It’s Talladega, Baby!! And you know what THAT means!!!
Yes indeed, it means exactly what it has meant around here all these years….the things that gives most men a raging boner.
But now, this time around, it will also mean things that give some men a raging boner.1 And no, I’m not referring to that Boy’s Love Edition we had awhile back.
So let me explain.
We, or rather I, am not turning my back on Tits at Talladega. What would Talladega be without Tits?? It would be just like any other auto race, on crazier, that’s what.
But as you’ve probably heard recently, PLAYBOY magazine will no longer be featuring naked chicks with tits2. So…if that’s good enough for PLAYBOY, it’s surely good enough for me.
But I’m not ignoring man’s eternal quest for a raging boner.
Thus, we have a curious little experiment that I’m calling the Surface Transportation Edition.
Now NASCAR sleds, while they operate on the surface of the Earth, except when some argy-bargy at at Talladega sends them airborne, are not really surface transportation. An annual parade down the Strip in Vegas doesn’t really count. You’re not gonna be driving the #4 Chavrolet down to the local Kwik-Trip for a 6-pak of Budweiser and a pack of cigarets. Cars, of course, can give men raging boners…in some cases, quite literally. But we’re not driving down THAT unfortunate road.
Nope. Per usual, I’m taking the metaphorical path.
So…come along for the ride.
Ladies & Gentlemen, START YOUR ENGINES!!!
It’s Talladega, Baby!! And THAT means modified Old School Qualifying rules…!
In light of all the foolishness and mayhem that NASCAR’s PsuedoQuasi F1 qualifying format has caused at Talladega and Daytona in the past, NASCAR has finally applied reason and common sense to qualifying. Instead of a first round qualifying in group format, NASCAR will release cars individually at timed intervals and they will then qualify the old-fashioned way. The fastest lap determines the field….well….it determines the field from 13-43.
After Round 1, the cars are impounded.
The top 12 cars from Round 1 will advance. During a 10 minute period between rounds, these crews can adjust tape and use a cool-down unit. But that’s it. No further adjustments can be made.
For Round 2, the top 12 cars will again be released individually in order of 1st Round qualifying speed from slowest to fastest. Again, one timed lap…and voila!! The field is set.
I can think of two drivers of the top of my head that absolutely NEED to qualify in the front row. They also need to finish first to have any chance of winning the Championship this season.
Actually there are 4 of them….
It’s Talladega, Baby!! And that means Kyle Busch will use turmoil and mayhem to his advantage!
I mentioned that there were 2 drivers who absolutly need start on the front row and finish in first place to have any chance of moving on to the Eliminator Round.
The 2 I was referring to were Matt Kenseth and Junior. Matt’s engine turmoil at Charlotte dropped him from 1st to worst, and Joey Logano’s little argy-bargy with Matt at Kansas last Saturday denied him a deserved3 and needed win.
Junior needs a win to move on as well. And if Matt doesn’t win the Championship this season, I’d want Junior to win it. Unfortunately, the way things shape up for Sunday it will be one, or the other, or sad to say, possibly neither.
2 other drivers are in the same boat, the SS Win Or Go Home. That would be Ryan Newman and Commodore Kyle Busch, for those of you who I’ve already forgotten about down at THE FIREHOUSE in Mt. Horeb WI. You know who you are, even thought I no longer do.
I like Ryan Newman and all, but given what’s at stake, he should just jump overboard right now and swim for safety. Then again, this time on Monday, October 26th, 2015….I’ll be sitting here at my Adler J-5 Laptop tapping out my bemusement with a fresh Windows 10 Typewriter Ribbon installed and a bottle of TCP/IP brand correction fluid close at hand with Newman’s smiling visage in Victory Lane burned into my retinas while I eat these words for lunch. Thankfully, I’ll be able to wash them down with beer.
The Kyle Busch scenario is the most intriguing and potentially confounding of all. There is no earthly reason Kyle Busch should even be in this position. But he’s returned to the sport from a severe broken leg/foot at the Daytona 500 and he’s been able to race himself into the Chase and now, on the brink of Elimination, if he’s faced with a chance to not allow that to happen, well, he will damn well take that chance and to hell with consequences or the mayhem it will cause. A little bump on the final green/white/checkers restart at the end, and while mayhem and train-wreck erupts behind him, he sails to the finish and drops anchor in Victory Lane.
So damn this Talladega race. It shouldn’t have come down to this for Matt, nor for Junior for that matter.
But here we are and when the checkered flag drops, there we will be. And then we will all be drunk.
It’s Talladega, Baby!! And that means it’s FINALLY to talk about T….Technical Details!!
A modest little change will be in play at Talladega this weekend. You won’t even be able to spot it, but if you DO have superhuman vision, you will notice the detail during pitstops.
Actually, this little detail has been in play since Charlotte, so….so much for MY vision.
Teams are using shorter valve stems on their tires. Wow!! Thrilling!!
But it has vital practicality. Shorter valve stem are less likely to make contact with lug nuts during pit stops. This will help eliminate tires going flat shortly after a pit stop, which has been happening a lot this season.
So…keep an eye out for those shorter valve stems.
Also, the new rules package for 2016 is near finalization. Tests were run at Michigan this past week. Naturally, I’ll have more excruciating details and perhaps even mathematical algorithms describing them at a later date. But the new package so far looks like it will be a winner. Lower downforce, and decreased speeds in corners should promote more passing and better racing next season.
I’m looking forward to that.
It’s Talladega, Baby!! And that means we will NOT discuss Association Football…
Then again, I’m not so small minded and churlish to not mention that this past week Wayne Rooney celebrated his 30th birthday, no doubt with cake. And I really hope the cake had red frosting on it, 30 candles, and in the middle of it, 1:64 scale models of Harvick’s #4 Budweiser Chevrolet; Junior’s #88 Mountain Dew Dewshine Chevrolet; and Kyle Larson’s #42 Target Chevrolet in the Alabama Crimson Tide Houndstooth paint scheme. That would be fabulous, but unlikely.
Anyway, it got me thinking. WHO is the Wayne Rooney of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series??
Discuss amongst yourselves.
Meanwhile, Rooney is on the downhill slide of his career. I can see him retiring to the MLS someday fairly soon. Maybe he’ll get a nice deal with the Chicago Fire and will become a pillar of the Windy City, showing up at Cubs games4 and being the honorary starter at Chicagoland Speedway.
Maybe he’ll buy the Willis Tower and rename it the Rooney Tower and….alright…alright…straight red card…I’m heading for the tunnel.
- As long as those men are certain kinds of Railfans or Boat Nerds, that is
- and airbrushed vagoos
- Based upon the run of play
- Of course, he could just as easily become a White Sox fan, which honestly might be more likely on some level, but not as realistic…wait, what??