The Greatest Generation loses a great: Sgt. Walter Maynard Moore, Jr.

Sgt. Walter Maynard Moore, Jr., known in the motorsport fraternity as "Bud" Moore, died Tuesday at age 92.  In addition to his motorsport accomplishments that included the 1962 and 1963 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series titles, he is best known for being a Sergeant of the 359th Regiment, 4th Infantry Division when he fought in both the Siege of Bastogne in addition to D-Day, the Battle of Normandy, earning five Purple Hearts and two Bronze Stars.

Other motorsport accomplishments include building Ford's 1970 SCCA Trans American Championship road racing factory cars, 63 MENCS win, 298 top fives, 463 top tens in 958 races.  Of those 63 wins, one was a Daytona 500 and three were Duels (when they were championship races).  We have a video montage of Sgt. Walter Maynard Moore, Jr. primarily discussing not motorsport as much as his part in World War II with Normandy.

Fox Sports, 2012:  During Fox's annual salute to the military pre-race show, Moore was the featured subject, discussing his legacy with America's Greatest Day of Fighting in World War II -- D-Day.

At the NASCAR Hall of Fame, 2011.  At the NASCAR Hall press conference, talking D-Day.

Anachronism?

NBC Sports Network is running the annual retro promo for the 61st Annual Rebel 500 (see previous articles for the reason I refer to the race as such) in Florence, and they have made a huge error in their promotions for the mid-1980's theme of this year's NASCAR Throwback Round.  Look at the Peacock logo used by NBC for the weekend and the 2017, not 1976, NASCAR logo being used.  Historically NASCAR has used 1950's logos for this weekend, but why is NBC using the 1960's Peacock instead of the 1980's era logos that was a mix of the 1970's "N" with a Peacock logo that's different from the logo currently used since 1986 when the era being promoted is different?

Is it a bit too peculiar to catch those retro mistakes in what is an annual retro round?  It just caught my attention that NBC was making mistakes in pushing the era this year compared to using period-correct NBC logos.  Are we coming to an era soon where retro will be caught for being correct or not?  Note this year that retro is even being pushed by some NASCAR teams in using vintage logos (Chip Ganassi Racing's unveil of Jamie McMurray's McDonald's Commodore features some retro looks, and the video used a vintage logo and vintage looks!).

.@jamiemcmurray will honor David Pearson’s 1980 race-winning car this wknd @TooToughToTame! RT if you recognize this iconic No. 1. #TeamJMac pic.twitter.com/zc7f09F1ZD

— Chip Ganassi Racing (@CGRTeams) August 28, 2017

And speaking of such, Sybarite5, which I've had the chance to see, posted this week something that fits with the retro round.  Rather listen to them than bad rock music!  An interesting take on Europop of that era from a group I've seen live!

One of the longest-running (and still active) franchies in television began in April 1975 with the debut of "Himitsu Sentai Gorenger" on TV Asahi, from Toei, that is now in its 40th season, has run every year since then (the 1978 movie was the only year no television series aired), seems to have taken a hold in the United States, especially since a 1992 series began airing in the United States.

But what kids do not understand is that the franchise was intended for adults, as the original series air time was Saturday nights, which Stateside is the least popular night of television.

However, it seems NASCAR took a hold of that Toei series in running a series of four Chase-themed promos (three of them were well themed, but the last was disappointing compared to the other three, but probably done that way because NASCAR had to finish the theme before the Thanksgiving holiday) that had the Japanese superheroes influence.  Can you see the Super Sentai influence in these videos?

Bonnie is coming -- time to get some notes through!

Bonnie is ready to strike more fear to this waterlogged area after the Joaquim-related flooding that much of our Midlands has still not fully recovered (ask my fitness buddies the Marshas).  As I write this, I have a few random thoughts headed.

Not Suited For Prime Time Advertising.  The promos ABC is running for the post-Carlisle edition of To Tell The Truth, the first since the show's signature figure died in 2007, is very inappropriate. One promo has the panelists (including Betty White, who has now appeared in 21st century versions of Password and To Tell The Truth) asking which of the three taught a popular actor how to perform an inappropriate for broadcast routine in movies.

Why Game Show Revivals Are Not Reboots.  Mitchell has asked on It's About TV about bad television "reboots" when they are retellings that, if it was sci-fi related, would be appropriate because of the imagining of how we see the future in 30 years then and now are different.  (See the 1987 Mission: Impossible which had sci-fi influences, especially with Phelps' disc player, and even the command center.  That makes me ask if Peter Lenkov took a 25-year old proposed spinoff "Son of MacGyver" that never sold and toyed with it for a reboot that could be that plan that never got off the ground.) What was asked to those surveyed for Family Feud in 1976 is not the same type of question you expect in 2016 since he plays with CBS properties sold to Paramount by government mandate, and Paramount television properties returned to CBS following what was effectively an NFL-forced split after Super Bowl XXXVIII).  What type of deals we see on Let's Make a Deal in 2016 are not the same we would have seen in 1970.  And some pricing games on The Price Is Right in 2016 would not have made sense in 1985.  Yet two of the three most popular shows on television today are revivals of old game shows.  Think about it.

