Category: my thoughts on

By David G. Firestone

Imagine you are an investor, and I come to you with a proposition. I have a company that I want you to invest in. It will cost $300,000,000 to start, and will bring in $400,000 a year. I ask you if you want to invest in my company. What would you say to that? Of course you at least would say no, add in a few profanities, and probably kick me in the groin for asking such a dumb question. It’s an investment that makes no sense to anyone…except people running for President of The United States.

In every Presidential election in my lifetime, the lead candidates have spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to get a job that guarantees $400,000 a year, over the course of 4 years, for a total of $1,600,000. While most of the money comes from independent donors, the fact is that the amount of money spent trying to win the Presidency is obscene.

This is just one of the reasons why you or I will never run for President. The majority of Americans do not have the financial resources to make a serious run for office. But would we want to run for office? While we might say we do, we really don’t. The majority of us couldn’t handle the demands and restriction that being the President brings us.

Imagine if you accepted a job where you were on duty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, were you can’t get off duty, even to go on vacation, and can’t go anywhere without extensive planning and security. Now imagine as a part of this job, you will have at least half the country hating you, many people want to kill you, and the majority of coworkers you have to deal with don’t trust you. You also have to accept blame for a lot of stuff that isn’t your fault. On top of all that, the media is watching everything, and I mean EVERYTHING you are doing, looking up your past, interviewing your friends, family, former coworkers, former classmates to find some dirt on you. Now, taking all of that into consideration, would you take the job?

Most of us wouldn’t because it would be too much. For the candidates however, these restrictions aren’t too much. They have worked their whole lives since they were children to become President. They have spent their whole lives becoming politicians, and are able to handle the restrictions. They have the mental toughness to handle the criticisms thrown at them. The have spent their whole careers being on call 24/7/365.

While we give politicians a lot of shit, the majority of us don’t have the skills, resources, and coping mechanisms to handle it. I won’t run for office, and I don’t think many of you should either

By David G. Firestone

I’d like to discuss something that has been irritating me for a while. I ate at Shake Shack last week, since one opened up at Old Orchard Mall, which is near my house. The food was good, not great, I’ll give it a B. The reason I went was because people who I know were talking about it and raving about it, but one of them used a term that is being used a lot in this day in age. She said “Shake Shack is going to reinvent the fast food industry!”

Could we PLEASE stop using “X is going to reinvent X” as a statement? First off, whatever the new product is probably won’t, and second, it just sounds pretentious. I hate to break it to you, but Shake Shack is NOT going to reinvent fast food. The simple fact is that if you look at their menu, it’s hamburgers, hot dogs, frozen custard, milkshakes, and ice cream. I will give credit that the Portobello Mushroom burger is an original idea that does work well. Instead of beef, it’s a Portobello mushroom with lettuce, muenster cheese, and cheddar cheese. Other than that, there is nothing very revolutionary about their menu.

If you want two restaurants that legitimately reinvented the fast food industry, I would suggest Taco Bell and KFC. Both of them very legitimately changed because they carved out niche markets in the fast food industry that hadn’t existed prior to their arrival. Harland Sanders developed the now famous recipe, and cooking techniques for Kentucky Fried Chicken. He franchised the restaurant, was their mouthpiece and mascot, and introduced fast food fried chicken on a national scale. Prior to KFC, fast food was mainly burgers and fries.

Taco Bell was introduced by Glen Bell, who saw that Tex-Mex food was a big hit in California. He started with the Taco Bell concept, and it proved to be a great move. Tex-Mex food instantly became a hit, and it has since become a staple of fast food. Taco Bell, love it or hate it, created the Tex-Mex sector of the fast food market.

My point is that these two companies, Taco Bell, and KFC reinvented fast food. They each found a brand new niche in the fast food market. While Shake Shack does have decent food, only one of their concepts is a new concept, and the majority of their product line is tried and true fast food, but with better quality and different cooking standards. They aren’t reinventing anything, SO STOP SAYING THEY ARE!

Moving on from that, I want to discuss something else. So last week…I had to reinstall Windows on my laptop. Ugh! What an experience! The reinstall itself went quite well, but I had to reinstall ALL of my programs. I also was locked out of my WordPress account, so I couldn’t edit anything for two days. After that was done, I updated to Windows 10. I expected the upgrade to be a disaster, but it actually works well, and I have my laptop back now!

Not being able to edit or update for a few days turned out to be a great thing, as it gave me some time to decompress. I love doing The Driver Suit Blog, but there are some weeks where I have more work than hours available. So I’ve decided to make a few command decisions. I don’t like burning myself out every week.

