Best All-Time Motorsports Announcers?

Monday, October 22, 2007, 9:07 AM

The addition of Rusty Wallace to the Nascar broadcasts (and the subtraction of intelligence) has been a hot-button topic since the season began. Check out this list of announcers, both past and present, from Wikipedia and tell us who you would like to have on the air and why?
My favorites were always Jackie Stewart, Bobby Unser and Sam Posey.



Jackie was the most knowledgeable open-wheel announcer I have had the pleasure of listening to. He knew the nuances of the technical side of the sport, thought like a driver and had the brain of an owner.
Posey was no great shakes but I always enjoyed the fact that Unser would put Posey in his place if he thought for an instant that Posey was wrong, and Unser did it with a wonderful mix of aplomb and disdain that was fun to listen to.
I also enjoyed Chris Economaki and his fervent need to make everything seem a little more exciting than it really was.
Among today's announcers? I was disappointed when Alan Bestwick was demoted and I enjoy listening to Wally Dallenbach Jr.
So, who do you like?

Urlacher and the Media

 Monday, October 29, 2007, 5:32 PM

Yes. I do wish Urlacher would talk to the local Chicago media, but I keep thinking he must have his reasons.


I was listening to Mac, Jurko and Harry this afternoon on AM 1000 ESPN here in Chicago and I was struck by an odd thought. Why would Urlacher want to communicate with a media that is calling him, among other things, immature and childish and telling him to "grow up and be a man".

The same guys who are saying this about him, then proceed to play back his very short, very terse interview and dub the sound of an obviously mentally challenged man saying over and over... "duh... duh... duh..." and then, when the interview is completed, add (and I'm paraphrasing here) "that they never knew until now that Urlachers IQ was less than his uniform number".

Oh lord! Tell me this is what today's media has come to? When things don't go your way you make a personal attack on someone? You make fun and ridicule them like some playground bullies? And not even have the guts to tell him to his face?

Awful, terrible stuff, and those guys justify it because Urlacher doesn't want to answer their questions?

Who the heck is childish and immature now? We try to teach our children how ugly and irreparable taunting others is, how it affects them to be bullied, and here are three grown men acting like the very immature, childish person they claim Urlacher to be.


Unbelievable.

This from Rick Telander (Chicago Sun-Times) - "Good old No. 54, who was a part of the once-proud Bears defense that let the Lions gain 365 net yards Sunday, can hold his breath, pout as long as he wants.
But it solves nothing."

So, Mr. Telander, the NFL requires all ballplayers to talk with the press, but if they don't talk the way YOU want them to, its called "pouting or holding his breath? Is this a terribly infantile ruse to make him angry, stamp his feet and have him whine - "I'll show them!" - while running to the Dias? Do you think this actually works? It didn't when you were twelve and it's not going to work now.
How about Jay Mariotti (Chicago Sun-Times) saying this - "Urlacher could have explained this to the local media. We would have understood. Instead, he issued terse answers -- not just on injury questions, but all questions -- leading me and others to wonder why he was being such a jerk recently. This is why he went to Glazer, his friend, to cry on a national media guy's shoulder."
So, Mr. Mariotti, in just a couple of paragraphs you tell us that if Urlacher had explained his problem to the media, you would all understand? While in those same paragraphs you call him a "jerk" and that he went to his friend to "cry on a national media guy's shoulder."

How about all of you in the media do some actual journalistic stuff and find out why hes interacting with the media the way he does? Or would this be too much like work? God forbid you should actually go and dig out the story.

After all, its much easier to poke fun, humiliate, denigrate and degrade someone, all in the name of reporting, hiding behind your microphone or newspaper.

I'm sure the way you have all comported yourselves will make your children proud. And while you're talking to them, make sure you justify to them how being a bully when you're an adult is soooo much different than when your a child.

Cookie Cutter Race Tracks

Thursday, November 8, 2007, 7:54 AM

One of several reasons those cookie cutter tracks have come into vogue is the fact they can fit more fans on the front straight, therefore more fans can see the pits, which, in theory, would make more fans want to come to the race. This is why Atlanta took a wonderful oval with two distinctly different turns and went to the two-bend front straight.

Atlanta Past Atlanta Present
Why do they do this? They have to put butts in the seats. Dovers sanctioning fees this year were over $5.0 million dollars per race (this included the purse). The track owners keep 65% of the gate with the rest going to NASCAR (this is on top of the sanctioning fees).

