IT SHOULD BE ABOUT RACING….NOT GIMMICKS

With the NASCAR Winston Cup, OH! wait a minute, let me start again, With the NASCAR SPRINT CUP season kicking off in Daytona I must say that once again this year I am NOT excited.  For the past several years NASCAR has been more about Gimmicks rather than Racing. This trend seemed to have kicked into high gear when Winston was legislated out of racing and Sprint came in as the title sponsor. But really the trend started the last few years of the Winston Sponsorship when NASCAR forgot about the fans. 

From 1963 thru 2001 I attended every race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Tickets for the 1963 World 600 and National 500 were $12.50 for top row seats in the Chrysler Grandstand. When I stopped attending races at Charlotte in after the 2001 season my World 600 and National 500 Tickets was $155.00 plus an additional $85 for the Saturday Busch Series Races.  Couple that with a 3-night minimum stay in a mid-range motel at $185 per night, I was spending well over $1000 before I even got to the race track. What it boiled down to was I could just as easily stay home and watch on TV and not have to spend the money, fight the traffic (who could forget Kentucky a couple of years ago) and sleep in my own bed. In short I was priced out and could no longer afford to attend NASCAR Races.

But NASCAR wasn’t done. They started tinkering with the rules, trying to make everything equal.  They took everything away from the crews and the drive and ended up with follow the leader boring races.  They started scripting driver interviews, award speeches and worse yet the racing itself.  They will deny it but go back and look at the phantom cautions to bunch the field up. NASCAR has turned into a scripted show (not a competition) that resembles Big Time Rasslin, in fact I think Rasslin is probably more entertaining. You no longer have the Dale Earnhardts, David Pearsons, Bobby Allison, Junior Johnson, and drivers who cared about one thing and that was racing.  Today’s Drivers are more concerned about sponsors and have the right soft drink in their hand anytime they are on camera. To today’s driver, the racing comes second.

I used to take off work on Thursday’s to listen, yes I said listen to the Twin 125 qualifying races on Thursday. They weren’t on TV back then. An on Sunday there was always a party at my house for the Daytona 500.  Today, with all of the “Fan Voting” and the choreographed stuff that is going on it is just simply hard to watch.

As the 2013 season start I will long for the day of old when it was about Racing, but when all is said and done I will be watching COLLEGE BASKETBALL. 

GETTING THE CALLS

I don’t usually complain about sports officials because I know firsthand what a difficult job they have. Everybody expects them to be perfect from the first time they walk onto the court, and show steady improvement with every game.  In reality sports officials biggest quality is being consistent, getting obvious call right all of the time and getting the difficult calls right most of the time.  There is no substitute for game experience so when I arrived at the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum last Wednesday Night for the Wake Forest Duke Game and saw the crew of Tim Kelly, Tim Nester and Mike Eades, I felt confident that we would have a well officiated game. After all these three guys have 100’s of games under their belt and go deep into the NCAA Tournament each year. They know how to officiate a basketball game.

                                                                     Referee Tim Kelly with Coach Jeff Bzdelik

I know from experience that when one member of the crew has a bad game the other two members of the crews pick him up. Rarely have I ever seen all three officials have a terrible game all at the same time. But that is exactly what happened last Wednesday Night at the Joel Coliseum and Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski took full advantage of the situation.  Coach K is known far and wide for working the officials and in this game he began working this crew early and got a number of critical calls late in the game.

From just about the opening tip, Coach K began working the officials and complaining about every call. The deeper into the game we got the more obvious it became that the lobbying that Coach K had done early was paying off late.  Even in the biggest games most basketball fans have some Idea what the call is when the ref blows the whistle. They may not agree with the call, but they have some idea what the call is and why it was made. Not on Wednesday Night, when the whistle blew, we had no Idea what the call was going to be.

Do I think these three officials walked into the Joel Coliseum with any preconceived plan to screw Wake Forest and help Duke, of course not? Do I think they had a bad night, yes definitely? Do I think that they allowed Coach K to get into their head? Yes. Do I think that Coach K’s constant ranting influenced their call? Yes. Do I think the better team won the game? No, for on this night the Demon Deacons had more talent and certainly more Heart.  Had it not been for a few questionable calls, the 75-70 score may have been in favor of the Deacs rather than the Blue Devils.  Tim Kelly, Mike Eades and Tim Nester are honorable men and very good basketball officials, and should not be judged by this one game, but as a die-hard Demon Deacon Fan, it is still hard to swallow.