Falcon 406: The Bullhorn

I would have gone to the BJ Falcon Zone topic, but it's been sitting stagnate for too long. So, with that, The BJ Falcon Zone is getting a major lift. It's now known as Falcon 406: The Bullhorn, a show that mixes a bit of Olberman with RPM.

TM MASTER CUP RACING: IT'S NOT AS GLAMOROUS NOR AS SIMPLE AS YOU MAY THINK IT IS
We begin tonight with questions surrounding the tirades against TM Master Cup stewards and TMMC race director Ryan Reinhart. As you might have known already, Chris Davenport was none the more pleased with the TMMC brass following a skirmish of fender-benders. This isn't the first time he's been in them either. But what I'm curious about is what exactly led up to the beef between Reinhart, the stewards and Davenport at Queensland? Moreover, why is Davenport putting the stewards and Reinhart under the bus? Why does he believe that they are at fault for Davenport's run-ins with competitors on track when in fact he's the one whose caused most of this trouble?

You see, TM Master Cup officials, promoters, team owners and competitors have a very thin line to walk amidst each other. If one crosses the other, it'd be pretty easy for the top brass to hand them down a swift kick up the shaft in the form of draconian fines, suspensions, or even draconian bans from the series itself! It seems to me that Davenport doesn't seem to agree a lot of the time with the decisions Ryan Reinhart and staff have made. But that by no means is an excuse to take that out on fellow competitors who have no involvement whatsoever with Davenport's beef with the TMMC brass. Even if the decision seems draconian, the TMMC brass was put in a tough spot. Talk about a rock and a hard place to choose! On one hand, I'd like to ere on the side of the stewards sending this clear message to Davenport that they're not going to put up with his rage any longer. On the other, I can see why Davenport would be upset at them. Yeah, sure, you can scream and shout at the stewards until you're dead blue in the face and all, but if you take it up to these levels, that's not necessarily going to endear you to the TMMC brass.

We've seen this in the past with the now-defunct Fortner Motorsports, and we've also seen this with Alexis Rainsford at times calling officials "sexist". We do not have any proof to suggest that they are as such, but we do know that in recent years, the TM Master Cup brass is getting heat from some of the competitors. Remember the MCMA disaster that put Terry Schoffner, TMMC president, on edge? This latest beef is just another prime example of such. And, unfortunately, the competitors who engage in these tirades against TMMC officials end up on the short end of the stick. Chris Davenport fell on his own sword when getting into a beef with Ryan Reinhart and staff resulting in getting booted from the Round of Gravis City.

Summed up: you can disagree all you want to with a particular decision the TMMC brass makes, but you cannot blatantly put blame on them for an action you've caused. If they believe it is your fault for causing the tirade, you gotta take responsibility and man up! Or, you can continue crying like a little baby and get the swift kick up the shaft out of the series. In the end, no one wins this argument. Not Reinhart, not Davenport. So, it's pretty clear as to why the TM Master Cup Series is not as glamorous or as easy as one might think it is. This series is ruled over by an iron man in a firesuit. Rookies beware. You can dispute a decision all you want to, but don't take it to the level Chris Davenport did. It's not worth getting taken out of your famed hot seat nor the ridicule from opposite sides. Hopefully Davenport and company will learn from this and handle disputes a little more diplomatically next time.

LYNXE, YOU NAUGHTY PUPPIES! - What did 'ya do this time?! For one, no one knows yet what infraction Lynxe Racing has committed, but such infraction has gotten them booted from the Round of Gravis City with a pretty hefty fine to boot. So, instead of the original four Last Chance Qualifiers grid slots, we have six open LCQ slots thanks to Lynxe. New teams heading into the 2017 TM Master Cup season better make certain to play by the rules because if 'ya don't, you may end up like Lynxe Racing.

ROUND OF GRAVIS CITY ON HOLD - The track is being reconfigured again which holds back the TM Master Cup Series Round of Gravis City even further. Track officials are trying to lengthen the one straightaway they believe is too short to consider high speed runs. That in turn may also affect the braking zones at the end of this straightaway. It may be enough to hit about 100 MPH but to slow a TM Master Cup car down at such a short length of raceway at that speed means a high speed runoff into the barriers and possible pileups. I know the fans are getting sick and tired of waiting for this race to get going, but, sometimes things like this happen. That's why I said in my beginning dialogue that the TM Master Cup Series isn't as glamorous as you might think it is, nor is it easy to get into. Gravis City track promoters are finding that out the hard way in having to reconfigure the straightaway. More information will be available as deemed possible.

