VIVA WHAT?:<\/b> If I hear another gambling reference or
\njoke about gambling, I"m gonna throw something through the TV. Guys, once
\nor twice it’s cute, but after about the 50th reference to Elvis, gambling, and
\nother Las Vegas attractions, it gets way past old.<\/p>\n
JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY<\/b>: I don’t care what
\nthe Orlando paper says, or how they try to justify their motives, they have no
\nbusiness getting Dale Earnhardt’s autopsy photos. That information is simply
\nnone of their business. They’re not interested in finding out what killed
\nEarnhardt; their statement makes it clear that they’re looking to sell papers,
\nand there are enough idiots out there apparently buying their papers to make
\nthem think there’s a market for it.<\/p>\n
Now I see where a Miami paper, a Tampa
\npaper, and a Tampa TV station have joined in on the Orlando paper’s lawsuit.
\nThey’ve received support from other "journalistic" organizations and
\nso-called First Amendment advocates. I’m just sick and tired of all these
\nself-righteous "journalists" telling me how they’re protecting me and
\nthat they’re somehow the guardians of all that’s good and right.<\/p>\n
With all these other parties now involved,
\nif you still think those pictures won’t end up on the
\ninternet once they’re released, I have a newspaper in Orlando I’d like to sell
\nyou.<\/p>\n
I will say one more thing though: Mrs.
\nEarnhardt’s plea for the fans to help her in this is a little misguided. She
\nshould have been specific in her request that only fans who live in Florida
\ncontact their elected officials about this. I’m not sure how much weight
\nthey’ll give to non-constituents, plus if they get overwhelmed with calls and
\nletters and email from people who don’t even live in Florida, it could sway them
\nthe other way.<\/p>\n
JOURNALISM?<\/b>: You know, I could make
\nthis site look a lot bigger if I posted all the press releases I get from teams
\nas "news." Maybe spend a few minutes on each one and customize
\nit, and put my name at the top as having written it. I could, but I won’t. It’s
\nnot right to take a PR piece from a team and post it as "news." Sure
\nthere may be news in it, but that doesn’t make it right.<\/p>\n
But unfortunately, that’s the way things
\nare done these days. For example, yesterday, I got a press release from
\nKen Schrader’s team, announcing that Newt Moore had been hired on as a crew
\nchief. Great for Newt; he’s from around these parts and I like to see local guys
\ndo good. However, on some other "racing news" web sites, I’ve seen the
\nsame piece, literally verbatim, coming off as original work. Sure, one or two
\nhave embellished it or shortened it, but it’s basically the same thing.<\/p>\n
One funny thing about this situation is
\nthat every piece I’ve seen on Newt’s hiring has the same information: "Prior
\nto becoming a crew chief Moore was a two-time track champion at Nashville
\nSpeedway." Wrong. Newt has a total of one win at Nashville Speedway, and I
\nsuspect that past champions like Darrell Waltrip, Jeff Green, Bobby
\nHamilton, Sterling Marlin, and Chad Chaffin are cringing when they read that.<\/p>\n
A SECOND TEXAS DATE<\/b>: Bruton Smith wants a second
\nWinston Cup date for Texas. Here’s the way to get it: move the Las Vegas race. I
\nthink if I were a stockholder in Speedway Motorsports, I’d insist that this be
\ndone. Texas has more capacity than Las Vegas and if the second date sells out,
\nthen you’re gonna make a whole lot more money for the stockholders than a race
\nwould at Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
Plus, the races at Las Vegas are just plain boring.<\/p>\n
FOX’S LADY<\/b>: I’ve given her three races, and I still
\ndon’t like her. Now wait a minute. Before you start calling me a sexist pig,
\nread this: I like Amy East on ESPN’s truck broadcasts just fine. I think
\nthe difference is that East is a pit reporter who happens to be female. Fox’s
\nJeanne Zalesko is a female who’s a pit reporter. There’s just something
\nabout her attitude that rubs me the wrong way.<\/p>\n
GIVE ME <\/i>A BREAK<\/b>: Three races into the
\nseason, and the Ford teams are already crying about how much of a disadvantage
\nthey have. In Las Vegas, a Ford led most of the laps, and there were 4 Fords in
\nthe top 10. In Rockingham, there were three Fords in the top 10, and at Daytona,
\nthere were four Fords in the top 10. So of the 30 total top ten finishing spots,
\nFord has 11, a whopping 36%! That’s a good percentage for a three-manufacturer
\nseries. For a four-manufacturer series, they’re doing better than the other
\nthree makes.<\/p>\n
RULES ARE RULES<\/b>: I can’t believe
\nhow much I’m reading about how NASCAR should have allowed Dale Jr. to get away
\nwith his rules infraction, where he left pit road with the catch can. "But
\nit came off before he got back out," they say. Or even worse, people think
\nNASCAR should have taken it easy on him because of his father’s death.<\/p>\n
People amaze me sometimes.<\/p>\n
BUZZ OFF<\/b>: So, what happens when the
\nofficial sanctioning body’s website reports a rumor that’s not true? Looks like
\nit forces the team owner to take time out of his busy schedule to deal with
\nsomething he shouldn’t have to deal with. Can you imagine what Junie Donlavey
\nthought when he heard he was switching to Yates engines? The AOL-ization of
\nNASCAR.com (and of a lot of racing "fans") continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
VIVA WHAT?: If I hear another gambling reference or joke about gambling, I"m gonna throw something through the TV. Guys, once or twice it’s cute, but after about the 50th reference to Elvis, gambling, and other Las Vegas attractions, it gets way past old. JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY: I don’t care what the Orlando paper says, or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-original-archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}