2010 Brickyard 400: Better than ever

When my dad and I pulled back in to Cincinnati at midnight on Sunday evening, I had to take a few seconds to truly appreciate what had just happened to me since I had left home on Friday morning.

And even though I thought the 2009 Brickyard 400 was the best time I’d ever had at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during NASCAR’s weekend in Indy, I think 2010 might have surpassed it.

A panoramic view of the field before qualifying on Saturday

I got to do more work for the TV station that credentialed me (and that is WXIX, aka FOX19 here in Cincinnati-check out the sports main page: http://www.fox19.com/Global/category.asp?C=4219&nav=menu63_4) and had more fun conversing with various media types and assembled NASCAR team personnel than I expected to have. I hope you enjoyed reading my stuff, but of course there were a few things that I left out. So here are my thoughts on the weekend…

The people here sure are nice
First off, I’ve never met friendlier people than the folks who work for Hendrick Motorsports, more specifically, the GoDaddy.com team. And I’m not even talking about the driver or the media relations representative yet. As I was patrolling the garage area at IMS around 11 a.m. on Friday, one member of Mark Martin’s team noticed (not my Big East championship ring, oddly enough) but the camera that I had.

He asked me about it and we had a nice conversation about his fishing trips with his friends and how he records the fun on a small camcorder, nothing as professional as the $4,000 hunk of plastic, metal and more that I was holding.

But it wasn’t just him. Of course Mark Martin and Kendra Jacobs were both amazing and awesome to work with. Mark was even willing to talk to me about Kendra one-on-one after his official media time, which I shall discuss in a few.

And beyond the folks on the No. 5 team, almost everyone I had an interaction with was super friendly. From the hotel staff I dealt with to the track security people at IMS (don’t mess with the yellow shirts!) to restaurant waiters in Shelbyville, Ind., everyone I met with was so unbelievably friendly.

As I told my dad, “Are people just being really nice right now, or is it just my ‘I’m on a vacation and having the time of my life’ attitude?”

He said, “Probably a little of both.”

“It’s wearing on everyone”
If you missed my story on Kendra Jacobs, Mark Martin’s media relations director, you missed a pretty good insight into the woman who gives us—the fans of Mark Martin—constant updates via her Twitter page on the “behind the scenes” dealings of the No. 5 team. (The story is here: http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2010/07/kendra-jacobs-media-manager-and-top.html)

I had an opportunity on Friday afternoon at Indy to hang out in the No. 5 team hauler and chat with Kendra, not only about racing, but as we walked back to the media center, about a multitude of things—including my Big East championship ring, which Kendra referred to as “badass”.

The one thing that we spent the most time discussing was Mark’s tirade about media speculation. (For my report on FOX19.com, check here: http://www.fox19.com/Global/story.asp?S=12861787) I told Kendra that I’m more than a media member, but, as she knew, I’m a lifelong fan of Mark Martin.

“It’s wearing and I just talked to Dale Jr.’s PR rep, who’s my best friend, and I said, ‘I’ve never felt like a worse PR person. Because I feel like I’m losing control.’ I need to get a better grasp on the situation rather than just getting frustrated by it,” she told me.

Mark Martin is asked questions by assorted media members, including the guy in green holding the camera on the right side. Standing next to me, wearing the black hat, is Kendra (IMS Photos)

I replied that I understand her position and since I see it as a fan and a member of the media, I wanted to walk over and tell some of the more accredited media members who were asking Mark that I’m getting tired of their “coverage” of the “story”.

“It’s wearing and it’s nice to see that Mark’s fans recognize it’s wearing on him,” Kendra then told me.

And I couldn’t have agreed with her more.

Oddly enough, we shared numerous laughs about our similarities. When I asked Kendra which media center she liked the best, she said Indy. “I actually really like the media center here at Indy, and it’s kind of for a funny reason,” she said. “First of all there is a ton of room, which is really nice, but also because they serve red cream soda on the third floor.”

I laughed because I too, enjoyed the red cream soda in the media dining room. Kendra said she graduated from Ashland University which is located in northern Ohio. And she originally wanted to be in sports broadcasting, but she has a phobia of microphones. “I’d get really nervous. I don’t know if it was a mental thing or what, but, my counselor suggested, ‘Maybe you should get into something that’s a little less stressful.’”

Luckily for me, I do not have a fear of holding microphones, and my work from Indy should be completed soon. Unfortunately it won’t be online, but my latest report about the Cincinnati Bengals training camp is (which can be found here: http://www.fox19.com/Global/story.asp?S=12903145).

But the best comment I got about Mark from Kendra was about Mark’s proposed future in Formula 1. “Mark and I go back and forth about it and everybody who knows Mark knows he’s very humble,” he said. “He’s never going to say, ‘Yeah I’m good at that.’”

And being a fan of Mark Martin, I knew exactly what she meant.

This one was (more) special
When people ask me why I love going to Indianapolis, why I love making the two-hour drive up Interstate 74 from Cincinnati to the capital city of Indiana, why I love going to Speedway, Indiana to watch NASCAR’s stars drive in circles, and why I love this weekend of the year more than any other time (including even Christmas), I have one complicated, but easy to understand, response: I get to hang out with my father, and it’s fun.

But this year was very important, and very special. Everyone knows that my Brickyard 400 countdown was put on hold at the beginning of the month when my grandfather passed away at age 87. Knowing that we’ve been through a lot this past month, let alone this past year, made our time on Sunday that much more important, that much more fun, and that much more cherished.

They weren't bad seats at all

When I am asked about the important times in my life I don’t mention graduating high school, or my first three seasons at UC with football. Instead I mention weekends in late July and early August that signal the end of summer vacation and the beginning of school and football. It’s about more than spending time watching cars drive in circles though.

