Uncle pressdog's Fireside Chat -- Pippa, Nationwide and Alice Edition

Welcome. Sit, sit. Large dark roast? I don't even own cream, so don't ask. How 'bout that Seattle/Green Bay game last night? This whole replacement ref deal ... Festival of Head Shaking.

I was a soccer ref briefly (insert you spewing coffee here, but it's true), and I can tell you first-hand being a ref is a hard job. It's all about split second decisions. Foul or not? BAM, just like that you have to decide. No benefit of replay or anything. Plus some of those football rules get very esoteric and weird, especially compared to soccer's relatively straightforward rules (OK, the offsides rule is a little hard to grasp, apparently).

Now add in the FACT that most players are trying to see what they can get away with and you have a very hard and under-appreciated job. At minimum, the replacement ref situation (I hope) makes people appreciate the skill of the real deal refs.

ANYWAY, enough football (both Euro and American). Let's talk about a game that has no rules (on the track, under green): NASCAR.

Kurt Busch ... Just Win Baby -- In the movie, Talladega Nights, the Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Ricky yells "winners get to do what they want!" Brilliant satire takes a common perception or even bit of truth and blows it up to comic extremes. Exhibit A: Kurt Busch. Clearly, Kurt can drive a race car. Just as clearly, that has excused a multitude of sins, because in some sense here in the Land of Winner Adulation (USA) "winning is the best deodorant."

So Regan Smith, by most accounts a nice guy, but not a winner per se, gets tossed and Kurt Busch, by most accounts a all-over-the-place, mood-swingy guy gets the ride, because he's a winner (including the 2004 NASCAR Championship).

Busch has gotten nutty on video a few times this year. For one he cursed out Dr. Jerry Punch, calling him a mother you-know-what-er and generally going into a tirade just because they had to wait for an on-camera interview during the race. (Video) Punch is is a nice guy and about as beloved as Santa Claus around racing and did exactly nothing to deserve the MF shower.

Then, while on probation for reckless driving at Darlington, Busch was caught on camera again saying his probation "refrains me from not being the shit out of you right now because you ask stupid questions" to Bob Pockrass (video). Number one, it should have been "restrains me from beating the shit out of you" Except and it wasn't a stupid question, and bob Pockrass is exactly the opposite of a pot-stirrer. He strikes me as a good journalists who asks the right questions -- even when they are uncomfortable for the questionee -- with respect. He's also a plow horse, which is farm talk for a guy who works harder than any one.

At the end of the video I linked to, Kyle Petty says "at some point in time" this lack of respect for the media will get Busch kicked out of racing. Apparently we haven't gotten to that point in time yet. I can't recall if there have been additional incidents since the Pockrass thing.

I'm all for second and third chances. And actually I'm not really that surprised that winning trumps even the most boorish behavior. Look at NASCAR itself with it's Prison Rules Racing (that is, no rules under green). Their "boys have at it" approach pretty much encourages an ends-justifies-the-means approach to the sports. Shocking that that would spill over to attitudes off the track! Just win, baby! Finish P1 and it doesn't really matter how you treat other people. At least that's the message I'm getting. To be fair, there's a big element of that in all sports. If you win, you can be a prick or a bitch or whatever and people will say "that's just PLAYER NAME being PLAYER NAME." End of the day, because fans tolerate or even embrace the behavior (in varying degrees to be sure) it's a beast of our own creation.

Pippa Gets Twisty -- Woman of pressdog® Pippa Mann (right) got back into an open-wheel car after a full year out of a car last weekend for two races with Auto GP. What Auto GP is is apparently NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS because their website (autogp.org/en/) has no "About us" type thing anywhere. It appears to be an open-wheel series with international drivers that raced on seven tracks around the world -- Monza, Valencia, Marrakech, Hungaroring, Portimao, Curbitiba and Sonoma. Pippa got in for the final race at Sonoma.

Pippa is a very good diarist (as they say in Briton, blogger is the modern American equivalent) and tells us that Auto GP: "actually raced in Europe for years as the Euro F3000 series, and in fact it's this series that Felipe Massa won in 2001 before moving into Formula 1 with Sauber in 2002. In 2010 the series changed its name to Auto GP, and more recent drivers that have passed through the series include Romain Grosjean, Vitaly Petrov and Luca Filippi. Antonio Pizzonia won the last two races in Curitiba, Brazil." Note to Auto GP: Hire Pippa to write an "about us" section for your site.

So the Pippster got back in a car, spent two 30-minute testing sessions getting up to speed (literally) then qualified and raced. Really tossed herself back in there. She finished P9 of 15 in the first race and P8 of 15 in the second race. I was able to watch the second race online thanks to a double-secret link to streaming and Pippa got MONSTER air.

