Sunday’s column: The NASCAR driver who showed no refraint
Seaman John Suits | U.S. Navy | Wikimedia Commons
M E M O
To: NASCAR
From: The journalists of America
Subject: Expletives directed at us
Dear Motorheads,
It’s come to our attention that you’ve suspended race car driver Kurt Busch for a weekend. This happened after he made a nasty comment to a reporter, whom Busch believed had asked a dumb question.
Here’s what Busch said:
“It refrains me from not beating the [expletive] out of you right now because you ask me stupid questions. But since I’m on probation, I suppose that’s improper to say as well.”
From the context, it’s unclear whether Busch used the s-word or the f-word or a more creative multi-syllabic combination. But any way you cut it, the punishment causes us serious concern.
It appears driven by the misguided belief that journalists’ ears are as unsullied as a rosebud’s morning dew. We cannot stress strongly enough how wrong-headed that assumption is. Please allow us to elaborate.
READ THE REST OF THIS COLUMN HERE
June 10, 2012 - 6:00 AM
oh yeah now that is real news dan
It should read “It restrains me from beating the [expletive] out of you ”
That’s still awkward at best. You’re right about journalists’ gaffes increasing the laugh factor.
But frankly race car drivers are wispy little men who couldn’t beat the @#$%^ out of a stuffed animal.
“wispy little men?” I can only imagine the incredible eye hand coordination and reflexes it rakes to drive a car for 400 miles averaging 200 mph all the while being boxed in by other cars sometimes no more than inches away. What a bunch a p—ies.
Dan – the two best descriptive sentences I have read in a long time:
“It appears driven by the misguided belief that journalists’ ears are as unsullied as a rosebud’s morning dew. ”
‘First, our ears aren’t as immaculate as a never-installed urinal.’
Thanks for the vision of rosebuds, quickly followed by urinals!
Funny stuff.
“wispy little men?” I can only imagine the incredible eye hand coordination and reflexes it rakes to drive a car for 400 miles averaging 200 mph all the while being boxed in by other cars sometimes no more than inches away. What a bunch a p—ies.
What does being wispy have to do with reflexes? With racing teams cutting every possible ounce off equipment, it’s only logical that race car drivers are slight.
#3 And this has what to do with anything?
Oh, that’s right, it’s just troll girl.
#1 pammalalalapdog demonstrates yet again that she has no grasp of anything, including the purpose of Dan’s column. Guess she’s filling in for Bob “Metro” H.
I thought we would have heard from Metro Bob by now. Maybe he’s busy burning up the phone lines, leaving “not Metro enough!” voicemails for the bosses at the paper, and complaining that’s cheating him somehow even though he doesn’t subscribe.
Not a NASCAR fan, just a casual “follower”. Two of the biggest names in the sport who come to my mind, Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards are listed at 5’9″ 180lbs. and 6’1″, 185 lbs. respectively. And the greatest NASCAR driver of all time, Richard Petty, is listed at 6’2″, 180 lbs. The average weight of a thoroughbred racing jockey is 115lbs. and their height is in the “lower 5′ range”.
Perhaps 180 lbs is “wispy” to Suzie. Comparatively speaking, I mean.
FWIW Dan, I agree with you 110% on both counts. Addressing the second first, NASCAR drivers are well-conditioned athletes. It takes a great deal of strength, stamina and endurance to wrestle a car around a track for 4 hours with the temperature inside the cockpit running between 85 and 110 degrees depending on the track and outside temperature. Maybe they’re wispy because they sweat so much.
But on to the main point, I won’t really defend Busch because he seems to an ass most of the time, but I do agree with your overall sentiment about journalists. In fact, I think most journalists deserve to be cussed out with much greater vigor and frequency.
Dan, great column! I am not a fan of either of the Busch brothers, but at least Kurt’s brother, Kyle, has the skill level to back up his arrogance. But, really, they’re both jerks.
That being said, my favorite driver, Smoke, has calmed down somewhat in the last couple of years, but there was a time when he would punch a man out at the drop of a hat. Just ask Kurt Busch. Or Brett Morris, owner of Australia’s Parramatta City Raceway.
Then there’s also Mark Martin who, at 53 years old, is one of the fittest men you’ll ever see.
I suppose if Mr. Limbaugh, in all his obese magnificence, is your idea of an alpha male, then some of the NASCAR drivers would seem ‘wispy’. To each her own, I suppose.
