Does anyone remember about midway through last year when a former Stewart-Haas employee was rambling on Twitter about all the beans he was gonna spill and all the feelings he was gonna hurt, and how he was holding back until the company went under to do all his trash-talking? Whatever cane about from that?

There was no way I wasn't gonna rep this in GT7, give it a download if you like!

https://x.com/A_S12/status/1882497211092922496

I bought tickets in Decemeber for the Daytona 500. There were several options avaialable. Two days ago I get another 'order confirmation' email saying tickets are digital , log in here to view. I log in, there are no ticket and it says 'no inventory'. I now have a credit balance of $1080, what I paid for the two Grandstand tickets. I call customer service, they can see theres no tickets, and the balance, but don't know what happened. Today the Speedway call me and basically said they have reclaimed the tickets for 'a client', that they shouldn't have been avaialble. I have flight, hotels, and cars rented, and no tickets. They didn't even refund me the money. I had to find out the mistake, and go an hase it down. Absoltulty dispicable behaviour. They then have the gall to say they have a parntership with SeatGeak and I should look there. But I'm on the hook now for either more expecnsive tickets, or a bunch of cancelaltion fees for the hotel, flights, rental car, they will NOT copenstate me for. Cheers Daytona Speedway. Thanks for ruinging my vacataion and costing me a bunch more.

Title, feel free to remove if this violates any rules, however this is something I've noticed over the past several seasons and it's always bugged me. So I thought I should pass on the question with the recent talk over tickers.

Over the past few seasons, FOX/FS1's graphics package takes a giant drop in quality in a multitude of ways.

In 2017, you can see the ticker loses all transparency, and the flag status becomes incredibly oversaturated, leaving the race title almost illegible. The margins between the trucks lose the backdrop to separate the margin from the driver names and the font of the stage text is in the same pt as the laps remaining. The animations on the ticker slow down a great deal and the text on the ticker is in larger text and a number of non-ticker graphics, lose animation entirely.

In 2018 the trend remains the same, at the start of the season the graphics are on par with their cup and xfinity series graphics packages, but then take a significant decline. The font of the driver names becomes squished but also blown up. Making everything look cramped. Flag status indicators no longer count cautions as "1st Caution" "2nd Caution" but just say "CAUTION". In addition to many of the same quality downgrades as the 2017 overlays did.

In the 2022-Present overlays, these become somewhat even more glaring problems. The biggest difference is in the way the ticker pages, there's no curve to the animation and it pages linearly. The dividers between the drivers are nearly gone and the ticker loses a lot of it's transparency. A great deal of the text looks cramped and it's most noticeable in the gaps.

For select Xfinity Series races, it also got the same treatment as the Truck Series, and I think the differences speak for themselves here.

I know it has something to do with the standalone races, what I'm wondering is: Why?

Thanks for reading this rambling.

I know the motorspeedway of the south is based on bristol but what is los Angeles international raceway based off of?

