Category Archives: Sporting

Sporting

Tony Stewart Kicking Ass

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(I don’t blog about NASCAR often, so you’ll have to indulge me)

Last night the NASCAR season came to an end with the showdown of all showdowns. Going into the final race of the season, Carl Edwards held a three point advantage over Tony Stewart for the championship. Nobody else was in contention. And nothing else mattered—Carl and Tony would take the first two spots, they just had to fight over the order.

With all the different scenarios, Carl could spot Tony a few positions at the end of the race and still claim the championship, unless Tony won. If Tony won, there was nothing Carl could do. Even if Carl led the most laps (bonus points) and finished second, they’d still tie and the tie-breaker goes to the driver with most wins, which was Tony.

And that’s exactly what happend. Carl led the most laps and finished second, about 1.2 seconds behind winner—and now three-time champion—Tony Stewart.

  • It’s the first time NASCAR has determined a champion with a tie breaker.
  • It’s also the first time an owner-driver has won the championship since Alan Kulwicki in 1992.
  • It’s also the first time a driver has come from behind to win a championship by winning the race.
  • It’s also the first time a champion has won the final race since 1998 when Jeff Gordon did it.
  • It’s also the first time a driver has won five races in the season-ending Chase.
  • Tony also came from 9th place when the Chase started, the farthest back a champion has ever started (since the Chase format started in 2004).
  • It’s also the first time a driver has entered the Chase winless and went on to claim the championship.

And Tony did all that while passing 76 cars in Sunday’s race. Debris punched a hole in his car’s grill and the team fell back to 40th place while making repairs. They pitted again during another caution for more repairs and fell back again, only to climb back to the top, going three and four wide on multiple restarts to pick up positions.

“They’re going to feel like [expletive], after we kick their ass after this,” Tony said over the radio.

I’m not a big fan of Tony Stewart. I was rooting for Carl Edwards, who was robotically consistent over the Chase, with an average finish of 4.9 and finishing no worse than 11th in any of the 10 races. But winning is what matters and Carl’s consistency wasn’t enough. And I don’t think anything was enough for hard-charging Tony Stewart. I’m not a fan, but what he did to win this championship was incredible.

And in the end, I’ve been rooting for anyone but Jimmie Johnson for the last six years.

Sidebar 1: People complain all the time about NASCAR. Non-fans don’t get why it’s exciting. Those folks need to watch Tony Stewart pass 76 cars to win a race and a championship. Fans complain about everything, but you couldn’t ask for something better than a history-making finale like this one.

Sidebar 2: Ricky Stenhouse Jr. won NASCAR’s Nationwide series championship on Saturday (it’s kind of like the minor leagues), running most of the season without sponsorship. He literally ran a blank, white race car throughout most of the year. There’s been a lot of economic fallout in NASCAR the past few years with major teams closing up shop or merging with other teams. This is just proof that it’s not getting better. And maybe proof for interested advertisers that there should be some deals available. Anybody want to sponsor a stock car?

Sporting, Twin Cities

St. Paul Classic: I Biked St. Paul

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Yesterday thousands of bike riders stopped traffic across the Twin Cities as part of the annual Saint Paul Classic Bike Tour.

I was one of them.

I rode 30 miles around St. Paul, following Mississippi River Boulevard along the bluffs, down Shepherd Road to downtown and the waterfront, then back up the bluffs to Indian Mounds Park, then along parkways to Phalen Park and Como Park, then past the state fairgrounds, across University and the light rail construction and over 94 to get back to the start at St. Thomas. Yeah, it was as tiring as it sounds.

Earlier this year I started riding my bike more to get some needed exercise and even more needed stress relief. I decided early on that I wanted to do the Saint Paul Classic. I’ve always thought that’d be a cool event to take part in, but I was never active enough on my bike to seriously consider it. I should have. The short route is a very do-able 15 miles.

While I’ve probably only biked more than 15 miles once this year, I decided to go for the 30 mile route. I tend to overdo things like that, but I also wanted the bragging rights. Amazingly, I can still walk today.

