All Purpose NASCAR Thread

Ginn and Martin were on Speed's Wind Tunnel show tonight, neither indicated they would run anything but Chevy.

I wonder what Dale Jr. honestly thinks of his fans? God damn they're a bunch of fucking dopes.

Not saying Vickers was squeaky clean, but that bump-on-last-lap-scenario has played out in NASCAR so many times before, many benefitting drivers with the surname Earnhardt.

Shut the fuck up you bunch of babies!

 

Had Junior and Jimmie in the SportsJournalists.com league.

Fuck Vickers.

 

Bubbler, I'm not a Jr. fan -- but that was a fucked-up way to go for the win. And it ain't the first time Vickers blatantly has wrecked someone to take a checkered.

 

Must have been Busch - IRP maybe? - because this was his last first Cup win.

 

Oh yeah, forgot about that ... was thinking about points race, not a heat race for a non-points race.

 

I'm cool with that, but then I'd better hear the same condemnation of other drivers who have bumped to win -- including father and son Earnhardt (who did it barely two months ago at Michigan as I recall in the Busch race) -- but the fans of those drivers think it's OK for them to do it. That's what bugs me.

If Vickers is a dick for doing it, why aren't they? Or why aren't any number of drivers -- Jeff Gordon, Jeremy Mayfield jump immediately to mind who bumped to win -- I'm certain there's other active drivers who have bumped and won too.

The visceral reaction comes from who it was done to, not what was done. The proof in the pudding would have been if Dale Jr. bumped Vickers into Johnson to win. You think Talladega's fans would have booed that? You think the NASCAR world would be up in arms as much as it is now?

Bumping to win is not new. Neither is the inconsistency of the reaction of the NASCAR fan base depending on who does it.

If they're not all dicks for bumping to win -- just a select few -- then I'm not going to judge Vickers, he's just the latest to take advantage of it.

If they're all dicks for bumping to win, I'm more than willing to accept that, but that's not how NASCAR fans or NASCAR itself has ever treated it.

Oh, and by the way, no matter how you feel about Vickers' actions, this is yet another piece of evidence why The Chase is dumber than shit. NASCAR is trying to have it both ways by keeping sponsors on the track while having a contrived playoff. Well, here's what happens when you do that, non-contender wipes out two Chase contenders.

If they're going to have a Chase, they should blue flag (to use an open-wheel concept) drivers who might interfere with the championship, in which case, Vickers isn't even a factor.

Or better still, dump the fucking Chase and let the best driver over 36 races get the championship he rightfully earned.

It's such a fucking silly concept, the only thing dumber is the ridiculous ass Lucky Dog. Oh wait! Dale Jr. was down a lap on Sunday, but lucky dogged his way back to the lead lap! He really would have earned that win! :

Perhaps HE'S the one who should never have been in that position at the end of the race. If you paid the conseuqences for bad luck, JUST LIKE ANY OTHER RACING SERIES FROM F-1 DOWN TO DIRT-TRACK MODIFIEDS, he'd have dragged his No. 8 ass around a lap down. But no! Sponsors, owners and gullible fans who'd rather have a farcical show instead of a genuine warts-and-all competition won't have that!

NASCAR is so fucked up with these idiotic rules. Just get rid of the Chase and lucky dog, and my loyalty returns in an instant. Right now, it's pro fucking wrestling on wheels.

 

What Bubbler said. Verbatim.

To further emphasize one point, did anyone forget that Ironhead bumped his way to his share of wins over the years? Or was it just that NASCAR turned a blind eye to it? Funny how when he did it, all we could see was that sh_t-eating grin, yet when someone did it back to him - I know one time Ricky Rudd turned the tables on Ironhead - Earnhardt wanted him jailed and the key melted.

The Chase is STUPID. In other sports, when a league determines its postseason candidates, the others are sent home or are relegated to the stands, sidelines or simply watching the rest of the season from home. Only NASCAR won't do it because it's too scared it will piss off sponsors and fans.

If the Cowboys and Redskins miss the playoffs, they don't play consolation games until Super Bowl weekend because Jerry Jones and Daniel Snyder want to. Now that the Yankees are out of the baseball postseason, they won't be playing simply because the fans want it or because George Steinbrenner feels righted to do so. Why should all the other non-Chase contenders get to race when NASCAR has determined that no more than 10 teams are now eligible to win the Cup?

Either drop the Chase altogether, or have one with only 10 cars each in those last 10 races. If that sounds stupid and far-fetched, so be it. But right now, NASCAR doesn't look too smart.

 

All the bitching about Vickers is hilarious. And the fact that he rolled his ass into the media center and seemed genuinely torn about his first win was sad.

He didn't mean to hit Johnson. Hell, it was fairly obvious what happened. Vickers was gonna push him, Earnhardt put on an initial block that slowed Johnson a bit and Vickers hit him at a bad angle. Another foot over to the left and Johnson is standing in victory lane and calling Vickers the greatest teammate in NASCAR history.

And hell, even if had he done it intentionally, BFD. It's the final lap at Talladega. The guy's trying to get his first win. If he wouldn't move his mother out of the way for it, he doesn't need to be driving that car.

On top of all that, after all the wreckage Johnson has left at Dega over the last couple of years, he's the last sumbitch who should be complaining about any other driver making a mistake. I believe I recall him driving right the hell up under Elliott Sadler a year ago and setting off about a 30-car pileup.

 

Seems the Jr and Jimmie fans are more than just a bit pissed at Vickers---extra secuirty for him this weekend in Charlotte:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nascar/news;_ylt=Agne_i6z6sFIrzPwXRgHNJ_ov7YF?slug=ap-nascar-vickers-security&prov=ap&type=lgns

 

Pathetic.

How do the NFL and NBA fans, who have the rep for being unruly, get admonished, when a greater percentage of NASCAR's fans act like imbeciles more often?

If you had a scene like you had a Daytona a few years back, when Jeff Gordon was being pelted with all manner of shit out the grandstands, at a NFL game, it would be a national crisis. But NASCAR? That's just fans being fans.

Of course if it happened in an open wheel race, chances are good that getting hitting with those projectiles would be fatal (at speed anyway).

Boo Vickers all you want folks, but beyond that, get a freaking life. It's a race.

 

That was at Talladega -- the Gordon pelting deal. Funny thing about that is that Gordon didn't even do anything. He was passing Earnhardt (or vice-versa) as a caution came out and NASCAR, after reviewing the tape, declared Gordon the winner.

And since it was at Dega, it was much easier to overlook. Philly fans catch a lot of shit for being ruthless, but really, fans in Alabama are much nuttier. Keep in mind, it was Alabama football fans who threw a brick through a former head coach's office window after the guy lost his second game in a 10-2 season.

However, having said all that, the Gordon pelting thing prompted one of the funniest Junior quotes: "I didn't see anybody throwing no Budweiser cans out there. From what I could see, it was all Coors Light cans. I guess the last couple of swallows of those ain't too good."

Speaking of Junior quotes, he had a nice one from Dega about Gordon:

"I pushed Jeff Gordon into the lead five times and every time I do that, he complains that I'm bump-drafting him in the corners and blah, blah, blah. So I'm just not going to push him anymore. That's why he don't have too many friends out there. I was trying to be his only friend, besides his teammates, who are kind of paid to draft with him."