Tag Archives: NASCAR

Sad News For Those Of Us Who Love American Muscle Cars

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I will admit that I am not a Chevy fan–I drive a Mustang. However, I respect the role that Chevy has played in the muscle car arena. The Chevy Camaro is an important part of American automotive history.

On Friday, The U.K. Daily Mail reported the following:

The Chevrolet Camaro, for decades the dream car of many teenage American males, is going out of production.

General Motors, which sells the brawny muscle car, said Wednesday it will stop making the current generation early next year.

The future of the car, which is raced on NASCAR and other circuits, is a bit murky. GM says another generation may be in the works.

Please don’t every make an electric Camaro–the electric Mustang is enough of an insult.

The article continues:

‘While we are not announcing an immediate successor today, rest assured, this is not the end of Camaro’s story,’ Scott Bell, vice president of Chevrolet, said in a statement.

The current sixth-generation Camaro, introduced in 2016, has done well on the racetrack, but sales have been tailing off. When the current generation Camaro came out in 2016, Chevrolet sold 72,705 of them. But by the end of 2021 that number fell almost 70 percent to 21,893. It rebounded last year to 24,652.

The article concludes:

Stellantis, will stop making gas versions of the Dodge Challenger and Charger and the Chrylser 300 big sedan by the end of this year. But the company has plans to roll out a battery-powered Charger performance car sometime in 2024.

Electric cars, with instant torque and a low center of gravity, often are faster and handle better than internal combustion vehicles.

Stellantis, formed in 2021 by combining Fiat Chrysler and France´s PSA Peugeot, earlier this week announced the last of its special edition muscle cars, the 1,025 horsepower Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170. The company says the car can go from zero to 60 mph (97 kilometers per hour) in 1.66 seconds, making it the fastest production car on the market.

In addition, Ford rolled out a new version of its Mustang sports car in September.

The Camaro was first introduced in 1966, two years after Ford’s wildly popular Mustang.

GM retired the Camaro nameplate in 2002, but revived it as a new 2010 model with hopes of appealing to enthusiasts and younger buyers. The 2010 version was similar to its predecessors, with a long, flat front and side ‘gills’ that evoke the original, while still sporting a modern overall design.

Sad news.

NASCAR Has Forgotten Its Roots

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On Monday, The Daily Wire posted an article about some recent decisions in the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). As I am sure you remember, the slogan “Lets go, Brandon” began at a NASCAR race when an NBC announcer misheard what the crowd was chanting. Well, the race car driver the chant was supposedly for was Brandon Brown, who recently was having trouble finding sponsors because the chant has gone viral and is not universally appreciated. Well, Mr. Brown’s decided to make lemonade out of the lemons he was handed and has formed the LGBcoin racing team. NASCAR initially approved the sponsorship, but seems to be having second thoughts.

The article reports:

“According to Max Marcucci, a spokesperson for Brown’s team, NASCAR gave the team written approval on the sponsorship and paint scheme late last year and said the team went through the usual sponsorship approval process,” CNN reported. “Marcucci said NASCAR called following the announcement and acknowledged to the team that it had received approval and ‘apologized for any confusion and miscommunication,’ but said that the deal “needs to be reviewed at a higher level.”

…Fox Business added:

In a statement provided by Marcucci, Brandonbilt Motorsports received approval on the sponsors from a NASCAR Racing Operations official on Dec. 26.

According to the statement, the approval of the partnership was “unambiguous” as an opening portion of the email from the official said “The sponsors are approved…”

The statement acknowledged that the NASCAR official offered feedback on a minor graphic design change “to ensure legibility on the track at 170mph.”

“We will continue to work with NASCAR and look forward to resolving this matter and clearing the air as soon as possible,” the statement read.

NASCAR fans tend to be conservative. NACAR is running the risk of turning off its fans just as the NFL and NBA have in recent years. It would be better to let the team continue and let the chips fall where they may.

A Final Note On The NASCAR “Noose”

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Yesterday The Daily Wire posted an article about a more recent statement by Bubba Wallace about the ‘noose’ found in his pit area at the Talladega Speedway. Evidently this was a misunderstanding, but it was a misunderstanding with some interesting roots. The ‘noose,’ actually a loop handle on the garage door opening had been there since 2019.

The Conservative Treehouse posted an article today noting:

Today, NASCAR released a picture of the garage pull-down rope and knot that both they and Bubba Wallace described as a “noose hanging over the car“.

Except it clearly was not hanging over the car, and it clearly wasn’t a “noose” or it wouldn’t function to help pull the door down. Driver Bubba Wallace now calls it “a non-functioning noose.”  Or, in simple terms, a garage pull-down rope with a loop-knot tied in the end.