While they did close off streets and intersections for the ride, I’d guess that 95% of the route was along streets with marked bike lanes or on streets next to paved bike paths. St. Paul is pretty bike friendly.

We also passed a lot of public art, which was fun for me.

Sporting

Twin Cities Marathon: Buzunesh Deba

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Yesterday runners overwhelmed the city with the Twin Cities Marathon. I’m not much of a running enthusiast, but sometimes it’s fun to check in on these local events. Especially when the winner of the women’s marathon is Ethiopian-born Buzunesh Deba. The 23-year-old finished in front of 3,393 other women with a time of 2:27:23*, eight minutes ahead of the closest challenger.

If I understand the prizes and incentives correctly, Deba won $1,500 for finishing first and likely some additional money for the Olympic qualifier, but she missed out on a $25,000 bonus for beating the course record. She would have needed a time of 2:26:50 to claim that bonus.

So, um, 33 seconds cost her $25,000. Ouch. I’m not sure I’d ever want to know that.

By the way, at the pace she was running, Deba was doing 5:38 miles. 26.2 of them. That’s insane. And perhaps why I’m not a running enthusiast.

Deba now has the third fastest women’s time in the history of the Twin Cities marathon and set a new personal best by more than four minutes.

Deba also won the Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth earlier this year, also by nearly 4 minutes over her closest rival. She’s the first woman to win both the Duluth and Twin Cities marathons in the same year.

Not too shabby.

*Apparently marathons are timed with two different methods, chip time and gun time, and in this case those methods vary by 1 second. I’m going with chip time because that’s what came up by default when I loaded the results page.

Sporting

Teaching the Kids to Watch Hockey

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Goal!Tonight I watched the Detroit Red Wings with the kids. The Wings faced elimination against the San Jose Sharks, but they battled back and won 7-1 (the first time in 45 years the Wings have won when facing elimination in a 3-0 situation—or something, didn’t quite catch that crazy stat).

Anyway, the Wings scored five times in the first period (on only 9 shots!), so I had plenty of opportunity to teach Milo how to say, “Goal!”

I also got to show Lexi an octopus (a Red Wings playoff tradition).

Sporting

Olympic Host Cities

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The International Olympic Committee announces the host city for the 2016 Summer Olympics today. It will be Madrid or Rio de Janeiro. Despite the presidential push from Obama for Chicago and the green-friendly reasoning for Tokyo, both cities are out on early voting. It would have been cool to have the Olympics in Chicago, but only for selfish reasons (when else will the Olympics be only six hours away?).

When you look at the history of the Olympics, it’s been mostly contained in wealthy western nations in North America and Europe. South American and Africa have never hosted an Olympic games. The Middle East and much of Asia have gotten the shaft too. This Olympic host country map provides a pretty startling view. Only twice in history have the Olympics been held south of the equator (both in Australia: 1956 and 2000). I understand that infrastructure and security requirements need to be met, but it seems like those challenges can be dealt with. Besides, location doesn’t guarantee security (remember Atlanta?).

Here’s to hoping the official announcement later today will mean history for the Olympics. (Update: They picked Rio for history!)

Until then, let’s explore some Olympic minutia when it comes to host cities.

  • The selection process hasn’t begun for the 2020 Summer Olympics, but a number of cities are lining up. In the making history department we have South Africa, Qatar, India, Peru, Malaysia, Morocco, United Arab Emirates and Turkey. Even if the Olympic Games makes history today and go with Rio, it seems the 2020 games should continue that ground-breaking tradition.
  • In the not-so-historical department, a number of U.S. cities will be salivating now that Chicago is out of the running: Denver, Boston, Detroit, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Birmingham (?!) and Pittsburgh have all shown interest.
  • Detroit has more unsuccessful Olympic bids than any other ultimately unsuccessful city with seven official attemps (Los Angeles has made nine bids, but they also hosted twice). Detroit made attempts in 1944 (3rd place), 1952 (5th place), 1956 (4th place), 1960 (3rd palce), 1964 (2nd place), 1968 (2nd place) and 1972 (4th place). If Detroit couldn’t host the Olympics at the height of their prestige, it seems almost laughable that they could win a bid now.
  • Yes, my hometown, the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul are considering a bid for the 2020 Olympics. There’s even a horrible web site that uses Comic Sans and a Facebook Group with 80,000 fans. The Twin Cities have tried and failed four times to host the Olympics: 1932, 1948, 1952 (2nd place), 1956. They also placed second to Atlanta as the U.S. host city in 1996. I love my city, but somehow I’m not sure if we’re Olympic caliber.
  • Time offers a glimpse of what happens to Olympic stadiums (auto racing in Athens is the coolest) and ponders the potential cost if Chicago hosted the Olympics.

