Full Throttle

By official proclamation issued forth by the Half-Vast Staff™ of Full Throttle - printed on the finest 3-ply Mr. Whipple ever squeezed - this day will hereby be known as Excoriate the Press Day.

In short, “That’s all I can stands, I can’t stands no more!” (before anyone asks, yes, I’m strong to the finish, cos I eats mi Spinach.)

This has been building for a while but first floated to the front of the cranial lobe at Martinsville over the Burton/McDowell on track “incident.”

The press went crazy with it and blew the situation and Burton’s after race comments into a sequel of the Hatfield-McCoy feud. Suddenly McDowell became NASCAR’s L’enfant Terrible in their jaundiced eyes. (”jaundiced eyes,” equivalent to penis envy when referring to the press - ed)

Then came last Friday and Michael McDowell’s brush with death. He became an “overnight sensation,” booked solid on national TV shows to discuss the wreck he lived to talk about. McDowell talked very eloquently and professionally I might add, which is a helluva lot more than you can say about his hosts on the various shows he appeared on.

The same national TV shows that couldn’t give one wit about NASCAR unless they accompany some bobble-head’s talking points with video of a rolling, tumbling, en fuego race car were in a virtual bar-room brawl over satellite access to interview McDowell.

I hasten to add, that includes the morning tripe on Fox. Despite Fox Sports broadcasting Sprint Cup (for now) Murdoch’s morning toy fails in almost every instance to mention Sprint Cup results on Monday’s show. Today being the exception of course, they did have a rolling, tumbling, en fuego race car to show.

Nitwits! - Well, maybe not Gretchen Carlson ’cause she is kinda hot, and Julie Banderas, talk about en fuego, but I digress.

Anyway, then came a flood of idiotic headlines and industrial-strength codswallop from the ink and pixel-stained wretches.

Variously McDowell is described as “crashing into the spotlight, sky-rocketing into stardom and McDowell learns from crash course,” etc, etc… etc. Anyone have an airline puke bag to lend, I could use one… or three about now?

While on the subject of pixel-stained wretches, (did you know April 23rd is International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day?) check this exchange the yahoos at Yahoo Sports belched on their live chat during the Texas Sprint Cup event.

Follow the bouncing ball and sing-a-long:

Lap 271 // 5:02 ET
Jay Hart: How can a sport remain strong if the run-up to its climax is considered boring?

Lap 271 // 5:02 ET
Jerry Bonkowski: Which is yet another reason to shorten races. Why have so many boring laps leading up to an exciting finish. It’s called “streamlining.”

Lap 271 // 5:03 ET
Jay Hart: I couldn’t agree more, Jerry.

Lap 271 // 5:03 ET
Jerry Bonkowski: Mark your word?

Lap 274 // 5:03 ET
Jay Hart: I hope you’re right, but I don’t think it will happen, not anytime soon.

Lap 274 // 5:04 ET
Jerry Bonkowski: I agree, Jay. NASCAR is too bull-headed to make a logical, sensible change.

Lap 275 // 5:04 ET
Jay Hart: I think it has more to do with money - the longer the race, the more ads TV can sell.

Lap 276 // 5:04 E
Jerry Bonkowski: This is starting to become an embarrassment. We’re in jeopardy of having maybe 10 cars or less finish on the lead lap by the end of the race. That would be an absolute joke.

From that exchange you can predict what this weeks headline du jour will be.

But before they start lets have a cursory look at something resembling the truth, things that lay waste to these three bobble-heads and their implication that things may have been better way-back-when.

Pick a race, any race. How about an apples-to-apples comparison, TMS yesterday and Texas in 1997, only 8 cars were on the lead lap when Jeff Burton crossed the finish line. In ‘98 only 12, how about 2003 the year before the Chase? Oops, only 13 were on Ryan Newman’s lead lap.

Hmm… three events, averaging 11 on the lead lap at the end, pretty fair comparison to the ten Sunday I’d say.

What if we try a similar track from the same era, Lowes is close to Texas in speed and configuration.

Lowes 1997; Only five other cars were on Dale Jarrett’s lead lap as he crossed under the checkered flag. 2003 had Jimmie Johnson dragging the “pitiful sum” of 7 lead lap cars with him across the finishline.

Anyone see a pattern here? Anyone see three blow-hards looking to make a headline out of thin air?

I don’t know about you, but I see both.

And doncha just love Jay Hart’s assertion that “the longer the race, the more ads TV can sell,” well if that’s the case, puzzle me this Hart:

NASCAR agreed to an 8-year $560 million a year deal with ESPN and ABC in late 2005 for a price that was a 40 percent increase over the previous deal with Fox and NBC ($400 million a year). So. if you’re correct, and your foil hat hasn’t short-circuited like a swap meet lamp, why haven’t any of the 36 points paying events on the schedule increased in number of laps run since that huge deal was signed?

You can also quzzle me this Hart, (yes I said quzzle) CBS had the rights to the 2000 Daytona 500. Total air time dedicated to the race was 162 minutes with 79.02% of that time devoted to the race and the rest to ad space.

With Fox broadcasting the 2008 version of the 500 they dedicated 166 minutes to the race, 76.15% was actual race coverage, the rest ad space. (Figures courtesy of One Lugnut Short whose been killing the myth that won’t die and cawsandjaws.)

Jay?

Jay Hart of Yahoo Sports? You still there?

Guess not, he must have gone to an electrician to fix his hat. Or is on the road to Phoenix to perpetrate another myth.

Regardless, I think I’m done with this rant and will end it here before my head explodes into tiny-wittle-bits.

But before I go and in keeping with the theme; This rant was brought you by the Half-Vast Staff™ of Full Throttle, Presented by Rants R Us.

Rants R Us, where you can rent a rant or lease a rant to own. We can fill all your rant needs including a fine selection of “pre-owned” rants available for purchase!

(DISCLAIMER: Rants R Us shall not be held liable for any improper or incorrect use of Rants rented, leased or purchased outright and assumes no responsibility for anyone’s use of subject rant or any subsequent beatings about the head of leasee for its usage. You piss someone off, your on your own buddy!)