Who Would You Start A NASCAR Team With?
Yes, Kyle you are.
Now to my newest FastMachines post:
I said a few weeks ago that I wanted to do a few posts that would encourage readers to chime in and share some opinions and thoughts other than “you’re a great writer, please sign my ample bosom” or “you suck, go back to your basement and stop bothering me with your inane rantings”. When I challenged readers the first time, I was very pleased with the responses, and I want to challenge you again to help me keep from looking like a total idiot, with a blank page of comments.
The item that I want your input on is for you to come up with your best four-driver team if money was not an issue, and you could put each of them into the best equipment possible. I put a little thought into it and here’s my four drivers, along with my fuzzy logic about why I picked them.
- Dale Earnhardt, Jr.-Yeah, that’s a shocker. Reasons for picking Junior to start a team are easy, just look into the crowd at all the Junior fans that line the racetrack like 80’s metal-heads at an Iron Maiden concert. Although I’m a Junior fan, my reasons for picking him to start a team would have more to do with his name, his marketing power, and his fan base than it would with his driving ability; because that’s just icing on the cake. Junior is NASCAR’s golden goose, anyone who thinks otherwise is just fooling themselves.
- Carl Edwards-I’ve completely flipped my opinion of Carl Edwards this season. I used to think that Edwards was just another faceless driver who did stupid back-flips to draw attention to himself, and who would fade out over time. I was wrong. Edwards can race like a bootlegger down Copperhead Road. He drives fast, he moves people out of the way when he needs to, and he has the intensity and desire to win that many drivers, quite frankly, do not have. Earnhardt would be the face of my team, but I think that Edwards would be the guy who would bring my team a championship. I could see Earnhardt and Edwards turning into the duo that Jeff Gordon and Jimmy Johnson have turned into over the last few years. Gordon got the press, Johnson got the titles. Not a bad way to divide the pie.
- Kasey Kahne-”But Rocky, you can’t stand Kasey Kahne, why would you pick him for your team?” One reason. Girls. And he can drive a little bit. Now, onto to my final and probably my most arguable/ripe for criticism pick.
- Juan Pablo Montoya-I like Montoya a lot as a driver. Once he gets on a team that doesn’t play musical chairs with his crew chiefs and that can put him into a decent car on round tracks as well as squiggly ones; he’ll do some damage. Add to his racing ability the fact that Montoya brings some international coverage to the table, and he’s a great pick to be the team’s up-and-coming driver. Plus, I like the fact that it seems like Montoya might actually chase someone down and try to beat the daylights out of them (am I the only one that thought if that if Marcos Ambrose hadn’t wrecked before Montoya got to him at Sonoma, that he was going to get a helping hand into the wall), and that loose cannon aspect of Montoya’s really appeals to me. Every team needs an enforcer, and J.P. could flourish in that role. Plus, he has two first names, and that appeals to the old-school in me.
So that’s my team. Honorable mention to Warren Wallace. I know, there was no Kyle Busch, no Jeff Gordon, no Tony Stewart. Why? Because it’s my team that’s why. Now I want to hear from you. Who would you want to start a team with? You can be cheap and pick the top four in the points, you can just go with the biggest names, or you can be silly and pick the four drivers that you’d like to have on your team so you could go out drinking with them after the races. Be serious or be silly, but put some thought into. If you were a heavy-hitter like a Hendrick or a Gibbs; who would you want if you could just make the contracts disappear and start from scratch?
Have fun with it, and enjoy the races this weekend.