BRO RATINGS: Budweiser Shootout

BRO RATINGS: Budweiser Shootout

By Uncle Clark

The pavement is even. The banking is uniform. The paint is fresh. With the quality of Daytona Motor Speedway’s new racing surface even a Mack Truck could turn a fast corner.

Saturday’s Budweiser Shootout (FOX, 8 P.M.) is our first look at the 2011 season. This isn’t your typical race. This is the concentrated version of the best of NASCAR. It’s the racing equivalent of those frozen orange juice canisters a cheap mother would buy. Except in this case we add race fuel.  I’d be down to try that mix:

Here is why you will watch Saturday’s race:

1.       The FedEx Cup of Racing: This is an invitation-only event. Only drivers who raced in last year’s Chase, are former series champions or have won at Daytona are allowed in the clubhouse. You will see trademark names battling against each other in one of the fastest venues in the circuit.

2.       Straight Cash, Homey. The Average Purse of the Budweiser Shootout: $1,148,414. If you win this, fishing gets real affordable.

3.        0% Financing on Cars: Most of the teams have a car designated to race exclusively in the Shootout. They build the machine to be fast, they build it to win and they do not care if it comes back to the shop or leaves on a wrecker. You’re there to win.

4.       Quick and Dirty: The race is only 75 laps broken into two segments (25 and 50). There is a 10-minute session in-between segments for car adjustments. The last 50 laps promises to be some of the most exciting in Daytona’s recent history. The new pavement is sticky and will allow cars to race on all areas of the track. The result: Three- and four-wide racing comes standard.

5.       Racing Under the Lights: It’s like your paycheck…Everything goes faster at night.

BRO RATINGS:

A few weeks ago, NASCAR opened up Daytona for a weekend’s worth of testing so drivers and their teams could establish a direction with their racing setups. BroNameth Sports analyzed the statistics for each of the 5 testing sessions and developed an equation (mainly addition) to establish their BRO RATING. Here is how the drivers stack:

BRO RATINGS: The Budweiser Shootout

1.       Joey Logano #20: First of all, I do not like this guy. I am not sure if he switches dugouts and he has a better job than I do.  But he tore up the Nationwide Series and posted ridiculous numbers at testing. He finished in the top-10 in four of the five testing sessions, a statistic only Jeff Gordon could match. But even Gordon couldn’t hold a candle to Logano’s average speed of 191.583 MPH. Gordon’s average: 186.745 MPH. This kid can roll.

2.       Denny Hamlin #11: Consistency pays. Denny saw his lack of it lead to another Jimmy Johnson championship last year. Judging by his numbers at testing, he may have turned the corner. He finished second in Average Speed at 191.54 MPH to his teammate Logano. He posted a top speed of 197.737 MPH, which fell short to Brad Keselowski’s and Kurt Busch’s final segment speeds of 198.605 MPH and 198.579 MPH, respectively. Here’s the good news for Denny: The only reason Brad hit that pace was because his teammate Kurt was pushing him. Brad isn’t racing in the Shootout and Kurt – the only remaining Dodge – will have no help in the draft.

3.       Kyle Busch #18: The guy is good. He has matured over the last few seasons to cool his temper, but this race is built for his kind of attitude. He matched the top speed of his teammate, Denny Hamlin in testing at 197.737 MPH and posted a respectable average speed. You can be sure that Logano, Hamlin and Busch – all Joe Gibbs Racing teammates – will push each other to the front.

4.       Tony Stewart #14: Finally a driver not racing a Toyota comes into our BRO RANKINGS. Tony finished 6^th in the Average Speed category at testing. He did this without participating in the final session where Top Speeds were posted by almost every team. What does this mean: The 14 Car had all the information they needed. Tony went trolling for track women while his engineers collaborated with those at Hendrick Motorsports. They’ll be ready and Stewart will have plenty of Chevrolets to help push him to the front.

5.       Kasey Kahne #4: Your boy. Finished fourth in Average Speed at 189.902 MPH and with a Top Speed of 197.659 MPH. If you look at the numbers exclusively, he should be ahead of Tony Stewart in the BRO RATINGS. The problem: Like Kurt Busch, his drafting help in Brian Vickers will be riding the pine on Saturday. Although he too will be racing a Toyota, the engineering departments of Red Bull take a back seat to the reputation of Joe Gibbs Racing. Kahne put out some strong numbers and showed consistency at testing. His team will have to do the same.

