Pre Daytona Qualifying RacinDeals

DRIVING TO DISTRACTIONS: Here’s an interesting quote from Tony
Stewart (via Frontstretch):
"I’m just looking at what I need to do to be better this
year and trying to knock out some of the distractions that we had
last year." I guess the thing about this quote is, Stewart
himself created all the distractions from last year, whether it
was getting put on double secret probation by NASCAR or having a
hissy fit over the media. I guess this is one story where we
won’t know the end until the last race of the season.

WE INTERRUPT THIS COMMERCIAL: I guess stock car racing won’t be
considered a mainstream sport until people talk more about the
commercials that air during the Daytona 500 than the race itself.

WE INTERUPT THIS PROGRAM: NBC’s coverage of the Olympics is
apparently interfering with their coverage of the Daytona 500 and
the activities leading up to it. However, all that’s affected is
apparently coverage of practice… which I’ve never understood
why it was telecast in the first place. If the actual racing, for
the most part, is boring, how exciting can the practice be?

SPEAKING OF THE OLYMPICS: I understand that the IOC doesn’t
want the US to be "too" patriotic during the Olympic games, especially the
opening ceremony. They’ve even tried to ban the US Flag that was
flying over the World Trade Center when the terrorists struck.
Here’s an idea… let’s ban the Olympics, figuratively speaking.

I don’t have any use for an organization that tries to
belittle the United States, and the IOC seems to be doing just
that. So by "banning" the Olympics, that is, boycotting
the TV coverage and attendance of the events, I think we can show
those people that we don’t need their Olympic games. It looks
like people are staying away in droves anyway.

OLYMPIC ADD: Darrell Waltrip was on a local sports talk TV
show Wednesday night, and said he’d been invited to attend the
opening ceremony of the Olympics with President Bush. So, he had to miss the ceremony Thursday night where he was to receive
a Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the Nashville Sports
Council. He flew up to Washington Thursday, then to
Utah Friday, where he’ll be the guest of the president.

It’s a shame that he couldn’t here for the presentation, but
what do you do when the President calls and asks you to be his
guest?

RPM2WHENEVERWEWANTIT: ESPN2’s RPM2night premiered on Monday
night for the 2002 season. They tell us that the show will be
seen all season at 6:30 pm (eastern). Yeah, and I have some land
in Florida I need to sell. The first time something more
important (like professional indoor soccer) needs to start at 6 or 6:30, RPM2night
will be moved faster than you can say "where’s my racing
coverage." I give them a couple of weeks before the first
time shift of the year.

NASCAR’S PRIVATE I: On the first RPM2night of the
season, they showed the new "black box" from
Independent Witness. I was glad to see that it doesn’t have real-time
monitoring. The device has to be detached from its mount and the
infrared transmitter pointed to a receiver. 

However… According
to Independent Witness’s web site, they
are working on (or already have) "near real-time"
reporting of events involving the vehicle in which the device is
placed. To me, that opens up the possibility of teams using this
telemetric technology for performance enhancement, instead of (or
in addition to) its intended use by NASCAR as a crash data
recorder. Only time will tell, but I predict we’ll hear reports
of The Witness being misused before the year is out.

MILKING THE RACE FAN: The "new" NASCAR.com
went live sometime late Wednesday. One of their "new"
features is a fee-based racecast. The only way that feature would
be worth paying for is if they made it reliable, and had useful information. With
that new innovation, I now have absolutely no
reason to visit the site. 

After visiting the site, about the best thing I can say about
it is that they dumped the white text on black background. As I
said above, there’s still no reason for me to waste my time on
the site, especially since they’re still posting stats (like practice times) way
after the numbers are available elsewhere. 

SITE REDESIGN: Speaking of redoing web sites, how do you like
the new RacinDeals.com? We’re using all new electrons.

SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY: NASCAR has a new guy on their PR
team, a fellow named Mike Zizzo. Zizzo comes to NASCAR from the
slowly-fading-into-insignificance CART organization. So, what’s
the big deal? Well, before he went to CART, it seems he worked at
a certain Orlando paper that’s been one of NASCAR biggest critics
over the last year.

Wonder if he still has any stroke with his old
newspaper? Or…
vice versa?

SECRET CODES: It strikes me that the phrase "track
position" is a code word for "unable to pass at this
track." We’re hearing a lot about how "track position"
is going to be important at Daytona this year. Any conclusions
from this observation are left as an exercise for the reader.

SPONSOR NASCAR, GO BANKRUPT: First, Conseco had troubles (don’t
get me started on the irony of a financial services company
having financial problems). Then Kmart. Now Global Crossing. Just
how much return do sponsors get on a NASCAR sponsorship? If it’s
so great, why are all these companies leaving the sport or going
belly up? Where are all the fans that are supposed to be loyal to all these
companies that sponsor NASCAR teams and races?