Category: my thoughts on

The Driver Suit Blog-My Thoughts On The Grand Prix of Louisiana

By David G. Firestone

I’m going to start moving My Thoughts On to Tuesdays as it is much easier for me to write on a Monday after a race than Sunday Night. Now that the protocol change is out of the way, I’d like to discuss The Grand Prix of Louisiana at NOLA Motorsports Park.

I’m always interested in the first race at a new track. The track is at its peak, the surface is perfect, and nobody has a distinct advantage. The course had a lot of potential, but the race itself was a disaster. The rain that came in was unavoidable. Now in defense of NOLA, they brought in an Air Titan system to dry the track, but there was rain in the forecast, so they had a brief window to hold the race. They ran 44 of 75 laps, and I have to say, it was one of the worst races I have ever seen.

It’s almost as if the designers failed to realize that cars pass each other while racing, at least that is what I took away from it. It was a caution fest, and the rain didn’t help things at all. The really tight turns made for a series of spin outs and wrecks that slowed the pace to the point that it wasn’t fun to watch. After James Hinchcliffe won, I watched The Masters, and I had more fun watching that than I did watching the race.

What made the race even worse was NOLA Motorsports Park’s advertising. The whole “have your next team building exercise here” series of commercials reeked of desperation. The commercials were basically saying “we need your business to have meetings here to keep us in business.” It was just painful to watch. At one point, I went to lunch with my cousin and DVR’d the race because I couldn’t stand the commercials.

The most amazing part is when Gabby Chaves spun, and a corner worker came out and pushed him back into the race, as shown here…

I first thought it was a fan, but it was a track worker. I’ve never seen a track worker do something like that, and I was shocked.

After that race, any respect that I had for NOLA Motorsports Park is now gone. Hopefully 2016 will be a better Grand Prix of Louisiana, but the 2015 race was something to forget.

The Driver Suit Blog-My Thoughts on the NCAA Tournament

By David G. Firestone

We are in the midst of March Madness, the NCAA Basketball tournament. The big story in sports is the tournament, and if Kentucky can go undefeated for the season. As of right now they are 35-0 and if they win, they will be 40-0. Can I ask a real question? Why do we still think college sports are anything except a cash grab for the schools and the NCAA.

It’s general knowledge by now that the NCAA is a cartel. They were formed to prevent injuries in football in 1905, but have since become the overseer of all of the top collegiate sports in the country. They regulate themselves and police themselves with little outside interference. Basically the foxes have been guarding the hen house since the beginning. They want the outside world to believe that they take the regulation seriously.

But this non-profit group cares a lot about profits. The NCAA takes in billions of dollars, pays no taxes, and has insane rules concerning how the players are treated. An athlete on scholarship may only be given, under NCAA rules, room and board, and tuition. The athletes are basically make the schools and NCAA money, but they get nothing. Their names and likenesses are used by the NCAA for profit, but the students get no compensation. They are trying to get to the professional leagues, but only 1% of them ever will. The schools can’t even give the athletes things they need. There was a case where an NCAA hockey player had his watch stolen out of his locker. The coach bought him a new one, and both were suspended for a rule violation.

I’ve already stated my opinions on their penalty enforcement, so I won’t repeat myself. I’m just sick of this hypocritical approach to finances in college sports. I don’t watch college sports, I never have and I never will, until the NCAA changes its rules.

The Driver Suit Blog-My Thoughts On Kurt Busch and Writing Season Previews

By David G. Firestone

Got a few things to cover this week, so strap in. First, in a move that shocked me, and a lot of fans, NASCAR reinstated Kurt Busch as a driver, and went so far to waive the requirement that a driver has to complete every race in the season to be eligible to race in the Chase. I’m just going to copy the report from Jayski, my go-to site:

“NASCAR announced that, effectively immediately, the indefinite suspension of Kurt Busch has been lifted. He is eligible to return to NASCAR racing under indefinite probation subject to additional mandatory requirements that include but are not limited to participation in a treatment program and full compliance with any judicial requirements placed upon him. On Feb. 20, Kurt Busch, driver of the #41 car, was found to be in violation of:
• Section 12.1.a: Actions detrimental to stock car racing
• Section 12.8: Behavioral Penalty
The decision to lift the suspension was made by NASCAR after Kurt Busch:
• Complied with all requirements in its reinstatement program;
• Completed the mandatory behavioral assessment sessions; and
• The behavioral health care expert who conducted the sessions recommended to NASCAR that Kurt Busch be allowed to return to competition.”

I’ve stated my stance on the subject many times, but I’ll say it again, domestic violence, in all forms is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE! While Kurt isn’t going to be criminally charged for domestic abuse, it is clear that the incident did occur as accused. A Dover judge issued a no-contact order and stated that it does appear that a domestic assault did take place. NASCAR responded quickly by suspending Busch just before the Daytona 500. I gave them credit for that, but the fact that he was reinstated the second it was announced he wouldn’t be criminally charged makes it clear that NASCAR was, to some extent, caving in to fan pressure. There is no other logical reason why he was reinstated.

