Unless you're a Jimmy Johnson fan and want to buy into the hype about 3 championships, however tainted by this fiasco called, "The Chase", in a row and try somehow, to desperately compare them to those of Cale Yarborough, who did it legitimately.  


Still...don't care...not the same...don't care...

And, I'm throwing the Bullsh*t flag!  

There is NOOOO freaking way that 3 out of 4 Roush cars have to stop for gas with 13 laps to go, yet Carl Edwards can go the distance, even with him backing off like he did.  

I have witnessed hundreds of gas mileage races where drivers attempted just what Carl did, but nobody ever lasts more than a few laps.  Even Dale Earnhardt, Jr. ran out of gas with 2 to go, and he was trying the same strategy!  Jeff Gordon probably couldn't have gone more than another lap or two, and he was just lucky he was at the tail-end of the lead lap and could top off, when he did.


This is just another classic case of NASCAR overlooking some rules infringements for the sake of making The Chase a little bit closer and adding drama to the end of a dismal year in NASCAR.  Let the conspiracy theorists vent and roar, because NASCAR makes it so damned easy!

*** Please, before you add a comment, read the post!  Gordon and Earnhardt, Jr. received the Lucky Dog in back-to-back cautions.  That's why Earnhardt almost made it and Gordon did.  Edwards was not in either of those positions, so how did his team get that much better gas mileage?
***  Also, please note that for some strange reason, I cannot add comments to any posts on this blog or any other.  Bon appetite!

It's over, I tell you... it's over.  Jimmy Johnson and Chad Knaus have officially picked up the torch from where Jeff Gordon and Ray Evernham left it.  JJ will have three titles in as many years, and the questions will soon start floating as to what Chad Knauss will do.  Will he stay at Hendrick, or will he strike out on his own, buy a race team, or start his own.
And then, there are the other questions pertaining to the structure of the NASCAR season, the Chase, the races, themselves, NASCAR fans, pretty much the whole enchilada.     This year's Chase has been the most disappointing, by far, what with two top contenders rendered helpless and hopeless by mechanical problems, Jimmy Johnson reaping the benefit of great starting positions due to rain-outs during qualifying, and virtually no other competitors having much of a shot at stealing the title, with 4 races to go.  Let's face it, we might as well revert back to the way it used to be.  At least we'd have more of a story line going.
Jeff Gordon would be trying for championship number 7, right now, trying to tie Richard Petty and the late Dale Earnhardt for the most Championships.  Shoot, with time and a little luck, he might even get the magical number 8 that eluded Dale Sr.  But, thanks to Brian France, we won't get to see that opportunity, will we?
And then, there's Kyle Busch.  Right now, he would have locked up the championship and we'd be saluting his heroic run through most of the year.  But, instead, we're relegated to talking about a tainted 3rd championship for Jimmy Johnson.  How people can make comparisons to Cale Yarborough is beyond all comprehension, especially since Cale won his 3 under the old points system, which rewarded consistency through the whole year, not just during the Chase.  It's like comparing apples to oranges; under the old system, Johnson would be lucky to have 1 championship, right now, let alone 2, going on 3.
And, then there are the fans, who are the big losers in all of this.  The last couple of races had a whole bunch of empty seats available for Chase races.  The laughable part in all of this is that Martinsville probably had the highest attendance percentage in the last 4 races, yet Brian France wants to cut them back to only 1 race per year and give the other race date to Kansas.  I can almost guarantee that'll be a disaster.  But, then again, Brian France has never been one to listen to the fans.

So..., again I ask, who cares?  I last posted on September 1st for two reasons, first, I got really busy de to the start of a new school year, but second, due to lack of interest.  NASCAR can try to make a big deal out of Jimmy Johnson getting 3 championships in a row, but it'll always be a tainted record in my book.  It's not fair to compare Jimmy's accomplishment to that of a bygone era.    

It's like comparing Barry Bonds homerun record to Babe Ruth's.  Bonds hit 73 in a 162 game season; Ruth hit 60 in a 154 game season.  Many argue that Ruth might have hit many more had he had those extra games, and many more argue that Bonds and McGwire's records shouldn't count because they were juiced on steroids.  
Bottom line?  NASCAR just ain't what it used to be.  It's harder to follow because the season is too long, the cars are too close together, and the races are too predictable.  You pretty much know who the contenders are going to be, and you can almost predict the top 10, week in and week out.  You can almost count on one or two driver being penalized for speeding, only to get their lap right back for being "the lucky dog", and you can always count on the caution for "debris" with 10 to go, just to bunch up the field.  That is, of course, unless a particular driver,  who is in good standing, happens to be leading the race, then they'll let go as a "fuel mileage" race.  
So, here we are...ready for another race weekend.  Qualifying is rained out,...again!  The race demi-gods who control the press start making their contentions and blah, blah, blah, blah...so, again I ask the same question as I did in the beginning..., who cares?!!!

