The Search For The Next Fernando Torres of NASCAR

You’ll Never Walk Alone….etc.

Silly Season is upon us. The transfer window is open and all the great gods of England and Europe and NASCAR are lining up the bids and proposals for the next remarkable talent, the next piece of the 4 man or 11 man puzzle. Search parties are scouring the continents, far and wide, and others are simply hopping on the Underground for a trek across town, hoping t0 bring back buried treasures and spices and bounty. In a sense it’s really one pirate trying the fuck another pirate out of his loot.

“Arrrgghhh!” says Roman Abromovic, “I’ll give ye £22 million for Luka Modric.”

“Ye Bleedin’ Gob!” saieth Daniel Levy, the Tottenham chaiman, “me loot is naught fer sale….naught at ANY price.”

“Arrgghhhhhh!! I’ll give ye £32 million AND Jose Bosingwa for Luka Modric.”

“Arrrgghhh!!”, Harry Rednapp chimes in.

“ArrrrrrGGGGGhhh!!

And so it will go until Luka Modric moves from White Hart Lane to Stanford Bridge.

Meanwhile, in the World of NASCAR, Silly Season is just starting to heat up with some very curious speculations regarding The Carl and, perhaps, The Biff. There are rumblings of The Carl moving from Rousch to Joe Gibbs. And there are whispers about The Biff being a bit discontent with his lot at Rousch this season.

And yes, it is now even increasing likely that finally, at long last, that Danica Patrick will save NASCAR!

All that, and MORE of the usual fucktardery. Grab your flashlight, or your torch is ye’re from England, and let’s go searching.

 

 

A little bit of argy-bargy occurred betwixt Richard Childress and Kyle Busch

The good ol’ feud between the Childress Gang and the Gibbs Boy is still on, despite Richard Childress grabbing Kyle Busch in a headlock in the Gibbs Garage area and punching him in the mouth a few times. Now the Busch haters love this, and if there was more than petty spite involved in this, I would applaud as well….but I’m not sure it’s a good idea for a team-owner to take matters that happen on the track into his hands off the track. NASCAR felt the same way and severely penalized ((for NASCAR, anyway)) Childress for taking a matter into his own hands that perhaps should have been left alone. NASCAR is not the NHL, and even there, the goons and enforcers take care of matters on the ice, not off it. The incident, at the Camping World truck race at Kansas Speedway, was relatively minor stuff…a little bumping on the track during the cool-down lap…a racing deal that was handled on the track and should have stayed there.

But it’s never that simple when Kyle Busch is involved. His personality and demeanor is polarizing and infuriating to many. He revels in the boos that rain down upon him whenever he wins a race. He is a great driver, one of the most talented in the sport. He will be enshrined in the NASCAR Hall of Fame someday, an accolade his older brother Kurt might never attain. Yet despite all that, if there is anything remotely askew during a race, and Kyle Busch is anywhere in the vicinity, all bets are off.

I suppose this might have been somewhat cooled off by now if Harvick and Busch had dropped helmets and duked it out right there on pitroad after Darlington. They could have smashed each other senseless and that would have been the end of it. But for various reasons, that sensible outcome did not play out. Sponsors, of course, don’t like that sort of thing, especially Kyle’s sponsors who are family and kid friendly and don’t really want their guy fighting with a girl in a firesuit wherever the moment provokes it. Maybe it would have been different if Kyle was sponsored by something man-friendly, if you get my drift, like some idiotic Shower Soap (Axe), or chewing tobacco (it’s all in a Day’s Work®)). Maybe it would have been different if one of them didn’t think the other one would actually kick their ass in front of millions of NASCAR viewers. But despite all arguments for the contrary, it would have best if Busch and Harvick had simply dropped the gloves and the helmets and had at it, right then and there.

Now the feud continues to simmer, and as Harvick recently hinted, “He knows he’s got one coming.” The 4 race probation ended at Pocono last Sunday. We’ll see if and what happens at Michigan tomorrow. Personally, it would best if they gave each other a wide berth. That, or just hang out together munching M&Ms and drinking Budweiser as if nothing ever happened.

 

 

FINALLY!! Danica Patrick is going to save NASCAR!!

I’ve been talking about it for years now. Sometimes serious, sometimes wishful, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, sometimes wistful. But it is going to happen very shortly and for REAL. And when it happens, it will turn NASCAR upside-down and make it better.

Four races into the Nationwide season, Danica Patrick was sitting 4th in the points standings. If she would have been running all xx races this season, based on her performances before the IRL season started, she would easily have finished in the top 10 in points if not the top 5. Her improvement from last season was like night and day. Tony Stewart recognizes her talent and would love to have her drive Sprint Cup for his team. And of course, any NASCAR owner with a milligram of sense would want the GoDaddy money that comes along with.

