Monday, August 25, 2008

If you didn't like IndyCar's move to Versus before...

You most surely do after yesterday's "coverage" during which we learned the following:

-a pre-taped episode of E:60 (a profile of Reggie Love) then afternoon Sportscenter & Baseball Tonight are way more important than coverage of a live event. I can understand being moved for the overtime in the LPGA event, but why take us to Classic when ESPN had nothing on to begin with?

-I travel a lot and can see the beauty in a lot of things but I think its a bit much of a stretch to constantly call that dry, brown dirt-barren part of California picturesque

- Stay tuned next week, they have NASCAR races!

-the 11 time gold glove shortstop playing for the Giants right now who hung out with E.J. Viso this week is Omar Vezquez?... surely not Omar Vizquel... I mean the dudes only got 7 gold gloves and is possibly one of the best defensive shortstops in the games history, its not like anyone will know if we mess his name up.

- Oh yeah in case we forgot, don't miss the NASCAR races

-For watching Nashville get the axe and Homestead being put on its last chance, Sonoma sure looked like it had upwards of 500 fans... of which maybe 100 were left by the time Helio won and went up into the stands to celebrate with them... which is my new favorite celebration of all time.

-I wonder if NASCAR commentators compare all the things that happen in their races to IndyCar... you know mentioning Indy's tracks layouts, similar racing incidents... oh yeah don't forget there are NASCAR races next week! (Seriously, I gave him as much shot as I could, but Marty Reid needs to go, I really hope he's not around for the 5 races ABC/ESPN gets next season)

- Can someone who DVR'd the race do me a favor, get a stop watch and add up these 2 times, commercials/side-by-side, and then live coverage, because I'm pretty sure we got a lot more commercials than any race coverage yesterday. MY FAVORITE MOMENT OF THE RACE: With 6 laps to go we come back from commercial and I swear to you all we got was 10-20 seconds so Marty Reid could say "Helio is still in the lead and is trying to win the race, we'll be back after this"

-NASCAR has a race next week!!!!!!!

and my personal favorite two moments of the race....

1) There's nothing better than watching Brienne Pedigo be put on the spot when she clearly was not ready
so she could tell us someone was and this is a rough quote "yes he's coming in for fuel and tires, and now he's in, they are fueling and changing tires, and he's away"

2) In case you didn't know Helio is from Portugal, and the Portuguese flag is green with a yellow diamond and blue circle.. a lot like the Brazilian flag...

Friday, August 8, 2008

so the world turns without you...

Sorry about the lack of updates during what is seemingly one of the businest new periods of the season for IndyCar and of course Brett Farve-gate in the NFL...but to make a long story short. We were scheduled to close on the sale of our house Tuesday and be moved to Virginia by yesterday...

In short, the closing has been moved time and again and I've spent the last 4 days in an empty house with no internet, video games, books, and have now finally gotten myself over to the local coffeeshop only to find the TK news storm and the end of the Versus deal details flooding my inbox and news feeds... Since it's a little late to really put in a new update I'll just say this...

1) I wonder how many people will stop either talking to Robin Miller, OR how many stories Miller may stop reporting as people continuously get spooked when he does his job and reports news. I honestly believe Miller reported the truth, and AGR saw the leak and offered the farm to TK to keep him, and also that possible TK used Miller and Ganassi to get that done. AGR saying they wanted to finish up the deal to stop rumors doesn't make sense, if TK was never leaving then AGR has no reason to panic at rumors... I honestly think Ganassi has TK locked in his miond and got scrwwed by TK's tactics or TK getting spooked.

2) I LIKE the Versus deal. Yes I realize Versus doesn't have the immediate recognition ESPN has but, neither did NASCAR and Fox at one point. NASCAR didn't become what it is by only shooting for ESPN and ABC, they went with networks that worked with them and built their product to what it is, and the same goes for just about any other product. This isn't SpikeTV, this is a network run by Comcast, someone with a huge play in this market and someone who has the NHL and a two major (Pac-10/MWC) college football conferences. Clearly the writing is on the wall here, Versus is trying to take a real shot at the sports world and growing itself. They are putting a full effort into IndyCar and that is something we surely have not seen from ABC/ESPN in at least possibly 10 years.

Lastly... I call upon all fans and bloggers out there to make a change. Refer to the sport you love as IndyCars. We are no split anymore and there is no reason to refer to the sport as open-wheel racing just as you don't refer to NASCAR as stock car racing. Not only does it get more recognition immediately but it makes more sense as we've called the cars IndyCars since the sweepstakes became known as the Indy 500.