Missing Barney.  This Memorial Weekend of motorsport is the first since the death of Barney Hall in January.  Yet for two of the three voices that call the races, he was an influence.  Fans have found MRN audio to mix with the videos from classic races (note the 1980 National 500 in Charlotte -- are these the graphics we could see on NBC for the Rebel 500, which has a 1980's theme this year?), and note who is working with Barney in each broadcast.  Can you identify the voices that worked with him?




And just to take the radio influence one further, the track announcer for the thrilling Freedom 100 Indy Lights finish was none other than Bob Jenkins, one of two primary track announcers at Indianapolis.  Dave Calabro is the other.  The large crowd was able to listen to the track announcer, naturally.

The Trilogy to the Pens.  Pittsburgh did beat Washington in the Trilogy, with the rubber match ending up with the Capitals' prospect goaltender Vitek Vanecek (who effectively had to play the semifinal all alone after the more experienced goaltender was injured in the previous round) being peppered with three goals in the first five minutes of Game Seven of the ECHL Eastern Conference finals to let Wheeling, WV (Pittsburgh) beat Charleston, SC (Washington) in Game Seven and the final.  Earlier Scranton/Wilkes-Barre (Pittsburgh) lost to Hershey (Washington), and of course Pittsburgh beat Washington.

Why Some States Celebrated Memorial Day on May 10 Instead?  This one's simple.  The federal Memorial Day was originally started for Union war dead in the Civil War.  Naturally, of course, some states were not in the nation as a result of secession.  Most of these states celebrate it on May 10. That's why the NASCAR Rebel 500 (now held in September) originally started as a Confederate Memorial Day event.

And With the Poor "Academic Teaching" of Today's Schools.  The hatred of this country, whether it is apologising to Japan for Hiroshima (remember they bombed Pearl Harbor -- note how the USS Arizona memorial is seen in Five-0's open, with it next to the USS Missouri), or defacing a Vietnam War memorial plaque in California, is part of the revisionism in teachings.  We ignore our heroes while the "new narrative" promotes sexual perversion month and why they are teaching this generation to advance all sorts of fake "genders" to confuse people.  We have lost our moral compass thanks to elites, and the majority is not allowed to speak.  Ask the over 75% in most states who marriage laws were treated as trash by judges representing only a few cities, most of which are not in the states in question.  Go figure.  It's Book of Judges egos.  But God's Word is "hate speech" under Shepard-Byrd, which is the standard of academia now.  Huh?

Wish I'd written that

I think Ricky Brooks must be involved in the final decision of the Miss Universe 2015 pageant."

-- Daniel Hemric, NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driver.

Ricky Brooks is the lead technical inspection official at many big-money Super Late Model races, including the Snowball Derby in Pensacola held in the first full week of December.  Many times, his events end with a notable disqualification of the winner for various sundry technical issues, such as Christopher Bell's disqualification, once in qualifying for violation of a Super Late Model unified rule on car body mounting, and once after the race for the car's left-side weight being greater than the 58.0% maximum in post-race inspection two weeks ago at the Snowball.

The Brad Keselowski Racing driver's comments referenced the Miss Universe pageant's mistake by host Steve Harvey, which ruined a throwback since the pageant's glory days a Goodson-Todman show host led the pageant (Barker), and Harvey being the host of a Goodson-Todman show currently.

Classic Sports Thursday - Remembering New England racing legend Ron Bouchard

The news came in last Thursday morning in Massachusetts -- legendary New England Modified racer Ron Bouchard, who pulled off the upset in the August 1981 Talladega NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race for his only win, died December 10.

The son-in-law of New England racer "Steady" Ed Flemke, Sr, a popular New England Modified racer in a time where the Mod Squad (glorified in the 2010 History documentary "Madhouse" about Modified racing in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, which is one of the few places in the Southeast where the division of Yankee racing has a stronghold) provided drivers, mechanics, and broadcasters (SiriusXM's Jackie Arute, as he was called at Stafford Speedway in the glory years where he and Mike Joy served as public address announcers, is one, and owns that track in Connecticut with his brothers;  Joy often says the best motorsport broadcasters have a strong background in local track announcing), Bouchard scored his only Sprint Cup win in the dramatic tri-oval to the line pass at Talladega against two future Hall of Fame members in 1981.  He scored two more national series wins, sweeping the 1984 Xfinity Series 200-mile races at the historic Darlington Raceway held before the Rebel and Southern 500 races.  As his career would down, Bouchard, as was the case with both of the drivers he beat in the Talladega finish, would turn to owning an automobile dealership in his Fitchburg, MA home, where some of his Modifieds and his Cup winner are stored in a recently opened museum.

