The Budweiser Shootout started out with a bit of a fizzle as the broadcast was a little blotchy on my end of my Comcast cable transmission in the Bay Area.
Dierks Bentley's song seemed to not be connected with FOX so we experienced what felt like someone at the track was holding up their cell phone so we can catch the experience.
The track itself seemed to be having issues as the National Anthem was cutting in and out.
During the Anthem, I believe we got a sample of Scott Speed's attitude as he had a sort of mocking attitude to the snaggy Anthem transmission that got caught on camera. Nice start so far.
I think Scott Speed will be the new wildcard this year, if what I've read in the past is any indicator of things to come.
Ahh... the Shootout starts and we have NASCAR racing back on our TV's for the 2009 season.
The first caution involved Logano, Speed, Ragan, R. Gordon. There was a lot of checking up that seemed a bit dangerous as cars started to accordian a bit for a few laps before this incident.
Ad Opinion:
The Kasey Kahne GPS ad was pretty funny, and one of my perennial favorites, the Mikey fan asking Michael Waltrip to sign his simulated wrecked diecasts.
I can't mock that too much as I've done that with a Ryan Newman diecast from '01, '02. I towed an Alltel diecast behind my truck. These things handle as well as the real cars! After one sharp turn, I had myself my Ryan Newman superspeedway raced diecast. (He used to get caught up in everything at the superspeedways. I was frustrated.)
New Rules, An Opinion:
I get the new rules NASCAR have dispatched on the sport. They want all the manufacturers represented. And by setting the rule to the top "x" of cars for each manufacturer gets some folk in the race that shouldn't be. Then of course, NASCAR recognized a slight shortcoming and had to add a gimme type of rule to allow Tony Stewart to be in the race.
I still sit in shock watching last years Daytona 500 winner, Ryan Newman, sitting on the sidelines watching the race while some new drivers that shouldn't even be near this race are in it.
As my wife puts it, (A live fan perspective) That's f****ing bull**** with all these new rules. It should be the driver, not the car that gets in this race. Oh, wait, she's not a fan anymore after all the new rules that pop up every year.
In-Race Opinion:
Is it me, or was the track excessively bumpy tonight? Or has it just been that long since we've seen a race? Nah, these cars ARE much more jumpier than they used to be. I don't remember so many near accidents in a race, as they've been having every lap it seems.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. said that after a few laps the cars got real loose. It seemed that way throughout the field.
Meanwhile, David Stremme in Ryans old No. 12 Dodge seems to be in it a lot as Stremme takes out Greg Biffle with 3 laps to go. If this race is any indicator, this driver placement of Stremme may not pan out as well as I had hoped for him. This was the third altercation for Stremme tonight.
By virtue of a multi car wreck in the last lap of the race, Kevin Harvick gets himself past Jamie McMurray just before the yellow flag as Jeff Gordon got into the 07 car that took the rest of the field out.
Congratulations to Kevin Harvick, being in the right spot at the end of the race.
Image credit: Jerry Markland of Getty Images
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