News-Record.com

Indulge me for a minute.

I like cycling. I love the Tour de France, which starts tomorrow.

Why should you care? Let me see if I can break it down into NASCAR terms.

It's France's version of Speed Weeks, except that the whole race adds up to one Daytona 500.

I'll post some on the Tour in July. Yeah, I know you're expecting all-NASCAR-most-of-the-time around here. But it's July, and I'm much more amped about the Tour than I am about Chicagoland or a return trip to Pocono (zzzzzz ...)

If you want to follow along at home, here's some online help:

The official site
Your one-stop source for all things related to cycling.
Lance Armstrong's personal and team sites

Yes, I think Armstrong can win Lucky No. 7. I thought he could win No. 6 last year, and that was arguably ... no, not arguably, actually ... his best Tour of the six he's won.

Anyone think differently? Does anyone care?

Tonight's race at Daytona marks the start of the second half of the NASCAR season.

Any predictions? Other than that Jeff Gordon will win tonight and that NBC's coverage will be better than Fox's. Those are too easy.

Diecast Dude apparently stayed up late to watch all of the Pepsi Parade, which ended shortly before sunrise. It apparently affected his mood, which is somewhere between surly and cranky.

The Scotsman liked winner Tony Stewart's post-race impersonation of Helio Castroneves. (Said Stewart: "I'm too damn fat to be climbing fences.")

Me? I dozed off right before the green flag (sue me -- it was late and I was tired) and woke up with 17 laps left. I didn't need to have seen the previous 150-some laps to know that Stewart pretty much was having his way with the rest of the field. I'm glad as heck to see someone who's not carrying the Roush or Hendrick flags is making his way to Victory Lane for a change.

Cast your eyes right for some more updates to the links, specifically to the racin' blogs.

The new additions are heavy on Dale Earnhardt Jr. Sue me -- it's my site. ;)

And thanks to the new regulars for ferreting out some of these sites. I just followed some of your links to find these folks. This Internet thing is pretty easy, no?

If you know of any other racin' bloggers I (and you) should be checking regularly, holler at me in the comments or by e-mail.

Lance Armstrong is back in the yellow jersey. (Read about it here and here; there's a handy little online guidehere if you like Flash animation.)

That Armstrong has the yellow isn't a surprise. Discovery didn't ride the team time trial as well as it wanted, but it was good enough to give Armstrong the lead. (It didn't hurt Lance that David Zabriske, the American rider for a Danish team who had led the first three stages, crashed late in the stage.)

Here's the real stunning fact: The Discovery team set a team time trial record by averaging 35.5 mph. (It took 'em about 1 hour 10 mins to go 42 miles.)

Anyone who wants to break out the old "They're only riding a bike" meme can just shut it now. Anyone think they can keep up 35 mph for just a mile on a bike? C'mon, I dare you. Trust me: It's not easy.

A couple of things going on here: I'm dealing with managerial kind of stuff (I am the assistant sports editor of a certain local daily newspaper, and they don't pay me just to blog), and I'm not yet fired up about Sunday's race in Chicagoland. (Which begs the question: Will the newest proposed Cup tracks be called Newyorkland or Seattleland? Just wondering.)

So what's on your mind? Sound off in the comments. Give me some ideas of what you want to read about. Or just piss and moan about NASCAR.

Other options: Visit some of the links to the right, check out Matt's bulletin board (Matt reports it's getting busy all of a sudden) or check out Ed Hinton's pre-Pepsi 400 opus on Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his struggles. You'll have to register, but it's worth your time.

You are reading Ed Hinton regularly, right?

Richard Petty is listed on this site.

It's akin to listing Lance Armstrong under "Famous NASCAR Drivers."

Jamie McMurray will be in the No. 6 car in 2007.
Ricky Craven will get a one-year deal in the No. 6 next year.

It's all sources-said reporting, my least favorite kind of journalism. And consider the source, which is why I'm not doing cartwheels. (That, and I can't do cartwheels any more.)

But if it's true, it's a good thing all the way around. I'd love to see Ricky Craven back in Cup with a much-better-than-average set of wheels underneath him. And McMurray will be getting a huge career break.

This Associated Press picture shows the aftermath of a suspected tornado spawned by tropical storm Cindy that ripped through Atlanta's suburbs today. Best I can tell, that's the condos and corporate offices in the front stretch, near the start-finish line.

nascar.com has a little more. The Atlanta paper has more complete coverage, including a damage assessment:

If you checked by in the past few minutes and you think the picture in the post below keeps changing size ...

