The Frontstretch Newsletter: Erik Jones' Team Hit with P2 Penalty

THE FRONTSTRETCH NEWSLETTER
Presented by Frontstretch.com
The Best Seat at the Track, The Best View on the Net!

Mar. 17, 2016

Volume X, Edition XXXI

~~~~~~~~~~

FRONTSTRETCH JOBS: SALES & BRANDING MANAGER

Frontstretch is seeking a dynamic, creative individual to head our sales team. The individual would be responsible for the following:
– Engaging new partners and taking the lead in brokering agreements for sales & advertising across all Frontstretch outlets: Website, Newsletter, Podcast, and video content
– Responding to exposure inquiries from potential advertisers
– Working with our social media team to enhance the marketing and branding experience for our advertising clients

The position will be a direct report to our Business and Financial Manager, a position that also will work closely with the Majority Owner and Social Media team. A fast-growing website whose writers have won multiple NMPA Awards, the Frontstretch is well-positioned for success in 2016 and has a healthy audience of over seven figures per year. The role, while initially commission-based offers a generous percentage and perks down the road for this startup company. Frontstretch management has, in many cases been in place for nearly a decade before becoming a for-profit website and we're excited to welcome the right person into this family atmosphere.

Interested parties should email tbowles81@yahoo.com with a short note on why they're interested and their current resume.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What to Watch: Thursday

- Today is pull-in day at Auto Club Speedway for the Sprint Cup and XFINITY Series.  No on-track activities are scheduled at the two mile oval.

- In Sebring, practice gets underway today for Saturday's Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring. We'll have recaps of practice sessions from the 3.74-mile road course later today on the site.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thursday's TV Schedule can be found here.

Top News
by the Frontstretch Staff

Erik Jones Highlights Phoenix Penalty Report

On Wednesday, NASCAR put out their weekly penalty report.  While warnings were given to the Nos. 17, 38 and 78 teams in Sprint Cup for failing pre-race inspection too many times, no one was given an actual penalty in Cup.  Erik Jones' No. 20 team in the XFINITY Series did cop a P2 penalty for a post-race alignment issue.  Read more

Have news for the Frontstretch? Don't hesitate to let us know; email us at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com with a promising lead or tip.

~~~~~~~~~~

Today's Featured Commentary

Potts' Shots for the week of March 14th

Potts' Shots

by John Potts

Something very interesting happened to me a couple of weeks back…

The field was headed for the green flag in the Sprint Cup race at Atlanta, and all I got was, "Boogity, boo…"

Yep, the cable TV went out just as ol' Darrell was going into his trademark spiel.
After trying to get it back a couple of times, I went to the Performance Racing Network's website and listened to Pat Patterson and company call the race.

It turned out to be a VERY enjoyable experience.

I've done a lot of announcing, mostly track announcing, and I realize that the announcer's job during a race is to make it exciting for the fans, whether it happens to be or not. Sometimes you have to go way back into the field to find a position battle to talk about, but that's your job.

For a radio announcer, it's a different deal (I've done a couple of those, too, most notably the Joe James-Pat O'Connor Memorial USAC Sprint Car race from Salem several years ago.

In that capacity, you're tasked with creating a mental motion picture for the listener (along with trying to make it exciting, of course).

I was amazed. The PRN crew did a fantastic job, and knowing the colors and numbers of nearly all the cars made it all that much more fun.

I got the feeling I was right there on the inside (or outside, as the case may have been) of each turn, watching every battle for position, seeing every engine failure or spinout, etc.

Hadn't done that for years. Since 1989, in fact, when we had an early flight out of Orlando and had to listen to the last 50 laps of DW's win in the Daytona 500 on MRN. I had forgotten how excited the late Dan Brickey and I got when Jeff Hammond's call to "stay out there" turned out to be the winning decision.

I'm sure MRN still does the same great job, and I'm sure I'll be listening to their call one of these Sundays just for kicks.

I know a lot of people who aren't particularly enamored of the Fox announcing crew like to mute their TV sound and listen to the closest PRN or MRN station while watching the action.  It's understandable. However, I'm sure that once in a while if they're seeing the action and listening to the radio call, they sometimes wonder what the announcers are so excited about.

