Just a short one this week. A new development has me concerned. Last week, Jayski, which is my go-to site for paint schemes and NASCAR news became a part of the ESPN webpage. I’ve been going there every day, and they don’t seem to be updating their paint scheme link pages. I’m not that worried, I still have team sites, Facebook, NASCAR, and Twitter, so the tracker, and the grades will continue. I hope they start fixing the links soon.
I’ve also been working on a new website schedule. Basically everything is going to remain the same, but I’m going to compress my work setup, so I can get more done in less time. It’s been working well, I’m happy with it.
As I’m typing this, I’m watching Spring Training baseball. I’ve said before that I LOVE Spring Training baseball. It’s the MLB equivalent of getting a bunch of kids together and hitting the ball around in the street. It’s very laid back, and everyone is just there for fun. Stats and standings don’t matter. It’s simply fun baseball. I also love the road sign patches on the uniforms.
Lastly, for you energy drink drinkers out there, I have a new recommendation. Get some Kickstart Mango Lime. I didn’t expect much, but it won me over. It has a really good mango flavor, and the lime isn’t overpowering. It’s my new favorite energy drink.
Danica Patrick #10 Aspen Dental Ford Fusion-For the switch to Ford, Aspen Dental redesigned their car, and at best it can be described as “rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.” The changes did nothing to improve the overall look of the car. It’s not a good scheme, and I give it an F.
Danica Patrick #10 TaxAct Ford Fusion-For the switch to Ford, TaxAct redesigned their car. The changes did not change the grade of the car. It’s still a great looking car, and the bigger stripes are an improvement. It is an A scheme for sure.
Matt Kenseth #20 Tide Pods Toyota Camry-Talk about a downgrade! The 2016 throwback scheme was one of the best. Tide has always had great schemes, but this new scheme is a disaster! I hate the orange/blue separation, the subtle designs, and the overall look. Even a great color scheme can’t save this from an F grade.
David Ragan #38 Camping World/Good Sam Ford Fusion-I’m not big on the design scheme. I think the old Front Row template would have worked better. I do like the color scheme, and the design isn;t horrible, so I’ll give it a B-.
David Ragan #38 Jacob Companies Ford Fusion–It’s a bad design with a mediocre color scheme, and the two don’t work with each other. Taking everything into account, this is a C-scheme.
When you ask which states are auto racing hot beds, certain states automatically come to mind. Anyone who thinks of auto racing associates Indiana, Florida, California, and the southern states, Alabama, Georgia, The Carolinas, Tennessee, Texas, and Kentucky. New York, and Illinois are often thought of as well. There are a lot of states
One state that doesn’t get the respect it deserves as an auto racing state is Arizona. The state has a number of well-known tracks, including the now defunct Manzanita Speedway, and the ill-fated Phoenix street circuit, Phoenix International Speedway, Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park, and Tucson Raceway Park. The climate in Arizona, especially Tucson is great for car collectors and racers, since the weather isn’t as damaging to cars as it is in many other places in the country.
While Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park is the most well-known dragway in Arizona, it isn’t the only one. A former dragstrip located in Phoenix was Speedworld Raceway, and Tucson has Tucson Dragway. Drag racing has a long history in Tucson, dating back to the 1960’s. The original Tucson Dragway was built in 1962, and opened in 1964. The dragway operated continually until 1985. Te story goes that apparently, it was discovered that the strip was being used as a landing strip for drug dealer airplanes. After the 1985 AHRA Winternationals on February 17, 1985, the old track closed for good, and is now overgrown on state-owned land.
Drag racing seemed dead in Tucson, but shortly after, a new track, Southwestern International Raceway, a 1/4 mile dragstrip, opened shortly after the closing. Since then, Southwestern International Raceway re-branded to Tucson Dragway has hosted IHRA, and AHRA events, but is currently an NHRA-affiliated track. Located near the Pima County Fairgrounds, it is also one of the most active drag strips in the United States. The 2017 schedule alone has 60 events over the course of the year.
