if you could physically attempt to stop the other runners from crossing the finish, then hell yeah. until then, its an athletic activity. that, of course, is the grey area in my argument. it used to be things that were up for interpretation. such as competitive cheerleading, sure, its physically demanding, but at the end, you win, or lose, based on what a judge thinks of you, and what judge 1 thinks of you could be different then the other 6 judges. hence, not a sport. during an argument over this, someone said golf was the same way to a degree, because the other side cant physically do anything about what your doing, and is based on score. i disagreed, because its a set number of scoring, however, i found the persons logic to be true. and i dont wanna be a hypocrite. so i accepted it, begrudgingly of course.

just because something may not be the truest to my standard of "sport" doesnt mean i have any less respect for it, or what the athletes do.

your sarcasm is noted, but that is part of my description of team sport.

_________________

I hope these recent rule cutbacks are going to help let drivers grow some emotion, but I'm just not sure that any of the new drivers save Bush (who I hate) and maybe Keswhateveroski have any personality left to show.
Jimmy is dull, the epitomy of what Nascar want(s? ed?) and won't get into trouble, now they say they want drivers to race, and have some emotion? Here's my do not buy face.

_________________
"Call a cop he robbed Delmore blind!!!"
Rick Jeanerette after Marty Biron's diving save back in 2000.

"I'm going to go to the spa and have a hot tub and massage and relax," Miller said. "That's it, and it's back to work tomorrow." Ryan Miller after clinching the North East division.

Wreck ruins Danica’s NASCAR debut
http://sports.yahoo.com/nascar/news?slu ... &type=lgns

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP)—Even as her mangled race car belched steam from its radiator in the background, Danica Patrick remained confident she would have good days in NASCAR.

This wasn’t one of them.

Making her NASCAR debut, Patrick ran outside the top 20 for most of Saturday’s Nationwide Series race at Daytona International Speedway before getting caught up in a 12-car wreck just past the race’s halfway point.

Patrick was hoping to learn as much as she could about a new style of racing. She ended up going to the school of hard knocks.

“It’s important to have realistic expectations,” Patrick said. “There’s going to be spikes in performance, I don’t doubt that. But there’s also going to be tough days. And today, I would say, was more of a tough day.”

Tony Stewart went on to win the race for the fifth time in six years.

And it was an expensive day for Dale Earnhardt Jr., who went airborne in a frightening wreck later in the race. He and Patrick both escaped without significant injuries.

Earnhardt is a co-owner of the JR Motorsports team, which now must find the money to repair Patrick’s car and completely replace the one Earnhardt wrecked— a bill that could total $200,000.

But budget concerns aside, Earnhardt praised Patrick’s ability. According to Earnhardt, the fact that she wasn’t running near the front Saturday doesn’t mean she can’t be competitive in NASCAR right away.

“This is such a different kind of racing than she’ll do the rest of the season,” Earnhardt said. “I think that everybody should just take Daytona for what it is.”

Stewart said the experience Patrick gained was more important than the result.

“She got a lot of laps in today, and that’s what needed to happen,” Stewart said. “It would have been a disaster if she had been taken out on the second lap and didn’t get a chance to learn anything.”

Patrick finished sixth in last week’s ARCA event at Daytona, and felt comfortable enough to move her NASCAR debut up a week to the Nationwide opener. The IndyCar star went into Saturday’s start saying her main goals were finishing the race, staying out of trouble and learning as much as she can.

One out of three wasn’t what she had in mind.

After slipping outside the top 20 in the first few laps of the race, Patrick made a nice move to narrowly avoid a big wreck early on. Trevor Bayne was turned into the wall, touching off a seven-car crash. The accident happened right in front of Patrick, who swerved to the low side of the track to miss it.

Patrick fell to the back of the pack after that, running a long stretch of the race outside the top 30.

Her team made suspension adjustments during a pit stop in an attempt to improve the car’s handling. Patrick then moved up to the middle of the pack before several cars wrecked in front of her. She tried to duck low to avoid the spinning cars but was unable to dodge everything, slamming into the outside wall.

Patrick regained control and drove to the pits. Her crew pushed the car back to the garage with heavy damage to the front.

“I wish I would have run up there at the beginning and felt more comfortable, but I just didn’t,” Patrick said. “And that just proves how hard it is out here, and how much there is to learn and how good all these drivers really are.”

She’s scheduled to run the next two Nationwide races, at California and Las Vegas.

“We’ll go to these other tracks where she’ll literally be driving the car, it’ll be handling good or bad,” Earnhardt said. “Then people can start forming their opinions on what kind of learning curve she has. But I feel pretty confident. She’s been in a tough situation with the media and the pressure and the attention, I couldn’t have done it.”

And if Earnhardt—NASCAR’s most popular and rock star-like driver—is balking at the attention Patrick received this week, it clearly was a big deal.

Patrick took center stage before the race, receiving warm applause during prerace driver introductions and attracting a swarm of fans with cell phone cameras around her car on pit road.

Michael Waltrip cut through the crowd to speak briefly with Patrick just before the race started, then posted a photo of the horde on his Twitter account.

“I could not believe all the attention,” Earnhardt said. “It’s just amazing. But it’s great for the sport. It’s good for our company. But I’m really pleased. I think she’s attacking this opportunity.”

