Slouching inside your cube. Gazing upon the navy blue cube-wall carpeting. Intense beams of harsh light cascading from above. Will the work day never end?

Speed up your afternoon by sloth. Ignore your boss, don't answer the phone and watch live timing and scoring from the 45th SCCA Runoffs. Waste a few hours here and before you know it, drunk time.

RB interview: Robin Miller

Members of the sporting media have important information to offer the masses. (Aside from how to score a free media center lunch and Rolodexs full of gentleman's club location information.) Seasoned reporters have the ability to add historical perspective to their subject matter of expertise. Some smart guy once said something like, "to know where you're going, you must know where you've came from." Or something like that. Speed's Robin Miller knows where motor racing has come from and he certainly knows the challenges facing the sport's future.

After an email and a few phone calls (we once caught RM while attempting to fix his faulty garage door opener... That was not a good time for Q&A) we spoke with the motoring pundit on a number of subjects. Much ground was covered. We laughed, cried and were left feeling cautiously pessimistic about the future of motor racing. (Kidding. Sort of.)

The prospects of a 5000-word transcript post seem rather daunting, so we're going to split this up.

Here's part #1 of Ridebuyer's interview with Robin Miller. It's not a straight forward Q&A, but we boldfaced what could best be described as our questions. Enjoy.

-Oh, in case you're not quite with it, here's Miller's bio. It's copy-and-pasted directly from Speedtv.com, so it better be right.

Became an Indy-car junkie in late 1950s and stooged for my hero, Jim Hurtubise, at the 1968 Indy 500. Worked as a vent man and board man on Indy pit crews from 1971-77. Bought a Formula Ford from Andy Granatelli in 1972 and raced it in SCCA until 1974 when I purchased a midget from Gary Bettenhausen. Competed in USAC midget series from 1975-82. Flunked out of Ball State College in 1968 and began working at The Indianapolis Star sports department in 1969. Covered motorsports at The Star from 1969-2000, named assistant sports editor in 1984 and associate sports editor in 1989. Worked for ESPN from 2001-2003 on RPM2Night and ESPN.com. Also covered Indy car racing for Autoweek, Autosport, Car & Driver and On Track magazines during the past 35 years.

Now enjoy:

Q: Robin, thanks for taking the time. What we're trying to do here is get a feeling for what you reporter guys, well, do. Since it's the off-season, what takes up your days?

RM: Well I think different people have different… I’m an old school newspaper-guy, there’s not a lot of us left. Most people are internet people I think.

But, there’s such a lull, there’s a six-month lull and so I do some work for Motor Sport, occasionally I write something for Racer, I got this Concourse de’ Elegance, is having a big thing- an annual thing- I write for their magazine, they usually like a 3000-word story on some old- timer, which is what I am. It’s always fun to do something like that. I have a “mailbag” a do once a week for Speed. I usually get 100 to 150 questions during the season and lately I’ve been getting 60-70 since the season is over. So, I go through all of those. There are still a lot of people who want to know what’s going on; what’s going to happen with Paul Tracy? Is Allmendinger coming back? What about Jonathan Bomarito? What about Raphael Matos? I mean, there’s a lot of people that care about it and want to know what’s going 12-months out of the year.

Q: You talked about the "mailbag," kind of imagine you get the same kind of questions each week. What do you hear the most about and what are you tired of getting asked?

RM: The thing that comes out more and more is the people who hate the IRL cars, they hate the sound of the engine, and the fact that they don’t have any horsepower. That’s the number one thing. And the number two thing is that Paul Tracy doesn’t have a ride and people want to know why, and who’s going to give him a ride and how come he can’t get a ride. It’s hard to answer because I don’t know. I don’t know why someone in Canada doesn’t step up and I would hope somebody at Andretti-Green Racing would be smart enough to give him a good ride, because without Paul Tracy at Toronto, you’re not going to have a crowd. I mean he is the Toronto race.

Q: You talk about being an "old school" kind of guy. I take it you're not frequenting any blogs?

