Race Day the Championship Series Memorial Day

Race Day the Championship Series Memorial Day.   Race day in May is one of my favorite race weeks of the year.  It also happens to be when the NBA and NHL championship series are set.  If they are not underway already they are getting ready to be.  Two long seasons coming to an end.  Once long season hits its halfway point.  If you could golf then two long seasons hit their half way point.   We are at the end of spring and about to hit summer.   Schools are ending and vacations are being planned.  It is nice to get a three day weekend to send us into the summer season.  Remembering those who have fought for us to have the three day weekend in May.  We hope that everyone had an amazing memorial day weekend.  All this and more in The Week That Was.

One of the few Weeks that Racing Still Matters

Race day in May features three races back to back to back.   I have not been watching much racing this year.  This weekend is one of the few that I try to watch all the races.  The three main races this weekend are all pretty interesting and very historic.  The Monaco GP has been around for almost 100 years.   Indianapolis 500 has been around for over 100 years.   In NASCAR the Coca Cola 600 is the new kid on the block with its first running in 1959.  While it has not been around as long that does not mean it does not have as much importance.  Being the only race that is 600 miles it is a true endurance race.

Monaco GP

This is one of the few times a year that I watch Formula 1 racing.  Every year I say hey I will give it a chance.   Every year I have the same conclusion.  Glad I watched it but that was enough for another year.  I had actually forgotten about the Monaco GP was on this morning.  I went to watch my Sunday Morning Sports show E:60 and it was not on.  The Monaco GP was on.  That it when it clicked in my mind what day it was.  It worked out pretty well since I switched to the channel about a minute before the start of the race.   It is interesting that F1 races start from a complete stop.  I am not sure if a rolling start or from a dead stop is a better way to start a race.  It is different and that is about it.

Formula 1 racing is like just about every other sport in Europe.  It is highly popular and from my perspective highly boring.  In one lap of NASCAR racing there are usually more passes than there are in an entire F1 race.  So when it happens it is highly exciting.  Don’t blink or turn your head because if you miss it.  It more than likely will not happen again.   In F1 the cars are wide the roads are narrow so it really limits the spots on the track that passing can happen.  The eventual winner was Lewis Hamilton.  He also led at lap one.  He started on the pole and finished in first.  He was passed exactly zero times.  He is a good driver.  So he deserved to win.  He ran a mistake free race.   Like with Soccer this was more about defense.  That is fine.  Once a year I will watch.  That is about it.

Indianapolis 500

The Indy Racing League was a league that dominated in the 80’s and early 90’s   Weil it was not the IRL  it was CART.  Cart raced the Indy cars.  There was a fight between the two leagues that the IRL won.  CART was disbanded but the consequences of that fight was a loss of interest by a lot of fans.   While the IRL is not what it was the Indianapolis 500 is still the top drawing event in motor sports.  While this is another league I do not follow as much as I used to I do still keep general track of what is going on in the sport.  I do watch the Indy 500 every year.  So they still have me there.  This year the race was ok to start.  After a crash with about 20 laps to go.  They had to red flag the race.  By the time they got going again there was 12 laps to go.  Those 12 laps were very exciting and saved the race.  If not for those final 12 laps it would have been one of the most uneventful Indy 500’s in history.

The race was won by Simon Pagenaud.  He had a dominant race leading 116 of the 200 laps.  He was not leading on lap 198 though and had to make an exciting pass to regain the lead and then hold off the rest of the field.  This was the 18th win by Team Penske.  By far the most successful team in Indianapolis history.   This race is always a huge event.  I have never made it to the race.  Went to the track once and it was a great time.

Coca-Cola 600

The Coca-Cola 600 is just a completely different beast.  The extra 100 miles makes a huge difference.  A 500 mile race is difficult enough.  Adding the extra 100 makes it a marathon.  There are so many different strategies that need to be considered for this race.  This year they also have to deal with a heat wave.  The temperatures in the cars before the sun went down were getting to 125 degrees plus.  That i some crazy heat.  Just for reference the average temperature for a hot shower is 105 degrees fahrenheit. A lot of people want to debate about if a race car driver is an athlete.  They are.  It takes a lot to make it through one of these races.

In past posts I have been advocating for shorter races.  In most cased I would agree with that.  In this case I am good with he 600 miles in this race.  It is a one a season thing.  It adds an extra layer of complexity and makes it more exciting.  If they did this more than once a season that would be a problem. Other than this race and then the Daytona 500 I do not think that they should have any other races that are 500 or more miles.  It is just too much and probably part of why people are losing interest.