Even the pit reporters and assistants in the tower were outstanding. By the way, I was wondering what happened to Wendy Venturini.

I couldn't help but think of Ned Jarrett's story about the time he was working a race for MRN and got caught in the restroom when one of his assigned cars pitted under green.

Ned said he calmly went through the whole routine – the car skidding to a stop, pit crew going over the wall, right side tires coming off and new ones going on, fuel going in, left side tires coming off and new ones going on, windshield being wiped, and the car burning rubber out of the pit stall.

What was very interesting to me, years after it actually happened when I asked Ned about it, was that he said he apparently nailed it, because nobody else of the broadcast crew realized he wasn't right there on the scene until he told them about it after the race.

That's knowing your product. Lucky for him, the driver didn't stall the engine pulling out.
- - - - - - - -
Getting close to Indianapolis 500-mile Race time, and I'm looking forward to covering the big event's 100th running for Frontstretch.com once again, with the blessing of Tom Bowles, of course.

Doug Boles, the president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, was a speaker at the Indianapolis one-day session of the Racing Promotion Monthly, and told us a lot about the mutli-million dollar renovation going on.

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but Doug was an intern for me at Indianapolis Raceway Park back in the 1980s, and I never had a better one. First, we didn't have to teach him the language, and second, he was already a genuine race fan. I still call him "Probie" once in a while.

This is a guy who really cares about IMS, the 500, and the fans. Fanatically.

One of the things he told us regarding the renovation was that at least three rows in one of those upper Penthouse seating areas are going to be handicapped accessible. For somebody like me, that is welcome news. If I wasn't going to be in the Media Center, that's where I'd be. Previously, I had only watched from a ground-level grandstand on the inside of the south chute (between turns one and two).

My pick for the 500 this year?

The same as it was last year – Juan Pablo Montoya.

I didn't give up on the Colombian Comet last year when he fell all the way to the rear in the early part of the race (and even picked up a couple of bucks from a big city writer who said he'd never get near the front).

He's already started off the season the same way he did last year, with a win at St. Petersburg.

Stay tuned, folks…

John Potts is a Senior Writer for Frontstretch. He can be reached via e-mail at john.potts@frontstretch.com.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Critic's Annex: Pirelli World Challenge in Austin

by Phil Allaway

Welcome back.  Hope you enjoyed last week's action.  This week, we're delving back into road racing.  A couple of weeks ago, Pirelli World Challenge held their season opener at Circuit of the Americas near Austin for all seven classes (split into three separate events, and those events were two or three races each). 

At the time, all of the races were streamed live by Pirelli World Challenge on the internet.  Anyone around the world can watch for free.  For 2016, the series has streamlined their website, so the stream is right on world-challenge.com.  Previously, the streaming was housed on a separate website.  That's a plus.  However, the old website also had archives of every race the series had run since 2009.  Now, the archives have been cut down to just the action since the beginning of last year and are housed at Motor Trend On Demand, where you'll eventually have to pay for them.  That's a definite minus.

For this critique, we're covering the races for the GT, GTA (same cars as in GT, but with amateur drivers) and GT Cup classes.  The first race of the weekend for them ran around the time of the Boyd Gaming 300 for the XFINITY Series in Las Vegas, while the second race ran up against the Cup race.  I watched the first race on the stream, but the second one entirely on the tape delayed version.  This will be a compare and contrast between the two.

For this race in particular, you had the same duo in the booth for both broadcasts.  That would be Greg Creamer on play-by-play with Calvin Fish as his analyst.  If those chaps sound familiar, they should.  They're the same two guys that are going to call the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and the IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge races this year for FOX Sports.  However, that likely isn't the case going forward.  Just last weekend in St. Petersburg, Jeremy West called the races in the booth for the live stream with a revolving door of analysts (Lawson Aschenbach, Derek DeBoer and Johnny O'Connell).

On the livestream, the broadcast started with a brief introduction, and then the tail end of introductions on the grid.  Then, the command and the race.  On CBS Sports Network, you'll get a taped interview or two prior to the race.