The first decision is that, effective immediately, Throwback Thursday has been shelved. This is a slight time saver, but at this point, any little bit matters.

Second, I reserve the right to not do a My Thoughts On, or Paint Scheme Grades if time does not permit me to. This won’t happen to often, but there are times I have too much on my plate.

Third, I will always have a Friday Feature post, but I reserve the right to go off topic, meaning a non-auto racing post. This will happen in the event I’m not able to finish an auto racing-related post in time. I will have one or two things ready to go in any individual moment. They will be interesting, I promise!

I understand that this is an auto racing blog, but I want a healthy mix in life. I blog about this all the time, but I’m not solely focused on auto racing in my life. I have a healthy mix of things in life. Again, this won’t happen very often, but circumstances will dictate when it does.

By David G. Firestone

I hate sports talk radio! I will scream that from the mountain tops! I hate sports talk radio! I follow racing, I watch racing every chance I get, but I’m not as obsessed as these callers who listen to sports talk radio!

I live in the Chicago area, we have a number of different sports talk stations, and they all equally suck. The two big stories today were the Cubs playoffs, and the Tejada injury. That’s all anyone was talking about in Chicago! The Bears won their second game, The Bulls are playing, but that didn’t get the airtime that the Cubs and Tejada are getting!

I rarely listen to the radio, but I was working on scanning stuff on Monday, and decided to turn on the radio. I regretted my decision, because I had to choose between pop music, talk radio, or sports talk radio. I setted for what I thought was the least horrible option, but listening to that crap just wore me out!

I will never listen to sports talk again!

By David G. Firestone

I don’t normally watch the NFL, but I’ve been catching games when I can. I’ve been seeing commercials for Draft Kings and FanDeul. I don’t play fantasy sports at all, but apparently, Draft Kings has a deal with NASCAR for fantasy racing. Well, this deal might be for naught because there are members of Congress who are pushing for an investigation into the legalities of these fantasy sports sites.

Why can’t we just watch sports anymore? Why do we have to have fantasy sports? Why in the world do we have to have people who obsessively watch, following every single possible stat, hoping to beat a group of their friends and coworkers for no real reason at all? I watch racing, but I don’t follow starts. I visit Racing Reference for many articles, and I quote stats, but stats don’t interest me. If I were playing fantasy sports, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the race.

I’ve been wondering if these sites are legal for a while. According to the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA), fantasy sports are exempt from the internet gambling ban, provided that the number of participants doesn’t affect the prize. However, it would appear that some sites that work with “daily fantasy sports” are doing just that. I’m frankly sick of fantasy sports, these websites, and I hope they go away soon!

I bring this up because we are in a major election cycle. I loop election cycles into two groups, major and minor. A major election cycle will involve a Presidential election, and a minor cycle will not. So until November of next year, we will have to put up will election ads, debates, campaign signs, and all the other bullshit that comes with an election. Well you won’t have to put up with it here. I will not willingly run election ads or endorsements. WordPress might run ads, but those will be going away soon, I promise!

The Driver Suit Blog is not a place for politics, but a place for racing. No politics will happen here!

By David G. Firestone

Labor Day is a day to celebrate the worker. The workers love to celebrate by barbecuing. That’s how I spend my Labor Day, barbecue and the NHRA. Barbecuing and grilling brings us together, not just as a group of friends, or family, but as a culture. Everyone has their favorite kind of food to grill, burgers, steak, chicken, hot dogs, ribs, fish, veggies, and even pizza. Everyone has their favorite style of cooker, smoker, charcoal, wood-fired, or gas.

Along with grilled food, you need beer. Workers love beer. It doesn’t matter if you are into extra IPA, bock, Guinness, or macro beer, the one universal rule is that the beer has to be cold. The colder the better. The combo of cold beer, and hot, fire grilled meat can’t be beat on Labor Day! If you are into wine, or soda, same rule applies.

Do we do this ourselves? Absolutely not! We gather as a society, in back yards, and at parks. We gather at sporting events, or at the beach. We gather with friends, we gather with family, and we gather with co-workers! We put animosity aside for the day, and focus on enjoying the end of the summer. We may have to go back to work tomorrow, but we enjoy the day today. However you spent your memorial day, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

By David G. Firestone

The tradition of hot dogs at sporting events is a long standing one in the United States. Spending a summer’s day at the ball park or race track, having a beer and a hot dog is real piece of Americana. The tradition is so ingrained in our culture that even high school sports, and even Little League will sell hot dogs at their events.

