Gaynalysis: Bud Shootout Weekend 2012

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

"Gay NASCAR" by Keith J. Varadi - 2009

NASCAR got its Packback!

To everyone (including me) who has been bitching about the two-dog-f**king style of tandem racing that developed at Daytona and Talladega over the past two years….. NASCAR shoved a big jar of STFU in our collective mouths!

Seeing the big clusters of cars packed tightly together all night was fantastic. But with the good comes the bad. There were four “big ones” during this short race.

The scariest moment of the night found Jeff Gordon upside down on his roof for the first time in his cup career. The huge wrecks ruined the nights of Dale Jr, Kasey Kahne, Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson – and a ton of other fast cars.

I did see several comments online from fans who were not a fan of these huge packs – because of the crashes. Granted most of these comments were from car owners. Admittedly, I may have less sympathy for the car owners because I am not the one writing those checks – but in my mind, it was worth the price.

NASCAR has done in incredible job with the safety innovations in these cars – and while racing will never be 100% safe – the only thing damaged in the “big ones” tonight was sheet metal.

We are coming off one of the most action packed seasons in recent memory and NASCAR picked right back off where Tony and Carl left-off in Homestead. The return of the pack style of racing is going to be great for ratings.

I have a tendency to build things up in my mind – and then when the moment arrives and it can’t possibly live up to the hype I have built – I get let down. NOT TONIGHT – the Bud Shootout exceeded my expectations in every way.

This week’s Q4G Shout-Out can only go to Kyle Busch. Heyyyyyyyyy Kyle! He won this award before he won the race when he saved his car from spinning in an astounding way….. TWICE! This was his first race back in the M&M’s car since he was parked last year in Texas for wrecking Ron Hornaday. M&M’s had pulled their logos from the #18 for the last two races of 2011. It also appears the “media coaching” Kyle received off-season worked….. he was hardly recognizable from the @OldKyleBusch in victory lane.

Outside of the racing the weekend was full of drama. It was one crazy Friday. To start the drama NASCAR announced it had asked Phoenix Raceway to rescind their invitation to PGA star Bubba Watson who had been asked to drive his “General Lee” on a parade lap before the race at PIR. Watson recently bought the car at the Barrett-Jackson Auction in Phoenix and is Twitter-BFFs with Denny Hamlin.

NASCAR made the right call. They have been working for years to remove the “southern only” image from the sport and having a car with the Rebel Flag painted on it being paraded around before the race would not help the cause.

For the record, I am huge “Dukes of Hazard” Fan – I had quite the crush on Bo. I also consider myself a child of the south and I understand people that say the General Lee only represents a TV Show – and nothing more.

But the bottom line is that image is everything. Right or wrong – that flag comes with a boat load of baggage. Baggage NASCAR doesn’t need. It would just give ammunition to those that want to bash our sport.

I would rather we keep the focus on the “product.” The 2011 season was incredible and if The Bud Shootout is any indication… 2012 will be another season for the books. Why distract from this? Let Bubba drive the pace car!

Shortly after the General Lee flap – the most unusual story ever broke. Now I know this is going to be hard to believe – but Chad Knaus got caught cheating! I havn’t been this surprised since I learned that buttery spread wasn’t actually butter!

The #48 got pegged by NASCAR for having an illegal C-pillar. Race officials said it would have given Johnson an aero advantage. The sheet metal was cut off the car and the Lowes team had to weld new C-pillars on the car. NASCAR will announce the penalty on Tuesday – but the general feeling in the garage is that Knaus will not be suspended.

Before I close the first Gaynalysis of 2012 – I want to send the thoughts and prayers from everyone here at Q4G to Chris Myers and his family. Chris lost his son in an car accident late last week. RIP Christopher!

Busch Survives Spins – Wins Bud Shootout

[ credit NASCAR Wire Service - by Reid Spencer ]

Credit: Jamie Squire/Getty Image

Kyle Busch rallied from two near-disasters to win Saturday’s Budweiser Shootout at Daytona International Speedway with a slingshot move past Tony Stewart a few yards from the finish line at Daytona International Speedway.