Here is a clip of the 1981 Talladega upset -- the winning car is at the Bouchard family dealership for viewing.


Today, Ron Bouchard's Auto Stores () represents Honda, Hyndai Motor Group, Fiat, and Nissan in Massachusetts.

He is survived by wife Paula, whom he was married over 32 years, and their children are part of the family dealership.

Godspeed, Ron.

NBC Goes Retro for the Rebel: Even the Peacock Logo Joins the Fray

Postponed from an earlier date because of the ABC Supply 500 tragedy. Writer's note -- this was the article that I have considered would make for some work to include the Peacock logo history, as NBC is using the older logos for the Rebel 500. Maybe the Peacock logo history fits for a further article.

So the MDA has ended their once-21 hour telethon after cutting it to just a few hours on network television.  So it's time to find something new for Labor Day on television, and NBC is doing so with the Rebel 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event at Darlington Raceway in the Florence, South Carolina region. (Please read here and here in order to understand the history of Darlington's spring race that has been moved to this date for 2015, and why it is referred as the Rebel 500.)

For the Rebel 500 September 6, the first time Darlington Raceway will run on the Sunday before the first Monday in September since 2003, the circuit and teams are promoting various retro-themed promotions.  Various sponsors are using schemes with corporate images from the past, as many sponsors are using logos of the past, and some teams are basing liveries on famous liveries of the past, while Ingersoll-Rand, Competition Cams, Moog Chassis Parts, 3M, among other NASCAR contingency sponsors, are using their past logos for stickers.  Even NASCAR and NBC have joined in the theme, with retro logos being used by both for the event.  But as this blog discusses the moving picture arts of the past frequently, NBC's logo has joined the fray.

The Peacock logo used in this ad is authentic 1960's, but too, the NBC promos for the race include "when Carson was king".  Some are even wanting NBC to use classic logo mic flags for the broadcast to fit with the entire retro theme of the race, the first time the Florentine circuit has organised a race on this date since 2003, when the fall race (now at Fort Worth, Texas, because of Ferko) was run there.  (In 2004, the circuit moved the fall race to November, but lost it after a lawsuit.)  Even some on Twitter are playing fun, asking of Messrs. Scheweiger, Burton, or Letarte will wear 1970's themed clothing to join the entire party.


And this wasn't their first 1970's themed video for the 2015 season.  Earlier in the year, this promo was cut by drivers, featuring another 1970's theme.  Can you identify the 1970's theme in this video?


Welcome Back to the Bygone Era!

Classic Sports Thursday

There was actually a time in the 1950's when the “have car will race” adage came to ragtops. A Midwestern organisation, the Society of Auto Sports, Fellowship, and Education (SAFE), started its Circuit of Champions for convertibles. These cars were a mix of the wild and not fairly well organised touring car divisions at the time (NASCAR was only developing after the Barkheimer Associates deal in 1954 into the national organisation), and SAFE's Circuit of Champions was gaining popularity in the regions they raced with the odd convertibles.

However, the stunning changes in motorsport in the United States after the 24 Heures du Mans disaster led to the end of motorsport's governing body, the AAA Contest Board, and led to major changes that still affect motor racing today. In the Midwest, SAFE was purchased by Big Bill France (NASCAR), leading to the development of the NASCAR Convertible Division, a division that raced until 1959 officially, racing mostly on short tracks, where drivers could be seen sawing their hands on the wheels of these cars. Some circuits included quarter-mile tracks inside football stadiums such as Winston-Salem's legendary Bowman Gray Stadium (still in operation today and was the real-life site of the short-lived documentary Madhouse) and the home of what is now the Arizona Cardinals (that played in Chicago at the time), Soldier Field (the Granitelli family organised the races; the track was removed following complaints by hippies, and stadium renovation when the Bears were forced to leave Wrigley Field because of a requirement imposed by the NFL after the merger stadia had to seat a minimum of 50,000 spectators).

With the hardtops already having established the Labor Day race that became known as one of saloon racing's four majors (the Southern 500) and the grandest in stature (first paved NASCAR circuit, Daytona was still running on the beach and road circuit until the end of 1958), Bob Colvin of Darlington International Raceway decided he was going to have a big race for the ragtops also. That ragtop race was declared to be a Confederate Memorial Day race that would be their grandest in stature on the (then) 1 3/8 mile egg (there were a few slight rebuilds, one in 1953 and a few in the 1960's – the current track measurement of 1.366 miles was not established until 1971; based on running 10 feet from the wall, now seven feet from the wall after the SAFER barriers were installed for the 2004 races).

