New Year's resolutions
By Bob Margolis, Yahoo! Sports
New Year's resolutions. They're one of those traditional things that come as part of the holiday season like egg nog, fruit cakes and post-Christmas sales. And as with all of those things, they sound good at the time, but in reflection, perhaps they weren't exactly what we had in mind.
For nearly everyone, New Year's resolutions are easy to make and usually start accumulating during holiday parties when we've eaten and drunk too much or perhaps said something to a friend, co-worker or buddy's wife that maybe we didn't really want to say.
The best thing about resolutions is that we can remove them from our lives just as quickly and painlessly as we had, for the most part, hastily installed them in the first place.
With all of that said, maybe it's better to have someone else do your resolutions for you. That way, you have to deal with the guilt of someone else knowing about it and you won't discard it as easily as you might have.
Using the above logic, I therefore offer those in and around NASCAR the following list of New Year's resolutions for their consideration for 2006 – and maybe beyond.
Nextel Cup champion Tony Stewart – He has professed his desire to lose weight and get in shape in '06, so I hope he starts dating women who look more like Kirstie Alley than Eva Longoria. That way, they can lose weight together. And it will be easier for Tony to cut out pizzas.
Goodyear – To supply each team and its crew chief with one of those National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) pamphlets when you buy new tires that teach you how take care of them. Also, a pamphlet explaining the new tire leasing program in more detail to everyone else (especially the media).
Lowe's Motor Speedway president and general manager Humpy Wheeler – To never again fix what isn't broken.
Chip Ganassi – To watch tapes of his ultra successful (and unstoppable) CART open wheel teams from 1996 to 1999 (that featured championship-winning drivers Jimmy Vasser, Alex Zanardi and Juan Pablo Montoya) and figure out how to duplicate it in NASCAR.
Brian France – To continue to get up on the same side of the bed, put on his shoes in the same order, eat the same food and do just about everything else exactly the same way he does it now. Basically, France should not changing anything, so that the most successful racing series in the world continues its winning ways.
Paul Tracy – So that he can seriously be considered a stock car driver, to lift and brake while driving into corners.
Erin Crocker – To forget about all the hype and remember why she wanted to race cars in the first place. And realize that Jeff Gordon and Greg Biffle trashed a lot of race cars when they started out, too.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. – To spend more time relaxing behind his drum kit while still marching to his own beat, all the while reminding us that his name could be Dale Jones and he'd still win races.
Jimmie Johnson – To attend a Tony Robbins seminar on the power of persuasion, so that next time he tells someone (like his crew chief) that there's something wrong with his race car, they believe him.
Team owner Cal Wells – To win more than one Cup race in a season.
Jeff Gordon – To quit using slogans like the "Drive for 5 in '05" that he debuted at the start of the past season and seems a bit embarrassing now.
Kyle Busch – To continue to impress everyone with his exceptional talent and likely end up, when it's all said and done, with more race wins and championships than his older brother.
Carl Edwards – To never stop and realize the enormity of his success in his first full season as a Nextel Cup driver. Edwards doesn't know how talented he really is.
Bruton Smith – To continue his charade about buying the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) so as to keep investors interested in Speedway Motorsports Inc.
Greg Biffle – To win the Nextel Cup – PERIOD! And to never again tell the media (like he did at Daytona in July '05) that "I'm just happy to be leading the points." He lost the points lead soon after that and never regained it again.
Bobby Labonte – To not have to look at himself in the mirror in May and ask "Why did I do this?"
Brian Vickers – To win his first Nextel Cup race. Then, win some more as the taste of victory in the Cup series will be one that Vickers will find to his liking.
International Speedway Corporation – To continue to upgrade its facilities (especially the media centers) at a much faster pace at nearly all of its race tracks to show that it can indeed compete against all the other professional sports arenas and stadiums across the country for the same customer.
Elliott Sadler and the entire M&M's 38 car team – To peak in October-November.
SPEED Channel executives – To produce more television shows like "Beyond The Wheel," a show which remarkably enough assumes that some NASCAR fans are indeed intelligent and want to learn more about their favorite sport than what they're being spoon-fed via other television programming.
Ryan Newman – To pretend that he's actually driving his Busch car during every Nextel Cup race.
