Well, I started to opine and wonder how many laps a certain driver in a green car would have been down had it not been for that "wave around" deal, but decided it would be more laps than I wanted to count. That entire stable seemed to have issues last night.
A while back, our esteemed Georgia RR member, Johnny Mallonee related a marvelous tale of a young lady speeding back and forth on the road in front of the track where he was racing. That same young lady became his wife.
And, just this morning another Peach State resident, Pkl cautioned against marrying a spouse who is not a race fan.
I was reminded of both just a few minutes ago perusing the day's obituaries in my local Charlotte paper. Like many obituary sections, our local paper has an "I n Memoriam " section where paid remembrances are printed. The one below was in this morning's paper:
I have no idea today how it is done, but at one time every "official" race report was extremely specific about the EXACT cause of the caution, down to the exact cars involved or any other circumstances.
In our Richmond press box (and all other press boxes) a sheet of legal sized paper was kept in the typewriter being constantly updated. Teresa Dennis on our scoring loop from the NASCAR scoring booth to the press box phoned Bob Latford with the explicit reason for the caution as stated by NASCAR. This information was typed by Judy Tucker into the official report stating cars, circumstances, etc. and became part of the record distributed to all media, including the television broadcast booth to which it was immediately faxed.
All pre-computer in the NASCAR scoring booth.
If the folks like Harvick are gonna get their tails in a twitter over water bottles they can always go back to using the paper cups full of water passed to the driver on a pole - high tech poles like the one used by Bud Moore held TWO cups.
OR:
They could also return to having the picnic jugs mounted behind the driver's seat with the plastic tube for the driver to sip through. We used "red" Gatorade in Derrike Cope's picnic jug, but Curtis & Little Joe were reputed to have mint julips in their jugs at Darlington (NOT Atlanta) on Labor Day.
You notice that " Happy" Harvick didn't exactly get up in Bad Brad's face. Too bad he didn't try one of his famed flying leaps. Would have been fun to see Brad knock that always whiny sore loser Harvick on his can. According to post race news reports, the caution was caused by a piece of aluminum at the top of the turn.
As reported by Jim Utter in The Charlotte Observer:
On Lap 183 and Harvick with a big lead, NASCAR threw a caution for debris in Turn 1 and thats when the controversy began.
Under caution, ESPN repeatedly showed footage of Keselowski throwing a water bottle out of his car, but the network confirmed after the race the footage was not live, but taped.
ESPN did show footage of the actual debris which caused the caution, but by that time most viewers, fans and even Harvick himself were under the impression the water bottle caused the caution.
Read more here: http://www.thatsracin.com/2012/09/01/93612/stenhouse-earns-his-fourth-victory.html#storylink=cpy
Only thing I can say about the Atlanta pavement is that those seams around the entire track filled with mastic look pretty suspicious. Jeff Gordon had some really interesting comments recently about repavings, saying he suspects the current asphalt blends being used is contributing to many problems following repavings.
By the way, what tribes do you reckon cuz and smoke are descended from, anyway?
Maybe the Raceyerbuttoff Indians?
Johnny, you and I both know that peace pipe thing is only good 'till the first nudge or bump and run.
You're welcome, Randy. Will be there with my 11 year old grandson, Tommy, who'll once again be wearing a blue & yellow vintage early 80s Dale Earnhardt Wrangler pit crew shirt. We had a marvelous time last year and can't wait to return.
