ZuDfunck

It's Onto Martinsville, and Let's Wreck There

The splendor of Martinsville begins today with Qualifying at 330 EDT, Nationwide is off but the Truck race will take its place on FOX Saturday at 3 EDT, and the dodge ‘emcar masterpiece will be Sunday at 130 EDT.  Haven’t had time to check the weather but here’s hoping we get a solid weekend of clear weather for a change.

As in previous post we will be pulling for a grand Blue victory for the NAPA/MWR team as it transforms from the Dale Jarret era to the new guy pictured on the right. As well as the UCLA Bruins march into Final Four Madness.

As to the new guy Michael McDowell, part of his prep included:

McDowell's immediate mission is making the most out of nearly $3,000 spent creating a "poor man's" computer simulator, with a steering wheel, pedals and chair. The Phoenix native and one-time driving school instructor is encouraged by how the programs have carried over to testing and can't wait to convert 750 virtual laps at Martinsville into the real thing. Source

Big Blue Weekend: Waltrip and Love

Blue will be the color but hopefully not the tone as Kevin Love faces off in NCAA Sweet Sixteen and Michael Waltrip avoids the walls of Martinsville.
Turns out Kevin's uncle is Mike Love of the Beach Boys and of course everyone knows Mikie's brother.
So the Blue of the Bruins and the Blue of NAPA will be the colors to wear and root for this fabulous weekend! 'Wouldn't it be Nice'

Major League Baseball as Nuts as NASCAR?

Just when you thought NASCAR would have no competition for craziness, case in point California when they sent race cars out on wet pavement and crashed a few cars in February. MLB decides to open their season in Japan at 6 AM eastern time! And then DirecTV has technical difficulties:

Not everybody could see the Red Sox-Athletics baseball opener in Tokyo on Tuesday. Satellite TV provider DirecTV, in about 16.8 million households, said in a statement it had "temporary technical difficulties" during the game with "some channels" — including game coverage on ESPN2 and Red Sox regional carrier NESN. They'll try again Wednesday at 6 a.m. ET

Wonder if it was a Fox broadcast would this have happened? (Fox owns DirecTV)
But I am just cranky because I am going through withdrawal from The Sprint Cup series having had their annual Easter break. All will be forgiven shortly as NASCAR comes to Martinsville this coming Weekend!
A Good Ol' short track race will heal all wounds.

There's A Rotten Egg In ZuD's Easter Basket

Lord only knows what will be on Fox this Sunday at mid afternoon.

It certainly won’t be cars zooming 'round an oval in all their splendor and majesty.

Maybe because they don’t want to be going against March Madness or they are all busy find Easter eggs but one things clear, NASCAR Sprint Cup will be silent!

And like the rotten eggs that no doubt will be prevalent on that day so will sad fans everywhere miss the best sport going these days.

Now some may say the Lords rising out of a cave trumps stock car racing but I am selfish and narrow focused on what I want when I want it.

So I would suggest Speed Channel unwrap one of their highlight packages or rerun some great race of recent time and give us NASCAR junkies something to watch besides the twenty seventh running of The Ten Commandments.

I suppose I could record the Nationwide race and not watch it until Sunday but no doubt I would learn the winner by Sunday AM and have that spoiled so I am opening this post up to you to see what you will be doing this Sunday to placate your addiction.

Send me an email or put it in a comment and we will at least have hope. In lieu of that Happy Spring and have a lovely first day of March Madness!

Let's Get Tony Stewart A Wax Job

Here is a good cause and a challenge to Tony Stewart from Kevin Harvick During the Daytona 500 pre-race show, Tony Stewart held up a photograph of Ronald McDonald that had been altered so it appeared that Kevin Harvick was wearing Ronald's suit. Now, those of you who are familiar with Kevin know that he does not let a practical joke go unanswered. So here is Kevin's retort: Kevin's new colors may indeed be similar to those of Ronald McDonald, but have you seen Tony Stewart's chest and back? Because Tony is such a great guy, he has offered up a solution to his follicle issues. Tony said on his SIRIUS satellite radio show, Tony Stewart Live, that if someone would raise $100,000 for charity, he would wax his chest and back. Who are we to pass up an offer like that? Call it "revenge for the Ronald McDonald photo," call it a great opportunity to raise money for Victory Junction Gang Camp or just call it plain funny. (Think Tony will scream like a girl when they rip all that hair out?) When Smoke caught wind of Kevin's challenge, he issued a counter-challenge: If Kevin and his fans collect the $100,000...Tony will match it for the opportunity to shave Kevin's head bald with a razor. Kevin is game...so let's do it!! Visit Happy's eSHOP and make your donation. You can donate in increments of $1.00, $5.00, $10.00, $25.00, $50.00, $100.00, $500.00, $1000.00 and $5000.00. Every penny collected in "Operation: Wax Smoke" will be donated to Victory Junction Gang Camp. We will be accepting donations until we reach our goal.