Seating capacity is 135,000 at Dover. So, 135,000 x $118.00 (just a guess) = $16.0 million x 65% = $10.0 million for the track. Subtract the $5.0 million sanctioning fee & purse and the track realizes a gross profit of only $5.0 million per race. This is a very loose look at the numbers and does NOT include the percentage of the television package that tracks receive. I know the Busch races earn the track 5.75% of the TV package and the last I heard, tracks received about 65% of the Nextel TV package, or about $6.19 million per race ($2.4 Billion x 65% = 1.56 Billion / 7 yrs = $223.0 mil / 36 races = $6.19 mil), but even with that, a track like Dover might gross around $22.0 million a year. But when you subtract operating and upkeep costs for that track over the course of a year, I suspect that number shrinks significantly.

Now take a track like Darlington. How does it survive? It doesn't have the room to expand beyond its current 65,000 seats (a railroad track on one side and a highway on another), so what can they do? How does a new track, knowing the costs, build any other kind of track? Martinsville survives because they can seat 91,000 while Bristol seats a whopping 160,000 fans!

Obviously these numbers are very basic. They don't include the income from sponsorships (although Pocono is famous for NOT selling the name of the race... for any amount), other income the tracks have for the rest of the year, ie; concerts, driving schools, vendors fees, parking fees etc., but are for a better view of why new tracks are the way they are.
It always comes down to dollars and cents in Nascar. A few more short tracks would be awesome, but what kind of seating can you have? What else can you do with the property during the rest of the year? You would hope that Nascar would cut a few tracks a break, just for the sake of tradition. But Nascar has proven that it talks out of both sides of its mouth.
Tradition or dollars... who do you think is going to win?

Young Race Car Drivers

Wednesday, January 23, 2008, 10:05 AM

Are parents doing the responsible thing by allowing teens to race?
I come from a family that loves auto racing.  My Father, Uncles and family friends all raced on short tracks during the 50's and 60's.  My Brother and I became gear heads and drag raced our street cars at the local drag strip, neither racing for the first time before the age of 19.  Although I would have, if I could have.
But now that I'm at the Grand Old Age of 51 I wonder... is it right for a parent to allow a child or early teen to drive a race car?  Is a parent acting responsibly by allowing them to do something that can be as dangerous as racing?  Isn't it the parents responsibility to tell a child or teen that, although you love the sport, its very dangerous and it's my duty as a parent to make choices for you, until you get a little older, until you can better judge the risk vs reward?
I don't know.

If you're a parent and you read stories of Al Unser Jr. driving USAC sprint cars at the age of 15, the same of Jeff Gordon, or Billy "The Kid" Meyer running funny cars at 17, do you cringe a little?  Does a little voice ask the question - "What parent in their right minds allows a teen to drive a race car that has 750 horsepower and weighs 1200 lbs, sideways, in the dirt, wheel-to-open wheel?  Or a 6000 hp dragster?   And what were they driving at an earlier age that gave them the ability to handle this race car at this age?"

We all drove go-karts and mini-bikes as children, but what is involved for a parent to allow their child to move up through the ranks at an early age?  I'm not saying these kids don't have talent, but I wonder if parents keep in mind that children and teens have no real sense of mortality and believe themselves invincible.
The argument could be made that football and skateboards cause more injuries than racing would, but it doesn't have the same feel to me as the danger of racing high horsepower cars at high speeds.
 So does it bother me that NASCAR put an minimum age limit on their drivers?  No.  Not at all.   As for the young drivers, I will leave those decisions up to their parents.
And I hope its the right one.

Some more number crunching...

Saturday, March 22, 2008, 10:58 PM

I like stats.

So here are the ones I worked up.

Starts      Wins          Top 5      Winning %      Top 5 %       Name
927         200             543            .215               .585              Petty     
505         105             295            .207               .584              Pearson
112          26               61              .232               .544              Lorenzen
526          84               253            .159               .480              Waltrip
666          76               280             .114              .420              Earnhardt
464          83               246             .178              .530              Yarborough
478          81               227             .169              .474              Gordon

These numbers are not career totals, but from their prime driving years, for which I used the year of their first win, through the year of their last win.

I included Lorenzen because of his winning percentage per start (and he was, in my mind, certainly one of the best Nascar ever produced).

