- 03:23 AM
- 12/04/24
There was a popular movement a few years back to have Denis Martinez come back and run for president of Nicaragua. El Presidente, indeed.
posted by Space Coyote at 07:49 PM on March 18, 2004
Dear Tonya, You have a fat ass, and you came in 8th. That is all.
posted by Space Coyote at 07:35 PM on January 11, 2004
Yuck. Not that I was a fan of NASCAR in any way before, but this is just head-achingly stupid. I think they should go to a proper points system where winning is more valued than coming in in the top 15 consistently.
posted by Space Coyote at 11:36 PM on January 09, 2004
Meanwhile Williams has a real problem if they expect to have to coax a world championship performance out of either of their drivers this year. JPM won't be supported well enough, and Ralf (IMO) just doesn't have it in him. Kimi very nearly did it in 2003 in a year-old car, so he'll be the one to watch this year for sure.
posted by Space Coyote at 10:07 PM on December 30, 2003
Roy would have mopped the floor with Fuhr's cocaine-addled arse. That's why they didn't invite him. On another note, they got over a million ticket requests for this game, which means they could have filled Inianapolis Motor Speedway three times over. Don't tell me there's no money in hockey in Canada.
posted by Space Coyote at 02:45 AM on November 24, 2003
This is sure to get soccer accepted into mainstream american life ;)
posted by Space Coyote at 02:43 PM on October 26, 2003
Well, the Marlins were the one team that could have made a Yankees fan out of me, and then end up being the winners. How appropriate. I still say Jeffrey Loria should be strung up alongside Bud Selig, though.
posted by Space Coyote at 09:37 AM on October 26, 2003
I'm a bit late to this thread, but I have a few thoughts. First, this weekend in Australia Mario Andretti was overheard talking to Dario Franchitti (former CART driver, now in IRL, but presumably looking for a ChampCar ride next year if he's travelling all this way). Mario was talking about the fundamental design flaws of IRL cars which cause them to become airborne so easily, and he also said that you couldn't pay him any amount of money to get into one of those again. I'm not pleased with IMS in how they handled the accident. After it happened they scrambled to repair the fence and take away any sign that there was an accident there, thus hindering any kind of investigation into the matter. They are more concerned with their image than they are finding what's wrong with their cars and drivers' safety. When I see a coverup like this it just makes my stomach turn. CART had a race in Germany at the Lausitzring this year with a field half full of rookies and not a single accident. What is the difference? They certainly weren't lacking close racing that day, anyone who watched the race could tell you that. I think it's partly that the mandated wing angles of the IRL cars make them too easy to drive. Juan Montoya said that his grandmother could drive one of those cars after he won the Indy 500. This would make the drivers less fearful and less alert when in the middle of a long race where they don't ahve to do anything but turn left now and then. I've also seen way too many drivers take huge risks in cutting off other drivers and trying to bump them into a spin. Open wheel oval racing is simply not the place for that kind of thing. As such, I don't think a series should base its entire schedule on oval racing, it's simply too dangerous, doubly so if the drivers get complacent about the risks involved, which they seem to be. Robin Miller in a recent column pointed out that there have been 86 IRL races and a total of 76 drivers hospitalized in that time. By any standard that's far too many, and there's no way you can justify it by saying 'motorsports is dangerous'. There's something fundamentally wrong with the IRL and they don't seem to want to ask themselves why. They're too busy fixing the hole in the fence and going on with their banquet this weekend like nothing happened.
posted by Space Coyote at 09:13 PM on October 25, 2003
You know what really caused the Cubs' downfall? Bernie Mac, when singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame", said "champs" instead of "home team" or "Cubbies" during the 7th inning stretch. You just don't tempt fate like that.
posted by Space Coyote at 11:10 AM on October 15, 2003
The Canadian women beating Japan yesterday was the top story in all the sports broadcasts this morning. So long as they're winning :)
posted by Space Coyote at 08:15 AM on September 28, 2003
So the Cleveland Plain Dealer is the last newspaper on earth with a sports section I take it? Making it impossible for him to get a job somewhere else? Sorry, discrimination against women was (and arguably is) the norm, this just sounds dumb. Perhaps if no other paper will hire him either than maybe the reason why the PD won't hire him mightjust be that he's not as good as he thinks, conspiracy or no.
posted by Space Coyote at 10:43 PM on September 09, 2003
They were too nice to Olympic Stadium.