HONORABROS:

-          Jimmy Johnson #48 – Don’t want to talk about it…He’ll be around and Chad Knauss will be arrogant.

-          Jeff Gordon #24 – (BroNameth Reader Nick Ball’s Driver) -  He and BRO RATINGS leader Joey Logano were the only drivers to post four top-10 finishes in the five testing sessions. His Top Speed is impressive. His Average Speed - meeehhhhhh.

-          Carl Edwards #99 – Because he’s dangerous

-          Kevin Harvick #29 – His new Budweiser car is top quality. And because she says so (Muh. Hum. Eh. Duh. Times 3):




UPCOMING TOPICS:

- Proper Rebel Yells

- Beer Opening Tricks

- Daytona 500 Preview

Happy Crappy Monday Morning……Volume 15.0

Happy Crappy Monday Morning……Volume 15.0

By: J-Shannon

First, let me start this article off with a special request for all of the Bro Nameth Supporters. Please be respectful, and have your own personal moment of silence, being that the football season has come to an end, and we will have to wait until September for the next kickoff…………….. Now that we have that out of the way, it is time for a solid does of the Happy Crappy Monday Morning. Enjoy everyone…..

1. Super Bowl Sunday RECAP….

What a game. The NFL yet again builds this game up to the highest of mountains, and it again lives up to the hype. Yes, the Super Bowl was as competitive as it gets. Drenched in storylines, the Super Bowl had everything from the underdog injury stricken team, to the controversial Quarterback who missed the first four games of the season because of an accused sexual assault charge. In the end, the Packer’s bring the Lombardi Trophy back home where it belongs. I have to give a lot of credit to the Pack, they fought through having 15 key players on the IR list all season, and lost their starting WR and Defensive leader during the game……

2. Christina Aguilerra…

OK. You’re a 5 time Grammy award winner, your singing the National Anthem in the freaking SUPER BOWL, and you forget the words? I spit out half my ‘Merican when I heard it. Not only that but you probably cost folks upwards of a few million who had the Anthem to go over 1:54 seconds. You missed an entire line of the song!! I thought you were a genie in a bottle? One of my wishes would be for you to know the words.

3. Aaron Rodgers…

How good is this guy? He threw for over 300 yards and had AT LEAST 4 huge drops. He hit James Jones in stride for what probably would have been a long td pass but Jones dropped it. He hit Jordy Nelson twice in the chest, both were dropped. He hit Swain in the chest…dropped. The dude was on point for all but maybe 2 throws. He has an absolute CANNON for an arm. It looks effortless YET the ball explodes off his hand. Not bad for a guy who didn’t get one DIVISION 1 scholarship offer huh? If you don’t know the story of Rodgers you should read it. He went JUCO because his best offer was to be a walk on at Illinois. While at Junior College, Jeff Tedford was at a game recruiting a TE and thought Rodgers was pretty good. Worked out pretty well for both Tedford and Rodgers.

4. Oh you HAVE a Ticket to the Super Bowl, Tough Shit……

So picture this: Your favorite NFL team makes the Super Bowl. You then decided to spend the money that is needed to go see your team hopefully bring home the hardware: Plane tickets, food, hotel, and game tickets. Now Super Bowl tickets aren’t cheap at all. At minimum, you have to pay a couple of grand each. How would you react if you tailgated all pregame, were stoked for kickoff, walked up to the gate, and the ticket taker told you your tickets were now invalid? Well, that is exactly what happened to just about 1000 Super Bowl ticket holders. It turns out, the Fire Marshall in Dallas decided that just about 1000 temporary seats in Dallas were fire hazards, and as a result, were not allowed to be used during the game. Now is it just me, or did the NFL and the Cowboys drop the ball on this? Wouldn’t you think they would have the seats checked out by the Fire Marshall before they decided to sell them to the public? I’ll just put it this way, if I bought these tickets, I can promise you the NFL would be hearing from me or my lawyers……

5. HALFTIME “Show”

I applaud the NFL for having a relevant band do the show. I also address one of the singers a little later but for the most part the show was awful. Usher coming down was about as cool as a socks and sandals combo. He danced around for a minute and sang a few words. I will say this is an upgrade over the last few years but all in all was still pretty lame. Someone might have wanted to tell Fergie she wasn’t singing loud enough. Oh Wait never mind she was screaming the whole time.

