A Rowdy mention in NASCAR Illustrated

I got my NASCAR Illustrated and was looking in a section they had this month on MP3 players. Within the article they talked about NASCAR related content you could put on the MP3 players and they mentioned Rowdy!! I thought that was very cool. Congrats you guys :)

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Daytona Commercials

Before I get to the commercials I have to say it was pretty great finish for the second year in a row. I did not see Newman coming there at all on the last lap. Plus I was really happy to see the GEM cars and Jr. up there in the top 10.

Anyway to the real point of this blog.
I haven't seen anyone else make any comments on the commericals yet, but part of that could be due to the fact that their wasn't really the usual load of new ones this year during the 500. Here's some of my thoughts on some of the ones that stood out to me. I'm pretty sure I missed a few so feel free to comment.

Dale Jr & AMP- I saw the camel one during the super bowl, but the gorilla one was pretty funny too!

Thank you Dale- I thought this was a pretty cool way for UPS to say thanks to DJ, I'm really going to miss his race the truck commercials after he's done.

Toyota fan control- I think this one probably got one of the biggest laughs out of me. The part where Tony bails out of his car was great :)

NAPA- Once again Mikey delivers for this company. The look on his face when he saw the car in pieces was great.

Kasey Kahne and Budweiser- I think he needs to seriously consider finding a new marketing team. I saw 1 commercial with him and Budweiser out of what seem like hundreds for Budweiser (although I loved the Clydesdale one with the rocky theme from the Super Bowl). Plus during the entire bud shootout they had NONE. Hopefully there will be some more down the road.

Coke Zero- I love that line about Tony not having any problem with being suspended.

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Unusual College Mascots

ESPN today came out with their list of the top 10 greatest nicknames in College basketball and my school was second on the list!!! I thought that was pretty cool considering we really aren't anything in the college sports world. Everyone always laughs when I tell them that our mascot is an ear of corn :) Does (or did) anyone else have an unusual mascot in college or high school?

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• Fear the Ear!!!

A brief book buy back rant

So today I went to the bookstore to sell back a few books from a pointless class I had to take because when you go to a liberal arts college that's what you do. You know we need "broaden our horizons and become more well rounded"...blah blah blah (that's another rant for another day).

Anyway for 4 books I think I originally paid around 90 dollars for them (thanks to Amazon it could have been more than double that). I got 27 dollars for the lot of them. Which after 2.5 years of going to school now, you'd think I'd learn that they are going to constantly screw me over but I guess I always hold out hope that maybe this time I'll have the books that are bringing in the big bucks. The thing that really ticks me off is they don't even resell those books for close to those prices.

Alright back to studying management, one more final to go!!!

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21!

Gosh I'm having a great day today.
-I finished my final paper for my religion class (if you want to know anything about Max Weber and the Protestant Reformation let me know).
-I have no classes today (always a plus).
-I'm only a week away from being done with this semester.
-Only about a month away from Testing and PRE-SEASON THUNDER!
-Its only lightly snowing and above zero today!
-I got the 9.5 inches of snow off my car from the last two storms. It no longer looks like a snow version of the COT :)
-I went for a great 2 mile run today...which will probably be felt tomorrow
-Plus its my 21st Birthday today! My roommate got me this NASCAR Encyclopedia and she wrapped it in homemade Kasey Kahne wrapping paper :). (Thanks Paige!)

Not exactly sure what the plans are for tonight, but it probably won't be anything too crazy ;)

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Myers Brothers Luncheon

Congrats to Jr. for his 5th consecutive win, although I don't really think anyone had any doubt that he would win it again. I was kind of shocked that Kyle Petty didn't win the humanitarian award. Like the guys said yesterday, I really can't think of anyone who deserved it more.

Here's the article with a list of some of the other winners:
http://www.scenedaily.com/stories/2007/11/26/scene_daily22.html?from_rss=1&from_chex=1

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Does NASCAR still need a southern winner to be successful?

I was reading this article on Fox Sports that no driver from North Carolina won a race this year in the Cup series. I even took a look at all the winners from this year and only two winners (Hamlin and Burton) were actually from southern states. So the question raised was does the sport need to keep to its southern drivers to be successful? The obvious answer is no, NASCAR is at high point in its success right now and half the races were won by drivers from the west coast. However I can see how some might feel that it does since the south is where NASCAR began.

