Scatter shooting

Getting re-married?

Rumors are abound over the Lee Spencer article making the claim that Ricky Rudd would be re-joining Roberts Yates Racing taking over the 88 ride left vacant by Dale Jarrett. A couple of thoughts:

1) I guess Robert is scraping the bottom of the barrel if true. But then again, the 'driver pool' has been pretty thin this silly season and there is little in that barrell to begin with. If Robert lands Ricky, he is probably getting the best free agent out there.
2) Will Robert give Ricky the 'top ten pay' Ricky felt he deserved during the 'divorce'?
3) Will Mars (rumored sponsor) not be as demanding in terms driver appearances and such, which was another one of the reasons Ricky gave for leaving the sport a little over a year ago.
4) Will Robert be able to provide enough competitive equipment for both teams and keep Ricky 'happy' and avoid another 'Larry Lackey incident'?

Over-all, this should be a win/win for all involved. Ricky gets back behind the wheel, and I'm guessing on his terms. Robert gets a veteran driver for a team that has many question marks at the moment.
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BuschWacking 101
Finally the Busch series banquet is over, and we should now be able to put this tainted season behind us. Now I have nothing against the Busch series winner, other than the fact that he has been a full time Cup driver for 6 seasons now. The best way to explain this I guess would be to compare a 'power house' College football team, like the Sooners, deciding to drop down and play in the D1AA play-offs and winning the championship. I'm thinking that would not only be an embarrassment to the Football Program, but all of college football itself.
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Can You Hear Me Now?
One of the most recent crutch phrases used by many of the Nascar faithful is to make the claim that 'Nascar is losing touch with their core fans, and doesn't listen to them'. An interesting thought, but I am not sure just how much validity it has. Lets take a look at a few things.

1) After a few closely timed deaths in the sport, Nascar fans were pretty critical of what they called Nascar 'turning a blind eye when it came to safety'. Now we have mandatory Head and Neck restraints, Safer barriers, and next year the C.O.T.
2) Fans wanted an alternative to 'racing back to the line' under caution and leaders 'giving laps back' and Nascar froze the field under cautions and instituted the 'Lucky Dog' or 'Free Pass' rule.
3) Fans wanted races to stop ending 'under cautions' no matter how dangerous that truly was, so Nascar began the 'Green/White/Checkered' rule in Cup.
4) Fans wanted 'total access' and now tracks are re-building pit and garage areas in order to accommodate this demand.
5) Fans criticised the Championship in 2003 because the last 10 or so race, the leader had such a lead that all he was doing in those races was 'riding around'. So Nascar created the 'Chase'.
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Those poor, pitiful drivers
You hear it from many drivers, how 'busy' they are and that they don't have allot of free time. While agree the life of the Cup driver is truly a hectic schedule and a year around 'job', what I don't understand are the ones that complain about 'lack of free time'. Welcome to the real world Nascar Drivers! You get paid enormous amounts of money, have perks and spiffs that the 'common man' cannot enjoy. Two weeks of 'vacation' a year is considered a nice perk in the private sector but for some reason, many Cup drivers feel they deserve more?