It’s been said you never can have too much hype. Apparently, it’s not true in NASCAR.

For years, we have been overwhelmed with hype for the most over-rated event on the racing calendar, the NASCAR All-Star Race.

For years, we have been overwhelmed with the hype for the most over-rated event on the racing calender, the NASCAR All-Star race.

Speed has had a daily “countdown” for its telecast. To me, it is both boring and annoying. Either everybody crashes or somebody runs away with it.
Then there’s the NASCAR TV announcers you have to put up with. Their “gully-chee, it’s another Saturday night shooutout” schtick became tiresome years ago.
But it isn’t just the All-Star Race that NASCAR oversells. There’s the dreaded Chase, which The NASCAR homers expound on from Daytona to Homestead. Three out of four years the Chase has been anti-climatic.
Right before the All-Star telecast came the running of the Preakness, the second race in horse racing’s Triple Crown. I thought I’d watch the NBC coverage as a comparison.
It was very professional. After an hour I knew more about the horsey set than Chris Meyers knows about auto racing, and he’s been cashing a paycheck from Fox for more than seven years.
There was no “boogity, etc.,” or endless sponsor plugging. The horse people didn’t waste time with unfunny “in” jokes like the folks at Fox do.
Please, will someone tell me what is so amusing about Jeff Hammond? The third leg of the Triple Crown is just five miles from here, at Belmont. They have a steed trying to win all three races for the first time in 30 years. Seems more interesting than The Chase.
n It was great seeing some drama at Bump Day at IMS. I hope next year it’s even better. What used to be fun was journeymen drivers scurrying around for rides and jumping into something at the last minute. There are more drivers in this race I’m unfamiliar with than ever before.
I sure miss Bob Jenkins as Indy TV anchor. There has been a spate of bad ones. Marty Reid’s disc jockey voice inflections are as phony as his hairpiece.
n On Wednesday, June 4, Williams Grove Speedway will host the wingless USAC sprint cars, along with ARDC midgets. This is one show I have to see. Hope you do, too. Fred Rahmer is scheduled to race “topless.”
n Old friend Freddy Stutz, age 79, wound up in a Florida crash house after running his TQ into the wall at Charlotte Motorsports Park in Florida.
Fred broke his neck a few years ago. Talk about a tough ole guy. He won the first race I ever covered for this paper in 1963. Get well soon.
n Bill Park and Wayne Anderson won the first two modified features at Riverhead (N.Y.) Raceway. Both are in their 60s. Some say people that age shouldn’t even be writing about racing. Maybe Riverhead doesn’t hate old timers after all.
n Sorry to report the passing of two old friends, car owner Frank Ariano, and former Dorney Park announcer Johnny Cathers.
n Eating leftover Indy potato salad at 25 Emerson Place, Valley Stream, N.Y. 11580. E-mail to Racewri771@AOL.com.