UNHAPPY HOUR<\/b>: I just happened to
\ntune in to TNT’s coverage of Happy Hour at Michigan, right about
\nthe time Michael Waltrip wrecked. His car came to rest with the
\ndriver’s side next to the wall and caught fire. Waltrip, wearing
\nthe HANS\u00ae device, had to take the device off in order to get out
\nof the car on the right side. Luckily, the fire wasn’t spreading
\ntoo fast, or Waltrip could have been badly burned.<\/p>\n
I was surprised to hear in his comments
\nafter the crash that this was the first time he’d ever had to
\nexit the car on the right side. I remember watching the Late
\nModels being inspected one time at Nashville Speedway, and part
\nof the inspection process that day was to see if the driver could
\nget out of the right side of the car.<\/p>\n
Two things: the HANS\u00ae device again (for
\nthe 3rd or 4th time this season) inhibited a driver when he
\nneeded to get out of a car on fire; and I’m astonished that
\nNASCAR hasn’t mandated some type of inspection where they see how
\nfast it takes a driver to exit the right side of the car. With
\npeople like Jeff Burton using seats that have long head rests on
\nthe right side, you’d think NASCAR would want to make sure those
\nhead rests didn’t interfere with the driver in case of fire.<\/p>\n
TELEMETRY TRIALS<\/strong>: Boo and In 945 out of 946 uses through the first 22 And with NASCAR mandating that the teams TIM RICHMOND<\/b>: I got some hate email But I don’t suggest anyone go out and MEDIA LIES<\/strong>: "A driver The Roper family has had to endure more Condolences once again to the Roper family.<\/p>\n MEDIA CIRCUS<\/strong>: Can you I had a chance to watch most of the report The only people to blame for this media MEDIA MADNESS<\/b>: I’m not sure which is CLOSURE<\/strong>: So, the media Sometimes you just can’t explain a freak SIMPSON VS. NASCAR<\/b>: Unfortunately, \nSo instead of being the safety innovator, he’s going around with his lawyers blaming NASCAR, Dale He certainly has every right to GRAND OLD LAWSUIT<\/strong>: Cracker There are a few things that need to be What’s NASCAR got to do with it? If the All these and other details will probably If you’re a sponsor that wants mentions of SPONSORSHIP MONEY NOT NEEDED<\/b>: One So, from all the media attention the HANS\u00ae Would you trust your life to something that Also, I’m not sure I’d want anyone other HELMETS<\/strong>: Since everyone But on the other side, you have a situation So, what’s the solution?<\/p>\n I think I have one, that’s simple, light SPEAKING OF LAWSUITS<\/b>: The ASA is ASA had what they thought was a good deal TNN lost the NASCAR deal but gained WWF. (Incidentally, TNN has also made it clear to the ASA that Maybe we need to start lobbying ESPN to HAPPY BIRTHDAY<\/b>: The current NASCAR UNHAPPY HOUR: I just happened to tune in to TNT’s coverage of Happy Hour at Michigan, right about the time Michael Waltrip wrecked. His car came to rest with the driver’s side next to the wall and caught fire. Waltrip, wearing the HANS\u00ae device, had to take the device off in order to get out […]<\/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-209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-original-archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209","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=209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nhiss to those few teams that chose not to run the telemetry box.
\nMost notably, Jeff Gordon, Ricky Rudd, and Dale Jarrett. Sure,
\nthey’re all afraid to take chances because they’re the top three
\nin the championship chase, but what good did it do them? Is Rudd
\nnot going to run an engine next week because his engine failed
\nthis week?<\/p>\n
\nraces this year, the boxes worked fine. One bad installation amounts to
\nabout 1\/10th of one percent chance of failure. Those odds are
\npretty good if you ask me. <\/p>\n
\nrun a "black box" next year, what’s going to happen if one of those
\ncauses a problem? Are we going to see the internet racing sites go crazy with
\ndrivers claiming that "NASCAR cost me the race?"<\/p>\n
\nfrom a fellow who obviously took offense at my comments about Tim
\nRichmond. By all accounts, Richmond was an incredible driver.
