Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire SPEED WEEK @ DAYTONA

I met Matt DiBenedetto through one of his high school friends that I work with in the USAF at Vegas a couple years ago. That dude is just plain cool and is really loving his racing career. His team is growing (GoFas) and has recently partnered with Wood Brothers. I am very excited to see what that small team may be able to pull out.

Lot of driver/ car changes this year
Daytona will be a demolition derby.
Anyone watch the ARCA race?

An old Coast Guard buddy of mine has been working on pit crews since he got out. In 14 he won a championship with Harvick, and last year he won a championship with Truex. He's with Kurt Busch this year, so I am pulling for them. His name is Tony Cardamone. He was a mechanic at our SAR station and LOVED to put a wrench on things. He's living the good life now.

Actually, there is an Earnhardt in the race. Jeffrey Earnhardt, grandson of Dale Sr, is driving the 0 car for StarCom Racing.

I agree that senior was arguably the best ever!

GK

I still think of Dale at times and his many post race interviews explaining how some driver he was racing managed to wreck, or if he happened to be in victory lane the way he always thanked Speedy and the Boys back at the shop. After he passed you might say NASCAR kind of drove off and left me. Partially because there had been a spate of fatalities in NASCAR preceding Dales fatal crash including Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin Jr both at Loudon and serious life changing injuries for Ernie Irvin, Ricky Craven and Steve Park.

With nobody left to torment Jeff Gordon and the added influx of young talent, it was easy to slowly step away from watching the sport over the next couple years. About 5 or 6 years ago I started getting back into watching. NASCAR is loaded with talent, the cars and tracks are safer, the points system having been tweaked several times makes sense and is more fair in rewarding performance and helps keep the races compelling.

Your right Sawbuck. There is more talent in NASCAR now then there ever was. The racing is so much better and the cars are better.
In the good old days there would only be a dozen cars left on the tack by the end of any race and two or three on the lead lap. Most cars dropped out because of mechanical faliure. Nowdays only a couple will have a failure. There was only 3 or 4 drivers that had a chance of winning a race. Now there are 20 drivers with a good shot at winning.
I've never been a huge Jimmy Johnson fan but you have to give him credit for being in the top three drivers to ever climb into a cup car. It's amazing how him and Chad can make a car that's a slug at the start of a race and by mid race have the fastest car on the track.
The kids coming in are unbelievably talented. Look at Chase Elliott. At his age he is a much better driver than is father was. Ask his dad, he'll tell you.

The King was much better than the Intimidator. Same number of championships and way more wins.

I remember one year Dale was racing toward the finish with Terry Labonte at Bristol. Jeremy had the lead with a lap to go. Dale did what Dale did best when he couldn't find the speed to pass. He spun Labonte out, and he was just rattling his cage a little bit. At a Pocono race shortly thereafter Dale found himself in the lead late in the race with none other than Jeremy Mayfield behind him. Jeremy pulled an Intimidator on Dale and won the race. Crybaby Dale didn't think that Jeremy was "just rattling his cage a little bit." I have to admit to laughing pretty hard when Mayfield made him eat his own words.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C79DaWrMD70

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF-VhY6fitU

Don't know how much racing you've been around,but to call today's NASCAR as the best ever is a huge reach at best. There are some talented drivers but the racing is pathetically boring. The tracks are mostly one-groove, the cars so aerodynamically sensitive that the racing is unending follow-the-leader. In the name of safety the "car of tomorrow" was introduced in 2008. The outspoken drivers all called it a POS. NASCAR has declined ever since.

The Bristol night race is the best race of the series. Short tracks under the lights is what it's all about. And there's always someone bumper to bumper and fighting for position somewhere on the track.

Then there's the overload of commercials, and never ending caution laps......10 yellow flag laps for a spring rubber on the track, bunch everybody back up for a monster pileup and a red flag.....

The spring-rubber cautions are how NASCAR superficially injects some actual racing back into the one-groove monotony.

88 car on the pole. Alex Bowman filling some big shoes.

I don't hate NASCAR but I like road racing better.

The good news is that Road America is starting their season with an AER race on the 16th.

I bet there is a lot of pretty women there.

Does his boyfriend know?

Nascar must have issued that magic plate again like they did for Dillon in the 3 and Danica in the 10, and many others in the past.

Car owners control their number(s).

Poor Jimmy. Bring on Thursday!

Yeah, but I was talking about that magic (oversize) plate that delivers extra speed for selected racers to qualify

Glad to hear NASCAR is starting back up. Perfect napping sport. Can watch the start and a few laps, take a couple hour nap and wake up for the ending.

The homeless bums in Daytona will eat good.
Damn that place is schithole.