Travis Kvapil – To keep Cal Wells in business by finishing in the top 20 (or higher) in points.
Michael Waltrip – To not be the driver with the most crashes again in '06 and give the guys in the Bill Davis fabrication shop a break.
FOX and NBC sports directors – To tell their producers that they have to stop squeezing 120 seconds of commercials into a 90-second break and to pay better attention to what is going on during a race so that they never again miss a green flag restart.
Toyota racing executives – To win the Craftsman Truck Series title and win the most races. Also, to make an official announcement as early as possible in 2006 that they are indeed coming into the Busch and Nextel Cup Series in 2007 so that the speculation will end and everyone can focus on what they'll have to do to beat the Japanese manufacturer in those two series in about three years – when they figure it all out.
Robby Gordon – To win races, keep his sponsors happy and continue to provide the most entertaining race day scanner dialog in all of racing.
Martin Truex Jr., David Stremme, Denny Hamlin, J.J. Yeley, Reed Sorenson, Paul Menard and Clint Bowyer – To win the Nextel Cup Raybestos Rookie of the Year title – or at the very least, try to keep his job past April.
Dale Jarrett – To forget about driving the brown truck and instead drive his brown race car into victory lane more often than once a season, especially since the number of seasons he'll have the opportunity to do so are winding down rapidly.
Richard Childress and Robert Yates – To continue to keep their sponsors happy, win more races and remain two of the truly bigger-than-life characters in the NASCAR garage.
NASCAR officials – To stop penalizing crew chiefs and engineers for being innovative, even if it does give them a competitive advantage. It will only make the rest of the garage work harder.
Greg Zipadelli – To never lose the lucky four-leaf clover he found in a field in the Irish Hills of Michigan last June.
NASCAR fans – To continue to fanatically support the greatest sport on earth (because it is) and to stop being so silly and treat Dale Jr. like someone other than the son of Elvis.
And finally …
Jack Roush – To confess to everyone in NASCAR that he's really a happy-go-lucky guy and that it's all good. And to remove the license plate frame on his personal car that says "I'd rather be flying."
Veteran motorsports writer Bob Margolis is a Yahoo! Sports NASCAR reporter.
By Bob Margolis, Yahoo! Sports
New Year's resolutions. They're one of those traditional things that come as part of the holiday season like egg nog, fruit cakes and post-Christmas sales. And as with all of those things, they sound good at the time, but in reflection, perhaps they weren't exactly what we had in mind.
For nearly everyone, New Year's resolutions are easy to make and usually start accumulating during holiday parties when we've eaten and drunk too much or perhaps said something to a friend, co-worker or buddy's wife that maybe we didn't really want to say.
The best thing about resolutions is that we can remove them from our lives just as quickly and painlessly as we had, for the most part, hastily installed them in the first place.
With all of that said, maybe it's better to have someone else do your resolutions for you. That way, you have to deal with the guilt of someone else knowing about it and you won't discard it as easily as you might have.
Using the above logic, I therefore offer those in and around NASCAR the following list of New Year's resolutions for their consideration for 2006 – and maybe beyond.
Nextel Cup champion Tony Stewart – He has professed his desire to lose weight and get in shape in '06, so I hope he starts dating women who look more like Kirstie Alley than Eva Longoria. That way, they can lose weight together. And it will be easier for Tony to cut out pizzas.
Goodyear – To supply each team and its crew chief with one of those National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) pamphlets when you buy new tires that teach you how take care of them. Also, a pamphlet explaining the new tire leasing program in more detail to everyone else (especially the media).
Lowe's Motor Speedway president and general manager Humpy Wheeler – To never again fix what isn't broken.
Chip Ganassi – To watch tapes of his ultra successful (and unstoppable) CART open wheel teams from 1996 to 1999 (that featured championship-winning drivers Jimmy Vasser, Alex Zanardi and Juan Pablo Montoya) and figure out how to duplicate it in NASCAR.
Brian France – To continue to get up on the same side of the bed, put on his shoes in the same order, eat the same food and do just about everything else exactly the same way he does it now. Basically, France should not changing anything, so that the most successful racing series in the world continues its winning ways.
Paul Tracy – So that he can seriously be considered a stock car driver, to lift and brake while driving into corners.