Mr. Colvin's Rebel 300, a “Grand National Convertible Championship” race, would be established for May 11, 1957, the Saturday before Mother's Day, and the day after the Confederate Memorial Day (May 10; the state did not officially observe it until the 21st century, but in South Carolina it is a reference to the capture of Robert E. Lee and also Thomas Jackson's death). But an interesting dilemma took place after rain interrupted the event plans. South Carolina law prohibited racing on Sunday (the law was modified to carry a 250-mile / 402 km exemption or if it started after 1:30 PM in the 1980's), and even though the rain date was not mentioned, “next clear day” was attempted, which was Sunday, in violation of the law. Darlington County authorities arrested Mr. Colvin after pulling the safety car to pit lane to start the Rebel 300 that Sunday, which the promoter posted bond.

Curtis Turner looked on his way to winning when a “Big One,” as called today, took place within the first 30 laps, but crashed in that incident (future Grand Slam race winner Jim Paschal and future official Dick Beaty were also involved), leading to an easy lead change by Lap 33 for Glenn (Fireball) Roberts, who led all but one lap afterwards to win the inaugural Rebel 300 in the Ford super team organised by Peter DePaolo, who just 32 years earlier was the first man to win the Indianapolis 500 in less than five hours. The other members of the podium were distinguished racers themselves, with Tim Flock (no Jocko to mess around this time) and Bobby Myers filling out the podium. Roberts and Flock are Motorsports Hall of Fame in America members, and Myers, known for his exploits at Bowman Gray, would sadly be killed that September at the Southern 500. (Myers' brother Billy also raced, winning two premiership races but died of a heart attack the next year; both brothers are memorialised by the National Motorsports Press Association Myers Brothers Award for lifetime achievement; Bobby Myers' son Danny became a well-known mechanic at Richard Childress Racing and in 1998 fueled both a Cup car and an IRL car at the Indy 500. It was the crying image of “Chocolate” best remembered from Kevin Harvick's tear-jerking 2001 Atlanta win three weeks after being hired by Childress to replace a legend, and Danny retired in 2002, becoming the Childress museum's curator. The Childress organisation also has a winery in the area also.) Roberts died in the 1964 Charlotte crash of burns, and Flock died in 1998 of cancer.

Other top five drivers were Bob Welborn, a legend in the division, with Buck Baker (2013 NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee) as co-driver, with Lee Petty (patriarch of the family) in fifth.

The 1957 Convertible race at Darlington was the first of six, with the first three being full Convertible Division races, and the last three being Grand National races that required convertibles. When the Rebel 300 became a Grand National hardtop race in 1963, they actually tried it was two 150-mile races. That didn't work and the race since 1964 has been a full hardtop race for 300, 400, or 500 miles, depending on the year of the race, and since 2005 returned to Confederate Memorial Day as a 500-mile race, televised on Fox.

Whatever people call it, Saturday's Bojangles' 500 is the 57th edition of the Rebel 500, and has an interesting take as the only NASCAR Convertible Divison race still run as a full championship race in what is now the Sprint Cup Series. The “convertible race” of the 100-mile qualifying races for the Daytona 500 (now Budweiser Duel) was a championship race for convertibles in that year, but even after the division was discontinued, the two qualifying races format continued though it lost championship status in 1972.

An interesting thought as convertible racing was popular in the 1950's as the Rebel 500 takes the green Saturday night.  ◙

The transcriber didn't do it right

Transcribers are an important part of every industry that requires speaking. Whether it is in court, or in interviews, they are usually reliable. But in reading a transcript following Sunday's Toyota / Save Mart 350, a big flub came from the transcriber at Sonoma.

Read it and see if you find the mistake from a Kurt Busch transcript after his first podium of the 2012 Sprint Cup season..

Thanks to Kyle and KPM yesterday; to get me back and forth on a nice, private jet that allowed me to rest up and be prepared for today. Yesterday was not quite the day we needed. We needed one more car with the Monster Energy car to get up there with the nix and get that Top 5 finish or even battle with Nelson Piquet, who is a friend of mine. It's amazing to see a Formula 1 guy come in and win right away in a Nationwide car. The Nationwide race was stacked yesterday. And of course, everybody wants to be in Cup, because this is where the best racers race.

Today we came home third. Chevrolet and Monster Energy and tag his or her, our three big brands with us this year I'm a bit choked up. I just made a little mistake there in turn 11. Those tires have never been bolted down, ever and I clipped a set of tires and it broke the front suspension and the rear panel bar and I couldn't compete for the win after that; so a mistake there. Our guys, but if we pulled it into victory lane with all red car and no sponsor, here in California, I thought it was Team Tiger Blood with Charlie Sheen around (laughter).

I see the transcriber in the press room made at least two mistakes, and a third while not-so-subtle mistake, considering the Monster can still take a podium. Can you find them? ◙

Classic Sports Thursday

Classic Sports Thursday this time goes to a legendary piece of lore, the 25th anniversary of a deceptively titled event.
 
