
Members of the the state Fair look to have started their own LLC group that will take over racing events and promotions for the Mile, and they are making this switch as immediately as they can. The most important things to note form this is the motivation and positive outlook:
"The board felt the time had arrived to take decisive action to ensure there is racing at The Mile this summer."
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"Napier said Thursday that he was very close to a new agreement with the fair that will keep racing going at the historic racetrack. Napier added that this year's slate of races at the track, including IndyCar and NASCAR, will be held as scheduled. Napier said he was also working to add more events at the track."
Sounds like their goal #1 is to continue racing at this historic track; kudos all around to them!&
"Napier said Thursday that he was very close to a new agreement with the fair that will keep racing going at the historic racetrack. Napier added that this year's slate of races at the track, including IndyCar and NASCAR, will be held as scheduled. Napier said he was also working to add more events at the track."


For the Gold Coast however; it looks as though their confidence in their traditional date, the V8 Supercars and the new A1GP series may have been a little bit overconfidence as the Gold Coast news is reporting that most all of the sponsors of their annual racing event are pulling out.
Honda would expected to pull out as they were tied directly to IndyCar, but I don't imagine the Queensland organizers expected Coca-Cola, Nikon, BP and a few more to pull out. Now obviously they are still hopeful of finding new sponsors, and they've taken the "Indy" part out of their race weekend, but that is changing 19 years of history in a name, doable sure, easy, no. One has to wonder if that is affecting it somewhat. One also has to wonder if the Gold Coast would be willing to change their date should things with A1GP not go so well; but that is still 9 months away so lets not jump the gun and instead be hopeful this event works out for all the Gold Coast, A1GP and ICS in the long run.

Now to Fox's credit, they technically didn't employ the writer for the article: "NASCAR Technology Makes Passenger Cars Safer" but they did publish it; and you think anyone who claims to be "Fair, Balanced" would be at least smart enough to make sure the "facts" in an article were actually true. I'm not going to quote the whole article but all you really need to know is the following sentence couldn't be further from the truth:
"The NASCAR R&D Center developed the Steel and Foam Energy Reduction (SAFER) barrier to dissipate the energy of a crash away from the car and driver. "
I'm not a huge NASCAR fan, but I do enjoy the racing from time to time, I'm certainly not a NASCAR basher... that said: It is one thing to publish the wildly stupid opinions and theories NASCAR's president has... It is a whole other realm to discredit the very hard work of the scientists, researchers, and real funders of the invention and development of the SAFER barrier. NASCAR's announcers have done this time and again, and now Fox News joins in. The article also decides to list paddle shifting sequential gearboxes; a technology that NASCAR has never even attempted...
I guess my only response at this point is my face in my palm shaking my head. If you feel this way to, feel free to email fox news or the author's email at the bottom of the article and let them know they are idiots.
2 comments:
To Fox News's credit, the article has been largely changed since it was first posted. Now it's just a list of vaguely racing-related "technologies" that are found in some road cars. The semi-automatic transmission thing was changed to say "F1" instead of "NASCAR" and the SAFER thing was changed to acknowledge U of Nebraska/IRL.
Anyway you slice it, that guy's an idiot. Push button starters? Almost every race car ever built that had an on-board starter has one of those. And yes, let's pat NASCAR on the back for incorporating a few carbon pieces on the CoT, when that stuff came into F1 in 1981 and was widely in use in IndyCar by 1988. I'm surprised that they guy didn't try to say something about NASCAR's committment to direct fuel injection and turbochargers.
hehe yeah, when their inbox was likely flooded with complaints and most likely a direct call from SAFER reps, they changed some bits of text here and there. They still claim SAFER began because of the Earnhardt crash; which is still very wrong.
My favorite, notice the title of the article doesn't change...
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