You're right.

It's not your computer. Movable Type doesn't seem to like how MS Photo Editor sizes things. That, and I'm muddling my way through some of the tech parts of posting.

This blogging stuff just looks easy.

One thing I can do is link, so I'll point you to the Atlanta paper, which has a whole slide show on the track damage at Atlanta.

I'm not good at remembering dates. Sure, I've got my family's birthdays and my wedding anniversary nailed down. But anything else -- Elvis' birthday, Dale Earnhardt's death, things like that -- forget about it.

So I'm glad other people can keep stuff straight. Today is the fifth anniversary of Kenny Irwin's death, and Diecast Dude, the Scotsman and Flash of Genius pay tribute.

I don't have any strong memories or Irwin, but I can offer up a couple of stories Dustin Long wrote back in 2000. They're posted after the jump ...

Dustin Long checks in from Chicagoland:

Tony Stewart, the defending race winner at Chicago and winner of the last 2 Cup races, has been transported to a local hospital for precautionary x-rays after an accident earlier in practice.

Stewart's car appeared to drift up the track in turn 4, slam the wall with the right side and coast across the track, stopping in the infield grass. He appeared wobbly when he was helped from the car by rescuse workers. Unofficial word is a possible shoulder injury. The car didn't look that beat up from the TV camera view, so it was a bit surprising to see him groggy after exiting the car.

Don't get the sense this is serious enough to keep him out of the car on Sunday.

That's all I know at this point. I'll try to update this when I hear more.

Update, 2:10 p.m.:
NASCAR.com reports that Stewart is awake and alert and that JGR is rolling out his backup car. The car he wrecked is the one he drove at Michigan, where he finished second.

The AP (not linked) added this: A year ago, Stewart also crashed in Friday's practice. He was not injured and wound up qualifying his backup car 10th.

He also went on to win. Maybe history's repeating itself? I hope he's not badly hurt.

7:10 p.m. update: J.J. Yeley subbed for Stewart in qualifying and put the car in the 13th spot. Assuming Stewart races Sunday -- and AP reports that he was back at the track this afternoon -- he'll start from the back.

Good news, eh? The part about Stewart not being injured, I mean. Starting 43rd won't be fun.

Saturday update: Dustin Long's report is here.

I stepped outside for a moment and saw a white truck with a red Dale Jr. No. 8 license plate heading the wrong way on the one-way street in front of the building.

Y'all have heard about the McMurray-to-Roush-in-2007 deal that's been kicking around. As Dustin Long reports today (third item), McMurray's current boss, Chip Ganassi, has until September to decide if he wants to exercise his one-year option on the No. 42 driver.

In other words, there's a chance McMurray will be driving Mark Martin's current ride in 2006. If Ganassi wants to keep McMurray around -- and I can see that being a very long season for everyone at Ganassi if that happens -- Roush is considering three guys for the No. 6: Sterling Marlin, Ricky Craven and Jon Wood. Intriguing.

A couple of drivers will be staying put in 2006: Joe Nemecheck re-upped with MB2, and Carl Edwards will stick with Roush. Not that anyone thought Edwards is going anywhere -- the news is that he has a single primary sponsor, Office Depot. I fully expect Office Depot's 2006 ad campaign to feature a lot of backflipping employees.

12:45 p.m. update: thatsracin.com has a couple of more tidbits:

* Scott Riggs is losing his sponsor (Valvoline) and his car number (10) to Evernham next year. But he's got an extension from current team MB2 on the table. He's mulling.

* Casey Mears is in limbo. Ganassi hasn't yet let him know if they'll exercise his option for 2006.

Man, this is getting silly, isn't it?

Sunday update: I corrected the Scott Riggs entry to reflect that Valvoline (for sure) and the No. 10 (maybe) is going to Evernham instead of Roush. Valvoline was on Mark Martin's No. 6 way back when, which is probably how I screwed that up.

Juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuunior!!!!

Man, it's been a long time since that No. 8 car made it to victory lane, so I'd been storing that up for a while.

All day, as Junior was creeping up toward the front, I kept thinking, "Okay, how's Junior going to screw this one up?" And the next thing I know, he's rolling around Scott Wimmer (!) and holding off everyone else to win the thing.