There were mentions of in-car cameras, but you don't see them on the live stream.  They do show up on the CBS Sports Network telecasts.  Because of that, there is a fair amount of post-production involved in the broadcasts.  Creamer and Fish would have to go to a studio and re-record their commentary to fit in with the new pictures and additional replays.  However, most everything that can stay from the live stream commentary will stay.  That includes instances where Creamer apparently misspoke and used the word "fainted" instead of "faded."  Replays do show up on the livestream, but they're fairly rare.

Track limits at Circuit of the Americas is a big thing since there's so much paved runoff.  Naturally, this was a big discussion topic during the races.  The track has installed some orange trapezoidal curbs at the exit of a number of turns in order to police it, but the first race might be just cause for Circuit of the Americas to install more.  Patrick Long went to the inside of turn 14 and made the winning pass on Brian Heitkotter.  However, he may have taken all four wheels off the racing surface to do so.  Ultimately, the Pirelli World Challenge officials let it stand, but I wouldn't be surprised to see more of the trapezoidal curbs installed before the IMSA/WEC race weekend in September.

The coverage of Jon Fogarty's spin late in Race No. 1 differed depending on how you watched the race.  If you watched on the live stream, the replay you saw was an exterior shot of the crash.  Still gets the job done.  However, if you saw it on CBS Sports Network, the replay was from the roof-cam on Andrew Davis' No. 76 Porsche.  Davis ran into turn 12 way the deuce too fast and clouted Fogarty.  Helps viewers just that little bit more.  I just wish that there was a way to incorporate the in-car cameras into the live stream.

This was also the first race with CBS Sports Network's new graphics package that the good dudes at CBS Sports (both full and part-time employees) slaved on for months prior to the Super Bowl with nearly no time off.  It looks fairly clean, although they insisted on keeping their scroll design that puts positions in the second line and car numbers in the top line.  I always felt that was a little weird.  Takes some getting used to every time I watch a race on the network since no one else does it that way.

Post-race at the end of race No. 1 had both broadcasts interview overall winner Long.  However, GT Cup winner Alec Udell was interviewed only on the CBS Sports Network version of the race.

The second race started off with a brief introduction to Nissan's 2016 effort in the series.  Of course, the Nissan played a big role in Long's wreck just after the start that saw the Race No. 1 spin into the wall.  James Davison was given a stop + 10 second hold penalty for the contact.  The caution was a long one and CBS Sports Network cut out the vast majority of that time.

Ultimately, viewers didn't see quite as much of the second race due to that crash.  They cut around it so that they came out of a commercial break at the restart, 18 minutes later.  While yes, who wants to watch a race under caution for 15 minutes that happened a week earlier, it does make me wonder what the St. Petersburg broadcast will look like knowing that more than two-thirds of Race No. 2 was run under caution.

 

Races at Circuit of the Americas can get quite spread out.  With lap times over two minutes, it doesn't take much for racing for position to disappear.  I felt that they did a good job to bring viewers action in the three classes.  The CBS Sports Network did a much better job than the live stream in explaining what allowed Alec Udell to make what resulted in the pass for the GT Cup win.  In the live stream, we got an interview with Sloan Urry's crew chief that explained that Urry got held up by a slower car.  The guy then ranted that Jorge de la Torre is too slow to be in a GTA-class car since he held up the GT Cup leaders in his more powerful Aston Martin Vantage GT3 with the V12 engine.  He's got a point.  De la Torre qualified nearly five seconds off the GTA pole, just marginally quicker than Urry in what is normally a great car.  In the race, de la Torre's best lap was two seconds slower than the GT Cup leaders and uncompetitive with anyone else in GTA.

 

In the CBS Sports Network broadcast, we got the aforementioned interview (with rant), but we also got video from Udell's roof cam.  I can see why Urry and his team would be ticked off.

Admittedly, I'm looking forward to the GTS class broadcast from Austin on CBS Sports Network, which premieres tonight at 8 p.m.  Maybe there, we'll see exactly what got Anthony Mantella fined.  Mantella was apparently involved in some kind of altercation after Race No. 1 on Friday, but no footage of that was shown on the live stream.  Whatever it was, Mantella decided to withdraw his No. 8 KTM X-Bow GT4 (and teammate Martin Barkey's similar No. 80) from the rest of the weekend as a result and did not show up in St. Petersburg.

