|
The fourth Nextel Cup Championship that seemed inevitable half way through the Chase To The Nextel Cup title is now Jimmie’s.
It’s not a case that JJ didn’t deserve it. His crew chief and crew pretty much enabled him to pull it off after a flawless performance. NASCAR’s busman Brian France was very gracious in his compliments of JJ, his crew and team owners Rick Hendrick and Jeff Gordon. However, we think that underneath all of this, Brian wished that his creation the Chase To The Nextel Cup had been a little more suspenseful during the past few years. |
The Washington Post’s Liz Clark’s comments on all of this watched on the Speed Channel’s Wind Tunnel program. On NASCAR’s Chase Liz felt that there’s something wrong with NASCAR’s presentation. Consider that the fans in addition to staying home are not watching the races on TV. Clark thinks that NASCAR efforts to please the viewers in the major markets fell apart and that’s one reason for the TV ratings dive. It was just a novelty that passed quickly. In concert with all that, a lot of the former core fans deserted NASCAR because the sanction made a play for the new fans at the expense of the former base. Now she sees that NASCAR and their broadcaster partners are making an effort to return to some of the old practices of starting the races earlier in 2010. We can wonder if it will be enough to make the old base return? They still hate the COT, the lack of appearances of country music celebrities replaced by rockers and letting the drivers be themselves among other issues.
On the major markets, Clark, according to one acquaintance who watches the NASCAR scene with regularity, “She’s the first of the mainstream media to get it right,” said this former crewmember of a former Daytona 500 winner. This guy went on, ” The old buzz about getting excited about the season starting up is gone. I’ve noticed this ever since Brian France made all of the changes. Prior to all of this once the season was over we couldn’t wait for the season to begin in mid-February. Now who cares,” was the way he put it.
This came from the Valvoline Track Talk Newsletter. Yes, He Really Said That- Rick Hendrick on contract negotiations with Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus. “Jimmie and I tried to look at a lifetime deal. I couldn’t borrow enough money to make it work. But, you know, Chad has a multi-year deal. Chad and I have talked about retiring together.”
Following a court claim made by NASCAR that suspended driver Jeremy Mayfield had no case in his lawsuit challenging the sport; Mayfield’s attorney Mark Geragos called the move a “desperate attempt by desperate people”. He said in a radio interview “We’re confident once we’re in the courtroom, the truth will be told.”
Geragos claimed that NASCAR is trying to delay the case by asking that the information-gathering phase be halted until its latest motion can be heard. Mayfield was suspended on May 9 of this year for testing positive for methamphetamines. He subsequently sued NASCAR for breach of contract, discrimination and defamation of character. The trial is set for September of 2010. This came from StockCarGazette.com.
This isn’t too much of a surprise given the state of the concluded Chase To The Nextel Cup. The Phoenix TV ratings were down 17.6 percent. Jimmie Johnson may be making history these days, but fewer and fewer fans are sticking around to witness it. The No. 48 team’s victory at Phoenix – pulling them within a whisker of a fourth straight title – scored just a 2.9 overnight TV rating, down 17.6 percent from the 3.4 the same event scored in November 2008.
Overall, the Chase ratings are 7 percent lower compared to last season through nine events. However, that number jumps to a 26 percent decrease when compared to 2005, the highest recorded Chase ratings on record in the six-year history of the current format. This also came from StockCarGazette.com.
That Saturday’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Phoenix aired live on ESPN2 and earned a final national household coverage rating of 1.1, down from the 1.3 rating earned for last year’s race that also aired on ESPN2. The telecast averaged 1,419,953 viewers. This came from ESPN PR.
