THE FRONTSTRETCH NEWSLETTERPresented by Frontstretch.com
The Best Seat at the Track, The Best View on the Net!
Apr. 15, 2016
Volume X, Edition LII
NEW POSTING: 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 tbow...@yahoo.com with a short note on why they're interested and their current resume. Serious inquiries only.
What to Watch: Friday
- Today, the race weekend officially gets underway. Sprint Cup and XFINITY Series teams will take to the .533-mile Bristol Motor Speedway for practice while Formula One has already completed their practice sessions in China. Meanwhile, IMSA and Pirelli World Challenge have practice sessions scheduled as well.
- Meanwhile, Watkins Glen International is unveiling their fully repaved long and short courses today with a special ceremony ahead of opening weekend. There is additional paved runoff as part of the project, no concrete patches, and the old pavement has been recycled (some of it was actually used to repave some of the access roads on the property).
FOLLOW THE FRONTSTRETCH THIS WEEKEND IN BRISTOL FROM OUR COLLEAGUE:
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This weekend's TV Schedule can be found here.
Top News
by The Frontstretch Staff
Stewart-Haas Racing Previews Kevin Harvick’s Throwback Paint Scheme for Darlington
Thursday, Stewart-Haas Racing unveiled the throwback scheme that Kevin Harvick will run during September's Bojangles' Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway. Harvick's car will be painted to look like a replica of Cale Yarborough's Busch Oldsmobile from 1979. Read more
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The Critic's Annex: Blancpain GT Sprint Series at Misano
by Phil Allaway
Welcome back to another edition of the Critic's Annex, where additional motorsports programming gets the treatment. This week, we're looking at the season opener for the Blancpain GT Sprint Series, held this past weekend at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli in Italy (Simoncelli was a motorcycle racer that competed in motoGP until he was killed in a crash at Sepang Circuit back in 2011).
As is the norm for the series, the weekend was split into two one-hour races. A qualifying race was held Saturday night while the main event was held Sunday afternoon. Both have a mandatory pit stop with a driver change that has to be done within a specific window. Generally, the faster of the two drivers will start the qualifying race and finish the main race.
On the broadcast, there was mainly highlighted coverage of the qualifying race. Having said that, we did get footage of the most important moment of the event. That was the full course yellow for debris in the middle of the pit window that allowed Bentley Team M-Sport's No. 8 to pit and keep the lead.
We should note here that a full course yellow in the Blancpain GT Sprint Series (or for that matter, the WEC or ELMS) is not like the full course yellow you see in NASCAR or the Verizon IndyCar Series. It's more akin to the yellow light system used at Indianapolis in the 1970s in which drivers have to maintain their gaps. The system is designed to cut down on periods under yellow. I suppose that's an accomplished way of doing things but it sure screwed the qualifying race up.
After the qualifying race, pit reporter Andrew Marriott interviewed the race winners (Maxime Soulet and Andy Soucek). There was also a check of the top-10 finishers. Admittedly, that was a little weak based on the overall storylines we saw.
Following a break, the Sunday coverage began about 30 minutes into the broadcast. Laurens Vanthoor, who started the qualifying race on pole, was rather cheesed off at the debris caution that more or less cost him and teammate Frederic Vervisch the win. He tried his best to hide it, but that dude was ticked off.
The main race was pretty much presented as it happened. The Misano track is somewhat tight and twisty, so throwing 38 cars on-track means that you're going to get close competition. There was indeed side-by-side racing and some contact. Laurens Vanthoor's younger brother Dries made his series debut in Misano and was quite impressive...most of the time. He did dump Soulet on the first lap of the main race, resulting in a penalty.
The focus was on the on-track action with next to no pit coverage. Yes, there was coverage of the pit stops, but no interviews from down there during the event. The only non-pit stop footage aired was a rather upset Niki Mayr-Melnhof trying to figure out why his car was forced to do two pass-through penalties (reason: He was judged responsible for two on-track incidents. At least one of the pass-throughs was performed by teammate Markus Winkelhock).
