BRAKES, BUSCH, AND MORE TV NEWS
DOMINOES CONTINUE TO FALL: Wow. The news
that World Sports Enterprises, TNN’s in-house production company that produced
all its motorsports programming, is closing up shop was certainly unexpected. They’re going to outsource
the production for all the remaining motorsports programming.
I’m pretty sure that WSE also does TBS’s production.
Should be interesting to see what happens as the shakeout of the NASCAR TV deal
continues.
BUSCH’S NEW LEAGUE: Kurt Busch made his second
start Sunday, well on his way to Roush-induced obscurity. He might be
burning up the truck series, but history shows that the best way to put the
brakes on a career is to join one of Roush’s third-tier teams. Wally Dallenbach,
Ted Musgrave, Johnny Benson, and now Chad Little have all been used and
discarded by the Roush Racing machine.
Perhaps Busch might surprise me. Jeff Burton certainly did
when he started winning races in a third-tier Roush car. That moved him up
the ladder and now one could argue that he’s the top Roush car, with Martin now
getting first choice of the leftovers.
But back to Busch and the #97. Where’s all
the outrage that was directed at Darrell Waltrip a couple of years ago for
taking all those provisionals? Busch’s will make his second provisional start in
three races Sunday at Charlotte. That’ll be the 14th provisional that team has
taken this year, matching the 14 they took last year. You think maybe it’s the
equipment?
JEREMY WHO?: Rusty Wallace gets a new teammate, but
Jeremy Mayfield’s name isn’t even mentioned (at least on the clips they showed
on TV). Maybe Jeremy is only a half-teammate, since Penske doesn’t own the
whole #12 car.
Maybe they’ll retain the status quo next year, but it sure
is fishy.
And why Ryan Newman? Where’d he come from all of a sudden?
Yeah, he can win ARCA races in Rusty Wallace Winston Cup cars, but can he run
well in Winston Cup races with Ryan Newman Winston Cup cars?
WE INTERRUPT THIS COMMERCIAL FOR SOME RACING ACTION:
Well, at least that won’t be true for Sunday’s race from Charlotte Motor
Speedway. Say what you want about TBS’s production (see above), but if
their experiment with split screen commercials works, we may see that a lot more
in the future.
I was also pleased to see that during qualifying, they
almost never cut to a full screen view of a driver interview while someone was
on the track. All the driver interviews had their own "window"
on the screen. It was also pretty interesting for them to play the drivers’
pre-qualifying remarks during their run.
Again, next year’s TV coverage should be interesting.
AT LEAST I DON’T THINK THEY’RE
MADE BY FIRESTONE: I can’t remember a season with more tire issues than this
one (except when Goodyear had some competition from Hoosier). Goodyear insists
on making a tire specific to each track. Fine. But can’t your quality control
guys check them a few more days in advance? The tire shortage this weekend at
Charlotte is inexcusable.
If NASCAR gets picky about what kind of
metal a manifold is made of, why aren’t they that picky about tires? Why doesn’t
NASCAR tell Goodyear to come up with a spec tire that’s used at all tracks? The
ASA does this with BFGoodrich tires and it works fine for them. That’d solve
these shortage problems, and it’d also give the teams one less variable to deal
with through the year. It’d be a shame if the points championship was decided by
Goodyear.
HARNAC THE MAGNIFICENT: Just about
two weeks ago I said
this: "But with Viacom throwing off other TNN investments (like NASCAR
Thunder), I predict that it won’t be long before they divest themselves of the
ASA ownership and abandon motorsports completely."
Well, I’ve seen reports where Viacom is
doing just that, looking to sell their ownership interest in ASA.
Hmm, wonder if I should put some money on
the Mets?