Scheduled RacinDeals

SERIOUS MONEY: One has to wonder what would have happened had Sirius
Satellite Systems given the money to the #7 team instead of spending it on
sponsoring the Michigan race? And they’ve also signed on to sponsor a race at
another ISC track, Watkins Glen.

PROPAGANDA WEB SITES: It seems that one of the four makes that compete
in the Winston Cup Series has a web site that’s specifically designed to publish
that make’s propaganda and rumors about teams of other makes. Do we really need this kind of garbage?

RED FLAG MADNESS: Both races on Sunday were stopped at the end by a
"competition" red flag. The insistence on only running the
"advertised distance" and no more is just idiotic. If NASCAR wants to
play games with semantics, why not continue to run the cars under yellow (so
teams can work on them if necessary), but stop counting the laps? Heck, back in
the 70’s during the oil crisis, they cut the races by 10%. That’s not a big deal
until you realize that they counted them as full distance and started not on lap
one, but on the first lap after the 10% distance. In other words, Bristol races
began on lap 51.

I just don’t see what the big deal is for NASCAR to do in their top two
divisions what they do in every other touring division: end the race on a
Green/White/Checkered two lap run. They don’t stop the races, but laps continue
to count.

COMPETITION CAUTIONS: If you needed proof that NASCAR doesn’t throw a
caution to make the race more interesting, all you had to do was watch the
Michigan Cup race.

Yeah, they had a debris caution, but if it was one of those
"phantom" debris cautions, they could have picked a better time to
throw it.

They should do what the ASA has done for several years: throw a competition
caution after so many laps of green-flag racing.

NOT IN DEMAND: I’d meant to check out the free preview of the in-car
pay-per-view package during the Michigan race. Completely forgot about it. It
strikes me however that that’s something only someone with a half-dozen TV sets
in their living room would want anyway. It’s WAY overpriced for what you
supposedly get.

’03 RIDES: Why in the world would Bobby Hamilton or anyone else for
that matter be looking at the #21 for a ride next year? Especially if you’re on
Chip Ganassi’s short list for his third team?

NO RESPECT: Kyle Petty was pretty upset with Joe Nemechek, since he
apparently got blocked in his pits on the last pit stop by Nemechek. But to call
Nemechek a "Busch" driver is uncalled for. Let’s go back and see who
has the most recent win in the Winston Cup Series, and then see who’s bush
league.

ROAD RAGE: They’re running the second Texas date this weekend, only
it’s not at Texas; it’s at another Bruton Smith track out west. I’m not sure
what the seating capacity of Sears Point is, but I don’t think it’s as much as
Texas. So you’d think that SMI stockholders would be insisting that SMI take
Sears Point out of the loop (so to speak) and substitute the Texas track in its
place. Seems to me that it’d be the fiscally responsible thing to do, instead of
biting the hand that feeds you by suing NASCAR.

RACINDEALS.COM NEWS: You may have noticed the addition of some things
to the menu on the left. I’ve (finally) put links to the most frequent
columnists there, so if you want to see what else someone has written, there’s
now an easy way.

You’ll also notice that there are days beside four of the columnists.
Starting Monday, June 24, RacinDeals.com will start posting columns by these
four writers on particular days. Nancy Osterhoudt’s "Sofa Sideline"
will run on Mondays, Michael Daly’s post-race analysis will run on Tuesdays,
Mike Harper’s "Spin Out Zone" will run on Wednesday, and my own "RacinDeals"
will run on Fridays. Michael Daly’s occasional second column of the week will
run on Thursdays. And of course, the guest columnists will be posted as they
arrive.

Hopefully putting things on a schedule will save everyone involved some time;
users won’t have to come back every day to see if anything’s been posted, and
the columnists now have a "deadline" to meet (and I have a deadline to
publish). Let me know what you think.