Ultimate Race Day

It sounds like a dinosaur from far away, a dinosaur that is going to kill something prehistoric and large, the roar from the Top Fuel Dragsters and Funny Cars is out of this world and to witness it firsthand is to feel your bones and organs vibrate deep within your being.

The power these cars and drivers harness is reality shattering and even with your earplugs in the force behind them will blur, vibrate and distort everything before your eyes.

At least that’s how I would put it after attending The 2010 NHRA Gator Nationals where I couldn’t help but see and feel this vibrating ripple of force as I bore witness to numerous record setting runs at the Gainesville Raceway in Gainesville Florida.

Perhaps it was just the fluid in my eyeballs vibrating with the 8000+ horsepower that these drivers launch themselves with to achieve speeds in excess of 320mph in less than 4 seconds as they cover 1000 feet of a drag strip in blazing fashion.

Or perhaps maybe the air surrounding all in attendance really does ripple with the power and force of these Top Fuel Drag Racing Machines. But whatever happens scientifically speaking one thing that is for certain is that Top Fuel Drag Racing is beyond wild.

Don’t ever pass up the chance to attend a Top Fuel NHRA Event for you will be in awe of how everything around you vibrates as the experience literally goes right through your entire body as a spectator.

I just happened to be down here in Gainesville Florida with a Drag Racing Fanatic who came to renew his NHRA license while attending Frank Hawley’s Drag Racing School. He’s nuts about Drag Racing and dedicates his life and much of his expendable finances to it.

He’s just back from trip to Indianapolis to meet Steve Schmidt of  Steve Schmidt Racing who recently finished building a motor for him so that he could run 8’s in his Door Slammer, The Monza.

Drag Racing is a sport of pure passion focused on doing one: driving 1000 feet as fast as you can.

I’ve attended Drag Racing events before but never a National Event and what shocked me most about this experience was the power behind it and the women who are pushing the limits of the sport.

Just as we all saw the media frenzy around Danica Patrick and what she did for the sport of Nascar while driving with the boys of the Nationwide Series a few weeks back there are women in Drag Racing proving to have just as much influence and hardened skill.

One of Drag Racing’s Top Women is Ashley Force Hood who drives The Castrol GTX Top Fuel Funny Car for John Force Racing the most dominant race team in the sport.

Ashley is not only the first women to win an NHRA Funny Car Race, but she also became the first to lead the Funny Car points, the first to make the NHRA Funny Car playoffs and the first, not only to qualify for the U.S. Smokeless Funny Car bonus race, but the first to earn the No. 1 starting spot.

My Drag Racing Buddy had the chance to speak with her briefly after Saturday’s race and to say he was spellbound would be an understatement. To witness Ashley interact with her fans and sign endless photographs while posing for pictures helped me realize I was witnessing something really special about the sport and its what keeps it going.

Its something I have become aware with while following Nascar over the last few years and that is the willingness of the drivers and teams to interact with lifeblood of their professions, the fans.

Its wonderful as a writer to bear witness to the moment where the dedication and dreams of the drivers and race teams meets that of the fans, its an inspiring moment that I hope to see again and again.

I could write a lot more about this weekend as there was so much to experience, and maybe I will come back to the sport of Drag Racing in the future, perhaps even interview Ashley and other top NHRA Drag Racers for Ultimate Race Day, but for now I have to bring my focus back to some other work that requires my attention.

In closing I just want to offer a special thanks to John Force and Robert Hight who also took the time to speak and sign autographs for my Drag Racing Buddy as well as countless numbers of their other fans back at the team trailers.

You guys are wonderful..

Be Back Soon,

CJFinch

P.S. Check out these Top Fuel Dragster burnouts. Its not the best quality because I was using a point n shoot camera but it will most certainly give you an idea about the prehistoric roar of  8000+ Horsepower..

Top dog honors this week go to Love Me Some Hawkeyes (+6 @328) who logs his second 328 point finish of the season.

His checkered flag lineup at the Atlanta Motor Speedway consisted of Jeff Gordon, Kasey Kahne, Matt Kennseth and AJ Almendinger.

Another hot dog this week was Jack Cracker!!!! He finished (+8 @310) and yes that is a set of back-to-back +8 in the standings performances from Jack Cracker.

