I recently started using the term Racer-Tainment to describe what NA$CAR “racing” has become. Sports Entertainment for the fad and WWE type of fans. The fans that Uncle Brain and the Apple Dumplin’ boys are sucking up to. A couple of other writers have even picked up on the term. Well, let me coin another term. CHASER-TAINMENT.

Chaser-Tainment will be used to describe this farce called the chase. Look up “The Chase” in the NA$CAR dictionary and you’ll find this definition: “A racing playoff that’s not really a playoff, contrived to artificially generate excitement, remove impartiality, apply favoritism, selectively enforce/not enforce rules and remove legitimacy entirely from the activity formerly known as NA$CAR racing. These methods will generate revenue, raise stock prices, eliminate fair competition and most importantly ensure continuous money flow into the France Family Vault. Only 10s, 20s and 100s please.”

After this weekend at Charlotte, Brain must be ordering servants to do his back flips. The chase was about to be a runaway between 2 or 3 drivers. Now, all 10 are back in the hunt. 10th place Kurt Busch is only 140 or so points behind now. The top 6 are within 50. This year’s chase would NOT look like this now without all the tire trouble Saturday night. I said it after Talledega and I’ll say it again now, this is exactly what Brain wants, and needed. All is coming to pass as Emperor Brain has seen in his crystal money ball. The chase is tightened back up! Chaser-Tainment LIVES! All is well, all is well! Thanks Goodyear, you may have cake and pie.

Tony Stewart was running well Saturday night. He had no tire issues. At the beginning of the “event”, Tony was the championship leader with only a few other drivers having a real shot at taking the lead from him. During the race, several other “chasers” had trouble, including Jimmy Johnson. Then low and behold, using their infinite greed for manufactured excitement and to interfere with the competitors, NA$CAR started “selectively” enforcing minimum tire pressures, even threatening to take away points! (To tighten the chase maybe?) Stewart was one of the drivers found to be below the minimum, Johnson was not. So NA$CAR made Stewart’s crew raise tire pressure, then guess what happens. Stewart has tire trouble, finishes 8 laps down, Johnson wins at Lowes AGAIN, and the chase magically tightens back up. Coincidence?

Can Darth Brain be this lucky? Can Stewart be this unlucky? You decide. Evil Lord Brian is either the luckiest sun-of-a-gun ever, or the dirtiest, cheatin-ist, crooked-ist jackal since Mr. Potter, Dr. Evil and Martha Stewart – all rolled into one. I can imagine the Evil Doctor Brain, stirring a bubbling cauldron, talking to Mr. Biggelsworth and mumbling these words: “Tires and wheels, pops and bursts, Lowes and Jimmy hear me now. Cast this spell. Curse the smoke, make him suffer, give me money, make my chase. Chaser-tainment, chaser-tainment, CHASER-TAINMENT!” MU-WA HA HA HA HA (I know, I know, I’ve really lost it now…)

And let’s not forget Minister of Mis-Information Hunter and Jabba the Hell-Ton. Brain’s parading them out again to counter any criticism and redirect our attention and spew the company line. “It wasn’t our fault. (silence…..) We did our best. (crickets chirping…..) It’s 2 for 1 at Wal-Mart!”

Jim Hunter must be a robot. How else could he speak what he speaks and not laugh or vomit? “It’s a travesty” -click-pop-burr- “Not what NA$CAR wanted” -click-boink-zerk- “We’re ashamed” -bang-pop-bump-hummm- “We’re sorry (wink,wink)” They’re singing the same old song, apologizing to the fans, blah, blah, blah…. It’s the same junk we went through after Talledega. We know darn well Brain is once again counting France Bucks, drooling and frothing at the mouth and thinking about the “revitalized”, tightened up chase. Well Yee Freakin Haw….

An interesting tid-bit from Humpy Wheeler. His opinion of the life expectancy of a racing surface is about 15 years and Charlotte is due for a paving. I wonder if he could write a memo to ISC and tell them Daytona and Talledega are 20 years past due? It would be a waste of paper though, Brain’s got a football team to buy and can’t afford any lavish expenses, like repaving the racing surface at some ole’ race track.

Humpy Wheeler may have blew it with this levigating stuff, but at least he’s trying something. You’ve gotta give him credit for that. That’s a heck of a lot more than ISC has done, which by the way is NOTHING! And, Humpy’s spending bucks doing it. Big Bucks. He may install variable banking which will increase the cost even more.

Daytona and Talledega needed repaving years ago. The banking should probably be lowered as well while they’re at it. If SMI owned either of these tracks, something would have been done to them by now. It might not have worked immediately, might have made the fans mad - the all important Racer-Tainment/Chaser-Tainment fans that is, and need time to season. ISC on the other hand felt it was more important to build Disneyland, oops, make that “BrainLand”, at Daytona then repave the track. Gotta keep those Racer-Tainment fans entertained. The drivers can dodge potholes and fend for themselves.

Wes Cook
Looking for counter-spells and anti-dotes for “The Chase”

Cookster351@yahoo.com