Nascar Running Diary

11:56: Stupid First Take. I hate Skip Bayliss. Why can't I have pre-race coverage? Damnit. They just showed the track, it's raining, again. Damn the devil to hell.

12:02: It's still sprinkling. Jet dryers are out. Bad things happen if the race doesn't go today. The next race is on a Saturday, and they have to be in Bristol on Thursday.

12:08: Well screw this. ESPN's going to some pre-recorded crap. Diary is now paused.

12:39: Update from the track. Looks a little dryer. Some crew members are playing football on pit road. In other news, this is much cooler than helium. What the hell, they're gonna show drag racing at 1? ESPN is pissing me off.

12:49: SI TV Offer. The Colts new colors are apparently purple and gray. They showed a jacket and the colors were ridiculous. And for some reason, ESPN thinks Dale Earnhardt was a better driver than Richard Petty. That's insane. It really pisses me off how much these media types suck off a dead guy.

12:56: This is still upsetting me. Can anyone tell me which is greater, 200 or 76? How can you say someone is better when they have LESS THAN HALF the victories? I wish I could go piss on Dale's grave.

1:00: It looks like it started raining again. Damnit.

1:24: Moving around a couch for the past 15 minutes. Did I miss anything? Of course not. Now it's started raining here. I blame Michigan.

1:28: Kurt Busch owns a women's dog. Kurt Busch is obviously a woman. Jamie Little tells me it stopped raining.

1:51: No updates from Michigan for a while. Couple things about this drag racing crap. First, there was a black guy. I didn't know black people raced. Second, they have this stat called "elapsed time", which I would assume means how fast you get down the track. A few times, it's happened that the person with the lower ET will lose. I'm not sure, but I don't think that's actually possible.

2:27: I wish it was raining at the crappy Drag Racing place. Then I wouldn't have to watch it.

2:48: The news I've been waiting for. This message crawled across the bottom line, "NASCAR coverage on ESPN2 will resume at 3 PM." Finally.

3:00: AHAeiwfoaisd;jkfalvkwvk!!! It started raining again?!?! Now we have Vick coverage?!!?!?! FAJOUEIjdkslv/klajvoijwf

3:55: Race officially postponed until tomorrow. Starts at 10 AM.

10:24: Finally woke up. Thank you DVR. Will catch up slowly. It is damn foggy in Michigan.

10:26: Checking my e-mail, it tells me I did a mock draft last night with ESPN. Apparently I selected only Indy players. Hello DeDe Dorsey. Okay ESPN, enough with "Draft Track". It's just stupid. Yes, it looks cool, but you don't explain it well enough to use it that much.

10:29: Starting under caution. Easy bonus points for Gordon. Not like he needs them or anything. Damn, it is so foggy. I'm not sure how I like the in-race reporter. It's kind of cool to have updates from the driver during the race, but I feel like they're not actually sharing anything of note. And it would be way cooler if the "reporter" talked to them under green.

10:35: Ughhhh. The race is now being delayed by fog. NASCAR put the red flag out until the fog clears. Stupid spotters whining about not be able to see.

10:42: Mike Helton has wires sticking out of him all over the place. What the hell's up with that? Is he the bionic man? By the way, this fog is ridiculous.

10:59: Finally the drivers are back on the track. I'm so excited (ns).

11:02: Green flag, green flag, go go go.

11:03: Shocker of the day...Juan Pablo Montoya is involved in a wreck. That dude is just way too agressive. Nice job keeping it off the wall, though.

11:05: I wonder if Vitamin Water regrets their decision to hire Kasey Kahne as a spokesman. Given the fact that he sucks balls and everything.

11:08: Keving Harvick with the best comment of the day so far. On Montoya, "It's not a question of if he's going to wreck, it's when he is going to wreck." The stupid commentators don't like it, but that's funny.

11:14: What the hell is up with the Chevys? Why did the change the headlight shape? It looks ridiculous. It reminds me of the bug eyes that the old Ford Taurus used to have. Icky. Also it seems like not every car has it. Gibbs cars don't, Hendrick and DEI do. This is the type of thing I want the commentating team to tell me about.

11:19: I don't actually like Roger Clemens, but his AT&T "dropped call" spot is pretty funny. Competition caution time. Headlight update: Kyle Busch is a no, RCR is a no. This is very strange. Gordon only took 2 tires? Interesting. Looks like he's the only driver to do it. Weird.

11:26: Is there a bigger joke in NASCAR than Micheal Waltrip? Dude has just been so crappy the entire year. If I remember correctly, he had negative points for the first 10 weeks or so. Toyota as a whole has been really crappy. I hope all of those teams fold. Stupid foreigners. Gordon's two tire call seems to be working out well. Hendrick's moving to the front.