WORD TO HAWK: JUST SHUT UP AND DRIVE! - At nearly most every Buckeye Association of Auto Racing event held so far, driver Angelina Hawk seems to have something to complain about, whether its the track, the racing, her own team, just whatever that may be, she's found something to bitch about, and that to me kinda annoys me. Sounds like me a long time ago. Luckily in the few years I've been away from the EFR world, I've gotten way better at handling a lot of different things. I think Angelina can learn from this experience by this very simple phrase: SHUT. UP. AND DRIVE! Nobody wants to hear your belly-aching malarkey over the radio or during the post-race interviews. I can't stand that. You gotta realize at some point, Angelina, that not a lot of things are gonna go your way. Either drive your racecar like you really mean it, or go home. BAAR racing is not a platform for your whining and bitching. BAAR racing is what you chose as a starting point in your racing career and if you want to move up the ranks, stop 'yo damn bitchin'! Hell, I'm not expecting you to be 100% every week, but damn! Show at least some form of gratitude, not your attitude! If you can show at least an inkling of such, maybe things will work for you in the short run. I can understand being mad every once in a while when things tend to hit the fan. Trust me. I've been there, done that. But, this constant complaining about every little thing that isn't going right is just getting under my skin. So, just for your sake and the sake of the BAAR racing contingency, just drive!

SHAKEUP AT BELLE ISLE - For the Buckeye Association for Auto Racing's third year at the Motor City's road course on the island, there came a shakeup in the BAAR Super Pro Series points. As Samantha Welch claimed her first win at BAAR's final road course event, Ashley Elliott pounced on several miscues as the majority of the field had to deal with turns 3 and 8 as major hotspots for trouble. Star Banner's car was junk after hitting the turn 3 wall again in the middle stages of the event and there was no way she'd repeat a third time at Belle Isle.

Now, remember my beef with Angelina Hawk? Well, judging by her perfomance at Belle Isle, she's got my thumbs up this week for driving her coattails off after switching engines following qualifying. Message delivered, message received it appears. And, I'm gonna give kudos to Liliana Muchado. Her luck was as bad in qualifying as Hawk, and both girls took home top ten runs at Belle Isle. Let's throw in an extra for Bill Jones and Genesis Racing. He along with Hawk and Muchado started at the rear and stormed to a second place finish nearly 7 seconds behind Belle Isle race winner Samantha Welch.

While Belle Isle proved well for Welch, Muchado, Hawk and Jones, several of BAAR's elite stars bit the dust early including Star Banner dealing with mechanical difficulties in her PSI backed #16. The track also became the snake for Brigette Dusablon and Jennifer Duke as the two ladies get snarled in the snake fangs and get bit early by contact near turn 8. Robert Burton who held the BAAR Super Pro Series points lead lost it near the end stage of the Belle Isle event leading to Ashley Elliott taking third and getting the 17 point advantage over Bill Jones while Burton dropped significantly to third 21 points behind Elliott.

The question is as the BAAR Super Pro Series stars leave the Motor City, will Ashley Elliott hang on to that 17 point advantage over Bill Jones? As the rest of the BAAR Super Pro Series tours the short tracks of the Ohio Valley, the chase for the championship begins at Kalamazoo Raceway for a 75 lap event which completes the swing of Michigan. Then the tour makes a Southern Ohio swing first at Mansfield Motorsports Park and later on is the second of the Triple Crown, the Ohio 300 from Columbus. Then, it's a swing of Illinois as the Super Pro stars battle it out at Grand Detour and Rockford, finally, we end the chase for the Super Pro Championship at Slinger Speedway in Wisconsin.

The road to the title is on!

PART-GATE, part 1 - Oh, brother. Just when I thought Deflategate would be over, here comes PART-gate. I indeed smell a rat in the administration of PART. I wanted information from them, but they decided to hide it away from the press and the public who demand answers as to what started the NAAC/PART split. I already got a sense of what the split is like from the drivers and team owners' perspectives, but not from PART themselves. Just recently I heard from one NAAC driver the following:

Since I first joined PART, they would never listen, I remember the Watkins Glen race, where people kept crashing, and nothing was done about it. Some people that day needed to be gone for a long time, but PART is all about getting the views, and it caused a lot of crap in the garage. Look at how many drivers got hurt, it's was way more than it should've.