It’s about family, time with dad and my brother and time to talk about anything and everything under the sun—even when we’re sitting under the sun. As Jamie McMurray mentioned on Sunday, “Getting to win the Daytona 500 and the Brickyard 400 means more to me this year than making the Chase. This year or in 10 years, the guy that won that race one time everybody will talk about. The guy that finished third in the points, nobody cares,” the race winner said.

I won’t remember much about some of these weekends in ten or twenty years, but hopefully my dad and I, and maybe even my children will all team up and go to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway then, and make memories that will literally last a lifetime.

McMurray happy with win
There was no happier man last Sunday than Jamie McMurray. After winning the Brickyard 400 he had the largest smile on his face, and kept laughing throughout the 35 minutes he spent answering questions from the media.

The funniest part was when McMurray had to answer the question about if it would have been any different had McMurray not left Chip Ganassi’s team to drive for Roush Racing in 2006. “We’re not dating,” he said. “I mean, we’re not.”

He also mentioned something that I absolutely loved. “I'll tell you something that Chip said to me right before I got in the car,” he said, mentioning his owner, who was sitting to his right. “He said, ‘Let’s go out and do this thing’. I said, ‘I'll give you everything I got’. He said, ‘I know, that's why I hired you. I believe in you. You go out and do your best, that will be enough.’”

McMurray’s best has put Ganassi in a place all by himself in auto racing. He’s won the Daytona 500, Indy 500 and Brickyard 400 all in the same year. “Is it surreal? Yes,” he said. “From where we were a while back, people had Jamie written off, people had us written off. But I think what I said once before, a semester at sea for Jamie. He couldn't have come back a better person. We had grown as a team and he had grown as a driver.”

When one member of the media gathered in the Economaki Press Conference Room asked Ganassi what he would tell a group of business students, Ganassi said, “Hard work, passion and sacrifice. That's what I'd tell ‘em. Does that answer it?”

The writer responded, “That’s not going to fill up much column space,” to a chorus of laughter from all gathered.

Ganasssi continued, “You got to work hard at what you want to do. You got to work hard at it. It's the only way I've figured out how to do it: work hard at it. You got to turn the other ear to a lot of things and turn your head to a lot of things and keep focused on what you're trying to do. Stay on your plan. I can't tell you how many times, I mean, we've been staying on our plan for a long time, how we go racing week in and week out. We've been staying on plan for a long time. So you got to sacrifice. You can't listen to other people. You got to make sacrifices. You have to pick and choose sometimes, make a call, A or B, X or Y, make a left or right.”

“Those are tough calls you have to make. But you have to plan your work and work your plan and have some passion about what you're doing. You have to love what you're doing. I love what I'm doing.”

And Kendra Jacobs told me the same thing on Friday afternoon. She mentioned that she has the constant pull of trying to start a family or continue with her current job. “I just turned 31 and I’m like, ‘OK, I’ve got to decide what I’m going to do’ and it’s a really tough choice because I love my job, I love what I do and I think I’m good at it,” she told me. “I’ve done it for nine years, I think I know what I’m doing and I’m afraid to start over at something else because I’m afraid I’m not going to know what to do or I won’t be good at.”

Mark Martin concurred when I asked him about Kendra. “She’s so friendly and outgoing and she’s very dedicated. She loves what she does and she’s been a part of motorpsorts her entire life. That makes it great,” he told me.

“You always do a great job when you have a passion for your job.”

They sound like they’ve been chatting with Butch Jones, head coach of your two-time defending Big East champion Cincinnati Bearcats.

Mark Martin: “The Man” does it again
It never fails. Every time I hear Mark Martin speak, I can take something away from him. It rarely has anything to do with racing, and almost everything to do with life. He lives right, he does it right, and the respect he earns is well deserved, even if he doesn’t think so.

After qualifying third on Saturday, Mark sat down and chatted with some assembled media members in the Press Conference Room. One asked him what he would tell Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski about their ongoing spat “I don't have any dog in that fight at all,” he responded. “I do appreciate the respect that I'm given, and I also acknowledge that I probably get more than I deserve.”
Always humble, too humble in fact, as Kendra pointed out to me on Friday afternoon.

And, as fans, we’re always proud to hear Mark Martin talk about us, as he did on Saturday morning. “These guys are digging and they're digging in and we're making progress and we've got more in front of us,” he said about his team, before saying, “So kudos to them, and I just want to thank all my race fans out there for keeping the faith. I feel like we're on our way back to contention form like last year. I hope so.”

And we do too. Mark Martin gave us another reason to be great fans last weekend. He once again was very approachable and took time out to talk to me about Kendra, even after being hounded for ten minutes about his future. It was yet another amazing Brickyard 400 weekend, and although I’m still tired and recovering from the long, long weekend one week ago, I’m ready for the 2011 Brickyard to get started.

What about some humor to close it out? When Mark Martin was asked about why Chevrolets were so dominant at Indy, Mark said, “Mine was fast. I don't know what to say about the rest of them.”

If he’s fast, he’s happy, and when Mark Martin is happy, his fans (including those that double as sports reporters for Cincinnati-area TV stations) are happy too.

A huge thanks goes out to everyone who made last weekend happen. An especially large thank you goes out to FOX19 Sports Director Brian Giesenschlag and our sports producer Rufus, who worked with Indianapolis Motor Speedway to get me a credential.
I also have to thank Kendra Jacobs and Mark Martin for once again being approachable and open to discussing numerous things throughout the weekend. I’m looking forward to 2011, as I already said. Hopefully it will be just as full of memories as this year was.