I thought I’d post the following link for the gals on the blog who may be interested. :-) Mr. Wilburn, I know you’ve enjoyed Contrasuzie’s Pflugrad pictures in the past. If you scroll to the bottom of the article, I think you’ll find a picture of one the newest drivers to your liking. ;-)
http://www.allleftturns.com/shirtless-nascar-drivers
Regarding that last picture, 13 Suns, EWWW!!! Get that man a wax job quick!
Debbie, a friend in college had a boyfriend like that. We called him “The Rug”. Then she married him…awkward.
13 Suns and Debbie,
Give that poor guy a break; he’s just keeping track of how many of rush’s wives left him.
It’s a thankless job but somebody’s got to do it.
Dan, i much prefer your non-news/politics related columns. I thoroughly enjoy stuff like this. Thanks!
That guy looks like a human chia pet.
Figuratively speaking, you probably prefer the Mom and Pop bathroom stalls up north with a whole drilled in the divider!
You may never reach Radmacher’s goal. Having Bill O’Reilly say your name!! Toodles!
Debbie,
In addition to that, they need to get the guy & his girlfriend to a weight control program.
I liked your column on Kurt Busch and agree that he can be a big jerk as well as a darned good driver. However,as a former stock car driver, I can tell you that it doesn’t take a lot of pressure to make you do or say something stupid as a totally exhausted individual climbing from a car after a race. Also, most of these guys don’t have much of an extended education after high school and often are persuaded to take anger management classes to better handle themselves amongst the media and their co-workers. Sometimes it seems that NASCAR wants rough and ready guys to drive these cars and other times they require them to be good little boys, say all the right things, do all the right things, smile pretty for the cameras. Maybe NASCAR should wait till the day after the race for driver interviews allowing tempers to cool down and the drivers to prepare their thoughts with the assistance of the team owners and managers. But then, on the other hand, there would be less controversy and way fewer fines.
Just once, Bob, when you say “toodles” please mean it.
Oh goodness, I should clarify to John Wilburn that I was referring to the SECOND to last photo as the one he might like!
13 Suns:
23.”Oh goodness, I should clarify to John Wilburn that I was referring to the SECOND to last photo as the one he might like!”
Oh yeah, I firmly believe there are 44 fine chassis on the track on any given raceday.
As I driver, I’m not a big fan of hers. She is the female Jaun Pablo Montoya in the wreck causing department, but still cute when angry… which is all the time.
I used to be a big-time Nascar fan…emphasis on ‘used to be’. I grew up with racing…both Nascar on TV and at the track, and also being a part of a Late Model Stock team, that traveled around mostly eastern VA and eastern NC. I am not a fan of what Nascar has become, which is a corporate billboard running at 200 mph any given weekend…with mostly well-polished drivers pitching the products that adorn the hoods, quarterpanels, and deck lids of their highly-engineered race cars.
Kurt Busch does not mesh with the new Nascar…but he probably would have done quite well back in the 80’s and 90’s, when Nascar still tolerated bad boys behind the wheel, rough driving, and the occasional tempers flaring on or off the track. But, as Nascar’s popularity grew…largely spurred on by newcomer ESPN broadcasting their races live…rather than on a tape-delay as used to be common, Nascar became the fastest growing spectator sport in the country. Existing tracks were rapidly adding seats to fulfill demand for tickets. Merchandise was flying off shelves. People aligned with drivers and sometimes quarreled with friends and family over allegiances to various car brands…i.e. Ford vs Chevy…Earnhardt vs Wallace, etc.
That growth fueled a drive by Nascar officials to clean up the image of the sport, to transform it from a Southern peculiarity into a sport with national appeal. In doing so, old-school tracks like Rockingham, North Wilkesboro, and Darlington gave up race dates to fill stands at new tracks in places like Fontana California, Chicago, Las Vegas, and Kansas…all on tracks similar to Charlotte or Michigan…for the most part, near cookie-cutter 1.5 and 2-mile D-shaped tri-ovals, with some minor variations in banking and track width. They also pushed rules changes for on-track behavior, and worked to make drivers better spokespeople for the sport and their sponsors…because of everything, money and the immense flow of it from fans and corporations is what reall fueled the growth of the sport.