\nHeck, he even won a race after going through a bout of illness
\nrelated to AIDS.<\/p>\n
\ncontract this deadly disease to emulate Richmond.<\/p>\n
\nwas killed Sunday during a race…" reads the intro to the
\nstory about the sad death of Dean Roper. Every news account I
\nread before the true cause of his death was released said that he
\ndied after wrecking. This is just sloppy reporting and there’s no
\nexcuse for it.<\/p>\n
\nthan one family should in the past year. Reporting that a crash
\nwas the cause of death in this situation just adds to the misery
\nthat they must be going through.<\/p>\n
\nimagine how much of a circus the Tuesday announcement of the
\nresults of the Earnhardt investigation would have been had the
\nmedia been informed of who NASCAR had doing the investigation?
\nActually, had the media got the information they wanted (e.g.
\nwho’s conducting the investigation, etc.), we probably wouldn’t
\nbe having the results now. They’d have been delayed by the
\ncountless questions from reporters that would have inevitably
\nhappened.<\/p>\n
\nlive. I fully expected that the news media would think I’m too stupid to
\nunderstand all those big words and would tell me what I should
\nthink about this. Sure enough, almost before the press
\nconference was over, I saw reports where "NASCAR’s"
\nexperts are blaming the belt…and that’s not what I heard. They
\nsaid it was one factor among several.<\/p>\n
\ncircus is the public. We obviously buy the garbage they’re
\nputting out. If everyone boycotted these so-called "reporters"
\nand their papers and web sites, maybe they’d get the message.<\/p>\n
\nmore frustrating: watching news organizations like CBS make
\nstupid remarks about the Dale Earnhardt investigation (e.g.
\n"the report doesn’t say how to prevent accidents"), or
\nwatching racing reporters like Monte Dutton make stupid remarks
\nabout it on national TV.<\/p>\n
\ntells us that everyone was expecting "closure" with the
\nreport of the investigation. But now that the report has been
\nreleased, we find that (surprise) there’s no way anyone could
\nknow what happened precisely to cause Earnhardt’s death. If any
\none of 3 or 4 things had not happened simultaneously, Earnhardt
\nwould probably still be here.<\/p>\n
\naccident.<\/p>\n
\nthat’s more likely to be the title of a lawsuit than one of my RacinDeals here. Bill Simpson is sill insisting his belt wasn’t at
\nfault. While that may be true to some extent, his belt did break. <\/p>\n
\nEarnhardt, Richard Childress, and anyone else who happens to
\ncross his path. Instead of playing the blame game, he should be
\nworking to find out exactly why his belt broke, and what can be
\ndone to prevent it in the future. <\/p>\n
\nsay "the belt wasn’t installed correctly and it broke."
\nAnd while that may be true in a legal sense, it’s not very
\nhelpful. Was Mike Harmon’s belt not installed correctly at
\nNashville in April? And isn’t there a pending lawsuit against Simpson
\nregarding another broken belt? Is the "installation wrong,
\nnot my fault" defense working in that case?<\/p>\n
\nBarrel is suing NASCAR, Speedway Motorsports, Fox, and anyone
\nelse they think they have a shot at. Why? Seems they think that
\nthey were supposed to get more than four mentions on the air
\nduring their race last spring at Atlanta Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n
\nasked about this suit that won’t even go to trial for another 16
\nmonths: Did Cracker Barrel sign a sponsorship contract that
\nguaranteed that they’d get mentioned on TV? If so, how can a
\nthird party be bound to a contract that it isn’t a part of? In
\nother words, how could Fox be obligated to even acknowledge the existence of Cracker
\nBarrel when they weren’t a signatory on the
\ncontract?<\/p>\n
\ncontract was between Speedway Motorsports and Cracker Barrel,
\nwhy involve NASCAR? Supposedly, NASCAR interfered with the
\nexisting contract between Cracker Barrel and Speedway
\nMotorsports by retaking the TV rights from the tracks and signing
\ntheir contract with Fox.<\/p>\n
\nnever be revealed because this will be settled out of court. <\/p>\n
\nyour name or product on TV these days without buying a ton of
\ncommercial time during the race, there’s only one way to do it:
