RE: NASCAR (Full Version)

All Forums >> [Other Minnesota Sports] >> Other Sports



Message


Trekgeekscott -> RE: NASCAR (10/14/2013 3:22:32 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Todd M

I don't dislike NASCAR. Haven't watched a lot of it.

It's not entirely unlike you said...a little difficult to get up for seeing as it is the same thing over and over every event. Lap racing. Too much of the same thing every time.

You seem to have a passionate dislike of it. Not a good driver?

I could totally own racing but am too big.


I am an excellent driver.

Just don't see the great draw of NASCAR or other racing for that matter. 

It's not a passionate dislike.  I reserve those feelings for Basketball.





twinsfan -> RE: NASCAR (3/7/2014 3:55:30 PM)

Tom Kelly




twinsfan -> RE: NASCAR (10/11/2014 3:41:12 PM)

Just checked out the standings. Something is broken in the way they calculate things. Ryan Newman has zero wins and only two Top-5 finishes all season (30 races).................but he's in 4th place, only 9 points behind the leader!! [&:][&:][&:][&:][&:]




twinsfan -> RE: NASCAR (9/24/2015 10:50:15 AM)

So I'm trying to wrap my head around the 2015 version of the Chase for the Championship. They recently narrowed it down to the Top 16 drivers having a chance to win. Now my understanding is they will eliminate 4 more drivers after the next two races. What's the logic? I think they keep eliminating 4 drivers every several races until they are down to 4 drivers competing in the last race. I remember this from last year, I think. Unsurprisingly, the 4 drivers that were still alive for the championship in the last race finished 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th in the final race. Everyone just stayed out of their way. A really boring way to end the season.




twinsfan -> RE: NASCAR (9/24/2015 11:21:12 AM)

Jimmie Johnson is mingling with friends in a wine-and-cheese kind of setting. There's television star Angie Harmon and her famous football husband Jason Sehorn over here. There's a CNN crew shooting a segment over there.

They've all gathered at the Hartz Witzen Gallery in Charlotte's art district to unveil 68 blown-up photographs from a book recently published by Johnson and his wife, Chandra.

Fourteen studios are within the perimeter of this building in historic NoDa, where artists paint, sculpt and perform on a daily basis. Just down the street in this offbeat area are funky restaurants where the typical demographic is much different than you'll find anywhere else in town, way different than a NASCAR crowd.

NASCAR and an art gallery.

What's wrong with this picture?

"I wondered the same thing," says Clint Bowyer, who climbed into Chase contention with a victory in Saturday night's Sprint Cup race. "[Jimmie] makes a lot of money. And when you make a lot of money, you've got a lot of friends that make a lot of money, and apparently they like art.

"I'm a long ways from art in my life. I don't have a lot of art hanging on my walls. A new Harley is art to me."

Bowyer is joking as usual, but there is some truth in his humor.

"I've got an art gallery," says Johnson's team owner, Rick Hendrick, referring to the warehouse adjacent to his Hendrick Motorsports empire where he houses a lifetime of memorabilia. "Mine's called the Redneck Disney World."

Again, NASCAR and art.

What's wrong with this picture?

Nothing when you consider it is Johnson. The five-time Cup champion, beyond being one of the most talented drivers in NASCAR history, is one of the most diverse.

He is as comfortable at an art gallery in Los Angeles or New York City as he is on a barstool in North Carolina or behind the wheel of the No. 48 Chevrolet.

The 208-page book of pictures photographed by Missy McLamb is called "On the Road." In it you'll get an up-close look into the personal lives of Johnson, Chandra and daughter Genevieve Marie -- Evie for short -- during their 10-week run at the 2011 title that came up short.

"When Jimmie started doing this project, what he wanted to show NASCAR fans, and even other sports figures and people outside the sport, was what he goes through during that grueling 10 weeks," Chandra says.

He shows much more.

"When we initially started the project I was real organized, like, 'OK, 10 weeks. We'll tell a story and what went on,'" Johnson says. "Then as we got into the project it started to open up and become more about the images."

Johnson can't give you some deep meaning or life lesson about each photo. But if you had time he could go one by one and "paint a picture for you."


