So I’m sitting in a coffee shop in Albuquerque — a place called “Zendo” — and working on my laptop.
A woman walked in a few minutes ago, and she appeared to be homeless and disturbed. She was wearing a hospital gown with the back loosely tied and wore a pair of blue scrub pants on underneath. Her hair was in dreads.
“Can you give me food?” she asked loudly. “Can you give me water?”
Conversations stopped for a second and the shop briefly got quiet as people turned to look in the woman’s direction.
But it didn’t take long for people to react in a positive way.
The barista nodded, stopped what she was doing and poured the woman a cup of ice water. A customer walked over and put some change into the homeless woman’s hand. A second customer approached and, in a very comforting manner, asked what food the woman wanted.
“A sandwich,” the woman said loudly. She was confused.
“They don’t have sandwiches here,” the customer said gently. “Would you like a pastry?”
The woman said yes. It looked like the customer bought it for her, though I’m not sure.
After five minutes, the woman had a pastry and a cup of coffee with five yellow packets of sugar. She abruptly walked out the door, made a left turn and started wandering down the sidewalk into the Albuquerque sunshine.
The customer who bought the pastry swept up the crumbs left behind and threw them away. The barista cleaned some of the coffee spilled by the woman when she took a sip (she insisted on no lid) and tossed the ice water, which the woman didn’t end up taking.
Conversations and work had resumed. No one seemed to pay the incident any mind.
But I was a bit thrown off — in a good way. Did this woman know she could come into Zendo and there would be friendly people to help? Or was it just random?
Either way, it was nice to see people spring into action. When helping strangers is that normal, maybe this world isn’t as bad as it seems sometimes.
These 12 Questions-style fan profiles are one of the rewards offered as a tier on my Patreon page. You can catch up on the other profiles so far this season here.
Name: Bob Morris Location: Bullhead City, Ariz. Twitter name: (Bob doesn’t use Twitter) Age: Old
1. How long have you been a NASCAR fan?
Since 1976.
2. How many races have you attended?
Ten.
3. Who is your No. 1 favorite driver?
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
4. What made you a fan of his?
He’s a true old-school racer and not full of himself.
5. Who is your most disliked driver?
Rowdy Busch.
6. Why don’t you like him?
He is the opposite of the answer to No. 4.
7. What is your favorite track?
Talladega.
8. What is one thing you would change if you were in charge of NASCAR?
I would like more night races, like at our local tracks.
9. What is one thing you would keep the same if you were in charge of NASCAR?
Double-file restarts.
10. How often do you yell at the TV during a race?
Depends on the track. When the races are at tracks of one mile or less, I yell constantly. Other tracks, not so much.
11. Do you have any advice for other fans?
Attend at least one race in the front row on the straightaway! Nothing like it.
12. What else do you want the NASCAR world to know about you?
Alan Cavanna from FOX Sports joins me to help break down all things Talladega, including the significance of a different Junior winning at ‘Dega, the famous Junior’s playoff hopes and whether people will vote it as a good race.
Five thoughts on Sunday’s NASCAR race at Talladega Superspeedway…
1. First-time winner, but no fluke
Both of this year’s restrictor-plate races have been won by drivers who had never won on a plate track before (or anywhere, in Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s case).
That’s surprising in a time where the current plate package seemed to favor a few drivers who had perfected how to manipulate the draft once they got a lead: Brad Keselowski, Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano, Dale Earnhardt Jr., to name a few.
Kyle Busch is one of the good ones, too — but he seemed to get snookered by Stenhouse in overtime.
So what the heck happened?
When Stenhouse moved up to block Kasey Kahne’s run on the top side, Busch moved up to block Stenhouse — expecting to take away his momentum or at least get a shove.
And actually, Busch got what he wanted: A shot from behind. But to his surprise, it didn’t advance him.
“He got to my back bumper and actually hit me, and I thought that was going to shoot me forward,” Busch said. “He just turned left and passed me after hitting me. So, pretty impressive.”
Busch wasn’t being sarcastic; he meant it. It was impressive, and he repeated the term later in a second interview. Stenhouse deserved to win this race.
There have been fluky winners on restrictor-plate races throughout history, but Stenhouse isn’t one of them. For one thing, he started from the pole — which means Roush Fenway Racing built a very fast speedway car. And Talladega is also tied with Bristol for Stenhouse’s best track — he has a 10.4 average finish at both.
Look, it’s hard to read too much into any plate victory, because nothing translates to a “real racetrack” (as Busch put it Sunday).
But Roush Fenway really does seem to have something good going on this season. Stenhouse is now in the playoffs (wow!) and Trevor Bayne would also be in if it started today (he’s 16th in the standings).
Clearly, there’s been a lot of improvement over the offseason for a team whose three cars finished 21st, 22nd and 23rd in the point standings last season.
