Late January RacinDeals

USAGE: Wow. I just looked
at the usage reports for RacinDeals.com for the first time in
about 4 or 5 months. Imagine my surprise when I saw that December
2001 had the highest number of visits to the site ever. Usually
in an off season, the visits go down, but to have a record month
is impressive. I’d like to thank everyone who reads the columns posted here, and all the sites who link to those columns. Never
in my wildest dreams did I ever think we’d get close to 17,000
visits in one month.

Which brings me to my next point…

CENSORSHIP: It’s a shame
that some people are trying to, in effect, shut this site down,
simply because they disagree with me or one of the other
columnists. There seems to be a loosely organized effort to
censor one of the authors I publish. Every now and then, I get a
message or two that’s nicely informing me that one of my
columnists is rude and mean to people, and of course if I want
RacinDeals to be taken seriously, I’ll get rid of that person,
right?

So far, all I’ve gotten is accusations. No
one has given me any proof that anyone who has submitted a column
here has been abusive to anyone else. I’ve seen postings on
message boards (which are a waste of time if you ask me) where
people intentionally provoke others and when they get put in
their place, they cry about it.

Now the question is, what should happen if
I do get proof that someone who is published here is abusive?
That is, a person who initiates the abusive behavior and is not
being abusive because they were abused first. Good question. Of
course, as the owner of RacinDeals.com, I have the ultimate
authority as to what gets posted here on the site. I could just
start refusing to post anything from anyone else, and that’d
certainly take care of the situation. But then how long would it
be before I get accused of abusive behavior? Actually, that’s
already happened.

Some idiot (and I don’t mean the term to be
anything other than descriptive) who claims to be a Bill Elliott
fan has accused me of harassing him in email. I’ve got the emails
I’ve sent him, in response to his email to me cussing me out. No,
I didn’t stoop to his level. I actually tried to ignore him. But
after a while, I decided to just report him to AOL. Hopefully his
account has been cancelled, since it’s been a few weeks since
I’ve received anything from him.

And that reminds me of a saying: You can
catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar. If you
disagree with something I or anyone else here writes, you’ll get
a better response if you refrain from name calling and cussing in
your emails to us. But if that’s the way you want to be responded
to, then cuss away.

NASCAR’S WITNESS PROTECTION PROGRAM:
NASCAR has chosen "The Witness" as their crash data
recorder for this year. The device will record a bunch of data
during crashes. I wonder how this thing works? Does it store it
in memory in the device or does it broadcast a signal that’s
picked up by NASCAR? If it does send out a signal, I hope it’s
encrypted; I daresay that a creative crew chief could find ways
to use the g-force data those things record in order to make his
car go faster.

HEY JOE: I sure hope the
truck Joe Ruttman tested at Daytona materializes into a full-time
ride. With his showing at Daytona testing, surely someone will
take notice and put up some sponsorship money. I saw Joe at the
Fairgrounds Speedway at Nashville drivers’ meeting a couple of
weeks ago, and figured that he might be looking to race in a few
Late Model races this year. But it looks like the #79 deal came
together after that, so while I’d like to see him race at
Nashville, I’d much rather see him run full time in the Truck
Series.

RIDE FOR SALE: When did
NASCAR become CART? I mean, when did it become the driver’s
responsibility to secure sponsorship for the team? Ruttman got
fired because Dana left, and (presumably) Robert Pressley has
some sponsorship money for the Bobby Hamilton #18 truck. Hut
Stricklin, with Sara Lee in tow (or was it the other way around?),
was able to secure a Winston Cup ride as a teammate to Ward
Burton because he had the sponsorship money behind him.

Maybe I missed this encroachment over the
last few years. But I don’t like it.

THE HALO DEVICE: The first
(but certainly not the last) case of a driver getting a broken vertebra while wearing a head and neck restraint device occured
the other day. David Pook now has to wear another device, a halo,
until his vertebra heals. If you’ve ever seen someone in a halo,
you know how bad it looks. It’s worse for the person wearing it,
because the thing is literally screwed into their skull to keep
their head from moving.

Interestingly enough, the head and neck
restraint device is not being given much credit for saving Pook’s
life. A "special seat" that he was using seems to be
the major factor in Pook surviving the wreck.

I’m afraid that we’ll be seeing more of
this during the year, now that drivers in all of NASCAR’s touring
divisions are required to wear one of these gizmos. But hey, at
least the company that makes them isn’t at fault. As I’ve
mentioned before, everyone who buys a HANS device has to waive
their rights to any claims against Hubbard/Downing, Inc. From
their disclaimer page: "No
warranty or representation of any kind is made as to the
merchantability or fitness for any purpose as to any HANS®
device. You agree and acknowledge that no safety device can
protect its user from all risk of injury or death. You assume all
risk from any activity involving the use of the HANS® device."

That’s certainly not very comforting, is
it?

SPOILED DRIVERS: Well, if
BF Skinner was right, and variable reinforcement works best, then
the Ford teams’ sandbagging just got rewarded. NASCAR gave in to
the demands of the Ford drivers after the first two rounds of
Daytona tests and shortened their spoiler by a quarter inch. The
upshot is that this will only increase the whining by teams (of
whatever makes) when they perceive an "unfair"
advantage.

RED LIGHT SPECIAL: If I
was a shareholder in K-mart, I’d be a trifle upset that the
company is apparently going to continue to spend the ton of cash
it takes to sponsor not one but two Winston Cup teams. But that’s
just me.

Now, where are all those NASCAR fans that
are so "loyal" to the sponsors? You know the ones we
keep hearing about who go out of their way to buy a product
simply because of a team sponsorship… If this loyalty is a fact
and not just a marketing gimmick to draw sponsors to the sport,
then those loyal fans need to get up off their couch and go to K-mart
and buy something. If this loyalty is true, then K-mart will be
out of bankruptcy by the time the Daytona 500 rolls around.

Or, maybe K-mart should’ve gotten rid of
Rosie O’Donnell when they had a chance.

MORE IS LESS: I’m not sure
I like the new layout for Thatsracin.com. Seems like with the old
layout, you could go to the site, see the important stuff right
there, and not spend any time figuring out what was news and what
wasn’t. With their new layout, you have to go all over the page
to find stuff.

My usage of NASCAR.com dropped from once or
twice a day last year to maybe once a week because of their
redesign. Already my usage of Thatsracin.com has dropped, and
will probably continue to drop.