Archives for 2012

NASCAR News: STP 400 this Sunday at Kansas Speedway

Last Race
So what is it about Texas that the Roush Fenway team loves so much, the BBQ brisket maybe? They performed great at the track last year and continued with the winning trend when Greg Biffle captured the checkered flag at the Samsung Mobile 500. A fast race with very long periods of green flag racing witnessed Biffle break his long losing streak and with his strong finishes this season he could be the first driver to win all three NASCAR titles. He has already won the Truck Series and the Nationwide Series titles in past seasons.

Biffle edged by Jimmie Johnson late in the race while one of the favorites in the race, Tony Stewart, finished two laps down, hurt by the fact that his primary car out from a practice accident earlier in the week and a slow backup. The top five was filled by Johnson, Mark Martin, Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth.

This Weekend
This week they are back to running under the sun, with the STP 400 at the 1.5-mile Kansas Speedway that features 15 degrees in the turns and 10.4 degrees in the front stretch and 5 degrees in the back stretch. The facility has a 72,000 person capacity and if you want to see video of past events, and other NASCAR races head over to YouTube.

Broadcast
Sunday, 12:30 pm ET on Fox

Twitter feeds
@Kansasspeedway- Tracks official Twitter feed
@NASCAR-Official NASCAR feed
@NationwideNNS-Nationwide Official Twitter
@NASCAR_NNS-NASCAR Nationwide feed
@NASCARONFOX-Fox Sports feed
@AllWaltrip-3 Time NASCAR Champ and Fox announcer
@PRNLive-Performance Racing Network

Sprint Cup Standings
1) Greg Biffle
2) Matt Kenseth -19
3) Dale Earnhardt Jr. -19
4) Martin Truex Jr. -20
5) Kevin Harvick -24

Nationwide Series
The Roush team did not just win the Sprint race; it also won the Nationwide race of Friday night with Rickey Stenhouse Jr. surviving a restart with six laps left in the race. This is Roush’s fourth consecutive Nationwide Series win at the Texas Motor Speedway, and that is quite something.

Paul Menard, who led the race for a total of 100 laps and started in the pole position came in second while the rest of the top finishers were Kasey Kahne, Denny Hamlin and Austin Dillon. For any Dancia Patrick fans, she had her best finish to date with a late race charge going from 13 into the 8th spot at the finish line.

Once again the Nationwide Series is taking a week off, and will next appear once again under the lights, this time racing in Richmond on the 27th.

Nationwide Series Standings
1) Elliott Sadler
2) Ricky Stenhouse Jr -4
3) Austin Dillon -20
4) Sam Hornish Jr. -54
5) Michael Annett -64

Dale Juniors’ Track
Ever wonder what drivers do at home? Well I cannot really tell you but here is an interesting look at the property that Dale Earnhardt Jr. lives on, and it looks like he has developed a nice dirt track where he and friends can go take a spin. Oh, it is also a car graveyard.

I like to think that he has BBQs and then has friends do impromptu races around the track, setting new records reaching what looks like a number of his and his rivals older cars stationed around the property. Head over here and see how many cars you can find in the photos on Yahoo.

Friday Grab Bag: The Olympics are 98 Days Away!

Next week in pro football news, the ever popular draft is coming. One interesting thing about the NFL regular season schedule being released this week is that Las Vegas already has lines on the games! Not sure if it is time yet to lay a dime on Green Bay giving the points however.

Intel delivers high capacity solid state drives for consumers
Intel has delivered the Solid-State Drive 330 Series, a lineup that is directly targeted at the consumer market. Now being a consumer you might wonder why you would want one of these drives and the answer is easy. They have the capacity to store your growing digital music/video/images collection that might not fit on your smartphone or tablet, or even computer.

The drives will be available in the 60GB, 120GB and 180GB capacities and is a SATA 6Gb/s-based SSD. The difference between a SSD and what is probably in your computer is that a traditional hard disk drive has rotating material and so is much more prone to damage from dropping or other accidents. A SSD is what is in your smartphone, or at least the underlying technology is.

Exercise cycle delivers feedback wirelessly
Ever ridden an exercise bike and found that the data that it provided was worthless, or like at my gym, the data technology always seems to be broken? Well a company called Body Bike wants to fix all that with a wireless solution that can provide feedback using Ant + wireless technology developed by Ant Wireless.

The Body Bike Connect uses the wireless technology to send a wide range of information including VO2 max, calories, distance, and average, percentage and maximum values to an Ant enabled console. It also can be used to handle personalized settings.

Foursquare tops 20 million users
Now I have to admit I am not a Foursquare user. I don’t care that you are buying a cup of coffee or getting your haircut. Why do you think that is interesting to anybody but stalkers and home thieves? Well enough of the rant, as I see that the location-based check-in service startup has 20 million users, up from 15 million in December.