Last week, I discussed my trip to Tucson. I had asked if I could come down to Tucson Dragway, and track manager Matthew DeYoung was kind enough to let me come down and photograph the track. The facility is a nice one.I started at the starting line, and I photographed the burnout box, the maintenance shed, and the tower.I noticed a tumbleweed stuck in the sticky rubber near the beginning of the track.I noticed all of the track equipment, parked behind the starting line. Matt was nice enough to let me photograph the Christmas tree, I like the “No U-turns” sign on the tree. I noticed the little shed just in front of the tree, near the starting line, which has some of the basic maintenance items needed for racing events.I then stared down the dragstrip, and felt serene. The look, and the scent is something that drag racing fans love about a dragstrip.I walked down the strip, walking in the racing groove, and out of the racing groove. I noticed that while the track is sticky, the groove isn’t as sticky as the area out of the groove…
As I got to the 1/8th mark, I took photographs of the sensors and the foam blocks that are used to record times. Then I walked to the finish line, indicated by the black line on the wall. Since Tucson Dragway is close to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, a C-130 flew over the finish line, and I tested my zoom lens. Tucson Dragway is a nice facility, and it’s really close to Tucson Speedway, a 0.375 mile paved oval, one of three in the state of Arizona. They don’t have a partnership, but they do work with each other occasionally. I would like to thank Matthew DeYoung for letting me come down and photograph the track.
Next week, I’m going to shift focus to some off-road stuff.
Apparently Pepsi didn’t get the piss yellow memo, and here we have another example of why it’s a terrible color for a race car. It’s not just IndyCar, NASCAR and the NHRA also fell victim to the Pepsi Challenger design. Did Pepsi not realize that they have a great color scheme? Red, white, and blue is a color scheme that rarely misses, but for some unknown reason, Pepsi thought that piss yellow was the way to go…which it wasn’t. I’m giving this scheme an F.
Streaming sports on app seems like a great idea. The capacity to watch the game on a phone, tablet, or computer when you are not at home for whatever reason should be a great thing. Over the last few weeks, I watched a few events via streaming, and I discovered that Fox Sports found a great way to fuck this up.
Whoever is in charge of the app streaming division at Fox Sports should be fired. After streaming three different events, two races, and the Super Bowl, I’ve realized that whoever is in charge over at Fox Sports either doesn’t understand the basics of advertising revenue, or if they do, they don’t care.
The first race I watched was the Rolex 24. I watched all 24 hours. Fox Sports Go had a setup where if you had a streaming service with Fox Sports, you could watch the whole race. Now this seems like a good idea, but after midnight, the commercials shifted to something called “Fox Sports Racing” which is little more than a Velocity rip off. It’s a channel that has auto racing, and car customization shows. I’m not going to watch it, but there are plenty of car guy and gals who might like to watch it. Here’s the problem: IT’S NOT AVAILABLE IN THE UNITED STATES!
Could someone please explain to me why in the world I had to sit through commercials for a product I can’t buy? Again, it isn’t my thing, but I would bet that there are people who would. To have to watch 3 or 4 of these promos every commercial break was enraging. It’s one thing to show commercials for stuff I don’t want, but can buy, but to force me to watch commercials for something I can’t buy is insulting. The thing is, as bad as this was, this wasn’t the worst.
Next, I watched the Super Bowl in its entirety on the NFL Mobile app. Now I get that while there are plenty of national commercials, but if you are going to put something in place of them on an app, could you pick more than two TV show promos? Every commercial break there was one promo for Empire, or 24. Apparently Fox doesn’t have any other television shows that they felt should be promoted during the biggest television show of the year. Watching the same two promos was enraging. Rather than alternating the two, Fox would play the Empire one over, and over, occasionally replacing it with the 24 promo. This was actually not as bad as what happened next.
On the way home on Amtrak, I was attempting to watch the NHRA Winternationals, and I had to turn it off. The Fox Sports Go app should be an easy thing to do. Just show the national telecast, with local commercials. This generates ad revenue, and keeps sponsors happy. Leave it to Fox to mess this up in the most idiotic way possible. Instead of showing said commercials, for whatever reason, the app would replace them with local Fox promos.
