Drag racing may not have been invented in Southern California, but it certainly was organized and codified there, and has been part of the culture for more than a half century. The Beach Boys wrote, what, five songs about drag racing? Ten? Surfing, drag racing and girls, that’s what SoCal cares about, in the Beach […]

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A reality of blogging: It’s bloody difficult to do one item a day, every day, for two blogs. And hold a full-time job. Try it sometime, and a year later let me know how it’s going. The second blog is my quixotic World Cup Countdown blog. And part of that deal is a promise to […]

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Hard to imagine an auto race could be the biggest global event in the history of Abu Dhabi, but there you are. For our first two weeks here, working at The National, there was really only one story (OK, aside from the plane crash in the emirate of Sharjah, up the coast), and it was […]

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Just a random thought that struck me, today. Jeremy Mayfield could be to NASCAR what Jose Canseco has been to baseball. Guy being blackballed by his sport … been around it a long time … caught up (apparently) with some seedy stuff (Canseco admits to using steroids; Mayfield denies using meth) … and in position […]

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Back in February, veteran NASCAR driver Jeremy Mayfield invited me into the office of his hauler at the Sprint Cup race at Fontana. We talked for a half-hour or so. He seemed informed, ambitious, confident. He seemed in control of himself and his race team. His English was a bit fractured and backwoodsy, but that […]

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Lots to look at, today. From the Kentucky Derby to Game 7 of the Celtics-Bulls series to Dodgers and Angels baseball, Hatton-Pacquiao boxing, NHL playoffs, a NASCAR race … Well, lots of stuff. I’m a sports fan. And I can watch a fairly wide range of stuff, if the mood strikes. But it’s unusual, verging […]

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Two guys I spent a fair amount of time with in press boxes/workrooms died in the past few days. Bob Oates, longtime pro football writer for the Los Angeles Times. David Poole, veteran NASCAR writer for the Charlotte Observer. Poole was something of a NASCAR legend. Oates wasn’t far behind, among NFL reporters. I wasn’t […]

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This, from ESPN.com’s NASCAR reporter, Terry Blount. The medical guy at the track says eight spectators were injured after Carl Edwards’ car got airborne near the finish line and ended up in the catchfence, shedding parts like a bomb sheds shrapnel. I’m not going to link to the story. I’m going to run the whole […]

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This was a classic NASCAR Knuckle-Dragger race. There will be X number of Sprint Cup fans — the knuckle-dragging majority, I fear — who will think this was just a great day for the sport. Two massive wrecks, involving something like a dozen cars each … a four-lap banzai charge to the checkered flag at […]

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I did a story this week on Danica Patrick, the perky little race driver. Her contract with Andretti Green, an Indy Racing League team, is up this year, and speculation is rife that she will jump to NASCAR, which is far more popular than the IRL … on the order of 10 to 50 times […]

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