But the most telling stats?  How about these two.  Petty and Pearson's careers, forever linked as two of the finest the series has ever produced,  started and ended very close together, as far as first and last wins.  During those years (roughly 1961 - 1984) Nascar ran 966 races.  Pearson and Petty won 305 of those, or fully 31% of the races run!  The second stat?  If you were a betting man, you wouldn't have done badly to put your money on one of them placing in the Top Five during those same 966 events.  How often?  838 times... or an incredible 86% of the time!!!

Really Christina?

Monday, February 7, 2011, 8:23 AM

When will vocalists like Christina Aguilera finally realize that the Star Spangled Banner is our National Anthem, a nations voice of pride, and not a stage for their over-the-top, overwrought,  look-at-me-aren't-I-amazing performances.

I have no problem with a singer putting their name to the National Anthem, a signature, if you will, that says - thanks for allowing me the opportunity to perform this song for my countrymen.  But to molest it the way Aguilera and many of her ilk do, is to show us that they think more of themselves and of showing us how great they believe their talent is, than what the song stands for.

In the end, with the throng screaming and yelling, she says "thank you."  As if they were screaming and yelling for her.  As if it was all about her.  Unbelievable.

Maybe next time she should just sing the song.  Sign it at the end.  And maybe, with the extra time she will save just singing the notes the way they were written, instead of attacking them, re-arranging them and adding hundreds more, she might be able to remember the words.

Ron Paul = The Right Choice

Twenty-five years from now when historians look back, they will acknowledge that this was the moment in time, this was the critical juncture in our country's history when angry Americans forcefully stepped up and yelled... "No more!" No more of the politician's rhetoric. No more to the free spending of hard working Americans money. No more to the debt that had made our country a pariah to the world. No more to a war riddled world that had taken the lives of thousands of heroic American men and women.

Historians will find that 2011-2012 was the turning point for our great country. They will recognize that caring, proud Americans voted for the candidate that had the country's best interest at heart, even though he may not have been the prettiest talking head nor the most polished. They will realize that for the first time, in a groundswell of patriotism, Americans voted for someone other than the candidates that were foisted upon them by the media's frenetic, money driven campaign to hold sway over the American people's minds. They will acknowledge that Americans everywhere, of all races, creeds and color, came together and said "No more!"

When historians discuss this point in American history, they will speak of how the American public, with a loud and raucous roar, took back the United States of America with an anger and sense of righteousness that hadn't been felt in decades. How we empowered ourselves as a people - united in a proud stand - to tell Washington that "this is enough!" They will talk of how a mild mannered man of high intellect and higher morals, stepped up and with the quiet voice of one, said "No more!" And that quiet voice of one... was heard by millions!

Here and now is when we, as a people - black, white, yellow, brown, poor, rich, city dwellers and rural folks alike - stood hand-in-hand as one and demanded that Washington do our bidding and not the reverse. We demanded that they cut spending. We demanded change. We demanded they listen to us or be removed from their office and others put in their place. And after the election those same people in Washington, for the first time in many years, realized that We The People run this country, not them. That the gravy train was over. That we were saying "No more!"

Historians will see how the media attempted to give us only two choices for the presidency - and how we saw through the ruse. They will understand how the media continued to see us as sheep being led to slaughter - how they woefully underestimated us - and how we stood our ground - proud, strong and ready to fight. And in the end they will see that the politicians in Washington, the media and the world believed we were ignorant, mindless souls who would quietly follow along - and oh, what a foolish mistake of conceit that was!

Finally they will talk of how Ron Paul was voted into office, even though he was dismissed, demeaned and degraded by the media and Washington politicos alike. How the American people took a stand and stuck to their guns and fooled them all - not allowing the bombardment of mindless drivel from the airwaves to sway us in our march, hand-in-hand, across America to the promised land, where We The People sent our collective, strong as steel voice to the politicians that we run this great country, and not lifetime politicians who care only of themselves, of money and of power.

Ron Paul can and will take us home. He will take America back - with common sense -with dignity - with intelligence. And when you step into that voting booth, vote with your heart, vote for your country, vote for your fellow Americans. Don't be swayed by the polls or the rhetoric that comes slithering like a snake in the grass out of Washington, as this is what they count on - that Americans don't want to waste a vote on someone who the media tells them can't win.

If we stand strong - if we fight the good fight - if we say "No more!" We can take back our country. We can take back our heritage. We can take back this land from those who care only for themselves.

Vote RON PAUL and and tell Washington "NO MORE!" And the beauty of it is... they will never see us coming.  Don't sway, don't falter, stay strong!

VOTE RON PAUL