Again, why would you screw over advertisers in order to promote local programming? This makes no sense, it screws over and enrages sponsors, and fans hate it. It’s so nonsensical, it’s mind boggling! Who at Fox thought this was a good idea? Why was this approved? If the plan was to destroy the Fox Sports Go app, then it’s going well. I’m NEVER watching any Fox Sports programming on the Fox Sports Go app again EVER! I hope that whoever is in charge over at Fox Sports gets fired.
Joey Logano #22 Pennzoil Ford Fusion–It’s the same basic scheme from last year, with some light changes in the white stripes. It still looks good, and I give it an A.
Cole Whitt #72 Florida Lottery Ford Fusion-The black doesn’t work at all with the orange and teal color scheme, and the scheme looks forced. The only thing I like about this scheme is the door numbers. I’ll give it a D-.
My annual Tucson trip is now just a memory. It was nice to get out of Chicago for a week, and be able to spend time in warm weather with my family. Every year I try to find some interesting things to do, and this year I had a few good ones, and a special project, but more on that later.
I have a hard core and deep seated fear of flying, so I take Amtrak from Chicago to Tucson and back. I take the Texas Eagle, which takes three days. Here is a video I made of the trip down there. You see a lot of the country over three days.
We have a five hour layover in San Antonio, Texas, and I decided to kill some time and have dinner. I found a Whataburger, and tried it, and I thought it was really good.
I also tried a “Homestyle Quarter Pounder” whch is a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder which is, to my knowledge, exclusive to Texas. It’s a Quarter Pounder with, lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles “homestyle burger sauce.” It was also really good.
While I was on the final leg of the trip, I watched The Super Bowl on my phone, using the Verizon NFL app, and I’ll have more to say about that next Monday.
Once I got to my parent’s condo, I spent Monday puttering around. I needed to get my sleep patterns back to normal. I had a quiet day, aside from going to Brushfire for dinner. Tucson has some great barbecue, and Brushfire is my favorite place in Tucson for barbecue. Their fried pork bellies RULE!
Tuesday was spent checking out sports card stores in Tucson. I ended up buying a Lenny Moore signed jersey, and a Derrick Rose game used swatch card. I then went to Sentinel Peak Brewing Company, and tried some samples.
I then tried the “Overhaul Spicy Chili Beer” which is made with six chili peppers, roasted Jalapeno, Habanero, Serrano, Annaheim, Poblano, and Ghost Chilies. It was not great.
That night, we went back to El Corral, and, as always, the food was great.
Thursday was one of my two big things I had planned for the trip. My family and I went to the 63rd Annual Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, which is in the Tucson Convention Center. There was a lot of interesting stuff there.I’m not as interested in the gems themselves, but the mining aspect interests me. I wound up buying a check from the Bodie Bank, which was in the mining boom town of Bodie California. I also got some other stuff, including:a small vial of diamond cut quartz,some gold leaf in a container with water,a sample of the bluestone used to make Stonehenge,and a .07 gram gold nugget.That night, we went to Ha Long Bay, and I had Vietnamese food for the first time. If you haven’t had pho yet, I would suggest you get some, it’s really good.Friday was more or less spent getting ready for the train ride back home, and for dinner we went to Rigo’s Mexican Restaurant. The buffet is great there, and the prices are good too!
Then on Saturday, I got back on the Texas Eagle and headed home. I had fun, and I am looking forward to coming back next year. You may have noticed, I left Wednesday out. Well that was intentional, because on Wednesday, I worked on a project, which I will discuss next week.
It’s a great color scheme with a good color scheme except for the logo placement. Who in their right mind thought it would be a good idea to place a red STP logo on a red STP background? It makes no sense, and doesn’t look good. The logo does have a white oval around the red, but even in the closeup picture it’s hard to see. If the color scheme were flipped, I’d like it more. Still, it’s worth an B+
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