Cancer Won't Get This NASCAR Blogger Down

Every so often life comes and kicks ya when your down. But it is the strong that overcome such injustices and rise above. ZuD found such a person in the NASCAR blogging community:

I have a big Daytona 500 Party every year. If the Oncologist pushes Monday morning for chemotherapy I will put him off. Nothing needs to or will happen until after that race. In the past I have had friends fly in from the Florida Keys, Central Florida and Texas, just for this party.Cancer does not get my party this year and I’m hoping, not any year after that.
I’m choosing my friends, family and love of racing over cancer. It’s a disease. It is not who I am.

Indications are she is doing OK and was able to have her party prior to dealing with her Cancer. I cite this person as a testament to the courage life demands of us and how gracefully women deal with crisis.

Random Thoughts on Bristol Race

Darrel Waltrip should of taken the day off, hard to listen to that voice when it got toward the end

Hard to balance the Men’s NCAA Basketball Tourney coverage, NBA on ABC and finally getting two DVD’s I had been hankering for:
No Country for Old Men & American Gangster

So we really didn’t see much of the Bristol Race
I did see Harvick take out Tony wish I had Sirius Radio so I could hear Kevin talk to Tony about it tonight.

We did however get some twelve new Followers to ZuD’s twitter account and although I know little or nothing about twitter I did find an iPhone application called PocketTweets that consolidates most transactions.

NASCAR Fans Get on Twitter

Lets meet on Twitter! The video below explains the concept and how easy it is to Join. Yeah it's free so what's stopping you from joining this year old phenomena. And if your on it already or soon to join add ol' ZuD to your follow list and I shall do the same.

I am trying to get fellow NASCAR fans on it cause right now there are mostly just Techies and Geeks.
Let's get the NASCAR nation Twittering!

Tony Stewart Still Smokin' Over Tires

In a Martinsville press gathering Tony Stewart is still going on 'bout the tires used at Atlanta:

"You finally get to the point where, if you get frustrated enough, now it's gone from doing things in a nice, calm manner to I want to make sure I get somebody's attention about this," Stewart said Wednesday. He had called the tires "the most pathetic racing tire I've ever been on in my professional career."

"Guys are screaming at their crew chiefs that it was the worst car they've ever driven. Well, it wasn't the crew chief's fault. It wasn't the team's fault. These guys spend millions of dollars to build these cars. It was the tire we were running and tires should never, ever be the deciding factor in a race."

"For them to say that they were satisfied with the race, that's insane," Stewart said. "If they really firmly believe that, if they believe what they put out in their press statement that they were happy with the result, that scares me to death."

Source

Kobalt Tools 500 was Kobalt Tools 1000, The Reason, Tires

Not only did Toyota win their first race the race Sucked! To use a racing term.
The reason is simple read these quotes via USAToday:

Tony Stewart

"I'm going home and taking everything that has Goodyears off and put Firestones on and feel a lot safer," Stewart said. "It's a shame these teams that work so hard are being dictated by a company incapable of building tires fit for a street car."

"If they can't do any better than that, they ought to just pull out," he said. "I guarantee Hoosier or Firestone or somebody could do a lot better job."

Dale Earnhardt Jr

"I ain't going to put up with this," Earnhardt said. "I don't think any other drivers (are). ... We couldn't run side-by-side. We'd wreck. We had to let each other go by. Every time you got beside a guy, you were just like, 'Take it.' I couldn't go in the corner side by side. No one else out there really could, either."

Source: Nate Ryan USAToday