March19th2007

THE WEEKLY SMACK BY DJ RADANOVICH
MARCH 19TH, 2007

Jimmie Johnson won his second consecutive race this season at Atlanta after the NASCAR brass
decided we the fans needed another phantom caution for debris after several teams confirmed
they would run out of fuel before the finish. After the race a discouraged Tony Stewart made a
comment about Johnson not giving him enough room to race when he passed him. I don't know
Tony Stewart personally, but I doubt that's why he was upset. Tony's crew made it clear that they
would be able to make the finish on fuel while the other crews started to confirm that they
wouldn't. The odds were in favor for Stewart, if he didn't race in NASCAR. Maybe next time Zippy
should tell Tony we won't make it on fuel.

And how about the Robby Gordon fiasco this weekend. I am in no way, shape, or form a Robby
Gordon fan, but give me a break here NASCAR. The guy is an independent team owner that just
lost his sponsorship and Motorola wants to give him some cheese for this weeks race. But oh
no, Sprint can't have that. What if Anheuser-Busch said no Miller or Coor's sponsorship at the
track? Or Lowe's said no Home Depot car at our speedway? If AT&T loses their court battle with
NASCAR it wouldn't surprise me to see this in the future. So the question remains, how screwed
up is NASCAR? Their TV ratings are going south, they've managed to sell out only one race this
year at Las Vegas, and now their screwing with the drivers. What kind of message does this
send to the fans?

Speaking of Anheuser-Busch, they have pulled the plug on the long relationship with NASCAR
and will no longer sponsor the Busch Series any longer. So how does NASCAR attract new
sponsors, see the Robby Gordon paragraph above. I'm sure there will be hundreds of sponsors
lined up with cash in hand after this.

And speaking of sponsors once again, and how much race fans support their sponsors, check
out the new sponsor for The Hurricane Randy Hannagan this year. Finally, someone in the smut
industry got the idea to sponsor a race car. Penthouse is his new sponsor on the 1X this year.
How great would it be to have this deal. Think of the incentives and fringe benefits one could
get with this. Oooh La La!