February 15, 2010

SportsFilter: The Monday Huddle:

A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.

posted by huddle to general at 06:00 AM - 11 comments

My family mini-van can travel 500 miles quicker than the cars in yesterday's Daytona 500 did. Absolutely pathetic to have a track falling apart to the point you have drivers parked and out of their cars for 2 hours. NASCARs biggest day and people had to sit around for seven hours to watch two laps at the end? What a gigantic problem for the sport. You now have drivers being made to race in cars that can't hardly make a single restart lap without a wreck.

posted by dyams at 08:58 AM on February 15, 2010

I'm not one to watch car races, but I saw on the news that the race was stopped twice to fix a pothole. Seriously?! How does that happen?

posted by bender at 09:51 AM on February 15, 2010

The second one was caused by how they fixed the first. That must have been riveting entertainment for the 200,000 people at Daytona -- two entire hours looking at a road crew working on a pothole.

At the end of the race, two crashes prevented the final two laps from being run. The race restarted and a crash occurred before the cars finished a single lap, causing the second-to-last lap to not count towards the finish. There even was a third crash the third time, but it was behind the leaders.

NASCAR's showcase event was a complete joke yesterday.

posted by rcade at 09:58 AM on February 15, 2010

Does the Daytona Motorsports Group run NASCAR, or am I mixing it up? DMG is running motorcycle racing in the U.S. after buying the rights, and they have been shockingly incompetent.

posted by dusted at 10:46 AM on February 15, 2010

Floyd Landis is now wanted by the police. In France, for allegedly hacking into an anti-doping laboratory computer.

posted by NerfballPro at 01:33 PM on February 15, 2010

NASCAR's caution rules are ridiculous! It's supposed to be a 500-mile race, not a 490-mile drive-around and 10 miles of race at the end. For a team to run a strategically sound race, only to have it taken away at the end in a 2-lap madhouse (that had to be repeated twice), is not right. Why not emulate some of the small, local tracks that do not count laps run under caution? I do not suggest running the entire race under such rules, but they could be imposed after a part of the race had been completed. Let's say that no caution laps had been counted after 400 miles had been completed yesterday? When the first major accident toward the end of the race occurred, there were 6 or 7 laps remaining, if I remember correctly. Had the race been restarted with that many laps remaining, the drivers would not have been in such a panic to make up as much ground as possible. True enough, the outcome might have been similar, but there might have been a lot more green flag racing at the end.

posted by Howard_T at 02:54 PM on February 15, 2010

Great little story. For those not Familiar with this area, It was recently named one of the poorest areas in the country and is in the news regularly for all the wrong reasons. Drugs, gangs, murder. This was once one of the richest areas anywhere in the state till the steel mills shut down costing 10's of thousands their jobs and turning a once great area into a town of crack houses. Great to see someone trying to help the kids. Keep it up Revis!!

posted by Debo270 at 03:00 PM on February 15, 2010

Oprah Winfrey began her sitdown interview with Drew Brees by trying to wipe off his birthmark. Oops.

posted by rcade at 03:52 PM on February 15, 2010

Oprah Winfrey began her sitdown interview with Drew Brees by trying to wipe off his birthmark. Oops.

Jesus, that ranks up there with Bush Jr asking the vision impaired reporter about his choice of eyewear: "Peter, you gonna ask that question with shades on" ?

posted by tommybiden at 04:10 PM on February 15, 2010

Competing in a branded pair of fake distressed jeans.

posted by BoKnows at 09:17 PM on February 15, 2010

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