by Patrick Zier | Aug 3, 2025 |
The beer can came hurtling out of the stands as Bubba Wallace was about to start the final lap of his double overtime win in Sunday’s Brickyard 400, a reminder that, at its roots, NASCAR is still a southern sport and that old prejudices, while they are dying, die hard.
Wallace is NASCAR’s only Black driver at the Cup level. He doesn’t have it nearly as hard as Wendell Scott did when he became the first African-American to compete in NASCAR’s top series in the ’60s, but he is more outspoken, more visible and more competitive than Scott and so more of an irritant to the racist minority that still lingers on the fringes.
The most notable incident involving Wallace occurred at Talladega in 2020, when the pull rope on his garage door was found shaped like a noose. It caused a huge furor at the time, and in a strong show of support, all the NASCAR Cup drivers escorted Wallace’s car to its position on the grid before the start of the race.
It was later determined that the rope had been that way for more than a year, probably to make it more easy to grab when opening and closing the door, and that there was no way anyone could have known before hand what garage stall Wallace and this team would occupy.
Still, NASCAR had just banned the confederate flag from being flown at its events, and Wallace had been vocal about that.
“It’s sports, right?” Wallace commented after his Brickyard win according to NASCAR.com’s website. “You’re going to have people booing, people cheering. I had a guy call me a punk…It’s sports. Some different than others, but I definitely heard the cheers and I appreciated that.
“I know there’s a lot of Bubba Wallace fans out there and a lot of support,” Wallace continued. “They try to combat the naysayers and all of this stuff…It is what it is, but I do really appreciate the support.
“As a guy who used to struggle with the boos for sure, I’m just wondering why. Now I understand it’s just sports and people are going to have the drivers they like, the drivers they hate, the driver they want to see win, the drivers they want to see crash, and we just go out and compete.
“I will say I didn’t hear any noise (booing) today before the race. That was different. That was cool,” Wallace added.
Now in his eighth fulltime year in Cup, Wallace drives for Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin’s 23XI Toyota team. It has high profile owners and a working relationship with Joe Gibbs Racing, Toyota’s flagship Cup entry, and there is pressure to win, especially after Tyler Reddick came on board, and before he won the Brickyard, Wallace had gone 100 races without seeing a checkered flag.
Reddick, one of the top young talents in the sport, has eight cup victories including five for 23XI and has generally been much more competitive than Wallace in the new NextGen car, although both drivers and the team have struggled mightily this season.
“When I hired Bubba, and certainly when we first started out, I believed in his capability. Not necessarily the results he had shown, but I understood his potential,” Hamlin said according to NASCAR.com.
Still, Hamlin remarked, he wasn’t sure how badly Wallace wanted to succeed, how much effort the was willing to put out. “I think, when we started the second team with Kurt (Busch), that pushed him a little bit. Then when we brought in Tyler Reddick (who replaced Busch), that pushed him a little bit more,” Hamlin said.
“I think he understands that this is a performance-based business,” Hamlin went on. “Michael and I want to win. We’re not out here to see cars going around in circles.
“We put a lot of resources into doing that (winning),” Hamlin said. “He’s (Wallace) felt pressure. I think he’s felt pressure not only from me and Michael but everyone. You want to perform better than your teammates.
“We’re going to give you everything we can for you to go out there and compete,” Hamlin said. “I’m going to give you the same car I’ve got week in and week out, but it’s up to you to put in the work and up to you to want it, and then let your ability take over from there.”
It seems like, at least in Hamlin’s mind, Wallace hasn’t always fully understood that, and maybe getting married and becoming a father last year has been a wake-up call.
“Something happened mid last year where I saw a change in attitude that then changed his work ethic,” Hamlin said of Wallace. “What I’m hoping he takes from this (the Brickyard win) is that hard work pays off, it really does pay off. “Hopefully,” Hamlin added, “we see more of this.”
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Iowa: 1-Denny Hamlin, 2-Kyle Larson, 3-Christopher Bell. Last year’s winner at Iowa: Ryan Blaney. Top Five at Iowa last year: 1-Blaney, 2-William Byron, 3-Chase Elliott, 4-Bell, 5-Ricky Stenhouse.
Last week’s Old Guy Sport Indy picks: 1-Blaney, 2-Hamlin, 3-Chase Briscoe. Indy winner: Bubba Wallace. OGS record after 18 races: 9-8.
OGS competition index top 10 after 18 races: 1-Hamlin 470 points, 2-Larson 365, 3-Bell 286, 4-Briscoe 266, 5-Byron 237, 6-Shane van Gisbergen 224, 7-Blaney 217, 8-Wallace 149, 9-Elliott 147, 10-Ty Gibbs 122.
