Christopher Leone

On The Firing Of Randy Bernard

I am officially embarrassed to call myself an IndyCar Series “fan” at this juncture. In fact, I don’t think I’ll use the term any longer.

Nobody in the sport knows what the hell they’re doing—it’s clearly all about politics and bullshit. The owners made Randy Bernard’s life hell by questioning every single move he made and eventually undoing many of the changes he proposed. Tony George made Randy Bernard’s life hell by repeatedly popping up as a threat to buy the series, even if his sisters say it’s not on the market.

You wanna let the inmates run the asylum? Go do a study of how CART’s business model actually worked. You wanna give it back to Tony George? Watch the first five or so years of IRL races.

Randy Bernard was the one guy who could’ve taken that series out of the massive hole it was in and people made his job deliberately impossible. This is why open-wheel racing in America is completely shot. This is why, when I gave up my first blog, Open Wheel America, in September 2011, I could not keep myself from using extensive foul language.

I don’t blame Randy Bernard for leaving IndyCar, if it was indeed his decision. That guy did an incredible amount of promotional work in his time at the helm of the sport. Without him, the series would have probably crumbled by now. Now, it feels like a matter of time before it fades into oblivion, the Indianapolis 500 its only remaining, meaningful property.

If asked I will happily cover the Indianapolis 500 next year. But as somebody with enough self-respect to think that the sport (and especially its few remaining fans) deserve far better than they get from IndyCar, I must insist on nothing more. 

I learned a lesson once the hard way in my personal life: if you really love somebody, you had better make damn sure that they love you back. And if they just do what they want without respecting you, then you need to stand up for yourself, say you’re done, and move on to the next, hopefully better, relationship. I think that applies here as well.

Nobody involved in IndyCar at this juncture respects anybody else, and nobody wants to act in the best interest of anybody or anything but themselves. That’s a sad formula for an impending catastrophic failure. The foundation of the building has just cracked all the way through, and there’s a hurricane coming. I will be shocked if it stays standing, and I don’t want to be a part of it when it falls.

I wonder what Dan Wheldon would think of all this.

- Chris

Readers Have Responsibilities, Too

As a writer, one’s responsibility is to be as honest and unbiased as possible, but especially to maintain factual accuracy throughout one’s work.

Admittedly, I dropped the ball on that a couple of times in last week’s article “Danica Patrick: 7 Reasons Her Move to NASCAR Has Been a Huge Disappointment.” I neglected to mention that Andretti Autosport, back when it was still Andretti Green Racing, had won its last championship in 2007 with Dario Franchitti, not in 2005 with the late Dan Wheldon as I claimed. I also made a mistake in confusion on where Patrick’s cars have come from this Sprint Cup season; the initial ESPN reports from January say that Stewart-Haas Racing provides them, which is correct, although the SHR press release suggests that collaborative partner Tommy Baldwin Racing fields the cars.

For those reasons, that article is not one of my finest moments. Those aren’t mistakes that I should be making, regardless of some of the fatigue-related struggles I’ve been dealing with lately. No excuses. Those are easily checked and rechecked facts, and while I should have done so with the Andretti instance, I did so with Patrick’s Cup cars and misinterpreted the details.

That being said, the responsibility of the comment section of aforementioned article is not the responsibility of the writer, it’s the responsibility of the reader—something that I think goes completely unacknowledged on the World Wide Web in general. People spend an incredible amount of time freaking out about a Twitter account they follow, or an article they don’t like, so on, while forgetting that it was their own free will that brought them there.

Let me put it bluntly: unless you are being forced to read the content placed in front of you, you yourself bear some responsibility for any discomfort you feel in reading something, especially when the content of that something is made plainly obvious before you open it. In other words, “if you don’t like it, don’t read it.”

The Danica-lovers have, of course, come out in full force in the comment section of that article to launch their own attacks. The article attempted to be very level-headed in its analysis of the disappointment that has been Patrick’s career so far: her cars have been good but not great, she’s had about a thousand voices in her head (a tough situation for anyone in any walk of life to deal with), and maybe, just maybe, she isn’t quite the driver that folks want her to be.

Of course, people like to make assumptions and accusations based on the article. Let me address them, one by one:

