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NASCAR and MotorSports – From a Queer Perspective

The Richmond Gaynalysis – The Brothers Busch

The Gaynalysis is just one gay NASCAR fan’s take on the race weekend – you can read the “straight recap” of the Virginia is for Lovers 400 by clicking here.

"Gay NASCAR" by Keith J. Varadi - 2009

While Richmond is often referred to as Denny Hamlin’s hometown track – it was the brothers Busch that made RIR their whipping boy this weekend.

It shouldn’t be that surprising.  Kyle has won 4 of the past Spring races in Virginia and during last year’s chase Kurt and Kyle finished P5 and P6.  Kurt won the Nationwide race on Friday driving car #54 for his brother and boss… it was the inaguaral win for Kyle Busch Motorsports.

Kurt famously blew up at Jenna Fryer last year at Richmond – swearing up and down he never said what everyone with a TV heard his say and then ripping up his own words in a transcript presented by Fryer.  This incident was the base of the cake the Kurt baked and then later iced with some Jerry Punch before being fired from Penske Racing.

Kyle carried the momentum from his win as a team owner into Sunday by getting his first points win for the forgiving Joe Gibbs since he was scolded by NASCAR and M&M’s late last season after being parked in Texas.

Why bring up two rough patches for the brothers on such a victorious weekend for them both….. because the Busch brothers make NASCAR more exciting to watch.  They have taken to role of villain like Newt Gingrich took to pie.   We need these two guys in our sport – they can drive and their “rough patches” give us something to talk about during Pocono.

I actually didn’t watch the race live – I was at my local short track on Saturday night watching some real beating and banging…. but thanks to my DVR I was able to watch most of the race….. all of those people who call NASCAR Radio to bitch about long green flag segments should try the fast forward button… it’s amazing!

I was scanning tweets after watching the race on DVR and there were two main points I want to quickly address.

PLEASE SHUT IT – anyone who thinks Menard’s crew tattled on the #48 crew when they let a tire roll free on pit road.  In stick and ball sports – coaches are constantly letting officials know if they see something illegal with their competitor.  I kept stats for my high school football team – one of my jobs was to count the players on the other team and let the coaches know if they had too many players…. not to count the players on our team…. not to make sure we were in the right, my job was to catch them!   NASCAR is no different.  Jimmie didn’t seem to mind too much anyone – passing nearly the entire field after starting in the rear on the last restart.

….and Carl….  Carl, Carl, Carl….. you and your poor abs just got screwed!  And by screwed I mean that you did break the rule and had the appropriate penalty assessed.  But that doesn’t make me want to not give him a comforting hug any less!

You don’t need me to show you what the NASCAR Rule book says – that’s what Nate Ryan is for…. you don’t need to draw lines on the screen showing where the start lines were…. that’s what DW is for…. and you don’t need me to piss of Tony Stewart with a question post race…. that’s what (insert any writer here) is for…..

I will say it sucked to see the #99 have such a strong day and get black flagged due to confusion and the fact that Tony spun his tires on every restart.

This week’s Q4G Gaynalysis shout-out goes to Michael Waltrip Racing….  heyyyyyy Mikey Racing!  Clint finished P8 and Mark Martin finished P8 after starting on the pole.  Truex had a dominant car last week and the team is fast.  Just a few more tweaks are needed to keep them fast in the long runs… but they are right there.  I’m glad to see Toyota with another strong team to compete with Chevy and Ford.

This weekend the haulers head to Talladega…. no drama there right?

 

 

Kyle Busch Capitalizes on Late Caution for Richmond Win

[ via NASCAR Wire Service - by Reid Spencer ]

Credit: Tom Pennington/Getty Images for NASCAR

Pulling away from Dale Earnhardt Jr. after a restart with eight laps left in Saturday night’s Capital City 400 at Richmond International Raceway, Kyle Busch streaked to his fourth straight victory in the spring race at the .75-mile track.

The win was Busch’s first of the season and the 24th of his career, tying him with his brother, 2004 NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Kurt Busch, for 26th all-time.

