Glibertarians.com 2018 Archive

Category: Sports

BakedPenguin’s NFL Pick-em – Week 1

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Ed. note: BakedPenguin’s new idea is a good one. However, he didn’t think of it until late Saturday night. So, instead of a preview of the NFL’s Week 1, you get to see how well he did picking them!

We expect the following weeks will be more timely.

Special thanks to Web Dom for graciously giving up her time spot tonight so we could run this post.

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September 10, 2018
A Quick History of Northeast Dirt Modifieds and The Lessons it has to Teach

Foreword

This is a brain droppings piece on the development of modified stock car racing in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and a couple lessons that can be learned from it. My family has been racing for three generations, and it is without a doubt my biggest hobby and passion. Hopefully, the lesson is clear: without the guidance of a Top Man, people spontaneously created a sport that still thrives almost 70 years later.

Early History

In the late 1940s, much of the young male population returned from war with a decent education in mechanics. This set the stage for a transition from the special-built race cars of the past, to racing stock cars. In the northeast, the coupes and sedans of previous decades were pulled from junkyards and put to work on the dirt ovals as racing machines.

Over the first few years, innovation was rampant. Each week the coupes and sedans would become more modified. First went the front fenders, to allow for bigger tires with more turning radius. Then the engines were altered, custom building parts and boring out the cylinders to make the biggest (and fastest) motor. They went from being stock car races, to modified stock car races.

1960s style coupe modified, restored

The Golden Age

By the mid ’60s, the cars followed a basic formula, a ’55 Chevy frame, a ’40s truck solid front axle, a classic coupe body, and a 427ci Corvette engine. Most of the parts were gathered from junkyards, stripped off of old cars, or custom built. This is where the spirit of small time dirt track racing lies. A driver or mechanic could come up with something in their garage, build it themselves, install it onto a car, and win.

As 1930s coupes and ’55 Chevys began to transition from junkyard jalopy to collector’s item, the racers had to seek out a new body and chassis design. Enter the subcompact car. Turns out those cheap Pintos, Gremlins, Pacers and Omnis might not have race car hearts, but they did have the skins. The small, boxy style was easy to recreate with a sheet metal brake and some elbow grease. The bodies were made as small as possible, with the driver going from the stock left side of the car to the center, running the driveline directly between his legs. The modified stock cars began to stray further from their stock roots.

Late 1970s Gremlin body modified, restored

Super Dirt Car Big Block Modifieds

The innovative minds of the day took racing from junkyard cars racing for a couple hundred bucks, to highly tuned machines running for purses in the tens of thousands. The northeast touring series, which still exists today, brought regional and national sponsors into the fray. With more money available, drivers were willing to spend more to have a better chance at the prize (incentives and all that). Enterprising and successful drivers began to build their cars for other people. Speed shops began popping up to sell custom parts. The days of winning with a home built car began to fade.

The stock car moniker was finally dropped in 1981. At the end-of-season race at the Syracuse Mile, a driver from Florida and a car builder from Missouri showed up with a car that looked nothing like anything on the street. The rules of the time prohibited bodies that were too narrow to reduce weight and drag, but they made no mention of a maximum width. This was exploited by the team of Kenny Weld and Gary Balough, who showed up with a piece holding F1 inspired aerodynamics, with wide wings and louvers that sucked the car to the ground. The car won by a lap. Teams scrambled in the off season to imitate the aerodynamics of what became known as the “Batmobile” and the rules were altered to become far more restrictive. The sanctioning body vowed to never let this happen again, as the racers all deserved a fighting chance against such innovation. And so the cars went from varied bodies and individual pieces to uniform cars bought from a few dealers.

Modern Era

This year, one of my local tracks (Orange County Fair Speedway) will host the 57th annual Eastern States Championship weekend in October. Older than the Super Bowl, this race is a remnant of days gone by. It once hosted over 150 unique and homemade modifieds and packed the house with close to 10,000 fans. This year, 2018, it will still pack the house, with a weekend full of camping, racing, and general redneck debauchery. But the cars will be towed there in stacker haulers, they will all look exactly the same, with components that can be bought from two or three different suppliers. The car counts will remain strong; 60-70 will try to qualify for 40 spots. But the sport has definitely changed. If someone comes to the track with something new, it is more often called cheating than innovating.

Eastern States 200

How this connects to Glibs

You might wonder what this is doing on this site, as opposed to some blog. In my opinion, this was a description of what a completely unbridled marketplace can create. Rules were not developed before the class, but afterwards to fit what already existed. Many of these rules were misguided attempts to keep the sport safe and inexpensive that often had the opposite effect. The biggest rule, a mandatory 467ci big block engine, has priced many people out as these engines become antiquated and harder to find. If the rule was not in place, bored out small blocks would easily surpass the big blocks in use and efficiency, but a bureaucratic series that has the philosophy of “it has always been this way” will not allow it. After all, they collect the sanction money.