RM: No, I don’t. I worked at The Indianapolis Star for 32 years. You know, the internet is great in some respects, but it was kind of neat when it would take awhile to hear about a driver that was maybe running Ascot Park and you wouldn’t know anything about it until you got to see him around Terre Haute or Winchester or Eldora or whatever, I realize I’m going back, but information travels quickly. When Parnelli (Jones) tested the turbine at Phoenix nobody knew about it and that was kind of cool. Now, not only are there no secrets, everybody is an expert and anybody can write anything they want to write. And, you know, I don’t think it’s that healthy as far as what’s factual and what’s not. I think you see more people trying to go out on a limb trying to predict things. I was reading Speed and Kenny Wallace said that his brother Rusty is coming out of retirement and Rusty said “no, I’m not going to do it, that’s not true.” Whether it’s true or not, it’s kind of funny that his own brother reported it, and if it’s not true, that makes it even better. There’s this pressure for everybody to go out and scoop, and you got to get this out first and scoop this and that.

There’s been a lot of talk here in the last few weeks about who the guys are in Indy for that big engine manufactures summit. I’ll give the Speedway credit, they told people to keep their mouths shut and they have. It’s the tightest thing I’ve seen in a long time as far as nothing leaking out. Now some guy at Porsche told some guy in Europe a couple of days ago that Porsche was one of the people at the meeting which is kind of cool. We heard it was Porsche, Audi, possibly Volkswagen. And it’s going to take somebody like that to really get this thing going again. That is really going to go out and spend some money and back some teams and spend some money on marketing and promotion. Hopefully it is Porsche because their first couple attempts at Indycar racing, I think, left them with a bad taste in their mouth.

Q: Do you have any kind of an everyday must-read? Do you pick up The Star every morning, or anything like that?

RM: That (The Star) would be the last thing I would pick up. Sometimes I’ll pick up a paper just out of habit, but you’re not going to learn anything about racing reading The Indianapolis Star. That’s not going to happen. There are always about a week behind. That’s too bad because that should be the paper of record for what’s going on, but times change. I used to buy Autosport every week because I wanted to read Nigel Roebuck’s column. I always enjoyed that. I still like to read Gordon Kirby, he’s got a website. But, if you’re into open wheel racing, there’s hardly anything, aside from Racer. Motor Sport is the best magazine going, but it comes out once a month and it’s published in England and is not the easiest thing to get over here. It’s great because 65% of the magazine deals with the old days and that’s what most of us want to remember because that was the most fun and that’s where we have our best memories.

But, no, there’s nothing that I have to read every day. There are very few people who are compelling and can hold my attention, to be honest. I used to really love reading Ben Blake’s stuff; I don’t know what’s happened to him. He had a nice edge to him about NASCAR. He messed with everyone down there; it was great. Instead of just being a little sheep and a PR man. That’s probably the toughest thing, because it’s hard to get people to write what’s going on because they are worried about their jobs or friendships. It permeates the whole motorsports media. It goes from television and radio to magazines and newspapers.

I think there is always room for a fresh voice and maybe someone will come out of left field and say ‘I think this and that.’ There is a guy named Bill Zahren that I enjoy reading. He calls himself pressdog.com. It’s funny, has a really good wit about him. He puts things in pretty good perspective he doesn’t take himself or the thing too serious, and it’s a really good read. He’s made up some pretty funny stories of the past couple of years. He takes real life situations and makes them pretty funny. He interviews himself sometimes and I think that’s pretty clever.

Q: Your role as a reporter and a person who provides commentary- I guess a columnist is what you would call them- is it easy to differentiate those two roles?

Yes, absolutely. That’s good question because it’s what Tony George-when we were really battling in the mid-90’s, our 10-year war, whatever it was- he could never understand when I was at The Star, how I could cover a race and also write a commentary about it. And I explained to him, when you write a straight news story, you talk to the people who participated, you state the facts and get quotes if they have something worth saying, and it’s a real easy thing to do. Then, when that’s done, you go write a commentary about whether it was good, bad, ugly, indifferent, whatever it was. That’s very simple to do. I think it’s funny, when I worked at ESPN doing RPM2Nite, John Kernan, who was the host, would read all these websites everyday, these chat rooms. To see what people were saying about the RPM2Nite shows. He would get so upset if someone didn’t like what we did one night, or somebody didn’t like what he said or what I said. Or if somebody didn’t think we gave enough time for something. I would just laugh. I used to tell him, I’d say, “John, that’s the same 40-people. Why would you waste your time?”

To me I love people who have passion for racing, and there are some really good questions I get in this “mailbag” I do every week. People have some pretty thoughtful questions. They pay attention and they don’t just come out of the woodwork with insanity. There are a lot of people who really understand it, and get it, and want to know more about it. Those are the fun people to deal with.