Even F1 TV ratings were impacted by the lack of success by one of its favorite marques. Formula One-television audiences in Spain and Italy fell drastically this year, reflecting disappointing performances by Spanish driver Fernando Alonso and Italian car manufacturer Ferrari, which suffered its worst season in 16 years. According to the latest sports viewing survey from TV Sports Markets and Eurodata TV Worldwide, the big falls in Spain and Italy were partly counterbalanced by a significant lift in UK audiences. Viewership in the other two top European markets, France and Germany, remained broadly stable. Audiences in Spain dropped 29 percent on 2008, with Alonso’s worst-ever season coinciding with coverage shifting from what was the country’s leading commercial broadcaster. Telecinco, to smaller rival La Sexta. La Sexta’s live coverage averaged just under three million viewers per racing and drew an audience share of 31 percent.
Audiences for Italian public-service broadcaster RAI fell 21 percent against 2008, when Ferrari won the championship, averaging 5.6 million viewers per race. Further analysis shows, perhaps surprisingly, that almost 40 percent of the audience was female. Just under 50 percent of the audience was aged over 55. In the UK, Jenson Button’s championship season provided a perfect start for public-service broadcaster the BBC, which took over the rights at the start of this year after commercial rival ITV opted to concentrate its limited resources on Champions League football.
Audiences were 16 percent on ITV’s audiences last year and the highest since the BBC last had the rights in 1996. In France, audiences for commercial broadcaster TF1 rose less than one percent to 3.1 million. Some 33 percent of the audience were woman, slightly lower than the gender split for Champions Leagure football, where women accounted for 35 percent of TF1’s average audience last season.
Forty-nine percent of the F1 audience in France is over 50 years of age, the same proportion for the Champions Leagure. In Germany, RTL averaged 5.2 million viewers per race, with the penultimate race of the season in Brazil attracting the season-high of 7.2 million viewers and a 28-percent audience share. This item came from SportsBusinessInternational.com.
Formula One team Brawn GP will be renamed Mercedes Grand Prix from next season, after it was bought by carmaker Daimler AG and Abu Dhabi-based investment fund Aabar Investments PJSC. Bloomberg reports that Daimler bought a 45.1 per cent stake and Aaber 30 per cent. Team manager Ross Brawn retains a shareholding along with four other directors. Aabar chairman Khadem Abdulla Al-Qubaisi said that the two buyers are paying around £110 million between them, but Brawn chief executive Nick Fry said the fee was “far more modest”. Daimler chief executive Dieter Zetsche said that his company would sell its 40 per cent stake in the McLaren team over two years, and it would cut its spending on Formula One by 25 per cent. This item also came from SportsBusinessInternational.com.
Boardwalk Ferrari, a division of the Boardwalk Auto Group, is proud to announce that its challenge team raced into first place at this year’s Ferrari World Finals for the North America Dealer Team Championship.
The Challenge races take place around the world from March through September as part of the 2009 North American Ferrari Challenge Racing Series. There are 14 races in total. The final Challenge race took place in Valencia, Spain on November 13, 2009. Boardwalk Ferrari competed against six North American dealerships, with two experienced and successful drivers, Scott Tucker and Ted Skokos, at the helm. Tucker crossed the finish line first in Valencia and came in second overall in the Challenge series. Tucker won 11 races and scored a podium finish in every single race – something that has never been done in Ferrari Challenge history. Skokos finished eighth overall in only his second year of competition. There were a total of 19 drivers in the race. “We are thrilled to have won the Team Championship against very experienced contenders,” said Scott Ginsburg, owner and dealer principal, Boardwalk Auto Group. “Our strategy this year was to focus on two drivers and their cars, and it clearly paid off. This win is a reflection of the time, dedication and sophistication of every single member of our Ferrari Challenge Team. Our hats are off to all the drivers in the Challenge race competition, and particularly to Scott and Ted.”
The 2009 North American Ferrari Challenge Racing Series is a private race series that started in 1994 for North America. Ferrari owners are sponsored through a dealership. Tucker and Skokos were the two drivers that Boardwalk Ferrari sponsored. Boardwalk Ferrari was responsible for preparing the cars, entering its drivers in the races, safely transporting the cars to and from the venues, as well as serving as the pit crew during the races. Boardwalk Ferrari has a dedicated race shop in Dallas, TX. The dealership began participating in the Ferrari Challenge Series in 2006. This report came from the Business Wire.