Many tracks operate independently with open motor rules and see good car counts and better competition. However, these small budget drivers are unable to run for the large purses that the series offers, hamstringing them from being able to grow their team. Almost as though having more restrictions gives the established, higher dollar teams a better chance of remaining dominant…amazing.

The story of modifieds is also one of order arising spontaneously and not from the might of a sanctioning body. Competition normalized, cars became safer and faster, all without the guiding hand of a Top Man. The track was a safer place when a wild driver would be taken care of in the pits by the team whose night he wrecked, as opposed to a he said/she said scenario arbitrated by a track promoter and sometimes the local police.

Afterword

Hopefully you enjoyed this and learned something. Racing has been in my family for generations, and I tried to keep it as brief and true as possible. The links to libertarianism may be tenuous, but they are sincere.

As a parting word, I would ask you to go to your local dirt track. Bring the family, it is happening somewhere close to you (unless you live in Massachusetts; I have yet to find a dirt track there). Not all racing is the glamour of F1 or NASCAR. The top billed car classes may be pre-built, but most tracks have beginner classes that are pulled out of used car lots. Plus, the drivers are still the same old blue collar guys looking to have a good time on a Friday or Saturday night by participating in a sport they love.

Any Glib that lives around the NY/NJ/CT area, try to get to the Eastern States 200. The racing is better than any major series, and the beer is cheaper and cold.

Thanks to Tundra for getting me off my ass to write this finally.

History Sources
Superdirtseries.com
Orangecountyfairspeedway.net

July 31, 2018
Gedankenexperiment #2 – Getting Rid of the Clock in Football
What?!? Why would you even consider this?

First, this is a gedankenexperiment, not an actual proposal. Sometimes you just have to think about the world in different ways. Secondly, the clock rules in football are stupid, and other than tradition no one would create them the way they are. While this is an extreme example, here is the kind of things that happen with the current rules:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-ELRub8n7s

What would replace them?

Simple, there would be a play counter. Each quarter would consist of 35 plays from scrimmage (28 in High School). Exceptions would be extra points and plays with an accepted penalty (dead ball penalties occur during a dead ball and would be no different from today). Kickoffs and free kicks are not from scrimmage and would not count as plays. Field goal attempts and punts would. Thirty-five works out about right. Current NFL teams run just about 70 plays per game on average. Most colleges run a bit more, but see below for how that would change.
There would still be a play clock, but its rule could be set for whatever pace of play is wanted, without concern for the game clock.

How would this change the game?

In many ways, not at all. In others, dramatically. The big changes would be:
1. Passing vs Running – We wouldn’t have 4.5 hour long Washington State games because a pass play, whether complete or incomplete, in bounds or out, would take up the same “time” as a running play. On the other hand, an 18 play, all run, death-march drive would take up half a quarter instead of 60 to 65 percent of one.
2. High tempo offenses wouldn’t get more plays. A high tempo offense would still have advantages, but adding extra possessions onto the game isn’t one of them.
3. The end of half/game would change dramatically.
There are other ways it would change the game, discuss in the comments.

What was the point of all this again?

It was a fun idea I had about a decade ago and have been noodling around with since then. I do think it would make end of games more exciting, without the extra time out breaks and letting teams run whatever play works best. It gets rid of some of the arbitrariness in the rules, especially with the fast vs slow moving referees and the silliness over checking the clock to see if there is 1 second left or not. But it’s not a serious proposal…no wait, yes, it is. This would make football better. It should be done. There are no down sides, in my opinion, and plenty of advantages. You might disagree, but you would be wrong. It will never happen, this is further outside the Overton window than the Single Land Tax. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good idea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwYX52BP2Sk

While we are on the topic of clocks in football, how about we get a clock that counts down and stops for injuries in soccer?
July 23, 2018
Ultrarunning: A fucked up sport for fucked up people
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...is the essence of ultrarunning.

Hey! That's not ventriloquism but it is funny, at least to some.  
Same with ultrarunning: it's not ventriloquism, but it is funny, 
at least to some.
```
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This article is a quickly written, poorly thought out, biased introduction to the hobby.
```
     You ready?