Overall, she did very well for herself indeed. Carved seconds off her best time from start to finish of the weekend. As a fan and friend of Pippa, I was happy to see her take this challenge and drive the race. Yeah, it's a minor league series, blah blah blah. But It's not like she's going down to Barber and racing for fun. (No disrespect to Barber, but that's about five rungs down from IndyCar). From the look of it Auto GP is at least the equivalent of Indy Lights, much more likely it's a step up from that even given Pippa's description of the cars involved, etc.

Bonus, she wrote all about it in three installments that I highly recommend. Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. Check them out. Pippa is a good writer. I write for a living, and think she could too. As usual great personal insight and honesty from Pippa in her diaries. 

Danica and Johanna -- I watched the Nationwide race again this week but not the Sprint Cup race again this week, as is my custom. While I won't opine on what I didn't watch (Sprint Cup Chase), I was amused by a few things in the Nationwide race.

First, the saga of JR Motorsports and their personnel changes. Tony Eury Sr. & Jr. ... gone. Saturday was Woman of pressdog® Danica Patrick's first race with new crew boss Ryan Pemberton. I listened Danica's radio online. It went OK. Danica got screwed by some hot dog wrappers on her grill that caused her to have a bit of an emergency pit stop about 10 laps early. Then the yellow came out right after her stop so she got screwed out of a lap. Later got lapped again. Ended up P14, first car two laps down. (Story here.) But she stayed calm and rallied back as best she could. Team boss said he's got things to learn, etc. The new team seams to be off to a good start.

Crazy fact: When I Googled "Danica Pemberton" to find a story about the race I found out there is actually someone out there NAMED "Danica Pemberton." INSANE GOOGLE DISCOVERY.

Woman of pressdog® Johanna Long had a good race at Kentucky finishing a lap down in P12. Drove in the top 15 all race and got lapped late. Sometimes (maybe even often) Johanna will lose spots on her pit stops, but this race she didn't. So shout out to the pit posse. I wasn't shocked at her drive because I'm a fan of Johanna who has serious stock car bona fides. (My interview with Johanna here.) A lot of fans gave Johanna shout outs on the Twitter, which was good to see. She's a nice woman who takes care of her own business and can drive a stock car. Respect. There were still some excitement based mostly on Johanna finishing in front of Danica, but there is always going to be that rubbish and try to pay it no attention, as per the example of Johanna and Danica themselves. 

Here's what amuses me most about the reaction to Johanna Long's run: I see some tweets from members of the media lamenting the fact that ESPN doesn't give Johanna more air time, and yet said members of the media do not do stories for their own papers, sites, etc. on Johanna. Let's savor the irony their of complaining about the Easy Target (ESPN) not covering a driver that the complainers themselves do not cover.

Hey, how about instead of bagging on ESPN for their lack-o-coverage of Johanna, you all do some big stories about Johanna on your site? If ESPN TV should be covering her more, maybe your site should as well? Just throwing it out there. Johanna's hometown (Pensacola) paper did something on her race performance (here), but that's all I could fine via the Google.

Nationwide Points Battle -- It's a good one. With six races to go Elliot "Accent" Sadler leads Ricky "Belt Buckle" Stenhouse Jr. by just 4 points. Austin "What's with the Hat?" Dillon is 19 behind and Sam "Me So" Hornish is -46. FYI, Danica (Patrick, not Pemberton) is P11 in points and Johanna is P18, which is pretty impressive since she hasn't run a full schedule.

In Kentucky Stenhouse's team had a brain freeze and sent him out of the pits right into a car that was coming in (Cue the Circus Music), causing damage. Then Stenhouse got had a tire blow causing him to power slide it into a wall spank that put him multiple laps down. There was even some mind games going on late when Dillion didn't pit and Sadler did with 38 laps to go. Sadler pitted from second place, came out in seventh and finished fifth. Austin Dillon won, despite having a big old bloody nose right in the middle of the race. I guess from his helmet smacking him in the shnoz due to the bumpy track. Check the race recap story here.

ANYWAY, the points race is a compelling one ... even without the the whole Chase format. It's a MIRACLE. Human sacrifice ... dogs and cats ... living together ... MASS HYSTERIA. I continue to prefer the Nationwide series because the races are shorter, there are young and hungry drivers in there and it's not an over-produced, over-spectacalized deal. But I'm like that. I gravitate toward the less wildly popular stuff, hence my affection for IndyCar. (HARSH, but fair.) And women's sports. The minors tend to be more about the sport and less about the benjamins. So there you have it. An  unwelcome glimpse inside Bill's head.