“(Over) the offseason, the whole attitude at our shop changed, and the people in each department were putting in more hours and working harder to make sure we started the season as best we could,” Stenhouse said. “We started a little stronger than we thought we would, but then we’ve also continued to make gains and continued to up our performance.”
2. The joy of winning
I’m sure this story is going to be everywhere, but this still deserves mention because, well, it’s completely awesome.
Apparently, Ricky Stenhouse Sr. was briefly detained by track security after the race while trying to get to victory lane and celebrate with his son.
Here’s the story, as told by Talladega public relations chief Russell Branham:
He was extremely excited about his son winning today, and naturally so. He was actually perched on the back straightaway up top the Alabama Gang Superstretch in an RV.
His son wins the race, he goes down, he tries to find a way to get across the track. He tried to climb the fence, found out he couldn’t. He begins running down outside of the perimeter road of Turn 3 outside the venue. He wants to go through the tunnel and get in here.
Our (security) guys saw it. Naturally, they stopped him, asked him who he was, said, ‘Would you get in the car?’ They placed him in the car, talked to him, they said, ‘Who are you?’
He said, ‘I’m Ricky Stenhouse’s father.’ (They said) ‘Hold on one second, sir. Let me call the director of security.’ Called our security, and our security guy said, ‘Take him to victory lane,’ and that’s what happened.
Seriously, how great is that? Even better is Stenhouse Jr. actually figured his dad would try to climb the fence (he did it before at Kentucky) and looked for Stenhouse Sr. when he came around on the cool-down lap.
“I went down the back straightaway after the race was over and looked up to see if he was there, but I didn’t see him,” Stenhouse Jr. said. “My dad has done so much for me in my career. … Everything that I know about racing I learned from him, and I’m glad that he was able to be here in victory lane.”
3. What’s up with Dale Jr.?
Dale Earnhardt Jr. was as discouraged as I’ve seen him in quite awhile following his 22nd-place finish.
Earnhardt, frustratingly to himself and his fans, wasn’t a factor all day after starting second. He scored no stage points — at a place where he’s normally toward the front — and failed to lead a lap at Talladega for only the fifth time in 34 career starts (and second time in a row).
The loose wheel at the end of the race ruined his shot at a good day, but the No. 88 car wasn’t a player anyway. So what gives?
Well, Earnhardt said he hasn’t loved this rules package at plate races after a horsepower change at the start of last season.
“When they changed the motor after (2015), it took a lot of the speed out of the cars as far as how they create runs and maintain runs and how you can put together passes and do things on the track,” he said. “Now everybody is just stuck side-by-side. If you aren’t in the first or second row, you really are just kind of riding behind those guys with nowhere really to go. You can’t do much about it, because the cars don’t create the runs like they used to.”
That makes sense if you look at the results. In 2015, Earnhardt finished third, first, first and second at the four plate races.
Since then, he’s finished 36th, 40th, 21st, 37th and 22nd.
“I’d change a few things if I was the king of this deal,” he said. “But as long as the fans enjoyed the show, we’ll keep going down the road with what we’ve got.”
If that’s the case, it doesn’t sound like winning one of his remaining two plate races is as great of a chance as it once was.
4. Air AJ
Airborne cars scare the crap out of me, but AJ Allmendinger played it pretty cool after he landed on his roof on Sunday. Allmendinger even joked he had a “nice flight” during the Big One.
“It’s better than some of the flights we take back home,” he said.
But what wasn’t as fun was hanging upside down in his No. 47 car as fluids leaked and Allmendinger waited for the safety crew to flip him back onto his wheels.
“Get me the hell back over,” he thought.
Allmendinger acknowledged he was worried the car would catch on fire, but said the key was to not panic. And he was reassured by the safety team’s rapid response.
“If they weren’t there that quick, I might have thought of trying to slide out,” he said. “But it kind of rolled over onto the window, so there wasn’t a lot of room that I was going to get out.”
Plus, he said, he didn’t want to loosen his belts and take another hit to the head, even though he joked “there’s not much in there to be that worried about.”
But many fans were unable to use it due to the terrible cell phone reception at the track. Ugh. What a giant missed opportunity.
Granted, I still have Sprint, so maybe I just have a bad network. Some people had a signal (one of my friends has T-Mobile and said his worked). But I saw plenty of chatter from other people who had similar problems.
Post race Periscope coming as soon as I can get some service.
Talladega is in a relatively rural area, so you wouldn’t expect it would normally have decent cell service. And when about 70,000 people show up for a race, it certainly gets a lot worse.
But we live in an era where people want to share all their experiences via social media They want to show their friends where they are and what they’re doing. That’s basically free advertising for NASCAR! If fans can’t get any sort of cell service, though, a lot of that gets lost.
