Archive for May, 2009
Charlotte - May 23, 2009 / Coca Cola 600
NASCAR goes to Charlotte NC in May for two of their biggest races. The first is the All-Star Race. This year that occurred on May 16th, which was a very special night for me personally. My guy, Tony Stewart #14 (OfficeDepot/OldSpice/Chevy) crossed the line for his first win as an Owner/Driver. Only the 2nd guy to do this since the All-Star Race began.
The second big race, The Coca Cola 600 was scheduled to occur on May 24th. But between these two weekends Charlotte advertises the wazzoo out of these events calling this time as SpeedWeek! Culminating with a city celebration in the streets of downtown Charlotte which they call SpeedStreet! Food, fun and come meet NASCAR drivers.
Ok, so I’ve never been to SpeedStreet. We’re going to Charlotte for a family wedding which will give us a chance to attend the festivities. The three of us don our favorite driver T-shirts. SirEvil wearing his #88 National Guard shirt for Jr. I grabbed my Tony #14 shirt, and the little kid is wearing his brown Army #39 Ryan shirt. We topped that off with our matching straw Nascar hats, with our event and driver pins stuck all over them. I’m looking forward to party and excited to go…… Until we actually get there.
Where were the Driver booths and merchandise? We walked to every corner, nook, an section of “speedstreet” and all we saw were Sponsor booths, giving away free stuff. The little kid (who is about to turn 6) was run over 3 times by the rudest people trying to grab the free stuff. A very large black woman knocked him to the ground and about stepped on him just so she could grab 2 boxes of free Reynolds wrap. All we were trying to do is look at the cup car sitting next to the free wrap. You know…enjoy the real reason for this party in the first place, the cars, the drivers, the fan excitement! I was SO pissed!
We walked down a big hill to a section where we were told the merchandise trailers were. The “official” guide didn’t have a clue what we were talking about, because there was nothing in that section except a Chevy display, Jr.’s car and a few games for kids. Back up the hill to the one and only merchandise booth we saw. I walk up to the table and say to the sales guy “I’m looking for a Tony 1st win shirt”. His response? “Tony who?”. WHAT?! I step back, point to the shirt I”M WEARING and reply “Tony who?”. A sales guy next to him says “I thought it was a 1st win for all of them”. The 1st sales guy says “We have other shirts for him” pointing to my shirt. I answered “I wouldn’t buy dog shit from you now.” and walked away.
First rule of sales “Know your audience!”. I was so disgusted with the entire atmosphere and attitude of not only the organizers, and some of the booth workers, but of the attendees as well. Decked out in all our NASCAR gear, we saw (and yes I counted) only 23 other people with race shirts. I walked up to one guy, shook his hand and said you’re one of the only other people we’ve seen who is wearing a driver shirt. And then we left.
I don’t want to make it sound like we didn’t see and talk to some nice people. We did. But they were few and far between. The most disappointing part of the entire experience was what wasn’t there! Never again will we go back. What a waste of time.
Comments are off for this postThe Nascar All-Star Race - A litte history
Sunday night Nascar held one of it’s premier races, known today as the All-Star Race. While the race has gone through many names (4 to be exact), it has a great deal of history from its venue to its winners. Here’s a few facts about the race that might interest Nascar fans.
- The All-Star raced stared in 1985 when it was known simply as “The Winston”, after Nascar’s sponsor Winston cigarettes.
- It has always been held at Charlotte/Lowes Motor Speedway, with the exception of the 2nd race which was held at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
- The driver to win the first race in the series was Darrell Waltrip for Junior Johnson Racing.
- One of our household favorites, Dale Jr. won in 2000 his rookie year,
- Another favorite Ryan Newman won in 2002
- And my most favorite Tony Stewart won in 2009
Now for the Most, Fastest, Slowest and Winning-est
- Most wins go to Dale Sr and Jeff Gordon with 3 wins each
- Mark Martin, Jimmy Johnson and Davey Allison have each won 2 times
- Davey Allison is the only driver to hold back to back wins
- In 1985 Darrell’s prize was $20k, the 2nd race won by Bill Elliott gave him a purse of $240k
- The purse prize has floated back and forth between $200 and $300k for most of it’s history.