The tough thing about open wheel racing is the war between CART and the IRL was so nasty that a lot of people can’t let it go and never will. I get a lot of people saying they used to like me because I stood up for CART. Well, I stood up for CART because they belonged at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and that’s what ruined the Indy 500 because, when it was divided, CART was in their heyday. I also ripped CART’s heart out every time I got the chance because they did so many stupid things for 25-years.

People either have convenient memories or don’t understand. There was a time when Roger Penske and I didn’t talk to each other for a year; there was a time when A.J. Foyt and I didn’t talk to each other for a year, because of something that was said or the way something was written. If you do your job you’re going to piss everybody off because that’s what happens. Your job is not to be a PR man-cheerleader. I love good races and I love good stories. But, racing is full of conflict. It’s full of people who are upset, people who are bitching and pissing and moaning because they don’t have the right car or the right engine. They’re trying to steal each others drivers, their sponsors, their wives, that’s what racing is. It’s this great conflict. I think that’s what Paul Newman was so drawn to. He lived in the world of make-believe, that’s how he made his living, but he liked racing because it was the ultimate reality.

-Part #2 will feature Miller's account of the Cannonball Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, his days wheeling USAC midgets and why ESPN's NASCAR coverage is, well, what it is...

Weekend recap

What you missed while going through old tax docs to make sure those island accounts you opened are legit.

Tony Stewart finally got his first victory of the season Sunday at Talladega. It was also his first Cup victory at the 'Bama track. Of course, if you ask Regan Smith, he would say Stewart is still 0-fer the year. Smith has penalized for passing Stewart below the "yellow line," or "out of bounds" as NASCAR calls it. Smith crossed the line first, but no matter, Stewart was awarded victory. The big story of the race was the continued sucking of products produced by Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. Random blowouts were the norm, and Chase drivers Denny Hamlin and Jeff Gordon both fell victim to shoddy rubber, finishing outside the top-30. A couple of "big ones" happened, so the fans who came to the track instead of watching Alabama almost lose to UK were happy. Paul Menard and David Ragan rounded out the top-3. Note the irony of shitting on Menard during our weekly preview (linked on Deadspin, thanks guys), only to have him post a career best finish. Irony, noted.

CUP: Stewart Tames Talladega

The ALMS boys and girls were at Road Atlanta for Petit LeMans. Class honors went to Allan McNish, Dindo Capello and Emanuele Pirro (Audi, P1); Helio Castroneves (out on bail) and Ryan Briscoe (Porsche, P2); Johnny O'Connell, Jan Magnussen and Ron Fellows (Corvette, GT1); Jaime Melo and Mika Salo (Ferrari; GT2). Cue the video and man-with-accent to explain:



Audi Scores Another Petit LeMans Victory; Porsche-Corvette- and Ferrari Scored Class Victories

Todd Bodine passed Kyle Busch and Ron Hornaday on the last lap of the pick-me-up event at Talladega. Cheers to the bald guy.

Bodine has last laugh, wins trucks race at Talladega

The news of Helio Castroneves' tax issues shocked most, amused some and worried others. Having the highest profile IndyCar Series driver in legal hot-water is probably not good for the league. Come to think of it, it's probably not good for anybody save the federal government. Interested in reading the more about the plight of HCN? Here's what the interweb's are saying about our dancing friend:

Penske, pals blindsided by Castroneves' troubles (Curt Cavin, The Indianapolis Star)

MILLER: Castroneves FAQ (Robin Miller, speedtv.com)

Helio Castroneves Indicted On Tax Evasion; Charges Against More Drivers To Come? (Andrew Stoy, jalopnik.com)

Castroneves' future uncertain after federal tax-evasion charges filed (John Oreovicz, espn.com)

Castroneves pleads not guilty in tax case, released on $10M bail (Associated Press)

Let us all have a great race week. Continued success to the Phils. BEAT LA.

The Chaser #4: Amp Energy 500

Each week Ridebuyer delves deep into the misunderstood, oft terrifying, world of American saloon-car racing known as NASCAR.

This week: Amp Energy 500 (Chase round #4)
TV: ABC 1:00pm EST (Sunday)
Location: Talladega Superspeedway (Talladega, AL)
Distance: 188 laps/500 miles
Past winners: J. Gordon (4/07); J. Gordon (10/07); Ky. Busch (4/08).

