YAHOO Fantasy NASCAR

[HossC]

11 hours ago, Garrett Duke said:

But I am sticking with Jimmie Johnson...the man of steel.  

Seeing as he's sponsored by Lowe's Home Improvements, Jimmie Johnson is probably the man of many other building materials too .

[Garrett Duke]

11 hours ago, HossC said:

Seeing as he's sponsored by Lowe's Home Improvements, Jimmie Johnson is probably the man of many other building materials too .

LOL Hoss...you are probably right. But his nickname is Superman. And this weekend he will be driving his Superman car...while Jr will be driving Batman.

[Garrett Duke]

Believe it or not, I am still here. Just been quiet and busy. Life is busy. In fact, I haven't watched a whole race since Daytona this year. Sad, I know. I did watch part of Bristol last week...Bristol is my favorite track/race. Sadly I missed the last half of the race though. LOL.

I do have some great news though...Tony Stewart will be returning to the number 14 car this Sunday. Stewart suffered a back injury before the season started and has been sitting out. Thursday he came forward saying he has been cleared by his doctors and NASCAR to drive this weekend. YAY. This is Tony's final season and will be retiring after this season. NASCAR will not be the same without him. NASCAR has also said that they will give Stewart a pass to allow Stewart into the Chase this season IF he can be in the top 30 in points and/or gets a win or two. NASCAR did the same for Kyle Busch last season after Kyle broke his leg and foot at the Xfinity Series Daytona race . . .Kyle made the Chase and won the NASCAR Sprint Cup title. So Smoke (Tony Stewart) still has hope...

Though just as I was congratulating NASCAR on their right choice of giving Stewart the pass...they came back and fined Stewart $35,000 for some violation over what he had said earlier this week or last week. Stewart had criticized NASCAR's lug nut policy. Up until the beginning of last season, all cars had to have ALL lug nuts tight or else NASCAR would give them a drive through penalty. Well the beginning of last season NASCAR took the policy away allowing the crews/drivers to decide if they want to tighten all lug nuts or save time on pit road and leave some lose. Stewart said how dangerous that NASCAR is giving the teams the choice on leaving lug nuts lose...and he is absolutely RIGHT! Those lug nuts are what are keeping those tires on. As Stewart said, there will always be teams willing to push the envelope when it comes to see how they can save time on pit road and to get back out on track faster. Someone can get seriously hurt or worse if a tire falls off during the race or even if they are coming onto pit road and it falls off. NASCAR penalizing Tony for speaking his opinion...which is absolutely right...is beyond ridiculous and frustrating. Teams will be penalized if they lose control of the tires when they take them off on pit road, and yet they are allowed to test fate by  not tightening the lug nuts? Just don't make sense to me that it is an option to leave them lose...thought that last year when they changed the rule. Welcome back Tony...here is your $35,000 fine for speaking the truth...:(

Though of what I saw on Facebook, other drivers are chipping in to help Tony pay his fine.  Which never should have been given to him to begin with. I am beyond done with NASCAR's punishment policy where they will fine a driver like Stewart for something petty and yet will allow others go by with a lot worse without saying anything. It has been like this for a long time...they really need to stop looking at who the driver is when they hand out the fine, and look at the deed and punish despite who the driver is. Don't get me wrong...I will always love NASCAR despite all this, just makes me mad and frustrated.

[HossC]

I haven't caught up with all of this year's rule changes, but on the face of it, that one sounds stupidly dangerous. In F1, they now use wheels with a single captive nut in the center. I don't know if there's a good reason why NASCAR can't switch to a similar system - it would speed up pit stops!

[HossC]

Just to add to my last post, here's the Williams F1 team getting the fastest pit stop of the year so far at the Bahrain Grand Prix. I know they're allowed more crew than NASCAR, and there's no refuelling, but they change all four wheels in 2.27 seconds.

 

 

[Garrett Duke]

Hoss- I don't know if that would work in NASCAR...but if that was in NASCAR, the driver and team would be punished for having too many people over pit wall. Can't recall how  many members can be in the pit area...think it is seven, but that seems high. Know there is a number set of how many can be on the pit wall. That is one fast stop!

[HossC]

 

According to Wikipedia, NASCAR only permits six crew members "over the wall". The same article also defines the roles in an F1 pit crew. I'm paraphrasing here:

 

1 x Lollipop man - holds a stop/go sign for the driver. Now mainly replaced by electronically triggered traffic lights.

4 x Tyre changers - one for each wheel, their sole job is to undo/tighten the wheel nuts.

8 x Tyre carriers - at each wheel, there is one to remove the old tyre and one to fit the new one.

2 x Stabilisers - to keep the car level in the middle.

1 x Front wing man - adjusts the angle of the front wing (one of the only changes that can be made during pit stops.

2 x Jack men - one at the front, one at the rear. Some teams even have a spare in case of jack failure.

1 x Fire extinguisher man - even though there's no refuelling, they occasionally get brake or oil fires.

1 x Starter man - stands at the rear just in case the engine stalls (the drivers cannot restart their cars).

 

That adds up to around 20 crew members. Unlike NASCAR, there's only one pit crew per team, so each crew has to service two cars, meaning that they sometimes have to make the cars queue behind each other (e.g. during a safety car period etc.). Teams can also be fined for an "unsafe release" if they release their car into the path of another.