After two normal events, NASCAR's All-Star Race (as it is now called; because of federal tobacco regulations the title T. Wayne Robertson called the event from 1985-2003 is not legal; the Nextel years adopted the name “All-Star Challenge,” but the popular generic term of the race was adopted formally by Sprint in 2008) http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2012/05/16/all-star-pass-that-wasnt/ It was in All-Star Race III that the lore of this event began. A 202.5-mile event, the 75/50/10 format's desperation ten-lap shootout became the stories of lore. ABC televised the event, and after dominating the day, Bill Elliott was in trouble in the final ten-lap dash. During the middle of this race, a famous trip across Charlotte grass took place, and a piece of lore that for 25 years continues to be part of its legacy continues to this day.
 
Here was Keith Jackson's call of the Pass in the Grass:
 

Ten lap dashes are a part of motorsport lore. This was the one that made ten-lap dashes fun.

Note: Through a missions auction in 2000, the author purchased tickets to All-Star Race XVI, which was the last edition with two legends, and had one of the most famous finishes to the race of all-time. ◙

Alpha and Omega: Texas Terry's Florentine Conquests and Mr. Clutch

RRemember, there isn't any Labour Day holiday here in South Carolina. The Ferko lawsuit took it away from us after 2004, our state's big Labour Day festival in Florence was moved to Fort Worth, Texas, in a rude and crude decision that could affect pro gridiron in Minnesota, especially if a California interest decides to sue the NFL or Vikings to force a move to Los Angeles. What happened to the Fourth Major in Florence should be a warning that you can be sued to lose an event.

Let's look back at Labour Day when it existed in South Carolina, with a big Florentine showdown, as it was Terry Labonte's Alpha and Omega . . .

1980: His first Sprint Cup win, in a major, no less. Think of the great golfers whose first career PGA Tour win was in a major, or a tennis star who wins their first ATP or WTA tournament in a major.



2003: Now 46, and a two-time Sprint Cup champion, his last Sprint Cup win, in the same major, in a clutch situation. The state's big Labour Day event was set to move to November the next year, and become a playoff showdown.



And those final moments of Labour Day in South Carolina were on a November evening in 2004, when Jimmie Johnson began his meteoric "Mr. Clutch" moniker, continuing a torrid playoff run that included wins at the oldest and most prestigious events in the playoff.



We want to be in Florence in the fall . . . ◙

Classic Sports Thursday

Bristol, Baby!"

Anyone in motorsport will assure you that a NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Bristol (TN) Motor Speedway is regarded as the toughest ticket in motorsport, even if the recession has stripped it of its sellout status with 160,000 spectators.

One of the most famous feuds in the 1990's at the famous speedplant was the Terry Labonte - Dale Earnhardt battles in 1995 and 1999, with the score ending as a 1-1 battle between the Childress and Hendrick driver. ◙

The first Feud - 1995


Rattle the Cage - 1999

Classic Sports Thursday

Today is August 4, and an Indianapolis Motor Speedway legend turns 40 today, despite just falling short of reaching an upper level at the Brickyard of all-time race winners because someone else was smarter on strategy than he was a few days ago. Let's celebrate the career of this now 40-year old legend of the Brickyard with a blast from his past.

A fifteen-year old kid runs rampant during a summer meet for sprint car racing in Australia (remember the seasons flip, so this is December or January).

A Formula Vee test in Clermont's Lucas Oil Raceway, once the home of USAC Championship racing, but the track is now used for club racing along with the signature “Big Go”.

ESPN's Thunder interview.

And someone from the first 400 at Indy shot home video of the first finish.

Happy 40th Birthday today to Jeffrey Michael Gordon. ◙

Classic Sports Thursday

I've had occasion recently to spend some time rooting around the online archives of the Indianapolis 500, reading articles, watching videos, and listening to audio. By far Johnson's Indy 500 is the best site on the net for historical data - it even tells you who's sung "Back Home Again in Indiana" over the years.

It's not the only site on the web, however, which means that anyone can spend hours - even weeks - surfing through different sites, pouring through clips on YouTube and stories from Google Archives, seeing hours bleed away from your life, hours that you'll never get back - but you likely won't care about that.*

*Such is the life of a cultural archaeologist - or an anal nerd.

For some reason, the 1964 500 has always carried a greater-than-others interest for me. Perhaps it's because it's the first 500 I can actually remember - sort of.  I'd just turned four, and my sole recollection of the event is seeing pictures from the race in the paper the next day.* And there were plenty of pictures, of perhaps the worst, and certainly one of the most graphic, crashes in the history of the 500.

*Back in those days, the race was still run on Memorial Day, unless it fell on a Sunday. In 1964 Memorial Day was Saturday, which meant the Sunday sports section was full of details.

At the end of the second lap, a car driven by rookie Indy driver Dave MacDonald spun coming off the fourth turn and crashed into the inner wall, exploding immediately. The flaming wreck then spun back across the track, clipping several cars and casting an enormous black cloud of smoke across the front stretch, before being hit by the car of longtime Indy favorite Eddie Sachs, which in turn also exploded. Sachs was killed more or less immediately (not from burns, as many thought at the time, but apparently from the sheer impact of the collision), while MacDonald died a couple of hours later, primarily from the fire's damage to his lungs.