Further, this driver adds:

We've heard rumors about a split for a while, and talking to [a NAAC car owner], we wanted to be in this new sanction ever since, our cries for safety and competent officiating was not listened. I wanted to win a PART title, really badly, especially for my family, but it wasn't meant to be. I want to be the first champ here. It would leave a lasting legacy on the sport. I plan to make NAAC better, I want the best competitors in the world in here, a series I believe in. That's why I made the jump.

PART officials even had the gall to tell car owner Ryan Matthews to "get over it". Matthews made a bombshell announcement this past week in a series of Tweets blasting the PART brass. In the series of Twitter posts, he detailed a meeting with PART officials over their partnership with Hanmore. According to Matthews, he says that one of the higher-ups from PART's upper management told him to "get over" his objections to the alliance, adding that "it's been five years," in reference to the 2012 Hanmore World Championships in which five drivers, including Matthews' late wife Tiffany, lost their lives.

In essence, PART's ear-splitting reaction to Matthews' objections to PART's partnership with Hanmore was flat out enough. Matthews is bailing PART and heading off to NAAC under the new banner of Matthews Atlantic Motorsports, a rebranding of M2 Development.

David Hetzel, yes you remember him from past EFR events? Late for the party? Let me clue you in. He is heading off to NAAC as well and he wasn't shy to bash PART, either, calling them a joke of a series due to their bad officiating.

And when I asked for PART's comments on the NAAC split, they flat out just shun me. They told me that if they had anything to say about the NAAC split, it'd be on PART's website. Well, when I went to check their website, nothing ever was said about the NAAC split. In essence, what they said to me on the Twitter was actually code for "shut up about the NAAC split, we ain't sayin' anything about it!" This has given me plenty of reasons to express anger against the PART officials, and, at this point, I flat out don't care what they say about me. They can't sway me. I was being cordial to them, now I'm not so cordial to them. The PART officials demonstrably suck and I have every reason to think that somehow PART was behind all of this fluff. I have every reason to doubt their intelligence. In all honesty, I refuse to be pushed around by these idiots! So, bash me all you want to PART officials, because quite frankly, all I ever hear from you is all talk and no walk. Are your cars safe? Hell no! There ain' no chance in hell I'd drive your cars! They suck! Your TV ratings are horrible. They're as godawful as every eye-popping, ear-splitting, hair-pulling episode of those rancid auditions from NBC's The Voice! You are the bottom feeder of every racing organization. You are nothing more than NAAC's door mat. You are nothing compared to NAAC and all other motorsports for that matter. Hell, I've seen better dirt track racing in Montana and in Knoxville than this pile of steamy dog **** you all put out. It's a good thing Channel 44 and OEN didn't pick you to air your sorry state of a series. It's a travesty! To think that you're in only for the views and the money and you neglect to keep your roster safe sure as hell makes me sick to my stomach! Any racing series can vouch for viewership! But if you don't keep your drivers and fans safe, these city slickers in sleek black and sunglasses with lockbox briefcases known as lawyers will be knocking on your doorsteps real soon.

Quite frankly, PART deserves to be shut down. PART deserves to burn in flames for deceiving their drivers, fans, and supporters. You're exactly a bush-league type of series I will never support. It wasn't a big deal until you decided to play rough shod with me, Ryan Mattews, David Hetzel and a host of others. If that's how you want to play PART, sorry to say, but, you'll lose! You'll be reduced to mush in no time. I stand for safety, I stand for what drivers believe in, and obviously, you people at PART do not support these views. And for that, y'all can die in a hole for all I care!

This ain't over, PART. This war's just begun and I will win! Just you wait and see what happens next in part 2!

.......what?

Crap!...Take 2 - I'm still curious about the NAAC/PART split. Having said as such, the split has nothing to do with the drivers or owners themselves. I did not direct the so-called "beef" at these individuals. Rather, it was directed to the head honchos of PART.

So was it a stretch to call it a conspiracy? To me, yeah. Maybe that's what took it too far on the Twitter feeds regarding this article.