The victory was Busch’s first in the season-opening exhibition race contested in two segments of 25 and 50 laps. His winning margin over Stewart was .013 seconds.

Marcos Ambrose recovered from a pair of wrecks to finish third, followed by Brad Keselowski and Denny Hamlin.

Stewart had just taken the lead on Lap 74 of a scheduled 75 when a violent wreck in Turn 4 sent Jeff Gordon’s No. 24 Chevrolet barrel-rolling through Turn 4 and sliding on its roof toward the entrance to Turn 4.

Gordon was following Kyle Busch on the backstretch, and contact between the cars turned Busch’s toward onto the apron. Busch made a dramatic save for the second time in the race, but Gordon slid up the track into the Chevrolets of Kurt Busch and Jamie McMurray.

As all three cars contacted the outside wall, Jimmie Johnson’s Chevrolet nosed beneath the right rear bumper of Gordon’s car and turned it upside down.

The wreck left 11 cars on the lead lap and sent the race to overtime.

Credit: Jamie Squire/Getty Images

A close call for Kyle Busch on Lap 48 strung the field out, leaving a 10-car pack fighting for the lead. Busch’s Toyota twice turned sideways off the bumper of Johnson, and twice Busch saved the car from calamity despite running onto the apron in Turn 2.

The complexion of the race changed dramatically on Lap 55, when a chain-reaction wreck that started with contact between the cars of polesitter Martin Truex Jr., Ambrose and Joey Logano clobbered those three vehicles and eliminated Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kevin Harvick and Matt Kenseth.

The resulting fourth caution of the race bunched the field for a restart on Lap 62, with Greg Biffle in the lead, followed by Hendrick Motorsports teammates Gordon and Johnson and reigning NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Stewart.

The race was barely eight laps old when contact from David Ragan’s Ford turned Paul Menard’s Chevrolet and ignited a multicar wreck that also damaged the cars of Kasey Kahne, Denny Hamlin, Matt Kenseth, Juan Pablo Montoya, Michael Waltrip, Jeff Burton and Gordon.

Earnhardt, who had led the first three laps, had just regained the top spot on Lap 8 and was out in front when the wreck erupted behind him. The crash sidelined Menard, Ragan and Waltrip and knocked Hamlin and Kahne off the lead lap. Burton also fell of the lead lap during the first 25-lap segment when he pitted under green with a cut tire.

“Everybody was real racy and I just got into the back of Menard,” Ragan said after exiting his car. “You get a good run, and you’re pushing a little bit, and I guess he was pushing whoever was in front of him. And when you’ve got the meat in between the sandwich, you usually get wrecked.”

McMurray was at the front of the field when NASCAR called the competition caution after Lap 25. Gordon, undeterred by minor damage to his car, was second, followed by Harvick, Kyle Busch and Ambrose.

Podcast – Out of the Tunnel Show #3

Show number three is in the books. Please bare with some of our technical issues – we plan to have everything perfect by Homestead.

This week Hannah and I talk about Kasey’s knee surgery, the odd sponsorships of HendrickCars.com, our Racing Shows are back, the Red Bull cars find a home, Hannah gives us an NHRA recap and there’s gonna be a new short track in Daytona.

Plus, Adam Lovelace joins us on the line for our race picks!

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The Out of the Tunnel is sponsored by Audible.com. Listeners of the show can get a FREE audio book download by visiting: www.audibletrial.com/OutOfTheTunnel

Not That You Asked, Adam’s 2012 Wishes

Queers4Gears contributor Adam Lovelace lays out his best wishes for the 2012 racing season:

A safe season for all racing series first and foremost!
Huge, major sponsors for Queers4gears.com so we can go to every single race!
I wish you all would listen every week to the Q4G Out of the Tunnel podcast. In fact, listen now right here: CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE SHOW
Dale Earnhardt Jr wins races and the championship even. Hey, I can wish big.
I hope Danica Patrick out performs and shuts up the haters. I hope she wins races.
I wish for less haters everywhere, not just racing.
I hope the Busch brothers get another big helping of humble. They need it. I’m not hating, just wishing.
I hope Queers4gears founder, Michael, starts being stalked by Kasey Kahne.
I wish Indycar would race on more ovals, or that the road courses were more competitive. Either one.
Every ARCA race televised! The ones they do televise are generally NOT the best ARCA races to watch. You are missing some good racing not seeing the short tracks. SPEED is a channel; they should show more racing of all types.
I want to listen to Sirius NASCAR online. It is 2012. I listen in the car for about 20 mins on the way to work and 20 mins on the way home. You know what lots of folks have access to during the day? Computers and mobile devices! I could listen all day. In fact, I pay extra to listen online, but one of the few channels I can’t get online? You guessed it.
Speaking of Sirius NASCAR, how about live qualifying and practice? Why not?
While I’m at it, how about some kind of app available to ALL smartphones? Again, it’s 2012. Keep up.
I wish the following would be banned from all tracks: the word boogity, all politicians of any persuasion, confederate flags (let’s move on), and Lee Greenwood songs.
I wish the Daytona 500 was still the day before a holiday. It was much better that way.
No rainouts, for any series.
More Friday/Saturday night races.
Autoclub Speedway should be reconfigured. While that’s being done Bruton Smith should remember what he did in Vegas and bring that to Kentucky Speedway. I think it greatly improved the racing.
I wish for all races to end two or three wide at the finish line.
I wish for all championships to be decided on the last lap of the last race of the season.
I wish for more first time winners. I love seeing drivers and teams get their first win.
I wish for more sell out races for all series.
I hope this two-car tandem racing in NASCAR is coming to an end. I’ll take the pack racing anyday.
Side by side commercials all the time. I love that feature and I see more commercials that way. Seems like wise marketing to me!
And, a shameless plug for myself, I wish someone from the racing world would call me. Offer me a job. I have many skills you need.
I hope you all have a wonderful new year and enjoy the 2012 racing season!!

Follow Adam on Twitter (@aclovelace )

Get to Know Your Driver Through His Stomach: Carl Edwards

From time to time – I like to throw these rapid-fire gastronomical questions at a driver if I get the chance. I don’t like to interrupt folks from the traveling media who have “important” questions to ask… but once those folks are done I can sometimes sneak these questions in. I had the chance during the Banquet week in Las Vegas back in December to ask a few drivers about their dietary habits. I will feature these over the coming weeks of the off-season. In this installment we talk to Carl Edwards:

Question	Carl Edwards’ Answers

Orange Juice: Pulp or No-Pulp?	pulp

Grilled Cheese: White Bread or Wheat Bread	wheat bread

Chocolate Milk Shake: w/ Chocolate Ice Cream OR w/ Vanilla Ice Cream and Chocolate Syrup	Vanilla w/ Chocolate Syrup

BBQ – Dry Rub or Sauce	sauce

at a cookout – Hotdog or Hamburger	hamburger

How do you like your eggs	scrambled

Favorite Pizza Topping	Canadian Bacon

Favorite Junk Food	Chocolate

Favorite Health Food	Subway (said with a grin)

Podcast – Out of the Tunnel – Show 2

credit Hannah Rickards' iPhone

It is time for show #2 of “Out of Tunnel.” Hannah and I are getting a better handle on the equipment and I hope the sound qualilty is going to improve each week. This week our voices should be coming out of both sides of your speakers.

In show #2 – we “almost” have an interview with Kevin Harvick. Well, I lost all the audio, so Hannah and I re-create the interview through theater of the mind. We talk about all the big news from the Media Tour last week, plus our take on Danica buying a spot in the Daytona 500. That plus: DeLana is preggers and Kasey Kahne can’t get out of Jury Duty.

We also welcome our new sponsor: Audible.com. Listeners of the show can get a FREE audio book download by visiting: www.audibletrial.com/OutOfTheTunnel

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE SHOW:

Kevin Harvick Plays Craps

Kevin Harvick was in Las Vegas to help promote the upcoming NASCAR Race in March. He played craps at the Bellagio with some media members as well as a few lucky fans. The craps play wasn’t for “real” money – each person started with a set number of chips and whomever had the highest chip count after 20 minutes won a prize. The media winner took home an autographed diecast while the winning fan got a signed Kevin Harvick helmet. Each of the fans who played also won tickets to the Vegas race.