Tony Stewart, the race leader before the fifth and final caution for debris in Turn 2, lost ground on the restart and finished third. Denny Hamlin ran fourth, followed by Kasey Kahne.

The race turned on the last caution, which Stewart said was called because of a plastic water bottle in Turn 2. Stewart was strong on long runs but uncharacteristically slow off the mark on restarts, and Busch took full advantage.

The first step was beating Stewart off pit road during the final four-tire stop on Lap 388 of 400 and gaining control of the restart.

“I don’t know where that last caution came from, but it was our saving grace,” Busch said in Victory Lane. “It was a gift. We came down pit road and (crew chief) Dave Rogers and the guys went to work and gave us a great pit stop, got me out front.

“(That) gave me the lead so I could restart the race how I wanted to. That was the win right there.”

As he approached the finish line, Busch radioed to his crew: “What up, boys — we’re back!”

It was a stellar weekend for the race winner, who won Friday night’s Nationwide Series event as a car owner, with brother Kurt behind the wheel of the Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota.

Earnhardt, who took over second in the standings — five points behind series leader and 18th-place finish Greg Biffle — experienced brake problems for much of the race, but used the late restart to improve his position after Stewart fell back.

“We had some brake problems all race long,” Earnhardt explained. “I had a great restart, and I ran really great for one lap, and the pedal went back to the floor. I just had to pump it up all the way down the straightaway and I didn’t have any front brakes getting into the corner, so I couldn’t get in real hard.

“It would just get loose locking the rears up. So even with the brakes working, I think the No. 18 (Busch) was just a little bit better than us all night.”

Slow pit stops cost Stewart track position on more than one occasion, but it was the final caution that proved the undoing of the defending Cup champion, who has three Richmond victories but none since 2002.

“When the caution is for a plastic bottle on the backstretch, it’s hard to feel good about losing that one,” said Stewart, who led Busch by more than a second when the yellow flag waved. “And we gave it away on pit road. So we did everything we could to throw it away; it got taken away from us.

“That’s the best car I’ve had at Richmond in a long time. So I’m really proud of that and (crew chief) Steve Addington, and I’m proud of our guys. But we’ve got some work to do on pit stops right now. I don’t know what their malfunction was but I’m pretty ticked off about it tonight.”

A caution for Jeff Burton’s crash into the Turn 3 wall on Lap 311 interrupted a cycle of green-flag pit stops and scrambled the running order.

Jimmie Johnson, who came to pit road when the caution flew, was penalized for a tire violation on his pit stop — after one of his crewmen rolled a tire unattended toward the pit wall — and had to restart on Lap 319 from the tail end of the field.

That same restart proved disastrous for Edwards, who was black-flagged for jumping the start after he put the power down, in NASCAR’s judgment, before reaching the double red restart lines on the outside wall.

Forced to serve a pass-through penalty, Edwards dropped to 15th, 17 seconds behind Stewart. On lap 372, Stewart put Edwards a lap down and pulled away from Busch in second place to a lead of nearly two seconds.

Johnson rallied to finish sixth, but Edwards, who led a race-high 210 laps, had to settle for 10th, after getting back on the lead lap as the free-pass car under the last caution.

 

Podcast – Out of the Tunnel: Show 11

This week Hannah, Adam and I talked about the race in Kansas, we make some Richmond predictions, debate Jeff Burton’s discussion of mandatory cautions to tighten the field, Jimmie Johnson is really really influential, Top Gear BBC goes NASCAR and we try to predict what Bruton will do to Bristol -  hopefully we provided a few laughs along the way…..

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The Kansas Gaynalysis

The gaynalysis is just one gay NASCAR fan’s take on the race weekend… you can read the “straight” recap of the STP 400 from Kansas Speedway by clicking here.

credit: Kevin R Tengesdal

Maybe only having 5 caution in the last two races is some sort of viral Earth Day tribute cooked up by the PR folks at NASCAR.  Let your freak green flag fly.

