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.

Live blog the Daytona 500 with Steve and Charlie

Stop by OnPitRow.com Sunday during the 50th Daytona 500 and join us for some live blogging action. We did a live blog during the 2007 NASCAR Awards Show and had a blast.

After watching New Car action with only half-sized fields for the three races so far, I can’t wait to see the forty three survivors go at it in anger. The Coveritlive software allows us to bring in tons of content but we need your input.

Last time we likened the spirit of the live blog to the old Mystery Science Theatre 3000 except it will be the Pit Crew - Steve, BethAnne and Charlie instead of Joel, Crow and Tom Servo. I hope you can join us for awhile. The blog will start at about 3:15 pm ET Sunday.

There is a reminder box at the top of the Bench Racing blog page where you can leave your email address and set up an automatic reminder for the event.

Photo Credit: Jamie Squire/Getty Images

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.

Fantasy NASCAR is alive at ON PIT ROW

Fantasy racing is huge and getting huger.  So are the sales of spell checkers and grammar lessons you say?  Well this is a racing site so let’s talk fantasy NASCAR, shall we?

ON PIT ROW - the fastest two hours on radio - sponsored a little NASCAR fantasy game in 2007 that we called the NASCAR Chain Game.  Not much of a name, I know, but a helluva fun game by all accounts.  With all of our changes to, and launch of, the new OnPitRow.com sites (thanks again Luke), we ran out of time to have a new version of that game ready for the start of 2008.

But OnPitRow.com will be very involved with a very cool  new NASCAR fantasy game called Champs Chumps and Sleepers.  This fantasy racing game was developed by Darren Fauth of One Bad Wheel -#3 on the Sports Media Challenge list of “Most influential NASCAR blogs”.  Here’s an explanation of the rules:

Go to the new home of the Bench Racing Blog for the rest of this post!

New NASCAR Sports Blog Index likes Bench Racing

The Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie blog has been recognized as the fourth most influential NASCAR blog by the folks at Sports Media Challenge in their all new NASCAR Sports Blog Index™ (SBI).   The full press release is here. Pretty cool stuff.

The only trouble is, they got the link wrong in the announcement. I have emailed them and hopefully they will get it corrected.

Remember, we have moved this blog to our new OnPitRow.com family of sites.  Please change your links.

Thanks

Steve and Charlie

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

NASCAR scribes - to your corners...

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.

Racing season is heating up--behind the mike.

There are already some "he said--she said" confrontations heading up the NASCAR 2008 season.  But surprisingly enough the combatants have centered around the radio broadcasting scene.

Former ESPN RPM 2Night host John Kernan and Charlotte Observer, Sirius Radio and ON PIT ROW raconteur, David Poole, have been sniping at one another for a couple of weeks as was chronicled on The Daly Planet blog.  Kernan's gig for Sirius Radio has gone up in smoke. And he seems to think it has to do with the current crop of radio personalities who do nothing but "tow the NASCAR line"  He was/is unwilling to be a "shill" for NASCAR and intimates that others, including Poole, have lost their journalistic edge.

This week the Fast Lap asks:

1) Should NASCAR raise the minimum age for drivers in any of their top three series to 21 years of age?

2) Is NASCAR relying on Dale Jr. to single handedly rejuvenate the sport?

3) Was all the 2007 worry about Toyota taking over the sport; just one year too early?

4) Kenny Wallace or Jimmy Spencer?

Let us know how you feel about these questions, or anything else that happened since last February in Daytona.  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 ET on Tuesdays.

Big night for Tony Stewart at Barrett-Jackson

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.

The Barrett Jackson Auto Auction raised almost half a million bucks last night for the Darrell Gwynn Foundation with a big assist from NASCAR's Tony Stewart.

Stewart brought one of his Joe Gibbs Racing - Home Depot Monte Carlos to be auctioned off for the benefit of the official charity of Barrett Jackson and the NHRA.

The Darrell Gwynn Foundation exists to prevent and ultimately cure spinal cord injuries and other debilitating illnesses.

They help improve the quality of life for those already afflicted with injury or illness by providing necessary equipment or special services.