A successful and winning weekend for any racecar driver normally means having a strong engine, a good car and the right set up underneath it. But equally important is a strong, knowledgeable and happy crew. And what is one thing that keeps a crew happy? Keeping them fed with good food all weekend long so they can stay focused.
The Stroupe Brothers Racing crew knows that food gets no better than what is found at Chili’s Grill and Bar Restaurant. That is why Washington-driver Zach Niessner and the Stroupe Brothers Racing team have teamed with Chili’s Grill and Bar Restaurants of Pensacola as a primary sponsor for this year’s running of the Snowflake 100 on December 2-5 at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, FL, part of the Snowball Derby weekend.
“I’m excited to be associated with Chili’s for the Snowball weekend,” said Niessner, who will drive the #2 Chili’s Grill and Bar/2 Dudes Designs Chevrolet in his third Snowflake 100. “Having their help over the weekend will make things a lot better for me and for the entire team. When you are hard at work at the track for hours and hours, the last thing you are thinking about is eating. But when it comes time to leave the track, the first thing you think about it going somewhere together and getting a good meal. And at Chili’s, there are no bad meals. So to have them come on board with us for the weekend will be huge. Hopefully, we can pay them back with spreading the word about the restaurant and getting them into victory lane on Saturday night.”
Coastal 181 has some hot new titles for the Holiday Season. I’LL NEVER BE LAST AGAIN -BILL WIMBLE, DALE JR.: SHIFTING GEAR (DVD), ALAN KULWICKI, NASCAR CHAMPION AGAINST ALL ODDS and INDY CARS ON SHORT TRACKS. Check www.coastal181.com for more info such as other titles and prices. There are also special prices.
Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone has disclosed that a deal must be done by December 9 if a British Grand Prix is to take place next summer. Ecclestone ruled out Donington Park’s chances of hosting the race in October after the company re-developing the circuit failed to show it had the £135 million funding required. The focus is still on Silverstone, which has yet to agree financial terms and faces a warning from the sport that it must modernize its facilities in order to host the event again.
“They had a contract in place that they could have signed if they’d wanted to but they haven’t. At the moment there is no British Grand Prix,” Ecclestone told BBC Radio 5 Live’s Sportsweek program. “I think December 9 is when the Formula One commission meet so that’s when it will be taken off the calendar. If there’s no contract in place there won’t be a British Grand Prix.” The date is when the Formula One Commission, which regulates the sport, is due to convene and rubber-stamp the 2010 race calendar.
Here’s what’s on the tube this week into the weekend during the beginning of the off-season. On the day after winning his history-making fourth consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup championship, Jimmie Johnson will be the subject of a tribute on ESPN Classic on Monday, Nov. 23. ESPN Classic will replay highlights of the four races in which Johnson won his championships, starting with the 2009 event from Homestead-Miami Speedway at 1 p.m. ET. The 2008 race airs at 4 p.m., followed by the 2007 race at 7 p.m. The race from 2006, in which Johnson won his first title, airs at 10 p.m. Also on Monday night Speed offers NASCAR Race Hub at 7:30 p.m. and again on Tuesday at the same time. VS airs Quest For the Sprint Cup at 11 p.m. On Wednesday VS airs that program at 5 p.m. Speed airs NASCAR Race Hub at 7:30 p.m. On Friday VS airs Quest For the NASCAR Sprint Cup at 2:30 p.m. On Sunday ESPN2 offers the ‘09 Chase To The Sprint Cup at 1 p.m. followed by NASCAR Season Review at 1:30 p.m. At 7 p.m. HD Theatre airs the World Rally “09 Review. On Sunday HD Theatre returns with World Rally of Finland at 8 p.m. (END)
NOTE: INFORMATION FOR THIS COLUMN CAME FROM VARIOUS REFERENCED SOURCES, PRESS RELEASES, NOTES AND OTHER SOURCES.
350z for sale