Expect a few days or so of maybe-Junior-will-make-the-Chase-after-all stories and commentary. I'm not convinced yet he can do it, but yesterday's race at Chicagoland proved to me (and y'all, too, I hope) that Junior's not dead yet.

Other thoughts:

* Speaking of rising from the dead, it was great to see Matt Kenseth running up front and finishing second. In a fair world, Kenseth would have won Sunday. But this is NASCAR, which doesn't care if you have the best car.

* Now that Junior finally won one, it's time to start talking about Jeff Gordon's struggles. If you're counting at home, Sunday's finish of 33rd marked the sixth time in eight races that Gordon has finished outside the top 30. For any other driver, that sort of streak would be terrible. For Jeff Gordon, there's not a word in the English language to describe how bad that really is.

* Maybe we can stop talking about this whole Roush-Hendrick dominance thing for a while. Sunday's finishing order (by owner) was DEI, Roush, Hendrick, Hendrick, Gibbs, Evernham, Wood Bros. (!), Roush, Ganassi and Roush. Sure, they have five of the top 10 spots, but the presence of five other teams in the top 10 tell me that everyone else is starting to inch closer.

* Turning to cycling, don't make too much of the fact that Lance Armstrong gave up the yellow jersey yesterday. The weird thing about the Tour is that Armstrong didn't really want to lead the race this past week because of the toll it takes on him and his team. The Tour is off today, but expect things to shake out Tuesday and Wednesday.

I'll post more on Dale Jr. and Lance Armstrong later, but I need to spend some time figuring out the new look of the News & Record's Web site. Yes, I know the new banner is Dale Earnhardt Jr. red. No, I didn't pick it. Yes, I hate it.

Any more questions? Y'all go to work in the comments.

Dustin Long reports today (not posted) that the 2006 driver of the No. 6 Ford might be ... Mark Martin.

Mark Martin ... Mark Martin ... the name's familiar ... oh, yeah! The guy driving the car now.

As you know, Jamie McMurray has signed to drive the No. 6 in 2007, but Jack Roush won't buy out his 2006 contract with Ganassi. That leaves Roush with no one to drive the No. 6. The guys rolling around in the rumor mill -- Sterling Marlin, Ricky Craven and Jon Wood -- aren't exactly thrilling (though I've said before that I'd love to see Craven back in the Cup series.) And I'm sure Roush doesn't like the idea of having what amounts to a temp driving one of the best rides in the sport.

So when Dustin was wandering around the garage before yesterday's race, he happened about Roush racing president Geoff Smith, who was talking to a couple of other scribes about the possibility of having Martin postpone his retirement for another year.

Martin's reaction, according to Smith: "I will say that in my years with Mark, he's never quite called me the names that he called me when I made the suggestion (to stay another year)."

No wonder they call this Silly Season.

2:15 p.m. update: The Mark Martin story is posted here. We're still working out the kinks in the new Web site, and for some reason this story didn't make it online this morning.

If anyone was wondering whether Lance Armstrong could win his seventh straight Tour de France, stop it now.

Just stop it. Armstrong dominated today's Stage 10 and reclaimed his, er, the yellow jersey.

If you can watch tonight's tape on OLN, do. (It's from 8-11 p.m.) It's vintage Armstrong -- he lets his teammates set a fast pace to drop all but the strongest, then Lance sets out and drops the remaining riders one by one.

Armstrong finished second today -- he let the one guy who could hang with him get today's stage win. But his main rivals couldn't keep up.

If you're desk bound and want to get a flavor of what happened, go here and start clicking. The good stuff is around page 10 or so.

4:30 p.m. update: msnbc.com has a nice take on today's stage here: "The blue-and-whites (drove) a relentless pace that shed riders like confetti off a parade float. And that's bad news for Lance's competition."

When Fox turned over coverage duties to NBC at the Daytona race, a lot of folks seemed pleased because, well, they were burned out on DW and Larry Mac and Mike Joy and were looking forward to a change.

Over in this old thread, some late commenters sound off on NBC's coverage: the prerace show stinks, and Bill Weber is a poor substitute for Allen Bestwick as the lead announcer. (Speaking of Bestwick, who did he tick off? According to this report yesterday, he's losing his "Inside Nextel Cup" gig on Speed to ultra-opinionated Dave Despain. That's a shame.)

So here's a homework assignment. Let's say you're the head person on ... let's call it the NASCAR Network. You've got to put together a booth team (a play-by-play person, a color announcer and an old (or soon-to-be-retired) driver to be the third wheel.

