NASCAR’s also-rans work the system

Those terms, as well as wheel bearing, transmission and engine are code for NASCAR’s hidden secret: the drivers who start and park.

The start-and-parkers have enough talent to wheel a race car 185 mph but not enough sponsorship money to keep it on the track for 400 miles. Or sometimes, even 40.

But they keep coming to the track, hoping to qualify for races like Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway even though they realize their chances of finishing, not to mention winning, is remote.

“I love racin,” said Nemechek, who won both the 2004 Nationwide and Sprint Cup races at Kansas Speedway. “Now some of the time, it makes you think twice. Why the heck am I still doing this? But I love it.”

So while most of the attention at NASCAR races focuses on the race leaders and contenders for the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship, there is just as much drama at the rear of the pack. That’s where the drivers for the low-budget teams try to squeeze in as many laps as they can without damaging their race car and hope to pick up enough cash to make it to next week.

“Once in a while, we find some extra funds which allow us to go out there and run more, but it’s so hard, if you don’t have that, you’re going to be broke pretty quick, said Nemechek, who owns NEMCO Motorsports with his wife, Andrea. “It’s a very expensive sport, which everybody knows, and we’re trying to do the best we can.Largest gemstone beads and jewelry making supplies at wholesale prices.”

Blaney, driving for upstart Tommy Baldwin Racing, nearly caught the break of his career at this year’s Daytona 500 when he was the leader on lap 164 of 202 when the race was red flagged after Juan Pablo Montoya crashed into a jet dryer in a rain delay.

“I was thinking, ‘We might get lucky,’?” Blaney said of winning the Great American Race and its $1,588,887 purse had the race not resumed.

Instead, he managed to finish 15th and pocketed $296,513 for his team to race another day.

“You’re trying to race, trying to raise a little money,” said Blaney, 50. “Maybe the sponsor arena gets a little more friendly and you get enough money to race all day instead of having to stop early. A lot of guys are quality race car drivers who don’t have much to drive, and in this day and age, there’s no making up for lack of equipment.”

This week, NASCAR tried to level the field a bit when it announced a change in qualifying procedures. Instead of the top 35 in owners points automatically qualifying for a race, the fastest 36 would automatically qualify for the 43-car field, regardless of position in the standings.We specialize in howo concrete mixer,

That would seem to give someone like Nemechek, nicknamed “Front Row Joe” for his qualifying prowess, a chance to start further up in the field rather than struggle for one of the last eight spots.

“They’re trying to add some excitement to qualifying,We recently added Stained glass mosaic Tile to our inventory. so it means something,” said Nemechek, 49. “There are a few teams that have taken advantage of being locked in. Now, everybody has to put a valiant effort forward and see what it takes to get in.”

Qualifying to make the show is so important for the field fillers that they consider qualifying day more important than race day.

“I’m a product of that,” said Landon Cassill, the 2008 Nationwide Series Rookie of the Year who drives for another fledgling Sprint Cup team,One of the most durable and attractive styles of flooring that you can purchase is ceramic or porcelain tiles. BK Racing. “I spent a year driving for teams that couldn’t even run 20 laps. We had to make the race,Purelink's real time location system protect healthcare workers in their daily practices and OMEGA interventions. and once we made the race, that was the end of our weekend.

“We achieved our goal, and I acquired many meetings with big(-money) team owners based on how I qualified a car. I qualified 20th at Indianapolis, and the very next week, I was sitting at a desk of big-time team owners who wanted to know who I was.”

The logical question for those teams struggling to keep up with the $20 million a year budgets of the powerhouse Cup teams is: Why don’t they race at the second-tier Nationwide level?

That answer is that takes millions of dollars as well to haul cars and crews to the track.

“Three years ago, Tommy Baldwin was a start-and-park team,” said Cassill, who is from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “You would have said, ‘Tommy why don’t you run Nationwide?’ But last fall, Dave Blaney finished third in (Baldwin’s) car at Talladega. Tommy built it from ground up. He built a team that generated enough money starting and parking in order to race a couple of races, and through their success in those races found some sponsorship to race a full season for a couple of years.

Why You Should Not Buy An iPad 2: iOS

Like many tech enthusiasts, I followed last week's Apple event closely. Steve Jobs

unexpectedly took the stage, but the company announced an expected product: the iPad 2.

Although not nearly as revolutionary as the original, the second generation model brings

refined hardware improvements. Extras such as cameras are also a great addition, however

there is one major flaw: iOS.
Do Hardware Specs Matter?

This questions comes up quite often and the answer is not simple. Apple's original iPad was a

game changer since there was nothing else like it on the market. Tablet PCs had been around

for ages, but they still ran a desktop operating system. While I adore Windows 7 and use it

primarily for all my work, it is far from being ideal for tablets. With the introduction of

iOS, hardware specs for tablets became more along the lines of a smart phone rather than a

laptop computer.

Although 2010 was definitely the year of the iPad, 2011 has an entirely new landscape.

Competition such as the BlackBerry PlayBook, HP TouchPad, Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab

10, and LG G-Slate each offer a very similar set of features. There are some benefits and

drawbacks to each which we highlighted in our series of infographics, but the specifications

are roughly the same. They are so close in some regards that it truly does not make a

difference to consumers.
Software Matters Too

While hardware specifications were all the rage for ages, easy to use and intuitive software

has pushed for consumer friendly devices. Apple made a great decision when they chose to run

iOS on the iPad instead of Mac OS X last year. The interface was efficient, familiar, and

simple. The iPhone was already a hit and the iPad was a perfectly complement to the family.

Although I do not own an iPad, I spent some time using and reviewing it last year. There were

many missing features at the time, however iOS ran incredibly smoothly. Fast forward a year

later, not much has changed aside from the addition of multitasking. The new iPad 2 makes

things faster with a dual-core processor, but the operating system is nearly identical.

This creates a major issue for Apple as we head into the flooded market of tablets in 2011.

The current iOS for the iPad is essentially an enlarged version of the operating system for

the iPhone and iPod touch. The platform was a great start, but the original design does not

take advantage of the tablet form factor. Although I was hoping for a new refreshing

interface, Apple did not announce a major software revamp for the iPad 2 aside from a few

minor enhancements.


There are many amazing iPad apps that take advantage of 9.7 inch screen, but the operating

system does not go far enough. Google, HP, and RIM have started from the ground up with new

tablet operating systems that take the slate form factor into consideration from the OS

level. BlackBerry Tablet OS, webOS 3, and Android 3.0 Honeycomb each offer many user

interface improvements which are more innovative and intuitive than iOS.

For instance, HP's latest webOS 3 lets users stack sets of applications together for

organized multitasking. Google's Android 3.0 Honeycomb has an impressive notifications panel

for keeping up to date with the latest information without letting pop ups disrupt work flow.

It is not just about multitasking and notifications either, these new breed of  tablets offer

creative home screens with widgets and improved navigation for getting things done fast.