- It hit 500k in 2000 when Dale Jr. won the prize
- It slowly increased over the next 2 years and hit $1 million in 2003. Jimmy Johnson took that home. Officially he won $1,017,604, Tony’s purse in 2009 was $1,033,656.
- The highest purse to date was $1,101,325 taken home by Mark Martin on his 2nd time winning the all star race
- The highest average speed for an All-Star race was 185mph, in 2001. Jeff Gordon won that race.
- The slowest race was in 2007, 89mph (geez..was the whole thing under caution?) Kevin Harvick took that trophy.
- Chevy has 14 wins, Ford 9, Dodge and Pontiac 1 a piece
- The winning-est team, no surprise here, Hendrick with 6 wins. Roush and Childress have 3 each.
- Geoff Bodine Racing (1994) and Stewart-Hass Racing (2009) are the only owner/driver teams to have won the All-Star race.
- Conspicuously missing from the list, Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota.
Today Is Penny’s Birthday
Penny is our son’s little stuffed dog that he cannot be separated from. I had put in my calendar the day we bought her and an automatic reminder came up on Sunday that it was coming up. Our kid is getting very good at reading, so when the message popped up he rushed over to my laptop and read the message while I was cooking dinner. Suddenly I hear “Momma Momma it’s Penny’s birthday!” He was disappointed when I said no that’s tomorrow. To which he replied can we have a party with cake and hats? So guess where Momma was today. Thank Gods Target had a clearance sale and I found some bday hats and matching plates.
He also asked for a chocolate cake with balloons on it. Yeah…I might find a chocolate cake. Might find a cake with balloons on it. But the likelihood of finding a chocolate cake ‘with’ balloons was going to near to impossible. This morning I had to prepare him for one or the other, which do you want more? He chose the balloons. So I’m chit-chatting with the ladies at the bakery at my grocery store..I love living here in the south, everyone knows everyone else, everyone’s friendly and open to talking to strangers. So I’m chit-chatting while I’m looking at the cakes and yep..there’s a round angel food cake with white icing and balloons. A big sheet cake, white icing and balloons. Then I step back and look at the other display cases and what do my eyes discover?! A chocolate cake WITH balloons! Holy Cow! Little voodoo child does it again. Something magikal about that kid, I’m tellin’ ya. We’re going to have him buy the next batch of lottery tickets!
I didn’t make it back to the house from errands in time to go with Daddy to pick the youngin’ up from school. Gave me a chance to unload the car, put the groceries away and decorate the table with the cake, plates, hats, oh and I got Penny a “You’re 2, Happy Birthday” card. I’m such a sap. They made it home about 1 minute after I was done. The look on that little kids face when he walked in the door was priceless. I tried to get a picture of, but I missed it. That smile was one I won’t soon forget.
I’m taking all the good signs of the day as a good omen for submitting a book I wrote to a publisher today too. SirEvil says it would be kewl to be published, I’m just thinking it would be kewl to get a paycheck for it.
Comments are off for this postSirEvil says the darndest things
He cracks me up. And that’s one of the biggest things I love about him.
Let me preface this by saying SirEvil was born and raised in Charlotte NC. As such he does indeed have a very southern accent. Being from the south, he is also a self admitted Redneck. These things are important to know when considering his comments.
“I know I found the right wife. Asked her where she wanted to go for her 5th anniversary and she said “The BassPro Shop” resturant. …Yes!… Dinner and fishin’ rods, my kinda anniversary.”
“My wife is the perfect woman. She loves Nascar, really likes Football, would rather watch hockey than a cooking show and she “gets” Quintin Tarentino.” ..not to mention I hate sappy date movies…I hate when a movie makes me cry..give me Riddick, Ronin, Star Trek, Serinity or even Dr. Who any day!
Me: “I really like Richard Quest from CNN. He’s funny, his humor reminds me of you.”
If you don’t know Richard Quest is British and is often on CNN.
SirEvil: “He’s loud like rednecks… only he’s like one with a speech impediment”
One night going out to dinner I wore a reversable skirt. Solid green on one side, same green but with flowers on the other. I asked him, which side do you like best?
SirEvil: “Ok there’s just no right answer to that. I like the side you like.”
