This was supposed to be up on Friday, but better late than never.

You hear about sport columnists having their own blogs - it happens all the time - famed NASCAR columnist David Poole is one, as is almost as famed Dustin Long.  Maintaining a blog has now become part of their job.

But have you ever heard of a Blogger becoming a columnist?  Well it certainly has happened here, you're reading what he is writing right now - yep little 'ol me.

Admittedly I'm no David Poole or Dustin Long, nor do I pretend to be, but I have found a little niche in the blogging world that not too many people get to experience - getting to write a newspaper column about my favourite sport based on my blog site.  Cool.

About a year ago one of my readers emailed the local newspaper and asked them why I wasn't writing for them.  They of course knew nothing about me as the majority of my audience was in the US at the time, so they watched my site for a few months and they liked what they saw.  They then called me up and wanted to discuss my site with them.  I honestly thought they wanted to do a newspaper article about NASCAR Ranting and Raving, but boy was I wrong - they wanted me to write a weekly NASCAR column for them!

Man, was I blown away.  So we agreed to a 3 month trial, which turned into a 6 month gig that lasted to the end of the season and now I'm back.  I was supposed to have started at the beginning of the season but due to circumstance beyond my control we are starting at week 3 instead.  No problem.

My column with the Hamilton Spectator (circulation approx 200,000) will run most every Friday with a few Saturdays thrown into the mix I would imagine.

So every Friday I'll put up the 'first draft' copy of my column that will be appearing in The Spectator that day and later in the day I'll add a link to the post of the column once it is up on The Spectator's web-site.

I now present to you the first of many (I hope) 'Friday First Drafts' of my pre-race column submitted to The Hamilton Spectator for publication:

Hey there everyone, I’m back!  Two weeks later than expected but due to circumstances beyond my control I was unable to write a column these last few weeks - sometimes life just gets in the way like that you know?

 

Anyway, how many of you were disappointed with how the Daytona 500 ended two weeks ago?  I was.  Not to take anything away from race winner Matt Kenseth (17) but I found that his eventual win was really anti-climatic especially after what transpired between Dale Earnhardt Jr (88) and Brian Vickers (83) that caused the huge wreck taking out several cars including lap leader Kyle Busch (18).

 

And when they threw out the caution flag for rain after the race just started in Fontana last week I almost lost my mind – another rain-filled event?  No!

 

Let me tell you I was happy that they were able to get a full race in and I bet NASCAR was happy too.  It would have been a real embarrassment for NASCAR to start the season off with back to back rain-filled events.

 

If NASCAR started their races a little earlier – say two hours maybe - they could have avoided the possibility of having rain-shortened events, we would have seen a full Daytona 500 and maybe Earnhardt (88) and Vickers (83) wouldn’t have been racing each other like they were on the last lap in order to get back on the lead lap before the rain hit and they wouldn’t have wrecked half the field in the process.

 

I mean with the weather equipment available to NASCAR they surely would know about the threat of rain in the area long before it was to arrive and get the race started earlier.  Makes sense, but who am I?

 

The next stop for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series is Las Vegas.  What a sweet track for a fan, especially the glass walled garage area where the fans can see into the garage from almost any angle, including through the ceiling, but Las Vegas Motorspeedway can be a tough track for drivers – just ask Jeff Gordon who crashed hard into a section of wall without any ‘soft wall’ technology in this race last year.

 

Just like most of the 1.5 mile ‘D’ shaped ovals Vegas will provide a multi-grooved race surface for the drivers with the potential of lots of side-by-side racing but when it is all said and done the team that wins the race will be the one that saves their front right tire the best and is able to get out front fast.

 

We all saw how Jeff Gordon (24) lost the race last week – he didn’t get out of the pits ahead of Kenseth (17), and he wasn’t able to get by him on the track either because Kenseth had the ‘clean air’.  Gordon then used up his front right tire trying to get close enough to Kenseth to get his nose under him and disturb the air flow on the 17 car just enough to make it loose so he could complete the pass.

 

Gordon finished second while Kenseth went on to win his second race in as many events this season, a feat that has not been done since Gordon won the first two races of the year in 1997.

 

Will Kenseth win a third straight race this week?  Certainly the potential is there but I wouldn’t count on it.  Look for Kenseth’s Roush-Fenway teammate Carl Edwards (99) to run strong here, while Gordon’s Hendrick teammate, and current Sprint Cup Champion, Jimmie Johnson (48) has won 3 of the last 7 races held here.

 

My outside picks would be fellow Hendrick driver Mark Martin (5) who has 9 top 10 finishes in 11 races here and Kyle Busch (18) who traditionally runs well early at this track but fades near the end.

 

I don’t care who wins this weekend as long as Vegas provides the exciting side-by-side finish that we’ve all been craving for since the checkered flag dropped on the 2008 season.

 

One last thing before I sign off for the week; I’ve changed my website address, it is now www.4ever3blog.com so drop on by to get more of your NASCAR fix, let me know what you think about the new site and tell me if there is anything else you want to see more of there.

 

Now let’s go racin’!