11:32: This just in: Robby Gordon is a moron. When his crew chief was asked why they didn't pit under caution, he threw up his hands and cursed Robby.

11:37: I wonder how many times this announcing crew is going to confuse Kyle and Kurt Busch. Seems like it would be easy to differentiate seeing as they drive cars that are different makes and that look nothing alike.

11:45: A Toyota leading? This might be the end of the world. Ha. Dale Jr and a bunch of other people are in a commercial for Tylenol and everyone is wearing their fire suits all emblazoned with sponsors, except for Dale, who apparently doesn't want to show the Bud logo when he knows he'll be getting rid of it soon.

11:52: Pit stops were pretty uneventful. Stewart's stop was pretty slow, so that's a good thing. It's lunch time, so diary break time.

12:37: Micheal Waltrip crashed, big surprise. Another disappointing outcome for Toyota. Another happy day for Americans. Lunch was hot dogs. Hot dogs are good. I can't decide who I want to make the chase, Jr or Kurt Busch. I don't really like either of them, but I guess I'll root for Earnhardt since he's going to be a Hendrick guy next year. It hurts me to do that though.

12:39: Re: Mark Martin He started smoking on the backstretch and they threw the caution. He was still under power, so it wasn't an blown engine. The announcers haven't said anything since.

12:42: One of my least favorite features of any NASCAR broadcast, the "Through the Field" crap. I don't need to hear how Ward Burton is running. Just stop it.

12:45: Ryan Newman's fin has died. I'm not sure what this means, but this is what I've been told by Rusty Wallace.

12:50: Interesting stat brought up by ESPN, they showed the points standings if there had been no penalties throughout this year. Too bad the only real difference is that Kurt Busch moves up from 12th to 11th.

12:52: Earnhardt hit the wall again. He appears to not know that by doing that, he will hurt the car. By the way, I saw one of these guys hit 209 mph going into turn 1. That's scary fast.

12:57: For about 5 solid laps we were on board with Junior. I don't think there was an actual reason why, they just wanted to waste time.

1:00: They are running out things to talk about. Now they're talking about fuel mileage from Watkins Glen. Jeff Gordon's fin also has apparently died. NASCAR is forcing them and Newman to fix it under their next pit stop.

1:05: Final pit stops starting. Kenseth smoked the tires coming in. Gordon seemed to lose a little time trying to repair the fin. Paul Menard is smoking in turn 3. Earnhardt overran his pit, lost about 7 seconds. Lots of crazy stuff happening. It's getting good.

1:07: They finally explain what happened to Mark Martin. "The rear main seal" broke and caused the engine to lose oil. Apparently Menard is having the same problem.

1:09: Newman lost a lot a lot a lot of time on pit road trying to fix the fin. At least 15 seconds just sitting there.

1:12: I hate Tony Stewart. I hate McDonalds.

1:14: The ever puzzling "debris caution". I'm certain NASCAR throws these at the end of races just so the field can bunch back up for a better finish. But I don't care because it's good for Gordon, he moves up to second by not pitting.

1:17: NO, NOT DRAFT TRACK! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

1:21: Gordon's not doing so hot. He'll be lucky to finish top 8. Newman lost a lap while he was screwing around trying to fix his fin. Kurt Busch has a pretty big lead, but it looks like Truex is gonna run him down. Did I mention I'm excited for Bristol yet? Because I really am. Not so excited for the variable banking, but you can't go wrong with Bristol under the lights.

1:26: Damnit. Jeff just spun out. He couldn't refire because he was stuck in the grass. Kenseth spun him out. Expect retribution next weekend at Bristol. He'll probably be a lap down. I know it doesn't mean anything because he's made the chase, but it's still pretty disappointing. Blehofaij.

1:30: One of the pit reporters just said that Truex started in last place. But all through the beginning of the race they were talking about how Earnhardt started last. Who was it then? 7 to go, 3 chevys trying to track down the crappy dodge of Kurt Busch.

1:33: Kyle Busch almost wrecked and took out Stewart. Too bad it didn't happen. Looks like Kurt Busch has got this race locked up.

1:35: Greg Biffle big spin, barely scrapes the wall. Hello Green/White/Checkers. Get excited.

1:37: Apparently the draft track shows why Biffle spun out. You can't tell why, because they don't explain, but it shows it.

1:39: Kurt Busch wins. Still a lap left, but no way he's gonna lose. Anticlimatic ending, but a pretty good race overall. I have to think, if not for those stupid fins, Gordon at least gets a top 5.

1:45: And now, the marathon diary is over. It's been about 8 hours or so. I haven't done this much writing, well, in forever. I'd like to thank all my sponsors including Vault, Ballpark Franks and Dixie Paper Plates. I couldn't have done it without them.