The 2021 Running NASCAR/IMSA/other racing things thread

I imagine the people invited to this year's NASCAR Media Tour can all fit in one Uber.

 

I’m not sure the media tour still exists.

 

You may be surprised to find out that Pitbull is a Florida native!

 

Long gone are the days when it was TG Sheppard ... and long gone are the fans.

 

Is Pitbull the male version of the Kardashians? I guess he's a singer/rapper or something, but he seems famous for being famous.

 

I'd say he's got a fairly legitimate music career in both the English and Spanish language spaces. The thing is I think he takes so many damn jobs, commercials, rap breaks in other peoples' songs, etc., that his Q score probably punches above his musical impact, and folks are happy to give him those jobs so they can say they're reaching out to the Latino market.

 

Not sure what publications and sites use IndyCar, therefore have no idea here. I'd find it difficult to believe that Jenna is working the IndyCar beat to no one, especially given AP's increasing belt tightening.

I can tell you that in markets in the South, don't bother to print anything that isn't NASCAR in motorsports outside of places like The Charlotte Observer, where they did give a crap about F1, IndyCar and NHRA results.

 

Finishing off this part with some good news:

 

What do y’all think of the Clash being held on a Tuesday night, and on the Daytona International Speedway road course to boot?

I like the scheduling choice. It misses the entire Super Bowl weekend, and we learned last season that there’s some sort of an audience for midweek racing.

 

The Clash -- and for that matter, the All-Star Race -- were reasonably decent ideas that NASCAR, of course, couldn't leave alone. "Hey, let's hold a race just for last year's polesitters!" "Cool, and add everybody else, too!" "Hey, let's have a race just for last year's winners!" "Cool, and add everybody else, too!"

If you're running an "exhibition" with the entire field, hand out the damn points. Same with the Twins.

The one thing it does that I like is it puts more emphasis on the Twins again. By running on the infield, the Clash no longer acts as a "draft test." So the only real chance to see how your car runs in race conditions is on Thursday. (There's always drafting practice, but nobody really wants to run flat out and tear crap up then, even though somebody does.)

And yeah, compressing the schedule down to Tuesday-Sunday is so much better for everybody. If you're spending $400 a night on a hotel room, those Monday-Tuesday dead days were a killer. N.com usually got around it by sending me down for the first weekend (with Dave Rodman, who lived there), and then the other two guys would fly Wednesday to babysit Rodman for the Twins, the Permatex 300 (!) and the 500.

That also freed me up for that damn long flight to Phoenix/Fontana/Vegas the next weekend. Boy, howdy. What good times.

 

The Beef. What's for Dinner. 300 doesn't have quite the same ring.

I'm one of those people who liked the entire week of racing because I'd have midday things to watch on teevee, but in this age of tightening things up, I guess a couple fewer days make sense.

The road course idea is silly, IMO. If it's a race for pole sitters, it should be in a discipline where the majority of poles are awarded — on ovals.

I saw somewhere that the top 10 now get points in the not-Twins?