We experienced a lot of anger last week at Richmond, but that was at a short track where beating, banging, chrome horns and hard racing is expected. If the fans of the sport experienced anger at that, we can expect even more from what happens at Darlington this weekend.
Why should we expect this? The track has been repaved for the first time since 1992 and by all reports it is faster. Faster doesn’t always mean better, and the action is likely to be hectic early on until the competitive field settles down some.
Darlington has always been a difficult track for passing anyway, and the repaving did not include widening the track. There will be mishaps, and we can be certain that whatever happens, fingers will be pointed and fans will get riled up. Richmond will soon be forgotten.
Several of our NASCAR Bloggers FT Digest bloggers have posted their weekly race previews.
NASCAR Ranting and Raving Blog reports that, during practice, “Rookies Are Earning Their Darlington Stripes”
With the Darlington race this weekend there have been quite a few rookies earning their ’stripes’ early in practice.
Those who have earned their stripe include; JJ Yeley, Patrick Carpentier, and Sam Hornish….read more
Antonette of Unrestricted: My NASCAR Rants & Raves asks us four questions that will help us make our own preview. Be sure to leave a comment with your own answers.
If you like question and answer items, you may also want to check out Fast Laps, from On Pit Row. Steve and Charlie always think up stupid thought -provoking interesting questions that could get you fired up about your opinion. While you are at that site, check out Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie for a chance to win a Daytona 500 50th Anniversary DVD.
Back to Darlington race previews, Trouble in Turn 2 always produces very well thought out predictions, stats, and information.
In most years Darlington is one of the most baffling tracks to figure out. Teams and drivers struggle with a good setup and by the time they figure it out, their tires are already worn out. The simple reason is that Darlington was such a unique track. The way the surface ate up tires made it extremely challenging and there wasn’t really an apt comparison found on the Cup circuit…read more
Diecast Dude doesn’t have a preview, but he does write an interesting piece on the word “Dude”
Taking this to NASCAR, there are so many individuals therein to whom a simple “dude” needs to be spoken in hope it will give cause for their catching the vision and seeing the world around them…read more
NASCAR This Week features two previews by Monte Dutton: The Greatest Track focuses on the track itself, while Notebook: A new challange for the points leader focuses on the drivers. Both articles are very well worth reading, as they are written by a long-time NASCAR fan and journalist. When Dutton writes about a track with as much history as Darlington, he is writing from first hand experience.
For honest, hard stats, Do You NASCAR presents Fantasy Preview: Darlington.
Rev’Jim predicts angry fans’ reactions by providing ready-to-use comments for use by angry fans:
“(Pick one: Stewart, Jeff Gordon, Robby Gordon, Kyle Busch, Kurt Busch, Biffle) Should have been parked and banned from racing for life for that move!”
“He hasn’t won a race all season, and suddenly he wins at Darlington? Give me a break! You say NASCAR isn’t fixed?”…read more
Thank you for reading NASCAR Bloggers FT Digest, and please feel free to leave comments on any of the above stories.
And remember, if something goes wrong for your driver at Darlington, “blame it on Busch.”
May 10, 2008 at 7:56 pm
It’s one thing to excerpt blog posts as you have done here.
It’s a very different thing all together when entire posts are scraped without permission.
And I might add, repeatedly, not just a single instance.
I trust it won’t happen again.
May 10, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Speaking for m’self, your summaries are a great recap of what’s going on in the world of NASCAR blogs. Keep up the great work. (And thanks for giving NASCAR This Week consistent mention!)
May 11, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Marc, thanks for setting me straight. I misunderstood attribution and linkage license, and thought attribution and linkage was sufficient. The item in question has been corrected, and now that I know better, it will not happen again.
May 12, 2008 at 3:05 am
I’m not completely sure I’m savvy on what took place here. I can say, however, that I know the good Reverend’s intentions have been in the right place. From what I’ve gathered, his posts have all been in an effort to promote others’ blogs rather than using them for self-promotion.
May 12, 2008 at 7:12 am
I’ll straighten things out a little here. It has nothing to do with this blog, but with a NASCAR history section of the Racing NASCAR news and forums site. Since Marc writes such great articles on NASCAR history, I thought it would be okay to share his thoughts with other members of that site. I posted a major part of an interesting article he wrote about Darlington, with a link back to his site, thinking that–as it is with news wire items–attribution was sufficient to satisfy implicit license articles of the copyright laws. I was wrong, and I should have realized that from my own experience. The item in question has been corrected and I would hope that there are no hard feelings between Marc and myself.
May 13, 2008 at 2:53 am
It’s all good. Simple curiosity on my part.