Author: dgf2099

By David G. Firestone

“It’s very nice to go trav’ling, To Paris, London and Rome, It’s oh, so nice to go trav’ling
But it’s so much nicer, Yes, it’s so much nicer to come home.” Frank Sinatra sang that, and I tend to agree. This last week, I spent the week in Tucson Arizona, with my family. It’s nice to get out of the deep freeze and snow of a Chicago winter, but I do love coming home, reuniting with my cats, and writing for my readers.

I hate flying, so I take Amtrak. Amtrak runs the Texas Eagle from Chicago to Los Angeles three times a week. The trip on Amtrak is a lot of fun. It takes 2 and a half days from start to finish. I boarded the trip to Tuscon at Union Station in Chicago, and we left. The weather on the trip was great, though there was some rain in New Mexico. We have a 4 hour delay in San Antonio when we change trains.

The trip home had an amazing incident. 5:45 in the morning, the San Antonio police were conducting standard interviews of the passengers, and the guy sitting behind me babbled incoherently, and couldn’t keep his story straight. He said he only had one bag, but was instantly proven wrong. The cops pull him out of the train, and pull all 3 of his bags out, had their dogs sniff them, and found 6 pounds of marijuana, a few pounds of hash, and one pound of heroin. Needless to say, he didn’t leave with the train, but rather with the cops.

One of the things I did was go to the Pima Air and Space Museum. Davis-Monthan Air Force Base is located 5 miles outside of town. The Pima Air and Space Museum is located nearby. You can explore the third largest air and space museum in the US, and for an extra fee, take a tour of the Air Force Materiel Command’s 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG), the aircraft boneyard for all excess military and government aircraft. Some of my photos are below.

The AMARG houses the Boneyard, which is the storage space for United States Air Force aircraft that are not in use. Most of the aircraft stored at the facility are useable, just not needed, so they have a coating placed around openings, and are stored for as long as needed. For a fee, you can take a tour on a bus, some photos from the tour are below.

The Penske Racing Museum is located in Phoenix Arizona, in a group of Penske auto dealerships. It has an amazing collection of Indy 500 winning race cars, Stock cars, and some other gems. As a bonus, it has free admission. They have a massive collection of trophies as well, including a Harley Earl trophy, a Nationwide Series Owner’s Championship trophy, and several gold replicas of cars. One thing I did run into with the museum is the fact that I was not able to photograph “orange and white cars” which refer to Marlboro sponsorship, due to “legal reasons” so there are a number of photos that have been edited to reflect this.

It was an amazing experience, and as an added bonus, I got to check out the Ferarri Dealership next door, lots of good stuff over there too. I loved looking at the change of design of IndyCars over the years, and the design of stock cars that were on display. I was disappointed that the boutique was closed, but you can’t win them all. I could have spent much longer there than I did. If you are in Phoenix, and love racing, you have got to check out that museum!

Our last night, we had dinner at El Corral in Tuscon. Built in 1926 as the first restaurant east of Oracle Road. It’s a steakhouse that has great prime rib, and steaks cooked over wood fire, and they have some cowboy memorabilia on display, a Tom Mix worn suit,A Chill Wills hat, pair of boots, and other memorabilia,A pair of Monte Montana boots,

and a pair of Roy Rogers boots, with a written letter included. It was a great trip, and I can’t wait to go back.

I think I’m forgetting something…oh yeah…The Sprint Unlimited is tonight.

The format for the Sprint Unlimited is as follows: A competition caution at lap 25 will separate the segments in the non-points event, The field of 25 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers will include 2014 Coors Light Pole Award winners, former Sprint Unlimited race winners and Daytona 500 pole winners who competed full time in 2014, and all 16 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers from 2014. I’m looking forward to seeing this formant, and it’s always fun when NASCAR returns in the cold winter. I’m watching, and I hope you will too.

By David G. Firestone

So after watching all 24 hours of The Rolex 24 at Daytona, first off, I’m exhausted, second off, it was a great event! The “Star Car” of Chip Ganassi, a Ford EcoBoost powered Daytona prototype with Scott Dixon, Tony Kannan, Jamie McMurray, and Kyle Larson won the overall event, as well as as the Prototype class. The GT Le Mans class was won by Corvette Racing’s Jan Magnussenm, Antonio García, and Ryan Briscoe who finished 5th overall. Prototype Challenge was won by PR1/Mathiesen Motorsports with Mike Gausch, Andrew Novichm Andrew Palmer, and Tom Kimber-Smith in an Oreca FLM09 with a Chevy engine. GT Daytona was won by Riley Motorsports in a Dodge Viper with Ben Keating, Dominik Farnbacher,Kuno Wittmer, Cameron Lawrence, and Al Carter at the helm.

I don’t watch the Tudor United SportsCar Championship or Endurance racing that often, I watch Sebring and Le Mans and Daytona, but normally and I watch NASCAR IndyCar, and NHRA so it’s a really odd transition. It gets kind of confusing with 4 classes running on the track at the same time. Also, the pit stops are slow compared to NASCAR or IndyCar, but that is understandable as the race is 24 hours long. But when you haven’t had a sport to follow for 2 1/2 months, it’s a small price to pay.

