Open wheel action

Highlights of a Saturday at Richmond International Raceway:

• The fact that the track is the opposite of every football stadium I’ve been to. Tailgating is allowed just like anywhere, but the folks at RIR encourage you to take the tailgater with you wherever you go – through the parking lots, at the sponsors’ exhibits, and into the seats too! It was like a big block party, with everyone carrying their beers everywhere. And with no deadline to stop drinking, I could pace myself and have a nice continuous buzz throughout the day.
  
• Access to the infield and pit road. With our press passes, we could go anywhere in the infield before the race. At one point we were following a crew pushing one of the cars from the garage to the trailer, just because we had the opportunity to be two feet away from an actual Indy car. We walked up and down pit road about 45 minutes before the race and checked out all the crews setting up their pits and getting the cars ready. And of course, our tailgater was easy to set up since we only had to worry about a cooler of beer – the media room provided us with all the food and water we wanted all day long.
  
• Indy racing can’t hold a candle to Nascar in Richmond. About 45,000 people came to the 107,000-capacity track for this race. Not only did the quantity of people make it easier to move around, but the quality of spectator was quite inoffensive – the redneck element was gone but not missed from this race.
  
• A ¾ mile track is superior to a 2.5 mile track for the spectators. We sat about 30 rows up in turn 1 for the race and could see every inch of the track, with especially good views of pit road and the start/finish line. We could see every pass, every maneuver, and all the wrecks (such as they were – just a couple of tire blowouts, no multiple-car pileups). I may even have to amend my previous remark about racing being better on TV.
  
• There’s no united front. One of the best things about going to a football game is everyone’s rooting for either one team or the other. It makes for a great atmosphere before the game, during the game, and (if you win) after the game. Since the race fans – of those that even root for a particular driver -- are divided amongst the 19 drivers, there is much less of a rah-rah atmosphere in the stands. Everyone cheers at the beginning, then again at the end, but even when a driver wipes out or gets passed, there’s really no huge reaction from the crowd. Though I’m sure there’s a little more excitement during a Nascar race, I’d still say that no car race can even come close to matching the experience of a big college football game.
  
• Racing is what you make it. I was minimally familiar with the Indy car series and about half of its drivers before Saturday. (I am equally familiar with them now, after attending the race.) I made it a point to take in as much as possible and just have a good time. And you know what? I did. Sure, the infield pass made it a lot cooler, but just being at the track, tailgating with friends, and seeing the race was a really fun experience that I enjoyed a lot. I’ve done RIR on training wheels – now bring on Nascar this fall!

Danica and me

Even though I grew up in Indiana, home to the greatest spectacle in racing, I never had much of an interest in attending a car race. It always seemed like a sport that translates better to TV, especially if you have a bad seat at the track. Plus you get to see replays of all the crashes. Nonetheless, with the Indy cars racing in Richmond tomorrow, I got press passes for the weekend. Yesterday Chris and I made an appearance at Media Day, which really was a day. There was testing and press conferences in the early morning and later in the evening, but when we were there at noontime there were a couple of cars taking a couple of practice laps, and that was about it. We walked by the garages, where the crews were working on the cars, but we couldn't get too close to them and it wasn't much to see anyway. So we decided to get out of there and were walking past the trailers to our car when walking around the corner came one Danica Patrick. She was all alone, no entourage or security detail, dressed casually in a white t-shirt and shorts. We said hi to her, chatted for a minute, and mentioned that during the downtime of Thursday afternoon she was just hanging out, but come Saturday we'd never be able to find her. "That's the way it is," she said, as she got on her bike and rode off across the infield. Of course, we didn't have a pen or a camera to in any way document the occasion, but it was still a cool moment, especially because even in the short time Danica was in my presence, it was evident that she wanted me.

Bandits say goodbye to AIFL

The Bandits' reign as AIFL champions is over, because the league and some other teams' owners used a relatively minor circumstance to put the team in a literal no-win situation. You'll probably never get two people to agree on any of the facts, but as best I can tell, here's what happened. Teams are supposed to exchange game film of their respective previous games the week before they play each other, and furthermore are supposed to send the tape the day after the game. Earlier this year, the Bandits didn't even receive the tape from the Rebels before the two teams played. After the Bandits' last game against the Vipers, knowing that they would play the Rebels next, the Bandits held on to their tape for a couple days in retribution. They did send the tape in the middle of last week, but again didn't even receive the Rebels' tape until the morning of the game! With this not being the first time that happened -- and having received no support from the league when complaining about it before -- the Bandits focused on actually preparing for a football game rather than bitching about the tape. The Rebels had different priorities.

Sometime late Monday morning, the Rebels' front office contacted the league, which in turn called the Bandits to inform them that they would have to pay a fine of (pulling a number out of thin air...) $3000 -- before kickoff that evening. Momentarily looking past the exorbitant amount of the fine, the Bandits mentioned that the Rebels were even later with their tape and should be fined too. The league said, in almost as many words, "I don't believe you. I make the decisions; you owe the fine and they don't." The Bandits knew they were being set up and chose to make a stand, declined to pay the fine, and accepted having to forfeit the playoff game to the Rebels.