And, further, since when did Tom Delgado become my chief editor all the sudden? I never tell him how to drive his racecar or how to run his teams. It's even best to say that I don't even know him from the hole in the ground.

A much different perspective on PART is forthcoming.

Scratch that. I'm moving far away from this deal. There are other things to cover on Falcon 406 and PART/NAAC is not one of them at present. Honestly, drivers and owners in the series thought I was taking shots at them. That was not who I was directing these posts to. This was originally directed towards the PART officials themselves, not the owners and drivers. I'm letting this one go because too many lines were crossed between me and a few others on the Twitter feeds about PART/NAAC.

Sometimes you think you want to get all brave and bold and do everything possible to get the cold truth from top ranking officials. Then again, there is this conscious on the other side that taps the shoulder and says to you "Just let it go. It isn't worth it." At this point, I'm erring on that conscious, so, with that, we move on indeed. I'm not gonna even touch this PART/NAAC thing anymore.

THREE-WAY CATFIGHT FOR BAAR CHAMPIONSHIP - Yes, it is a three-way catfight on wheels. Three of the top BAAR Super Pro Series superstars are in the chase for the title. They are Lucy Barton, Ashley Elliott and Brigette Dusablon. Yep. You are seeing correctly. It is these three BAAR Super Pro Series girls deciding the 2016 title. Barton ended up with the lead after leading the most laps at Midvale. But, the question is this; will she keep it? Or will Elliott or Dusablon nab it away from Barton at Grand Detour? After all, we are in the final stages of the 2016 title hunt and never before has the series seen this intense points battle fought out between three female competitors until now. I wonder what will happen in Wisconsin when all this is said and done and all three are on the podiums after the season is over? Cocoa pit maybe? Nah, I'm getting ahead of myself! Who am I kidding?!

KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED - I'm not going into any specific details about this awful crash from EuroSpeedway that hosted the Dash Cup Series race other than to tell you to cross your fingers and hope for the best for all involved. That was horrific to watch. Trust me folks. I've seen cars get split in two, fly into catch fences, ram the wall, explode like bombs, you name it. This one was quite the boomer at the EuroSpeedway. I'll tell you more about as soon as Dash Cup officials get the word on all involved in the crash. For now, hope for the best. Don't always assume the worse. Dash Cup teams have made their cars as safe as possible as much as the rules allow. Hopefully all of the safety gear in these cars have saved a weary body from serious injury.

ROSS CARTER ALIVE AND WELL DESPITE FAUX DEATH REPORTS - Let's get straight here. First, I'm pleased to say about the positive progress Ross Carter is making despite these faux "death" Tweets that some random wizgig decided to post to the interwebs only to get swallowed up by the drones of angry racers on InfiniTweet, GoTweet, and countless other sites many drivers frequent on a daily basis. Secondly, Ross Carter has not passed away as @RandomMotorsportsFan had clearly the cahones to post online. I'm not too happy with this random cave-dwelling, chip-shoving poser. To have the gall to post something like that online is just ******* sick! Just be glad Ross Carter isn't at your doorstep @RandomMotorsportsFan because knowing him, he'd probably have you swallow your stupidity up your throat so hard that you'd think twice about a cowardly act like this and never post anything again. This is by far the most gutless and classless thing I've seen. Anyone with a brain in their chrome dome wouldn't take these risque lengths to get some shine. That's the kind of thing you don't do when you clearly didn't see the post-race interviews after the race at EuroSpeedway where the Dash Cup drivers last raced. You clearly didn't see any press statements made by Dash Cup or Ross Carter's team. You just saw his name on some random site, typed that crap online hoping 'ya get shine out of it, but you instead got crapped on. Just be fortunate this day I didn't have to go looking for a reason to Falcon Punch 'yo lights out because everyone else did that for me. All I need to do is sit back and enjoy laughing at you for the sheer stupidity you put on display. You wanted to get some shine out of what could have been much worse, took advantage of something you should not have done in the first place, and now look at you. What a fool you've become. Go back to your mancave wherever you are and don't come around here anymore! And that goes for anyone else who have the nerve to do something like this. That's all I need to say. This makes me wanna puke about now...