• I am not anti-Danica. In fact, I’ve defended her multiple times earlier in the season and telling people to be patient with her. But at this point, having failed to make any meaningful progress over the course of the season in her finishes, her season has been a disappointment. One can only call her Nationwide top 15s “de facto top 10s” because of the many Cup drivers in each race for so long. I made that argument earlier in the season, but I no longer judge it to hold weight, because those top 15s aren’t even good enough to get her into the top 10 of Nationwide points.
• Writing an article that criticizes Danica’s performance does not make one misogynistic. In fact, I can name you multiple female drivers who are as deserving as any driver in their respective series: Johanna Long (Nationwide Series and 2010 Snowball Derby winner), Simona de Silvestro (IndyCar and four-time Atlantic Series race winner), Ana Beatriz (IndyCar and two-time Indy Lights race winner), and Pippa Mann (IndyCar and 2010 Kentucky Indy Lights winner). At this point, I would also like to add that all of these drivers have scored development series wins; besides her 2008 IndyCar victory at Motegi, Patrick hasn’t won anything. I’m not exaggerating; go look at her career tables.
• To those who think I have “anger issues,” and the person who flagged the article as offensive, two things: first of all, Bleacher Report writers are given assignments, and I get a lot of Danica articles because people like to read about Danica (you’ve proven that) and the aforementioned decent analysis I’ve previously posted. Second of all, frustrated people (internet commenters in particular) tend to project their own problems on others; am I angry because I have some sort of misplaced hate for Danica, or are you angry because I’m not writing glowing praise of a driver whose performance doesn’t merit it? I’ve looked at some of the people who commented on the article, and some of them are either brand new to B/R or only comment on Danica articles.

That all just goes back to “if you don’t like it, don’t read it.” The content of the article is made plainly obvious by the title. If you’re a Danica fan, what compels you to have to read it, to have to disagree, to have to make accusations of others’ biases without acknowledging a bias yourself?

Danica is a touchy subject because of media oversaturation, but one simply writing that she has underperformed doesn’t mean that one has a major anti-Danica bias. And yet so many have an incredible insecurity about that. Could it be because she’s actually underperforming? And why is that insecurity the problem of somebody who’s trying to document the other side of the story, the one that’s not full of praise that keeps the sponsors happy and floating those fat checks into the sport?

This year, Danica Patrick is a driver who hasn’t yet finished on the lead lap in a Sprint Cup race in defending championship-winning equipment, and who only flirts with cracking the top 10 in season-ending points in a series where only 14 drivers have earned points for every race. Does that sound successful to you?

In the end, though, this is much ado about nothing. I’m just a guy who writes about NASCAR on the internet, and you’re just someone who reads about NASCAR on the internet. We, directly, owe each other just about nothing. You don’t owe me comments and I don’t owe you responses. In the end, we barely even owe each other respectful discourse; this is the internet, after all, and nobody seems to hold to that. In fact, the majority of the people who read this will probably interpret me as a pompous ass, which is truly not my intention, rather than someone who’s attempting to be calm, reasonable, and most of all truthful. I promise you that I’m not trying to be rude.

All this does is reaffirm two things: my responsibility is to be more accurate, and your responsibility is to avoid things on the internet that piss you off. Remember: it’s only the internet.

- Chris

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A More Refined Version Of My Twitter Rant On GRC Coverage

I’ve been doing my best to temper myself about ESPN3’s Global Rallycross Championship coverage from Las Vegas on Saturday night. But watching the “outtakes” again via Deadspin gets more frustrating every time I press play.

Our commentary crew—in this case, longtime X Games commentator Tes Sewell and esteemed rally co-driver Jen Horsey—should know a lot more about the sport than they’ve been letting on in the broadcasts all season. I have some serious concerns, both to that end and toward objectivity, about the ESPN broadcasts. I think we need to move forward in both categories.

My goal with US Race Report all year has been to keep my finger on the pulse of the GRC by getting stories straight from the horse’s mouth. Sometimes that means talking to folks who aren’t stars. I’ve managed to develop good professional relationships with drivers like Samuel Hubinette (third in points), Stephan Verdier (fifth), and David Binks (seventh), among many, many others. The majority of drivers in the series have talked to me, or know who I am, and are very comfortable with speaking to me. And as far as presenting the entire story of the season goes, moving beyond the two or three “stars” of the series, I like to think that my coverage has been some of the best anywhere.

I want to give kudos to pit reporter Alyssa Roenigk—who admitted early in the broadcast that rallycross isn’t her forte—for tracking down lead mechanic Greg Frechette after his driver Richard Burton crashed into the base of the gap jump at Las Vegas. That was a step forward as far as the TV coverage goes. But there have been many instances of incomplete or subpar TV coverage this season.

For example, where was ESPN at X Games after Travis Pastrana and Andy Scott wrecked in the first turn of their heat race? They got an interview from Travis, of course, as he tried to convince series officials to let him take over the second Pastrana199 Racing car. But they didn’t even go after Andy to get his view on the situation. In my opinion, that’s a glaring omission in coverage. And, besides Andy’s own public relations squad, I was the only person to track down that interview and get Andy’s opinion on the wreck.

To be blunt, doing hasty Facebook research and going on about Richard’s executive job in the “Royal Bank of Canadia” and “super-ghetto housing” on the air wasn’t exactly a step forward. Yes, I understand that this race was an anomaly, in that ESPN3 would be covering it live online and the best stuff would be edited down for TV on Sunday. (If you were watching at the end, you saw Tes and Jen redo the race recap portion three times.) But with microphones hot over the entire course of the broadcast, the anchors should have been a lot more careful with what they were saying. They didn’t seem to take Richard, and by extension their jobs as reporters, as seriously as they should have.