Terrific cause and terrific TV as well.  Smoke started it off doing a burn-out onto the auction stage and then as the price of the bidding climbed, stoked the fires by adding a helmet, driver's suit and finally the ring that he was wearing.  The car brought a cool $300,000 and additional contributions brought the total proceeds for the foundation to a reported $495,000. 

Nicely done Mr.Stewart.

DW gits R wrong on NASCAR's Chase

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's own Darrell Waltrip has a terrific post up at Foxsports.com today that addresses several 2008 stories and focuses pressure where Jaws thinks it ought to be going into the new season. 

Challenging Dale Earnhardt Jr, Casey Mears, Jimmy Johnson of Hendrick Motorsports and Roush-Fenway's Jamie McMurray to - in various ways, Git-R-done -  is a good read.  It doesn't stop there either.

Waltrip calls out several NASCAR teams, the Nationwide Series, television and racetracks in general.  It's pretty good stuff.  I do have one bone to pick with him however. 

DW also calls out NASCAR for it's Chase to the Championship format.  It's not that he's alone as a critic of the Chase, as it currently exists.  Lots of NASCAR folk think the thing is boring, fixed, a rape of tradition, etc.  Darrell thinks lacks excitement.  Here's his solution...

Shorten the Chase: NASCAR's playoff is too long. Ten races allows a couple of guys to separate themselves from the pack, especially if you continue to use the same point system that rewards consistency. Make the Chase five races long, that way you increase the intensity. If you mess up one of those, you are in deep trouble.

Create a separate point system: Make the points system simple to follow. If we keep 12 drivers like have now, I'd give 12 points to the top finishing Chase driver, 11 for second, etc.

I don't care about the number on races in the Chase.  If you want to shorten the thing - fine - that might just ramp up the excitement some.  But I am against all of these proposals that put the Chase competitors on a separate point system.  If you do that, it changes the fundamental nature of NASCAR stock car racing.

A cup race is supposed to be 43 cars battling it out over 250 to 600 miles.  If you give the Chasers their own 12 point system, as Waltrip proposes, you make it a twelve car race.  Admittedly you'd have 31, expensive, highly paid,  moving chicanes for the Chase competitors to maneuver around.  Those other 31 cars would become even less significant than now.  Their sponsors will love that.  And what motivation would the 12th place Chaser - in a given race - have to pass, say ten cars at the end of a race, in order to catch the 11th place Chaser?

To me, this kind of solution is akin to making the Super Bowl - the football one - a seven on seven contest because - " nobody cares about the play of the guards and tackles anyway!"

If you want to race twelve on twelve, bring back the IROC Series.

Back in the Fast Lap saddle again

It's once again time to take a look at the 4 most pressing questions of the week.

Thanks to Christmas and New Years Day falling on our usual broadcast day, ON PIT ROW took an unprecedented two weeks off.  We hope you were able to take some time from your holiday festivities and catch the re-air of some of our favorite hours.

This week the Fast Lap asks:

1) ESPN Classic will be airing some of the best Daytona 500s of the past.  What was your favorite?

2) Who has the most to prove during early season testing?

3) Have we seen the last of Kenny Shrader in a Cup car?

4) Would franchising solve some of NASCAR's problems?

Let us know how you feel about these questions, or anything else that happened since last February in Daytona.  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 ET on Tuesdays.

photo: biglittlebooks.com

Merry Christmas David Ragan

I've got a feeling that David Ragan won't have the USA Today's Seth Livingstone on his Christmas list this year.  Livingstone cited Ragan as the driver with the most wrecks in NASCAR for the 2008 season.  Now that's an award that I had not seen during the last few weeks of award show orgies.

Congratulations David!  You have also been the victim of one of the stupidest bits of NASCAR related blather I've seen this year - and I've read, and probably written, some pretty dumb stuff.  Then again after reading the mostly ignorant comments generated by the piece, maybe Livingstone was just writing for his audience.

There may not be anything less relevant than racing crashes looked at out of context.  All Ragan did was replace the legend, Mark Martin, in the legendary #6 and finish an enviable 23rd in series points.  Singling him out as the most wrecked and spun driver in Nextel Cup is ridiculous.  Who wrecked whom?  What caused the spins?

Some writers need an off season.

Picture credit: AP Photo/Wade Payne