2013 Motorsports Recap! Part One

Hello boys and girls!  It's been a while but don't fear, I come bringing good tidings of old motorsports of 2013!  I stockpiled clips of racing during the whole year to fill your warm fireplaces with joy in this abstinence of race cars this frigid winter.  Ok, let's get it on, I got a lot of catching up to do.

First we will we start with IndyCar.  No, not the Indy 500, but close to it.  This is the Firestone Indy Lights race held on May 24th, two days before the Indy 500.  It's like the Minor League of IndyCar.  But this race had one of the best finishes in history.  It must be watched.  You will never see four cars outside of NASCAR finish this close to each other in a long time.

Once you're done pissing yourself, it's time to move on to May 26th!  Alright, this is the 97th running of the Indianapolis 500, the greatest spectacle of motorsports.  You win the Indy 500, you are a legend among drivers regardless of your other feats as your name goes on that hefty trophy for all time.  Even if you aren't a full-time IndyCar driver, you can still participate for the glory of racing.

This year, the honor goes to a Mr. Tony Kanaan of Brazil.  It was arguably one of the best runnings of the Indy 500 of all time because there were a grand total of 64 lead changes (among 14 different leaders), which eclipsed the previous record of 34 set last year.  While it was exciting, the race ended under a yellow flag because Dario Franchitti wrecked with three laps to go.  Since IndyCar doesn't do Green-White-Checkered finishes like NASCAR (which means you run the 200 laps and no more than that), the race unenthusiastically ends with the cars puttering across the finish line.

There are implications to this.  Kanaan and his rivals, primarily Carlos Munoz and Ryan Hunter-Reay, were exchanging the lead every couple of laps so it was basically a crapshoot going into the final 5-10 laps.  This is because in IndyCar (and not NASCAR), there are rules against blocking faster cars more than once.  If a faster car is about to pass and you can't outrun him, you may only move to block him ONCE, afterwards you give him the right of way or else you're penalized.  Since the cars are so close, they were able to draft and pass each other continuously.  Therefore, had Franchitti not wrecked with three laps to go, Kanaan might've surrendered the lead to Munoz or Hunter-Reay and lost the race.  But no, Franchitti sealed his fate and thus will be receiving a Christmas card by a certain someone this year, I bet.

Vin Diesel's Brazilian cousin.

Now, this finish-under-caution wouldn't be such a downer except for the fact it has happened in the three of the last four Indy 500's with the odd man out actually involving a crash as well but no caution (J.R. Hildebrand's chokejob).  So basically it's "Wreckers or Checkers."  Can't blame 'em cause winning the Indy 500 is the highlight of your career.  But still, I kinda wish they had the GWC finishes like NASCAR does.

Later that day, there was the Coke 600 in Charlotte, the longest race of the NASCAR season.  And the commentators were dumping all over IndyCar for not implementing the GWC finish.  Okay, fine, they make a valid point.  But then they take a text message poll, "Which race is harder to win, the Indy 500 or the Coke 600?"  At that point, I think I shit myself.  Now, I love my NASCAR and can understand the 600 miles are so taxing, but the Indy 500 is the BIGGEST RACE IN THE WORLD and I think tacking on an extra 100 miles (in slower cars too) isn't enough to make it harder than the Indy 500, I'm sorry guys.

As for Formula 1, Monaco was boring and I was too sleepy to pay attention (it aired at 3 am in Florida).  All I remember is Pastor Maldonado being popped like a pimple.  Monaco is apparently too tight to be competitive anymore.

Now, back to NASCAR.  Because I love NASCAR even if it sucks.  A week before the Coke 600, NASCAR holds a mid-season All-Star Race.  It's worth zero season points but it has a million dollar prize for the winner.  It's a short race (90 laps, 135 miles) with four forced cautions to split up the monotony (why???).  It's balls-out racing and there's no teamwork here so cut your opponents off Mario-Kart style for the bookoo bucks!!

Listen to the cool-ass music.  Anyway, this year there were 22 drivers with 21 of them being selected by certain merits--having the most points in the season, winning at least one race, or winning the pre-race event beforehand (the pub all-star event against crappy slow cars who don't stand a chance).  Also, there's room for one additional driver who wins the "fan vote."  Take a wild guess who got into the race this year?  Huh?  From Jasper, Illinois, it's Danica Patrick.  She finished 20th.  And Jimmie Johnson finished first.  OF COURSE, WHAT DID YOU EXPECT???

Now, to dump on NASCAR some more, let's take a look at Tony Kanaan and Jimmie Johnson who won both their respective races.  Jimmie Johnson won $1,000,000.  Want to take a guess what Tony Kanaan won? $2,353,355, a 2014 Corvette Pace Car, and 2014 regular Corvette, and the most fabled race trophy in auto racing.

