Full Throttle

Subtitle this, “it’s mid-week, the biggest news is in F1 and this is all I got from NASCAR Nation.”

With all the talk about NASCAR downsizing in various ways both at the sanctioning and team level I wonder just how long this new, i.e. prolly expensive, technology will migrate to all or most of the teams?

Richard Childress Racing will utilize Monitoring Technology Corporation’s 20/20 Hindsight™ system to improve the efficiency of its NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and Nationwide Series over-the-wall pit crews.

The system is designed to “monitor industrial equipment and processes utilizing high-speed cameras, vibration sensors, tachometers and other sensors. Its 20/20 Hindsight technology provides millisecond accuracy, portability and, as a result, increased efficiency.”

Sounds expensive to me, and frankly I’ve never thought of someone like Danny “Chocolate” Myers (aka Gasman Choc) operating with millisecond accuracy.

I doubt if someone like BAM Racing’s Beth Ann and Tony Morgenthau will be moving in this direction, but hey, if ya got it flaunt it. (Beth Ann is more likely using hindsight, not buying it - ed)

Speaking of technology, in this case the media’s use of it, DirecTV is dumping their “Hot Pass” pay-per-view package.

NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston told the Charlotte Observer the new coverage options from DirecTV could potentially be more accessible to NASCAR fans when compared with “Hot Pass.”

“I think the subscription package is going to change for the better for more fans, ultimately,” he said.

Stripping out all the “PR Speak” that means “hey so much for that cash grab, we’ll try another way to shear the sheep!” And yes, before you inquire, I hate pay-per-view anything.

No better example of where it leads is boxing, with everyone’s manufacturing “world titles” out of thin air, matching the “champs” and charging an arm, leg and a first born child to have the “privilege” to view them.

And finally, Roush-Fenway’s Jamie McMurray finished the season on a higher note than most expected after a long string of disappointments since joining Jack in the Hat.

That “high note” was stopped in Las Vegas as he rolled into town to compete in the Superkarts! USA SuperNationals.

Entered in two classes, the TaG Senior class where the first turn melee resulted in “wheels [being] torn off, suspension parts broken and all kind of other problems,” and the shifter class S3.

Being equipped with a 125cc engine, one mated to a six-speed gearbox and having a hired gun from Washington doing the tuning didn’t help.

The high flutin’ Sprint Cup driver got his ass handed to him by fourteen-year-old Brendan Phinny who won the event with Jamie in trail by a scant 0.150 seconds.

“All you see on the kart is another guy in a [driving] suit and a helmet,” McMurray said, his voice beaming like a smiling ray of sunshine. “But when we came off the track after practice and went to the scales and [Phinny] took off his helmet, he looked like he was 12 years old. Of course, it turned out he was only 14.”

I don’t care what anyone says, that’s funny stuff. But hey I’m not here to just cast stones, I offer advice in the form of an accomplished Karting tutor.

By the fourteen-year-old Brendan Phinny’s standard, my tutor is absolutely ancient at 19 years of age.