As you turn the pages you will better understand the intensity and passion that makes Johnson a championship driver, husband and father. You'll understand why he is back in the hunt this year, only seven points behind Brad Keselowski heading into Sunday's race at Kansas Speedway (2 p.m. ET, ESPN).

The pictures Chandra specially selected for the gallery walls magnify this. You'll see some that didn't make the cut for the book, like Johnson giving a one-finger salute to Talladega from the airplane after a 26th-place finish that basically ended his hope of a sixth straight title.

"Yeah, I knew our daughter was going to see the book," says Chandra, who made the call on that one.

Hendrick isn't prominently featured in the book, but he's in the gallery with the simple title "boss" underneath a picture on the far wall.

As Hendrick looks around the gallery, he makes mention of all the photos of Johnson with his daughter -- a sign of what family means to his driver.

But the picture that stands out most to him, that tells what makes Johnson a champion, is the one called "Walking the line." It's my favorite, too. It's a black and white shot of Johnson all alone, hands in the pockets of his firesuit, walking to his car for qualifying under the lights at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

It carries the sense of solitude and loneliness that sometimes comes with being the best, the sense of focus on the task at hand.

Hendrick is drawn to this one because it symbolizes the "quiet time" Johnson wants -- no, demands -- once the Chase begins.

"He changes his whole lifestyle," Hendrick says. "To me, if I had to put something on that picture, it would say 'commitment.' Commitment to excellence.

"I've never seen anybody as focused and detailed at what he's trying to accomplish as he is."

We've seen that lately on the track as Johnson has almost perfected fuel-mileage runs, something he admittedly has "sucked" at, with top-4 finishes in two of the past three races.

In the book and gallery you'll see that commitment in photos of Johnson working out or studying a computer screen with an engineer.

Johnson has taken his commitment to a whole new level recently with triathlons. He has hired a special trainer to work with, particularly in the pool, where he swims for an hour and a half twice a week at 5:45 a.m.

"He has a plan, the way he works out, the way he eats," Hendrick says. "He told me he told Chani now that the Chase has started, there's going to be time for us to have some family time, but I've got to shift some things because I've got to have some time.

"He's already planned the races out. He was telling me where he wanted to finish at this race. He's like a computer. He sits in those debriefs. … I've never seen a guy that can break a lap down the way he does."

Says Chandra, "It's so funny. You go through the season and we're in our routine and … as soon as the Chase starts, it's like a new gear kicks in. It gets a little more intense."

You can see that intensity in many of the photos, particularly the ones in which Johnson is in the car or talking to crew chief Chad Knaus.

But the images in the gallery and book also show Johnson's noncompetitive, not-so-intense side. Most of those are centered around Evie, from holding her hand to feeding her breakfast.

Johnson's favorite picture in the book is on Page 89. It shows the raw emotion of him, Chandra and Evie trying to take in the death of IndyCar driver Dan Wheldon as they watched the news unfold on the television inside their motor coach.

Although Evie had no idea what was going on, the camera shows how she picked up the stunned energy from her parents.

It almost didn't make the cut, by the way.

Trying to narrow about 15,000 photographs to just more than 200 wasn't easy, particularly for a person such as Johnson, who is so particular about every detail of his personal and professional life.

But it's that mental toughness that makes Johnson such a threat to win the title year in and year out, that allows him to think outside the box and put together a project like this that seems so un-NASCAR-like.

"Probably not going to have any of those anytime soon," Bowyer jokingly says of him opening an art gallery showing.

But Johnson can pull it off. He does so because there are more layers to him than most.

"Jimmie Johnson is one of the coolest people in the garage, and most people don't realize that," Kevin Harvick says. "Jimmie can drink as much beer as anybody. He's as diverse as anybody, whether it's an art show or a golf tournament or eating hot dogs.

"This is what blows me away. The guy has won five championships and isn't the most popular driver."

That honor still belongs to Dale Earnhardt Jr. So maybe Johnson can be the most popular driver in the art world.

"This has been such an interesting project," Chandra says. "He focused on a project he wanted to do, not something somebody else was telling him to do. This wasn't driven by success. He wanted it to be his way. Whether it was successful or not, he didn't care."