I don’t know what phone companies charge to bring in portable cell phone towers, but tracks need to figure out how to make it happen. Clearly, there isn’t a large-scale move to invest in wifi (though Daytona did it), so there needs to be another solution. Speedway Motorsports Inc. tracks have some sort of Verizon technology, but what about those of us who don’t have that carrier?
The whole NASCAR industry would benefit from better cell service at the tracks. This needs to be a very high priority on the list of fan amenities.
I’m playing DraftKings this season and will be posting my picks here each week. Disclosure: If you want to play and sign up using this link, DraftKings will give my website a commission. Disclosure No. 2: I might be America’s worst daily fantasy player.
Last race’s results: Played the $4 single-entry Brake Pad contest. Finished 930th out of 2,400 and won $0.
Season results: $19 wagered, $7 won in eight contests.
This week’s contest: Not allowed to participate based on Alabama state law. Lame.
Talladega picks:
— Joey Logano ($10,700). It’s putting me in a tough position to take the two most expensive drivers, but that’s what I plan to do. Both are extremely good at the draft, and think they’re both able to dominate the race if they get the chance. It doesn’t hurt that Logano starts 12th, either.
— Brad Keselowski ($10,500). I’m thinking he could be my hammer, if there is such a thing at a plate race. I envision Keselowski getting the lead early and controlling a large part of the race — if he has his way — and those laps led could come in handy in DraftKings.
— Kurt Busch ($8,000). The Daytona 500 winner always seems to be in the mix at Talladega. Busch hasn’t finished lower than 12th in his last five ‘Dega starts, scoring the most points of any driver in those races. He’ll have plenty of friends to draft with on Sunday.
— Ryan Newman ($7,400). For a guy known for hating plate racing, Newman is very solid here. He has the fourth-most points of any driver in the last six Talladega races. Plus, he starts 20th.
— Elliott Sadler ($6,700). I wrestled with picking Paul Menard here ($7,300), but Menard’s good starting spot pushed me away. Meanwhile, Sadler starts 35th, and I’m hoping he can do something similar to the Daytona 500 — when he went from 40th to 20th for Tommy Baldwin Racing.
— David Ragan ($6,000). I had to decide between Ragan and Front Row Motorsports teammate Landon Cassill, and I left it up to whoever was starting further back in the field. The answer: Ragan, who starts 29th. He knows what he’s doing here.
So I was listening to the Dale Jr. Download podcast on the way to Talladega Superspeedway this morning, and my ears perked up at one of the discussions.
It turns out Earnhardt often doesn’t carry a wallet — or a drivers license — when he leaves the house (he said he didn’t think he needed to actually have the actual license on him, but fans watching on Periscope set him straight).
Leaving a drivers license at home is one thing, but the whole wallet? I had to know: How does someone function in daily life without carrying any money for gas or food?
As it turns out, it’s actually a reasonable explanation.
“I have a gas tank at the house, so I don’t buy gas at the store,” he said. “We buy gas in bulk — it’s a little cheaper. That’s something Kenny Wallace told me a long time ago when I was fixing up my property in about 2002 or 2003: He’s like, Get you a gas tank and buy it in bulk — it’s cheaper. That way, you don’t have to go anywhere to get gas; you just pull out of the driveway, pump it right there and get on down the road.”
And as for food?
“Usually if I don’t have my wallet and it’s time to eat, whoever is with me is going to buy the food,” he said. “I’m good for it, though. So it’s usually no big discussion.”
Earnhardt said he leaves the house without a wallet roughly half the time, but it’s not on purpose. He’d prefer to have the wallet with him, but he just forgets.
“It’s a pain in the butt, because I go to JR Motorsports and I don’t have my key to get in the door,” he said. “I have to have somebody come down there and get me in, which is a little embarrassing for the guy that owns the building.”
The thing is, Earnhardt said his wallet isn’t usually on his mind because “I don’t really spend money.”
“I don’t really go buy stuff,” he said. “Usually when I’m out and about, I’m going to do something as far as a responsibility with my team — going to a team meeting or something like that — and I’m not really hardly in a store to physically purchase anything. I guess that’s why I keep forgetting it — because I don’t hardly need it.”
NASCAR has been part of Snapchat’s Live Stories and some tracks have Snapchat geofilters, but there has yet to be a racing-related lens (the feature that changes people’s faces into dogs, bunnies, etc.).
But on Sunday, Snapchat will unveil a NASCAR lens that will be available to fans at every Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race going forward.
The lens puts a NASCAR hat on the person snapping, along with glasses and a mustache reminiscent of Dale Earnhardt Sr., with a steering wheel in front of them. When the person makes a facial movement, the lens plays the sound of tires squealing.
By the way, there’s also a Live Story planned for Talladega — so expect to see plenty of this lens on your friends’ snaps from the track.
Here’s a demonstration of the lens, courtesy of NASCAR:
