When all else fails, deflect?
Posted 4 months ago.
Posted by: Paul
Let me get right to the point, NASCAR. Your new car sucks, your races are boring, and your Chase is broken!
Normally I wouldn’t waste my time posting about this, but it’s been eating at me for several days so perhaps I’ll feel better when I get my emotion jotted down. I understand that you’re the big boy on the block, and as the one sitting firmly at the top of the American motorsports food chain, you get to control the way the dice are played. I get that. However, what I don’t get it that you seem to be afraid of any good news that comes from the League you so often go out of your way to point out is so significantly inferior to yours. Usually you use your friends at SpeedTV to do the dirty work or even the writers on your own website but occasionally, when you need a bit more far-reaching coverage, you turn to ESPN.
Your latest little stunt that you drug ESPN into has really rubbed me the wrong way for the past couple of days. On the eve of the biggest IndyCar announcement since the League was formed 15 years ago, you and your cronies at ESPN (who by the way are supposed to be a ‘partner’ to the IRL as well) felt it necessarily to piss on IndyCar’s parade and try to deflect attention from the positive press that the Izod title sponsor was going to bring to the Indy Race League by dragging out the Danica Patrick rumor mill, throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what might stick. There are several reason you must have felt this necessary but I’ll discuss just a couple of them here briefly.
First and foremost, you are on a massive ego trip just as you have been for the past decade. You realize that IndyCar has been down (a position you no doubt were pleased to help them get to) and you want to do all in your power to ensure that they stay down. By bringing up the “news” of Danica’s pending deal with JR Motorsports, you sought to deflect the attention away from IndyCar’s good news and make them talk about Danica. Only one problem there, my friends. THERE WAS NO DANICA NEWS!!!!! It’s completely made up!! How do I know this? Well, first of all, in the story that you spoon fed the schmucks over at ESPN (http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/nascar/news/story?id=4622687), how many quotes did it have from Danica or anyone to do with Danica? NONE, ZERO, ZIP, ZILCH!! To be fair, there were “sources” that said a “deal is moving forward,” though that doesn’t exactly sound like any sort of news-worthy confirmation to me. I wonder who those sources could have been? Ummm… NASCAR? Surely not. The entire point of the story was that she is still talking to NASCAR teams. Guess what, THAT ISN’T NEWS!! There was absolutely NOTHING new in that story that had to be put out on the eve of the IndyCar announcement. Secondly, today, just to confirm that there was no news, Little E came out and said that, in fact, there is no news and that several other teams are still talking with her (http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/nascar/cup/news/story?id=4630739). Well, holy crap!! Stop the presses and delay the Dickies! There’s an earth-shattering revelation – other teams are still talking to Danica Patrick. I never would have guessed, you know, considering that her contract with JRM is essentially a done deal as you sold to ESPN earlier this week.
Now, as much as I know you are excited about keeping your foot on the throat of the Izod IndyCar Series (for all your efforts, you DIDN’T distract me from that little bit of news!!), I know that isn’t the only reason you pushed this story. There must be more. Let’s start with last weekend’s AWFUL race at Talladega. I could fill up three pages worth of space here with links to stories blasting you guys for the terrible race you put on at Talladega last weekend. I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that I actually made an effort to watch the race. I made it through about 15 laps, which I’m quite certain was within one standard deviation of the average for the rest of the country as well. Geez, even the drivers that were farting around out there for 180 useless laps were bored to death. I even heard from one source that Tony Stewart asked to be read to just to keep him entertained during the race. That must have REALLY been a good time. Anyway, I don’t need to tell you how much you got beat up in the press about it. However, I’m sure it really pissed you off that off all people ESPN even ripped you to shreds. (Here’s just one example: http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/nascar/cup/columns/story?columnist=blount_terry&id=4618955.) It was so bad that your own people had to put an article on your website trying to convince fans that it wasn’t a boring race: http://community.nascar.com/nascar_says/blog/2009/11/02/talladega_a_second_opinion. When it gets to that point, you know it’s bad. That had to hurt, coming from your best friend and all. It must have hurt bad enough that USA Today even picked up on the pain: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/hiestand-tv/2009-11-04-nascar_N.htm So how do you get get attention away from your flaws? Of course, you point to someone else’s flaws. When I was in high school, my geometry teacher used to always tell me he didn’t want to hear any “yea buts” – as in “You suck…” “Yea, but you suck more.” Seems to me that’s exactly what this is. “You’re racing is awful!” “Yea, but Danica might race some races in a tin-top next year.” Nice try, but that’s pretty weak.