If art truly transcends life, Johnson may be in store for more success on and off the track as the Chase winds down.

"I still feel like I'm getting warmed up," Johnson writes in the back of the book.

NASCAR and art.

What's wrong with this picture?

Nothing when you consider Johnson has been making art in a stock car since the day he went on his unprecedented masterpiece of five straight titles.

Nothing when you look at the masterpiece he may be creating again this year.




Daniel Lee Young -> RE: NASCAR (9/25/2015 12:01:18 AM)

Turning left... turning left.. straight a way rolling drag race... turning left... turning left.. rolling straight a way drag race... yaawwn... reaching for remote... !!oh hey a 15 car pile up at 200 miles an hour!!! ....pauses reach... wow nobody died?? or Daymmm somebody died!! ... shakes head as they sort it out and "explain" how some accident happened at 200 mile an hour, three cars wide and 20 cars deep, while turning left... .. changes to golf instead.. only slightly less boring to watch, because I play and like the courses.

Plus no one ever dies, on camera anyway..

although careers die every day, but no golfers..

[;)]




twinsfan -> RE: NASCAR (2/4/2016 2:19:28 PM)

Tony Stewart will not add Daytona 500 Winner to his legacy. He broke his back in a dune buggy accident and will be unable to race in the Daytona 500. He will miss a few other early races, but will return for most of his final NASCAR season.




twinsfan -> RE: NASCAR (2/5/2016 4:34:27 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jim Frenette

quote:

ORIGINAL: twinsfan

Jeff Gordon has 87 career wins. Will he get to 100?

Jimmie Johnson has 65. Will he get to 100?

Who would get there first? Gettin' pretty late in the game for Jeff Gordon. I see Ryan Newman has 17 wins in his entire career. So Jeff would need to almost duplicate in the next 10 years (and well past Jeff's prime) what Ryan Newman has taken 15 years to do in his prime.


Since they keep driving so late in life, I can see both getting 100

Not gonna happen, Jimbo.

Gordon retired short of 100.

Johnson isn't seeing the Winner's Circle nearly as often as he used to.




twinsfan -> RE: NASCAR (6/27/2016 6:26:24 PM)

Tony Stewart wins on a road course. This breaks the longest winless streak in his career. I don't think he had won a race since he killed that guy?

Anyway, are the days of the road track ringers over? Man, I loved that. Would like to see Robby Gordon come back as a ringer and contend a couple times a year.




twinsfan -> RE: NASCAR (6/27/2016 6:33:16 PM)

http://www.sportingnews.com/nascar/news/sonoma-raceway-field-road-course-ringers-boris-said-jimmie-johnson/gptbju9a3osd1fdnp749ijw3t

Found this from an article posted the other day:

"We've seen a real interesting shift in the last 10 years where road-course ringers come in and they aren't taking the trophies home, it's really the NASCAR regulars," said six-time champion Jimmie Johnson, who won at Sonoma in 2010. "I think it shows the versatility we have as drivers and the teams' ability to set up a car and make a car get around here."

To Johnson's point, there have been seven different winners in the past seven races at Sonoma and 10 in the past 11, with Kyle Busch the only repeat winner. Watkins Glen had six different winners in the past seven races.

Why are road-course specialists not having much success in NASCAR road racing anymore?

Mainly because NASCAR's top drivers have become so proficient.
In the 1990s, only a handful of drivers — Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin, Tony Stewart, Ricky Rudd — were good enough to win consistently on road courses. Now, all of the top drivers are good it. Give them a winning car and the right strategy and any of them can win. In the past five years, Joey Logano, Carl Edwards, Martin Truex Jr., Clint Bowyer, Kurt Busch and Kasey Kahne have won for the first time on a road course.