Here's video of the crash - I'm linking to it rather than putting it right on the site because some of you might find it a bit graphic. The spectacular burst of flame and smoke came from the massive quantities of gasoline used by both cars - there were no limits to fuel capacity back then, and most cars used gas rather than methanol, which is used today. In addition, the magnesium used to construct the framework of many of the cars was highly flammable, contributing to the overall mess. The race was stopped for an hour and 45 minutes; the first time in Indy history that a race had been stopped because of a crash. A.J. Foyt won, driving a front-engine roadster - the last time a winner would do so. The next year Jim Clark would win in his F1 rear-engine Lotus, and after that nothing would be the same.

As far as I can tell, this is the only crash in Indy history to kill multiple drivers, and one of the last fatal accidents in the race itself (most fatalities since then have happened in practice.) It was the cap to a brutal week in motor sports; the legendary NASCAR driver Fireball Roberts had suffered horrific burns in an accident the week before, from which he would die in July.

In listening to the live radio broadcast of the race, one thing above all is apparent - that racing is dangerous, and that the drivers both know and accept the danger as the price of doing something they love. Implicit in that is a deep respect for the power of a race car, and the risk of being a racing driver. There's no doubt that racing has become safer in the years since; the last F1 driver to die was Senna over 20 years ago, and Earnhardt died at Daytona over 10 years ago.

And this safety is great, but I do wonder whether or not drivers still have the same respect for the sport they had in the past. Especially in NASCAR, the "Have at it" mentality holds firm, so much so that Judie refers to it as "Wrestling on Wheels." Pushing someone out of the way is commonplace, and while "wrecks" are common, major injuries are few and far between - it's the egos that seem to be more fragile.

Is this good? It reminds me of one of the unintended consequences of the mandatory helmet in hockey. Back when helmets were rare, players policed themselves, aware that a stray stick could do serious damage. That's not to say that stick fights weren't common; hockey was a brutal sport even then. But there was a measure of self-discipline to it, one that disappeared as helmets became more prevalent. Watch some footage from a recent game compared to one from 50 years ago and see how much lower the players carried their sticks back then.

The same goes for racing. Perhaps if the drivers remembered how dangerous racing was and is - how these cars are still guided missiles - we might see a little more discipline on the track. Our desire to make life safer and safer, to cut down on the risk involved, isn't limited to sports - as Harry Reasoner once said, no matter how much you try to eliminate risk in life you can't achieve immortality. But maybe, just maybe, if racing were a little more dangerous, a little less protected, the drivers themselves might be a little more responsible. The way it stands now, as commentator David Hobbs often says, one day it will surely end in tears. ◙

This is not a joke!

This kiwi from the press is not kidding, not an Äpril Föol's Joke.

P. S. If you can unscramble the letters that have links, you will have the subject.

Peter Sauber: No dismissals after the wing affair at the Qantas Grand Prix. But where were CAMS and FIA stewards? Do they even have pre-race inspection to make sure the wings are legal? Were they checked pre-impound? Can officials check the cars in the impound? ◙

"I For One Welcome Our New Female Overlords"

Obviously I am parodying the great Ken Jennings after being creamed on Jeopardy! along with Brad Rutter here with some weekend thoughts from returning home after Myrtle Beach.

South Carolina Tree House: No Boys Allowed. Here in South Carolina, it does not pay to be a man. There is a girls-only secondary school in Charleston that has been able to stay XX-only (Ashley Hall) while boys are not allowed anywhere in the state to have a regular secondary school (Camden Military is the exception, but it's a boys-only boarding school that also has some college-prep academies for kids who would be casualties under the NCAA eligibility rules first made famous in Proposition 48, now superseded by Proposition 16). There are also two women's colleges (Columbia and Converse) while the federal courts replaced The Citadel in court with the Federal Feminazi Academy of South Carolina (apologies to Tom Hazlett at the University of California at Davis for the terminology!), leaving the state without a men's college when two women's exist. Sorry men, you are the weaker sex and women deserve clubs where No Boys Allowed is the rule, but it doesn't work the other way.

Women now run two of the three branches of government in South Carolina, with poor Speaker of the House Bob Harrell Jnr being the lone male in a woman's world, and we have more women's sports than men's sports opportunities in our educational institutions in colleges, with the likelihood of more bans on boys playing sports coming with new Title IX proposals.

Submit To Women at the Marathon. And to top it all off, a Jersey Girl going for next January's Houston Olympic Trials, doing her best Rachel Alexandria impersonation, beating the men at Bi-Lo Myrtle Beach Marathon XIII presented by Chick-Fil-A Saturday. Her 2:40:11 was three minutes faster than poor Billy Shue, to be the fastest man and not win the trophy, being beaten by a girl by three minutes in the slowest Bi-Lo Marathon ever. It was the fastest Bi-Lo Marathon by a woman and the slowest men's winning time of all-time, and the overall winning time tied 2004 for the slowest (note the new torso timing rule for 2011). The Wells Fargo auditor was given a rude welcome to South Carolina, where men are the weaker sex and must submit to women at all times as the XX has power, not the XY, as we've seen in leadership and now sport.

