Cynthia A. Guenthner's NASCAR Racing fan blog

Since the latest Brett Favre vs. Green Bay Packers, et al, conflict began, I've held my peace, hoping that amid all the negative press Favre has received, one positive, shining light might emerge. But, alas, that has not happened. So I'm obliged to agree with most of my  media cohorts and side with the Packers' GM, President, and coach, all in the general interest of the TEAM and FANS.

Training camp begins next Monday, and the first preseason game (Monday Night Football at that) is August 11. The team should rightly be concentrating on these events rather than being caught up in a never-ending soap opera. Brett, please give Aaron Rodgers a chance. Never did Don Majkowski or any other veteran player stand in your way in your early years as a Packer.

This circus has the potential of making the Packers the laughingstock of the NFL, almost to the magnitude that our state (Wisconsin) became the laughingstock of the nation at the annual DNR Conservation Congress in 2005, when so-called "macho" hunters voted to shoot defenseless feral cats, ostensibly to hang as "trophies" in their dens. Grant it, Wisconsin's reputation had already been tarnished by the fact that the fringe radical group, the "Freedom From Religion Foundation", is headquartered in our state's capital. Brett, please don't subject Wisconsin to any further ridicule.

Continue reading "And the Soap Opera Continues"

The trend as of late has been to bash your ex-employer. But just be sure to wait several months after your employment has been "terminated" before doing so.

The question is: Has ex-Nationwide Series official Mauricia Grant become NASCAR's Scott McClellan? And why, like McClellan, did Grant wait for so long after her "dismissal" to complain? Why did neither she nor McClellan express discontentment while employed in their respective jobs?

In a similar position as President Bush in McClellan's case, NASCAR chairman Brian France wondered why his employee seemed satisfied and never filed a formal complaint if she had faced discrimination or harassment on the job.

I can appreciate an employee's hesitation to gripe about their job. As a young clerk typist fresh out of high school, I kept mum (even to my own family) about the illegalities my superiors were committing--to the point of requiring their office workers to sit in without pay during breaks and lunch periods. We employees were just too desperate for work and afraid we'd be fired on the spot if we squealed. I was the bottom person on the totem pole, working for a paltry hourly wage that today wouldn't even buy a six-pack of 7-Up.

Continue reading "NASCAR's Scott McClellan?"

It was a refreshing change of pace (pardon the pun) to see Scott Wimmer break the "Buschwackers'" winning streak in last Saturday's Nationwide race in Nashville. The young season had been dominated by Sprint Cup drivers--formerly known as "Buschwackers"--Cup drivers who also ran in the Busch Series (now Nationwide). Tony Stewart won the first two races, and Mark Martin, Matt Kenseth, and Clint Bowyer each garnered one victory.

Not that Wimmer is a stranger to racing in both series, but this is his first NASCAR victory since 2003. Then again, his taking the checkered flag in the RCR No. 29 shouldn't be that great a surprise, since even though he's only running limited schedule this season, Wimmer's car owner, Richard Childress, has quite a bit to be proud of so far, for example, his cars' 1-2-3 finish in the Bristol Cup race.

Continue reading "Wimmer Beats the "Buschwackers""

During its nearly 90 years of existence, the Green Bay Packers have come and gone through some mighty memorable eras. Like, for instance the Lambeau and Lombardi-Starr eras. And now, one of the longest and most successful eras, that of Brett Favre, has ended, much to his fans' surprise and disappointment.

Like most native Wisconsites, I was virtually born a Packer fan. And like most kids of my generation, I became a devout fan during the Lombardi era. Bart Starr was every kid's favorite athlete. And we knew our team (and its fans) were tough--they succesfully survived the Ice Bowl!

Another generation of Wisconsin kids has witnessed a Packer era at least as great as, or perhaps even greater, than that of my generation. It began in 1992 with the coming of Coach Mike Holmgren and QB Brett Favre. For seven years the two seemed inseparable, like Lombardi and Starr. Then Coach Holmgren left but Favre remained for nearly ten more years. And many of us expected it to remain that way indefinitely (or so we hoped).

Continue reading "Closing a Chapter in the Packers' History Book"

The 2008 season has barely begun, and NASCAR has already apportioned out myriads of penalties. First came the confrontation between Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch during practice for the Bud Shootout, for which both drivers were put on probation for the first six Cup races. But true to its promise of returning "back to the basics" (or, in other words, allowing drivers to freely express their emotions as in days of old), NASCAR did not punish Stewart or Busch for their verbal or alleged physical combat while meeting with officials.