I really have no rooting interest in NASCAR.  Ever since Dale Jr retired I have not found a new driver to follow.  There are a few drivers that I root against but no one so far that I root for.  I have been kind of leaning toward Joey Logano or Chase Elliott.  But the race structure has really kept me from getting more interested in what is going on in NASCAR.  Anyway Race Day on this race is still pretty exciting.  The late start and then the late end make it difficult to watch the whole thing.  But on this day the night race really does not bother me like it does when they have random night races during the rest of the season.

Martin Truex Jr. ended up winning the race.  This is his third win of the season.  With the win Truex joins Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski all with three wins.  Somehow Kevin Harvick with no wins is ahead of Truex and Keselowski in the standings.  But that does not mean he will start there when the playoffs start.   Just something more that makes the whole NASCAR point structure very confusing.  Time to fix it or NASCAR will lose more fans.

NBA Snubs and the Finals

With the East and the West both decided we sill have to wait till Thursday for the series to start. Not sure why the NBA makes us wait so long for the finals to start.  The teams have already been decided for several days.  Now it will still be Thursday before the finals get underway.   It was too bad that the Bucks crumbled over the last few games.  It is kind of nice in the Raptors to have a team in the finals that has never been there.  I don’t know if the Raptors can beat the Warriors but it is nice to have a new team in there.  Since the Raptors are the only team in Canada it is also the first time a Canadian team has made the finals.  Should make for an interesting series.

The NBA is stranger in another thing.  Deciding pay based on an award given out by people in the media.  That is just odd.  I could understand a bonus based on getting voted to a team.  Making a $31 million decision based on that is just a strange choice to make.  It also allows for the whole idea of the snub to come up more and more.  Even with losing $31 million it is difficult to feel sorry for a player that will only be able to make $191 million because of that snub.  As fans we have allowed to much money to be pumped into sports. Great for the players that they are getting their huge payday but WOW that is a ton of cash.

NHL 49 years later – Hope for Change

Another wait that is just too long.  The NHL does something similar to the NBA.   The East and West were decided a while ago.  Then they wait for the finals to start.  They really need to get on it faster.  The Bruins were expected to get here or at least make a run to the finals.  The Blues were not.   The Blues are an interesting story. At the mid point of the season they were out of the playoffs.  The were under performing so badly that their coach was fired.   What the Blues did after that was remarkable.

St. Louis went on a second half run that got them to 99 points and a 5th place finish in the West.    The Blues then went through the Jets, Stars and Sharks to meet the Bruins in the Cup finals.  The last time the Blues played in the Stanley Cup final they also played the Bruins.  That happened in 1970 and the Bruins swept the Blues 4 – 0.  If you are rooting for the Blues this series did not get off to a good start.  The Bruins are already up 1 – 0 after the first game.  The Blues scored the first two goals and things were looking good.  Then the Bruins scored 4 straight to win.

It seems that in sports thing are coming down to Boston and the rest of the country.   As one of those in the rest of the country I am getting tired of the Boston teams winning everything.   So in this case Go Blues.   At least they cannot win the NBA Championship.

Tiger to the Memorial

In a big win for Jacks Tournament Tiger said that he is going to play in it.  This is a good thing for now and a problem down the road.  Tiger is not going to be able to play forever.    Tiger knows that if he wants to repeat the success he had in the Masters.  He has to put in more time.  What better place to do that then at a tournament he has won five times.  A lot of people call the Memorial the 5h major.  I have no problem with that but it is what it is.  It is Jacks tournament and as long as he is still around it will always draw the top players.  Tiger saying he is going to play is huge for the tv numbers.   Especially if he makes the cut.

On the Tube – TV not You

As the tv regular season comes to an end.  We have to find some new shows to fill in till the Summer season starts.  We have the Amazing race and this year it is very exciting.  The competition between teams that have been on Amazing Race, Survivor and Big Brother is quite interesting.  I miss the days when Amazing race was on twice a year.  I guess at least we still have the one season of it.  The places they go and the way the race is edited keeps us interested.   Pulling all three of the reality series that CBS has into the race was a stroke of good programming.  Bring the fans of all three together.  For us since we are already fans of all three it is nice to see people we have seen before in the race.

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