In the grand scheme of things I’m still a new NASCAR fan since I’ve been following it closely for only 3 seasons now, but I can feel the pull that this sport is going through right now. Like anyone else, NASCAR wants to keep gaining success and see how far they can grow; there is so much potential for unlimited growth. On the other hand, there are the deep traditions that this sport has and for most fans (including me) that is why they are the loyal fans they are.

Kyle Petty made a good point in the article that it doesn’t matter so much about where the drivers are from, it’s the loss of some of the southern tracks that should be a concern. I had never thought about it that way before, but I think keeping these traditional tracks on the circuit is what is going to help counter balance the many changes this sport has already encountered.

Anyway, I kind of feel like I'm rambling on so I’d love to hear the Rowdy Nations thoughts on this.

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Jeff Burton, Person of the Year

As I was pulling my NASCAR Illustrated out of the mail box today, I was sort of shocked to see Jeff Burton named Person of the Year. I mean he hasn't made any big announcements to change teams or has dominated in the points standings all year. However after thinking about it, I really think they made a good choice.

Jeff is one of those guys that you really can't find anything negative to say about him. He never seems to hold back on his opinion of things, but does it in a way shows how much of a class act he really is.

I don't think anyone can argue the fact that Jeff is looked upon as a leader among drivers in the garage. Drivers look to him for advice and he's help make the sport safe. Also look at how well RCR has been doing these past few years. Richard Childress is one of the first to admit that Jeff being a part of their team has really helped the organization.

NASCAR Illustrated could have chosen from a lot drivers and people involved in the sport, but I think this time they got it right.

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• Jeff Burton, NASCAR Illustrated

Best Buy and Elliott Sadler

Gillett Evernham Motorsports announced today that Elliott Sadler would have Best Buy for its primary sponsor for 15 races next season. I think this is a good fit for Elliott. Check out this video they played at the press conference, its kind of funny.

http://racing.bestbuy.com/media/110907_sponsorship_announcement.php

With all these sponsors changing teams, I think I'm going to need a cheet sheet of some sort come Daytona :)

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Thoughts on....Texas

Yesterday a few things came to mind while I was watching the race….

I, like many people who do not have Lowe’s plastered on everything they own, am getting sick of the 48 crew winning all the time. I don’t dislike them because they are a winning team, I really don’t think any one can argue that they are a high caliber team. The thing that really irks me is their appreciation of their wins. Lately Chad Knaus in post race interviews gives the impression that he’s glad they won but disappointed in the fact that they didn’t win by more. I even get a bit of this from Jimmie as well. The only way I think this mentality can be fixed is by having a season or two where the wins don’t come so easy. Last year when Kasey won the most races I don’t remember people being this board or sick of him winning (of course I might have a bit of a bias in this area) but maybe it was because it wasn’t as often or as many as Jimmie this year.

Now I fully understand why Johnny Sauter is truly “a weapon out there�. I saw the cars trying to find a place to go to stay out of his way as he started sinking like a rock. His rear sunk right into the corner of Kasey Kahne’s front left fender, causing a tire to blow. He never was able to get his laps back, but that’s the story of his season, right? It was so disappointing considering he had a legitimate chance at doing well yesterday. I can’t be too concerned I guess since Kasey is on the every other year plan. On even years (2004, 2006) he kicks butt. On the odd years (2005, 2007) he, as my roommate put it “sucks cheese.� So here’s to all the Kahne fans holding on for 2008. :)

Finally, I’m not so sure how I feel about ESPN/ABC’s coverage of the races. I hate how they just sort of cut their broadcast at the end. If you are constantly running out of time each week, maybe you need to reevaluate how much time you are allowing for race coverage. Maybe the COT races are going slower than they thought, but I can’t think that figuring out your time allotment is rocket science. I also dislike the predictability of their coverage. It’s getting to a point now that when the stupid draft tracker is coming out or when they are going to go to Tim brewer to show us how the piston head cracked. I guess it is easy for me to sit here and criticize what they do considering that this is their first year covering the races, but I would expect a network that has experience in this area should be doing a little better than this. Hopefully they can take some notes from Fox during the first half of the season next year to improve.

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