Saturday
Happy Hour: Kyle Busch, road courses, rain, dancing and more
Throughout the week you can send us your best questions, jokes, rants and just plain miscellaneous thoughts to happyhourmailbag@yahoo.com or @NickBromberg.We'll post them here, have a good time and everyone's happy.
A little non-NASCAR for a second. Looks like F1 wants to do standing restarts in 2015. Yeah, I realize that restarts don't happen all that often in Formula 1, but what the heck?
Standing starts are great for the beginning of the race, and they're going to be incredibly enjoyable for restarts. I'm not complaining about the potential entertainment, it just looks like a blantant attempt for more excitement.
Onto the fun.
Assuming Kyle Busch never wins a championship, who do you think would go down as the best driver to never win a title? Kyle Busch or Mark Martin? - Paul
You have to say Kyle Busch, simply because of all of the wins, right? He already has Mark Martin's record for Nationwide Series victories and on his current pace if his NASCAR career spans 25 years, he'll have over 260 wins in each of NASCAR's three series. Sure, his 200+ wins may not be the same as Richard Petty's 200 wins, but if Busch gets to 300, that's in a class by itself.
But that being said, if Busch gets to 300, he has a Sprint Cup title, right? The highest he's ever finished in the Cup Series standings is fourth while Martin has finished second five times. Do those five second place finish override Busch's hundreds of wins if he doesn't have five second-place finishes and never wins a title? Because of the Chase format (especially the new one), I don't think so. But it'd be an interesting debate.
Ultimately, Busch is going to win one. I'll be utterly stunned if he doesn't.
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@NickBromberg Do you think NASCAR will ever have a road course in the Chase or will "politics" always get in the way?
? Chris Nulty (@RealChrisNulty) June 26, 2014 Yes, I think NASCAR does, because I think the schedule eventually gets overhauled. I don't think that overhaul will be next year or maybe even the year after, but after messing with the Chase so many times, the schedule has to be fiddled with as well. Especially if interest continues to stagnate or trend downward.
What road course will it be? That's an incredibly intriguing question. How would a race at the Circuit of the Americas sound? Great, right? Yeah, but politics may get in the way of that one. Texas Motor Speedway would be none too happy with having a Cup race within 500 miles of its radius and there's the whole "F1 at COTA on the same weekend as Cup at TMS in 2014" thing.
And you know what I think would be an incredibly fun idea? What about adding a roval to the Cup schedule? Many cup ovals have infield road courses and you could race at a track with an existing date without having to do any date-swapping. Would that make things logistically tough for the normal infield operations? Yes. Would it be a worthy experiment? In my eyes, definitely.
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.@NickBromberg 42 Cup cars, big deal or no? Rainy results, enough to let Cup Series try it? Teams u want to see do Colombian goal dances.
? Brian Cullather (@Briancullather) June 26, 2014 By itself, the lack of a full field doesn't really change anything for me as I wrote yesterday. It's a symptom of a problem in NASCAR's top three series for sure, but that problem is there whether or not there's 43 cars entered at Kentucky. However, is the symptom a big enough problem for outrage? It's certainly not impacting the racing that people are going to see Saturday night.
For the second question, I don't think so. It'd be a pretty radical departure for NASCAR to strap on rain tires to the Cup cars after the strong reluctance to do so at this point.
And as far as the dancing goes? This is easy. If you haven't seen the Colombian goal dances, you can click here and here for them. And I'm picking Stewart-Haas Racing. Tony Stewart getting his groove on would be hilarious, Kevin Harvick would have to smile, the intrigue of Kurt Busch's rhythym would be tantalizing and there's Danica Patrick, who'd be liable to bring her puppy out to dance with her. Let's make this happen, SHR.
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Can you tell me if there are 43 drivers on the track or just 1 I believe all drivers should be given some air time - I get tired of hearing about the one and only Jimmy and I believe a lot of others feel the same. It is getting to where the MUTE button is used quite often ? wish they would change their broadcast and give more time to the other drivers. - Judy
While I get how fans of teams who don't win races or run at the front regularly can get frustrated at the attention paid to drivers at the front of the field, asking for equitable time is a pipe dream. It's basically the NASCAR version of primetime games on national television in all other sports. There's a reason that the bigger-market teams and most successful teams are put in those games. They attract the most eyeballs. Are you good and/or popular? You're going to get covered more than everyone else It's that simple.