The actual on-track action was pretty good. While there was quite a bit of focus toward the front of the field it was not exclusively there. There was a good amount of racing throughout the field and I felt that they did a decent job of covering the action further back. They did not do the best job of showing what happened to cause the drive-through penalties. Yes, we got replays of Dries Vanthoor spinning out Soulet, but for the other incidents (which there were quite a few, actually), we got bupkis.
The broadcast booth had two veterans at the helm. For those of you who watch the Formula E races on FOX Sports 1, play-by-play man Jack Nicholls should sound familiar, as he has the same role there. Nicholls is joined by John Watson, a retired Formula One racer likely best known for winning with Roger Penske in 1976 and winning at Long Beach in 1983 from the 22nd starting spot. Both are solid commentators that are all business. The commentary is generally not bad as both Nicholls and Watson know their stuff and bring that knowledge to the broadcast. Lots of lap time discussion as well.
Post-race coverage was again thin -- just like the qualifying race. We got interviews with the winners (Laurens Vanthoor and Vervisch) and a check of the results. There was also a recap of the event before the broadcast ended.
I generally liked the racing action on the broadcast but there is little effort put forth in introducing these drivers to the general public. If NASCAR is about the drivers, then the Blancpain GT Series (Sprint or Endurance) is definitely about the cars. The on-screen graphics for positions refer to the type of car first. That's been the case for years. It makes it easy to identify what's what because each manufacturer has a distinctive color. For the sake of this column, McLaren is black on orange, Audi is red on white, BMW is white on blue... you get the picture. There is also a Chevrolet Camaro built to GT3 rules that has been homologated and Callaway has unveiled a new GT3 version of the Corvette C7. However, I cannot recall either having raced in the series.
I personally do like watching Blancpain GT Series races. They're generally pretty exciting, and despite the officials being relatively strict when it comes to incidents, they'll let casual contact go. You get an exciting brand of racing and I do recommend checking it out from time to time. You might see someone you recognize in the field. For instance, former Camping World Truck Series regular Miguel Paludo raced in the series last year in Azerbaijan.
I hope you liked this look at the Blancpain GT Sprint Series season opener from Misano. Next week, we'll be back with more TV criticism. Until then, enjoy this weekend's action in Bristol, Long Beach, Silverstone and Shanghai.
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Frontstretch Folio: Food City 500
by Phil Allaway
This weekend, the Sprint Cup Series travels to Tennessee for their second short track race of 2016. Coverage of the Food City 500 can be seen on FOX starting at 12:30 p.m. EDT. The green flag will fly around 1:20 p.m. It can also be listened to on PRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Channel 90).
Records and facts
Last year, Jimmie Johnson passed Jamie McMurray with 15 laps to go and held off the pack to take his fifth career victory. Kevin Harvick continued his impressive run to start 2015 with another second-place finish. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. was third, followed by Team Penske teammates Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski. McMurray ended up in sixth.
Among active drivers, the Busch brothers (Kurt and Kyle) are the winningest drivers at Bristol, earning five victories apiece. In Kurt's case, he earned his first career win at Bristol in 2002, creating a feud with Jimmy Spencer in the process. Kyle's first Bristol win was the 2007 Food City 500, the race in which the CoT debuted (and which Kyle promptly put down during his Victory Lane interview). Matt Kenseth has four wins at Bristol while Carl Edwards has three.
All-time, Darrell Waltrip has the most Bristol wins with 12, including a stretch of seven in a row in the early 1980s. He won 11 races on asphalt and the 1992 Bud 500, which was the first Cup race run on concrete at Bristol. Rusty Wallace and Cale Yarborough have nine wins apiece, while Dale Earnhardt has eight.
