Just Over The Horizon The Sun Is Already Shining 11/21/2014 |
I
bid you welcome gentle readers, to the beginning of the long off-season… that
time when we’ll see no racing, hear no engines fire and smell no gas fumes or
burning rubber. Mercifully, that prolonged deprivation of senses will erase all
the bad memories and hostile feelings of the season just ended and we will once
again appreciate the coming of Daytona, where everything is fresh and new and
each team gets a clean slate upon which to write the tales of 2015. Meanwhile,
we here at Race Fans Forever will attempt to make your wait a pleasant one.
It’s
afternoon on Monday as I pull up to the keyboard and let my fingers do the
typing. The season has ended. Kevin “Happy” Harvick has been established as the
2014 Sprint Cup Champion, and a fine representative of our sport he will be. DeLana is lovely and Keelan is precious. What more can I
say? Congratulations to Kevin and sympathy to Jeff Gordon. My feelings on the
mechanics of the “Chase” are well known and not today’s subject.
All
this week and on through the Holiday season, others will be regaling you with
talk of the season just passed and all that was right, wrong or indifferent
with it. These pages, unless something unforeseen arises, will deal mostly with
the upcoming season and what the future holds in store. If you want to look
forward, this is your place. Pull up a chair, put your feet near the fire and
Mama will bring you cookies and hot cocoa. If you want to rehash the past and
last year’s grievances, you’ll find that in a faraway land known as Facebook.
Enjoy the journey.
Word
has just now crossed the desk that the 2014 Sunoco Rookie of the year awards
have been announced, so just in case anyone hadn’t guessed, they are:
NASCAR
Sprint Cup Series… Kyle Larson
NASCAR
Nationwide Series… Chase Elliott
NASCAR
Camping World Truck Series… Ben Kennedy
Larson,
driver of the #42 Chevy for Chip Ganassi Racing, was last year’s Nationwide
ROTY and only the 6th in history to win the honors in both of
NASCAR’s top series. He defeated runner-up Austin Dillon by 89 points, scoring
8 top-5 and 17 top-10 finishes including 3 second-place finishes and one pole. Just
to keep the record straight, under the points format sans Chase, he finished 8th
in the points. At Banquet time, he will collect 17th place money. NASCAR
also wants you to know that Kyle is a graduate of their “Diversity Program”, as
if that somehow helped him win. Kyle Larson needed no help! He is a natural
born racer, and this scribe looks forward to seeing him race for many years to
come.
What
more can one say about Chase Elliott? At 18 years, 11 months and 18 days, he is
the youngest Champion ever crowned in any of the elite NASCAR Touring Series
and the only rookie to ever win the honor as well. Elliott was the pilot of the
#9 Chevy from JR Motorsports, winning 3 races on the year with 14 toip-10
finishes. He beat out second place finisher Ty Dillon by 47 points. Another
natural born talent, this one plans to spend another year in the Xfinity Series before moving up to the Cup level. He is a
native of Dawsonville GA, or as I like to call it, “Just over the mountain.”
I’m more than proud to call him “neighbor’ and can’t wait to see more of him.
Ben
Kennedy, age22, was the highest rookie finisher in a NASCAR Camping World Truck
Series-best eight races. Kennedy and Tyler Reddick actually wound up tied atop
the rookie standings, but he won the tiebreaker thanks to his final
championship points position of ninth. Kennedy drove the
#31 Turner Scott Motorsports Chevy Silverado to a career-best third-place
finish at Martinsville in March. I must confess to not having been as dedicated
as I might be to the truck series this year, but this young man has to be good
or he wouldn’t be taking this honor home.
NASCAR
finds it important for all of us to know that this trio of
winners were all graduates of what they call the “NASCAR Next
Initiative”, which started in 2011. Sure, if you say so Mr. NASCAR. Aside from
the fact that talent speaks for itself and is undeniable in the first two, who
simply walked away with their respective series, my guess would be that it
didn’t hurt a bit for Chase Elliott to have past Champion Bill Elliott as a
father or for Ben Kenney to have Lesa France Kennedy
as a mother. Still, genetic influences aside, congratulations to all three
Rookies of the Year. You all earned it fair and square. Welcome to NASCAR and
keep up the good work.
And
then of course, there will be the Awards banquets. Being seen by NASCAR as
lesser and therefore less important than the Cup series, the Nationwide and
Truck series will enjoy their banquet on what is actually today as I type, November
17 at the Trump National Doral Miami, but won’t be seen until Sunday, Nov. 23
at 7 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1.
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Awards… the annual culmination of
Champion's Week… will be held on Friday, Dec. 5, at Wynn Las Vegas. This is the
sixth year that NASCAR has celebrated Champion's Week in the city of Las Vegas,
a tradition that [NASCAR says] has featured a bevy of A-list entertainers and
fan-friendly activities involving the sport's biggest stars.
Allow your scribe a comment at this point if you will; It’s
a banquet; we get it; folks have to eat and we, the great unwashed, know that.
Let them eat before the show, not through the middle of it. We don’t require
hours of not so great entertainment having nothing whatsoever to do with racing.
If we’re watching, it’s to see our heroes lauded and applauded for their
on-track efforts, not for their aplomb in white tie and tails. Secretly gentle
readers, I only watch to see who is the most uncomfortable while wearing
unaccustomed garb and dealing with a teleprompter. That can provide far more
humor than the comedian du jour in a Vegas Casino/nightclub.
Really, MR. NASCAR, could you please let someone host that
thing that knows something about the sport and the recipients of varying
amounts of money? This fan finds it quite off-putting when the host seems to be
there for the sole purpose of insulting those we propose to honor. Please… no
more Mohr! Both Jay Leno and David Letterman know a lot about cars and racing.
Has it ever crossed a mind in Daytona Beach that someone that knows what he’s
talking about might be a good fit? Howie Mandell? Oh,
what were you thinking??
We’ll leave them with that thought gentle readers, and wait
to see what sort of horror will be perpetrated upon us come December 5. Right
now, it’s time for out Classic Country Closeout.
Back in
the Stone Age, when I was a teenager, there was one Country singer that
routinely had several songs at a time on any juke box. His name was Hank Snow
and though certainly of the Country genre, had a different and easily
recognizable quality to his voice. That might have been because most of the
Country singers of the time were from either the South or the Texas/Oklahoma
region. Hank was from Canada… not the most likely place for a Country singer to
hail from, but sing he did, and he did it so very well. Today, let’s start with
one of my favorites… one of so many… “I Don’t Hurt Anymore.”
Next,
we move to one of his truly peppy tunes that were always Hank’s trademark. This
one is “I’ve Been Everywhere.” (Yes, he could do it from memory. I’ve
been to 2 or 3 of his shows and he was marvelous)
This
one is a toe-tapper that I have always loved, and I hope you do as well. It’s
called, ‘Would You Mind?”
Be well
gentle readers, and remember to keep smiling. It looks so good on you!
~
PattyKay