[Spike]

On 4/23/2016 at 10:00 AM, HossC said:

I haven't caught up with all of this year's rule changes, but on the face of it, that one sounds stupidly dangerous. 

Well look who's in charge of Nascar at the moment, his father and grandfather have to be spinning in their graves right now about what he has done to their legacy. 

 

Did anybody catch that wild Talladega race? Wow 90+% of the cars had damage by the end of the race, think they said that's a new record for the demo I mean 'Dega race. 

 

Tony's up to 37th in standings after only 3 races. Hope he bags a win and makes it into the Chase. Would be great to end his racing career on a high note. 

[HossC]

1 hour ago, Spike said:

Did anybody catch that wild Talladega race? Wow 90+% of the cars had damage by the end of the race, think they said that's a new record for the demo I mean 'Dega race.

 

I saw most of the 'Dega race, and that was some crash at the end. I had to miss this week's race because the time difference meant that it started at about 12:40 am .

[Garrett Duke]

Sadly due to  life's circumstances, I have missed most of the races this year. I have been reading up on them...but did watch Talladega and was disappointed with the accidents. I know Talladega is known as the big one and for the accidents, but it got ridiculous. I felt like a lot of them could have been avoided if the drivers used common sense...such as Kurt Busch wrecking  Jimmie Johnson. Just lucky no one got hurt.

Anyway...I found this on Facebook and thought of y'all. I know James Best helped Ryan Newman with his animal charities as well as lived down the road from James. And now looks like he owns a General Lee. What a lucky girl to be picked up in The General Lee...;)

http://www.foxsports.com/nascar/story/ryan-newman-richard-childress-racing-dukes-of-hazzard-general-lee-performs-dad-duty-051116

[Spike]

hehe that's pretty cool, just hope the P.C. crowd don't get on him about the flag on the roof. 

 

I've only watched the races that have been on Fox. Don't watch TV enough to warrant spending money on Cable, and even if I did I don't think I'd spring the extra cash for the sports channel package just to watch the races. In years past when the races were on ESPN I'd turn the pc on and find an online stream but after last years Brian France Sprint Cup Circus, especially him giving Kyle Busch the trophy on a silver platter, I've lost a lot of interest in Nascar so I'm just going to catch the remaining races on Fox or NBC which just amounts to 8 if I happen to be home when they are on.  

[Garrett Duke]

Yeah, I hope he don't get in trouble for it either. Just found it cool.  I am a huge DOH and NASCAR fan so I love it when the worlds collide like that. I don't have cable either due to money issues so if the races are on cable, I have to watch it at my parents' house. Frustrated last week...was home expecting it to be on FOX and it was on FOX Sports 1, so I missed it. Really wish all races would be on FOX. But that is just me. As for NASCAR and Brian France there is a lot that they do that upset me...like fining Tony Stewart for speaking the truth a couple of weeks ago. But they will do what they do I guess. As for Kyle Busch...NASCAR owed him a chance to earn his way into the Chase. Yeah he should work for it and he got the wins and the points to make it into the Chase. But the only reason Kyle Busch missed those races was because they didn't have the walls at Daytona safe enough. NASCAR by now should have every wall of every track with safety barrier on them...no reason not to. Especially after that hard hit Jeff Gordon took at Las Vegas several years ago that got that track's walls to be surrounded by safety barrier...every track should have changed right then to have the highest protection as possible. I am glad to see NASCAR give Tony a chance to make the Chase as well...hope can make it. Well that is my two cents worth, for how little it is worth.

[Spike]

The only way that will happen is if Nascar mandates it. Nascar does not own the tracks. Two companies own the majority of Nascar raced tracks, Speedway Motorsports Inc run by Bruton Smith and International Speedway Corp run by the France's. The biggest issue that keeps Safer barrier from being installed at every track is cost, @ $500 a sq. foot or $2.6million per mile it will be a long time before all the tracks have every wall covered with it. 

 

IMO they didn't owe Kyle Busch anything, racing is dangerous and he was racing in the xfinity series race when the accident happened, not the Sprint Cup race. It is what it and it's all said and done so no point in dwelling on Brian France giving him the championship anymore. The year before Ryan Newman could have won the Championship without even winning a single race  that would have been funny as heck too. The chase is a joke and has turned Nascar into a bad Motorsports joke. 

 

sorry about thread jacking... I just get riled up sometimes   

[Garrett Duke]

I am not a fan of the Chase either and could go on and on with how I feel about that as well as with other issues NASCAR seems to have...but despite that, will always love NASCAR and seeing how I doubt NASCAR will get rid of the Chase...might as well as accept it for what it is.

Talking of which...I finally got to watch a race yesterday. Most of it at least. I think I turned it on on lap 86 or something like that. Martin Truex Jr owned that race. Started on the pole and led 588 out of 600 laps to win the race. Never seen a driver be that dominant before. Jimmie Johnson was the only driver to pass him during green flag, but it wasn't for long.  It's was a story book ending kind of story for Martin Truex Jr with all the rotten luck he's been dealt with. Not just this year either...was happy to see him win as he did.

Onto Pocono next weekend...

[RogerDuke]

Hey Garrett, I'm putting this here because it's the best way to catch your eye if you log on again. HazzardNet's coming back to life again so we need you back to spice it up even more. Hopefully you'll see this and come back To Hazzard.