The addition of a pit reporter this season for the broadcasts is a big help.  Having someone to ask questions of teams is always good to have.  Also, it means that you have both commentators in the booth for the whole race.  In the past, Greg Creamer would have to leave the booth with a few minutes left in the race to do post-race interviews, leaving whoever the color commentator was for the day to finish the race solo.

 

Overall, I was satisfied with the broadcast.  The races at Circuit of the Americas were fairly exciting and we got some good action.  Viewers were always abreast of everything going on in the three classes and saw a good amount of action up and down the field.  It was not completely centered on the leaders.

 

I hope you liked this look at the season opener for Pirelli World Challenge's GT, GTA and GT Cup classes from Circuit of the Americas.  Next week, I'll be back with a look at another program that premieres tonight.  NBCSN is airing a show called Haas F1: America's Return to the Grid about the new HAAS F1 Team.  Should be interesting.  Until then, enjoy this weekend's action in Fontana, Sebring and Melbourne.

Phil Allaway is the Newsletter Manager and a Senior Writer for Frontstretch.com.  He can be reached via e-mail at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com.

~~~~~~~~~~

Frontstretch Line of the Week
 
From Beyond the Cockpit: Kasey Kahne's Optimistic Approach with Hendrick Motorsports in 2016

"I need to get back into Victory Lane. The thing that I want to do is be fast. In practice, I want to be one of the best cars, and for the race and qualifying, I want to be near the top. On average, it is the same. In order to do that, you need to have speed every time you are on the racetrack. That is something we have lacked for 80 percent of the time for two years. Our goal is to have speed every time we hit the track. If we do that, we will be back in Victory Lane." - Kasey Kahne, on his desires for 2016.
~~~~~~~~~~

TODAY AT FRONTSTRETCH:

Happiness Is...Bracket, Ratings & Lights Out

by P. Huston Ladner

Two-Headed Monster: Is Kyle Busch's Win Count as Impressive as it Sounds?

by Aaron Bearden and Sean Fesko

Nitro Shots: EPA Versus SEMA

by Toni Montgomery

Eyes on XFINITY: No Easy Solution to Cup Driver Dominance

by Bryan Gable

~~~~~~~~~~

FRONTSTRETCH TRIVIA:

Q: Auto Club Speedway was constructed on the site of the Kaiser Steel Mill, a World War II-era mill built to supplement the war effort.  What is the only artifact left on the property from its steel mill days?

Check back Friday for the answer, here in the Frontstretch Newsletter!

Wednesday's Answer:

Q:  2007 was a terrible year for Michael Waltrip.  The fuel additive issue in Daytona effectively ruined his season before it started, then the string of DNQ's meant that he was in the hole points-wise all the way to June (after Daytona, he had -27 points by virtue of his 100 point penalty, then failed to make another race until Michigan).  By September at Fontana, Waltrip was at least making races on a regular basis, but the bad luck was still there.  What put him out of the Sharp Aquos 500 in Fontana?

A: On lap 38, Waltrip blew a left front tire on the backstretch after having a tire rub due to contact.  When the tire blew, it took an oil line with it, leading to a big fire.  Waltrip then hit the wall in turn 3.  Waltrip then slid down into the grass, still aflame.  The crash can be seen here.

Waltrip's size (6'5") means that exiting in an emergency situation is a little tough, so it took a bit longer than desired for him to extricate himself.  However, he did walk away from the crash.

~~~~~~~~~

COMING TOMORROW

In The Frontstretch Newsletter:

We'll have some news from today while we preview Sunday's Auto Club 400.

On Frontstretch.com:

Zach Catanzareti answers Four Burning Questions heading into this weekend's action in Fontana.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Talk back to the Frontstretch Newsletter!
Got something to say about an article you've seen in the newsletter? It's as easy as replying directly to this message or sending an email to editors@frontstretch.com. We'll take the best comments and publish them here!
©2016 Frontstretch.com

--
--
Feel free to forward this newsletter if you have any friends who loves
NASCAR and great NASCAR commentary. They can subscribe to the Frontstetch by visiting http://www.frontstretch.com/notice/9557/.
 
If you want to stop your Frontstretch Newsletter subscription, we're sorry
to see you go. Just send an email to
TheFrontstretch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com from the address that you
recieve the Frontstretch Newsletter.

---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Frontstretch" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to thefrontstretch+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.