PRE-DAYTONA 500 RACINDEALS
THE LAST WRONG WORD: Every now and then
I happen to catch Jim Rome on Fox Sports Net… really just when I’m channel
surfing and there isn’t something more interesting on like Sesame Street. For
some reason, I instinctively didn’t like his cocky style. Now I know
why.
His latest “word” is that he doesn’t get
NASCAR. Why, he says, do they start out with their biggest event? I’m reminded
of the quote that goes “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than
to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”
Rome’s main problem with his criticism of
NASCAR is that he simply doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He wonders why
they start off with their biggest event of the year, when other “sports” have
their big events at the end of their season. Uh, Jim, those other “sports” you
mention, and those big games? Those are their championship games. You know,
where they decide who the champion is. In NASCAR Winston Cup racing, the
champion isn’t known until the last race or two. The Daytona 500 race isn’t big
because that’s where the championship is decided; it’s big because the fans have
made it that big.
And of course he gets into the gratuitous
anti-smoking garbage and other cheap insults to racing fans. It doesn’t take
much intelligence to come up with that kind of “criticism”.
It’s obvious that Fox is trying to get Rome
some higher ratings numbers. His new lead in show? Fox’s new “Totally NASCAR.”
But Fox has shot themselves in the foot (again) by featuring Rome’s diatribe on
their motorsports page.
If you like Rome, fine. If you don’t, don’t
take the time to write a letter or email Fox. Just don’t watch his show. After
Totally NASCAR is over, switch channels. When Rome’s miniscule ratings get even
smaller, maybe they’ll understand why NASCAR fans are the most loyal fans there
are.
MORE NASCAR.COM: So, I forgot to set
the VCR Thursday to tape the 125’s. The one advantage of tape delaying those
races is that at least I got to see them. With them being live now, you either
have to tape them or take a day off from work.
Anyway, I kept up with the race by listening
to MRN’s broadcast, and NASCAR.com’s racecast. I’ll give them this much: the
racecast has about as much info as you could want to see during a race. But that
doesn’t mean there’s not room for improvement.
So if anyone from NASCAR.com is out there,
here are a couple of suggestions:
Dump Java. The longer I left the
racecast window up, the slower my computer became. It’s that way with all Java
applications. Why not write a dedicated client that you give away that’s
written for each computing platform? That way, the only thing you’d need
to send downstream is pure data.
Post correct running orders. I was listening
to MRN during the race, and after the races, their rundowns were completely
different than what was coming over on racecast. It’s nice, it’s fast,
it’s pretty, but if it’s incorrect, it’s useless.
Get rid of the in car audio. Or at least
tell me it’s an advertisement for a pay service. I
picked a couple of drivers to spotlight, and on those screens, you have an
option of live in car audio. Great I thought. Well as it turns out, the audio
is not from the driver you’ve highlighted, but from a selection of drivers.
Not exactly what I expected.
When there’s a yellow flag, don’t pop up a
window telling me that, unless it has timeout and goes away after a few
seconds. I don’t want to have to click on OK every time a caution comes
out.
As I write this paragraph, it’s 10:15 am on Friday
morning. I assume the truck race has been green for a few minutes. I’m so far
inside this building that I can’t get either of the two low power AM stations
that would probably be broadcasting the race. I go to NASCAR.com and find out
that their next racecast isn’t today’s Truck race, but tomorrow’s Busch race.
Ok, so I go to mrnnet.com to get the link for the broadcast, and I find out
there that “all broadcasts are available on NASCAR Online.” Hello? You have a
“consumer” here who wants to “consume” your product but can’t. Not a good way
to run a business. From looking at NASCAR.com, you’d be hard pressed to
discover that there actually was a Truck race today. (As of 2:30 pm, still no
results for the Truck race.)
WHO’S SANDBAGGING?: I have a feeling
that the sand that was in the trunks of the Dodges during testing has been
shifted to the Fords.
Since these cars supposedly share the same
template, then they should be pretty equal as far as aerodynamics. That leaves
the engine and the driver as the other variables that would cause Fords to be
behind. With names like Roush and Yates building engines, I don’t see that as a
factor. So that leaves it to the drivers. I guess Andy Houston, Jeff Purvis,
Jimmy Spencer, and, say – was that Jeff Burton getting a top five in his
qualifier?…along with Rusty Wallace (who led quite a bit)? Weren’t those guys in on the sandbagging
meeting? They weren’t supposed to finish that high so as to convince NASCAR
they needed help. Oh well. Maybe at Talladega.
ODD
MAN IN: Randy LaJoie seems to like Daytona, at least in odd numbered years.
He won Saturday’s Busch race for the third time. The previous two times were in
1997 and 1999. Interestingly enough, the years LaJoie has won the Busch
race, Jeff Gordon has won the Daytona 500.
WE GET LETTERS: The Fox coverage
continues to draw criticism. Michael Daly’s column from the other day
criticizing the criticism has gotten some criticism (still with me?). Check out
the new Letters to the Editor section
and feel free to send me some mail.
SPEAKING
OF TV COVERAGE: Sure, there are a few rough spots in the production. And no,
not everyone gets FX, so some people will miss Busch races (just like those
people who don’t get ESPN2 have missed some Truck races). But people seem to
want to throw the baby out with the bath water.
Sorry
folks. Bob Jenkins, Benny Parsons, and Ned Jarrett aren’t together anymore.
Disney apparently didn’t think enough of NASCAR fans to put up the bucks needed
to retain the rights. Neither did Viacom. Fox, AOL/Time Warner, and NBC did. If
you don’t like the announcers, mute the volume and listen to MRN. If you don’t
like the crawl at the top, cut up enough strips of paper to go across your TV
and tape them over it. But quit whining. It’s getting old, and we haven’t seen
the first Winston Cup race yet.