The long green flag laps today in Kansas did compare with the action from last week – but as for the racing on the track it was clear…… you aren’t in Kansas Texas anymore.  With incredible action on the restarts,  blowed’ up engines and a fantastic closing lap battle the race in Kansas was no cookie cutter copy of last week as Denny Hamlin followed the yellow brick road to victory lane.

A few drivers might have preferred to blow away in a tornado with Toto rather than endure what Kansas Speedway had to offer.

Engines were failing left and left….. Clint “perpetual sunburn” Bowyer, Jeff Gordon, Mark Abs Martin, Bobby Labonte and Kurt Busch had engine problems while Kevin “Otis-Daddy” Harvick and Kasey Myers-Kahne ran out of gas – saying the lower than expected temps messed up their math.

With long green flag segments – the importance of pit stops were paramount.  Interestingly though, there weren’t any impactful penalties all day… but there were several drivers (Keselowski and Junior) who had issues making the commitment into pit road.  The #48 team missed a lug nut…. a rare mis-step and I am sure that wrench man is steering clear of Chad Knaus on the company bus.

There were only 14 lead changes (the record was 13 set in 2002) but I do not put much stock in that stat….. I am being consistent – I never put stock in this stat last year when we were breaking records for lead changes in ‘Dega.   Bottom line:  tons of lead changes do not necessarily equate to great racing…. nor do fewer lead changes necessarily equate to boring racing.

THe Q4G shout-out this week must go to Martin Truex Jr.  Heyyyyyyyy Martin!  Not only did he lead the most laps but in his words – he was one bad set of tires from bringing Michael Waltrip Racing to victory lane.  With three laps to go and on the last lap Truex proved he was no Cowardly Lion by making a heroic dive to the bottom of turn four to try and slip past Hamlin but getting the car to stick was not what NAPA knew-how to do.  His 2nd place finish must have given some solace to Michael Waltrip who was loading two blown engines into his haulers.

Third place finisher Jimmie Johnson put on one hell of a show as well…. while Chad Knaus may have questioned his call to make a pit stop – Jimmie took the 4 sticker tires from 12th to 4th in less than 15 laps.  It even looked like he might be “the one” to get his bossman the 200th win but, as the laps wound down, the #48 just could not get close enough to battle with the #11 and #55.

If all mile-and-a-half tracks were that much fun I wouldn’t mind em’ dominating the schedule.  Like every driver who was asked – I hope the repave of Kansas won’t ruin a good thing.

(OK I know… I made too many Wizard of Oz analogies… but this is a GAYnalysis… so lay off!)

Denny Hamlin Holds off Truex for Cup Win at Kansas

[ via NASCAR Wire Service - by Reid Spencer ]

Credit: Chris Graythen/Getty Images for NASCAR

It was Denny Hamlin’s day in the sun.

Taking advantage of changing conditions Sunday at Kansas Speedway, Denny Hamlin held off Martin Truex Jr. over the final 30 laps to win the STP 400, his second victory of the season, his first at the 1.5-mile track and the 19th of his career.

The victory was the 199th for cars bearing the No. 11, breaking a tie for the all-time lead with the No. 43, made famous by Richard Petty, who drove to 192 of his record 200 wins with that car number.

Jimmie Johnson finished third, followed by Roush Fenway Racing teammates Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle. Truex moved into second place in the Sprint Cup series standings behind Biffle, who leads by 15 points.

After a late round of green-flag pit stops put all the contending cars on the same sequence, the sun broke through the clouds for the first time all afternoon and changed the complexion of the race.

To that point, Truex had been dominant, having led 173 laps, but the changing conditions made Truex’s Toyota “wrecking loose” in the words of the driver. Hamlin passed Truex for the lead through Turn 4 on Lap 237 and began to pull away, with Johnson pursuing from the third position.

To Hamlin, the sunlight was a welcome game-changer.

“Whether it was coincidence or not, our car definitely seemed like, (relative) to the field, was better once the sun came out,” Hamlin said. “I felt like our car lost a lot of grip when the sun came out, but I guess a lot of guys did when that happened. I felt like all day I was behind the 56 (Truex), and his car looked so superior to the field.