It begs the question: Why won't our boys play sports? Have federal authorities feminised the state enough to keep boys off the fields?

(Just for reference, your humble blogger broke the six-hour barrier for the first time Saturday, 5:48:27, in his eighth career marathon.)

A College Sport For All: Hate The Soldiers, Hate War Veterans, Support Sexual Deviants. A wounded Iraq War veteran is taunted and bashed at an Ivy League school that has banned the military since 1969. With the demise of the United States Armed Forces and replacement by the new Department of Social Engineering, Special Rights Division, there is consideration to eliminate the ban on this department. The military has been excluded from many colleges in light of Stonewall and many un-American activities that resulted from the teachings in college.

Sorry, But the Daytona 500 Winner Cannot Drink. Trevor Bayne may not be old enough to drink the winner's wine, but at 20 years and one day, the Daytona 500 winner gives Jack Roush, John Henry, and Tom Werner their first win (all Ford teams in NASCAR are required to use Roush Fenway equipment, no other manufacturer has a single-source policy; while it says Wood Brothers, it's all intensive purposes Roush Fenway, which provided cars for the entire podium). It was the first time Ford's Motorcraft won a race since its rival GM Goodwrench was shuttered by Dictator Obama under his "punish the opponents for giving to Mitt rule", and winning his second Sprint Cup start puts him in a class of only one other driver, last year's Daytona 500 winner Jamie McMurray (whose first Sprint Cup win was in his second Sprint Cup start, 2002 at Charlotte). He was not even born when Jeff Gordon made his first Nationwide start, and does not collect the 47 points for a race winner since he is registered as a part-time driver who intends to run the full Nationwide schedule. A driver born in the 1990's has won the Daytona 500 before a driver born in the 1980's. This is a guy who had been released by two teams from development rosters before signing with Roush last fall, and the teams were DEI (let go by Ganassi after 2008 when DEI and Chip merged) and Michael Waltrip (last fall, sponsorship issues). I wonder who's sorry for letting him go now. Hmmmmm . . . ◙

"Seven seconds away from having a great day"

That title from a chapter in The Big Picture in referring to ten years ago this very day, the loss of an American figure whose death was more of the death of an American figure, more than Elvis Presley, and more than Michael Jackson, especially to a nation of those who enjoy their heroes as action heroes as grandfathers who could snarl anyone, be unafraid for new challenges, and show how tough heroes could have class.

Dale Earnhardt Snr was the symbol of an America that may have passed us by with the current era of leadership in this country, but to his loyal fans, the employees who worked for any of his enterprises, including an auto dealership and a Perdue farm, and a man who went from a humble dirt-track driver with a widowed mother (who is still living today), to a folk hero of the people with his tenacity that influenced a President, to having investing professionals paying him for the right to trade using his seat at the two major stock exchanges at the time. He was a tough “Intimidator,” and truly showed his image as “One Tough Customer”.

He introduced alternate jersey concepts in motorsport with All-Star Race cars that celebrated special events, and drove a piece of pop art at All-Star Race XVI in the form of hippie artist Peter Max's design for the signature #3 that can be seen at Richard Childress' museum and may have been his most famous piece of art, considering it was raced. It would be akin to an artist laying his specially designed livery on a Ferrari 150th Italia, or on a McLaren MP4 for one race.

He even purchased a stake in a local minor league baseball team and renamed it in his own image (Kannapolis Intimidators), with his close friend Sam Bass, who designed many liveries (even in INDYCAR) designing the team's “Killer K” logo, with the team later retiring his #3 akin to Gene Autry's #26 at the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. (This year, the team is adding an “I” with the image of the 1998 Daytona 500 win as an alternate logo)

In his later years, he had even greater aspirations. He dreamed of competing with Katech in a friendly rivalry with Richie Gilmore building LS engines for the Corvette Racing project with a “factory” Corvette and a DEI Corvette, zipping by over 200 MPH through Ligne Droite des Hunaudières on Route Départementale D338, zipping through the hills as he raced through the 24 Heures du Mans as a retired driver in his early 50's.

It never happened. Making the black #3 mainstream and a folk hero made sure his death would be mourned by millions. Fans in Washington drove one silent loop around the Washington Beltway to mourn. NC 136, now renamed NC 3, and the Dale Trail have become celebrated places. Middle America had lost at 4:40 PM on February 18, 2001, a hero who was a cowboy of another type.

