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First Impressions: Kevin Magnussen and the mysterious tattoo

It’s not every day someone invites JeffGluck.com to participate in a group interview with a Formula One driver (FACT CHECK: This has never happened before), so I decided to take advantage of Haas F1 Team’s generous offer on Thursday.

Kevin Magnussen, a 24-year-old from Denmark, is the team’s new addition. He replaced Esteban Gutierrez and joins Romain Grosjean as the drivers for America’s (F1) Team this season.

I’d never met Magnussen before and didn’t know much about him, aside from that his dad (Jan) made a Cup start for James Finch at Sonoma in 2010 (FACT CHECK: I actually didn’t remember that without looking it up).

Anyway, my professional colleagues asked Magnussen a bunch of racing questions, and it seemed like he gave sort of the standard answers. Excited about the opportunity and all that.

Magnussen smiled a lot when he spoke and generally seemed to be very pleasant, but was a bit guarded. I tried asking a couple personality-based questions to see what he was all about, but they didn’t get me very far.

For example: What’s the best and worst part about being an F1 driver aside from the actual driving?

“The best part is obviously in the car and the race weekend,” he said. “Everything in between is just preparation. When you go racing, that’s the best feeling. … Sometimes traveling can be tough, but that’s a small price to pay.”

Why is Denmark the happiest country in the world?

“Maybe because our wives are so pretty,” he said.

But one thing I couldn’t get past was the giant tattoo on Magnussen’s right forearm. This dude was INKED by race car driver standards, with a tat featuring a large stopwatch, roses, dice and playing cards.

Fortunately, NBC’s Nate Ryan broached the subject: What’s the story behind the tattoo?

“There’s no story,” Magnussen said.

“Viva la Vida?” Ryan prodded, reading the wording on one part of it.

“Yeah,” Magnussen said.

Everyone chuckled. I chimed in and noted I saw dice and playing cards as part of it.

“Good,” he said with a half-smile.

Motorsport.com’s Lee Spencer tried to help, too. Are you a gambler, she asked?

“I guess racing is a little bit of a gamble,” he said. “You could do more safe things.”

“So the cards (on the tattoo) –”

“– have nothing to do with it.”

More laughter.

It was clear he didn’t really want to talk about it, which is fine, but of course it piqued my interest. So I Googled “Kevin Magnussen tattoo” after the interview, and it turns out he shared a pretty simple explanation with Formula1.com last year:

Everything together has a meaning: hope, belief and love! For us Danish it is a way to live – probably like Sisu for the Finnish. I changed that a bit to my situation: the dice are hope, the stopwatch of course is time, or belief that I will make it, and the roses symbolise love.

So maybe the tattoo isn’t much of a mystery after all. It was likely more a case of interview weariness after a long day of answering questions.

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ICYMI: Notable Nuggets from the NASCAR Media Tour

Look, you’re a busy person. You don’t have time to stay up to date on every single freaking thing that happened on the NASCAR Media Tour.

So ICYMI, here are some quick takeaways from this year’s two-day event.

Everyone seems to love the new NASCAR changes

Nothing close to a bad word was spoken about the new format — which normally doesn’t mean anything since drivers could get fined if they criticize the sport.

However, I got the sense they actually meant it in this case and weren’t just trying to be politically correct. Drivers seem to be very optimistic and positive about the upcoming changes, and so am I. The fans are, too:

Danica Patrick might have some sponsor trouble

This was odd because it didn’t come up in her news conference at all, although the absence of a Nature’s Bakery firesuit tipped off reporters that something was amiss. Shortly afterward, there were several reports about how Nature’s Bakery might be backing off its sponsorship for this season.

Furthermore, there was no Nature’s Bakery patch on Patrick’s firesuit — even as an associate sponsor. Hmm…

Getty Images

Carl Edwards’ decision is still a mystery to everyone

No one pretended to really “get” Edwards’ exact reasons for retirement, even friend Matt Kenseth (who said he had talked to Edwards). Former teammates Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch sounded similarly clueless (and less than thrilled) about it.