What dismays me the most to be honest is how sad and pathetic Andretti Autosports has become in the IRL. This is supposed to be the legacy of Mario Freakin’ Andretti. chimpskulls, and ye can hardly get yer cars QUALIFIED for the focking Indy 500?? I mean really….what the fuck is going on there. I know Marco is the freakin’ son/grandson and all, but Danica is bringing a lot of cash and cachet to the table. But neither of them are getting cars they can actually win with. It’s like Andretti Autosports is going the way in the IRL that Petty Enterprises went in NASCAR, a long downhill slide into irrelevance and mediocrity. The name can only get you so far…and the name alone wont get you across the finish line in first place.

And over at Andretti Autosport the folks seem to recognize the truth of this. But rather than that being a good thing, it might be a scary thing. THIS little tidbit from jayski.com fills me with a terror only matched by Derrick Cope’s efforts to get his skank nieces into NASCAR. Please, honestly, don’t tell me that Andretti Autosport will be going to NASCAR. No…just plain focking NO. Stay in open wheel, Michael, and get your shite together.

 

 

And then we’ll make John Terry the manager….

It confounds me to no end. I don’t grasp the line of reasoning behind Abromovich’s regime at Chelsea these days. I really wish he would stop meddling with the team. And even if he won’t, I wish his CEO of the team , Ron Gourlay would shut his fackin’ pie hole, or better yet, go back Russia. I’m not a Ron Gourlay fan. While might have good business acumen, he still is an insufferable tard. His latest assertion, before they’ve even hired a new coach (Guus Hiddink)), that new coach could be fired swiftly if he doth naught produce results, is about as ignorant a thing as I’ve heard in at least the last 20,160 minutes (( or a fortnight, for those keeping score in Norwich)). What I find harder to grasp than the inherent idiocy of that strategy is the simple fact that that pig-biting-weasel-mean-spirited strategy was allowed to fly out of Gourlay’s piehole to begin with. I would think it would make some kind of sense to keep THAT little secret to yourselves….chortle amongst yourselves about it over vodka and caviar late at night…but for godsakes never EVER let that see the light of day.

Better yet though would be for Gourlay to stick to numbers, which he’s good at. And get some REAL football people in there to run the football operations. And then leave well enough alone. The best sports franchise in the World, the Green Bay Packers have made that a winning formula once they shook free of the Old Guard from the Glory Years of the 60’s. And consistency also works nicely for their hated arch-rival Manchester United…Sir Alex is practically synonymous with football in England. Chelsea would do well to follow suit.

 

 

Is NASCAR ready for a Gay Sprint Cup Champion?

In a recent issue of ESPN the magazine, Boston Red Sox star 1st baseman Kevin Youklis indicated that it wouldn’t  really matter in the least if a team-mate were gay or not. “It’s not a big deal any more. Nobody cares about that stuff, man.” Teammate Dustin Pedroia agreed. And my feeling is that it’s simply a matter of time before one or several step up to the plate and say “I’m here, I’m queer….deal with it!” before smacking a high inside fastball over the left field fence for a walkoff grand slam homerun. The real issue is how will the rest of the world deal with it. It galls me to think that whoever it is will forever be knows as the Gay Jackie Robinson…since that’s most convenient hook upon which to hang that hat.

And just because one has not stepped out of the closet, don’t kid yourself that there might not be one among the 43 racing at Michigan either this Saturday or this Sunday. NASCAR has a LOT of barriers to break down, of course. Race being the biggest elephant in the room, and gender….well, Danica will take care of that. Sexual Orientation seems a far distant barrier, but it might the one soonest to be broken.

Now as much as I like to joke about That Homo Jeff Gordon, we all know that Jeff Gordon REALLY isn’t gay in the least…..and despite what I’ve said, Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. didn’t each fuck Jeff Gordon’s wife so he could have 2 children, it really isn’t much of a joke when you consider that REAL homophobia is as endemic and as despicable as racism and sexism. It not really something we should be joking about. The “H” word and the “F” word ((I’m talking about faggot and not fuck)) have joined the “N” word as slurs that should never be used. In the NBA, both Kobe Bryant and Joachim Noah, bright guys who should know better, were fined for calling refs or annoying fans faggots.  I don’t think either Kobe or Noah would appreciate if some white guy called them niggers. Slurs, some of which are genuinely hateful, and some which are simply flung forth in the passionate heat of the moment, are so deeply ingrained in our culture and behavior that there really is no easy way to draw the line without getting too excruciatingly politically correct. And as we all know, nothing  political is correct.