_________________
"Tis The Season, Fa la la la la LaFontaine" - Rick Jeanneret

Amazing end to a stop and go race (damn potholes). Dale Jr showed he can still drive a car, going from 10th to 2nd on the last lap and running out of steam before he could get to Jamie McMurray, who won the race.

_________________
"Call a cop he robbed Delmore blind!!!"
Rick Jeanerette after Marty Biron's diving save back in 2000.

"I'm going to go to the spa and have a hot tub and massage and relax," Miller said. "That's it, and it's back to work tomorrow." Ryan Miller after clinching the North East division.

http://www.nascar.com/drivers/list/cup/dps/

A list of the drivers. for the sprint cup

http://www.nascar.com/races/cup/
the schedule for the sprint cup.

_________________
"Tis The Season, Fa la la la la LaFontaine" - Rick Jeanneret

Danica Experiment meets reality

FONTANA, Calif. – Midway through Round 2 of the Danica Patrick Stock Car Experiment, crew chief Tony Eury Jr. radioed to his driver that “it’s all a learning experience.”

Patrick was running around 35th at the time – two laps down to the leaders.

“You ain’t supposed to know it when you got here,” Eury said. “We just want you to know it when you leave.”

“If I can start running with people and keep up with the leaders, I’ll be happy,” she responded.

“We’ll get you there,” Eury said.

But after finishing 31st in Saturday’s Stater Bros. 300 at Auto Club Speedway – three laps behind race winner Kyle Busch – the question isn’t when Patrick will get “there” but if her patience will wear thin before she arrives.

Though Patrick’s wasn’t a stellar performance, it certainly was respectable. After dropping to the back of the field just two laps into Saturday’s race, she settled in and began picking off a handful of cars. By the end of the race, she had cut the lap-time differential between herself and the leader by three quarters – from around four seconds at the start of the race to around one by the time the checkered flag flew.

Despite the apparent improvement from Lap 1 to Lap 150, Patrick was anything but satisfied. After getting out of her car, she stormed to her hauler in the Nationwide garage, clearly agitated with her result.

“She doesn’t like finishing where she is,” Eury Jr. said outside Patrick’s hauler. “She feels like she should be better than she is right now, and I’m just trying to keep her pumped up and tell her it’s all right.

“It’s a tough sport. There’s a lot of competition over here, and there’s a lot of guys who came from the same series she did [who] tried to do it and some of them have been successful, some of them have not. But she’s going to make it; it’s just going to take time. She’s just got to be willing to sacrifice that time.”

After a 15-minute cool-down period, Patrick emerged from her hauler to give her take on the day.

“I’m a competitor and I’m used to running up front,” she said. “So it’s shocking when you’re that far back. But you know what? This is a whole new ball of wax for me, and it’s all different. And I have to disconnect from the results for quite some time, I think, because they’re probably not going to be what I’m used to.”

And so begins the waning portion of Danica-mania.

For the better part of two weeks, now, she has been the show. Saturday was no different, as after the race the vast majority of media in attendance at Auto Club Speedway stood outside her hauler waiting for her to speak. Meanwhile, a few hundred yards away Busch, the defending series champion, spoke to a mostly empty press room.

But as Part 1 of the Experiment comes to a close next week in Las Vegas – following that race she’ll return to her day job racing in the IndyCar Series, taking a four-month sabbatical from NASCAR – it’s becoming clear that the intensity of attention on Patrick will not last, not as long as she’s using what amounts to a Triple-A series as her personal training school.

Keen interest in anyone running at the back of the pack normally is reserved for family, friends and Junior Nation – the latter only because Dale Earnhardt Jr. isn’t supposed to be there, and abnormality combined with popularity always is a story worth following.

Patrick has the popularity thing on her side, but she doesn’t have the abnormality, because running in the 30s is about what’s expected from her in the early going of her stock car experiment.

What would be abnormal is her running in the top 15 and providing a glimmer of hope to those who want to see a female win a NASCAR race for the first time.

Between now and then – assuming then comes – she still will produce spikes in the TV ratings and ticket sales. But as everyone waits for the Danica Patrick Stock Car Experiment to mature into something more than just an experiment, the spikes will start spiking less and the attention will die down.

Patrick may enjoy this part – the softer spotlight. She just might not like why it’s not as bright anymore.

_________________
"Tis The Season, Fa la la la la LaFontaine" - Rick Jeanneret

Harvick pulls out victory at Vegas
EmailPrintComments
3

Associated Press
LAS VEGAS -- Kevin Harvick overcame a pair of horrendous pit stops to win the Nationwide Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Harvick led 83 of the 200 laps Saturday, but had to rally back into the lead after his crew cost him several spots on pit road.

Denny Hamlin was second, followed by Carl Edwards, Brad Keselowski and Brian Vickers.

Danica Patrick wrecked about halfway through the race when she ran into the lapped car of Michael McDowell. She had just pitted and was on fresh tires, and McDowell says he misjudged her closing rate.

She finished 36th in her last race before a four-month hiatus to return to the IndyCar Series.


Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press

_________________
"Tis The Season, Fa la la la la LaFontaine" - Rick Jeanneret