Woman of pressdog #24 -- Finally, last weekend I added another Woman of pressdog to the posse. Alice Powell from Oxford, England (yeah, home of that famous college). Alice has some hardware and the biggest goal of them all: Drive in F1. That's gotta be the most female hostile racing arena on the planet, so props to Alice for her courage and drive. She was the 2010 Formula Renault BARC Champion, so we're talking about skillz here.

I didn't get to talk to Alice by phone or in person since she's in England so I didn't get to hear The Accent. We did our interview by email. Check out the Q & A here. Alice joins Pippa and Katherine Legge as the third Brit in the Women of pressdog posse. Why'd I pick Alice? Open-wheel driver. Success on the track. Audacious dreams. Driving despite not having a personal fortune. Personality as judged by videos, news coveage, etc. Endorsement by other wopds. (Entire wopd roster here.)

That's it. All I got. Day job day job day job. NASCAR again this weekend. Check your listings here. NASCAR.com does a great job of putting the schedule for the coming week RIGHT AT THE TOP of their site. Easy access. I check it often.

Word to your posse. pdog ... out.

Comments

[Ron Ford]

Well, as a lifelong Packer fan I needed something to wash away the stink of last night's game. So, turning to Mr. Pressdog for a bit of humor, what do I find? Sam "Me So" Hornish! Multiple beer spews here. Perhaps I am easily entertained, but that made my day. I also enjoyed the vintage(?) coffee ad at the top. Where do you find this stuff?

Much grass, Mi Amigo.

[elephino]

I'm still trying to work out how there are complaints people (not just the young) having short attention spans yet so many watch NASCAR, NFL and Baseball, none of which are exactly short.

Mr. Pressdog, if you need anything from Phoenix, let me know. Trying to get media access, though I'd put that at 40% likelihood :)

[redcar]

I heard Cavin and Kevin speculating (no basis in fact that I know of) about teaming Indycar with Nationwide for a race weekend at Kentucky. That sounds that a real good idea to me, and one that would be good at other tracks (Iowa, maybe Sonoma) if Nascar would go for it. Might help both series put seats in the seats.

[Vern]

Ive always kind of felt sorry for Pippa as she Did get a pole and won the Indy Lights race yrs ago wire to wire and thats something. However her limited venture into the Indycar side hasnt went well for her with dumb mistakes and bad finishes that seem to have ended her Indycar run but wish her well in other series.

Regarding Johanna and Danica who are very different people with different backgrounds. The main thing I see is that the people who love to trash Danica bragg about every little thing Johanna achieves--simple as that. She has a best finish of 12th in NNS--thats it--so she has a ways to go but she is only 20 yrs old so has lots of time and talent as heres some facts for those who dont know. Johanna grew up around stock cars, dirt tracks and short tracks and she has raced agains these other young Nascar guys for yrs and even beat them in a big race. Danica does NOT have that background, and just like Hornish early on she is struggling with these stock cars. It took Hornish 145 races and 4 1/2 yrs to finnaly win a NNS race yet Danica is supposed to be winning NOW with 52 NNS races about 1 1/2 yrs and some PT cup races, so not hardly a fair assessment or just the old double standard, male driver vs Danica? Also Danica has never really had a car she was comfortable with, fighing a bad setup almost every race as in-car cameras show--hence CC being replaced--finally. It'll be nice to see her with a car she isnt fighting the wheel every race although no car is perfect, but has to get better then shes had.

On the other hand, Johanna is a nice young talented stock car driver and may be a big female star in nascar in time. She IS driving RCR equip which Dillon and Sadler drive so she has good equip and her CC is getting to know how to set her car up as she is showing speed now, despite her low funded short handed crew problems, but there is a huge difference betwen finishing a best of 12th and jumping into the top 10 even on a PT reg basis where most the real competitive drivers are. Johanna's biggest hurdle may be becoming marketable, as Danica is the queen of marketing herself and that is something Johanna is going to have to do to advance to a better FT ride as many winning drivers dont have rides anymore. Remember the young Bayne won the Daytona 500 and a NNs race but still lost his ride other then PT suff. Only time will tell as sponsors are very tough to find nowdays as we see?? Best of Luck to both gals.

[Pat W]

Pippa needs more seat time, it's clear that it is needed. That's not a slight on her. Every driver needs seat time especially if they've not had a 15-year top-level career of experience to fall back on.
I don't know if she's been so focussed on IndyCar deals that she hasn't asked, or if she's asked and been told "no", but if I were her I'd be calling ALMS teams (and ELMS teams coming from Europe) to get a Petit Le Mans seat. Open wheel racing is over for the year and there's a prime opportunity to get seat time in a just-about-the-same-speed prototype race car, and with some teammates to learn from too.
It worked for Pagenaud and doesn't seem to be doing Plowey any harm.