A couple of design things struck my eye. Since half this race is run at night, spotters need to be able to see their cars at any given moment. As such, many cars are outfitted with custom light designs on the roof. Many teams opt for lighted car numbers as well. What I also noticed, and I don’t know why I didn’t notice this before, the cars have number setups to tell indicate where they are position wise, based on class. Cars that feature all professional drivers have red numbers, cars with professional and amateur drivers have blue lights. This is represented in the car numbers. Red boxes around the numbers are professional, blue boxes are professional and amateur drivers.

One thing I didn’t know about prior to this race was the existence of The Delta Wing. This is a car designed to have lighter size and engine power, but with much less drag than traditional race cars. It looks like something out of a Batman comic. Sadly, transmission problems kept us from seeing how well it could really do.

There have been a lot of odd incidents in racing in the last few years, and this race was no exception. At 5 AM, Andy Lally, while driving the #44 Magnus Racing Porsche 911 hit a possum with his car it went through the radiator, and wound up in the front trunk of the car. Porsche 911 is a rear engine car. It wound up knocking Lally, a dedicated vegan, out of the race.

After a brief nap and some dinner, I tuned into the Pro Bowl, or as I like to call it, the Who Gives a Damn bowl. The NFL has done so much to get fans to watch, and they just don’t care at all. This week, the NFL announced that the goal posts would be narrower, and the point after touchdown lines would be moved back. This led to a challenge for kickers, and a number of missed PAT’s. Rarely if ever do you see that, so it did make for an exciting game. the uniforms were awful, but that is the norm now.

That got me to thinking…was this a testing ground for future goal post changes? The fact that the NFL would use such rules might indicate that. Sports thrive on change, and the goal posts haven’t had major changes for a long time. I think that the NFL might be thinking about changes to the goalposts in the future. This might be the first in a series of experiments in that line.

I also caught the late telecast of the NHL All-Star Game, and I hated the uniforms. I also hate this new system of selecting teams. This also applies to the NFL. I like the idea of conference vs conference. I like the idea of AFC vs. NFC in the NFL and Eastern vs. Western in the NHL. But while I can defend having the captains pick the teams in the NHL, the Pro Bowl draft is unacceptable. If it were up to me, I would redo it so that one of the player captains picks the teams. I have nothing against Michael Irvin and Cris Carter, but why not have Team Luck vs. Team Sanford? That would, in my mind, be a better system. But I’m just me, what can I say?

I’m gonna be going on Vacation on Friday, I’ll run the tracker and paint scheme grades as normal, but I may or may not do a My Thoughts On article next Monday, I haven’t decided yet.

By David G. Firestone

Winter sucks. It’s cold, there’s snow on the ground, and the worst part is that there isn’t auto racing…until 2 pm tomorrow! Yes! It’s the Rolex 24 at Daytona. This year’s field will feature 53 teams from around the world. I’m not a fan of Sports Car racing but I’m looking forward to this. Using the road course configuration, 53 different cars, with 3-4 drivers will race over the course of 24 hours. The goal is to run the farthest in the 24 hour time. In the event of a red flag, the time count will not stop, but the race will.

The history of the event dates back to 1959, when a 1000 km, or 621.371 race was held. In 1962-1963, it was changed to a 3 hour long format, and then to a 2000 km or 1242.742 mile race from 1964-1965. In 1966, the race became a 24 hour long race, which it was until 1971. In 1972 the race was shortened to 6 hours, then returned to 24 hours from 1973 on wards.

If racing has a true “all star race” this is it. Mario Andretti, AJ Foyt, Bobby Rahal, Al Unser, Al Unser Jr., John Andretti, Scott Prutt, Arie Luyendyk, Max Papis, Christian Fittipaldi, Scott Dixon, Casey Mears, Dan Wheldon, Juan Pablo Montoya, Scott Sharp,Graham Rahal, Sébastien Bourdais, Justin Wilson, and Charlie Kimball have all won, and the roster of drivers who have raced in the series is legendary. From NASCAR, Rusty Wallace, Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Greg Biffle, Kurt Busch, Kyle Petty, AJ Allmendinger, Mark Martin, Jamie McMurray, Kevin Harvick, Brian Vickers, Marcos Ambrose, Clint Bowyer, Michael Waltrip, Robby Gordon, Nelson Piquet Jr.,Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Dale Earnhardt Sr. have raced. From IndyCar, Buddy Rice, Hélio Castroneves, Sam Hornish, Jr., Dario Franchitti, Paul Tracy, Michael Andretti, Marco Andretti, Danica Patrick, Jimmy Vasser, and James Hinchcliffe. Celebrites who love to race show up, including Tim Allen, Frank Beard, Robert Carradine, Patrick Dempsey, James Garner, Gene Hackman, Bruce Jenner, Perry King, Lorenzo Lamas, Phil Mahre, Craig T. Nelson, Paul Newman, Dan Pastorini, Brian Johnson, and Jason Priestly.

This year’s race looks to be a good one, and I’m tingling with excitement. It starts at 2:10 ET on Fox, moves to Fox Sports 2 from 4pm-8pm, then to Fox Sports 1 from 8pm to 10 pm, moves to IMSA.com from 10pm to 7am, and from 7 am to 2:30 will be back on Fox Sports 1. I’m looking forward to it, and I’ll see you there!