posted by Space Coyote at 05:08 PM on September 09, 2003
I can just picture catchers and baserunners taking up martial arts to try and stay a step ahead of each other physically. Base Wars here we come. :)
posted by Space Coyote at 02:58 PM on September 04, 2003
Somehow the facing-up coyote head is less fiersome than say the sharks logo. Kind of seems like you're looking down on it, like an annoying little dog.
posted by Space Coyote at 09:33 AM on September 04, 2003
(yes smoking is bad and we should ridicule and emonize smokers until they all drop dead like we want, but this isn't going to be much of a help.)
posted by Space Coyote at 11:15 PM on August 07, 2003
therev: you don't seriously believe the dangers of second hand smoke are worth getting that worked up over, do you? Do you live in a city with any kind of traffic? Congratulations, you're getting hurt much more by than that by someone lighting up near you, especially given that you can't smoke inside without a fume hood these days.
posted by Space Coyote at 11:14 PM on August 07, 2003
SC: If only one person in the entire world does not start smoking because s/he missed an advert, then the ban is worthwhile. That 'if only one' reasoning always makes me cringe. So since that one kid got clocked with the hockey puck we should ban hockey too I suppose. The economic impact to the city of Montreal, and the resulting taxes that are collected could easily make up for any health costs caused by people who may choose to start smoking because of some logo. This isn't hurting the tobacco companies, they'll come up with some other way to advertize, it's just going to hurt the host cities. Hopefully when the EU brings in their tobacco ban things will be a little more sane, but as it stands this is just stupid.
posted by Space Coyote at 08:39 PM on August 07, 2003
Racing back to the yellow in NAPCAR is pretty scary, and I'm surprised it hasn't caused more disasters itself. But at least you know for sure what positions the cars should be in, unlike the farce that ended the 2002 Indy 500 where a yellow was supposedly in effect before anyone actually saw any yellow lights come on, making Paul Tracy's pass on Helio Castroneves invalid. Tracy most definitely should have won that race. One things for sure, there are no gentlemen in that racing 'leage' to be found.
posted by Space Coyote at 05:44 AM on July 24, 2003
Meanwhile this was the best race I've seen in years. The way Rubens fought back to the win was what F1 needs more of. This guy on the other hand is not.
posted by Space Coyote at 12:43 AM on July 21, 2003
Lilly also sponsors Sebastien Bourdais' Newman/Haas in the CART Champ Car World Series.
posted by Space Coyote at 04:55 AM on July 18, 2003
Jimmy Spencer. I think he bursts all notion of race car drivers as athletes. Thankfully NASCAR drivers don't count as race drivers. As for my vote, I always loved watching Mel Rojas use his gut as a centre of gravity when pitching.
posted by Space Coyote at 11:43 PM on July 14, 2003
For a few chuckles look at Maine. I think their biggest acheivement is that a boxing match took place there once.
posted by Space Coyote at 10:22 PM on July 11, 2003
In one corner was Russia's Dzhambulat Khotokhov. At 123 pounds and 3 feet 11 inches, he is the world's largest 4-year-old, according to match organizers. Obviously the Jenny Jones Show hasn't made its way to Tblisi yet. 123 lbs is nothin'.
posted by Space Coyote at 08:52 PM on July 09, 2003
Having several times served as the little guy who destroys the competition in gluttony contests I have to say the look on those 250+pounder faces when you're still going after they've had enough is priceless. 72 chicken wings in one hour, and another time 13 mcdonalds hamburgers. Never again.
posted by Space Coyote at 10:52 AM on July 05, 2003
I was just about to post this myself. Very sad since he's from my home province. Nice that he was able to squeeze in getting into the hockey hall of fame and the order of Canada (the highest civilian honour Canada gives) in the last year. Timely to say the least.
posted by Space Coyote at 02:10 PM on June 21, 2003
I'm a little surprised that the high-brow folks at sportsfilter would be engaging in NASCAR-bashing. Not that it doesn't deserve it, but still. My take is that I'm very surprised it didn't go to a bigger, more consumer-fucussed company like Coca-cola corp. It looks to me like it's the beginning of the end for NASCAR's growth bubble. I'm sure NexTel won't be paying nearly as much as RJR was. Also taking races out of the south and moving them to places like California Speedway, plus rumours of Toyota running cup teams in '05 would really stick in the craw of NASCAR's core fans. Hope they know what they're doing. Actually I don't, since NASCAR has been eating open-wheel's mindshare over the last few years and anything to curtail its dominance might give CART some breathing room. (the IRL on the other hand can go die in a corner, the sooner the better)
posted by Space Coyote at 09:12 PM on June 17, 2003
If he don't behave himself he could always be put in the hall of fame as an Expo ;)
posted by Space Coyote at 10:21 AM on June 07, 2003
Not so much the overtime goal, I think the turning point was scoring the first goal of the series against the Devils. Holding them to a tie into overtime showed that they can fight, the overtime could have gone either way, and more often than not it's just a coin-toss by that time.
posted by Space Coyote at 08:57 AM on June 02, 2003
Well, he did his laps, and the crowd were nuts. And his time would have landed him 5th on the grid for the race itself. Absolutely amazing.
posted by Space Coyote at 12:36 PM on May 11, 2003
Since you're much more likely to get killed on teh way to the game in a car accident than at the game itself by a baseball I'd say it's much ado about notihng.
posted by Space Coyote at 11:41 AM on May 10, 2003
I'd get a TiVo to tpae an entire weekend of Speed Channel and then play it back a bit at a time during the week while they do their NASCAR shilling all week long.
posted by Space Coyote at 07:27 PM on May 07, 2003
Mario on the subject of the quality of the drivers in the IRL: "I wouldn't let most of those guys drive my Ferrari to the drugstore." Looks like he should have listened to his own words.
posted by Space Coyote at 03:12 AM on April 24, 2003
The last minute of a basketblal game would be more exciting if it didn't take 10 minutes to play. All the stopping and starting is counter to what makes it a fun game to watch.
posted by Space Coyote at 01:04 PM on April 22, 2003
Most of the reasons the NBA playoffs are better just sound like more arguments in favour of the NHL playoffs...
posted by Space Coyote at 10:40 PM on April 21, 2003
Back to normal for Ferrari and Michael it would seem. Or more than normal, since Michael would be just about the only athlete I can think of who could still perform at near-perfection after sometihng like that.
posted by Space Coyote at 09:48 AM on April 20, 2003
If he damaged a protected computer system then it obviously wasn't.
posted by Space Coyote at 09:04 PM on April 17, 2003
As for Paul Tracy's CART victory I'd like to point out that the reason why he could be doing so much better this year is that CART changed the weight rule so that drivers are weighed with the car now, whereas last year the car's minimum weight didn't include the driver. So a guy like 105 lbs Christiano Da Matta had a distinct advantage over the 200lbs+ tracy, possibly working out to be over a second a lap. This could finally be Paul's year. Having a team that's behind him 100% can't hurt too much, either.
posted by Space Coyote at 12:10 PM on April 14, 2003
I just want to see the Oilers get past Dallas just _once_. I don't care if they get put out in the second round. This has gone on long enough.
posted by Space Coyote at 05:15 PM on April 12, 2003
The interesting bit is that had Fisi not crossed the line at the last minute, then the race would not have been 75% complete, and thus only half points should be rewarded under FIA rules. So it works out well for both Fisi and McLaren if Fisi is ruled the winner.
posted by Space Coyote at 03:56 PM on April 09, 2003
I haven't been able to find a good explanation for such a rule, but my guess is that it's from the days before computerized scoring when it would have been harder to immediately judge the order of a race just a lap before it was called. In the end it's a shame for Fisi, who seems to have given up on ever driving for the Ferrari team, but everybody who watched the race knew who the winner was. Oh, and that Michael Schumacher guy everybody says is making the sport so dull? He crashed out on the wet track.
posted by Space Coyote at 07:05 PM on April 06, 2003
Big changes ahead for Formula 1.
I'm torn on these changes. One one side is the perceived sexiness of F1 as the place where you go to prove you can build the best car in the world to go racing in. On the other hand is the desire to actually see drivers do more just act as operators flying around single-file. I want to see someone lock the brakes going into a turn and lose a position now and then. (Traction control really sucks, and when CART got rid of it last year you could see a dramatic change in how the cars went around the track, being able to spot individual drivers' styles even better) What the end product will look like is a lot like what CART Champ Cars have become, but since I'm already a Champ Car fan I don't really need to see that. It's all moot anyway since the auto makers won't ever let it happen. Hell, look at the way Honda and Toyota came in and ruined the IRL (insert polish a turd statement here) by throwing money trying to out-do each other. In the end the biggest joke of a racing series in the US suddenly become the biggest joke of a horrendously expensive and unexciting racing series. If the FIA gets more control over racing from the manufacturers it will almost certainly be a good thing bad thing for the sport. But I don't consider it likely.