Google’s Motorola plans driving partners to rivals?
There is growing speculation that part of Google’s plans for its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility is to emulate what Apple is currently doing, becoming a vertically integrated developer. What that means is that it would develop the hardware, the operating system and possibly even the chip, for future Android devices. Currently it helps partners design products that are sold as Nexus systems.

This would make it very tough for partners to compete with Google’s own products, and could be a major impetus for them to look for alternatives. While Apple’s iOS is out two alternatives remain that already have at least a bit of mainstream acceptance.

The two are Research in Motion, which reportedly is in talks to license its technology to Samsung. The second and possibly more viable alternative is Microsoft. Its Windows 8 is due soon and it has Intel helping to promote the technology.

Apple and Samsung to settle?
Among the many patent battles being fought across the globe, two of the bigger participants are Apple and Samsung with over 20 cases between the two pending, and now it looks the top bosses will be talking face to face about how to settle the issues.

The two companies have agreed to settlement talks that will be presided over by a San Francisco-based magistrate judge. At the meeting are expected to be Apple chief executive Tim Cook and Samsung CEO Choi Gee-sung, as well as the general counsel for both companies.

BBC will stream all Olympic games
The BBC is taking an aggressive broadcasting stance for the upcoming Summer Olympics. With the games in its own backyard the broadcasting giant said that it will be broadcasting up to 24 streams of live HD sports to cable and satellite broadcasters for television viewing.

This will enable viewers to watch every Olympic sport, if they were so inclined. The move is an expansion of its previous plan that had called for all of the games to only be broadcast online. In addition it will be broadcasting on BBC One and BBC 3 as well as radio coverage.

This move, coupled with NBC Sports promising to put a huge amount of the games online mean that viewers can now see events that they wish to rather than simply the ones that the broadcasters have determined that viewers want.

No Greek Warship for Olympics?
A Greek trireme powered by 170 rowers has been scratched from the opening ceremonies of the upcoming London Olympics- the reason is that they are afraid that it will be too popular, causing I guess people to actually want to come to the opening ceremony.

That is really too bad because it not every day you see a replica of the Olympias, an ancient warship that was used in one of history’s most important battles sailing by. I hope they are not planning on canceling the basketball portion of the Olympics because I hear that is very popular as well.

JockTalk Gets Pub, Plans to Enter Crowded Sports Social Network Field

Since we haven’t yet talked to the folks behind JockTalk it’s hard to surmise exactly how their proposed sports social media network is going to be better than anything out there today. We read some of the stories, we get the basic idea — create a space for athletes and fans to hang out, and monetize on the traffic — but so far we have seen nothing in any of the stories in the media rounds the company has made that sets JockTalk apart from the crowd.

The idea that athletes should find a better place to monetize their social media presence other than just Twitter or Facebook isn’t exactly new. Here at MSR we have been closely tracking three such efforts, including PlayUp (which regularly hosts pro player “hangout” rooms online), Viva Vision and Gridiron Grunts. The leaders of Viva Vision, ex-NFLers Joe Tafoya and Kerry Carter, have been especially vocal about seeking to help individual players build their own online interaction centers, either for profit, charity or exposure. The Viva team is working on a prototype app for Dallas Mavericks star Jason Terry that is comprehensive, with lots of multimedia hooks and commerce opportunities.

And the Gridiron Grunts team, led by ex-NFLers Jeb Terry and Ryan Nece, already have an extensive crew of “grunters” contributing in a unique fashion, by simply calling in their takes on their phones so that fans can listen in a like fashion.

If JockTalk is able to create some kind of top-athlete commons that attracts a lot of traffic, it might be able to grab some space in the market. But from a fan standpoint when it comes to aggregation we like the approach taken by Bleacher Report, which curates the best content from anywhere on the web and presents it segregated by teams, which is how we think most fans still follow sports. So good luck to JockTalk, which we are excited to see. But do note that this game has already started.

Watching Golf This Week: Texas Time on the Tour

Did you know that this is the 90th version of the Valero Texas Open? Does that history mean anything to you? Probably not. It may mean a lot to the fine folks in San Antonio who are hosting this week’s PGA Tour stop, but for golf fans this is one of those in-between weeks, where the big names take some time off. No Tiger, no Phil, no Rory, no Bubba… maybe Rich Beem will resurface and be the big story this week. Or maybe Matt Kuchar, the top 10 man, will get himself a long-overdue winner’s check.

Here’s where to follow the action:

VALERO TEXAS OPEN

(all times Eastern)
TV COVERAGE
Thursday, April 19 — Golf Channel, 3 p.m. — 6 p.m.
Friday, April 20 — Golf Channel, 3 p.m. — 6 p.m.
Saturday, April 21 — CBS, 3 p.m. — 6 p.m.
Sunday, April 12 — CBS, 3 p.m. — 6 p.m.