While NASCAR may have regulations they have to follow, neither I or The Driver Suit Blog are under those same restrictions. While Kurt might have gotten off somewhat easy from NASCAR, I will not be so compassionate. As such, this will be the last time I mention Kurt Busch by name on The Driver Suit Blog in any form in 2015. Above and beyond that, the #41 team’s paint scheme grades have all been retroactively changed to F-. Furthermore, I will no longer list the #41 in the tracker, nor will I grade anymore of the #41’s schemes. #41 will not be listed on The Paint Scheme Leaderboard, and will be ineligible for the Paint Schemies in 2015.

Now that is out of the way, I have something else that I need to discuss. I got an email asking why I didn’t do a season preview for F1. The season started on Sunday, with the Australian Grand Prix. It was a good race, though there was a very high attrition rate of cars. I’ve stated before that I don’t like doing season previews, and it dawned on me, why should I waste time doing things on my own blog that I don’t like to do? So in that spirit, I won’t be doing any more season previews, or season reviews on The Driver Suit Blog. I will do something for Memorial Day, for obvious reasons, but other than that, no more stuff I don’t want to do.

I really hated that for a decent part of January that all my Friday Features, which from here on out I will call my memorabilia articles, were focusing on news, and previews. In addition to the Tracker and the Paint Scheme Grades, which aren’t that bad, but at that point in the year, it’s insanely time consuming. I’ve had enough, and I won’t do them anymore. Only fun stuff from here on out.

The Driver Suit Blog-My Thoughts On The Black Cloud Hanging Over Daytona This Week.

By David G. Firestone

The Daytona 500 is behind us, the NASCAR season is underway. The race was great, Joey Logano finally lived up to the lofty expectations set on him when he was a rookie. Jeff Gordon has raced in his last Daytona 500 in his regular career, though I won’t rule out that he might come back for the 500 at some point. All in all it should have been a great weekend for NASCAR, but while the sun shone over Daytona, there was a dark cloud hanging over NASCAR this weekend.

The dark cloud started in November, when allegations against Kurt Busch came to light. Patricia Driscol, Kurt’s ex girlfriend went to the police and alleged that Kurt had assaulted her, during the fall race at Dover in September. Between then and Thursday, a series of court hearing took place. On Monday, Busch was ordered to stay away from Driscoll, as the court had deemed that “an act of domestic abuse had taken place.” As a direct result of that ruling, on Friday, he was indefinitely suspended from NASCAR. Busch appealed TWICE on Saturday, and lost both appeals, and is now indefinitely suspended from NASCAR.

I stated when the story first broke in November, that I would wait until the facts are fully known before I would take a side. Now that those facts have come to light, I will state the following: Under NO circumstances is domestic abuse ever acceptable! Kurt’s actions are totally unacceptable, and he should be suspended for at least the 2015 season, minimum. I don’t feel bad at all for Kurt, he will lose a lot of money, his career is probably over, and he will face criminal charges, and he deserves it. Anyone who hits a spouse, or children does not deserve sympathy. I don’t feel bad for Busch, Ray Rice, or Chris Brown, because men should NEVER hit women!

NASCAR took some heat in waiting as long as they did, but they said that they would wait for the facts to come out before they made a decision. I think that it was a wise move. They did the same thing with Tony Stewart last year as well. People in this day in age want immediate reactions, immediate suspensions, and immediate discipline. I get that, but doing it fast should never take precedence over doing it right.

With this story in mind, I sat down to watch the Alert Today Florida 300 on Saturday. I was treated to a great race…until lap 113, when there was “The Big One” and Kyle Busch was sent into a concrete wall near turn 2, nearly head on at an estimated 90 MPH, and had to be helped from his car. He was taken to Halifax Medical Center, and was diagnosed with a severe compound fracture in his right leg, as well as a broken foot.

The wall he hit was a simple concrete wall, no tires, or SAFR barrier. How in the world can there be any track, much less Daytona International Speedway, that has concrete walls with no energy absorbing materials? I get the $500 a foot price tag is a bit hefty, but when something like this happens, drivers and fans demand answers, and action. As such, there will be improvements starting today at Daytona, but how many more times does this have to happen, seriously? How many top shelf drivers will be sidelined with injuries because of cost cutting? WHEN WILL THIS STOP? I hate having to call out racing sanctioning bodies for seemingly stupid safety issues, I really do, but why does this keep happening? I wanted to write a story about how great Daytona was, and how much fun I had, but I can’t! I’ll finish this article now, as I’m too angry to finish.