     Ready anytime you are!
```
Technically, an ultramarathon is any foot race longer than 26.2 miles. Typical ultra distances are 50k (31 miles), 50 miles, 100k and 100 miles. Marathons are, more often than not, done on roads, and conversely ultras are more often done on trails.

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People run for many different reasons. Ultrarunners tend to run because they like how they feel as they are running. Some people get into ultrarunning through more traditional running (e.g. track and field or cross country); others come into it through hiking (sometimes through through-hiking).

Did I mention that ultrarunning isn’t really running? The nomenclature can be confusing. Someone who has finished an ultramarathon may casually say, “I just ran [name of ultramarathon] ” when in reality that finisher spent a good portion of the time walking or hiking. I guess the boastful may be deliberately choosing a misleading word to make the accomplishment sound bigger, but ultrarunners use the same word when talking to other ultrarunners who know full well how much walking might be involved (depending on the “runner,” the course, and the conditions).

You don’t have to be Albert Einstein to do the math and figure that someone who completes a 100 mile “run” in 29 hours is not running all that time. In fact, some people do complete ultramarathons without running at all. More typical is the mid-packers strategy of hiking the uphills, and running the flats and gentle downhills, and standing still or even sitting when eating or using the bathroom. Yes, there are exceptions even to those rules testified by little wiggly lines in the sand.

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Consequentially, “running” an ultramarathon can be easier (potentially *much* easier) than running a marathon. It’s a great sport for slackers. In the middle of a “race” you can just drop your dummy and stop for whatever reason. Lots of ultra race reports include pictures that were taken by the participants during the race. You can do this when “running” a marathon (and people do), but there is often a different mindset involved.

When someone runs a marathon for the first time, it is not uncommon for that race to be that runner’s first time running that long. Typical training plans for beginning marathon runners have the training go up to 20 miles, with race day being the only time that runner does the full distance. As such, people tend to underestimate how long it’s going to take. In addition to not being aware of just how quickly they may fall apart in the best of circumstances, there’s just enough new stuff going on that virgin marathoners tend to make a lot of mistakes (going out too fast is super typical), yet they cross the finish line and are overwhelmed by emotion when finishing their first marathon.

Anywhere from seconds to weeks after finishing, the disparity between the prediction and reality becomes unsettling, but when thinking about all the mistakes that were made, the next step people often take is to sign up for their second marathon, eliminate the mistakes and see a dramatic decrease in finishing time. However, just as the nascent marathoner didn’t realize how quickly things can fall apart on one’s first marathon, it’s as easy to over extrapolate the gains that one makes between one’s first and second marathon, leading to disappointment on the third.

Some people then fall into a trap and get a bit neurotic about their marathon finishing times. They put in big blocks of time training for an event and then if anything goes wrong (weather, family emergencies, work) they feel let down. They’re no longer running for the fun of running (if they ever did that; there are a lot of people who run their first marathon for reasons other than a love of running).

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Marathon courses are typically measured to be exactly 26.2 miles long, because if they’re shorter they can’t be used to qualify for the Boston Marathon and if they’re longer then all the people who are trying to set new personal records (PRs) are going to avoid them.

Ultras, especially trail ultras, tend to be different. Often the distance of the course is an approximation; the “natural” starting and stopping points, due to where the trails are, might cause a 50 miler to be 53 miles. Whereas the presence of hills on a marathon course (unless it’s a downhill course) tend to turn away marathoners, elevation change on ultras is often seen as a way to change gears (i.e., walk!) or as a challenge. Additionally, weather (and fires) cause course re-routes, so not only is it hard to compare two different ultras of ostensibly the same size, it’s often hard to compare the same ultra from year to year. That helps break the PR-driven mindset.

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Click here to view the entire video on Vimeo

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Did I mention the free drugs? Many people get the runners high when running long but not particularly hard (after years of training, so their muscles, joints and ligaments are all used to the effort). Just watch the portion of this video that has the black and white photos.

These people are about 60 miles into a very tough 120 mile event. Look at their eyes; those people are fucked up. Look at their smiles; those people are happy! Oh, sure, the tequila helps also. In addition to the endocannabinoids your body makes, ultra aid stations often have free beer, tequila or other spirits.

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Ultrarunners tend not to take themselves very seriously. The Dahlonega Ultra Marathon Association (DUMASS)’s motto is “Poor Decisions Make for Better Stories.” The Javelina Jundred, a popular hundred mile race outside of Phoenix, has a major aid station named “Jackass Junction.”

Sure, some people bucket-list a particular distance or a particular race. Sometimes that turns into a one-and-done, but many people find that the slower pace, along with the camaraderie and feeling of freedom leads to a fun hobby that can be enjoyed for hours (sometimes days) at a time and done again fairly soon thereafter. This isn’t always obvious from the race reports and videos that people write and make, because it’s human nature to emphasize the grueling aspects or the problems that had to be overcome.

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Click here to view the entire video on Vimeo

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However, although ultramarathoning is still pretty tiny, it’s growing by leaps and bounds, primarily because it really is pretty fun (to some people) and it’s definitely a lot easier than it sounds.

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June 8, 2018