Don’t get me wrong—the folks in the booth are likable people. They really are! I know for a fact that Jen is close to numerous drivers in the series, and she knows these cars from the co-driver’s seat as well as anyone that ESPN can find. I just think they need to step up their game in a big way. That’s all.

And if they’re not able to do it, I’ll be happy to submit my demo reel.

- Chris

It’s Not A Mousepad, I Swear

In the week leading up to the start of my final year at Boston University, I took a week-long job as part of a Comcast/Xfinity promotions team. My job is to walk up and down Commonwealth Avenue, handing out free stuff and flyers to prospective customers and directing them towards our booth for more free gear and sign-up.

Here’s the problem. While the booth has a lot of great things—MTV sunglasses, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia lip balms, Showtime checkered flags (after the Southern 500, my personal favorite), headphones, iPhone stands, and Dexter bags, to name a few—the gear that we’re given to hand out to everybody has been, for the most part, Xfinity mousepads.

That’s right, mousepads. Which nobody wants, because nobody uses a desktop computer anymore, leading to more people ever turning down free stuff than should ever exist on a college campus. But I have to get rid of these things, meaning I have to get creative. The following exchange is how I do it:

Me: Would you like some free stuff? (holds out mousepad and Comcast flyers)

Random person on street: Oh, no thank you. I don’t really need a mousepad because of my (iPad/laptop/wireless laser mouse).

Me: Well, you can use it as a jar opener, too. That’s what I do.

Random person on street: You make an excellent point, sir. I accept your jar opener.

Me: Thanks! Have a great day!

Hey, it works. (Although I haven’t actually tested its jar opening ability yet.) The point is, people are taking the mousepads and going to the Comcast booth. That’s all that really matters, right?

- Chris

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Bleacher Report Roundup: May-August 2012

• Articles: 51 (18 May, 9 June, 10 July, 14 August)
• Platinum Medals (10,000 reads): 2 (1 July, 1 August)
• Gold Medals (5,000 reads): 1 (1 June)
• Silver Medals (2,000 reads or 50 comments): 18 (6 May, 4 June, 4 July, 4 August)
• Bronze Medals (1,000 reads or 25 comments): 16 (5 May, 3 June, 3 July, 5 August)
• Most Reads: NASCAR: Top 20 Wrecks of 2012 So Far (August 14; 12,083 reads); 25 All-Time Greats Who Would Struggle Today (July 4; 10,647 reads)
• Most Comments: NASCAR: 5 Reasons Danica Patrick Should Get a Pass For 2012 (August 27; 52 comments)
• #3 Top Writer, May 2012
• #3 Top Writer, June 2012
• #2 Top Writer, July 2012
• #2 Top Writer, August 2012
• 2012 Indianapolis 500 Coverage Team (8 articles from May 21-31)
• Reads in August: 28,457 over 14 articles (average: 2,033 reads per article)

Style Vs. Style

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Into The Great Wide Open

This news is a few weeks old, but I haven’t had the chance to reveal or write about it with any sort of depth until right now: I’ve re-engineered my commitments to Bleacher Report to include more weekly pieces and will be writing (almost) exclusively on assignment.

That’s a big sentence that means “instead of writing two articles a week that I choose, I’m writing three articles a week that my editor asks me to write.”

The change was my idea, and there are a lot of reasons behind it. The first was Turner Sports’ purchase of Bleacher Report for a little under $200 million. To me, that’s a major opportunity—keep in mind that Turner not only owns TNT, which broadcasts six Sprint Cup races in the summer, but they maintain NASCAR.com and have done so for about a decade now.

Part of the idea behind Turner’s purchase of B/R is to use it as somewhat of a proving ground for new, up and coming writers. To me, that’s an opportunity. A major one. And if I’m going to grab it, I need to change what I’ve been doing.

Each week, featured columnists are emailed a list of potential articles that B/R wants on the site. We’re expected to choose at least two. But certain articles on the list are bound to attract more readers than others; say, a Dale Earnhardt Jr. piece will attract more than any other driver, while the top 20 power rankings are usually a well-read article every week. Beyond that, however, it’s kind of a crapshoot to someone who doesn’t have B/R’s readership and demographic data.

I can usually attract readership of 1,000 folks or more per article, but to maintain that, and ideally expand it, I figured I would need some help. B/R knows better than I do what makes sense for their site, and in the end, I’m writing for them. So I told Adam Hirshfield, my editor, that whatever they want on the site, I’ll do.

Does that mean a lot of slideshows? Potentially. They’re not my favorite format, but they’re not awful, either. Does it mean I’ll be writing a lot of things that I disagree with? No doubt, but I think that makes me stronger as a writer—having the ability to take either side of an argument and elaborate on it. Does it mean that I’m subjecting myself to a lot of crap from B/R readers who think I’m an idiot? Sure, but how is that different from any other website? Or the real world, for that matter?

No matter what, the next few months are going to be exciting as I work on my craft with B/R and cover this year’s Chase for the Sprint Cup. I’m really looking forward to what these next 14 races have in store. Let the green flag drop.

- Chris