EVERYONE’S A LOSER WITH RAIN

Side by side racing, fast action, lead changes, close
racing… but enough about speed skating… it’s time to talk about the Las
Vegas Winston Cup race.

NASCAR2day is on right now as I write this, and if I had a
dollar for every stupid Las Vegas pun they’ve had on the show in the first five
minutes, I’d be a millionaire myself. With all the demands placed on drivers
these days, why in the world would ESPN take them away from their other duties
to lip sync "Viva Las Vegas?"

Hopefully, this Las Vegas race won’t be like the last two
snoozers held there. But just in case I start craving some action, TV Land is
running a "McCale’s Navy" marathon.

Before this race starts, a couple of words about
yesterday’s Busch race. We got to see another exciting race to the yellow and
checkered flags. A fitting finish to a boring race. The Busch races are usually
better than that, but Las Vegas just doesn’t lend itself to exciting racing.

The race has just started, and if they keep this up, this
could be the best race in a while. Three-wide racing since the start and Little
E takes the lead. But I have a feeling that once they settle down we’re in for a
freight train. Ten laps in and ABC takes their first commercial break.

Back from commercial and all that side by side racing that
happened in the first five or six laps has disappeared. Caution comes out for
rain, and I have a feeling that we’re going to get a chance to see how dedicated
ABC is to bringing us a complete race. They’re certainly not willing to show us
live pit stops, since we’re now seeing a replay of the pit action that happened
during the commercial.

Speaking of commercials, hopefully ABC can get in quite a
few of their commercials in during this rain caution so that we can see more uninterrupted
racing later. (There’s something disconcerting about Rusty Wallace telling me I
need to watch my sexual health.)

Wait a minute. They just said that Jeff Gordon has been
caught speeding on pit road and he virtually gets no penalty. But yesterday
during the Busch race, Chad Chaffin spins coming into the pits, and they hold
him for two laps. What’s the deal with that?

Back to green finally. Three Rou$h drivers in the top four
while Little E pulls away. He must have missed the Chevy meeting where they were
told to sandbag to get an aero concession from NASCAR. Now he gets with the
program and lets Jeff Burton takes the lead.

Green flag pit stops now starting, so the cars that were
strung out before this sequence will end up even more strung out afterwards.
Looks like we’re headed for another race with just a few cars on the lead lap.
With about 150 laps to go, there are only 25 cars on the lead lap.

I guess it was wishful thinking on my part when I said
above that maybe ABC would get a lot of commercials out of the way. Seems like
they’re trying to beat TNN from last week in the commercial time/race time
ratio.

Second rain caution comes out, and Jeff Burton will
probably start his rain dance again. Frankie Stoddard’s "compassion"
for the fans is touching.

There’s no way that ABC will be able to show us the race
to the finish if it does go back to green. The coverage is set to end at 6pm
eastern, and there is no way they can get the track dry and run well over 100
laps in 35 minutes. I’m sure that they’ll transfer the coverage to ESPN or
ESPN2, but this highligthts one of the potential problems of next year’s TV
package. Fox has FX to fall back on, but NBC’s cable outlets aren’t involved in
the deal. So what happens if an NBC race gets a major rain delay? Will we have a
situation like we had last year at the Craftsman Truck race in Nashville, when
CBS couldn’t wait out the rain delay and were contractually prohibited from even
tape delaying the race on TNN.

Bob Jenkins just announced that, sure enough, ABC won’t be
able to complete the coverage and to watch our local news and the ESPN networks
for more news on the race. Give me a break. Golf is supposed to be on ESPN and
women’s basketball is on ESPN2. There’s no way either of those networks is going
to show us the rest of the race if it goes green. So for all practical purposes,
today’s race is over, at least from a TV coverage standpoint.

Six o’clock eastern and ESPN is going to golf. But wait…
the same weather front that’s messed up the race has caused the cancellation of
the last round of golf. I doubt though that ESPN will take over coverage of the
race since they don’t have a golf game to show. Looks like all the millions and
millions of golf fans will get to see highlights from the previous days’ rounds.

Today’s race was what’s come to be a typical Las Vegas
race. The only racing that really takes place is at the start and after a
restart, and then once the cars that were hooked up made their way to the front,
it settles down into a parade. This race didn’t really do anything to settle the
Chevy/Ford flap either. Chevrolet managed to lead some laps, but there were only
3 that ended up in the top 15. Without going to the end of the race, you really
can’t draw any conclusions from the finishing positions.

Once again, the NASCAR fan is shown an enormous amount of
disrespect. Granted, the race was turning into another bore fest, but the fans
deserve better. I’m afraid that this is something we’ll need to get used to more
and more.