RADIO
SIRIUS XM (Satellite)
12 p.m. — 6 p.m., Thursday-Sunday

ONLINE
The PGA’s Live@ broadcasts don’t return until the Players in early May. So you will have to get by online with…

PGA SHOT TRACKER
Get your online fix via Shot Tracker for the Valero Open.

TOP TWITTER FEEDS TO FOLLOW

Geoff Shackelford — well known golf writer.
Golf Channel — official Golf Channel feed
@PGATOUR — official PGA Twitter feed
@StephanieWei — great golf writer who is a Twitter fiend

LOCAL FLAVOR
This is kind of fun — the First Tee program has some local youth bloggers writing about the Valero Open. Give them a read. And the San Antonio Express-News has a special Texas Open site.

WHAT’S THE COURSE LIKE?
The Express-News has a good hole by hole feature on the TPC San Antonio course.

WHO WON THIS THING LAST YEAR?
Brendan Steele.

FEDEX CUP LEADERS
1. Hunter Mahan, 1,378 points
2. Bubba Watson, 1322
3. Phil Mickelson, 1,136
4. Carl Pettersson, 1,111
5. Johnson Wagner, 1,056

See the full standings for the FedEx Cup points list.

WORLD GOLF RANKINGS
1. Rory McIlroy; 2. Luke Donald; 3. Lee Westwood; 4. Bubba Watson; 5. Hunter Mahan.
See the official World Golf Ranking list.

Oakley Developing Connected Sports Glasses

A while back we mentioned that Google was developing glasses in an effort named Project Glass that would provide real time feedback for users-well it seems that they are not the only one and Oakley is in tests with technology that could rival Google’s efforts.

Oakley executives said that they have been working on connected eyewear since 1997, which makes them quite the visionaries, and that the technology that they are developing would be compatible with Google’s Project Glass.

The basic specs that it indicated it was working with would call for glasses that have a built-in features as well as the ability to connect wirelessly, via Bluetooth, to a smartphone, with the possibility to it supporting voice commands. In the past the company has released glasses that have an MP3 player, and the product line is still on the market under the name of Thump.

Initially Oakley sees this type or product being marketed at athletes and possibly the military as well. It has some patents related to this area among it’s over 600 patents and has said that it is willing to license them.

I suspect that rather than being a rival to Google’s efforts Oakley seems like a prime candidate as a partner, licensing the software and adding its own on top. I can see this taking off in sports, and also leagues passing rules to ban them. It would be a great advantage to a golfer if his glasses gave him all of the breaks or a baseball batter whose eyewear helped identify what type of pitch had just been thrown.

The more I think about it the more I think I would enjoy all of the potential chaos that this type of product would bring to professional sports.

It should be noted that you can already get glasses that provide real time feedback, or rather goggles, if you are a skier, since there are several options already available. Recon Instruments, a startup in Vancouver, it markets a technology called Micro Optics Display (MOD) and is designed for use in skiing goggles. It is an adjustable, color widescreen micro LCD that provides real-time information to the athlete such as speed, GPS location, jump airtime, vertical and total distance traveled, temperature, altitude and time.

While not quite the same as what Oakley and Google are developing I think it shows that this type of technology is nearing mainstream and will likely expand into a wide variety of applications going forward.

Volvo Ocean Race Coverage Brings Excitement to Sailing Event

An odd thing happened last night while searching for a baseball game on television, I found a boat race on Root Sports (who came up with that name?) and actually became engrossed in what was happening and the outcome.

The event was part of an event called the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-2012, formerly called the Whitbread Round the World Race and the current race started last October with a departure from Alicante, Spain and finishes this July with the conclusion of the race at Galway, Ireland.

There are six teams involved and each has 11 members on board. Any type of sailboat is allowed in the race. You can get the same type of information from the web site as you could from a more mainstream sport- live video updates, pictures, information on teams and boats and positioning of where all of the boats are when they are out on the water.

The leg of the race I saw was a rerun of the segment that was coming into Auckland, and had them sailing amid the Solomon Islands, site of the WWII battle of Guadalcanal among others, and the sailors were worrying about the wind being blocked by the islands etc…

I am not sure how many people are interested, and aside from a very occasional glance at the America’s Cup I have never watched yachting before, but found there was a good deal more in terms of strategy and tactics than I had believed there to be.

On Saturday the boats depart Itajai, Brazil on Leg 6 and will head out towards Miami, a trip that is expected to take roughly 20 days. From Miami the race will head to Lisbon, then Lorient and end in Galway. Even if you are not that interested the documentary on the Leg 5 segment, through the Southern Ocean, the roughest in the world, is very interesting, and convinced me I am not set to be a sailor.