Here’s a quick overview of some of the challenges Rio will face.

Sporting

Triple Overtime Ends with No Cup for Detroit. Yet.

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The Stanley Cup was in the house tonight as the Detroit Red Wings faced the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 5. The Penguins struck first with two goals in the first period and Detroit answered with one goal in the second. Detroit came alive in the third period and dominated, scoring the tying goal and the go ahead (you should have seen me jump up and dance to the computer to Twitter the GOALL!!!—I’m such a geek).

The Detroit Red Wings were 30 seconds from Stanley, but it’s not over till it’s over.

Pittsburgh scored in the last 30 seconds to send the game into sudden death overtime. Yikes, those things are tense. We made it through two and a half OT’s before the Penguins scored on a four-minute high sticking penalty and won the game, sending it back to Pittsburgh for a game six.

Wow. I love hockey. I love playoff hockey. But I hate watching for so long and having it end in disappointment. Arg. Now we’ll do it all again on Wednesday.

Sporting

Detroit Red Wings Can’t Fill Their Arena

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How sad is this? The Detroit Red Wings—currently on a franchise-high nine-playoff-game winning streak, in their 17th consecutive playoffs  (best streak in pro sports) and one win away from their fourth trip to the Stanley Cup finals in 11 years (having won the Cup in all three previous finals trips)—is having trouble selling out the Joe Louis Arena. Last year’s playoffs saw an end to a 425-game streak of home sellouts that went back to 1996.

What’s the deal? The Detroit economy must really be tanking. Or if you get too good people stop caring.

Whatever. I had to move to Minnesota to see the Red Wings in person. I’d love to go to a home game, and I’d really love to go to a playoff game. If you live in the Detroit area, do me a favor and go see some hockey. I may live in the State of Hockey, but Detroit will always be Hockeytown. Just don’t let me down now.

Sporting

Triathalon Cheaters

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My mother-in-law and sister-in-law competed in a triathalon this weekend. What they probably didn’t know is that apparently winning is all about finding the worst competition so you can beat them. How stupid is this?

There’s a trend of wannabe winners gauging the competition at rinky-dink local triathalons and only entering if they think they have a good shot at winning. It’s not about the sport or the thrill or the fun of it–they just want to brag about winning a triathalon. Never mind that they bested only a handful of competitors so their win really doesn’t mean anything.

You have to be a certain kind of messed up to want a meaningless trophy that bad. I think my mother-in-law scored a much cooler prize: finishing. (link via kottke.org)

Sporting

NASCAR Napping is Back

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The 10-month long NASCAR season started up again last week with the Daytona 500 and once again I can spend my Sunday afternoon sabaths in the horizontal position on the couch, zoning out to the drone of stock cars. I usually don’t watch the entire race because I just can’t give up four hours of my Sunday, but I do like to catch an hour or two.

I’ve also started NASCAR blogging again, at least a little bit here and there. I wish the ads paid better because I enjoy writing about NASCAR, but I just can’t invest the time into it.

And it still amazes me that NASCAR teams have such boring, out-of-date web sites. At best they have a list of news headlines cribbed from somewhere else, most of which are at least a few weeks old. Where are all the race team blogs? I know I’m a bit of a blog addict, but it is a great medium for connecting with fans. I can’t believe so many racing sites just plain suck. Reminds me of a certain other type of industry.