*How to blame the economy; take the sponsor and run*

The overwhelming theme of the past month has been the underwhelming performance of the economy. "The economy" seems like an abstract concept, something less than tangible, that shifts from good to poor in about the time it takes to read this sentence. One day the economy is structurally sound, the next it's shakier than a Jenga mountain on top of Heilo Castroneves' W-2s. This most recent sort-of recession (or is that depression?) seems to have more longevity than other contemporary economic woes. Banks are running out money for christsakes. That's a tell tale sign of we-all-may-be-fucked-dom. We strolled down to our neighborhood PNC to cash our weekly masonry check and stumbled upon this as we opened the doors:




Not. Good.

Motor racing is not immune to feeling the pressures of tight times. Just the opposite, in fact. It takes money to go fast, and Sprint Cup cars are pretty damn quick.

Look at the peculiar case of one Paul Menard. Never heard of him? That's understandable, as the veteran of about 70-Cup starts only has one top-10 finish. Throughout his inauspicious Cup career Menard has raced (with full sponsorship) at Dale Earnhardt Inc. That sponsor his been incredibly supportive of their driver even as returns on their investments (at least as far as solid finishes are concerned) have been small.

Thanks, Dad.

The signage adorning Menard's Chevy is that of, well, Menards, the regional chain of home improvement centers owned by John Menard, aka Paul's Pops. According to a well-scribed article on Nascar.com, John Menard ranks 127th on the 2008 Forbes' Billionaires List with a net worth of $7.3 billion. To gratuitously quote The Big Lebowski, he's not exactly a lightweight. People who follow motor racing know the elder-Menard quite well. He fielded Indycar entries for some time and is old buddies with Indy-Czar Tony George.

Anyway, if John Menard's kid wants to race in NASCAR, then NASCAR he shall race. Just not with DEI anymore.

Little-Menard is swapping teams and taking his regional chain of home improvement center-decals with him. Yates Racing will be Menard's new home next season, leaving DEI in an economics-of-racing quandary of epic proportions. There are exactly seven races left this season. DEI currently has four Cup entries (one each for Regan Smith, Martin Truex Jr., and Menard. Mark Martin and Aric Almirola share the #8 car). As it stands today, DEI will only have one full time sponsor heading into next season. That leaves three cars looking rather plain. DEI has some sales work to do if the team hopes to field four cars next season. The economy couldn't be shittier, and big corporations are not lining up to throw millions at a top-flight (which DEI is) NASCAR team like they were five years ago. So, good luck with that. Our advice to the sponsorship-finders at DEI? Add Alec Baldwin to your team and only hire closers.




That's enough movie clips for one post.



About this race:

*What to know:

'Big one' possible, still cliche: The simplest way to entice viewers and spectators to a NASCAR event is possibility of mass carnage. If this possibility was not present, exactly 16 spectators would show up to a restrictor plate race in Alabama during football season. Of those 16, 12 would be drivers' wives, and four would be related to Darrell Waltrip. As it stands, about 200,000 people will show up. Yes, NASCAR fans love the 'big one' and Talladega provides an excellent opportunity to play bumper cars at speed. The television talking heads will make mention to the 'big one' at every possible moment during the broadcast to keep the masses primed for destruction. Sometimes it comes, other times the race is void of 20+ car pileups. In short, the 'big one' may or may not happen. But it will get talked about, and rooted for in the broadcast booth, stands, and couches of America. Be ready.

Acquired taste: Restrictor plate racing is pack racing, or clump racing. Nobody has enough horsepower to get away from anybody, thus people have to run over each other to pass, and, well, see the point above. This type of racing is truly an acquired taste because things like track position are not important. At all. There are two schools of thought that can be used in running this race. You either want to be out front the entire time (hoping the 'big one' happens behind you), or you ride around in the back all day until about 25 to go when you make your move. It's debatable whether this makes for entertaining racing or a tedious afternoon. We've seen batter racing involving shopping carts and pissed-off Super Fresh patrons. Just our thought though.

Disregard qualifying: If you were to watch online live timing and scoring for Talladega qualifying (because you're not a loser and have sex with girls all the time), you'd notice some funny things. Like weird people you've never heard of are qualifying near the front. Travis Kvapil, really? That's because qualifying is completely meaningless. A good car can go from dead last to first in about 10-laps. We're not even going to post the qualifying results. That's how meaningless they are. It's certainly is not because qualifying is still in progress. Nope, that has nothing to do with. Meaningless!