\npurchase the naming rights to a track. You think Lowe’s paid any
\nsponsorship money to Fox? Probably not. But when they go to
\nCharlotte Motor Speedway, they refer to it by the sponsor name,
\nso Lowe’s gets a ton of exposure that they’re not paying the
\nnetworks for.<\/p>\n
\ncompany that doesn’t need to spend any money on advertising or
\nsponsorship is Hubbard\/Downing, Inc. You’ve never heard of
\nHubbard\/Downing, Inc. you say? They’re the makers of the HANS\u00ae
\nHead And Neck Support\u00ae device. While Cracker Barrel can’t get
\nmentioned more than 4 times in a race broadcast, it seems that
\nall we hear are references to HANS\u00ae. Surely they know how much
\nfree exposure they’re getting.<\/p>\n
\ndevice has gotten lately, you’d think it’s designed to prevent
\ninjury or death, right? I mean, isn’t that the whole idea behind
\nit? Why then do you have to sign a pre-purchase agreement that
\nsays this: "No warranty or representation of any kind is
\nmade as to the merchantability or fitness for any purpose as to
\nany HANS\u00ae device."<\/p>\n
\ndoesn’t have a "fitness for any purpose?"<\/p>\n
\nthan the helmet manufacturer messing with the integrity of the
\nhelmet shell. You have to send Hubbard\/Downing, Inc. your helmet
\nso they can install the clips necessary to attach the HANS\u00ae
\nstraps. Of course, you waive your rights to file suit against
\nHubbard\/Downing, Inc. when you buy the device, so those guys are
\nin the clear.<\/p>\n
\nseems to be on the safety bandwagon these days, I might as well
\njump on. Dale Earnhardt refused to wear a full-faced helmet
\nbecause he believed it contributed to the death of his friend
\nNeil Bonnett. That makes sense. If your head moves forward enough
\nso that the front of the helmet hits your chest, then that’ll act
\nas a fulcrum and extend the back of the neck, possibly causing a
\nlot of damage. Plus, the weight of the helmet has to be a factor
\nas well. Also, a driver’s vision could be obstructed by the full
\nface helmet.<\/p>\n
\nlike we had with Ward Burton a few years ago. Burton used to wear
\nan open-faced helmet but received an injury to his face in a
\nwreck that caused him to start wearing the full-faced helmet.<\/p>\n
\nweight, and I think will be as effective as current full-faced
\nhelmets but without the dangers. What is it? Facemasks. Yeah,
\nfacemasks like the ones on a football helmet. It could be as
\nsimple as the one or two bars that you typically see on a
\nquarterback’s helmet. Mount the bars on an open-faced helmet and
\nyou get the protection without the risks. It’d be lighter, but
\nyou’d still have the protection from the bars.<\/p>\n
\nsuing TNN to try to prevent them from tape delaying a couple of races in the
\nremainder of the season. Since TNN was taken over by the suits in New York, it’s
\ngone so far downhill it’s pathetic.<\/p>\n
\nwhen they signed a contract with TNN giving TNN 5 year exclusive broadcast
\nrights. TNN acquired a 25% equity stake in the company at the time. Then a few
\nmonths later, TNN was acquired by Viacom, and they put it under the control of
\nthe yahoos who run MTV. It was just a matter of time at that point. (I didn’t
\nlike the fact that TNN acquired an ownership position in ASA racing at the time,
\nand wrote about it here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n
\nthey’ve had much higher ratings with the WWF than they ever had with NASCAR).
\nThis Saturday night, TNN will debut a new wrestling show at 10 pm. One of the
\nraces they want to tape delay is on a Saturday night (September 29) and you have
\nto think that TNN is not willing to delay or preempt their new wrestling show so
\nthey can show the race live.<\/p>\n
\nthey’re not interested in broadcasting motorsports. This could be a severe blow
\nto this racing organization that’s produced such stars as Rusty Wallace, Mark
\nMartin, Alan Kulwicki, Johnny Benson, the Sauters, and others. <\/p>\n
\npick up the ASA races for next year.<\/p>\n
\nWinston Cup points system is 26 years old this week. There’s been
\na lot of criticism leveled against the system, but in my opinion,
\nthere’s nothing better out there. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"