camera again.

With Nascar giving the teams with damaged cars those 15 minutes to repair the damage, the 2 cars with the biggest damage (Kyle Busch & Marcos Ambrose) were both given their spots back & were both able to fix the problems in that 15 minutes.  Kyle's car blowing up later was completely unrelated to the cable damage.  Marcos actually finished 10th which is very impressive all things considered.  Neither Kyle nor Marcos were upset about what happened & appreciated Nascar's handling of it.  I think the fact that Kyle not going off about it says something. He normally will bitch about the sun setting in the West if it's messing up his race line. 

Right before Nascar & Fox figured out what had happened, Kyle was bitching on his radio about fans throwing stuff on the track in that area.  Turns out fans were throwing stuff to try and get a caution throw because they knew there was a problem before Fox or Nascar did.  I also found it interesting that it too the Fox announcers forever to finally say what the problem was.  It was all over twitter from Nascar reporters & fans at the race about 10 minutes before Fox finally said what the caution was really for & how serious it was.

There were early comments on twitter that some fans were messing with where the cables were connected to the stands, but I haven't seen anything other than early random twitter chatter right after the cable broke. 

[NancysSummerSip]

Not knowing where those cables were connected, I'd sure hope they would not be anywhere near where the fans could make contact with them. I mean, beer-swilling, rowdy race fans plus that kind of temptation results in no good at all. And I think NASCAR did the best they could with what happened, and the chaos that resulted. And I was wondering why it took the announcers so long to say something, too. It was kinda like they knew, but they were tippytoeing around it.

[steff]

I rewatched the race last night & funny enough, at the beginning, when they always show Jeff Hammond in some weird place on the track, he was standing on the platform the cable camera used.  His segment was actually shot with the cable camera zooming up to him & then zooming away & showing the track below.  From where he was shown, there's simply no way that a fan messed with the cables.  The platform was to the side of the spotters area.  Hammond had to climb a ladder (it was shown in the shot) to get where he was standing & the wires were still a good 3 or 4 feet above his head. 

[NancysSummerSip]

Hmmmm. Could have been tampered with prior to the race, of course. But with so much track security, who would be able to get there, and how would they do it? And why? I can think of better ways to sabotage a race than that; it's just too much trouble.

[steff]

Like I said, the comments I saw about it being tampered with were all on Twitter & died off fairly quickly.  After watching Hammond's segment again, there's just no way someone could have messed with it & have it not be seen & known by someone. 

IMO it's going to end up being some kinda mechanical failure.  It was the drive line that broke, not the wires that the camera rides on.  The same camera set up is moved from track to track.  It's not something that every track has & it stays after the race.  It's also going to be all on Fox Sports. It's their camera set up, their guys put it into place at each track. 

On a good note, I saw it verified that the 3 fans taken to the hospital were all released & there were no serious injuries at all. I also saw an interview with a fan in that section who said she threw her daughter to the deck, laid on top of her & then her husband laid on top of both of them.  She said that after what happened at Daytona, they didn't know what would happen.  They were worried that when the cable was run over that it would whip up into the stands. 

I have found that following twitter during the races is the BEST way to get information LONG before the tv announcers give it.  Most people don't even realize at one of the road courses last year, there was a corner that TNT didn't have a single camera on.  Cars spun out in that spot ALL DAY long (single car spins, no crashes) & it was never mentioned on tv.  Your driver could have been top 10 one lap & the next time you saw them they were 20th & no word on why.  It was because they spun in the corner & no one covered it. 

[NancysSummerSip]

Sooo....didya see where Clint Bowyer is now a dad? Named the little bugger Cash Aaron. Not his first pick for a name, though. He wanted to name the tyke Cletus Bocephus.

Like having Clint for a dad wasn't enough of a handicap.

[steff]

Yes I did see that.   Cash Bowyer is a good racing name tho. Better racing name than Leo Gordon.   do you think Bill Elliott knew something 19 years ago about Nascar creating the Chase & him naming his kid Chase?   lol  timing is everything.   Keelan Harvick is another good racing name.  Junior has already said that if he ever has a son that he will NOT pass along the Dale Earnhardt name.  too much weight & expectation to have to live with.

there's been a run of girls instead of boys in the Nascar garage for so long, that it's cool to see some boys coming along. 

[NancysSummerSip]

Oct 3, 2014 13:03:03 GMT -5 steff said:

Yes I did see that.   Cash Bowyer is a good racing name tho. Better racing name than Leo Gordon.   do you think Bill Elliott knew something 19 years ago about Nascar creating the Chase & him naming his kid Chase?   lol  timing is everything.   Keelan Harvick is another good racing name.  Junior has already said that if he ever has a son that he will NOT pass along the Dale Earnhardt name.  too much weight & expectation to have to live with.

there's been a run of girls instead of boys in the Nascar garage for so long, that it's cool to see some boys coming along. 

I was wondering about all the little girls...maybe they were all drinking from the same garden hose or something?

Poor little Bowyer tyke. Bad enough to worry about a crazy daddy like that. But imagine getting saddled with a name like Cletus, too. That's a playground fight in the making if ever I saw one.

[steff]

I've ordered (well backordered) my DALE CALL!   Not thrilled with the $25 price tag, but I gotta have one!  lol  


I've already warned family & friends that it's Dega weekend & it's win or go home for Jr.  So everyone is going to leave me alone. lol  Luckily, hubby is going hunting this weekend, so I won't have to listen to him during the race.   I'm rather tense and difficult to deal with during Dega weekends. 

[ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ]

I'll be glued to Talladega this weekend too.

[NancysSummerSip]

Well, I got to see most of the Talladega race. No Dale, no Jimmy...gawd, will someone please take the air off of Brad the Brat's spoiler at Martinsville next week? I cannot stand the idea of this fugly little blowhard becoming NASCAR champion.

[steff]

Only decent part of the race was seeing Kyrle crash out.   Well, okay, it was going good when Junior was leading laps...but *le sigh*.   Plus A&M got creamed the day before.   I had a sad sports weekend. 

[NancysSummerSip]

Oct 20, 2014 22:57:27 GMT -5 steff said:

Only decent part of the race was seeing Kyrle crash out.   Well, okay, it was going good when Junior was leading laps...but *le sigh*.   Plus A&M got creamed the day before.   I had a sad sports weekend. 

<<Hands Steff a six-pack of whatever she wants for next weekend>>

I saw the A&M score. Sheesh. All the flags there must be at half-mast.

[NancysSummerSip]

I see Steff has not checked in yet. Probably still celebrating with the rest of Junior Nation.

Heck, I was just glad to see Brad the Brat get his due.

Oh, and Tony Stewart had a good finish. He and the team needed that.

[steff]

JUNIORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

a week late.....but he got his clock. 



It wasn't until watching the press room stuff after the race that we found out just how much that clock really meant to him. 

I'm pretty used to a Hendrick car winning every year on the anniversary of the plane crash, but it's usually Jimmie or Jeff.  It was really cool to see Dale Jr get the 10th anniversary win for Mr. H.  i don't remember who was doing the interview, but I remember someone saying that it made sense for Jr to be at Hendrick because Jr is a son who lost his father & Mr H is a father who lost his son.  It was what brought me over to the dark side and to thinking going to HMS was better than going to RCR. 



because I'm a total hormonal disaster zone (thanks perimenopause) I got all blubbery with the "THIS is why we love Junior so much" as he went around and hugged EVERY single crew member before he even thought about doing his Victory Lane interview for tv.  Watching them all jump up and down like little kids is just more reason we all love him so much.  He's just a good guy.