Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie

NASCAR Non-News Now

I feel so used.  Sucked in by the implied respectability of network television coverage of our beloved sport and the desperation of one of the biggest players in NASCAR media to invent stories when they are tough to find.  Nice job ESPN.

I admit it.  I bit.  Shortly before leaving to get to our ON PIT ROW broadcast location Tuesday, I saw a blurb about MRN stalwart and Sirius Satellite radio host  Dave Moody checking on a report that ESPN the Magazine was breaking a story about some Toyota team being caught red-handed with a top-secret Jack Roush Racing part. 

Now we broadcast the show from our winter home,  a sports bar called Frickers, just outside the right field wall at Fifith Third Field - the home of the Toledo Mud Hen’s and like all respectable sports bars, it’s full of TV’s - and one radio show that’s full of….itself.  Just before our scheduled air time,  ESPN’s NASCAR Now was on the tube, with a “special breaking news” report from Terry Blount.  My suspicion level  began to tick upward.

to read the rest of this post go to the new home of the Bench Racing blog.

We've moved the home of Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie to the new OnPitRow.com site.  We'll continue to post over here for awhile, but please check out the new site and change your bookmarks. Thanks.

Robby’s Season has Hope–Again

NASCAR overturned much of the penalty assessed to Robby Gordon Motorsports for an unapproved part prior to the Daytona 500.

Holy Cow! Can you believe it? NASCAR did the right thing.

What is going on here? The powers that be have overruled fines and penalties in what seems like wholesale lots in the last week. In the process of these landmark decisions, Robby Gordon has his season back.

Robby was facing the prospect of having to qualify his way into races, after NASCAR slapped his race team with points penalties that sent him to thirty-seventh in points. On Wednesday, The National Stock Car Racing Commission, rescinded the points penalties to Gordon and to Robby Gordon Motorsports. They also reversed the suspension of crew chief, Frank Kerr, while keeping him on probation for the remainder of the season and increasing his fine to $150,000, from one hundred thousand dollars.

Gordon, happy with the ruling for the most part, had this to say:

to read the rest of this post go to the new home of the Bench Racing blog.

We've moved the home of Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie to the new OnPitRow.com site.  We'll continue to post over here for awhile, but please check out the new site and change your bookmarks. Thanks.

Robby battles NASCAR over Nose-gate

Robby Gordon’s winter of discontent continues.

NASCAR came down on Robby Gordon Motorsports hard this week. Robby’s team installed and tried to practice with an unapproved nose on his new Dodge at Daytona. Officials found it to not be in compliance and once the penalties were handed down, Robby’s top ten finish at the 500 won’t carry top ten points.

The, now standard, 100 team and driver points deduction and $100,000 fines were enacted. NASCAR’s unwavering penalty for CoT violations seems a bit harsh considering some of the other violations from last year that received this same penalty. I have been a big supporter of NASCAR consistency and the concept of a standard for penalty calculations. But; somehow, NASCAR has to find a way to differentiate penalties in regards to intent and severity.

to read the rest of this post go to the new home of the Bench Racing blog.

We've moved the home of Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie to the new OnPitRow.com site.  We'll continue to post over here for awhile, but please check out the new site and change your bookmarks. Thanks.

NASCAR is already full of surprises

We are barely started in the 2008 season and who can believe what has happened?

One year after “fuelgate” Michael Waltrip has put his NAPA Camry on the front row for next week’s Daytona 500.  Oh yeah and the not so surprising part; joining him on the front row–Jimmy Johnson. Johnson hasn’t missed a beat from 2007, by putting his Lowes Chevrolet on the pole.

Here are this week’s Fast lap questions:

For the rest of this post go to the new home of the Bench Racing blog here.  Thanks. Oh, please change your bookmarks or maybe subscribe to our feed.

Stewart and Busch get first call to the NASCAR trailer

That didn’t take long at all. The Home Depot Toyota of Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch’s Miller Lite Dodge got together while jousting for position in Budweiser Shootout practice. The dispute continued into pit lane as Kurt repeatedly banged doors with Smoke and Tony stopped his car blocking the garage entrance to Busch.

“Come on down boys we need to talk” said NASCAR.

Both drivers reportedly left the trailer without comment. NASCAR VP of Corporate Communications, Jim Hunter had this to say….

To continue reading this post, go to the new home of the Bench Racing blog here.

Blast off - the new OnPitRow.com is live!

Consider this fair warning.  If you have been kind enough to link to this blog, I'll be pestering you soon to update your link to the new BenchRacing.OnPitRow.com.  In fact, this is your first official pester.