OGS competition index top 10 on short tracks (tracks most like Iowa): 1-Hamlin 211 points, 2-Larson 135, 3-Bell 110, 4-Briscoe 62, 5-Elliott 50, 6-Gibbs 40, 7-Alex Bowman 34, 8-Wallace 30, 9-Josh Berry 24, 10=Blaney 15.
by Patrick Zier | Jul 29, 2025 |
The most important team in college football right now is not Alabama. Or Ohio State. Or Georgia. Or any other major power you might want to name. The most important team in college football right now is a basketball blue blood, North Carolina.
And that has little to do with the fact that the Tar Heels, with the hiring of Bill Belichick, are also the most talked about team in the country, supplanting Deion Sanders and Colorado.
But if you’re looking ahead, trying to make your way into college football’s top tier like, say, South Florida, then your success will likely depend on what Carolina decides to do down the line. Because depending on Carolina’s decision, you could do everything right and still have it all go wrong.
Carolina holds the key. And if anything is going to happen it will likely be in 2030 when ACC teams will only have to pay $75 million to buy their way out of the league. If Carolina leaves, and there are already strong indications that it will, the ACC is likely to collapse.
Clemson, Florida State and Miami are almost certain to follow and if that happens, the ACC no longer exists as a Power Four conference and the Big Ten and SEC move further away from the rest of college football, leaving fewer options for schools like USF to improve their position.
Very few programs in the country; North Carolina and Notre Dame might be the only two, are guaranteed to bring more value to any conference they join then the money they take out, and that essentially determines whether or not you can be a power player.
And Notre Dame doesn’t figure in this because it’s not going to join a conference. As an independent, Notre Dame doesn’t have share revenue with anyone, can schedule who it wants and is a shoo-in for the College Football Playoff anytime it wins 10 or more games.
Meanwhile, North Carolina is the state’s leading university and located in a part of the country that doesn’t currently have a Big Ten or SEC entry, and the Big Ten or the SEC are the only conferences that represent a move up for the Tar Heels.
Of course North Carolina wouldn’t leave the ACC by itself. Almost certainly, Florida State, Clemson and Miami would go with it, gutting the conference and further separating the Big Ten and SEC from everybody else. But Clemson, Florida State and Miami aren’t as important as Carolina because the SEC already has a strong presence where they are located.
If the Big Ten were to take North Carolina and Miami, which seems to be the best fit for that conference and would stick a dagger into the SEC by putting a team in South Florida, and the SEC then grabs Clemson and FSU, you don’t have much left for schools like USF to aspire to.
The ACC would be little more than a glorified American and the Big 12, already diluted by the additions of Cincinnati, Central Florida and Houston, in particular the first two which are 4-25 against traditional Big 12 teams, would be desperately treading water in an effort to keep from falling back into the pack.
Looking at it realistically, there are no good options for USF getting out of the American. And that’s true even with a new stadium on the way and improved performance on the field.
According to The Athletic.com, Memphis, historically a stronger program then USF and one with almost unlimited financial resources, recently tried to buy its way into the Big 12.
Reportedly, Memphis officials told the Big 12 presidents it wouldn’t take any revenue from the conference for five years, would provide $200 million in sponsorship money to the league over the same period of time, and, if the Big 12 felt like Memphis was hurting its competitive image, the league could kick it out before its next television deal.
There was no risk to the Big 12 and still, the presidents said no. They felt Memphis would tarnish the league’s reputation.
The problem for USF, Memphis and any others who would like to get out and move up is that on a national scale, nobody cares about them. Nobody gets up on Saturday morning and says “Wow, I really want to watch that USF-Iowa State game.”
Even in Florida or Tennessee, solid SEC country, if the choice is between watching Florida or Tennessee play and a Big 12 game involving USF or Memphis, almost everybody will watch Florida and Tennessee.
So, you can build the best facilities in the country, which USF has said it wants to do, and you can field a team capable of competing with anybody, which USF has also said it wants to do, but unless you can get national recognition for what you’re doing, it doesn’t matter. And that’s a really hard sell.
by Patrick Zier | Jul 25, 2025 |
It was raining on Denny Hamlin’s parade at Dover last Sunday. Not that he cared. Hamlin is 44 years old, an age when most drivers have called it a career, and he is the best driver in the sport, bar none, and that really isn’t open to debate.
NASCAR’s point standings say otherwise. They have three of Rick Hendrick’s drivers, Chase Elliott, William Byron and Kyle Larson, ahead of Hamlin, but that just shows how absurd the NASCAR system is.
Ever since 2004, when NASCAR decided it had to be more like stick-and-ball sports to compete with them and introduced its own version of a playoff to determine its champion, it has been trying to drive that square peg into a round hole. But it will never work because NASCAR isn’t at all like stick-and-ball sports.
That, though, was the furthest thing from Hamlin’s mind as he found himself sitting out the Dover rain delay, waiting for the sun, or at least for the track to dry, to continue his pursuit of victory.