Erin Crocker – To forget about all the hype and remember why she wanted to race cars in the first place. And realize that Jeff Gordon and Greg Biffle trashed a lot of race cars when they started out, too.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. – To spend more time relaxing behind his drum kit while still marching to his own beat, all the while reminding us that his name could be Dale Jones and he'd still win races.
Jimmie Johnson – To attend a Tony Robbins seminar on the power of persuasion, so that next time he tells someone (like his crew chief) that there's something wrong with his race car, they believe him.
Team owner Cal Wells – To win more than one Cup race in a season.
Jeff Gordon – To quit using slogans like the "Drive for 5 in '05" that he debuted at the start of the past season and seems a bit embarrassing now.
Kyle Busch – To continue to impress everyone with his exceptional talent and likely end up, when it's all said and done, with more race wins and championships than his older brother.
Carl Edwards – To never stop and realize the enormity of his success in his first full season as a Nextel Cup driver. Edwards doesn't know how talented he really is.
Bruton Smith – To continue his charade about buying the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) so as to keep investors interested in Speedway Motorsports Inc.
Greg Biffle – To win the Nextel Cup – PERIOD! And to never again tell the media (like he did at Daytona in July '05) that "I'm just happy to be leading the points." He lost the points lead soon after that and never regained it again.
Bobby Labonte – To not have to look at himself in the mirror in May and ask "Why did I do this?"
Brian Vickers – To win his first Nextel Cup race. Then, win some more as the taste of victory in the Cup series will be one that Vickers will find to his liking.
International Speedway Corporation – To continue to upgrade its facilities (especially the media centers) at a much faster pace at nearly all of its race tracks to show that it can indeed compete against all the other professional sports arenas and stadiums across the country for the same customer.
Elliott Sadler and the entire M&M's 38 car team – To peak in October-November.
SPEED Channel executives – To produce more television shows like "Beyond The Wheel," a show which remarkably enough assumes that some NASCAR fans are indeed intelligent and want to learn more about their favorite sport than what they're being spoon-fed via other television programming.
Ryan Newman – To pretend that he's actually driving his Busch car during every Nextel Cup race.
Travis Kvapil – To keep Cal Wells in business by finishing in the top 20 (or higher) in points.
Michael Waltrip – To not be the driver with the most crashes again in '06 and give the guys in the Bill Davis fabrication shop a break.
FOX and NBC sports directors – To tell their producers that they have to stop squeezing 120 seconds of commercials into a 90-second break and to pay better attention to what is going on during a race so that they never again miss a green flag restart.
Toyota racing executives – To win the Craftsman Truck Series title and win the most races. Also, to make an official announcement as early as possible in 2006 that they are indeed coming into the Busch and Nextel Cup Series in 2007 so that the speculation will end and everyone can focus on what they'll have to do to beat the Japanese manufacturer in those two series in about three years – when they figure it all out.
Robby Gordon – To win races, keep his sponsors happy and continue to provide the most entertaining race day scanner dialog in all of racing.
Martin Truex Jr., David Stremme, Denny Hamlin, J.J. Yeley, Reed Sorenson, Paul Menard and Clint Bowyer – To win the Nextel Cup Raybestos Rookie of the Year title – or at the very least, try to keep his job past April.
Dale Jarrett – To forget about driving the brown truck and instead drive his brown race car into victory lane more often than once a season, especially since the number of seasons he'll have the opportunity to do so are winding down rapidly.
Richard Childress and Robert Yates – To continue to keep their sponsors happy, win more races and remain two of the truly bigger-than-life characters in the NASCAR garage.
NASCAR officials – To stop penalizing crew chiefs and engineers for being innovative, even if it does give them a competitive advantage. It will only make the rest of the garage work harder.
Greg Zipadelli – To never lose the lucky four-leaf clover he found in a field in the Irish Hills of Michigan last June.
NASCAR fans – To continue to fanatically support the greatest sport on earth (because it is) and to stop being so silly and treat Dale Jr. like someone other than the son of Elvis.
And finally …
Jack Roush – To confess to everyone in NASCAR that he's really a happy-go-lucky guy and that it's all good. And to remove the license plate frame on his personal car that says "I'd rather be flying."
Veteran motorsports writer Bob Margolis is a Yahoo! Sports NASCAR reporter.