It's no secret that the league has had its problems and at any given moment is in some degree of financial trouble. Yet the Bandits have always been a model franchise, paying their players on time, paying their rent to the Coliseum, paying the referees as they were supposed to, and still running a tight ship on game days and treating everyone with respect. The financial troubles of other teams is well documented, and the on- and off-field behavior of other organizations, while varying widely, often paled in comparison to the treatment they got when they came to Richmond. Clearly the league thought they could bully the Bandits into paying this trumped up fine (and $3000 worth of their own unpaid bills).

But the true motivation came from even deeper seated motives. Whether or not the league was out to get the Bandits, and if so to what extent, doesn't matter when you consider the vested interest the league has in some of its teams at the expense of others. The league owned, among other teams, the Rebels themselves, until earlier this season when they were sold to the same people who own the Renegades -- the only team to beat the Bandits this year and the team that had the most to lose if the Bandits continued in the playoffs. So it was equally the Renegades ownership that complained about the game tapes, had the ear of the league, and pushed for draconian punishment.

I've written and talked at length about the crap the AIFL has pulled in the past, and it's clear enough that they are not about fairness in any sense of the word. They put out a press release about this situation that I'm not even going to link because it's so full of spin and BS and half-truths. I will link to a Times-Dispatch article that furthers my belief that the Bandits are not wholly in the right either. It is admirable to an extent that they did take a stand against the league and forfeit on principle, but you have to consider the fans and the players, who would have played for free just for the chance to go out there and compete for a championship. The regular season would have been a much better setting for the moral high ground. Yet even in the regular season, and the biggest problem I have with this decision, the league would not have gotten the message. They don't understand principles and equality. You can't teach a lesson to someone who won't learn. Unfortunately, the losers in this case are the fans, the players and staff who put in so much time for the love of the game, and those who thought that by doing the right thing, we would avoid the underhandedness of the AIFL.

Make it last all night

I spent Tuesday in Norfolk setting up new broadcast software in our station there. I went down there Monday afternoon so I could get started first thing in the morning, so before I left I checked the internet for anything interesting going on in Norfolk on a Monday night. Expecting none, I would have been happy to find a good place to have dinner and maybe watch the game, so I was very excited when I learned that Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers would be playing that very night in Portsmouth! I thought, well, my evening’s planned, and headed down 64.

The Harbor Center website said that the show was still not sold out that afternoon, so I liked my chances of getting a cheap ticket in a buyer’s market. I became even more confident during dinner at Paddy O’Brian’s when I overheard some guy ask the bartender if she’d heard of anyone asking about tickets, because he just wanted to get rid of his extra at face value. I smiled to myself, now fully intending to pay a fraction of face value outside the pavilion. The bar was packed when I got there, but right around 8:00 it was as if someone had set off an alarm, the place cleared out so fast. Still playing it cool, I leisurely finished my dinner and waited for showtime to get even closer, all the while admiring my own sense of timing.

Sure enough, by the time I walked to the pavilion the place was pretty full but there were plenty of people still on their way in. Not many of them had extra tickets, and one lady said she had an extra while practically running to the gates, and when I asked here where it was, she yelled over her shoulder “Lawn” as she went through the turnstile. Must not have been too eager to get a few bucks for it. Eventually a guy heard me asking for tickets and came up to me with an extra. Just as he was starting to say something, this really hot girl who couldn’t have been more than 20 came up and asked me if I was looking for an extra ticket. At first I thought she was his shill and was going to get into a fake bidding war with me, but I still humored her and answered, yes I am. Then she started telling me a story about the time she went to a show without a ticket and needed one desperately, and found someone who gave her a ticket for free. All this happened with my potential seller standing right there, so I turned her into my shill, and set her up with questions like “So you really wanted to go to this show pretty badly, huh?” and “Wasn’t it great to find such a kind soul to give you his extra ticket?” After that performance, this poor guy knew it was all over. I didn’t want to just take his ticket for nothing – the chick was hot enough to get away with that but I’m surely not – but we did settle on $30 for a pavilion seat in the Gold Circle. My excellent timing continued as I found my seat just a couple of minutes before the girlfriends and groupies were escorted to the wings of the stage, a sure sign that the band will be out any minute.

Tom Petty has always been on my list of groups I want to see before I (or, more likely, they) die. He certainly didn’t disappoint, playing about a dozen hits with just a couple of new songs and covers mixed in. Most numbers turned into huge singalongs, and on Learning to Fly the audience got a solo during the closing chorus. He pulled out a couple of oldies, and hearing Melinda for the first time, I really enjoyed the keyboard/piano solos. Halfway through the show, Tom introduced the “sister of the band,” Stevie Nicks! I am not really a big fan of hers, but she and Tom Petty did some duets back in the early ‘80s and the crowd gave her a huge ovation. She sang lead on I Need to Know, and while she performed capably, it was immediately evident why in a certain South Park episode everyone confused a goat for her. After a couple of songs she was relegated to side stage to sing backup and was minimally distracting.

