Phoenix, Las Vegas, Las Cruces, Gaffney, Chicago, Melbourne X 2, Kansas City, And No Weather Complaints

I watched much of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Race from Phoenix yesterday, only falling asleep for a few minutes. Without question Kevin Harvick had the dominant car, and his back stretch below the yellow line passes were classic.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. backed up his Daytona win with a stout second place Phoenix finish, and Jeff Gordon made a dandy late lap pass to move from 7th to 5th, getting his second top five early in the season. I have liked Gordon for many years, and though the Junior Nation is whacky, I really don’t mind the driver of the 88 car.

Moving on to Las Vegas this weekend, Earnhardt is the Sprint Cup point leader, followed by Brad Keselowski, Gordon, Harvick, and Jimmie Johnson. Yes I do envy the Nebraskan who will be in Las Vegas this week-for at least the WoO Sprint Car races at the nearby dirt track.

FOX NASCAR coverage always irritates me, but now they have grown lazy too. Several segments shown on the NASCAR Countdown on FSN1 were also shown on the FOX prerace show. If they are important enough to be shown on the FOX prerace show, then don’t show them earlier. Showing them twice says there is way too much time being spent on prerace programming. If I have the titles of the two programs mixed, I apologize. Actually, if there had been any basketball games on that I wanted to watch, I would not have watched the show on FSN1 at all.

Although it is only March 3rd, one regional racing championship has already been determined. Stormy Scott is the USMTS MVT Gulf Coast Border Region Champion. This puts Scott in position to win $100,000 is USMTS point money by winning an additional three regional championships. Two additional regional championships would garner the Las Cruces, New Mexico driver $75,000, while a second regional championship would have Scott leaving the USMTS season ending banquet with a $50,000 check.

Scott won Saturday’s USMTS feature at Southern New Mexico Speedway, while his twin brother Johnny won the Friday night feature there. I only mention that because I would be getting an email from my friend Tony Anville if I didn’t. Other than Austin and Ty Dillon, the Scotts are Anville’s favorite brother drivers.

Notice how long it took me to mention late models in this post. It probably has something to do with the winners of the two big late model races this weekend. Chris Madden won the NDRL Bama Bash at East Alabama Speedway, with Jonathan Davenport finishing second. Davenport won the March Madness race at Cherokee Speedway in South Carolina. While this may offend some, I really do not like Chris Madden, and can’t say I like Davenport much better. The only thing I can say about Davenport is he is not on the same level I put Jared Landers, and Madden is. Reluctantly I put both Madden and Davenport in my Top 25 Ballot for http://www.DirtonDirt.com this week, but I suspect I did not rank them as high as the other 20 who have votes.

My Pro Blogger email today gave information for their 5th Annual Training Event at Queensland, Australia. The information just came this morning, I checked to see what ticket prices were and four of the five types of tickets were already sold out and only one ticket remained of the other type. Say what? Well, I probably would have had to use GoFundMe.com to come up with the money anyway. I am thinking economy for about 18 hours of flying time would be a killer, but the cheapest business class fare is almost $5,000.

It wouldn’t work anyway, because it would conflict with two very important September events. No, not my birthday, not Matt’s birthday either, rather Henry’s birthday and my going to a Chicago Cubs game, and I am not missing either of those events. Anyway, I probably wouldn’t have been able to raise enough money to get to Melbourne, Florida let alone Melbourne, Australia, which is still 850 miles from Queensland. This event does remain on my “if I win the lottery” bucket list though.

After my friend Tony finished whining about how NASCAR must fix races in which Roush-Fenway drivers have less than stellar finishes, he sent me a link for an interview Joe Kosiski did upon being inducted into a Kansas City area racing Hall of Fame. Here is the link:

Thanks for stopping by.

March Madness, The Toilet Bowl, Bloomer, And Me

When people talk of March Madness in the Carolinas they are usually talking about ACC basketball.  However, Cherokee Speedway near Gafney, South Carolina is hosting its own March Madness event, a super late model race paying $15,000 to win.

Other big events this weekend include the Bama Bash a $15,015 to win late model race at Green Valley Speedway and my all-time favorite race name, the Tuckasee Toilet Bowl Classic at Clarksville Speedway in northern Tennessee.

It seems strange not to find Scott Bloomquist in the top ten in points in the Lucas Oil late model series.  No doubt that will change after a few more races, perhaps as early as the next event in the series later in March at Brownstown, Indiana.  I have read that Bloomquist is committed to running the entire Lucas oil schedule, which of course means fans who love him and fans who hate him will have the opportunity to see him show off his skills at the Silver Dollar Nationals at I-80 Speedway in July.  Only 20 more weeks until SDN II.

I received a nice email from Dean Cudly of Papillion yesterday.  Here is a portion of the email:

“Great blog, I continue to read it daily and many times want to chime in with my opinion but I guess I subscribe to the old adage “‘Tis better to keep one’s mouth shut and be thought the fool, than to open it and remove all doubt”.

One thing I wanted to comment on is the fact that you’re not a one sport fan.  Particularly the fact that you like high school sports.  Many people get hung up on one sport or one team (i.e. Nebraska football) and never get out to support the local kids.  Kudos to you for your multi-sport, multi-level appreciation!

On a related note, I will be heading toLincoln tomorrow and will cheer on the Lady Tigers in your absence.  Hope to see you the following weekend for the boys tournament.  (If you recall, I keep score for the Papillion-LaVista team and we’re pretty excited about making the tourney for the first time since 1997.)  Anyway, if I can catch you between sessions, maybe we can talk a little racing.  I got a couple ideas for some topics I would like to see you blog on and would pass those on if you want to hear them.”

TROTD-I do enjoy when someone says nice things about my blog.  It makes the 500 or so words five times a week a little easier to produce.  Dean’s adage is obviously wiser than mine, which in the immortal words of Rick Nelson is: “Fools rush in, where wise men never go.”

I love high school sports, especially basketball.  I suspect as a young man I am quite fond of grows up (the boy’s father says I should not use his name so much in my blog), I will become even fonder of high school basketball.

I enjoy college sports too-football, women’s volleyball, men’s and women’s basketball, and baseball.  I appreciate team play and hard work. I like minor league baseball and used to write about it for a now gone magazine called At the Yard.  No, Randy, I was not responsible for its demise. Other than NASCAR I do not watch much professional sports.

For me, the second weekend in March has been the best of the year since I was old enough to sit still long enough to watch a basketball game on TV.  Saturday championship games were televised by theLincolnstation beginning at noon. It was the one day of the year my mom would allow me to eat in our living room. After the games on TV I might be the star player ofUtica, Polk, or Herman, shooting at our backyard hoop-no garage then-with dirt and grass to dribble on. I would shoot for hours, until it got too dark to see or my hands got too cold. Those are very special memories.

My point in all of this-I consider myself to be a hardcore race fan and have loved the sport for over 50 years.  However, I don’t think it is wrong to enjoy other sports, or other recreational activities.  I am sure some of you disagree, and I have no problem with that.  For me that falls under “to each his own,” or some people like lots of different vegetables, even though I don’t.

This Saturday I will watch the Nebraska Girls State Tournament on TV and of course the Duke vs.North Carolinamen’s game too.  On Sunday I will watch the NASCAR race.  I’ll enjoy all I watch-and maybe enjoy a good book or a nap too.

Thanks to Dean for his email, and thank you for stopping by.