You also need a prerace show host and maybe an analyst as well. And don't forget the pit reporters and someone to host a mid-week "Inside Nextel Cup" type panel with three current drivers.

So who would you pick? Bonus points for anyone who can figure out where Jackie Stewart should go.

Take a look here and here.

The grill is pretty cool. The paint scheme? Eh.

What really bugs me is the name. Dodge has the Charger (great name), Chevy has the Monte Carlo (which stands for what exactly?) and Ford has the ... Fusion.

I can hear it now: "(fill-in-the-name-of-the-driver)'s Ford fused with the wall after cutting that tire on the backstretch."

That joke will be old by lap 100 of next year's Daytona 500.

With the boss away, I'm doing the work of two editors today, like I've been doing all week, which is why posting this week (and today) has been much lighter and fluffier than usual. (Insert your own joke here about how you didn't notice any difference.)

So what's on your mind?

* Can Jeff Gordon rebound from a truly Leffler-esque stretch of six outside-the-top-30 finishes in eight races?
* Can Dale Junior make it two in a row?
* Will New Hampshire have some good racing this weekend? (Over the past two years, it's been a faster version of Martinsville, which is a good thing.)
* Does the Kentucky Speedway have a case? And will the Cup Series ever race at that super-fine track in Nashville? (Jon over at Full Throttle has more.)
* And what the heck is a MartDawg anyway? It sounds like one of those hot dog-shaped meat byproducts spinning on the roller tray at the corner Stop 'n' Go.

Y'all talk. I have to figure out what's going to be in the Sports section for the next three days.

Michael Waltrip won't be back with DEI in 2006.

That story puts the capital S in Silly Season. This news just -- pardon my language -- sucks.

If you're keeping track at home, that's three wins in four races for Tony Stewart after his victory today at New Hampshire.

Pretty impressive. So, too, was his climb up the catchfence.

Even more impressive has been his climb up the points standings. He had fallen to 14th after finishing seven laps down at Phoenix in April. He flirted with the top 5 for a while, then dropped to 10th after Pocono.

After today, he's third and closing fast on Johnson (85 behind) and Biffle (eight behind).

Could this be the year Stewart takes his second Cup title? Considering who's Chase-eligible at this point, he'd be the clear fan favorite.

9:35 p.m. update: On second thought, he'd be my favorite. Mark Martin has a lot of fans, and it's hard to root against Dale Jarrett or Ryan Newman.

Monday morning update: Dustin Long has the whole story here, plus some more facts about Stewart's recent run:

In the past five races, Stewart has:
* Three wins, a second and a fifth.
* Led 50 percent of the 1,037 laps run.
* Scored 295 more points than series leader Jimmie Johnson.

Smokin' indeed.

Also, the Diecast Dude puts yesterday's race in verse as only he can.

News & Record racing writer Dustin Long is this week's guest on Pit Reporters.

If you want to catch it live, it's on WSJS-AM 600 at 7 p.m. tonight.

Or you can download the audio file here.

Not surprisingly, they lead off with Tony Stewart, whom Dustin wrote about for Tuesday's paper (and Monday's paper and for the past month, it seems.) Dustin's latest story on Stewart is here if you missed it.

This week, the Cup Series goes to Pocono. Next week they're off, then they go to Indy and Watkins Glen and ...

.... zzzzzzzzzz ....

Oh, wait, sorry, just dozed off.

Maybe it's the heat. (Yeah, I was born and raised in Richmond, Va., and have plenty of experience with Southern heat and humidity, but it still doesn't mean I like it.) Maybe it's the lack of interesting races. Maybe I'm tired of seeing Jimmie Johnson at the top of the points standings. Maybe I'm coming to terms with the fact that my next beach trip is 11 months away. Who knows?

At any rate, wake me before the Bristol race.

Anyone else have the NASCAR blahs? And is there anything we can do to inject some life into the next month?

Monday update: If you said the mystery driver was Morgan Shepherd, you'd be right. Here is Dustin's story, which as I said Friday is very nicely done.

* * *

The best thing Sunday in the racin' world won't be the Pocono 8,000. Far from it.

It'll be Dustin Long's story that's running on the front of the Sports section. (Cross your fingers that it'll be online, too.)

Here's the first part:

About 100 feet separates past from present on this breezy May evening.