However, NASCAR's penalties for violations of equipment rules (meted out in all three of its top series) were not so lax. In the Sprint Cup Series, Robby Gordon, driver of the No. 7, was penalized 100 points and his crew chief fined $100,000, suspended for the next six races, and put on probation until the end of the year, all for using an unapproved Dodge Charger nose. Gordon has since appealed the decision, claiming it was "an innocent mistake" ( http://www.nascar.com/2008/news/headlines/cup/02/21/rgordon.p).

Continue reading "Penalties by the Number--NASCAR Takes the High Road"

For the past few seasons, Hendrick Motorsports has dominated in NASCAR victory lane. And with the addition of Dale Jr. to the Hendrick fold, few expected that pattern would change this year. Initially, things were going as planned--Jr. taking the Bud Shootout and then winning the first Gatorade 150 qualifying race.

 But then came the second Gatorade 150, with Joe Gibbs' Denny Hamlin (in a Toyota, of all things) victorious, while teammate Tony Stewart claimed victory in the season's first Nationwide race in Daytona.

Then came the Daytona 500--Ryan Newman taking the checkered flag in a Dodge, the first since Ward Burton's victory in 2002.

Could all today's stiff competition among the various makes indicate that the Car of Tomorrow has leveled the "playing field" and allowed the historically less dominant teams to catch up with the perennial winners? When first introduced, the idea of the COT must have seemed, to the old school NASCAR fan, virtually a step toward socialism, to say the least, if not downright Marxist in theory. Equal distirubtion? Is there no more room in racing for

Continue reading "Does "COT" Spell the End of the Dominant Team?"

Like millions of football fans around the globe, stock market observers will once again perform the annual ritual of gluing themselves to the tube Sunday, anxiously awaiting the outcome of the Super Bowl. We've heard how accurately the so-called "Super Bowl Stock Market Predictor", has, ever since Super Bowl I, indicated the direction the market would take ( http://www.forbes.com/2004/01/28/cz_jd_0128inlwatch_print.htm). Theory has it that if the NFC team (this year the Giants) wins, the stock market will rise during the course of the year; if the AFC team (the Patriots) wins, the market will take a downward turn.

I won't bother to rehash the experts' explanations for this phenomenon, but I will go out on a limb and declare that the Super Bowl game itself, no matter which team wins or loses, is a boost for the economy as a whole and particularly for the stocks of all parties involved.

Continue reading "The Economy of the Super Bowl"

When Dale Earnhardt Jr. left DEI last year and moved on to Hendrick Motorsports, most of his fans (including me) were surprised (to say the least) and a bit disappointed (to put it mildly). After all, we could have lived with his teaming with RCR or Joe Gibbs Racing. But to become teammates with a couple of his fiercest competitors? Unthinkable!

If preseason testing at Daytona is any indication, however, of how Junior will perform in 2008, his settling upon Hendrick might well prove to have been a not-so-bad choice. The morning of January 15, he was clocked at 185.820 mph on a single lap, while teammate (and reigning Cup champ) Jimmie Johnson only managed to pull off 184.782 mph in the previous week's testing.

We Dale Jr. fans knew all along he had championship potential; it just lay dormant the past couple seasons at DEI. Talk circulated among the racing community that DEI was spending money in places other than technology and equipment--the two areas in which Hendrick has dominated. And if that's the case, current up-and-coming drivers at DEI like Martin Truex Jr. and Paul Menard are undoubtedly of championship caliber as well.

Continue reading "Dale Jr.'s Move to Hendrick Motorsports--The Right Decision?"

One overriding topic of conversation this week in Packer Country has been the bone-chilling forecast for Sunday's NFC Championship battle with the New York Giants. Historically, the uglier the weather, the greater the Packers' success stories. Like following last Saturday's defeat of the Seahawks, Packer players claimed they enjoyed the experience of playing in the snow, quipping it was "fun". And Coach McCarthy is not so much concerned about the frigid temps as the wind factor (but this time he probably won't need to worry, since the game will be played after sunset, when winds theoretically should have died down).

 Why does the Pack dominate in  frigid winter weather? Sure, they now live in Wisconsin, but most, with the exception of a few players like right tackle Mark Tauscher, did not even grow up in the state. Hey, even the star quarterback is a native of Kiln, Mississippi, a name that hardly suggests the frozen tundra.

Continue reading "The Weather Factor in Sunday's Packers-Giants NFC Championship Game"