One day online someone asked me to describe SirEvil..my response:
“When you look at him from behind, he has this gorgeous ‘V’ shaped body. Big shoulders, strong arms and the cutest butt. He turns sideways and the first word that comes to your mind is: Budwieser.”
(I can be funny too.)
I HATE Comcast! - Continuing Saga
Continuing Comcast Saga
So we have a new neighbor who moved in across the street. Quiet guy for the most part. Until he cut down ALL the tree on his 1+acre lot. All those beautiful trees gone. Not much we can do about it; but it did give me an idea. Perhaps now we can get DirectTV. We’re not cutting down our trees and there hasn’t been a place on our lot that has a line of sight to the satellite. But without the trees across the street, perhaps we can put a dish at the top of our driveway.
All excited I contacted DirectTV and a guy came out to check our availability. He was a new guy, been on the job for about 1 month. Sadly he said we still don’t have a line of sight. I was truly sad and upset. I’m SO sick of Comcast.
I’m sick of being promised digital service and still not having it. We were told that they would be laying down new fiber through our neighborhood in 2005. Here in the middle of 2009, it’s still not available. All I wanna do is watch SpeedTV, F/X and NASA. I don’t care about premium channels. We have NetFlicks, it’s much better. But I do so want to watch our Nascar boys. And I would have loved to see NASA capture the Hubble and replace the camera this week. I love that stuff.
This weekend though is especially irritating. Our boys are in Charlotte competing in the Nascar All-Star race. And where is it being broadcast? SpeedTV. <sigh> At least thanks to the reporters who use Twitter, I found out about Tony’s mess up in his qualifying pitstop. And his funny comment about messing it up.
Which brings up the next irritating thing about Comcast. I made a comment in the Twitter #Nascar topic that we don’t get SpeedTV and I hate Comcast. Within 2 minutes I get a direct Tweet from Comcast. Huh?! WTF? The tweet asks “Can I Help?”? Sure, put fiber in my neighborhood. Of course there was no response.
Yesterday during the qualifying for the All-Star race, I’m back on Twitter keeping up the best I can with what’s going on at the track. Folk start talking about Tony and what he said. What?! What did he say?!!! Well of course I don’t know, because we have Comcast! Once again, I make a comment on Twitter that Comcast sucks! And within 2/3 minutes I get a direct tweet by Comcast again. Here’s the basic conversation:
Me: #NASCAR I wish I could watch the race tonight. COMCAST won’t provide SpeedTV to analog customers; and won’t update us to digital. Help?
Fri 15 May 18:14
Me: I truly truly HATE COMCAST!! (note I didn’t say this in the #Nascar topic)
Fri 15 May 18:14
Comcast: what’s wrong?
Fri 15 May 18:49 (30 minutes later)
Me: Comcast sucks. Next question
Fri 15 May 18:51
Me: We were told we’d have fiber in 2005. It’s 2009; we have no fiber. You wont provide Speed for analog customers. We’re stuck.
Fri 15 May 18:53
Me: If I didn’t have to cut down my trees to gt Direct TV, Comcast would have been fired years ago
Fri 15 May 18:53
Me: Yeah - I didn’t think you’d have a response. Another reason Comcast sucks!
Fri 15 May 19:10
Comcast: I’m at my little sister’s high school watching her look pretty and making me feel old. I’ll be back in a bit! Promise 
Fri 15 May 19:26
Comcast: back now can you DM the phone# we have on file for you?
Fri 15 May 20:24
Yeah - I don’t spend my life on-line or on Twitter. And right, I’m going to give someone my phone number, or some account number online. I don’t think so.
And what is “ComcastB” gonna do for me anyway? She gonna come out here and dig in the fiber? I doubt it. Considering the entire community has complained about this, sent in petitions and raised cane about it with the local government.
So what’s she gonna do? Make the exec’s change their programming and carry these channels I want on basic analog cable? I doubt it. If it were that easy, they would have done that by now. Just what do they think they’re going to accomplish by annoying people on Twitter? Make it “seem” like they’re providing good customer service? Bull shit. I’m being spammed in Twitter by a company I can’t stand to begin with and if I had my choice wouldn’t do business with at all!
To top it off, I get up this morning and find out that “ComcastB” is now following me on Twitter.Uh..I don’t think so! How creepy is that?!
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