ONE LINE: KEEP IT STEADY - Gravis City is a new course to the Master Cup ranks, but some TMMC contingents pushed things a bit too hard throughout the final qualifier during the first few laps after the green flag and the final few laps before the checkers. Obviously due to not posing possible spoilage of the drivers who finished in the final heat race, I won't name drivers, but I can give you a hint with numbers: it's 46, it's 999, 57, 99, 07 and 211. That is it. It was those six that duked it for the most part while everyone else was quite simply a no-show, a non-factor of the event. As Cynon's Reject of the Race for the final heat round of Gravis City suggests, too much exuberance made a few people crack the wall and their cars. That is why I say keep it steady. Don't push so damn hard in the beginning to stay ahead because you'll lose the edge you'll need in the later stages of the main event. You put too much bite in the tight corners and you'll be sliding around like a USAC sprint car driver with almost no means to regain grip. Teams need to keep tire wear balanced so that they have enough for the end because a lot of times during these road course races in the TM Master Cup, tires become a factor more than fuel because of the shorter distance than the ovals they race on where it's more or less fuel than tires. A few chattered their tires after pushing it too hard. The ending felt like a Lewis Hamilton highlight from Macau where he tried to keep it up front, pushed it too hard and paid the price for it. That's what happens when you push too hard. I'm not saying anything about not pushing your car TO the limit, just don't push it PAST its limit. A few did and got snake bit.

The storylines for the main event will be interesting to follow up.

PRESSURE COOKER - It's probably the best description I have for BAAR Super Pro Series points leader Ashley Elliott. Rockford just was not her place. Neither Brigette Dusablon or Angelina Hawk could manage good runs at the track we normally associate with ARLA, which is now FARC. In fact, as we wind down the BAAR Super Pro Series heading into the penultimate round, I don't think Ashley Elliott will hold the lead for very much longer seeing as Jennifer Duke finished 10th at Rockford and Brad Brinkley took first place at Rockford. The score stands at 432 for Elliott to 426 for Brinkley, a six point gap. Lucy Barton holds station at third with 423 points, nine back from Elliott. Because Dusablon's engine blew up, she falls to fourth 24 points back from Elliott at 408. Rookie Bill Jones sits in fifth with 403 points. In my opinion, the drivers from sixth to tenth, they being Parker Whitten, Frank Deiny, Jr., Hunter Blaize, Roy Warren and Robert Burton mathematically don't have a shot at the BAAR Super Pro Series title. As we head to BAAR's championship finale, I'm think the two drivers, Barton and Brinkley, will have a great chance at dethroning Ashley Elliott. In order for one of these five drivers to win the BAAR Super Pro Series, one of them must do this:

For Elliott to win the title: She must take pole position, lead the most laps, win or finish no lower than 6th. No pole, not leading the race and not winning it is not an option. She either leads and wins the title, or loses it. If she crashes, Brinkley takes the title. If both Brinkley and Elliott crash, Barton gets the title.

For Brinkley to win the title: Elliott must finish out of the top six and beat Barton, Dusablon, and Jones. If he can manage to lead just seven laps, he'll score bonus points for each lap led which would lead to the championship going to Brinkley. He can win pole position, but because he's so close to Ashley Elliott in the points, leading seven laps is all he needs. If indeed Brinkley gets the pole, he'll have five points on the docket, which could mean he'll only have to lead one or two laps at most to win the title.

For Barton to win the title: She must lead the race for 10 laps and pass Brinkley and Elliott for the championship. Pole position could help Barton greatly, which would reduce the amount of laps from 10 to 5. If Barton crashes, Brinkley and Elliott will remain the title hunt unless the three tangle up in a crash altogether which would be a tremendous shame. This kind of event would put Dusablon in a situation where she'd be able to leap frog them, take the lead, keep it, and win the race, possibly winning the title.

For Dusablon to win the title: She's got a hefty amount of points to gain. 24 in all. That means she must take pole position, which gives her five points, lead the race for 30 laps for an additional amount, which would cut in to the 432 points Elliott currently has and then some. She must finish no lower than second and get enough points to pass Elliott for the title.

For Jones to win the title: I'd say he's got a herculean task here for a first year driver. If Jones is to win the title and Rookie of the Year, Elliott, Brinkley, Barton and Dusablon must be outside the top twenty. If not, Jones must take pole position, lead the most laps, and win the event.

We'll see what happens after Slinger. I'm crossing my fingers and anticipating the results from one of these predictions.