Go home NASCAR, you're drunk.

Oh boy...there's so many more videos left to show you so I'm going to call it a day for now and post the rest later!  I promise.  Cya tomorrow!

PART 2 RIGHT HERE.

NASCAR Drama: Tony Stewart Wins

Oh yes, NASCAR is a strange thing, even if you don't like watching it...

So today was the last race of the season at Homestead, FL.  Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart were the last two drivers who had a shot at winning the championship.  Whoever won the race won the whole thing.  The point difference between the two was that close.  Actually, the score was tied at the end of the race, but Tony won the tiebreaker purely because he won more races than Carl.  Spoiler Alert: Yes, Tony won the race.


6:30 is when it gets interesting.

In the final couple of laps, the Top 2 drivers were Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart.  Seriously, it was almost movie-esque that both drivers would rise to the occasion and completely smoke the rest of the crowd.  You figured at least one of them would run into bad luck or simply fall behind but no.  Actually, Tony had some back luck (some wreck debris hit his grill but did no serious damage) and fell back to around 30-ish position but he came back again and again.  The rest of the pack just parted like the Red Sea to allow these two to race.  It was a drag race to the finish for both of them.

There were two rain delays.  After the rain and a few caution flags 38 laps were all that remained.  Tony was in 1st, Carl was in 2nd.  And I swear, watching this live, you KNEW that Stewart was going to win.  The possibility of a spinout or mistake was completely out of the picture.  It was destiny.  He drove PERFECT laps.  He drove like a madman.  And so did Carl cause he was able to hang with him.  Tony had a one-second lead on Carl the entire 38 laps.  That lead never deviated from there.  Nothing could have stopped Tony outside of an Act of God or running out of gas on the final lap Dale Jr-style.  And all Carl could do was finish second.

I don't have a preference on who won or not.  It's great that Tony won his 3rd championship but damn, Carl really deserve a lot of credit for giving Tony a run for his money.  Seriously, if Tony didn't drive out of his mind, Carl would've won the championship, hands down.  He congratulated Tony after the race...ran up to Tony's car and gave him a handshake.  Took the loss like a champ.  He deserves credit for being the best loser in NASCAR history...well at least in the last few hours of history.  I'm not brimming with NASCAR knowledge here, please bear with me.

Tony Stewart & Carl Edwards.

And I also must say something about Jimmie Johnson.  He won the last FIVE championships.  Yes, FIVE IN A ROW.  An unprecedented streak.  But he missed his chance for a sixth.  You know he was bound to lose eventually.  Well, that's life.  You can't win them all.  It's nice to win as many as possible, but as long as you keep trying to win, you'll lose.  And thus is the harsh reality of competition but there is something to learn from losing.  Carl Edwards was a good sport about it and said it made him a mentally tougher person.

Heh, Tony SMOKED the Duck...funny joke.

Congrats to everybody (except for classless Kyle Busch, CONGRATULATIONS, YOU JUST LOST YOUR SPONSORS!)...sad there won't be any NASCAR until the new season in February.  The next Daytona 500!!!  Will Dale Jr. finally win a race next season???  Tune in to find out!!!

We May Not Have A New Daytona Game But At Least We Have This

A few days old:


 
Same people who made the Vigilante 8 XBL port.  BTW, anyone a bit caught off-guard by this guy's voice?  Like you'd expect this macho badass but you get this friendly Disney movie trailer guy instead.  It's probably for the better though.

More info here.

The idea of driving a port-a-potty with an engine is disturbing enough...but the rest could be okay.  I'd take it over Fast and the Furious any day, that's for sure.  Wonder if it'll be anything like this (but with more ridiculous cars of course):

Oh yeah, I'm reading from this article a quote by Jimmie himself.  It's kind of interesting.  He says: 

There’s no denying that video games are certainly one of the most popular forms of entertainment. There are certainly a lot of entertaining racing games, but I’ve always felt there was something missing. I wanted to capture that kind of ‘anything goes’ element in racing and make a unique game that appeals to everyone. The teams at Autumn Games and Isopod Laps are incredibly talented, which gives us the opportunity to develop what I hope is a truly ground-breaking series. 

Here, let me fix that for you: 

There’s no denying that video games are certainly one of the most popular forms of entertainment. There are certainly a lot of mediocre racing games, but I’ve always felt there was something missing. I wanted to make another damn fine Daytona game that appeals to everyone (except Cruis'n and Mario Kart fans). The teams at Sega and AM2 R&D are incredibly talented (not including Nagoshi-San who is a worthless bum), which gives us the opportunity to revive what I know is a truly ground-breaking series and spare us from the miserable state of current racing games.

Now there is justice in the world.