Track Facts
Track / Race Length: .533 mile-oval, 500 laps (266.5 miles)
Banking: 24-30 degrees
Straightaways: 650 feet, banked 4-9 degrees
Grandstand Seating: 153,000
Pit Road Speed: 30 mph
Pace Car Speed: 35 mph
Opened: 1961
Website: http://www.bristolmotorspeedway.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bristolmotorspeedway
Twitter: http://twitter.com/BMSUpdates
Pre-Race Schedule:
Practice No. 1: Friday, April 15, 11 a.m. - 12:25 p.m. on FOX Sports 1
Qualifying: Friday, April 15, 4:15 p.m. on FOX Sports 1
Practice No. 2: Saturday, April 16, 8:30 a.m. - 9:25 a.m. on FOX Sports 1
Happy Hour: Saturday, April 16, 11 a.m. - 11:55 a.m. on FOX Sports 1
Say What?!
"Bristol has never been one of those places that you think about that much, to be honest with you. It just seems like all the action and everything happens for the night races there, for whatever reason. It’s a fun place to race. It’s been a place where we’ve had a lot of success. And, sometimes you go there and you have no success because you run into something. It’s kind of feast or famine as you go there and that’s kind of where we are at right now at this point in our season. We want to win races and, really, nothing else matters at this point except for wins. Hopefully, when we go back to Bristol, we will be on the right side of having some success." - Kevin Harvick
"I’m looking forward to Bristol this weekend. Bristol is one of my favorite tracks and we’ve had a lot of success there in the past. We struggled at Phoenix earlier this year, but we think we learned some things that will help us this weekend. The key to Bristol is being patient. Pit road is tricky as well but I feel if we can execute on pit road and keep dialing in our Zest Ford as the race progresses then we should be able to leave Bristol with another solid finish." - Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.
"I like racing at Bristol. It's cool because it's going to be our sponsor Snap Fitness' first run at Bristol. Anytime a friend or a sponsor asks, 'What's a race I should go to?', I always make them go to Bristol. Out of the group of races that Snap Fitness is sponsoring this year, Bristol is one that I actually picked out for them. You're one groove around the top of the racetrack. And if you want to pass someone, you've got to make a daring move to the bottom and get up in front of them in time to block them from getting around the outside of you. It makes it pretty entertaining, for sure." - Landon Cassill
"Bristol is just a special place and a track where I’ve loved watching races. It’s a very fan-friendly racetrack and has always put on some really cool racing. I think the best way to describe it to a fan would be to go and watch for yourself because racing at Bristol is not like anywhere else that we go to -- it’s special. The track definitely has a little bit of a different feel and is a unique spot being surrounded by fans in the stands and the Tennessee mountains. It’s very small and tight, which produces great racing. I’m looking forward to getting there." - Chase Elliott
Phil Allaway is the Newsletter Manager and a Senior Writer for Frontstretch.com. He can be reached via e-mail at phil.a...@frontstretch.com.
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TODAY ON FRONTSTRETCH:
by Zach Catanzareti
by Sean Fesko
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FRONTSTRETCH TRIVIA:
Q: 1992 was a very expensive year for the then-Bristol International Raceway. In August, the track unveiled their original concrete surface. However, they had already spent a bunch of money prior to concreting the track. Why?
Check back tomorrow for the answer, here in the Frontstretch Newsletter!
Thursday's Answer:
Q: Bill Elliott ended up winning the 1988 Valleydale Meats 500 at Bristol, the first of six wins during his championship season. What was notable about this victory?
A: For all of his success in the 1980s, the 1988 Valleydale Meats 500 at Bristol marked Elliott's first career Winston Cup win on a short track. Ultimately, only two of Elliott's 44 career wins came on short tracks (the other was the 1992 Miller Genuine Draft 400 at Richmond, part of a stretch where Elliott won four races in a row).
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COMING MONDAY
In The Frontstretch Newsletter:
We'll have recaps of the Sprint Cup and XFINITY Series events from Bristol Motor Speedway. There will also be an update on the points and any other news that breaks this weekend.
On Frontstretch.com:
We'll have a series of post-race commentaries breaking down this weekend's action in Bristol.
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