The redesign of our websites, while probably never done, is far enough along to where the switch has been thrown.  Out with the old and... well you know.  We would not have gotten here without the talents and inspiration of Luke, commander of the Thunder Lounge.  Luke doesn't just run one of the best sites in the NASCAR web-world, he is an elite code-monster.  We needed a pro and we got one.  Check out Luke's comments on the new OnPitRow.com here.

This has been a big week for ON PIT ROW in general.  Tuesday's show featured a live interview with Boris Said, who confirmed that he is indeed, very close to finalizing a ride for the Bathurst 1000 and perhaps more, races in the Australian V8Super Car Series.  Thanks to Marc for the heads up on that. 

Daren Fauth of OneBadWheel.com joinded us to talk fantasy NASCAR and his new game "Champs, Chumps and Sleepers".  Steve and I are proud to be sponsors of Champs, Chumps and Sleepers and it will be the official fantasy NASCAR game of ON PIT ROW for the 2008 season.  Check it out and sign up today.

Finally, starting next Tuesday, February 5, 2008, you'll be able to listen to ON PIT ROW live, on the new website.  To stream or not to stream has been a debate at the show for a couple years.  We just, plain had too many requests for live streaming to ignore any longer.

I would appreciate your comments about the new OnPitRow.com.  There are still some bugs to work out and not all of the pages are up as yet, so bear with us.  I'll be updating our blogroll over the next few days so if anything has changed for you, let me know.  If you have a link to the Fast Lap blog - and why wouldn't you? -  please update that one as well.  Thanks.

Brian's new NASCAR vs Humpy's old NASCAR

We've moved the home of Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie to the new OnPitRow.com site.  We'll continue to post over here for awhile, but please check out the new site and change your bookmarks. Thanks.

Who would you rather have in charge of promoting your race track - Brian France or Humpy Wheeler?

Prince Brian is known for statements like the following - which was in answer to the question....

"Would you agree that NASCAR has been a little too heavy-handed in administering punishments? Going forward, will you be perhaps less inclined to fine for points and money for transgressions like shoving or swearing?"

Brian France " Well, I would certainly agree that we're relooking and making sure that our policies of enforcement don't make it where our drivers can't express themselves. There are lots of characters in our sport. There's lots of emotion flying fast and heavy at the events.

If you were in our position, what you're always worried about really isn't necessarily the specific incident, it's really escalation. That's what commissioners and officials in any sport are mostly concerned with."

OK, thank you Brian.  Now for Humpy - aka The PT Barnum of auto racing...

We need to make this car of tomorrow work ... [Do] whatever NASCAR's got to do to make it work, and get us back to racing, [to] where we were putting black donuts on the side of the cars and not making felony offenses out of 'em.  And when we do that, it's all going to change and turn around and we can do all of the other stuff ... ."

I don't want to get into dissecting the whole State of NASCAR address from early this week.  Darren Fauth and others have done a fine job that.  Besides, Steve and I argued about the whole thing for too long ON PIT ROW.

It's pretty obvious -  despite the France Republic's spinning of things -  that NASCAR sees problems within the kingdom.  I live in a city that seems to always be paying some consultant big dough to identify problems or quantify opportunities - or benchmark this or evaluate that.  Guess what?  They keep finding that the city has problems - just as NASCAR has issues.

Enough talk about it already.  What NASCAR needs is a good ol', car-smashing slobberknocker.  Big Bill France and Bill France Jr. were brilliant, visionary businessmen.  Maybe Brian will prove to be one as well.  But the elder Frances were elite promoters - and Prince France has yet to make his mark in that category.

Auto racing is a promoters business. I think I'd be listening to Humpy.

Picture credit: Newsrecord.com

The worst of NASCAR 2008

Alright NASCAR, we wouldn't want you to get too big a head or anything.  As I sit here preparing the tactics I will employ in the twin tasks of stalking roasted turkey and dealing with the likely disappointment the Detroit Lions will leave me with tomorrow - I thought I would remind the France family that 2007 wasn't perfect.

• It all started in Daytona.  The much anticipated debut of Toyota in the Nextel Cup Series along with the masterfully assembled and promoted flagship team of Michael Waltrip Racing crashed before it ever got started due to a stupid attempt by someone at MWR to doctor the fuel in Waltrip's own NAPA Camry.  The resulting penalty was devastating to Mikey, his sponsors and the team.

• Has there ever been a rule - in any sport - so universally reviled as the obsolete "Top thirty five" qualifying deal?

