A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Who really knows what’s in here. It’s the Morning Musings In The Midday Maybe.
Watching Joey Logano and Parker Kligerman ready for competition in the Sprint Cup Series Daytona 500 this week and also seeing Dave Garbo and Scott Heckert racing at Daytona in the K&N Pro Series, it really makes you wonder about whether or not weekly division stock car racing at the short track level in Connecticut has been totally removed from the sport’s ladder to the top.
It’s not hard to argue that everything out there illustrates that you’re not going to see tomorrow’s national series stars competing today in any short track stock car divisions in Connecticut, or at most any Whelen All-American Series sanctioned short track facility.
Of Middletown’s Logano, Westport’s Kligerman, North Stonington’s Garbo and Ridgefield’s Heckert, they have zero stock car weekly division starts at Connecticut short tracks. And no, we don’t count Legends as a “stock car division”. It’s a kit car primarily entry level division with leanings more toward Quarter Midgets and Go-Karts than to Late Model’s and SK Modifieds.
In total, between those four drivers, they have exactly two total stock car starts at Connecticut tracks and those would be the two K&N Pro Series East starts Logano made at Stafford and Thompson in 2007.
Nothing against Parker Kligerman, he’s a great personality, really nice guy and we think a really talented racer, but we don’t think he’s ever even been on the grounds of one of the state’s three short tracks.
It’s not a knock on what any of those four guys have done or the paths they took to get to where they are. It’s just an illustration that weekly short track Whelen All-American Series stock car divisions are likely not the best path to reach the top of the sport any longer. That’s not insulting them in any way, it’s pointing out that, despite NASCAR saying their grassroots weekly racing divisions are the ladder to get to the top, all indicators over the last 10 years have shown that weekly short track racing divisions are not the feeder NASCAR would like people to believe they are.
— There’s fewer better rock out songs from a two-instrument band than Seven Nation Army by White Stripes.
— Not for nothing, but if you’re a sanctioning body with three national racing divisions and one of the divisions consistently puts on great events and two of the divisions consistently put on events marked by long periods of boring competition and few dramatic finishes, wouldn’t you eventually say, “Why can’t we make what works so well in our third tier division happen in our first and second tier divisions?”
Oh wait, what are we saying, that would involve someone acknowledging that something is wrong with the product. Nevermind.
— We’re fairly certain the woman in the three seat at this Mohegan Sun Casino 2-4 Limit Texas Hold ‘Em game was sporting a poorly groomed Poodle of some sort.
If that was mink, well, that was one rabid mink.
— Anybody else just not feeling the same about Daytona without Juan Pablo Montoya there to possibly blow stuff up?
— Allow us to climb on our rarely displayed Puritan soapbox.
With an off night from racing for the Mighty Modifieds in sunny Florida last Monday, it was disheartening and a little disturbing seeing numerous folks on Facebook posting pictures from the notorious Shark Lounge in Daytona Beach, with many saying things like they were out supporting a business that supports Modified racing. Outside the well known club was a competing Modified that had an ad for the club on it.
There’s no denying, The Shark Lounge has indeed been a longtime supporter of racing, in particular Modified racing. But one would think, considering events of recent years at the establishment, race teams would avoid associating themselves with the place.
We’re hardly so pure to say a strip club shouldn’t be on a racecar as a sponsor, as a matter of fact we don’t see anything wrong with that at all, if it’s a legit, law abiding business. And it’s been well documented that the Shark Lounge has long been far from law abiding business.
It doesn’t take someone with a degree in Googleology to unearth the stories of prostitution and drug issues long surrounding the establishment and its management.
You would think that wouldn’t be something NASCAR or any racetrack would want associated with any car racing in one of their events. Though there was a Modified competing this past week in NASCAR sanctioned racing with promotion for the place across the car. Sure, we get it, the place is giving you money as a team owner. But does getting money and support mean turning a blind eye to the negativity and moral issues involved? Would that same owner that took their cash take money from a convicted sex offender and promote that person’s actions on his car just because it meant financial support?
Some of the delicious irony is that a few years ago Steve Masse entered a car normally run on the Valenti Modified Racing Series into a NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour event at Thompson Speedway. Across the back of Masse’s car was an advertisement for a gentleman’s club in Rhode Island. The sponsor ad on the car included a small black silhouette of a woman that should have hardly been considered risqué. It wasn’t much more than one could see on the mud flaps of many 18-wheeler’s on the highway. But NASCAR officials forced the team cover up the sponsor to run the event, saying it was because of the silhouette that they made the team cover it up.
So the moral of the story we guess is you can run what is basically a crack den / brothel and sponsor a car in a NASCAR sanctioned event, but don’t even dare displaying a silhouette representing a law abiding business on your car.
— It goes without saying that NASCAR should be applauded for finding the fix for the UNOH Battle at the Beach on Tuesdsay.
The positives that came out of the 2013 UNOH Battle at the Beach at Daytona International Speedway were few. The glass half full type individual would say, at least the event made for a year’s worth of funny short track racing jokes.
The only thing the 2013 Battle at the Beach succeeded in doing was bringing a massive amount of negative attention to a product that was put on display to supposedly represent grassroots short track racing. It more closely resembled what takes place when the local go-kart checks lifts the safety rules.
When NASCAR officials said they would make changes to the track’s Daytona International Speedway backstretch layout this year there weren’t many optimistic souls that much would change from the dive-bombing wreckfests events that took place in 2013.
So it was definitely a major positive to see Tuesday’s K&N Pro Series East and Whelen Modified Tour events run on a track that feature racing far closer resembling what someone might see at their short track on a summer evening.
— Interesting read on why the word there’s no longer an Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing team in the Sprint Cup Series and how it’s just Ganassi Racing now.
In a sport where marketing is king and comfortable fan favorite names mean everything, the “Smoke” and mirrors of using popular personalities behind team “ownership” titles is more common in NASCAR than most think.
Think about it.
“Of Middletown’s Logano, Westport’s Kligerman, North Stonington’s Garbo and Ridgefield’s Heckert, they have zero stock car weekly division starts at Connecticut short tracks.”
And this is the reason this racing fan has a hard time following any of the three top divisions any more, no local (New England/North East) drivers who have actually paid their dues getting legitimate shots down south!
“It doesn’t take someone with a degree in Googleology to unearth the stories of prostitution and drug issues long surrounding the establishment and its management.”
I was really surprised to hear you bring this topic up, thank you Shawn! There is so many documentaries on women trafficked to feed this appetite men have and our country promotes through movies and music and everything entertainment. See Lila Rose article published 1-31-14 on Fox news.com. (Super Bowl a ‘sex-trafficking magnet’ but entertainment world silent about abuse of women). I feel if I was in ministry down for speed weeks (Racing with Jesus) I would be standing at the door to the establishment with leaflets about the exploitation, informing the flock inside and in the pits, I would talk to the teams about the women who are forced into human trafficking and how by default you are supporting that crime by spending your money in that industry. Men desire girls younger and younger and management will provide them at a cost $$. This industry targets girls from rural towns with fancy cars and mansions in the city. Because of the music industry pushing that “high life” young girls take the bait, not knowing it results in some prostitution brothel. When it happens to someone in the racing scene’s little girl maybe that man will see what he supported down at Sharks Lounge, just boys being boys! And that is just it boys in grown bodies, aged.