“We just needed some kind of change — weather or adjustments or something to get where he was at — and we kind of got both of them. In overcast conditions, the cars run a little bit tighter, the grip level’s higher in the racecar, and it’s more of a track-position type race. When the sun’s out, the drivers, in my opinion, are more prominent.

“You move around, find the grip, do things in the car to make up for what you don’t have. The slicker the conditions are, the better it tends to (be) for our race team. Luckily, we had that run in sunshine.”

As clouds covered the sun once again, however, Truex began to close on Hamlin and widen his advantage over Johnson. With 10 laps left, Truex trailed Hamlin by .772 seconds. Five laps later, Truex had closed to .489 seconds behind.

Truex tried to dive beneath Hamlin in Turn 3 twice in the final three laps but couldn’t stick the pass.

“Desperation,” Truex said wryly. “I was a little bit faster than Denny at the end, but he was running against the wall right where I needed to be, and I was just trying to gain a little bit of ground.

“It was desperation — last-ditch effort — just trying something. There was no chance to make it work.”

Though Truex’s handling ills and Hamlin’s surge to the front coincided with the appearance of the sun, Truex blamed his problem on a bad set of tires for the final run.

“I’m just not really sure what to think of that last set of tires,” Truex said. “The car had been really good all day, we put the last set on, and I was just wrecking loose for the first 20 laps of that last run.

“Denny was able to get by me, and once he did, the race was over. The car got better longer in the run, and I was able to get back to him, but I’d get three or four car-lengths from him and pick up the aero push . . .

“I guess if we can be this disappointed with second, it kind of shows how far we’ve come as a race team.”

Podcast: Out of the Tunnel – Show #10

This week Hannah and I talked Texas and Rockingham with Adam who also recapped the points for all of our pics.   Plus – I put Hannah and Adam on the spot to argue to and for Kurt Busch.

Hannah gives us a full recap of the NHRA 4-wide clinic from Charlotte and Ross Bynum called in to talk about the first three races of the Indy car season and their new sled.

I also share some thanks and thoughts from the Las Vegas AIDS Walk…..

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Flip Side of the Microphone – Doug Rice

Doug Rice calling the action from the booth

Welcome to “The Flipside of the Microphone” – a new podcast series on Q4G.  Think…. Inside the Actors Studio….. but instead of an actor – we talk with a member of the NASCAR Media.  They travel from track to track each weekend sticking their microphones in front of our favorite drivers…. and I thought it would be interesting to flip the microphone around….. and get to know more about some of our favorite NASCAR journalist.  Where did they grow up? What other jobs have they had?   How did they get their start…….

We have talked to several journalist from the writer’s room but this week we move above the grandstands to the radio broadcast booth to talk with Doug Rice – the president of PRN – The Performance Racing Network.  You can follow Doug on Twitter: @RiceMan61

Doug and I spoke about him growing up in Asheville, NC and our shared alma marta of Appalachian State University.  Rice recalls starting his radio career in Statesville, NC and how he eventually ended up calling the action for NASCAR races on PRN.

What race that he called does he get asked the most about – what race that he called does he get never asked about…. but is still a favorite?  All that, plus we talk about how technology is affecting the radio business.

Click play to hear this episode:  

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If the embedded player does not work for you (iPhone and iPad users) you can click here to play the episode with quicktime.

You can also check out the previous episodes of The Flip Side of the Microphone:  Reid Spencer: from the NASCAR Wire Service, Lewis Franck from Reuters and Ryan McGee from ESPN and Jeff Gluck from SB Nation.com  and Jim Utter from the Charlotte Observer and Marty Smith from ESPN.

Gaynalysis: Gettin BIFFey Wid’ It in Texas

The Gaynalysis is just one gay NASCAR fan’s take on the race weekend.  You can read the “straight” recap of the race from Texas by clicking here.

"Gay NASCAR" by Keith J. Varadi - 2009

nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nahhhh, nah, nah, nah, Gettin BIFFEY wid’ it!

Greg Biffle secured his place atop the NASCAR point standings by winning in Texas on Saturday night.