The hot dog itself really is perfect for the role as iconic stadium food. We all know about it. Each city adds their own signature style to it, they are easy to prepare, and easy to enjoy. Having grown up in Chicago, I am partial to Chicago-style hot dogs, though a New York style is really good too. For many, the classic mustard and relish combination is a tasty treat while sitting in the stands.

Why am I discussing this? Because I was talking with some friends this last week, and we were discussing the various food items for sale at baseball parks. As the conversation progressed, I began to wonder where this tradition began. Feeding people at sporting events dates back to the Roman empire, but how and why did the hot dog become the go-to stadium food? I did a little sleuthing, and here is what I found out.

In true classic form, there are two people credited with introducing the hot dog at sporting events, Harry M. Stevens, and Chris von der Ahe. Chris von der Ahe was the founder of the St. Louis Cardinals. He made the team into a popular attraction in St. Louis. He priced his tickets low so fans would spend money on beer. Supposedly, he introduced the hot dog to baseball in 1893. Harry M. Stevens was a British concessionaire who is supposedly the man who invented the hot dog. This claim states that at a New York Giants game in 1901, the weather was cold, and he couldn’t sell ice cream, so he ordered his staff to gather “dachshund sausages” stuffed them into rolls, and started shouting “Get your red hots!” A cartoonist present at the game was said to have written “hot dogs” because he couldn’t spell dachshund. However, since the term “hot dog” dates to at least 1892, no copy of the cartoon could ever be found, and the fact that Chris von der Ahe sold hot dogs at baseball games since 1893 debunks that story

Stevens might not have started the tradition of selling hot dogs at baseball games, but he perfected it. Stevens signed the first deal to become a Major League Baseball concessionaire, a role which he perfected. Stevens is also credited with inventing the scorecard, the template he designed is still in use today. Using these two tools, Stevens became the foremost concessionaire in the United States, and it’s easy to see why.

Two men over the course of a few years took the hot dog from street vendor fare to an iconic part of sports history in the United States. Their names aren’t known to many of the fans who consume the hot dogs they helped make iconic, which is sad. But to Harry M. Stevens and Chris von der Ahe, America thanks you!

By David G. Firestone

I didn’t mean to post the My Thoughts On article on Monday, but I’m glad I did. I need to address the Justin Wilson situation. Sadly, I’m having to do another article about a top level driver death this year. But I’m wondering if something will change for IndyCar design within the next few years.

Just to recap, Justin Wilson was a former Formula 1 and IndyCar driver, who has 7 wins total in Champ Car and IndyCar. He finished 2^nd in 2006 and 2007, winning the Greg Moore Legacy Award in both years. He had 16 starts in Formula 1, but only scored on championship point, with no wins or podiums. He was signed to Andretti Autosport for the 2015 Indianapolis 500, and was brought on for the last 5 races of the year.

At the ABC Supply 500 at Pocono on lap 179, Sage Karem spun out, and hit the wall. The nose cone came off the car, and as Wilson drove through the scene, it hit Wilson in the head, and he crashed into the wall. As his car slowed to a stop, he was obviously unconscious, and had to be airlifted from the scene. He never regained consciousness, and died last night.

Obviously this is a tragedy, BUT there might be some good that comes of this. I’m really wondering if canopies will come to IndyCar. I discussed this after the 2014 Grand Prix of Indianapolis, where James Hinchcliffe was hit by a much smaller piece of debris and suffered a concussion. In that article, I discussed how I think IndyCar will get canopies at some point, similar to many NHRA dragsters. Tony Schumacher has stated that he started using a canopy on his dragster because he was scared that he would take a bird to the helmet, and the damage it would cause. Well, the piece that Wilson took was much larger than most birds than Schumacher would encounter.

Above and beyond that, the last two deaths in IndyCar, Dan Wheldon in 2011, and Wilson’s death could have been avoided if canopies had been added. I’m thinking that the canopies will be added starting within the next few years. The purists are going to scream when they are added, but I’d rather not see another driver die like that! This needs to happen soon!

No racing fan wants to see drivers die, that is a fact. But changes need to happen to prevent driver deaths, and this is the change that needs to happen. If the purists want to scream, let them, but I’m sick of seeing driver die! Remember that since 2011, in IndyCar and F1, there were 3 driver deaths that all could have easily been prevented with the addition of canopies, yet nobody wants to accept that they are needed.

I’m pleading with IndyCar, don’t listen to fans who are stuck in the past, do what’s right for your drivers!