So what else is bothering you these days besides the Izod IndyCar announcement and your awful race at what is supposed to be one of the fans’ favorite tracks? Oh yes… your contrived playoff system has been a complete failure. I realize that things go amiss once in a while but guess what, your chase has ALWAYS been broken!! For the fourth year in a row, the same guy is going to win. For the fourth year in a row, the guy that probably deserved to win the season-long championship (you know, including those other 26 races in the year) was denied. Why doesn’t it work? Because it’s a gimmick that does nothing but reward your drivers for not wrecking. Here’s just a bit of unsolicited advice for you. Why don’t you try starting the chase at your sixth race of the year (when you start using this year’s point for you equally ridiculous top-35 rule) and do a knock-out format for the rest of the year? In doing so, you don’t totally screw over the drivers that perform well early in the year and you don’t reward guys that putz around to finish 10th consistently in the final 10 races to win the championship. Anyway, that’s just my opinion but I hope you realize that your chase is broken because it’s an ill-conceived plan that crowns the guy that drives hard for the first 15-18 races of the year, avoids mistakes to coast into the chase, and then tries to avoid more mistakes while in the chase and the people who race hard crash around him. Sounds like a jolly second-half of the season.
Look, I’m not trying to say that the Indy Racing League is doing everything right and that they deserve heaps of praise to be sent upon them for how the manage things in their own League. The Indy Racing League is where it is today because of choices and decisions that it has made over the past 15 years. (Getting in bed with you was certainly one that ended up biting them in the rear, I might add…). However, I guarantee you that the Indy Racing League is not responsible for your awful car that the fans don’t like and they aren’t responsible for your playoff system being a miserable failure. (Hell, for all of the IRL’s faults, their points system is certainly one thing they actually seem to have done consistently right over the years!) I bet when Big Bill was raising Little Bill, he probably uttered those same words that I used to hate hearing from my mother, “I don’t care what the neighbor kid is doing, I care about what YOU’RE doing.” Perhaps it would behoove you to do likewise and leave the Izod IndyCar Series, and it’s drivers, alone… just like your friends at ISC do whenever the Izod IndyCar Series comes to town. If and when there is real news to report, feel free to have at it but at least have a bit of courtesy and wait until that actual news exists. I don’t think that’s really too much to ask, is it?
A to the M-E-N, Brother Paul. The money’s starting to come Indy’s way and the France Kingdom is peeing themselves over it.
Of all the things to pick up on from this epic rant of yours, this one is odd, but: I really, really hate The Chase. Design a points system that works in the first place and you won’t need a contrived playoff system. This isn’t stick-and-ball. Let drivers and teams be rewarded for their work over an entire season, not just the end of it.
I’m still amazed that a 36-race championship isn’t decided over 36 races – it just sounds silly and contrived.
Yay! Finally a Nascar rant on this site that I didn’t write! I was a diehard Nascar fan up until 2006 when I attended Indy for the first time. Then I realized how, as Leigh put it, contrived it was.
Wow, did I write this? Because it is word-for-word what I have been thinking since ESPN began talking about Danica last week. I knew it was a total gimmick to divert attention from the sinking ship that NASCAR has become. Trust me, I’m a defacto NASCAR fan, and I am so much happier to be an Indycar fan right now. If only more people would wake up and realize how terrible NASCAR has become.
I don’t think NASCAR have deliberately tried to sink Indy as much as Indy sunk itself, but like any big business, they are not interested in losing mind- and marketshare.
IRL’s people have an opportunity now, because the recession is lessening the money that goes into Formula 1 and NASCAR, if they have the ability to hold out and see their goals to fruition, they can potentially grow to be the stronger sport.
Indy has already been through most of the problems that other motorsports are facing now: the departure of auto manufacturers’ involvement, forced caps on rising costs, a spec that requires that only one or two chassis types to be run. World Rally and DTM are adjusting to this, F1 is being forced towards it but I don’t think they’re really prepared, and NASCAR is… NASCAR.
Sorry but I really think you’re overstating Indycar’s importance vs. NASCAR at the moment. Even at NASCAR’s worst, they draw more eyes and ears than Indycar at its best. It’s also ignoring the state of Indycar as a whole. A title sponsor doesn’t automatically give the series better racing, better teams or better drivers.
Carrie, I think I said up front that NASCAR was the big dog and finished by saying that IndyCar needs to blame nobody but themselves for getting themselves into this mess. However, just because you’ve gotten yourself into the mess doesn’t mean that those who are above you should do everything in their power to keep you down – especially given that a healthy IndyCar Series not only DOESN’T detract from NASCAR but in fact helps them because they can sell significantly more tickets at the ISC tracks. I fully realize that bringing IZOD on board doesn’t cure all the ills but it is a step in the right direction and shows that the series has at least turned the boat around, if not already started to make decent progress towards regaining its popularity.
I really enjoyed reading all of my same thoughts on the computer screen with proof which makes it a great rant Indeed. Robin Miller would be proud. Keep up the good work