When it comes to TV holidays, I think you should put Father’s Day pretty high on the list, right?
ADVERTISEMENT
Thanksgiving is your obvious number 1, followed by New Years and Christmas (yes, in that order), and maybe a bit of Memorial Day (certainly for racing fans) mixed in.
But, coming from someone who just watched four hours of coverage of the US Open final on Sunday…Father’s Day is absolutely up in the conversation.
Which brings me to my point (yes, we’re finally there!): maybe pick another summer weekend to please the Cup guys?
I missed running. You missed it. Heck, even the Cup guys (sort of) couldn’t stay away!
“Being able to come here and watch is fun,” Chase Elliott told Racing America’s Matt Weaver after making the trip from Dawsonville to Pensacola to see his dad Bill lead the SRX series opener on Saturday night.
“You don’t always have those opportunities, and usually my weekends are busy, so I appreciate that. I want to see him do well and he likes that.”
SUAREZ IN SONOMA:Daniel Suarez destroys the piñata, Dillon calls BS on Chastain, Harvick is fed up with the pit crew
CHASE LOSES IT:Chase Elliott loses his mind, Logano warns Byron, and Kurt Busch has that “rare” quality
BOWYER INVOLVED:Former NASCAR driver and current analyst Clint Bowyer involved in fatal Missouri crash
Ryan Newman returns to racing and finally has fun
No Cup race, no problem. Tony Stewart, Ray Evernham, Bill Elliott, Helio Castroneves, Michael Waltrip and… Ryan Newman! …were there to save us last weekend.
Yeah. Stewart’s second season of the Superstar Racing Experience went green on Saturday, giving us our annual (well, at least since last year) dose of summertime nostalgia.
Chase was on hand to watch his dad, who finished ninth out of 15 main event riders.
Side note: Awesome Bill is now 66 and just ran a summer race in Florida. For those wondering, there was a nearly statewide heat advisory in those areas on Saturday.
Anyway… Mikey Waltrip brought up the rear, Stewart – last summer’s champion – finished 10th, Bobby Labonte finished fifth, and Rocket Man Ryan Newman brought him down to third place.
How’s that for a ranking!?
“After all, I’ve lived the last year, a year and a half, with cars that aren’t that fun to drive – let’s put it that way – to come here with a car as prepared as possible and have fun … was pretty special,” said Newman, who last won a Cup race in 2017.
“These guys are the best of the best.”
Helio Castroneves pays his way to SRX racing
Talking about that…
Helio!
The four-time Indy 500 champion won the season opener in dominant fashion despite not being part of the original starting lineup!
It’s true. Helio paid his way to Pensacola, got a car, qualified for the main event and then won the whole thing.
“I bought my own ticket, got everything ready to go, and when I was on the plane, I asked Ashely (SRX Operations Manager) what time I had to be on the runway, she said, ‘oh, you’re not supposed to be here,’” Castroneves told Weaver.
“I was like, ‘I’m on the plane already,’ she said, ‘wait.’ I landed, it’s like, ‘I’ve got a car for you and everything.’ So all of a sudden I come here and everyone is like, ‘what are you doing here?'”
Will Helio Castroneves race the Daytona 500? ‘Make it happen’
So, let’s bring this back to the Cup Series (yes, there was a point to the whole rambling!).
Helio’s victory in Pensacola would mean the iconic racer has also solidified a race for… the Daytona 500.
Yeah. The Daytona 500!
According to Castroneves, SRX CEO Don Hawk bet him before the season that if he won a race, Hawk would give him a Cup Series car for February’s Daytona 500.
“I was like, ‘Deal,'” Helio said of the offer. “Now he has to get there on his own.”
No, Castroneves has never raced in NASCAR. However, I hear some guys named Foyt and Andretti—other Indy 500 winners—had some success at Daytona, though.
Maybe he would be fine!
Dale Earnhardt Jr. says commercial flight is a bit ‘wild (expletive)’
For those wondering (and I highly recommend tuning in for at least the main event), SRX heads to South Boston on Saturday for its second race of the season.
As for the Cup guys, they’re back in Nashville after a well-deserved rest on Sunday.
And yes, the folks at NBC will have the action the rest of the way. That means we’ll have Dale Jr. in our living rooms for the next four months, and while I still prefer Mike Joy (Come on Emerson!), Rick Allen isn’t too shabby either.
Speaking of Junior…on the way out, let’s do our weekly analysis of his Twitter to see if anything interesting is going on.
“The man flying in the ad this week was a bit wild (expletive),” Junior tweeted over the weekend. “It felt like they were challenging me to solve a complex puzzle with a choice bit of your own adventure. Good times.”
See, like my old baseball coach used to say… we all put on our pants the same way.
