Uncle Max: Kentucky Weekend Picks

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

Yeesh—what the heck happened at Daytona in the Cup race?  No, seriously—I got called in to work Saturday night because the other assistant manager quit for 24 hours so I had to miss the race.  I zonked out as soon as I got home but I caught the results the next day—dang near everyone wrecked!  Apparently this is because of “restrictor plates”, things they put in the engines to keep them from going too fast.

Now, I guess I can see why they don’t want cars going so fast that they fly into the stands.  But why not use them in other sports?  Think about it—something that stops a running back from running better than a 4.5 40-yard dash.  Something to limit a pitcher’s fastball to 95mph.  Something that stops your idiot so-called “friends” from signing up for your street-hockey team, then having them back out at the last minute to get high with your ex-girlfriend.  What?  It was 12 years ago—I’m not bitter.

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

Truck Series Buckle In Your Truck 225 (3 wins)—Kyle Busch—come on, he’s gonna dominate this (no jinx!)

Xfinity Series Alsco 300 (5 wins)—Joey Logano—someday someone can explain to me why its a big deal when Penske hasn’t won an Xfinity race at whatever random track.

Quaker State 400:  FAVORITE (3 wins)—Kyle Busch—and watch them make a big deal about him “bouncing back” from not winning the day before.  NEXT FAVORITE (1 win)—Brad Keselowski—you can see this as a fuel mileage race, can’t you?  DARK HORSE—Daniel Suarez—and the Ch—er, Playoffs goes haywire!

Next time on “Nascar America”

Anchor: “Now, we saw a LOT of wrecks at Daytona, but at any track its the spotter’s job to keep the driver out of harm’s way.  Let’s go to our driver experts in Burton’s Garage—just how important is it to have those ‘eyes in the skies’”

To be fair, his mansion contains
the recipe for the 11 herbs & spices

Kyle Petty: “Well, first of all, I don’t know if I qualify as an ‘expert’ anymore, but seriously, without a spotter, its like racing with a blindfold on.”

Greg Biffle: “Yeah, I mean, you have to have a spotter to see what’s going on at all times.  Lord knows that you can’t watch everything all at once, especially when you’re a driver, earning all the money in the household, working long hours to bring in sponsors, putting your body on the line for the sake of finishing 19th instead of 20th.  And so of course you’re going to want to watch everything in your own domain to make sure nobody is taking anything from you—I mean, you own it, that’s YOUR SPACE.  You have every right to have your property being watched 24/7 by your own people for your own security—its just your right as a law-abiding citizen, and it is law-abiding, no matter what your ex-wife says, and I should know, I have a fleet of lawyers on my side.  And besides, we all know this is really all about that time your mother-in-law took those towels from the bathroom closet for that trip to the beach, even though I specifically told her that we had beach towels IN THE CAR.  So, yeah, the spotter is pretty important, I guess.”

Kyle Petty: “Wow.  That’s incredible.”

Anchor: “Um, yeah.  Anyways, we’ll be right back with a closer look at loopholes in retired drivers’ contracts allowing them to be let go without pay for minor contract violations.”

Bruton Smith Introduces Bum Fight Series for Kentucky Race Weekend

Hot off the success of International Speedway Corporation (ISC) including mixed martial arts fights during Friday Night’s rain delay of the Daytona Xfinity Series race, Speedway Motorsports Incorporated (SMI) chairman Bruton Smith has announced the premiere of a brand-new Bum Fights Series this upcoming weekend at Kentucky Speedway.

"Fifty years from now you'll
remember where you were when
the one guy beat up that other guy
during the rain delay"

“I invented fighting in stock car racing”, Smith said from his Concord, North Carolina offices this morning.  “Hell—when that fight happened in the 1979 Daytona 500, I was the one who told the Allison Brothers to do it—drew plenty more fans to my tracks that year!  But the time has come to bring a new style of fighting to racing fans—bum fights.”

So-called “Bum Fights” feature homeless and/or transient men fighting for small sums of money.  The controversial series enjoyed brief popularity in the early-00’s before lying mostly-dormant until the recent surge in interest in fight-based sports.

Smith went on to explain that, “Ultimate Fighting Championship has the Octagon.  That organization Nascar had at Daytona had the Decagon.  That’s why Bum Fight Series will have the Dodecagon—12 sides of hard-hitting, barely-legal action in a cage.  And it won’t just be any cage, but Bruton’s Original Mecha-Cage—metal soaked in ZMax and lit on fire!”

Next weekend’s fights, expected to take place during the pre-race when Michael Waltrip would usually desperately search out people to talk to him on-air, are still being signed up, although Smith stated that they were close to agreeing to terms with both “The Hitman Hobo” and “Big JoJo Bindles”.

“SMI continues to be the leader in stock car racing promotion”, Smith said, “from introducing spectacular pre-race shows to introducing the idea of in-race breaks.  Although to be fair, I wouldn’t have called them ‘stages’, I’d have called them ‘Bruton Bonus Breaks’”.

Smaller race track owner Pocono Raceway is said to be scurrying to introduce its own combat-sports style pre-race festivities, while Dover International Raceway is working to co-promote a local CZW “Barbed-Wire Florescent Tube Delaware Death Match” for its fall race.