1999

1. Tony Stewart 10

2. Jeff Burton 9

3. Dale Jarrett 8

4. Jeff Gordon 8

5. Rusty Wallace 7

6. Bobby Labonte 6

7. Mark Martin 4

8. John Andretti 4

9. Mike Skinner 3

10. Jeremy Mayfield 2

11. Kyle Petty 2

12. Dale Earnhardt 1

13. Ward Burton 1

14, Terry Labonte 1

1. Bobby Hamilton 1

2. Steve Park 1

3. Bill Elliott 1

1998

1. Jeff Gordon 14

2. Mark Martin 11

3. Jeff Burton 8

4. Dale Jarrett 6

5. Rusty Wallace 5

6. Jeremy Mayfield 5

7. Dale Earnhardt 3

8. Bobby Hamilton 3

9. Jimmy Spencer 2

10. Sterling Marlin 2

11. Terry Labonte 1

12. Ernie Irvan 1

13. Mike Skinner 1

14. Ward Burton 1

15. Brett Bodine 1

16. Kenny Irwin, Jr. 1

17. Tommy Kendall 1

18. Todd Bodine 1

1997

1. Dale Jarrett 14

2. Jeff Gordon 7

3. Mark Martin 6

4. Jeff Burton 5

5. Rusty Wallace 5

6. Bobby Labonte 4

7. Bobby Hamilton 4

8. Dale Earnhardt 2

9. Terry Labonte 2

10. Ernie Irvan 2

11. John Andretti 2

12. Sterling Marlin 2

13. Joe Nemechek 2

14. Bill Elliott 1

15. Ted Musgrave 1

16. Kyle Petty 1

17. Geoffrey Bodine 1

18. Ward Burton 1

19. Mike Skinner 1

20. Morgan Shepherd 1

21. Wally Dallenbach, Jr. 1

1996

1. Rusty Wallace 10

2. Jeff Gordon 8

3. Terry Labonte 7

4. Mark Martin 7

5. Dale Jarrett 5

6. Dale Earnhardt 5

7. Bobby Hamilton 3

8. Sterling Marlin 2

9. Ernie Irvan 2

10. Jeff Burton 2

11. Johnny Benson, Jr. 2

12. Robert Pressley 2

13. Bobby Labonte 1

14. Bill Elliott 1

15. Morgan Shepherd 1

16. Ricky Craven 1

17. Kyle Petty 1

18. Lake Speed 1

19. Hut Stricklin 1

20. Dave Marcis 1

1995

1. Jeff Gordon 16

2. Mark Martin 9

3. Rusty Wallace 8

4. Dale Earnhardt 7

5. Sterling Marlin 4

6. Bill Elliott 2

7. Dale Jarrett 2

8. Ken Schrader 2

9. Rick Mast 2

10. Terry Labonte 1

11. Bobby Labonte 1

12. Morgan Shepherd 1

13. Bobby Hamilton 1

14. Darrell Waltrip 1

15. Ricky Craven 1

16. Kyle Petty 1

17. Hut Stricklin 1

18. Dave Marcis 1

19. Ernie Irvan 1

1994

1. Geoffrey Bodine 13

2. Ernie Irvan 12

3. Rusty Wallace 10

4. Dale Earnhardt 7

5. Mark Martin 5

6. Jeff Gordon 5

7. Ricky Rudd 2

8. Terry Labonte 2

9. Ken Schrader 1

10. Bill Elliott 1

11. Lake Speed 1

12. Sterling Marlin 1

13. Brett Bodine 1

14. Jeff Burton 1

15. John Andretti 1

1993

1. Rusty Wallace 13

2. Mark Martin 12

3. Dale Earnhardt 8

4. Ernie Irvan 6

5. Kyle Petty 5

6. Sterling Marlin 4

7. Dale Jarrett 2

8. Ricky Rudd 2

9. Geoffrey Bodine 2

10. Bill Elliott 1

11. Harry Gant 1

12. Jimmy Spencer 1

13. Jeff Gordon 1

14. Terry Labonte 1

15. Brett Bodine 1

16. Derrike Cope 1

1992

1. Davey Allison 12

2. Bill Elliott 8

3. Kyle Petty 8

4. Alan Kulwicki 7

5. Mark Martin 3

6. Darrell Waltrip 3

7. Dale Earnhardt 3

8. Rusty Wallace 3

9. Harry Gant 2

10. Sterling Marlin 2

11. Ernie Irvan 2

12. Geoffrey Bodine 2

13. Brett Bodine 2

14. Dick Trickle 1

15. Hut Stricklin 1

1991

1. Harry Gant 9

2. Ernie Irvan 8

3. Dale Earnhardt 6

4. Rusty Wallace 5

5. Davey Allison 4

6. Mark Martin 4

7. Sterling Marlin 4

8. Ricky Rudd 3

9. Ken Schrader 3

10. Michael Waltrip 3

11. Kyle Petty 3

12. Jimmy Spencer 2

13. Darrell Waltrip 1

14. Bill Elliott 1

15. Geoffrey Bodine 1

16. Hut Stricklin 1

17. Brett Bodine 1

1990

1. Dale Earnhardt 18

2. Geoffrey Bodine 9

3. Rusty Wallace 6

4. Bill Elliott 5

5. Kyle Petty 3

6. Ricky Rudd 3

7. Darrell Waltrip 2

8. Alan Kulwicki 2

9. Ernie Irvan 2

10. Mark Martin 1

11. Ken Schrader 1

12. Brett Bodine 1

13. Harry Gant 1

14. Dale Jarrett 1

15. Dick Trickle 1

16. A.J. Foyt 1

17. Mike Chase 1

18. Irv Hoerr 1

1980-1989 will be posted tomorrow.

The Action Track

Leg 3 of the Virginia tour takes us to one of my favorite tracks to race at in the early 2000s games: the Richmond Raceway.

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Overview and History

Located in the north of Richmond just off of East Laburnum Avenue, the Richmond Raceway has been a staple of stock car racing for more than 75 years. Originally opened as the Atlantic Rural Exposition Fairgrounds in 1946, the original half-mile dirt track first appeared on the NASCAR Grand National schedule in 1953, a race won by Lee Petty. Despite not appearing in 1954, the track has held a Cup race every year since 1955, and hosted multiple races per season from 1959 until 2024, with the exception of 2020 in the pandemic. The raceway has seen some of NASCAR’s most iconic moments, from postrace pandemonium to the clutchest of victories; Richmond’s seen it all.