• There just should have been some way for the surviving Earnhardts to work things out.  In the perfect NASCAR world, Dale Junior fans and everyone else involved from sanctioning body to media to sponsors would want to have Junior driving that #8 Budweiser Chevy. The story was a huge distraction throughout the first half of 2007.

• After signing a high profile, big ticket contract with Waltrip's startup Toyota team, classy ex-champ Dale Jarrett suffered through a wasted year as he struggled to make races and showed poorly when he did qualify.  Jarrett's last full season in cup should have been better.

• Maybe DJ and sponsor UPS knew something when he left Robert Yates Racing for the joys of Toyota racing.  The slide of RYR has been fast and steep.  The one-time Ford super team is just a shadow of itself and will now operate as Roush - East.

• Craftsman Truck driver Aaron Fike's arrest for alleged heroin possession in the parking lot of an Ohio amusement park.  Nuf' said.

• Robby Gordon's meltdown in Montreal.

• ESPN's coverage of the Nextel Cup.  The early season Busch Series broadcasts gave me hope.  The fact that they never fixed the pathetic NASCAR Now with the awful Eric Kuselius should have been warning enough.  The race broadcasts went steadily downhill. 

I'm probably forgetting something significant.  But my stomach is growling and I better go dig out my Honolulu Blue and Silver turkey hunting gear.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Johnson and Kenseth are class of Miami

Matt Kenseth wins the battle at Homestead while JJ hangs out in the top ten all day to win back to back championships.

Kenseth wasn't challenged most of the day in one of the most lackluster season finales of all time.  Johnson rode around close enough to Jeff Gordon all day to ensure his second consecutive championship.

The season of great changes comes to an end and the end of the lopsided stock car ends as well.  It may not be a popular position, but I really look forward to 2008 and the return of one style of car.  The 2008 car isn't the "true stock" car that I've advocated for the last three years, but I'll take it over the cockeyed version of the last few years.

Bring on 2008.  Its going to be a great year in NASCAR and ARCA.  Trust me on this one.

The Buzz ON PIT ROW is:

Regardless of the outcome; was the season finale at Homestead what you had hoped for?

The Fast Lap this week asks:

1)  Did you like the duel burnout of Johnson and Kenseth after the race?

2) Was the Kasey Kahne incident at Homestead the beginning of the new tougher Budman image?

3) How will Matt Kenseth do in 2008 without Robbie Reiser as his crew chief?

4) Will Jimmie Johnson three-peat?

Let us know how you feel about these questions, or anything else that happened at the finale in the swamp.  If we like your comments, whether we agree or not, we may use them on the air during Tuesday's ON PIT ROW.  Leave us a comment on the blog or call the show--toll free at 1-877-502-8255 between 5-7pm edt on Tuesdays.

photo: Marc Serota/Getty Images/NASCAR

ON PIT ROW--your live, local look at NASCAR

More changes are in the works for ON PIT ROW--the radio show, which may necessitate changing that local only angle.

It was just announced this week that our long time home radio station, and flagship, WCWA-1230 in Toledo, OH will become the flagship station for the Toledo Mud Hens AAA baseball team.  With most of their games starting at 6:30 or 7:00 pm; when you figure in their pre-game show, it pretty much ruins our 5-7 pm live broadcast time.  We'll see what WCWA has to say during a meeting with us on Monday, November 5.  The other sports station in town is committed to the Detroit Tigers and a third quasi-sports/news station is set to air Cleveland Indians games.

ON PIT ROW may be looking to break out of the live on-air constraints of local radio.  We will be looking at a bunch of alternatives before the baseball season starts in April.  Including a new non-sports flagship; possibly a local country station that is part of the MRN and PRN networks.  Anyone from WCKY-FM looking at this?  There is also the live netcast streaming alternative, which we will look into and give over the air stations a chance to play the show whenever they want.

There have been plenty of changes in our show over the past few months and there are many more to come as we look to expand and grow Bench Racing Productions, which itself is a new venture for us. A couple of months ago we changed from a three person show to just Charlie and me.  So far reviews have been favorable.

Everyone always says the thing about a door closing and another opening.  We'll see if they are correct.  One thing is for sure Charlie and I have put too much time and energy into this deal for us not to keep going--no matter what. 

Stay tuned for updated news and hopefully an exciting announcement about a new, additional racing show from us coming soon.

PRN, MRN, Sirius--we'd be glad to sit down and talk about adding ON PIT ROW to your lineups. 

Picture credit: BethAnne Heisler - ON PIT ROW