Friday
Top FIVE Drivers ? Austrian Grand Prix
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Formula1Fancast/~3/d-Tym4lIKCc/top-five-drivers-austrian-grant-prix-2
Thursday
Dale Earnhardt Jr. had to pump gas to pay off his first speeding ticket
Dale Earnhardt made Dale Earnhardt Jr. work off his first speeding ticket.
Junior said Tuesday on the Dan Patrick Show that he got it while driving home. He and his dad had left separately, so he was ahead of the elder Earnhardt when it happened. His dad then drove past him pulled over and stopped at a gas station to wait for Junior, who pulled in behind him.
"He says 'Did he write you a ticket?' I said 'Yeah' he says 'Looks like you need to get a job.' So I went down to a gas station up the road from the house and applied for a job there. Pumped gas for several months to pay for that ticket."
Junior also said his first truck was a 1988 Chevrolet S10 pickup. And he just had a replica of that truck restored.
It's a fantastic interview and worth the listen the entire way through. Junior talks about his relationship with road course racing (hint: he's not in love with it) and that he stayed up until 5:00 a.m. Monday morning celebrating his win at Pocono.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @NickBromberg
Wednesday
Tuesday
2014 Misano World Superbike FP4 Results: Melandri Continues Italian Dominance
Marco Melandri took the quickest time from Loris Baz, making this the fourth session with an Italian rider on an Italian bike going quickest. Sylvain Guintoli and Tom Sykes were quicker than Davide Giugliano in this untimed session.
Results:
Monday
Tony Stewart speeds on pit road while leading at Pocono, finishes 13th
Tony Stewart set the stage for the late lap drama between Brad Keselowski and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Sure, a lot of things could have happened throughout the last 40 laps of Sunday's race at Pocono, but one thing was for certain throughout those first 120 laps: Tony Stewart had a fast car.
But after a pit road speeding penalty on lap 120, Stewart's fast car didn't get the result it deserved, leaving the lead to be fought for in the final laps by Junior and Keselowski.
"100 percent driver error. I just ? I don't know how I got through the (dashboard) lights like I did, but I got to where I blew through all the lights and didn't have any on the tach so I had no clue that I was over it. Just 100 percent driver error. I gave my guys grief last week with a sixth place run, thought we should run in the top three and I throw it away this week."
When Stewart sped, he was in the lead, a place where he had spent 24 laps. He had gotten there a bit on strategy, but mostly on speed. After starting 12th, Stewart picked off places one-by-one since the drop of the green flag. Out front he looked like a beast, capable of challenging Keselowski, who led a race-high 95 laps.
Instead, he was 31st after having to restart at the back of the pack. He never got close to the front of the field again, finishing 13th.
Stewart is winless this season, and while it's easy to say it's because of his recovery from the broken leg he sustained in a sprint car crash in August, his 2014 season doesn't look much different than his 2013 season did at this point. Through 14 races last year, he had a win, two top-fives and four top 10s. This year at that same point, he doesn't have a pit strategy (and race circumstance) win like he did at Dover last year, but he's got two top-fives and five top 10s.
While Kevin Harvick has certainly had speed ? but not necessarily complete races ? in his first season at Stewart-Haas Racing, Stewart is proving that capitalizing on inconsistently fast cars is hard.
Despite the pit road flub, Stewart moved up three spots to 18th in the standings. Plus, he's got some of his best tracks coming up this summer in Michigan, Sonoma, Daytona and New Hampshire. While it may not be likely, a win certainly doesn't look too unlikely either. After his 2011 campaign, in which he famously said his team wasn't Chase-worthy at Michigan in August en route to the championship, it may not be a good idea to doubt Stewart's hopes of a title until he's officially not in the Chase.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @NickBromberg
Michael Andretti Keith Andrews Elio de Angelis Marco Apicella
Sunday
2014 Misano World Superbike Saturday Roundup: Farewell To Yakhnich
Misano, or Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli to give it its full name, was missed off last year's calendar, but its inclusion in the 2024 season was a welcome one. The first four qualifying sessions in World Superbike were led by an Italian on an Italian bike, with Davide Giugliano and Marco Melandri sharing the spoils, giving local fans plenty to cheer about.