6.  Photo of the Week:

This pretty much sums up the night, Congrats Packers……

7. Kim Kardashian = False Advertisement…….

Kim Kardashian….. Damn. In what was an overall disappointing night for commercials, Kim looked amazing as usual in her workout gear. But really, Sketchers? Sketchers is going to try and take credit for the sculpting of that masterpiece of an ass? I’m not saying that Sketchers Step-Up shoes don’t tone your body at all, I’m just saying the only time Kim Kardashian put on Sketchers was for that commercial……

8. Here it is, my favorite Super Bowl Commercial of the night…..

9.“One-Liners” of the Week…..

·         Ke$ha tweeted “Butt Cleavage is the new black”. Thank you Ke$ha, you continue to leave your stamp on the world.

·         Bon Jovi reportedly in talks to buy 15% of the Falcons for 150 million.      

·          If you haven’t seen this yet Blake Griffin is asking for dunk ideas (http://www.youtube.com/espn). I have an idea for him but I am white and cant jump. I will see if I can send him a video.

10. THE TOP 10 in the TOP 10….

THE TOP 10 Things I think that need to be pointed out after a solid Super Bowl……

1.       Aaron Rodgers- The man is a star. He is worth mentioning again because he is that good. If I had to pick a quarterback to start a team around in the league, Rodgers would only be behind Tom Brady in my book. The guy threw for over 300 yards in the Super Bowl, and actually should have thrown for more than that, but his receivers couldn’t hold on to the ball…….

2.       Fergie=Bad- So I applaud the NFL for finally giving a halftime show to an artist or group that has been relevant in the past 20 years. The special effects were good, the light show was pretty impressive, and the special guests during the performance were legit. All I’m going to say it is a good thing Fergie is hot, because she sounded terrible…..

3.       Never Give Up- I’ll tell you like this, the Packers won the game with the same attitude and determination they have played with all year. The entire season they have had to fight through injuries. They ended the season with 15 players on IR, including the Pro Bowl RB and TE. In the first quarter of Last night’s Super Bowl, they also lost their Defensive leader, and their #1 WR. It didn’t matter. The Packers would put in back up players, and keep rolling with the same precision they played with all season…..

4.       Commercials- They sucked ass this season, enough said…..

5.       Football is over- Don’t get me wrong March Madness is coming but their nothing like popping ‘Mericans and yelling because some 19 year old kid can’t catch. Absolutely nothing beats football! And now it’s over.

6.        Battle of the Hair- Troy Polamalu was basically nonexistent and Clay Matthews made the big hit that swing the momentum back onto the side of Green Bay. At that point of the game the Steelers had all the momentum but here comes Pantene Pro V to deliver a big blow jarring the ball loose.

7.       Feeling better about the Falcons loss- I normally don’t do this but it does make me feel better that the team that knocked us out of the playoffs ended up winning it all. The Falcons are close, but need a playmaker or 2 on defense.

8.       NFL Draft- Before you know it the combine will be here and roughly 45k mock drafts will be available online. The poking and prodding NFL teams do is absurd. I heard a story that supposedly one of the deciding factors on the Colts selecting Peyton manning over Ryan leaf was their response to a question they were asked. They were asked what they would do with their signing bonus check. Peyton said he was going to put it in the bank and start to learn the playbook right away. Leaf said he was going to take his boys for a Vegas trip. Now, I know this sounds crazy to make a decision based on that answer and I am sure other factors came into play (obviously) but looking back now you can understand why they asked that.

9.       Brett Favre- This offseason should be a lot less “Diva” like since dong gate already filed his papers. Oh and Jen Sterger is going to be in PLAYBOY this month.

10.   Did I mention Jenn Sterger is going to be in PLAYBOY this month?

As always, it has been a pleasure. Leave me your thoughts and comments on the facebook post…. See you all Friday morning Suckazzzzzz.