But then a Missouri political columnist speculated Edwards could run for U.S. Senate, a notion Edwards didn’t exactly shoot down via a text message conversation with the AP’s Jenna Fryer.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is ready to go

It was nice to see the sport’s most popular driver looking happy and healthy — and he’s clearly anxious to get started again.

In an excellent but all-too-brief media session (where Earnhardt said he wished he could have stayed longer), the recently married driver spoke of the perspective he gained while being out of the car and said he eventually wanted to retire on his own terms — not because of poor health.

Bubba Wallace needs some funding to run a full season

The Roush Fenway Racing Xfinity Series driver said he’s good for the first six races of the year with sponsor Leidos, but then needs some help to run the rest of the schedule. However, Wallace said he’s optimistic that will happen.

No pizza allowed

Box lunches weren’t cutting it for the aforementioned Jenna Fryer, who did everyone a solid on Tuesday and ordered four pizzas from Papa John’s (they were half price because the Charlotte Hornets scored 95 points the previous night).

But the Charlotte Convention Center was like OH HELL NAH, and Wednesday morning’s session opened with a reminder that no outside food is permitted on the Media Tour.

Lesson learned.

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So, about that name…

As you might have heard, I’m now “Jeff Gluck from JeffGluck.com.” And people seem to be getting a kick out of the name.

For example:


It sounds funny and it IS funny. I’m laughing along with everyone else, and people sort of grin when they ask me if I’m keeping the name.

The truth is, I tried to come up with a bunch of different names before launching this new venture. None have worked out so far, but I figured you might get a kick out of the backstory.

At first, I thought I hit on a good name: Starting40.com (get it? Forty cars in a NASCAR race?). I bought the website domain and then even convinced the dude who had the Twitter name @Starting40 to give it to me for free (although I sent him a $25 gift card to Amazon because I felt bad).

But then I realized there was a big problem: It looks there might not be 40 cars in many Cup races this year! So that would be pretty dumb if I used it and it was really a starting 37.

Next, I thought of a really cool website name that involved the word “restart” in it (I don’t want to say what exactly it is). It would be appropriate because I’m restarting my career and there’s an obvious racing connection to the word, too.

So I looked up the dude who owns the site (which doesn’t have anything on it) and emailed him out of the blue, asking if he’d consider selling it. I got a reply saying it was his wife’s site and he needed to talk to her about it.

A couple days later, some good news!

Hi Jeff,

I talked to my wife and she is ok potentially selling the domain so if you like please name a reasonable price and see if we can work it out together. I was super pumped about this, but I wasn’t sure how much to offer. How much does a website name cost? I dunno.

I wrote back:

That’s very kind of her, please tell her thanks for considering it. I’ve actually never done this before and, embarrassingly, have no concept of what would be an appropriate price. Is $100 in the ballpark? No offense intended if not, I just really don’t know.

Well, apparently that was an insulting offer, because I never heard from them again despite following up several times. Damn.

Then I came across a site called OnTheTrack.com, and I thought that name was semi-cheesy but not terrible. And the site actually had a form on it where I could ask for sales info.

Sweet!

I filled it out and sent it off, with fingers crossed for a reasonable price.
Then I got this email back:

Hi Jeffrey,

My name is (Redacted) and I’m a Domain Broker with (Redacted). We represent the current owner of onthetrack.com.

I discussed this with my client and based on many criteria, their expectations are $19,000.00.

Please let me know if you have any questions or would like to make an offer. Thank you for your inquiry.

LOLOLOL … WHAT??? I couldn’t believe it. $19,000 for a website name? Who pays for this stuff?

Anyway, I went back to GoDaddy and tried to come up with a non-lame name that ends in a .com (I don’t want a .net or .info, personally) and struck out.

With time running out before my site launch, I realized I was stuck with JeffGluck.com for now.

My media friends have been very encouraging so far and keep telling me to say it in news conferences. “Own it,” they say. But instead, I’ve only said things like, “Hi, Jeff Gluck, over here in the middle” after initially mentioning it in the format changes presser.

Anyway, hopefully I can either come up with a good idea or enough money to buy a good name at some point.

In the meantime, we can all laugh together.

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Matt Kenseth clueless as to why Carl Edwards quit racing

Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards have been fairly tight the last few years, with their infamous Martinsville altercation buried long ago.