Jack is fired up about being the only fantasy team to pick the Kobalt 500 Race Winner Kurt Busch. Combine that with his predictions on the message boards coming true and you can understand why he’s comparing himself to Jimmie Johnson on the message boards. We’ll have to wait and see how well he performs against the folks in the top 10 of our Fantasy League before we don him with that title.

Our points leader Drop the Jack ( – @280) is still 100+ points ahead of  Jack Cracker but Jack is closing the gap and was only bested by one other fantasy team this week, that being The Drifters (+5 @327). The Drifters actually could have finished 44 points higher with a raging score of 371 if they gave their provisional driver in the C category the start – AJ Allmendinger had a phenomenal day in the Kobalt 500 with a 6^th place finish.

Disappointingly enough we do appear to have a few start and park drivers in the league with one of them being WhiskyRiver88 (-6 @173). WhiskyRiver88 won the Daytona 500 this year but has not changed their lineup since week one and is now destined to disappear into oblivion with the same lineup soon to burn through its 9 starts or allocations.

Our two falling knives this week were Jesus Is My Spotter (-7 @213) and Shaw Tek Motorsports (-7@229). They were not the worst point performers of the week just a few of our fantasy teams that are racing in the packs.

You’ll notice as the season goes on that clusters and packs form and each week there will be rising stars and falling knives amongst them. The real excitement comes when you move through a few of these packs in back to back weeks as Jack Cracker can attest.

The Fantasy Nascar experience is a season full of ups and downs so remember to stay focused and make sure you get your picks for the next race at Bristol in now. Doing this will ensure that you are not put in a position like WhiskyRiver88 who has had a driver in his starting line up for 3 weeks who is not even racing.

We’re off next weekend and the Bristol Race is two weeks away but there is plenty to talk about after this race at the Atlanta Motor Speedway.

How do you all feel about the move Carl Edwards put on Brad Keselowski at the end of the race?

You can check it out here in case you missed it. Its likely Nascar will rule this to be a retaliation and therefore it shall be interesting to see how they handle such a blatant attempt to wreck another driver at 195mph, such action puts a lot of lives at risk.

More on that is still to come..

CJFinch

It’s that time of week again, time to select my Yahoo Sports Fantasy Lineup for the Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, but before I do that it’s important to review what’s going on in the Ultimate Race Day Fantasy League.

We’re three weeks in now, just coming off a fantastic finish in the Shelby American at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway and a few things are becoming certain, and that’s who’s got staying power in the front of the pack.

DropTheJack inked 302 points for the week and has done nothing short of drop the hammer to begin this long fantasy season.

With back to back to back 300+ point weeks he is commanding the lead in 1^st place. My bet is that if this fantasy driver can keep running 300 pointers there is no way any of us are going to catch him, but the season is long and sooner or later everyone takes a dive.

Of course a string of Herculean performances like that of RainbowWarrior WNY24 (+7@353) who took the checkered flag for the week could easily put you in first.  However experience dictates that the entire season will pass and there will be few 350+ point performances are seen.  It was an outstanding performance this week for the RainbowWarriorWNY24 whose checkered flag lineup consisted of Jeff Gorden, Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer and Scott Speed.

Other big movers from last weekend are Red Head Racing (+9@348) and JackCracker!!! (+8@331) who showed up @RowdyBurns (-4@264) on the leader board’s. It seems Rowdy’s got nothing to say this week because his cars been going backwards since Daytona, its funny how a tough week in Fantasy Nascar shuts up the best of us.

Our dog for the week was AutoSport (-12 @202) who actually picked drivers that could have seen him to a top 10 finish but left them in the provisional lineup. There is nothing that bothers me more at the end of the week then seeing my provisional drivers perform better than my starters, but it happens nonetheless, and it just goes to show how difficult it is to pick a Nascar Sprint Cup Race.

Coming up this weekend is a real slippery track at the Atlanta Motor Speedway and its quite likely someone’s A and B picks will be finishing at the back of the pack. Our standing will see another shake-up this week and I don’t know who it will be but its definitely going to happen. Someone’s falling out of the top 5, someone’s falling out of the top 10, and we’re going to see some new fantasy owners heading up the pack.

Stay Tuned,

CJFinch

P.S. Don’t forget to join us on Twitter, it’s where all the race conversation and banter takes place..