I call BS on this. The regular guys are winning these races because not as many road course ringers are running. And the ones that do get a ride are driving a pile of junk. You put a great road racer into a viable vehicle, he will beat these NASCAR regulars - no doubt in my mind. It used to happen all the time. I don't think the money is there anymore. NASCAR is kind of dead. They're getting lazy. "Let's just run our regular guy." There may even be a conspiracy to keep the road ringers out of these races, to make it seem like the regulars are getting better at it. Honestly, I think that's what's going on.




twinsfan -> RE: NASCAR (1/21/2017 1:03:02 PM)

I had a strange dream a couple weeks ago. I was walking through a restaurant really late at night, and there was only one customer sitting at a table eating supper. He was wearing a racing suit like the NASCAR guys wear. From a distance it looked like Carl Edwards. I walked up to him thinking about asking him more about his retirement. As I got closer, I noticed it was Denny Hamlin. But I couldn't think of his name...I choked...so I just said "Hey man." He said he was out of autographed pictures, but "I have my racing helmet here. Mind if I sign this for you?" I was pretty excited about that. So he signed it. By now more people recognized Denny Hamlin and came over to talk with him as well. Then one kid that was a year younger than me in school picked up the autographed helmet and said "Sweet, I'll take this." I said "He already gave it to me." I got it back. Was expecting a big fight, but it didn't happen.




SoMnFan -> RE: NASCAR (2/26/2017 5:52:38 PM)

Whole shitload of left turns today, real big ones I hear ... and no comments.
Hmmm.
All the NASCARers retreat to the hills after the election?




twinsfan -> RE: NASCAR (2/27/2017 5:12:30 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: SoMnFan

Whole shitload of left turns today, real big ones I hear ... and no comments.
Hmmm.
All the NASCARers retreat to the hills after the election?

I missed the race. I bet it's the first time in 16 years I haven't watched Daytona.




Ian Joseph -> RE: NASCAR (1/4/2018 9:42:14 PM)

You made it!




bgdavis -> RE: NASCAR (1/4/2018 10:18:02 PM)

I'm not into NASCAR, but I enjoy watching some types of racing. I prefer watching IndyCar. I've been to the Indy 500 three times, and this July I'm planning to be at the Iowa Speedway in Newton, IA to watch the (don't laugh at the name) Iowa Corn 300. A high school buddy has been going to the Indy 500 for decades, but he's finally giving it up and said the Iowa track is a lot better for fans - more access to the garage areas, shorter distances from parking to the seats, more affordable, etc. NASCAR has held some races at this track, though this year it appears to just be their Truck series, K&N Pro Series and Xfinity Series. Depending on how much I enjoy seeing the Indy race in July, I might consider attending other races there in the future, including NASCAR series.




twinsfan -> RE: NASCAR (11/18/2018 4:23:12 PM)

Watching my first NASCAR race this season. The Final Four crap is bad enough. But what is this Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3 BS? I would be hard-pressed to think of a dumber rule in all of sports.




twinsfan -> RE: NASCAR (11/19/2018 12:34:54 PM)

Every time I stumble across the final race of the season since this Final 4 Playoff format took hold, the same thing has happened every time. You look up at the order, and the 4 guys that are still alive for the championship are running 1-2-3-4 for a majority of the race.

How does this happen? There are 39 cars out there (used to be 43 in past years), 25 of which are perfectly capable of running in the Top 5 in any given race. What are the chances that the 4 guys left in contention are actually the 4 best cars on this final race day? And for it to happen year after year after year? The odds are incalculable.

So I guess the question is, are the other drivers and/or pit crew told to take it easy and let the 4 contenders hash it out? Or is there something even more sinister going on with NASCAR? Are the higher-ups in the organization sneaking into the shop at night and doing secret damage to the other 35 cars, or maybe it's easier to just pump up the 4 contending cars somehow?

Even if that was the case, it should not prevent the possibility of one of the contenders getting caught up in an accident or something. But that never seems to happen.

I think the other drivers have simply been told to "stay out of the way." The 4 contenders were passing the other cars so easily, and there was such a lack of contact compared to other NASCAR races I've seen in my lifetime, that I'm sure that's what was happening. You'd think one of the other guys would have enough pride on that day to try to upset the apple cart, but I guess not.




TJSweens -> RE: NASCAR (11/19/2018 3:22:06 PM)

Did you see the teenage formula 1 driver crash yesterday?




Page: <<   < prev  11 12 13 14 [15]



Forum Software © ASPPlayground.NET Advanced Edition 2.5.5 Unicode