The Heartbreakers have had many big hits over the years and there were equally many highlights during the show. You Don’t Know How it Feels, Mary Jane’s Last Dance, You Wreck Me, the big jams on Don’t Come Around Here No More and Runnin’ Down a Dream, and the showstopping American Girl were all excellent. Tom was able to keep the crowd, which predictably skewed older but had plenty of younger fans too, into the whole show, including the new stuff. The Gold Circle seemed to be slightly upper crust, but I’m sure Mary Jane had quite a few dances out on the lawn. The band’s energy was consistent throughout, and while Tom Petty was exactly his laid back and fairly humble self most of the night, during the encore he did get everyone fired up and asked for “the biggest noise this place has ever heard!” He got it, because we knew tonight might never be again.

What do Barry Bonds and I have in common?

We're not on steroids...anymore.

This morning I took my last two eyedrops of "the clear", the corticosteroid drop that I had been tapering down from the last nine weeks. I am now done with all prescriptions from my PRK, and am only taking the over the counter artificial tears for lubrication. Just as I was promised, my vision has slowly but steadily improved over the past couple of months, to the point where now I can read smaller type in dimmer light than I could before. All must be going well internally too -- at my last checkup a couple weeks ago, the doc was in the room for all of 42 seconds, during which he looked at both my eyes and simply said, "Perfect!" The three month anniversary of my surgery is this Saturday, and the doctor says I can still expect improvement for about three more months! The best vision I've ever known still bumped against the limits to correcting my vision inherent to contact lenses, and I'm seeing as well now as I ever did with contacts. So if there is still room for improvement and I really will see better than I ever have in my life, bring it on!

Bandits close out regular season with offensive dominance, prepare for playoffs

Bandits 74, Vipers 62

The Bandits jumped out to an early 14-0 lead thanks to a Tim Jones interception return for a touchdown, and held serve the rest of the way to win the regular season finale. Richmond sat on the ball to end both halves, but otherwise scored on every possession, taking a lead of as many as 22 points in the fourth quarter. The Vipers defenders were basically helpless against the talented Bandits receivers all night, and the Bandits wideouts turned wide open catches into even bigger plays with broken tackles during runs after the catch. Chris Field made the play of the game, demolishing Vipers QB Joey Conrad with a hit that left an impression in the turf, and forcing a fumble that traveled 15 yards in the air. The Vipers got chippy after that, but Brandon Isaiah threw a huge block on one of them during a kickoff that gave the Bandits a TKO. Center Dan Rounds was out with an injured finger, and botched long snaps made extra points an adventure. Chris Segaar made a dazzling open field run after scooping up a bad snap and nearly got in for two, and eventually was called on to try a drop-kick extra point that sailed just wide. Bad news came for Richmond in the fourth quarter, when Bishlar Penson and Tim Jones went down on the same play. Bish tore a knee ligament and is out for the playoffs; Tim took a helmet to the back and is questionable. The Bandits finish their second season 12-2 and win a share of their second consecutive regular season title, and will begin defense of their AIFL championship next week!

Player of the Game: Robbie Jenkins, as it's hard to vote against a man who throws for 252 yards and eight touchdowns, including four on his five second half completions. Robbie also showed some nice touch throwing the ball over a defender to a place that only Bryan Still could catch it for the score.

Offensive Stars: Redd Thompson, with five catches for 101 yards and four scores; Bryan Still, who made six grabs for 86 yards and four touchdowns.

Defensive Stars: Nate Daniels, who made an impact in his return to the lineup with an interception, a few passes broken up, and pretty solid coverage on Vipers receivers.

Other Links:	Times-Dispatch writeup
	Bandits review
	Columbus Ledger-Enquirer

Next: Round 1 of the playoffs, vs. Raleigh, Monday 7pm

Bandits hold off Spartans, await home finale

Bandits 51, Spartans 34

The Bandits jumped out to an early two-touchdown lead and led by as many as 21 in the fourth quarter as solid line play guided an otherwise inconsistent offense to victory in Augusta. Richmond's defense made three first half stops and more than made sure that the Spartans would not be able to outscore the Bandits. New signee Aaron Alexander made his indoor debut and caught three passes for 44 yards and a touchdown. The 6' 6" wideout showed a quick adjustment to the small field and ran good routes all night, including a corner fade pattern on an attempted two-point conversion that proved how effective a tall, athletic receiver can be in the close quarters of AIFL end zones. Tim Jones had a third quarter interception that led to a touchdown which gave the Bandits an insurmountable lead.

Player of the Game: Redd Thompson, with six catches for 89 yards and four touchdowns. Redd also shook off a big hit from two Spartan defenders to score the game's final touchdown that capped a seven play, 5:38 game-icing drive.

Offensive Stars: Dan Rounds, Patrick Cheatham, and Patrick Herd, who gave Robbie Jenkins loads of time to look for his receivers and did not give up a sack all night.

Defensive Stars: Shannon Davis had two interceptions, Lawrence Lewis had 1.5 sacks.

Other Links:	Times-Dispatch summary
	Augusta Chronicle recap
	AIFL overview

Next: vs. Chattahoochee Valley Vipers, Saturday 7pm