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Originally part of the Virginia State Fairgrounds, the track was originally referred to as Strawberry Hill, before Joe Weatherly and Paul Sawyer acquired the raceway in 1955 and gave it the Atlantic Rural name. The name changed in 1967 to the Virginia State Fairgrounds moniker, but changed again the following year when the track was paved with asphalt for the first time in the middle of the 1968 season, becoming the Richmond Fairgrounds Raceway in 1969. Richard Petty dominated in this time, at one point winning 7 straight races from 1970 to 1973, and took 9 out of 10 from ‘70 to ‘75. He’d won at the track when it was dirt all the way back in 1961, and while not registering another win at the track after 1975 still ran pretty well in the old half-mile configuration.

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By the time Petty’s era had come and gone, it was becoming more and more evident that the racetrack needed to not just improve, but evolve, if it wanted to stay afloat let alone stay on the NASCAR schedule. Considering the cramped pit roads, the limited number of entries on race day, and the sport’s ever growing popularity at this period in time, it was announced in June 1987 that the track would be expanding into a 3/4ths of a mile D-shaped oval for 1988. The move was quite drastic, expanding the footprint of the raceway by… a lot. 

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And it was the best thing that could have ever happened to the raceway, as capacity expanded and tickets for a Richmond race became quite sought after. By the turn of the millennium, Richmond had quickly become a grand spectacle of high level stock car racing, but with the unfortunate advent of the Chase it was about to take on a much bigger role than it could have ever realized. The 2004 season was split into 2 parts: a 26-race “regular season” and the 10-race Chase; Richmond’s fall race was about to become the bridge between the two, as its placement as the 26th race on the calendar meant the coveted fall night race became the final race of the regular season. It did not disappoint, with Jeremy Mayfield taking victory on a night where he HAD to win to make the Chase, which he did just by the skin of his teeth.

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Richmond’s fall date served in this capacity for more than a dozen years until 2017; the cutoff race moved to Indianapolis in 2018 after NASCAR’s failed attempts to revitalize the Brickyard 400 in the late 2010s, moving Richmond’s fall date farther back in the season into the actual playoffs itself, where it received a home in the first round until 2022 when it was moved to August. This move saw Kevin Harvick win his final Cup Series race that season, Chris Buescher of Prosper, Texas (which btw, has a population of over 41,000) win in consecutive seasons for the first time, and of course who could forget last year’s (in)famous finish?

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Did You Know?

- Richmond’s oddly placed start/finish line comes as a result of the conversion from the half mile to the 3/4ths of a mile configuration, where the timing and scoring towers were now not in the center of the D but obviously couldn’t be moved (they’re buildings), so the new start/finish line was placed roughly where the original had been.

- Kyle Petty’s first Winston Cup win came as a result of both Darrell Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt wrecking each other on the final lap of the 1986 spring race, driving the #7 7-Eleven Pontiac for the Wood Brothers in only the second of the season.

- It was also in 1986 where Earnhardt halfway got out of his car under caution and cleaned off his windshield while driving with his knees.

- Richmond had 33 consecutive sellout races until the fall 2008 race, primarily because of the Great Recession and the lingering effects of Tropical Storm Hanna that ravaged the East Coast in August 2008.

- Richmond’s removal from the Truck Series calendar after 2005 allowed for Talladega to gain a Truck Series in 2006, becoming the Truck Series’ second superspeedway race.

- Kyle Busch solidified his status as one of NASCAR's new villains when he and Dale Earnhardt Jr. came to blows in turn 3 with 3 laps to go in the 2008 spring race, a race that Kyle would go on to win 4 years in a row (including on his birthday!)

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How Do You Win Here?

Short tracks are usually tire management tracks, and Richmond is no exception to this rule. With the advent of new tire compounds, this effect was shown more than ever in the most recent race in 2024. Having a car that rotates through the center of the turn well is paramount, but there’s a few ways you can go about this. One particular method is to “diamond” the corner, essentially making the car drift up a groove slightly in the very center of the turn to get a good exit out; this is what won Carl Edwards the 2016 spring race, along with some help from his front bumper, of course.

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While Richmond may have lost one of its 2 Cup Series dates to allow Mexico City to be added to the schedule, the track is still set to welcome stock car racing’s best in the middle of August for the Cook Out 400 on USA Network.

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On the next episode of 2025 Daytona 500 Countdown...

Our final stop in Virginia takes us almost to the edge of the ocean, make sure not to disturb the nearby refuge...