Fantasy NASCAR – Monster Day
I’m in a Fantasy NASCAR league with a couple of guys. In this league you pick four drivers for each race…one from an A list, two from a B list, and one from a C list. You get points based on how the drivers do in qualifying and the race. You also can only start a driver nine times over the course of the 36 races…so you can’t just start the same drivers each week. (Rules are here.) This adds a bit of strategy into figuring out which drivers will perform the best on the various tracks…and saving allocations for certain drivers for particular tracks later in the season. There are a lot of variables in the tracks that make them race differently. Some examples…length ranges from a half mile to 2.66 miles. Banking…some are flat, some are banked really high to allow you to maintain speed through the turns. Road courses. The surface also varies…some are smooth, rough, asphalt, concrete. Lots of variables.
Anyway, this week when I picked my drivers I was pretty happy with them. As the race went on today, I was really happy with them. Three of my drivers were running first, second and third through most of the race. My C driver was also in the top ten for a good portion of the race…until he made the mistake of speeding on Pit Road not once, but twice. The penalty for speeding on Pit Road is a “pass through” penalty…you have to come back down Pit Road. You don’t have to stop, but you do have to maintain the proper speed. The effect that this had was that my C driver (Brian Vickers) ended up going two laps down because of those penalties.
As the race ended up…my four drivers (Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle, and Brian Vickers) finished 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 13th. That equated to a monster 383 point day for me in the league. That is by far the best week I have had in two years doing the league. If not for Vickers penalties, he could have had a top five day. He still did pretty well for a C list driver, but it could have been a lot better.
Tennis Match on Steroids
Watching the NASCAR race at Bristol is fun…but also challenging. There are so many cars in such a small space. And because it only takes about 3-5 laps for the leaders to start lapping the slowest cars, it gets very confusing very fast to know where the leaders are because they are interspersed with lapped traffic all the way around the track. Your head is snapping back and forth the entire race…kinda like at a tennis match…except there is action to be watched at both ends the entire time.
Raining at Bristol
I’m currently under the grandstands at Bristol Motor Speedway. It’s been raining, so the last practice session was cut short. We sat underneath as a thunderstorm went by a few hours ago. The rain has stopped, and the jet dryers are currently on the track. If the rain holds off, they should be able to get the Nationwide Series race in a bit later.
Because of the high banked track…and the fact that it’s only a half mile long, they should be able to accomplish the drying process in a couple of hours as long as the rain doesn’t come back.
I’m going to post again with some pictures when we get back to the motor home tonight.
Let’s Go Racing!
Last November or so I got a phone call from a good friend (who also happens to be one of the financial supporters of my ministry with Campus Crusade) asking the question, “Dude…you want to go to Bristol?” For those who don’t know the significance of that question, this friend and I had been competing in a Fantasy NASCAR league. One of the tracks that NASCAR goes to is in Bristol, TN. Bristol is a “short track”…only a half mile around with 36 degree banking in the corners. You still have 43 cars driving 120MPH…each of which are pushing approximately 750 horsepower…but they are only doing a half mile loop. Lots of car contact, very close to all of the action, very loud. One description of Bristol that I read last year was that it’s like flying jets around your living room. All of that from what I have heard makes for one of the most exciting races to watch.
Anyway, my friend went on to tell me that he was paying for everything…ticket, flight, etc. I could essentially leave my wallet at home. Hmmm. Let me think about this…okay…sign me up!
So, I fly out tonight headed to Bristol, TN. I’ll be doing some work on the plane, and since my friend is a SMS/SCCM guy, I expect that the trip will also be productive from a work perspective as well. It’s gonna be fun. I’m going to try to take pictures and post a couple of times from Bristol.
Sprint Mobile’s NASCAR Coverage
I’m a NASCAR fan. I’m also a Sprint cell phone subscriber. I also have a data plan on my Sprint plan that allows me internet access on my smartphone. Because Sprint is the title sponsor for NASCAR’s top racing league…it used to be Winston Cup, then it was Nextel Cup, now it is the Sprint Cup….because of that, I naturally expected that the features built into my smartphone would give me excellent NASCAR coverage.
Not exactly…the coverage leaves a LOT to be desired. I am specifically looking at a news aggregator program on my phone called “On Demand”. I hit update, and it goes out and updates news, weather, sports, etc with current information. Then I drill down through sports, down through auto racing, then into the “NASCAR Insider” section.
Keep in mind, the third race of the 2008 season completed on Sunday. We’ve been through Daytona, Fontana, and Las Vegas and are headed into the fourth race in Atlanta this weekend. So what are the headlines in the NASCAR Insider? The same stories that were up just before and just after the Daytona 500… Nothing at all has been updated for either of the last two races.
No it’s not the end of the world. I just expected a bit more considering that Sprint is so heavily invested in NASCAR.
NASCAR bumper sticker
My wife saw this bumper sticker last week. It read, “Let’s play follow the leader. 3”
Now, to anyone who doesn’t follow NASCAR, the “3” is a reference to Dale Earnhardt, Sr…The Intimidator.
I thought it was amusing…a reference to a dominant driver talking smack. Then Julie pointed out that it could also be seen as a bit morbid…Dale, Sr. was killed when he ran into the wall on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500.
Uh…really don’t want to follow quite like that…that is a bit morbid.
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