Kobe and Noah should have gone with a slur like stupid motherfucker, and left it at that. But that slur would have been way too gay, yes? See? Despite being a champion of gays rights and civil rights and woman’s right, I can be as guilty of it as the next chumplin. It creeps in to our vernacular despite our best efforts. We tend to equate weakness with being gay. We tend to equate anything opposed to manliness as being gay. Black men especially feel that way because they already have one strike, being black, against them right out of the gate in their effort to stand as men. And homosexuality is viewed as a real threat to manliness. That could begin to change if and when male athletes in the major sports, Baseball, the NBA, and especially the NFL, come out of the closet.

So…a Gay Sprint Cup Champion?? A REAL Rainbow Warrior?? Bring it on. And I will try to stop using the phrase, That Homo, in reference to Jeff Gordon…but don’t count on perfection.

 

FA Cup announces new sponsor:  BUDWEISER!! The KING of BEERS!!

In the past forthnight, madness has overtaken Vancouver, with the Stanley Cup Riots; and Birmingham, with the death threats to Alex McLeish who’s abruptly resigned as Birmingham City’s gaffer to take the gaffer’s job at crosstown rival Aston Villa. That, and the madness that o’ertook the Football Association of England when they named Budweiser the new FA Cup sponsor. We’ll get to Vancouver in a moment.

It’s always disturbing when coaches get death threats. The partisan madness this past season in Glasgow between Rangers and Celtic and the death threats that Celtic’s gaffer Neil Lennon had to endure is a blot on face of Scottish Football….football anywhere, no matter the country. It’s inexcusable. And now the ugliness has begun anew in Birmingham where Alex McLeish jumped from the sinking ship of Birmingham FC (said ship which he piloted to relegation last season despite the team winning the Carling Cup) over to the crosstown rivals Aston Villa, who remarkably, stayed up. No one is happy with this….Birmingham fans feel betrayed, and Villa fans say, “Bluenose scum not welcome!” And worse.  The move is a done deal…and one is tempted to say that maybe it would have been better if Big Eck had left Birmingham City for some team that was not across town….preferably one in another country….and no, Cardiff City does not count…..I hear that Turkey will be needing a coach for their national team. etc. But in reality it’s the ugliness of the passionate fans that’s the real problem, and it’s the one most difficult to solve. Back in the day, the Green Bay Packers fans had a tumultuous relationship with their head coach Dan Devine…who had the unfortunate fate of following Vince Lombardi…and while I don’t belkeive there being actual death threats to Coach Devine, one of his dogs was shot, and people would follow him to his front door and tell him how much he sucked, especially his final 1974 season before he left to coach Notre Dame to glory.

Passionate fans can be a good thing. But we can never allow or tolerate it to become a bad thing.

As for Vancouver, well….it seems that people were fixin’ to have a riot no matter what. And most of the instigators weren’t NHL or Vancouver Canucks or Boston Bruins fans. They were just a bunch of stupid louts who were were going to cause trouble and mayhem. Now I do have a novel theory that bears mentioning. My theory is that the rioters were not Canucks, Bruins, or NHL fans at all. The rioters we actually soccer hooligans! Yes…they needed a excuse to practice their game for when the Vancouver Whitecaps, the newest MLS club, wins the MLS championship someday. Yes…the Vancouver rioters were actually fucktard soccer hooligans. There. Mystery solved. Case closed.

And that brings us to Budweiser. The FA Cup will be sponsored by Budweiser. And I don’t have any other words to express the horror of that other than to repeat: The FA Cup will be sponsored by Budweiser. The only thing that could possibly make this palatable for me is if the FA trots out NASCAR driver Kevin Harvick, wearing his wife’s firesuit, to present the trophy to the winning team.

 

 

Sir Alex Ferguson is a Socialist.

Oh piss! Now I’ve got to like him, somehow. Grrrrrr!! Why does he have to share my beliefs!!  *flail*  But….but….I’m still going to hate Manchester United…I’m going to hate Manchester United deeply.  Even if they make Sir Alex a Lord.

And speaking of Fernando Torres….when he first arrived at Stamford Bridge last January, Frank Lampard and John Terry welcomed him into the fold. But they warned him.

“Stamford Bridge is haunted,” John Terry said.

“Really?” ((translated from glorious Español))

Lampard knodded his assent. “They’re all over the pitch…they’re everywhere.”

Well the days came and went, and came and went some more.

And Fernando Torres became increasingly more frustrated.

He sought out his captain, John Terry.

“John,” he said, “I….I can’t find any ghouls!!”  ((translated from glorious Español))

There.

Now I’m done.