BREAKS, RACING, AND NASCAR MATH

YOU DON’T DESERVE A "BRAKE"
TODAY: Kudos to TBS for their groundbreaking "No Brakes" coverage
Sunday. I don’t think I’ve heard William Shatner sing that much…ever.

The next step in the process is to figure
out a way to let the local cable affiliates in on the deal. It looks like TBS
had 2 or 3 30-second national spots per "traditional" commercial
break, with the rest of the time being filled by the cable
companies.  Normally, I would have channel surfed during those breaks, but
I wanted to see which companies weren’t taking part in the experiment. Budweiser
was the big offender (at least in Nashville). All the traditional breaks (except
one) had a Budweiser commercial. Interestingly enough, the one that didn’t have
Bud had a Miller Lite ad.

The only "negative" thing I have
to say about it is that the split screen was apparently designed with a big
screen TV in mind. For all practical purposes, anyone watching on a 13"
screen might as well have been watching the commercials in full screen mode.

FINALLY, A REAL RACE: I don’t know
what it was different about Charlotte Motor Speedway, but whatever it was they
need to figure it out and duplicate it at the other tracks. With close to 40
lead changes among a half dozen drivers or so, we actually got to see some
racing for the lead. (Note: I know what the official numbers are, but I’m only
talking about lead changes that occurred when someone actually made a
competitive pass for the lead, not under caution).

NASCAR fans deserve this kind of
competition every week.

I SEE A FAT LADY, BUT IS SHE SINGING?:
If you ask Jeff Burton, she is.  Even before the race Sunday he had conceded
the points title to Bobby Labonte.  Dale Jarrett said pretty much the same
thing.  Dale Earnhardt waffled and said he was racing as much for second
place as he was for first.

OK. On the one hand maybe that’s why the
race Sunday was so good. Maybe the drivers had an "all or nothing"
attitude. But you gotta wonder what Jack Roush, Robert Yates, and Richard
Childress are thinking. It almost sounded like the drivers were giving up on the
championship, despite the fact that it’s still possible for any of the top 4 to
win the title.

If I’m a car owner, I don’t want my driver
to have an attitude of "I’m racing for second." Fine, go race for
second for someone else. If you race for me, you race to win.

WHO’S THE CHAMPION?: There are a
lot of people out there who think that the driver with the most wins should be
the Winston Cup champion.  Or if not that, at least a win should count for
more points than it does.

Those people are fond of saying "in
this or that stick and ball sport, they do it this way."  Ok, then.
Using the logic that the one with the most wins is the champ, why is Major
League Baseball wasting everyone’s time with a World Series? The San Francisco
Giants have won more games than anyone, so why shouldn’t they be the champions?

That doesn’t make much sense does
it?  

It doesn’t for baseball and it doesn’t for
racing. It takes a lot more than simply winning races to be a champion. As Bobby
Labonte is showing us, in the races you don’t win you have to run in the top
five. I’ve always said that a person who runs consistently at the front with a
few wins is more deserving of the championship than a person who wins a lot of
races but finishes at the back in the rest. The Winston Cup Championship is a
measure of the overall performance of the team, not just in the 4 or 5 or 10
races you happen to win.

NASCAR’S "NEW" MATH: When
does 9.544 = 9.5? When you measure the compression ratio of an engine and it
turns out to be 9.544. NASCAR apparently only has calculators that have tenths,
so when they initially calculated the compression ratio of Matt Kenseth’s BGN
car, it came out to 9.6. Then, after moving across the street (where they
must’ve found a calculator with thousandths) the ratio was calculated at 9.544.
I guess NASCAR rules state the engine has to have a 9.5:1 compression ratio, and
using NASCAR math, Kenseth’s car was ok.

But to add insult to a non-injury, the
team apparently now has to pay NASCAR an undisclosed fee.  If the post race
inspection takes longer than three hours, NASCAR hits the team up for some more
money.