Attentive crew members and camera-toting fans surround the young driver, NASCAR's favorite son, inside a lit garage bay.

The older driver, bent but unbroken, arrived late and found the garage full, so he toils on his race car outside, in near darkness.

[Older driver's name here] is trying to coax more speed from his stock car with gumption and a wrench. Nearby, [younger driver's name here] will go faster with the help of more than a dozen men and five laptop computers.

You ought to guess the younger driver without too much trouble. (No, Matt, it's not Kurt Busch.) The older driver? Y'all will have to read Sunday's story (or guess in comments below).

Seriously, though, don't miss Dustin's piece. It's probably the best pieces of racin' writin' you'll read this year.

(Full disclosure: Our friends in Norfolk, not me, did the heavy lifting on the editing.)

... have led any more laps Sunday at Pocono? Tony Stewart dominated the races he has won recently. Busch, meanwhile, led 131 of the 203 laps run Sunday. What's a better word that dominant?

If you're a fan of The Daily Show, one of the most consistently funny segments is the correspondent-in-the-field interview, who pokes serious fun at whomever they get on camera.

By now, folks ought to know that they're not going to get a fair shake on air, which is the point of the pieces. But as Jon Stewart once said, the reason people agree to come on (and I'm paraphrasing) is that they want to be on the teevee.

Evidently Brian Vickers (or his publicist -- I have no idea who to blame -- gave the green light to an interview. Last night, "The Daily Show" went to town on Vickers and his Fructis sponsorship. (A pic of the car is http://www.jayski.com/schemes/2005/25cup.htm; Fructis is a new shampoo for men made by a company called Garnier -- it's pronounced gar-nee-AY; say it like you're French.)

In last night's piece, Daily Show correspondent Samantha Bee asked Vickers (and I'm paraphrasing again) if he thought the Fructis deal would attract to NASCAR some NASCAR dads who weren't all that attracted to NASCAR moms.

Vickers looked blankly at the camera, paused for a few seconds, and said something to the effect of "I'm not really following you."

The deer-in-the-headlights look doesn't begin to describe Vickers' expression during the interview. Someone needed to watch "The Daily Show" beforehand and realize it wasn't "Inside NASCAR."

P.S. Yes, the segment was pretty darn funny. I'll link to the video if/when it's posted over at the Comedy Central site.

Update, 4:25 p.m.: The Vickers piece is here. My favorite exchange:

Samantha Bee: "Vickers, you're fruiting it all up, you and your strawberry-scented car!"

Vickers: Ah ... no, it's apple, actually.

When I was at the beach a few weeks back, I picked up a USA Today that week after Tony Stewart's win in Sonoma.

In the Sports section was a full-page ad that our ad reps probably drooled over: 20 for the 20, courtesy of The Home Depot, which was recognizing Stewart's 20th Cup win.

A few days after Stewart's win at New Hampshire, Home Depot's ad in the Charlotte paper jumped right off the page. There was a picture of Stewart with the phrase "Hey Tony, we've got ladders." And at the bottom was a 10 percent off coupon for ladders and fencing products.

I'm not mentioning the ad because I'm pimping for Home Depot. (Except for yard fertilizer, I buy everything home-related from Lowe's or Holliday Hardware on Spring Garden.)

I'm mentioning that because it's freakin' brilliant. Dale Jr. is by far the best pitchman in NASCAR, and Michael Waltrip is probably next. (Their Domino's campaign -- "I'm the king of NASCAR -- is pretty good, and the NAPA takeoff on the Home Shopping Network is pretty clever.) Gillette's Young Guns bit is okay, and the long-form commercial of Greg Biffle hauling moonshine, er, a hot Subway sandwich is pretty strong. And Dale Jarrett's UPS spots are consistently funny.

But most NASCAR advertising is wretched. (Ever see Junior in the Win Fuel spots? Yuck.) But Stewart's campaign stands out because it's unique.

Maybe some other NASCAR sponsors will follow suit?

NASCAR.com has more here.

Nothing is sacred at "The Daily Show." So go check out the video from Monday's show, when they had two segments on Lance Armstrong.

Here is where you need to go. Start with "Quitter," then check out Rob Corddry's "Tour de Fr-Lance!"

Oh, and Brian Vickers piece is up. It's titled "Gays of Thunder." Use the link above. And if the online feed doesn't work, last night's Daily Show should be on again at 11:30 p.m., right after tonight's show.