Now, cut to the bad part for me….. there I was with my fancy-ass new recorder getting ready for my one-on-one interview with Harvick… I had all of my questions written down and had practiced them. Note to self, no matter how fancy your new recorder is – it needs to be in record mode and not cue to capture audio. I got home later to check the interview and the spot on the “tape” was blank! I guess I got too nervous and rushed it when I stepped in front of Harvick.

Harvick and I talked mostly about Vegas – he grew up in California, raced here as a kid, took his late teens “right of passage” trip here and got married in Vegas. This is second time back here since the banquet in December.

I even got Kevin to record an intro for our podcast…”I am Kevin Harvick and you’re listening to Out of the Tunnel.” – well I got Kevin to say that… the recording of it… not so much

Here are some of the pics and video that I did manage to “capture” of the craps game.

credit Michael Myers / Q4G

Podcast: Out of the Tunnel – Show #1

There are some changes in store for 2012 here at Q4G. First of all – The Queers4Gears Radio Hour is no more….. we have replaced it with a new show called “Out of the Tunnel.”

My co-host Troy Germain has decided to step away from the mic this year – I want to thank Troy for all of his work last season on the Q4G Radio Hour.

Joining me on air for “Out of the Tunnel” this season is Hannah Rickards. Hannah lives here in Vegas and works at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. She is the host of “The week at LVMS” which can be seen on the track’s Facebook page and their main website. I have had a lot of fun during down-time at the races chatting with Hannah and I think we are going to have a great time on the show this season.

There are plenty of shows you can listen to for race stats and recaps – on “Out of the Tunnel” we want to focus on what’s happening off track in the world of racing. What is going on when they guys drive out of the tunnel into the real world. Of course we will talk a little racing – but Hannah and I plan to focus our show on what happens “Out of the Tunnel.”

We are no longer using Blog Talk Radio – the price was too high and the quality was too low. The downside is that we will no longer be able to take live phone calls. The show is going to be produced in-house and posted each week on the Q4G website. We hope to eventually have it available on iTunes. We will be able to pre-record segments with guests on Skype and play those segments on the show.

This first show of 2012 was a bit of a test for Hannah and I – the show will grow and change over the weeks to come. This week we talked about getting used to all of the new driver sponsor combos and some of the silly-season madness in NASCAR and the NHRA. As Hannah and I discuss, not even NASCAR is immume from Tebow Fever that is sweeping the Nation and of course we had to talk about Kasey Kahne and his thoughts about those nasty boobies.

Listen to “Out of the Tunnel” Show #1 here:

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Get To Know Your Driver Through His Stomach – Jimmie Johnson

credit Michael T. Myers - Queers4Gears

From time to time – I like to throw these rapid-fire gastronomical questions at a driver if I get the chance. I don’t like to interrupt folks from the traveling media who have “important” questions to ask… but once those folks are done I can sometimes sneak these questions in. I had the chance during the Banquet week in Las Vegas to ask a few drivers about their dietary habits. I will feature these over the coming weeks of the off-season. In this installment we talk to five-time NASCAR Champion Jimmie Johnson:

Question	Jimmie Johnson

Orange Juice: Pulp or No-Pulp?	no pulp

Grilled Cheese: White Bread or Wheat Bread	I prefer white, but I am trying to be healthy so let’s say wheat

Chocolate Milk Shake: w/ Chocolate Ice Cream OR w/ Vanilla Ice Cream and Chocolate Syrup	Vanilla w/ Chocolate Syrup

BBQ – Dry Rub or Sauce	Sauce

at a cookout – Hotdog or Hamburger	both

How do you like your eggs	I love eggs – mostly I eat scrambled because that’s what my daughter eats. That’s a big moment every morning in our house – we crack the eggs and she helps stir and make the eggs.

Favorite Pizza Topping	Pinapple and Canadian Bacon

Favorite Junk Food	Ice Cream

Favorite Health Food	I don’t like any health food, I eat a lot of it because they make me but I don’t like it.

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NASCAR and MotorSports – From a Queer Perspective

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