Larry Rice tribute

One of two ways

"This really rocks."

-Or-

"This is really sucks."

95% of all new ideas will wind up with one of the above statements directly applying to them. Things either fucking kick ass or blow major boner. Rarely is there a middle ground. It's pretty black and white, clear cut, cut and dry, and so forth.

'Middle of the road' has shrunken to the size of the middle class in this country. (That was topical political humor.) Look at television and movies. I can't name a mediocre show or picture that was made in the last five years. The stuff churned out by the Goldsteins and Winebergs of Hollywood all fall on the opposite ends of the sucking line graph spectrum. Let us look at last night's (11/25) TV listings to illustrate this phenomenon:

*Key: FR=fucking rocks; FS=fucking sucks.

House (FR); Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (FR); Rehab: Party at the Hard Rock Hotel (FR. Seriously, watch this show. It's on TruTV and follows around waitresses at the Hard Rock in Vegas. Their uniforms are bikinis. It's a cheep thrill, but I'm a cheep guy.)

Everything else on last night was horrible:

Dancing With the Stars (FS); The Mentalist (FS); NCIS (FS); Fringe (FS)...

Full disclosure: I've never seen any of the 'FS' programs. You know why? Because they suck. There is no possible way The Mentalist is good. So I don't waste my time. I guarantee all of the above shows are disasters.

And that's just TV. Movies are more glaringly one-of-two wayed.

In the past five years, Superbad and The Departed are the only incredible things I've seen. Everything else sucked. (Possible exception given to a few other Seth Rogen films that weren't awesome, but still kind of enjoyable, in a 'if I laugh does this make me guy?' way. But, this would screw up my argument, so these films get omitted.)

This trend is present in everything. Sports? You bet. Trades never have middle ground. Your team either gets a stud for next to nothing or gets stuck with Ron Solt and some other 'pud to be drafted later.'

I have been thinking about how to apply this paradigm to the USAC news about road racing the new "Gold" Crown car. The car is supposed to debut in 2010 and, for those who haven't seen the design, here are some images.

A full field of these things, with live solid axles bouncing around twisty bits could be pretty damn impressive. more importantly, it could be entertaining. On the other hand, a halfhearted group of oval-specialists trying to figure out how to road race a car not suited for the discipline could border on comical. In short, it could suck.

The manufactures need to insure that these things will not be total dogs when turning left and right. That doesn't mean there's a need to outfit hideous wings all over the cars, or to make the suspension package so complicated that an Indy car team couldn't dial them in properly. No, they just need to create a somewhat neutral handling car that can be tossed about the corners and can run in packs. It's a simple concept, really. Hopefully the guys at Riley Technologies, Devin Race Cars and this new Bruce Ashmore company will be able to engineer these things to functionally not suck whilst road racing.

If USAC is serious about this road racing thing, they should really jump in and not ass around. Make a championship supplement for the road course events. Schedule more than a few non-oval races. Make teams and drivers really have to figure out road racing to seriously compete for a title. USAC has a corner on the open wheel oval racing market. Branch out a bit and make this something different and unique.

With the IndyCar Series moving to a more balanced schedule, it's in both organizations best interest to make the Gold Crown series as relevant as possible. Relevancy means balanced schedule, and a car that fits somewhere on the IndyCar Series ladder system.

In short, USAC and chassis designers; don't make this suck. That would really easy to accomplish. Make this series and car fucking rock.

Greg Weld 1944-2008

We'd heard of Weld Racing Wheels, but not of its founder, former sprint car ace Greg Weld, until this morning. During a cursory glance through Speedtv.com, we happened upon his obituary of sorts, penned by Robin Miller.

Weld, who died Monday of cancer at age 64, probably doesn’t ring a bell with anyone under 50, because he quit driving in the early 1970s to concentrate on his wheel empire. Since he only qualified for one Indianapolis 500, he also wouldn’t rank as a hero except for every guy who ever raced him or watched him perform in USAC from 1965-’74.

Miller paints Weld as a real racer, whose abilities on the cushion were only rivaled by his business sense. Miller's recollection of Weld's pole winning run for the 1969 Hoosier Hundred (besting guys named Andretti, Unser and Foyt) is worth the price of admission. (If, you know, you had to pay to read a Speedtv.com article.)

Miller is a polarizing figure in the small world of motor racing journalism. That said, the guy flat out knows his shit when it comes to the history of sprints and midgets. We're thankful for that, as we now know something about a fellow named Greg Weld and his prowess on the dirt.

Cheers Mr. Weld, RIP.

Remembering Greg Weld (Robin Miller)

Greg Weld, KC's wheel man, dies at 64 (The Kansas City Star)

The $10K push

Tony Stewart has been fined $10,000 for his actions at a USAC midget race at O’Reilly Raceway Park last week. Those "actions" included knocking an officials' radio to the ground and pushing another USAC employee. See the video. In addition to the fine, Tony Stewart Racing has been placed on probation for the rest of the 2008 USAC season.

The "push heard 'round Indy" happened when Smoke's driver, Tracy Hines, pitted for a tire change, but his car was deemed not ready to re-enter the race of the restart. This angered Stewart. Greatly.

USAC officials fine Stewart for altercation

Stewart can get rather agitated

Tony Stewart had a pretty eventful weekend in Indy. Aside from competing in Sunday's Brickyard, Smoke announced the sponsors and number for next season's Stewart-Haas Racing entry (Home Depot, Old Spice, #14), he also made time to pitch a fit at a USAC-race and push an official. WTHR has obtained video of the incident. Fine forthcoming.

Check it out.




Tony Stewart USAC Shoving Video Emerges