Biggest story from Daytona: DW's suit jacket

It's amazing. It looks as if he borrowed it from Andre 3000.

Anyone able to take a picture and post it?

In reply to Will:

It draws attention away from his awful hair and growing forehead.

For some reason, I have missed his suite. I am however thinking that they will need a rule change. With all the hard racing that winning a segment is creating. I think that the drivers are going to need to be allowed to bring out one backup car. The way things are going and with them not being able to bring a car back on track once it goes to the pits. We may run out of cars. I think more than half the field will be out by the time it is over.

This is turning into a craptacular race. The Crashtona 500

I gave up and I'm watching the end of Hunt for Red October now. I'll catch the end of the race on pvr...

I'm glad the movie ended in time to watch the last 20. Thrill of victory, agony of defeat and so on.

The last 20 laps were very good.

I don't know if the stages had a lot to do with all the wrecks, as the restrictor plates did. A lot of the accidents happened with plenty of laps left in the stages. IMO, it's the nature of the beast at Daytona and Talladega. I'm a NASCAR fan, but man do I hate those two tracks. To me, that's not racing, it's just asking for trouble. Take the damn plates off of them, dirty the heck out of their aerodynamics, put them on really hard tires and let them race.

I was thinking just have them run 3.5l v8's with a 9k redline at these races. Or would that be the same as a restrictor plate?

In reply to dean1484:

They've tested smaller engines years ago but the plates were more effective at slowing them down. I don't think the plates are as much to blame as the cars all running about the same speed. Even if the slowed them down another 20 mph they are so even and reliable that there would still be large packs waiting for someone to screw up. It used to not be a problem because after 100 miles half the field had dropped out or fallen off the pace.

How did you like kyle throwing his crew under the bus? What a dick.

There were definately wrecks at the end of each stage for the trucks and xfinity cars. But no restrictor plates. Not sure what that says. But I liked the stages actually. Closed the field up and reduced the chance of a parade.

bearmtnmartin wrote: How did you like kyle throwing his crew under the bus? What a dick.

I heard him throw Goodyear under the bus, but not his crew. What did he say?

Something about Goodyear tires not holding air,

Ya I missed that. He stuck it to Goodyear in a big way.

i really, really hate the new rules... part of the fun of watching the races was seeing the crews thrash in the pits and in the garage to piece it back together well enough to get back up to speed and maybe gain a position or two. that whole 5 minute timer thing is just dumb. i'm sure some big dollar sponsors will have a few things to say when the car with their logo is out of the race after a minor thing that could be fixed in 10 minutes instead of out on the track getting on tv from time to time...

regarding the racing itself: i thought it was pretty good, but i also like the plate tracks due to the 200mph chess game aspect of it all. but the idea of the segments is just about the dumbest idea they've had since they started the chase. they say they did it to give more people a shot at winning and create a sense of urgency due to points being awarded, but cautions tend to even out everyone's shot at winning by grouping everyone together and they could create the same urgency for points by just awarding points to whoever is leading on a certain lap, perhaps have a lap number drawn out of a hat at the beginning of the race to make it different from race to race.

they say everyone loves the new format- but they will fine any driver or team member that says anything bad about it, and Carl Edwards didn't just decide to quit for no reason a couple of months ago.

I didn't hear Kyle Busch throw his team under the bus, just Goodyear. Given his tendency to shoot his mouth off, my reaction is complete shoulder shrug. It's not possible that maybe he ran over debris, or maybe...just maybe...he lost control of the car on his own. He's a great driver, but still needs to mature.

I'm OK with the concept of the 5 minute clock. I don't really see the purpose of thrashing on a car so it can go back on the track looking like a dirt modified car and limp around the bottom of the track. With the new points format, it's kind of pointless now anyway.

I actually don't have any problem with making "stages" per se, I can go with it. What I don't like is throwing the caution at the end of each one. Why not just award a bonus point at the end of lap xx, lap xxx and then at the end and let the race keep going? Maybe make it a lottery drawing as to what lap it is, so nobody knows what lap the point(s) will be given...everyone should then be trying to be in the lead all the time.

Still no pics of Waltrip's jacket.

so IF they remove restrictors, that alone will bust up the packs. The 500 mile race is an Endurance race, making segments is Stupid. I think Nascar is going to give everbody a trophy Like Little League Basball for Participating not winning.if they want to have a Day of Short Races, so be it, but that was NOT a 500 mile RACE. 1 WINNER 40 Losers. your right about DW's suit, He does have some nice clothes, Musta lost his Bags at the Airport (doubt he flew Commercial though)

I thought brother Kurt Busch was the one that needed to mature and Kyle was the one that had his E36 M3 together? Did they switch? Wasn't Kurt the one busted for DWI once and driving that Lexus super car "over the speed limit" another time?

In reply to GTXVette:

I don't think removing the plates is going to fix anything. It will be the same pack just faster. The cars are far too even and durable now.

I think the five minute clock is about the dumbest thing I've seen in a while. First more than one championship has been decided because someone pieced a car back together and picked up spots early in the season but also because sitting on pit road working on a car is far more dangerous than working behind the wall. It doesn't look bad at Daytona because pit road is wide open but trying to repair something serious at a teach like Bristol or Martinsville is asking for trouble. I've been hit by a car before while trying to hack off a fender and it stings quite a bit.

Since the segments ended in a pit stop, other than the points thing, I didn't see it doing much to change the race. JJ crashed out of every race he entered during Speed Week ? It was good to see some of the newer guys finish well. Crazy finish for sure.

Zooming probably too far out to The Big Picture and making wild leaps regarding NASCAR and F1's contortions... Seems like there is simply less interest in auto racing in the progressing demographics, and these entities are large enough to be much more concerned with how to try to cater to eyeballs, any eyeballs with lucrative demographics, than with anything like whether it makes sense to folks steeped in interest in auto racing.

I file this whole segment thing with DRS and Bernie's thankfully-averted random sprinklers or text-to-pass.

OTOH, if anyone wants to bankroll me, I think there's money in Real Life Mario Kart...

In reply to Ransom:

Hey, man, credit where its due. I came up with the F1 sprinkler idea way before Bernie.

Still think its good

I'm old school and didn't like 'stages' from the git, sounded just like another NASCAR gimmick. Missed the weekend race(s) but caught pre-race shows w/ driver and media commentary of how stages would be good for drivers/ teams. Dallenbach had a reasonable explanation so OK I'll listen.

So, a driver leads laps from a third to two thirds of the race gets taken out in 'the big one' through no means of his own and gets nothing. Used to be called 'that's racin' son. Exactly what happened to Sadler in the XFINITY race but now he at least gets some kind of credit for those front running positions. Might sound good from the driver/ team standpoint for at least some kind of return for all that work.

Need to see how this pans out down the road to be totally fair but it still feels too gimmicky, not against it as I was but call me indifferent at this point... er, stage.

My gut keeps sayin' tho this is just another 'rewards program' like we all been conditioned to.