Bleacher Report - Articles by Paul Hadsley

NASCAR Fans Come To Realize: Not All Races Are Like Talladega (Satire)

Paul Hadsley — Mon, 04 May 2009 14:31:05 -0400

Following a Talladega race that featured wall to wall action, excitement, close racing and scary crashes, NASCAR fans came back down to Earth on Saturday as they once again came to the realization that not every race on the calender is like that.

Saturday's race at Richmond International Speedway featured few lead changes outside of pit road and strung out, single file racing for the majority of it's 200 laps, only punctuated by suspicious debris cautions and the occasional harmless spin.

Such a lack of action made many fans privately question why they watch this damn series week after week and not just tune in for the last 50 laps when the real action begins.

"I sat through the entire Talladega race with my eyes glued to the screen" said one un-named fan in the Richmond grandstand during a lengthy green flag run where nothing was happening.

"So I decided to come down to the track when they came to town...BOY, I wish I hadn't bothered. They haven't so much as flipped ONE car over yet!
It's really not what I was expecting!"

Ratings experts suggest this is a yearly trend races as potential new fans are made more likely to tune in to a NASCAR event after seeing highlights of the pack racing action and related consequences from Talladega on various news and sport highlight clips.

They then tune into the next race expecting to see more of the same, not realising the type of racing they are expecting is unique to restrictor plate racing and won't be seen again until Daytona in July.

The new fan will usually last 30 minutes into a long, boring green flag run and then say "the hell with this" and see what else is on the television.

The fan at the track is not so fortunate. "I paid 70 dollars for these tickets". said one such potential new fan "I specifically picked seats high up at the back, after what happened last week I'm not stupid. Though with the type of racing on offer today I might as well be sitting in Turn Four, no race car would bother me there either."

NASCAR had no comment on any plans it may have to lure and keep potential new fans and said it has no plans to either change the schedule or offer any kind of exiting racing action outside of restrictor plate events.

After Talladega Issues, NASCAR Admits: Fans Are a Problem (Satire)

Paul Hadsley — Fri, 01 May 2009 21:08:59 -0400

In the wake of the highly controversial finish to the Aaron's 499 NASCAR Nextel Cup race at Talladega, NASCAR has been under pressure to make changes to the way it stages restrictor plate racing at Talladega in a bid to better protect fans from flying cars and debris.

NASCAR officials are rumoured to be considering many options in a bid to make racing at Talladega safer. These include opposing magnets in the front and rear of each car so they are repelled away from one another, in theory eliminating the big one.

Another such idea is banning fans from the track completely and instead setting up the grandstands outside the track grounds where the fans don a virtual reality headset in a bid to simulate what sitting next to a catch fence and seeing nothing until a Cup car throws itself at you is actually like.

The last idea stems from the fact that NASCAR officials have been grumbling that they've made enough compromises to the way they run racing at Talladega. To protect the fans, it would be much better for everyone if fans were banned from the Talladega premises altogether.

"It would be a win-win situation for everyone concerned," said an unnamed source deep within NASCAR. "The drivers wouldn't have to attend such fan events as autograph sessions, nor would they have to pretend that they're actually excited to hear for the 20th time that day how far a fan has travelled to see him because they are his 'biggest fan.'

NASCAR officials too could get on with their jobs without of having beer cans thrown at them and their car overturned just because they had the nerve to penalise Dale Jr. for something so blatant it would've got any other driver a three-race ban.

Finally, the fans themselves could see much more sitting at home watching on TV than coming to the track and squinting at the cars a couple of miles away, then wincing when they rush past you so fast that you can't make out anything that's happening.

And an added bonus would be that episodes of Trackside would become watchable without hundreds of fans hooting and hollering in the back of the picture."

It is unknown when or even if NASCAR will announce changes to its restrictor plate racing format. It is probable that come the autumn race in Talladega changes will have been made.

Talladega will then go on to stage a completely pedestrian and caution free race and everyone concerned will question whatever knee jerk changes NASCAR enforces as being truly necessary.

Mark Webber Is a Joke, Not Formula One Safety Car Rules

Paul Hadsley — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:48:21 -0400

Mark Webber, writing for his column on the BBC website, has attacked the new 2008 safety car procedures, calling them "a joke".

He claims F1 is "more professional" than it is demonstrating this year with such "lucky" results as Nelson Piquet's recent second place for Renault in the German Grand Prix being a direct result of the new rules.

Personally, I occupy the polar opposite stance on the matter.