But even Kenseth says he’s still not sure why Edwards stepped away from racing — this despite speaking with Edwards on the phone about it.

“I called him and asked him (why) straight out, and when I hung up, it was probably less clear than before I picked (the phone) up,” Kenseth said. “I tried to listen to what he was saying, I tried to listen to what he wasn’t saying and I didn’t really come up with anything.”

Kenseth said he had no idea Edwards was thinking of leaving until Joe Gibbs put all the drivers and crew chiefs on a conference call together on a Sunday night — which was the first time that had ever happened in Kenseth’s tenure with Joe Gibbs Racing.

“(Gibbs) told us about it then, and I guess the announcement was (the next) Wednesday,” Kenseth said. “That was the first time I heard about it, and I was very, very surprised.”

But Kenseth said after thinking about it more, he wasn’t totally shocked — because that’s sort of Edwards’ nature.

The AP’s Jenna Fryer asked why that is.

“Carl has always been his own guy, right?” Kenseth said. “He kind of does his own thing, and if he decided that’s what he needed to do at the time, it doesn’t shock me he actually went through with it.”

Below: Matt Kenseth cracks jokes in a sarcastic press conference.

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Untitled Jeff Gluck Podcast: Episode 1

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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In the first-ever episode of my new podcast, Jordan Bianchi from SBNation.com joins me to help digest all the changes announced for the 2017 NASCAR season. (Warning: I didn’t know how to edit a podcast very well yet, so the volume is uneven at times — sorry!)

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Column: Digesting the big NASCAR changes

Let’s start with a fact: NASCAR had to do something. Whether or not you agree with what NASCAR did on Monday is a different story. But before we go any further, you have to acknowledge a change — likely a big one — was necessary.

That’s not really in question if you’ve looked at the declining TV ratings and attendance over the last decade, followed by a painful sponsor search last year. Something had to be done, because the status quo wasn’t working.

Even drivers whispered privately in recent months they know the sport is on shaky ground, and executives must know it, too — otherwise they wouldn’t have called representatives from all over the industry (drivers, teams, sponsors, TV, tracks) to help them collaborate on this move.

So are the changes NASCAR announced on Monday enough to reverse the trend? No, they’re not. It’s going to take a lot more than this, and over a much longer period of time.

However, these are very, very good changes — maybe even excellent. If your first reaction is to go BLEHHHHOHMYGODMORECHANGESWHYNASCARWHY, I understand that. That’s my first reaction a lot of times when NASCAR comes up with some new gimmick.

But I honestly feel positive about these changes — sorry, ENHANCEMENTS — announced Monday. Here are my three top reasons why:

1. The most recent Chase format was freaking ridiculous in a lot of ways, and this makes it much more fair. No more points resets where everyone is back to zero, no more chance of some fluke driver making it to Homestead on top-15s alone. Drivers can get points (one for each “stage” win or five for a race win) that carry over into the playoffs — all the way through Race No. 35. That greatly reduces the chances of a multi-win driver getting knocked out in an early round with a blown engine or something like that.

There’s still a final four race at Homestead, but at least now we’ll have much more of a sense the drivers really earned their way there instead of just survived some minefield to make it.

Also, it’s not called the Chase anymore, which makes me really happy because none of my non-racing friends knew what that meant anyway. We can now bury the Chase in the graveyard of dumb NASCAR names. RIP, sucker.

2. The TV commercials won’t be as bad. This format was specifically designed with TV in mind. FOX and NBC were in the meetings when this whole thing was being proposed. The networks get four extra guaranteed breaks to show commercials (two in between each segment), and that HOPEFULLY means fewer interruptions during the actual racing. They’ll still show the same amount of ads, of course, but the timing is what counts. I honestly can’t wait to see the Cawsnjaws.com commercial numbers (which keeps track of the percentage of racing shown) after the first few races.

Don’t discount how important this is, because excessive commercial interruptions were a huge factor in making the races feel unwatchable at times. If the TV networks still show too many ads during racing, we should all yell at them because they have way less of an excuse now.

