Happy Hour: Bristol, Kyle and Brad and a doomsday prediction
Throughout the week you can send us your best questions, jokes, rants and just plain miscellaneous thoughts to [email protected] or @NickBromberg. We’ll post them here and have a good time.
As we typed this, the appeal for Richard Childress Racing’s tire penalty at California was still ongoing. What would you eat for lunch in an appeal like this? Would your mood be your food choice? Would you go for a hamburger if you were optimistic? Not eat at all if things weren’t going your way? Would you be superstitious?
We think we’d go with something not too filling. We can’t imagine trying to state your case and defend yourself weighed down with a huge lunch would be a good idea. And yes, we’re weird for thinking of this.
Sunday sets up as a wonderful day if you’re a race fan. Formula 1 at Bahrain is on live in the mid-morning, then Bristol and then the Long Beach Grand Prix starts right as Bristol should be wrapping up.
Well, should be wrapping up if there’s not a rain de… WAIT WHAT IS GOING ON? WHY ARE THERE CAUTION LIGHTS NOW ON?
Whoops, looks like NASCAR accidentally turned the caution lights on again.
Anyway, where were we? Oh, the possibility of rain. It could rain. It may rain. But oh well. Bristol has lights and there’s always Monday. It certainly stinks for the fans, but if you’re in NASCAR and a rain delay is a big problem for you, you’ve got a damn good life.
Is the key word seems here? We’re not sure. We do agree there is a certain mystique about Bristol under the lights, and the racing after last year’s rain delay was certainly fun as hell.
Alright, let’s get to it.
If you have some stock in nascar get out now as it is almost dead 4 14 2015 , you must be able to see the writing on the wall , it is over for the gig time so sorry bit reality – Clyde
We love publishing emails like this from time to time because they’re wonderfully entertaining. There’s usually an inverse correlation of sense to entertainment. What happened on Tuesday that delivered a big blow to NASCAR? Circle Sport winning its appeal? The return of Lake Speed to the NASCAR consciousness for a fleeting moment?
If so, oh man, we’re in trouble.
This was in response to our tweet yesterday about how enlightening Kyle Busch’s media session was. And it’s worth pointing out again. Busch, when he’s in a good mood, provides good and thoughtful answers. It’s just the times that he’s not in a good mood overshadow the others and become the dominant perception of him.
Busch was poised, thoughtful and engaging on Tuesday and his answer to the question about Brad Keselowski’s blog post made us wonder what his immediate reaction was. Keselowski wrote a post about the two drivers after Busch’s wreck, and here’s what Busch said about it.
“I guess I read it. I don’t know what I read, but I guess I read it,” Busch said. “I don’t know how – there’s a lot of things I can go here, but for him writing it, it was probably good. For when it came out, it was probably poor, but it was based off him missing me essentially and me not being out there on the race track with him making stories with him on the race track so he made a story about us off the race track. So that’s why I say I think the timing was bad.”
Past that, the occurrences that he reciprocates in that story, I don’t recollect one bit – not one percent of that I don’t recollect – why would I be sitting at the back of my hauler the first time somebody comes up to me and says hello and I just ignore them? That doesn’t make any sense to me, especially me being a 16-year-old kid just getting into the sport. Whether that was before or after qualifying when I just wadded up my truck and had to start at the back in a backup truck at IRP, I don’t know. Like I said, I don’t recollect that. It might have just been after Jack Roush chewed my rear off, so again I don’t I don’t recollect that. The second one I do recollect because, yeah, it was weekly making an ass of himself of wrecking people and being an idiot, so I had no respect for him so I didn’t want to talk to him. That’s my take on his story. It is what it is and he I guess had a lot of guts to write it.”
You may wonder where this is coming from. Well, Chevy is unveiling a new Malibu for 2016 and wants to compete better in the midsize car market. The main competitors mentioned in this Reuters article? The Toyota Camry and Ford Fusion, the two cars Chevy competes with in the Cup Series (The plant the Chevy SS is made at is ceasing operations in 2017).
The Malibu name doesn’t seem like a race car name — and there’s no word of any switch of car models in the Cup Series happening. But wasn’t that the same reaction when Ford went from the Thunderbird to the Taurus?
Pre-Chase? We’re gonna say pre-Chase. Optimistic, we’ll go six. Pessimistic we’ll go four. Not much variation, so we’ll settle on the midpoint of five wins for Harvick.
As far as Kurt Busch goes, he’s going to win. He’s almost a bit like Harvick at times in 2014. Speed, but lacking continuity. We’d rather be inconsistently fast.
Yes, Johnson is a main threat for the title, but Logano would be leading the points in nearly any other season. He’s been incredibly strong, just not as dominant at times as the No. 4 and 48 have been.
And three short tracks in four races when you go back to Martinsville. It’s a fun stretch.
Where the schedule could really use a short track is from May onwards. Serious question: other than Talladega, Sonoma and Watkins Glen, what races do you all really look forward to from Richmond to the Bristol night race? Sure, there’s the 600, but it can drone at times and a lot of its appeal comes from the distance of the race and the day it’s on. Interested to see y’all’s answers to that.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
