The Frontstretch Newsletter: Stenhouse to Honor Darrell Waltrip at Darlington
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The Best Seat at the Track, The Best View on the Net!
Volume IX, Edition XLIX
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– 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.
What to Watch: Tuesday
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Doesn’t rain make you cranky? There we were, ready to enjoy a Saturday night at the races. Pizza party and six-pack were at the ready. Family members piled on the couch. Laughter and jokes about Kyle Busch being the best/worst champion we’ve had in decades were passed around and the sun was just setting. Here we go! It’s gonna be a good one…
Denied! Instead of a timely “boogity-boogity-boogity” we got Jeff Gordon’s inaugural attempt at drawing out nonexistent rain delay topics. Well, crap. At the same time the track didn’t look that wet. Pit road interviews were not being held under umbrellas. It should just be a half hour or so before we got the Duck Commander 500 under way.
Nope. It is a sad state of affairs when I’ve seen the Smokey Yunick special a half dozen times and we’ve only visited six tracks so far this year. Then PRN signed off ready to return an hour later. Twitter went to near radio silence. The clock on the mantle clicked over one more time and my eyes started to close.
Okay, I admit. I’m not the spring chicken I used to be. Somewhere along the line staying up until midnight to watch a prime time special or sporting event ceased to be something to look forward to. All I could think about was the checkered flag was not something I’d likely be seeing in three more hours. I was right.
I tried! I really did! But after only 50 laps, I was losing the battle to remain focused on the flat screen. The hum of the engines and random murmur of Mr. Hoots lulled me toward the land of the sandman. The fact it was not Kyle Busch leading the race, but actually Martin Truex Jr. in his No. 78 just couldn’t grab my attention enough to stave off the promise of dreamland.
One of my last coherent thoughts was very simple: If the aging demographic of NASCAR would rather go to bed than watch the very best competition Daytona can conjure, why is it that Saturday night Sprint Cup races are considered so very attractive to sponsors and track promoters? Is it because they’d rather spend their Sundays rocking on their front porches instead of working? Simple pleasures, right?
Whatever excuse they might use to justify their mantra of “more night races, more night races,” it’s pretty damn clear to me that NASCAR doesn’t have a really good reason. At least as long as they continue to sing the struggles of drawing in a younger viewing audience, Saturday Night remains the company storyline.
Well, good for them. All I know is I got a solid eight hours shut eye and had my Sunday afternoon free to fix up the ceiling and clean up the yard. I guess that makes the Kyle Busch show reruns a win-win scenario for everyone.
See you next week in Bristol, baby. I promise I won’t nap through that race.
Something Shiny
They light up! The latest LED addition to the NASCAR playing field appeared on pit lane Saturday night. Everybody has illuminated their pit boards! Pit road during a night race now looks similar to the Vegas Strip with every team's number flashing in brilliant Technicolor.
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Editor's Note: Numbers Game will run on Wednesday
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FRONTSTRETCH TRIVIA:
Monday's Answer:
Q: The 1989 Valleydale Meats 500 at Bristol was a caution-plagued race. At the time, it set an all-time Cup Series record for cautions in a race with 20 (since then, the 2005 Coca-Cola 600 broke the record with 22, while two Bristol races have had 20). In the 1989 race, Ernie Irvan was an unexpected star driving D.K. Ulrich's No. 2 Pontiac, inserting himself into the conversation and leading laps. Unfortunately, Irvan's day came to a grinding end. What happened?
A: Irvan was leading the race when he blew a right front tire and went hard into the wall exiting turn 4. Irvan's Pontiac got airborne from the wall contact, then hit Hut Stricklin's No. 57 Pontiac. Brett Bodine was also collected. The crash can be seen at the very beginning of this clip.
Irvan, Bodine and Stricklin all walked away from the crash. However, all three were done for the day.
COMING TOMORROW
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