However, what NASCAR does not yet realize is the picture they have provided actually makes the situation worse; because the picture shows something else, something worse:

This is the picture:

The picture was taken Sunday, in Bubba Wallace’s garage stall #4, when the race was cancelled due to inclement weather (rain and lightning).  However, pay close attention to the partially visible uniform on the man standing at the left of the picture.

That person is a member of the Woods Brothers Race Team and this is a VERY important facet.  The picture was taken Sunday, prior to the “noose” (hereafter called a knot) being cut down.  According to a statement by the Woods Brothers team, they informed NASCAR officials the garage-pull in question was in place in 2019:

“One of our employees notified us yesterday … he recalled seeing a tied handle in the garage, from last fall.  We immediately notified NASCAR and have assisted the investigation”. (link)

So that would explain why one of the Woods Brothers team was present on Sunday June 21st when the photograph was taken.

But here’s the problem…. If that picture was taken by NASCAR that means NASCAR was aware the knot in question was in place in 2019; and therefore knew Bubba Wallace was not the target…. and they would know this on Sunday; before they went out and made a big racial publicity stunt over it.

At any rate, The Daily Wire reports the following:

NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace struck a much different tone over the alleged “noose” incident in a statement issued Wednesday than he did the night before during an interview with far-left CNN host Don Lemon.

Instead of expressing anger over the FBI findings that the “noose” his team found hanging from his garage stall on Sunday was in fact not part of a hate crime, but a mere garage pulley, as he did on Tuesday night, the driver expressed gratitude that he was not the victim of a hate crime and praised NASCAR and fellow drivers over their show of “unity” and support.

The Daily Wire also reports NASCAR’s statement:

NASCAR issued a statement Tuesday regarding the FBI findings, which clearly stated that “the garage pull rope fashioned like a noose had been positioned there since as early as last fall”:

The FBI has completed its investigation at Talladega Superspeedway and determined that Bubba Wallace was not the target of a hate crime. The FBI report concludes, and photographic evidence confirms, that the garage door pull rope fashioned like a noose had been positioned there since as early as last fall. This was obviously well before the 43 team’s arrival and garage assignment. We appreciate the FBl’s quick and thorough investigation and are thankful to learn that this was not an intentional, racist act against Bubba. We remain steadfast in our commitment to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all who love racing.

It would be interesting to know what all of this fuss was actually about and why cooler heads did not prevail in the beginning.

When You Only See What You Want To See

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There was a dust-up recently in NASCAR about a noose found in the pit area of NASCAR’s only black driver. The media was all over it. The FBI was called in (as they should have been). Well, things are not always what they appear to be. It seems that the noose was actually a loop used to open the garage door. The noose had been there since before the driver was assigned to that garage. Yesterday The New York Post posted an article with a few observations on the overreaction to the situation.

The article notes:

For those who have somehow missed it, over the weekend NASCAR dramatically and declaratively announced that Wallace had been the target of a “noose” found in his garage at the Talladega speedway in Alabama. This was just before a high-profile race on that track that took place on Monday.

When I first heard of the story, I assumed there must be a photo of the noose in question, and was very curious to see how someone could be both so incredibly awful, and well as insanely stupid, as to do something so horrifically racist to a black driver. It quickly became obvious, however, that there was no public photo, and my spidey senses began to tell me that something about this story was just not correct.

…However, the lack of a photo was so inexplicable that it appeared obvious to me that this could have been a misunderstanding (under the presumption that if the noose/scene was really unambiguous, we absolutely would have seen a photo immediately). In these times of extreme racial tension, and after NASCAR had just announced it was completely banning the Confederate flag from its events, it seemed to me that someone may have seen a simple rope with an open knot at the end of it, panicked, and then once the “noose” narrative got started, there was no way to contain it, especially in this current media atmosphere. (For context, there have been two noose stories here in California over just the past week that have turned out not to be hate crimes.)

The article concludes:

Will there be any accountability for this enormous and easily avoided act of media malpractice? Will there be any apology to NASCAR fans and the people of Alabama who were presumed to be racist enough to commit, or at least enable, such a heinous act? Will there be any lessons learned by the news media?

Sadly, but predictably, the answers to these important questions will likely all be negative. No one in the major media gets fired for being wrong in interpreting a news event anymore, at least not if they are incorrect in the woke direction, and the ratings for the story are good.

What happened here will surely happen again, especially in the sports world. Largely because those in the elite media, particularly white males, are so incredibly terrified of being canceled for not being woke enough that they would much rather go along with the media herd and be proven wrong, than leave the protection of the media mob, and risk being run over, even if (especially?) they are right.

I’m glad to hear that there was no noose. I am also sorry to see that the media jumped on the story so quickly.