A nation who loved their heroes tough and willing to lead was Dale Earnhardt Snr, who showed to be an entrepreneur, something his son has acquired with his own enterprises (a race team, saloon, and various business enterprises). The image of The Intimidator was one where President George W. Bush sent an official condolence letter and representative to the memorial service. Seven months later, when terrorists struck in New York, Arlington, and Shanksville, Bush turned Intimidator on Usama bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban, choosing to rattle their cage, and it started with an image that only Earnhardt's sponsor VF Corporation could love.

America still needs that tough-guy image that Dale sold Madison Avenue today, and the Tea Party reminds me of the “spirit of Dale” that is still in America that liberals hate.

We might have thought the perfect words for Dale's death were said when he was watching the Grande Premio di San Marino one May morning in his motorcoach, and that afternoon after he won and the sad news of that morning was told, how he remembered Ayrton Senna first in his interview after a win.

“It was a shame to see him go the way he did.” ◙

Classic Sports Thursday

A perfect storm had occurred for CBS in February 1979. A massive snowstorm hit the East Coast, and CBS had outbid ABC for the rights to the Daytona 500. In prior years, ABC had entered the Daytona 500 broadcast around the 100-lap point, and aired the last hour and half of the race. CBS would gamble and try to air the entire 200-lap, 500-mile race, something that Indianapolis only had for local broadcasts in post-war Indianapolis, and something not even ABC had tried with the Indianapolis 500, which was taped and aired that evening in summary broadcasts at the time (the first national live Indianapolis 500 would not occur until 1986).

The gamble worked. Despite a small shower in the morning and CBS plans to pair it with the most popular NBA games after the race, the first live flag-to-flag national broadcast of a 500-mile automobile race ended with an incident so famous that because of the snow, the ratings soared, and the appeal was known.

The famous last-lap crash of Donnie Allison and Cale Yarborough (both of whom in the past ten years as of that time had run Indy) established a passion that in a nation that needed tough men heroes, created two. But the race to the finish, not caught by the CBS directors, was as amusing. Prior to September 2003, a safety car situation meant the safety car began when the leader crossed the start-finish line, and the Foyt, Petty, and Waltrip battle some believe was determined by Foyt forgetting unlike USAC, where the safety car situation was immediate slowdown and no racing, the safety car situation would be crossing the line only meant Petty, who won five Daytona 500s and what are now known as Sprint Cup titles at the time, and Waltrip, a driver in his early 30's with an Ali-style brashness he used on Nashville television and radio to successfully sell tickets to the weekly races but no titles, battled for the win, with The King beating Jaws.

The quote of Ken Squier after the race may have set a standard upon the squabble.

"And there's a fight between Donnie Allison and Cale Yarborough. Tempers overlowing, they are angry because they know they have lost, and what a bitter defeat."




Donnie's brother Bobby joined the fight, and the result was a fight that sold saloons to an American public. The newspapers the next day, and Middle America saw the passion of men who went for it, and in a nation longing for warriors, saw men who gave their heart, and refused to give up. Little did we know how from Cale vs the Allison Brothers what it meant. And imagine how it was for a racer from Rockford, IL, John Knaus, who raced in the Midwest, what his young son Chad Anthony was still a young schoolboy, years from turning his dad's wrenches (which he did at 14), and the boy's willingness to bench an entire starting five for poor performance.

We celebrate on Classic Sports Thursday the motor racing event that created a monster, and a classic for all ages. ◙

Weekend notes

Seductive Arias. We've heard of Death by Chocolate, but an interesting note flew by me this weekend from the soprano soloist in Beethoven's Mass in C Major that I participated in June as she is a graduate student at the University of Maryland - College Park. She said that one of her classes for the Master's degree she is pursuing is called "Death by Aria".

Now what arias are seductive enough for a soprano, alto, tenor (which is this author's voice part), or bass to sing?

Who Said? Who Said? Boris Said He Could Take Mad Max Down the Wall of Champions! And on the 209th mile of a Said 200-mile event, he Said so!

El Esponsales del líder de La Gran Amistad Señor Chang. Congratulations to S-E-R-E-N-A and Mr. LaRoche, engaged! ◙

Political draft lines: how a Talladega draft relates to social science

Sunday's Aaron's 499, NASCAR's second (of three) majors and the conclusion of the Grand-Am, IRL, and NASCAR Alabama Speedweeks (Talladega and Leeds), reminded me ten years ago an article about the social sciences taking place during the “draft” at superspeedways had been posted, and now it relates to social sciences. The Obama Administration's "draft line" of socialists, anti-family activists, environmental activists, Communists, the uneducated youth, follow the draft line minorities, and transnationalists, long and strong the power side for the past four years, is finding themselves challenged by the Tea Party "draft line" that is starting to form its own draft line of pro-life, pro-family, anti-tax, anti-socialist, and anti-massive spending groups banding together and trying to draft past the strong Obama line. This article I read many years ago went back to me because this analysis of the draft from 2000 is reminiscent of politics. Some of the Obama electorate is breaking away from the strong draft line.

What can the draft at Talladega teach us about social science? (from 2000): ◙