This eon’s podcast sort-of catches upon everything that’s happened since the last podcast in August. Yeesh, I’ve got to get it together. Ah well.
You can listen to the podcast here. If you have iTunes, you can subscribe to the podcast here. As always, please let me know what you think, and thanks.
Here’s the transcript.
And welcome to this bi-annual edition of the Diecast Dude’s (Mostly) NASCAR Positively Persnickety Podcast. It is Tuesday December the ninth, 2008, and in this installment I’ll be catching up on everything that’s happened since the last podcast… which as I recall was sometime in August. Sorry about that. But first, a look back at the week that was in NASCAR.
Yes, NASCAR is on holiday until next February. And if the American auto manufacturers don’t get their act together, perhaps a while longer.
It’s difficult to say what will happen if, say, GM bites the dust. Certainly Tony Stewart must be muttering to himself right about now, “And I left a Toyota team for this?” Seriously, there is a tremendous air of uncertainty hanging over the sport. With manufacturer dollars quite possibly going away and sponsorship dollars becoming scarce in the extreme, we could well see some less than full fields next year in Sprint Cup. There’s even the possibility of what started out as stock car racing running as race cars in and of themselves without a manufacturer’s logo. This is definitely a ‘stay tuned’ kind of scenario.
Anyway, reflecting back on the now concluded season, isn’t it high time Jimmie Johnson got some love? The man has won the championship three years straight, the only driver besides Cale Yarborough to accomplish that feat. What will it take for him to receive due credit, anyway? Will four straight titles seal the deal? Assuming the bottom doesn’t fall out in 2009 — which is a rather large assumption, sad to say — Johnson has to be considered the favorite going into next year. Yes, Carl Edwards is the media darling; and yes, he has the skill. But when it comes crunch time, Johnson is by far the better of the two. I don’t see that changing, and that’s why I believe Johnson will become the first driver in NASCAR history to win four straight titles. It all starts next February at Daytona. Hopefully.
And we move on.
I mentioned a while ago in Goldfish And Clowns how I’ve given some thought to doing a second edition of God’s Not Dead (And Neither Are We) once the book is out. It’s not out; not yet anyway. But it has been completed. I’m currently proofreading it. It’s doubtful I’ll have it out by Christmas, but by the end of January 2009 it’ll be available.
I could undoubtedly go off on a lengthy introspective jag about the past twenty months since I first started working on the book, but I’d rather hold that in reserve until it’s actually in print. For now, all I want to say on the subject is that it’s really been a lot of work! But it’s work that I love, and it’s doing what I must do. It’ll be interesting to see how I react when I’m actually holding a printed copy of the book in my hands. I honestly don’t know. This I do know: I pray that reading it will bless and heal people as much as writing it has blessed and healed me. I talk about that in my author’s notes at the end of the book.
Some more words on present and future writing after this.
In March of 2007, a man left a comment on my NASCAR blog asking me to get in touch with him about joining a sports blog network. I had heard of the blog he wrote, namely Athletics Nation which I knew was quite the popular site about my beloved if oft bedraggled Oakland A’s. I had also heard about the network he was talking about. Something he and Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos fame had cooked up.
At the time Tyler Bleszinski first wrote me, I had carved a fairly hefty path as far as NASCAR bloggers go, having started The Diecast Dude’s (Mostly) NASCAR Blah Blah Blog in August of 2003 and within the odd little world I inhabited being something of a big deal. Big enough to have the heavy hitters in NASCAR online journalism take note one way or the other: interviewing Lee Spencer of at the time Sporting News and now FOX Sports along with David Poole of the Charlotte Observer and That’s Racin’ for the blog, getting some rather heated missives from Jenna Fryer of the AP over assorted comments I had made about her writing. Perhaps more than any other sport’s governing body NASCAR keeps close tabs on what people say about it, be they traditional or alternative media, and over the years multiple sources in different areas of traditional media informed me that not only were the powers that be in Daytona Beach and Charlotte daily readers of my daily musings, should I ever have anything less than kind to say about anyone in the media someone from NASCAR would speed faster than Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the straightaway at Talladega to whomsoever I had snarked against that day, printout of the offending post in hand. Weird, but that’s how it was.