Who to watch:

Jimmie Johnson: Constancy could win this guy his third straight title. Was he the best at the beginning of the season? Hell and no. Is he the best right now? Debatable. Is he the points leader? Hell and yes. Johnson has 17 top-10 finishes this season and an average finishing spot of 11th. He won this event in 2006 and has been pretty adept at running plate races (two career superspeedway wins, 10 top-fives.) In this iteration of The Chase Johnson has not finished lower than fifth.

Jeff Gordon: Last season, Johnson's teammate swept that Cup events at Talladega. That makes his total career victories at 'Bama track, six. Sure, the guy has not won an event this season, but he was able to gain two Chase spots last week with a p6. It seems like Gordon's momentum is building. 7/1 to win. We'd take that.

"Hot" Carl Edwards: This guy has been historically not "hot" on superspeedways. Zero wins and an average finish of 22nd. So, will he be good at 'Dega on Sunday. Maybe. He has been the hottest driver of late (Biffle disagrees) and if he can escape Alabama with any finish that's not a disaster, he'll be in good shape for the title.

*For those heading to the track:

Pertinent tailgating information is here. Although, there's no reason to post this. If you were even remotely considering tailgating at 'Dega, you've already been in the infield for a month. Tailgating Telladega is like pilgrimage to Mecca, only with more beer and slightly fewer stampedes.

The Ridebuyer cocktail of the race is, of course, the Alabama Slamma. Take it away kinda attractive bartender lady:

Okay, that was the last video.

Points:

1 Jimmie Johnson
2 Carl Edwards
3 Greg Biffle
4 Jeff Burton
5 Kevin Harvick
6 Jeff Gordon
7 Clint Bowyer
8 Dale Earnhardt Jr.
9 Matt Kenseth
10 Denny Hamlin
11 Tony Stewart
12 Kyle Busch

Next race: Bank of America 500 (Lowe's Motor Speedway). Had the financial bailout not happened, this race would have been Generic 500. True story.

Not just another bullshit night in suck city

Taking a 1/2 day and getting boozed-up before an evening baseball game is one of life's little pleasures. When that game happens to be of the playoff variety, well, the awesomeness factor of the whole endeavour increases exponentially. At the risk of sounding gushy, the atmosphere inside Citizens Bank Park last night was something special. If someone would have told me that Shane Victorino would hit a grand gank off of CC Sabathia to vault the Phils into a 2-0 series lead, I would have called that person retarded. I would've referred to them as "Corkey" for the rest of the evening. For christsakes, this is the same Sabathia who I saw pitch a CGSO (should have been a no-no) in Pittsburgh less than a month ago. Ah, but sweet alas:



Hours after the game's end, I was taking distinct pleasure in listening to the Baseball Tonight crew discuss the sudden implosion of the Cubs. (Fuck the Cubs.) Something across the scroll caught my eye. The words "Castroneves," "tax evasion," and "federal" were rather shocking. I was caught off guard. The AP story on Fox Sports seems to explain things pretty well. We'll keep sweeping the interwebs for updates. Speedtv.com's Marshall Pruett (no relation) is reporting Castroneves will race in tomorrow's Petit Le Mans event at Road Atlanta.

More information could be given during Petit Le Mans qualifying. It'll be streamed live on speedtv.com starting at 3:25 p.m. ET this afternoon, for those interested in watching at work.

NASCAR is in Talladega, our Chaser preview will be up, as always.

Also, not to give too much away, but next week, we will have a special feature involving a noteworthy racing expert. Let's just say this guy has forgotten more about racing than most of the so-called experts out there. It will be big time.

Enjoy the race weekend.

The best way to piss off your wife? Trail breaking

Between 1977-1993 Riccardo Patrese competed in 256 Grand Prix. It's a good thing his wife could never ride shotgun with the former-ace during events. Here are the two having a tiff inside a Honda Civic Type R during a hot lap of the Jerez circuit. We're thinking she may want him to slow up a bit.



We don't speak Italian, but the bit of sign language used by Mrs. Patrese near the end is pretty universal.

Riccardo definitely slept on the couch that night.

A full color spotters guide for this weekend's Petit Le Mans. Great if you ever wanted to know how to tell the two Corvette Racing C6.Rs apart. (Hint: notice the sideview mirror colors.)

Petit Le Mans spotters guide (Speedtv)