But with that flow of money, has come a cost of fan loyalty. The new Nascar may be more family-friendly, but it is a shell of its former glory. Fans cannot afford the exorbitant ticket prices, and are not filling stands. TV sets aren’t tuned in like they once were, and the once lush flow of corporate money has shrunk, causing many teams to be underfunded or to cease operation altogether. Combine that with the new reality of guys like Busch being a general jackass that the sport won’t tolerate, and it makes for a very bland product when everyone is doing as they’re told.
We used to attend both fall and spring races at Richmond, and I’ve had the pleasure of attending other races at Michigan, Charlotte, and Martinsville…in addition to local track action at Langley, East Carolina, South Boston, Caraway, and others…some of which included working on the pit crew, which is an awesome experience I won’t forget. But, back to my point…Kurt Busch is an amazing talent with a temper, one that would have been tolerated for the most part in past years…but no longer. For a sport that grew out of rebellion and lawbreaking (moonshine whiskey runners who began competing against each other to see who was the best/fastest/biggest risk-taker), it has now become something wholly different from its roots, and it has forgotten part of what made it popular. Guys like Kurt Busch and Toney Stewart are some of the last remaining shreds of controversy and interest in an otherwise waning sport, filled with too many corporate drivers who suit up to drive their cars, rather than raw talented drivers who race their way to the top.
So in an ironic twist, the demise of Nascar sort of parallels that of the general demise of newspaper offices and newsrooms in recent years…as vice and bad behavior that once made them both so famous, have faded away as a distant memory…replaced by what we have today.
Suzie:
3.”But frankly race car drivers are wispy little men who couldn’t beat the @#$%^ out of a stuffed animal.”
“With racing teams cutting every possible ounce off equipment, it’s only logical that race car drivers are slight.”
Suzie, there are a fair number of big race car drivers (championship winning drivers, at that), especially in drag racing since endurance is not as much a factor. Except for Indycar, the minimum vehicle weight is WITH driver. That was the value of 102 lb. Danica Patrick. No longer an advantage for her in NASCAR.
Other John is pretty well spot-on with his take on NASCAR. As a matter of fact, a couple of years ago, in response to fans’ and drivers’ complaints, NASCAR made the announcement that they were going to ‘let the boys race’, meaning that the drivers could be more aggressive without fear of penalties, as it had been in the past. I’m not sure it was enough.
I would also like to add that the implementation of the points system in determining the season champion has probably contributed to the decrease in good ol’ fashioned ‘win it or wreck it’, balls-to-the-wall, all out driving we used to see. If you’re racing to keep your place in the points standings, you’re just not going to take the chances you’d take if you were racing to win each race. If I’m not mistaken, there was a season just a couple of years ago or so in which Kyle Busch won the most races, but because of the points system, he was not the season champion.
I’m still a fan, and probably always will be, but I do miss the days of guys driving in t-shirts and jeans, no fire suits, using seatbelts instead of restraint systems, when drivers settled their differences on and off the track and when the winner was the winner because he drove his fool heart out.
And the greatest NASCAR driver of all time, Richard Petty
He’s that blind dude, isn’t he? Wears sunglasses all the time like Stevie Wonder?
#26 IOW, suzie has proven she knows absolutely nothing about yet another sport. She loses every time she tries to post about sports.
Know how to lose a crowd of angry NASCAR fans?
Turn right…
Just for fun:
http://youtu.be/i0maPEaUv_M
Suzie:
“He’s [Richard Petty] that blind dude, isn’t he?”
No, but he has been wearing the sunglasses and ugly cowboy hat for decades.
Has anybody noticed “Contrasuzie’s” posts have dropped off considerably while Gdad’s obsession with Suzie has picked up the slack?
“Suzie says:
Has anybody noticed “Contrasuzie’s” posts have dropped off considerably while Gdad’s obsession with Suzie has picked up the slack?
Posted on June 12th, 2012″
Nope.
But we have all noticed your obsession with yourself and your obsession with when gdad and Contrasuzie post. If they post at approximately the same time, in your little brain, that’s ‘proof’ they’re the same person. If they don’t post at approximately the same time, in your little brain, that’s also ‘proof’ they’re the same person.
Dan has said he knows they are two different people. That’s good enough for everyone but you. But it is fun watching you get your knickers in a knot about it all the time.
#33 I’m sure nobody has noticed that because from Thursday through Monday I was on the blog a lot less than usual. Another lie from troll suzie.