I think just about anyone who saw the Pepsi 500, at Fontana, CA can sum the race up in one word:  B-O-R-I-N-G !!!  Anyone who thinks that this race is going to suddenly attract more fans and more attention merely by moving it to a later date in the schedule is off their proverbial rocker.

Sept. 12 - Richmond International Raceway
Sept. 20 - New Hampshire Motor Speedway
Sept. 27 - Dover International Speedway
Oct. 4 - Kansas Speedway
Oct. 11 - Auto Club Speedway
Oct. 17 - Lowe's Motor Speedway
Oct. 25 - Martinsville Speedway
Nov. 1 - Talladega Superspeedway

Case-in-point, this year, the race was held on Labor Day weekend, the weather was nice and mild, there weren't any regular season NFL games on, the NHL and NBA haven't ramped up toward their seasons, yet, and...well, lets face it, there just isn't a lot to do but either go to a college football game, or watch racing.  So, where were all the fans?


And, it wasn't just in this particular section, but all around the track, except for (maybe) right in front of the flag stand.  


(Nope, I was wrong) (Oops! That was the Nationwide race.)


(That's better!  More than a smattering, anyway.)
Look, I know that fan attendance at races has been flagging, as of late, but NASCAR needs to realize that maybe this market is never going to pan out the way they would like it to.  Remember Riverside?  


And, Ontario?  


Whatever happened to those two venues?  The bottom line is that Auto Club Speedway has been utilized by NASCAR since 1997 (for the Sprint Cup series) and attendance has faltered each year, not because of when the race is held, but because of lack of interest.  It may be a fun race for the drivers because of all of the track they can use for racing, but it is a boring race to watch.  I actually didn't mind helping my wife out with a few chores in the middle of the race last night, because the racing was so predictable.  Nobody could touch Jimmie Johnson all night, the Toyotas ran decently, the Roush cars were stout, and Jeff Gordon flailed again.  No surprises, whatsoever.


Now, next week will be huge!  Lots of excitement; lots of racing; lots of fun, at Richmond.  parking may be a pain in the ass, but there really isn't a bad seat in the house and the racing is fast and furious.  Where else can I see racing like that, but on a super-speedway?  Hmmmmm!  Oh, yeah!  That's right!  Darlington!!!  Didn't NASCAR used to have a race at Darlington during Labor Day weekend?  Oh, yeah, that's right, they did.  But, they took that race away in favor of a boring cookie-cutter track out in California.  Go figure!

As I sauntered through my local super market today, something strange caught my eye and I felt so strongly, that I just had to write about it.  

It all started in the cereal aisle, as I tried in vain to see which brand would be the most cost effective, as marketers have seemingly gone out of their way to try to confuse the crap out of we consumers.  Some boxes were 14.3 oz., some were 11.9 oz., some were 10.7 oz., and there were a myriad of other size boxes, too...all of the same brand of cereal.  And, of course, other brands had followed suit, all selling different size boxes, with different prices.  I guess marketers have a new model to draw on; a model that challenges consumers to find the best buy, then hopes that people get so frustrated, they'll just grab one and go, thus putting one over on us, while padding their sales figures.  And it works, too.  Just go to any financial website and look up the last 12 months worth of financial data on General Mills and Post cereal companies.  I'll just shorten my explanation by saying, they're are doing very well in this stagnant economy.  It seems that the "confusion model" sells.
  
Well, guess what sports fans?  Now, that model has crossed over into beer marketing and sales.  Just look at the latest bottles of Guiness, for instance.

No, look closer.  Do you see, 11.2 FL OZ ?  And its not just Guiness, but Labatts is also doing it.  Here's one of their bottles.

While everyone else is selling actual 16 0z. bottles of brew, Labatt's is selling 14.9 oz. and trying to pass them off as 16 ouncers.  So far, its just these two (that I've witnessed), and a few micro-brews trying to make quick money on an unsuspecting public, but how long will it take before the big conglomerates sell out and start doing the same?  How long before, now Belgium-owned, Budweiser starts doling out 11.3 oz. and 14.7 oz. cans and bottles of Bud and Bud Light?  And how long after they start doing can we expect the rest to follow suit? 
Cereal companies may be getting away with it, folks, but are we going to let them get away with this for everything?  Men and women, they're messing with our beer!