Before I reveal why I think the Aussie is misguided, let us be clear on what Webber is objecting to.

Under the new 2008 safety car rules, the pit lane is "closed" when the safety car is deployed. This prevents the drivers from rushing through the scene of an accident in a bid to get to pit lane as quickly as possible and gain an advantage over their rivals.

FIA discovered the fact that closing pit lane has a side effect of jumbling up the strategies, so you get slower cars in front of potentially faster ones, with more overtaking as a direct result.

Indeed, the same system has been used in American open wheel and stock car racing for years to great effect when it comes to generating excitement on track.

However, Mark Webber's mindset is not one of making the show better but instead how he can finish in the best possible position during the race. He feels the safety car rules are an unacceptable gamble.

To Mark and anyone else vocalising their displeasure about the "new" rules, I'll say this: These rules have been active since the start of the season, you cannot play the victim card any more.

It is now your responsibility to discuss with your race strategists if you want to risk running your car down to fumes before you come in to pit or you want to play it safe and pit with one lap of fuel remaining in the tank.

Please accept that if you decide to go for the optimum low fuel lap and then the safety car does happen to appear, that was your gamble and yours alone - not a fault with the rules, the FIA, or the sport in general.

Bottom line: the rules are the same for every team. They should now be able to plan around the safety car and be grown up about it if they roll the dice and lose.

And as a fan who has no vested interest except to see an exciting race, I think it is the best idea F1 has had (or copied!) in years!

Memo To David Coulthard: Your Right Foot Is Better Than a Computer!

Paul Hadsley — Mon, 19 May 2008 15:48:18 -0400

In the high powered world of Formula One, you hear many different noises.

The roar of the engines, the cheering of the crowd, the tapping of keys as another writer thinks up an even more clichéd introduction than this one.

But if you listen very closely, underneath all of this is another noise: The sound of David Coulthard moaning.

As one of F1's "senior" drivers (and that's putting it politely!) these days, if David has something to say, people will listen. He gives good copy, as they say in the world of journalism.

And since the ban on Traction Control was first mooted towards the end of the 2006 season, DC (as lazy journalists pretend he likes to be called) hasn't exactly been keeping his opinions to himself.

Any time the political hot potato of safety comes up, DC is right there moaning to anyone that will listen that the ban on Traction Control will make Formula One cars unsafe, particularly in the rain.

Ahh yes, the rain.

After F1 managed to have a race in near-torrential conditions at Fuji last year with no more serious an incident than could happen in a dry race (honestly, Alonso's crash, while big enough, didn't compare to some of the stuff we saw in dry conditions) those within F1 must've thought they'd set the bar higher of how bad the conditions can get yet still stage a professional motor race.

But was that the end of it? Of course not.

Coulthard began harping on about how if conditions like Fuji or Nurburgring happened again under 2008's regulations, there would be no one left after 10 laps to finish the race.

Say WHAT?

But then any time wet-weather racing comes up for discussion, David is there, offering his opinion that it'll be too dangerous under 2008 rules.

Apparently David would rather see the acceleration of his car controlled by a bunch of computer boffins rather than his right foot.

Perhaps David is rightly worried. After all, he is "senior" enough to have "enjoyed" the previous era of traction control-less wet-weather racing.

And during such times he managed such feats as managing one corner, before throttling it too soon and wiping out two-thirds of the field. Not to mention, coming back for the re-start and hitting anything that moved, including the championship protagonist who was ready to usurp his teammate's lead in the world championship.

Oh there was also that time when he slid pathetically off the road while leading under no pressure at the Nurburgring in 1999. Oh, and Silverstone in 1998. Oh and...well, you get the picture.

Is it not possible then that DC has another agenda, rather than just worrying about the amount of money ruined when cars hit walls in wet conditions? Perhaps he realises he's never been good in the wet, and as one of F1's elder statesmen he is at a further disadvantage as his poor reactions cannot compare to that of the 15-year-olds bussed out from school that F1 teams have hired recently?

So to David, I say this: Traction Control is a criminal thing to have on a racing car. In a sport that is as much about driver competition as it is about engineering superiority, having the throttle response controlled by a computer removes one of the key weapons in a driver's skill set.

In the wet, you have your friend Charlie Whiting to moan at to keep the field behind safety car or even red flags if you shout loud enough. He demonstrated at both the wet races last year he's not going to let things get unsafe.

So, will you please just shut up moaning about traction control, and get used to driving without it?