Uncle Max: Bristol Weekend Picks

Weekly picks from Spade Racing’s writer/webmaster/janitor Mike Mackler’s uncle.

Another Easter is in the books.  Its never been much of a holiday for me—I’m not that religious, in fact nobody in my family is except for my ex-wife.  So I usually wind up working to get some of that sweet sweet holiday pay.  Plus, it doesn’t hurt to get a few favors in for the boss.

Meanwhile, its also NBA playoff time.  I usually run a playoff pool with some guys I know from college and a few co-workers, but its getting harder to find pro-basketball fans these days.  I don’t get it—if the NBA is this crazy-hot sports media property, where are the fans?  Meanwhile I know at least two other Nascar fans (my nephew Mike and Jerry the store receiver), so why is THAT sport said to be “dying”?  Doesn’t make sense to me.  I’ll still watch just to see how my picks do, and to see what team Kevin Garnett is on this year.

Anyways, here’s my picks for the upcoming race weekend at Bristol (total wins in parenthesis):

Xfinity Series Fitzgerald Glider Kits 300 (2 wins): Erik Jones—with his boss not running, its hard to pick against his protege.

Cup Series Food City 500:  FAVORITE (1 win)—Kyle Busch—picking him again because hey—it’s Bristol, baby.  NEXT FAVORITE (1 win)—Kevin Harvick—AND there could be rain again this weekend.  DARK HORSE—Ricky Stenhouse Jr.—he always seems to run well there anyways.

Easter Weekend Plans

A true rarity comes to the Nascar world this weekend—time off.  With all three national touring series taking the Easter holiday off, here’s a look at what some of Nascar’s biggest stars will be doing with their down-time:

Denny Hamlin—Go through dozens of Facebook posts with “Look—its a Denny Easter Ham-lin!” tags and respond “hahaha, good one”.

Jimmie Johnson—See if “JimmieJohnsonSux.com” is up for purchase again.

Dale Earnhardt Jr.—Get momentarily annoyed that he’s having a slow start to the season, then realize he’s a millionaire doing what he loves with a knockout wife and go back to feeling happy.

Brad Keselowski—Go to a local bar, have guy at bar ask him what its like to drive 206mph, respond by asking guy at bar if we ever truly know what feeling is, since as human beings we interpret “feelings” differently, and thus may not be able to communicate said feelings to anyone but ourselves.

Kasey Kahne—Continue to update resume.

Darrell Waltrip—Resolve to grab Jeff Gordon more in the booth, since it seems to make for more dramatic broadcasts.

Jeff Gordon—Resolve that the next time Darrell Waltrip grabs him during a broadcast to punch his lights out.

Chase Elliott—Write “I will win a race by the end of the season” 100 times on the blackboard in his apartment.

Martin Truex Jr.—Collect four-leaf clovers, horseshoes, and anything with “7”s on them, but continue to blame everything on bad luck.

Paul Menard—Re-sharpen sideburns.

Alon Day—Go to the movies.

Uncle Max—Get called into work—hey, double-time pay is a cruel mistress.

Idiot Claims Jimmie Johnson’s Texas Win was Rigged

Longtime Nascar fan Willie Chester wasted little time going onto various message boards and chat rooms after today’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500, claiming that the win by Jimmie Johnson was fixed by Nascar itself.  Chester is also, according to simple logic, an idiot for making such spurious claims.

Chester claims to have "good info"
that this man is responsible for the 48's
unfair advantage

“Its a damn shame that Nascar gets away with stuff like this, giving another win to the 48 car!”, Chester was heard yelling to nobody in particular in his townhouse.  “Stuff like this happens every week and everybody just goes along with it—damn Nascar!”.  Chester continued to rant despite the fact that allowing Johnson to win benefits Nascar in no way, and in fact hurts the sport somewhat given Johnson’s lack of fan appeal.

“(Johnson) spun out on Friday to let the Hendrick guys get through tech, and now this!”, Chester posted on a Nascar message board, conveniently ignoring that he was agreeing with Kyle Busch, a driver he’s described as “a little snot” on more than one occasion.  “Then he flat-spots his tires and Nascar just let him replace them, can’t say I’m surprised by that!”, Chester used to finish his online screed, ignoring that such a change forced him to start from the back of the pack.

“Seven championships, all because of Nascar putting in the Chase system to a robot like Jimmie can do it”, Chester was seen typing on Facebook, completely ignoring that if Nascar wanted to awaken from its years-long slump, it would “fix” races so that more popular drivers would win.  “He’s not a real man like Richard Petty or Dale Earnhardt Sr.”, conveniently forgetting the irony of how fans of those eras bashed Petty and Earnhardt for manufacturer favoritism and Nascar arranging a ride for him, respectively.

Chester finished up an afternoon of tone-deaf complaining by posting on Twitter that, “There is no WAY I will be watching Nascar next weekend.”