KZLAZYfortheInet Radio

Of course it's really not "Radio", but if I could program a radio station I would run a weekly feature on NASCAR racing.
A TOYracecar O what A' Story Daytona 500 Introduction to NASCAR'S Reality Show.
The is NASCAR's premiere race of each new season. Several months are spent tuning engines and adjusting the cars suspensions to run on the high-banked Super Speedway where speeds in the 150-mile-per-hour range are averaged around the 2.5 mile track.
This is the field that TOYOTA Racing Development wants to play on with the older, more experienced "kids", Chevrolet, Dodge and Ford.
The Daytona International Speedway was going to be TOYOTA's NASCAR beachhead with Michael Waltrip starting from the 15 position, Dave Blaney from the 37, David Reutman from the 40 and Dave Jarrett from the 43'rd position. (The last of the Daytona 500 starters.)
NASCAR has a rulebook that all the racing team owners, "crew chiefs", mechanics and "pit crews" (teams of mechanics who change tires, refuel the racecars, repair minor body damage with Duck-tape during the "pit-stops" at intervals throughout the three-hours-plus long race) try to bend the rule book without running up against the pre-race inspections conducted by the technical employees of NASCAR.
The Daytona preperations saw several crew chiefs suspended for the minor sounding offense of allowing holes to be drilled in sheet metal that should be a continious piece to gain an aerodynamic advantage over the other team's racecars.
Aerodynamics plays a big role at one-hundred-fifty-miles-per-hour speeds in a pack of forty cars, inches away from each other. Aerodynamics keeps the cars on the Super speedway and lets the trailing cars save fuel by "drafting" (being pulled ahead by the lessened wind rsistance created by the car inches in front of it.)
So drilling a few holes in the wheel-wells turned-out to be a major violation, and the NASCAR Vice-President of Competition drilled a few holes in their wallets while suspending them for several races including the season-opening Daytona 500.
Several of the TOYOTA-sponsored team's crew chiefs got caught doing this and Michael Waltrip's was suspended and fined thousands of dollars.
When you hear the term "Crew Chief" you probably picture a mechanic all grimy from wrenching on the racing engines. Actually, if a racing team was the corporation where you work, the crew chief would be the "Vice President of Operations", a Blackberry anda laptop would be more likely than a toolbox in his hands. hese men are the day-to-day managers of everything that happens to the multiple racecars that a team is rquired to compete with at the various tracks (with differing competitive racecar set-ups) on the NASCAR circuit.
Perhaps they felt extreme measures were called for to "jump-start" TOYOTA's NASCAR debut and hoped to finish in the top five, or even win the Daytona 500 "Right out of the shipping crate", which would have created a broadcast, print and Internet media bonanza of advertising for TOTOTA and it's Camry already a best-seller.
Dale Jarett finished 22nd (after starting from the 43rd, and last position) the best showing of the four TOYOTA's in the race, and the only one to complete the 202 laps; a great driving job in a new car for a racing team just starting-up the steep slope of the NASCAR learning curve.
Michael Waltrip completed 200 laps, in 15th place after starting in the 30th position.
While TOYOTA didn't win, they didn't lose either.
With the cars and the drivers flying to Fontana, California and to Mexico (!) for the next races, the NASCAR School of Racing will be in session again.
The legendary Dale Earnhardt is revered by NASCAR fans, read how he will affect the safety of drivers in the future: www.associatedcontent.com/article/140946/dale_earnhardts_death_in_racing_crash.html
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