I am not sure what to say about this race…. sure, the knee-jerk reaction of most fans is that the race was boring.  Sometimes your knee is right!  When #Wind and #Trash trend higher than the action on the track…. it tells you something.

At least the lights worked.  During the Nationwide race on Friday – failing lights in turn #3 brought out multiple cautions and the red flag.  As the Sprint Cup race ran for 234 laps without a caution – I for one was begging for an EMP or Texas sized mothra to take out some lighting….. to steal a joke from Bill Maher – when Ambien needs to sleep it watches that Texas race.

It didn’t start well, the Anthem by Kelley Hansen wasn’t the best I have ever heard, but to be fair – he is a Foreigner.  As the race unfolded – the excitement didn’t build:  The only real contact made on track was between debris and the car’s grills.

When Marcos Ambrose get debris on his grill does he call out on the radio that he has debris on the barbie?   Just wonderin’.

Pit road wasn’t kind to many.  Kevin Harvick snapped at his crew for missing a lug nut, Kyle Busch screamed really loud when he dropped a car on his hose, and Kasey Kahne seemed at odds when he was trapped in the box – he couldn’t wait to get out of the box.

Brad Keselowski had fuel pump issues sending the Blue Deuce behind the wall twice. I guess there isn’t an app for that.

Rick Hendrick’s 200th win is proving to be a bigger tease than everyone I dated in high school.  For the latter part of the race, Jimmie Johnson dominated the field – he was hoping to get his 1st win since Kansas last fall.  But with 30 laps to go The Biff passed Jimmie Johnson and didn’t look back.

This week’s Q4G shout-out goes to Marcos Ambrose!  HEYYYYYY MARCOS!  or should I say……. “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Boy Boy Boy!”    His 20th place finish does not represent how well he ran all day.  Ambrose kept it in the Top-10 for most of the day but ran out of fuel on the last lap.

Before I close this week’s Gaynalysis….. I have to thank all of my generous friends and readers.  As anyone who follows me on Twitter knows – this weekend I will be walking in the Vegas AIDS walk and I have been begging for donations from all of my readers.  We raised $2,100.00!!!!  This amount will be matched by Penn & Teller – so that means $4,200.00 will be given to AFAN (Aid for AIDS of Nevada) in Queers4Gears name.  Everyone’s generosity means so much to me – thanks from the bottom of my gay heart!

 

Greg Biffle Wins Heated Battle Against Johnson for Texas Win

[ via NASCAR Wire Service - by Reid Spencer ]

Credit: Chris Graythen/Getty Images for NASCAR

Saving his equipment for the final green-flag run, NASCAR Sprint Cup Series points leader Greg Biffle finally put a win on the board, cruising to a 3.235-second victory over Jimmie Johnson in Saturday night’s Samsung Mobile 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.

Biffle took the lead on Lap 304 of 334 and pulled away to win his first race since Oct. 3, 2010 (at Kansas), his second at Texas and the 17th of his career. Johnson, who led a race-high 156 laps, scraped the wall trying to run down Biffle in the late going.

Mark Martin came home third, followed by Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth. With Kasey Kahne finishing seventh and Dale Earnhardt Jr. 10th, all four Hendrick Motorsports drivers ran in the top 10, but Biffle denied them their most coveted prize, a 200th Cup victory for team owner Rick Hendrick.

From the moment he passed pole-sitter Martin Truex Jr. for the lead on Lap 180, Johnson was dominant, as Biffle chased the five-time champion lap after lap through three cycles of green-flag pit stops.

Biffle frequently gained ground when Johnson hit traffic, but the margin would expand when Johnson got to clean air. The lead stayed at roughly one second — give or take — and by the time the race hit Lap 300, Martin in third at 7.8 seconds back was the only other driver within 10 seconds of the leader.

With 34 laps left, however, Biffle turned up the wick. On Lap 304, the series leader made the pass for the top spot, streaking to the inside of Johnson’s No. 48 Chevrolet as the cars approached the start/finish line.

The race featured only two cautions and ended with a green-flag run of 234 laps. That was a race record, as were the average speed (160.575 mph), fewest number of cautions and fewest number of caution laps (10).