3. The regular season has more meaning again. Let’s say Jimmie Johnson won a couple races early in the season under the old format. OK, well guess what? He’s going to disappear for the rest of the summer while Chad Knaus does some witchcraft R&D, then emerge in the playoffs and kick everyone’s ass again.

But now he can’t do that (or shouldn’t). Knaus is going to want Johnson to get every conceivable point for the Chase — sorry, PLAYOFFS — and that means trying to run up front at the end of each stage and also winning as many races as possible.

So now the Daytona 500 winner is going to actually care about winning Pocono and Michigan and those sometimes-blah summer races. They really do mean something — it’s not just talk. Those segment points really will add up.

I know I said only three things, but one more thought. At first, this seemed too complicated. And yeah, it’s definitely more complicated than before. But Dale Earnhardt Jr. was emphatic about its simplicity, and he has a great point. Earnhardt said it’s basically just adding two extra cautions and you know when they’re coming, plus the extra points associated with that.

Personally, I’m going to pretty much ignore the in-season points (the ones that go to the top 10) because who really cares? In most weeks, the top 10 drivers at any point in the race are all going to be drivers who win their way into the playoffs anyway, so it won’t matter that much.

But what WILL matter is those points you get for winning the stages. It’s going to make a huge impact on the playoffs, and that’s not that hard to follow at all. Only one driver gets a point for winning a stage. That’s simple.

And I think, truly, the people who read this (hardcore NASCAR fans) will pick it up quickly. Because if you can figure out what the hell encumbered finishes are and what they mean, I’m SURE this format will be easy for you to master in no time.

NASCAR execs, drivers, TV commentators, team officials all gathered to unveil the big changes together. (Courtesy Getty Images for NASCAR)
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What’s Next

Dear Friends,

When I told you on Friday it was my last day with USA Today, there was a lot of speculation about why and what was next. Well, I’m here to give you those answers.

It might seem surprising/crazy/borderline insane to leave a great job voluntarily, but that’s what I did. Ultimately, it came down to this: USA Today needs a NASCAR writer in Charlotte, but I might not live in Charlotte for much longer.

My wife, Sarah, is trying to become a Child Life Specialist (someone who works in a children’s hospital and helps sick kids and their families). She’s currently doing an internship in New Mexico, and she’ll be able to look for jobs after she’s finished in May. It’s a no-brainer for me to support her career and I need to have the flexibility to relocate, because who knows where we’ll end up?

It also seemed obvious that it would be a jerk move to leave USA Today hanging in the middle of the season. What if Sarah gets a job at the start of the Chase and I leave them shorthanded? That wouldn’t be very professional, so this was the right time in order to give them a chance to replace me before the season.

So where does that leave us? Believe it or not, right here. This is my new home for NASCAR coverage.

Let me explain:

— My plan is to start a reader-funded NASCAR website and podcast. I will work directly for you, write only about what I think interests you and won’t waste your time with things that don’t. There won’t be any clickbait because, if this works, my income won’t depend on pageviews.

— You can help me by giving small contributions through my Patreon page. Patreon is like a GoFundMe site, except it’s monthly; it offers a chance for people to support someone’s work by becoming a “patron.” So if enough people pledge a small amount (say $2 a month, the cost of one USA Today), I could keep covering NASCAR for a living and hopefully still travel to races.

— This will not be a subscription site. I thought for a long time about this, but I don’t want to put my NASCAR coverage behind a paywall. That would punish the people who might not be able to afford to pitch in, and I’d rather you just be able to give what you’re comfortable with (even if that’s nothing). However, I tried to offer some modest rewards which I hope will express my thanks to you for investing in me (you’ll see those on the Patreon page).

So there you have it. There’s no magic job waiting for me. As Carl Edwards said in his retirement news conference: “There’s no life raft I’m jumping onto — I’m just jumping.”

I’ll be honest: This is the scariest thing I’ve ever done — I gave up a solid income, health insurance, travel budget, etc. — but it’s also the most exciting. I’m totally comfortable with the decision and it would be an absolute dream to make a living while remaining independent.

I don’t know if this will work, but I guess we’ll all find out at the same time!

If you’d like to learn more about how to keep me employed and watch a video I made about all this, please visit my Patreon page.