The rain delay offered an insight into why Hamlin is better at what he does than anybody else, why he is more competitive. Simply put, it’s because he embraces the moment, accepts and looks forward to each and every challenge that comes up during a race.
“I never thought that there was no hope we would go back racing,” Hamlin said according to NASCAR.com. “I do think you have two choices with your mentality; you either get out of the car, hope and pray this never goes back green, you just win the thing because of the weather, or you look at the radar, use your brain and say ‘We’re going back racing, so I better do everything I can to prepare for what happens when I do get back in the car.’
“I just kind of went back to the bus, changed, did a little bit of work and came back out here and I was prepared to get after it when we got back in the car,” Hamlin remarked. “The job’s not done ’til we get to lap 400 (the last lap). Today (Sunday) was an example of that.”
Nobody else in NASCAR thinks like that. The really good ones, like Larson, rely on their physical talent, or, like Elliott, they use their experience. But they drive primarily with their feet and not their head. Virtually every other driver in the sport sees an obstacle, the unexpected, as an impediment, something that will prevent them from achieving their goal.
Not Hamlin. “I just feel like when I’m tested, I’m going to give you a little more. When you doubt me, I’m going to give you a little more. Like, I just feel I thrive in game-time moments, finishing off races like this (Dover),” Hamlin said.
“When I think about it, when I go home, that’s going to be a pound-your-chest moment. They had three shots at me and they couldn’t do it. They had fresher tires and they couldn’t do it.
“It’s just very gratifying,” Hamlin continued. “I hype myself up in that process, while I’m in the game. I’m not out there thinking about how are we going to lose this, worrying about something happening.
“I’m sure there’s going to be another caution. We were going into turn three, about to take the white, there’s another caution,” he said. “I’m not thinking about ‘dang it, shoot, we’re going to end up blowing this race,’ I’m not,” Hamlin declared. “I’m waiting on who’s next, who’s next, who am I going to beat next?”
Hamlin’s approach is shaking up NASCAR’s upper echelon. His success on the track, the respect he commands within Joe Gibbs Racing, has made JGR, and not Hendrick, the new 500-pound gorilla in stock car racing.
This despite the NASCAR point standings which say otherwise. But if you put those aside, and really look at who’s competitive, JGR’s domination is inescapable.
The Old Guy Sport competition index does that. It’s emphasis on leading laps under green, finishing in the top five and winning races paints a very different picture.
If you look at the last five races on oval tracks, for example, Hendrick’s four drivers – Elliott, Larson, Byron and Alex Bowman – have accumulated 204 points using the OGS criteria as a measuring stick.
Contrast that with JGR. By himself, Hamlin has 202 points including two wins and four top fives. No Hendrick driver won any of these races and they only have six top fives between them.
When you add in Chase Briscoe, who also has a win plus two top fives and 150 total points; Ty Gibbs, with two top fives and 41 points and the struggling Christopher Bell, who has just eight, JGR drivers have combined for 401 points over the five race period. That’s nearly double Hendrick’s total.
It all comes back to Hamlin though, and what he’s doing. “NASCAR is an emotional game where you can really get caught up in stuff that doesn’t matter,” Hamlin explained on NASCAR.com.
“So I just try to look at it from a very straightforward point of view, a numbers point of view. Find out where I’m bad, analyze what I’m doing, analyze how the best drivers do it, then figure out how I can go faster like them and give that information to the team,” Hamlin said.
“It typically takes me a little bit longer to give the team that feedback because I like to analyze it, make sure it’s right, before I tell them,” Hamlin commented. “It’s about going through that process and how I do it.”
So, there’s really no question that his unique approach makes Hamlin the best driver out there. The only question is how long it will last.
NASCAR NOTES
Three most likely winners at Indy: 1-Dave Blaney, 2-Denny Hamlin, 3-Chase Briscoe. Last year’s winner at Indy: Kyle Larson. Top five at Indy last year: 1-Larson, 2-Tyler Reddick, 3-Blaney, 4-Christopher Bell, 5-Bubba Wallace.
Last week’s Old Guy Sport Dover picks: 1-Hamlin, 2-Briscoe, 3-Larson. Dover winner: Hamlin. OGS season record: 9-7.
OGS competition index top 10 after 17 races: 1-Hamlin 440 points, 2-Larson 322, 3-Bell 286, 4-Briscoe 257, 5-William Byron 237, 6-Shane van Gisbergen 224, 7-Blaney 214, 8-Chase Elliott 197, 9-Ty Gibbs 122, 10-Alex Bowman 117.
OGS competition index top 10 on intermediate tracks (tracks similar to Indy): 1-Hamlin 209 points, 2-Blaney 196, 3-Larson 186, Byron 186; 5-Briscoe 148, 6-Ross Chastain 102, 7-Joey Logano 79, 8-Bell 71, 9-Chris Buescher 64, 10-Bowman 63.