I had to wonder why on earth Tyler wanted me to sign on with his network. Here I was, not only Mr. Conservative but also more than a little prone to go off on tangents having little if anything to do with NASCAR, instead being focused on Christ, soul, and rock’n'roll. And he wanted me? Had he ever actually read my blog? Shouldn’t he find someone a bit more, oh, normal?
However, I was more than a little intrigued by the offer. Some background: when I first started the blog, it was on AOL Journals. This was when AOL was still a mostly insular community, as such constantly looking to promote content from within. I was fortunate enough to catch the attention of assorted people there, as a result enjoying several in-house promotions. Eventually when Jamie Mottram and cohorts at AOL Sports started the Sports Bloggers Live podcast I made a few appearances. I was under the impression that over the months Mottram and I had established a good relationship, thus was puzzled by how there was ever-decreasing interest in having me appear on SBL. Gradually, I and other AOL sports bloggers noticed the show was becoming top-heavy with traditional media as guests, with bloggers eventually being shut out. Still, when Mottram started FanHouse on AOL I felt relatively certain even though he largely bypassed the AOL sports blogging community that at one time had formed the vast majority of what SBL and AOL Sports was about he would ask me to come on board when the NASCAR portion he said would be forthcoming started up. I wasn’t the only one surprised when the NASCAR area came into being and the featured blogger was the proprietress of a NASCAR drivers/wives/girlfriends gossip site. In addition to the surprise I was also more than a tad miffed. I had gone out of my way to publicly praise Mottram in my blog and had risen to his defense more than once when he and/or AOL’s sports blogging community had been attacked. And this was my thank you? Swell. I have no doubt his version of the above differs from mine; but. whatever. So yes, it felt good to be asked by someone to come on board.
Still, I had my doubts, which I expressed to Tyler. Are you sure you want me? Tangents and all? Yes, came the reply. You know I’ve had some rather harsh things to say about Kos in my personal blog, right? Yes, and we still want you.
Well okay then. Sign me up. And so Restrictor Plate This came to be.
During the past few months, I’ve felt an ever-increasing need to focus on the personal and spiritual elements of my writing, be it online or in the book. It’s not that I’ve lost any of my enthusiasm for NASCAR or sports blogging. However, mixing this with faith and life observations has been something to which I know I need to return, in addition to putting more energy and time into straightforward expressions of what’s on my heart and mind. It would have been inappropriate for me and disrespectful of Sports Blogs Network to use it as a venue for these things. Therefore, I decided in October to leave SBN, which I did near the end of November.
I can never fully describe the honor it was to be among the other bloggers at SBN and be considered a peer of the finest — the absolute finest — group of sports bloggers there is. I believe with all my heart SBN is going to become a major force in not only sports blogging, but sports journalism period. Individually and collectively, SBN set the standard by which all other sports blogs must be compared, and to which they pale in comparison. It has forever destroyed the myth of sports bloggers as beer-soaked bozos saying nothing as loud as possible. Whenever anyone wants both in-depth knowledge of a given sport, team or athlete combined with a genuine passion and love for what they’re writing about, SBN stands so far above everyone else there’s no need to look farther. It is what sports blogging ought to be.
The support and encouragement everyone at SBN gave me throughout my stay there never faltered. I will always be grateful for the opportunity it provided. Today, while the people at NASCAR still read everything I write they also have officially accepted me as legitimate media. Without SBN this never would have happened. I am forever in their debt.
While I know I did what I should, I left SBN with sadness. I’ll miss being part of that most excellent crew. Yet I also left with pride. Going forward, whenever I point to my time there it will be accompanied with justifiable boasting. I was part of the best there is. You can’t top that.
And now I’m home. Home with my friends, first met on the original blog and who stayed with me during my time on Restrictor Plate This. Home with my tangents; or at least I will be once the book is off to the printers and I can more fully focus on writing. And home with Gord the polar bear and his friend Cherie the thrasher, her watching the antics and listening to the stories told by the silly bear.
I’ve missed Gord. I’m glad he waited for me to return.
And that concludes this podcast. Take care, everyone, and we’ll get together again next time.
And we’re glad you’re back!