Life on the Road – Trucking News Blog

Lets get right to the meat of the weeks news shall we. This week was “Champions Week” in New York City. To be quite honest with you, I don’t like the awards banquet being held in New York City. When you ask anyone on the streets of New York what they think about Nascar, they generally do not like it or call it a red neck sport. The posts on some blogs have been extreme lately. I won’t post the responses here but it was ugly in more than one place. So why do we hold our awards banquet there? It really is way off base for the majority of the fans of this sport. The number of fans in The entire State of New York pales in comparison to just one area where there is a track we race at. Take for example the Kansas Speedway, I would bet my left arm that there are more Nascar fans within a hundred and fifty miles of that track than in the whole state of new York. Would it not make sense to rotate the awards banquet through area’s that actually like the sport? I think That it does.

When New Yorkers were asked what they thought of the Nextel Cup Cars rolling through the streets of Manhattan, most of them were complaining about the problems it caused them getting to work and such. I have driven a truck up there for a couple of years and all I ever heard from New Yorkers is the constant complaining about traffic and anything else that gets in their craws. It is like there is a constant gnashing of teeth that goes along with living and working there. They are seldom happy! So why do we go there? How about going to Hawaii? It is absolutely Gorgeous there and everybody there is happy compared to New York City! How about Kansas city? There is a track near there! You get my point I guess. Having the awards banquet in New York is just plain stupid. Nuff said.

News this week? well Jimmy Johnson said that he was getting deja vu coming down the steps of the Waldorf Astoria in “The Gotham City”(yuck). He is the first repeat champion since Jeff Gordon did it in 1997 and 1998. First on his agenda was a welcome dinner with Sprint and Nextel executives then a week of appearances on shows like “Regis and Kelly Lee, The Fox news channel live desk, The Rachael Ray show,The CW morning show and Good Morning America.” He and his crew chief Chad Knaus rang in the new York stock exchange. Wednesday Johnson and the rest of the top ten drivers went on a victory lap, a 1.5 mile course through the streets of Manhattan starting at 44Th street and Broadway and ending at the Hard Rock Café at 43rd and 7th.

Like it or not, we did have an awards banquet at the Waldorf Astoria. That was the scene where Jimmy Johnson accepted the last Nextel Cup Trophy, as next year it will be the Sprint Cup. (gag) Also going along with the trophy was a check for $7,317,499! Not bad huh? But Jimmy Johnson sorta took second stage to a tear jerking tribute to Brian France Jr. Presented by Tom Brokaw. Frankly I would have picked someone else to do that after Brokaw narrated a television program about the problem with man made global warming, Which is based on false scientific data and is not true! Even with my dislike of the man, it was a well spoken, well presented tribute to the man that put Nascar on the map and rocketed it out of the southeast and onto a national scale. He will be missed by all.

All in all it was a nice evening, boring at times, (I fell asleep once) But a nice evening. I would love to see the real party though. You know the one after the television camera’s are turned off and packed away? The after party has to be a hoot! You know that the drivers, crew chiefs, owners and all team members and their family’s are there for the after party. I wonder who gets a little too wild and who gets a little too loud? I’ll bet there were some fat heads the next morning! lol!

Well its on to the rumor and speculation that goes on during the off season. You know how it is right? We get a little Nascar news about some driver or team and people start to spread it and it gets twisted around sideways until it no longer looks like it started out. Kinda like the old Nascar Race Car huh. Who do you think the first blown out of proportion news story will be about? Will somebody be arrested during the off season? We will have to wait. Check here later and see if I can dig something up.

Stay safe out there this holiday season and remember that there are a lot of inexperienced drivers out there during the holiday so give them some extra room and patience.