Nascar Pick Challenge: Uncle Max vs. Mystery Picker—Pocono

Well I’m glad that my Cup pick came through on Sunday night (and that Mystery Picker wound up in DFL 40th place!) but Memorial Day weekend wound up being kind of a downer overall for me.

First, we had rain.  Lots of rain.  More than enough to ruin the BBQ I was supposed to go to.  Then My one day of work—Sunday—we had our roof leaking.  And guess who had to mop it up every half hour when the buckets overflowed?  Monday was a waste as well, as my plans to get together with some old coworkers for Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals fell apart because apparently one of them got food poisoning over the weekend.  This is as good a time as any to remind you that the less you know the person running the cookout, the more well-done you should have them cook your burgers.

Xfinity Series Pocono Green 250 (1 win)—Kyle Busch: CHALK!

Cup Series Pocono 400—MYSTERY PICKER (4 wins) PICKS Aric Almirola.  Favorite (2 wins): Denny Hamlin—just too tough to pick against the Pocono master.  Next Favorite: Martin Truex Jr. (1 win)—yep, its still the Toyotas (and SHR Fords) dominating.  Dark Horse: Ricky Stenhouse Jr.—for the record I’d have picked AA if Mystery Picker hadn’t.

Say it Loudy and Say it Proudy: The Accomplishments of Rowdy

On Sunday night Kyle Busch managed to score a points-paying win at the last remaining track that he hadn’t—Charlotte—allowing him to claim that he has now won at every track currently on the circuit.  As well as with his personal goals of accumulating a voluminous number of wins in all three touring series, here’s a look at some other accomplishments Kyle Busch has achieved in his career:

"Sorry about taking your job, Kyle"
"Its fine--things worked out pretty
good for me"

—Most all-time wins in the Xfinity Series

—Least amount of races needed to win a Cup championship

—Good end of the worst transaction in Nascar history (being released in favor of retaining Casey Mears)

—Fastest time from race finish to leaving the track facility

—Successfully ripping off Rasheed “Both Teams Played Hard” Wallace with “Everything’s Great"

—Making more money in a single year than all the people who criticize him online will make in their lifetimes combined.

1,000,000th Article Written About the Decline of Nascar

An important milestone was reached in motorsports media today, as the 1,000,000th article, column, or think-piece about the decline of Nascar was penned, edited, and uploaded onto a major website.

“Wow, I knew there were a few other articles about the subject, but I had no idea mine was the one millionth”, said Katie Kelley, a lead motorsports columnist for The Motorsports Review, a longtime home for online racing coverage.  “I’m just glad that the readers of our fine website will be informed that Nascar is, in fact, in trouble, having lost numerous fans over the past ten or so years.”

The article, titled “Why Nascar is Losing its Luster”, reviews numerous issues Nascar has at the moment, such as an aging fanbase, falling TV ratings, and half-full race tracks, all of which have been discussed previously hundreds of thousands of times.

“Nascar really needs to take a hard look at itself in the mirror if they want to survive into the next generation”, Kelley’s column finishes.  “If not, nobody will be crying about the loss, because nobody will care”.

The column, which claims to “not just bash current leadership”, lays most of the blame at the feet of current chairman Brian France, as have roughly 930,000+ of the million articles written on the subject.  Following in tradition, Kelley’s article also mentions the retirement of recent popular drivers, the prevalence of “cookie-cutter” 1.5 mile ovals, and uses the phrase “the dreaded aero-push”.

Kelley appears to have reached the milestone mere minutes before general sports columnist R. Edward Morriss’s article “The Future of Nascar—Why There Might Not Be One” was uploaded to the website of newspaper The Whig-Herald.

Neither article, nor any of the now-1,000,000+ articles on the subject, offered any ideas on how to reverse the decline.