All Filler, No Killer - The House-warming edition

All Filler, No Killer, NASCAR's most curiously titled and scatter brained review blog has a new home. Right here. We're still living out of the cardboard boxes, and we can't find half our stuff.

NASCAR wise it was week for being annoyed, but not surprised.

Let’s get this straight, the race was monumentally boring. The only reason I haven’t written a typically British strongly worded letter to NASCAR is because over here, on the same channel they went straight to the Indycar race in Edmonton, which made competitive origami or speed toe-nail cutting seem an applealing spectator sport.

But I wasn’t surprised, NASCAR have produced a nightmare of a car that loves clean air and hates anything else. As the latest peice of evidence I show you Juan Montoya. Clearing off at massive chunks of seconds a lap from everyone else in clean air, struggles to get past a kid who can’t buy a beer in traffic. I remember what a racing pass looked like, I have a VHS tape of one.

Then came the least surprising news of the week. Allstate are pulling the plug on their sponsorship of the Brickyard 400.

And that’s exactly why. Nobody (unless their checks are signed by NASCAR) reffered to the race as “The Allstate 400 at the Brickyard” (and yes, I expect my check to be in the post), it’s just the Brickyard 400, and a sponsor isn’t getting though to anyone worthwhile, if we all forget the race is actually sponsored.

Anyhoo, new home, same deal. Seven none-to-randomly are put in the electric chair of examination and sarcasm and then the dial is flicked to 11.

Joe Nemechek – Actual question that was asked by my nearest and dearest during the race. “Is there ever a weekend when Nemechek and Blaney aren’t out?” I then explained that they show up, pay lip service to racing park and are probably somewhere on the highway counting the cash by the time the race is over. “That doesn’t seem right,” she said. You see even she knows that Field Fillers aren’t good. However, Joe still managed to rob everyone of $142,216 for 21 laps work (which works out at $2708.88 per racing mile).........................10/10

Dave Blaney – The other part of the Field Filler duo exposed by Girl Wonder, Dave managed to do two more laps than Joe. And how was he rewarded for this extreme feat of endurance, by taking home $400 less than Nemechek at $141,825 ($2467.39 per racing mile). Oh, and just to give you an idea of how these numbers compare, Jimmie Johnson took home the equivalent of $1120 per racing mile and Mark Martin banked a paltry $840 per mile! No wonder teams are queuing up for Sprint Cup starts. It must be said that these field filler analysis are money based because that’s all they understand....................10/10

David Gilliland – TRG are my favourite field fillers, in that they are only field fillers some weeks. This week they were not, as David took the car to 30th place, plus five bonus points for leading a lap. The team also confirmed this week, as I hinted at way back when, that they are tapping into their road racing heritage for the second road course race at Watkins Glen, by bringing in Andy Lally, who most recently runs in the Grand-Am series for the team, for his Sprint Cup debut. Lally is used to big sleek aerodynamic rear engine Porsches. His reaction to driving Sprint Cup Slab, opps I mean car, will probably not be printable...............7/10

John Andretti – John Andretti is the bench mark of mediocrity. He doesn’t crash (often), he doesn’t get mentioned by the TV team, they never have a pit reported to have “something on the #34 car”. He just goes round and round and round. This week’s monotony brought him home 32nd, for a 35th place start to further cement his anonymity in NASCAR............9/10

Kurt Busch – I don’t know whether the Captain was at Indy at the weekend, but if he was he probably didn’t realise it. His lead car, Busch, started the race 40th – that’s so low it’s not even on the scoring tower, and was then dealt a further blow by having a loose wheel (Kurt’s lucky, in F1 that’s a hanging offence now). From then he just pounded round and round, not losing another lap (he even overtook John Andretti although no-one noticed) and eventually finished 27th (which is good enough to get on the scoring tower)....................7/10

Elliott Sadler – The name’s Sadler, Elliott Sadler, license to make Robby Gordon go sideways. The guys at GEM are clearly bond fans, and their own Q must have developed a device to put out an oil slick to put off those behind him (Dale Jr.’s team are working on the same thing, though have been typically rubbish given their Indy test). Unfortunately for them no-one has ever black flagged Bond (but then, it just isn’t right to black flag an Aston Martin).....................9/10

Brian Vickers – Brian was the top Toyota was pretty much the entire afternoon (not that anyone notices the ‘Yotas anymore when it’s not The Human Shrub or Sliced Bread at the wheel) holding station in the top-5 for his third top-5 finish and a very respectable ninth top-10, as many as Carl Edwards. Vickers currently sits 15th in points, 120 points out the chase and the Tail End Charlie of a trio of the Toyota’s that are outside the chase looking in......................2/10

And the Brikkie goes to...........

Juan Pablo Montoya. Juan, Juan, Juan, nothing should surprise you about NASCAR anymore. Not only do they refuse to acknowledge technology more up to date that Stephensons Rocket, but their cars don’t even have speedometers, so you don’t know when you’re speeding, and that leads to calls that (more often than not) tend to ruin a day. But then, to make things worse you enter into a battle of words with the men in the yellow trailer. You threaten to kill them (this isn’t good whether you’re dealing with NASCAR officials or, well, anyone) then you start swearing on the lives of the wife and children that you didn’t speed. Basically with their understanding you just entered into a binding contract with an organisation who can change rules like the wind on the lives of your family. Expect Connie and kids to be shelling out hotdogs and Coors Light – the official beer of NASCAR – at Pocono.

Next Week

Poc Oh No! The Tiresome Triangle, 180 degrees of a cure for insomnia. Trying to help me get through it will be the Dodge trio of Kasey Kahne, Kurt Busch and Sam Hornish, the Camry (and incidentally Field Filler) comrades of Joe Nemechek, Dave Blaney and Mike Skinner and a lone bow tie boy in Martin Truex Jr. And we’ll try and get scatter cushions, and maybe paint an accent wall in our new home.