#also one of the only minority owners in nascar

[shecanball]

they can never make me hate you mr. worldwide

[xzaddyzanakinx]

Missed me? Pt 3

Stepdad!Anakin Skywalker x Femme Reader

18+ MDNI

Warnings: stepcest/inappropriate relationships, cheating, kissing, flashback, past minor injury, angry/kinda violent thoughts

Info: honestly ur mom is rlly good at psychological warfare

You ran with Chewie in tow, your lungs on fire as you attempted to get home as quickly as possible. You skid to a stop on the pavement outside your house, the scene unfolding before you hitting you hard. Your mom, stomping out to her car and slamming the door shut. Throwing it in reverse and peeling out of the driveway without even glancing your way. You could physically feel the air blowing past you as she sped off out of the neighborhood.

You walked inside, terrified you’d find a mess. But to your surprise everything was in its place. You unclipped Chewie’s leash and let her roam about inside the house until she found a cool spot on the floor.

You could hear Anakin still working in the garage, he’d turned on some music to keep him company. Maybe you overreacted? She probably didn’t think anything of it right? It’s innocent enough. Anakin is notorious for leaving grease and oil stains in places they should never be. Like the time you painted your palm shoe-polish black just from opening the fridge.

It was nothing. Right? Anakin would be in here upset and waiting for you if something had happened, so everything must be fine. You thought back to your earlier conversation with your mom and recalled how annoyed she seemed about that coding mishap.

Relief spread through you, she was extremely anal about her work. A perfectionist through and through, maybe she’d received word the damage was worse than she originally thought. That would definitely warrant nascar level driving in her eyes.

Even so, you felt the need to placate her when she returned. After a shower and a clean set of comfy clothes you set about cleaning the main floor of the house thoroughly. Scrubbing each surface clean, vacuuming, mopping windex-ing the windows. You even cleared out the leftovers and expired items from the fridge. Going so far as to jot down the items that needed replacing.

Trotting over to the cork board mounted on the wall of the short hall leading to the laundry room and the garage door. This was where everything of importance lived, bills, grocery lists, to-do lists, even a family calendar. Something in red ink had been added to the calendar for tomorrow and you nearly stabbed yourself with a push pin when you read it.

‘Date Night 6:00 @Marzettis’

Written in the ridiculously neat and proper cursive that only could’ve belonged to your mother. If you measured the PSI of your bite force right now, you were one hundred percent sure it would be enough to bite off your mother’s writing hand. Your jaw was clenched so tightly that you heard your molars squeak in protest.

Jabbing the list into the cork with the pushpin you let out a breath that you’d been holding long enough to make you alittle lightheaded.

Calm down. They’re married. Married people go on dates. Anakin can’t really reject his own wife can he? No. No he can’t. It’s okay.

You shook out your anger, resolving yourself to ignore the fact that your stomach was churning with nerves and your tongue burned with unspoken venom. There was still things to do. And doing things is good. Scrubbing every centimeter of the bathroom shower with such aggression that you permanently bent the bristles of your favorite scrub brush was definitely a healthy alternative to committing a felony.

Hours passed and Anakin finally returned from the garage sending the current vehicle he was working on back to its owner a full day early. It’s amazing what alittle midmorning pussy pick-me-up can do for a man.

It also probably helped that your tiny arms shaved off at least an hours work of dismantling parts of the engine that were in his way of retrieving the piece he actually needed to extract. Though he’d milk his coincidental success as the result of your passionate rekindling for all that it’s worth. It couldn’t hurt to test out that theory a few times could it?

“Whoa.” He snorted, seeing you to his left scrubbing the inside of the washing machine. “What the hell are you doing?”

You lifted your head a bit too fast and wacked it on the lip of the washer, immediately wincing and bringing a hand to rub the top of your head.

“Apparently I’m doing my damndest to give myself a concussion.” You joked, glancing over at him in his sweaty, greasy clothes.

“There’s this guy who has disgusting laundry, that occasionally leaves residue in the washer.” You dramatically explained.

“So I’m doing him a favor and saving him from an accidental repeat of the fancy hand-towel stain incident of 2020.” You grinned and watched as Anakin mirrored your expression.

“Lucky man.” He chuckled, coming over to give you a quick peck on the lips before rushing off to shower.

Dinner rolled around and you decided to order in, the local Chinese restaurant had the best egg rolls around, and that was just what you needed. You texted your mother to ask for her order and jotted yours and Anakin’s down on a scrap of paper.

~be home alittle late. Just get some Udon for me.~ She responded quickly.

Easy enough. You called in the order and it was delivered and delicious in around 30 minutes. You spread out the feast on the kitchen counter and laughed at Anakin practically drooling over the crab rangoons he was shoveling into his mouth.

“So whens she gonna be home?” He asked, not even bothering to cover his mouth despite chewing like his life depended on it.

“She just said late.” You shrugged, late could mean anything. 10 minutes, an hour; it’s a ridiculous measure of time that you’d always had trouble accepting.

“Well.” He clicked his tongue as he popped open a cold beer from the fridge. “Wanna watch a movie or something?”

“Oh actually, you know what he haven’t done in a while?” You grinned.

“Housewives?” He smirked.

“Yes sir. Take your pick.” You scooped up your take-out box and made a beeline for your favorite seat, the comfy and worn out recliner.

“I’m thinkin’ New Jersey.” He mused, kicking his feet up on the coffee table and searching for your guilty pleasure show.

There’s something comforting about watching someone else’s life like this. Honestly you found it… strangely calming to know that other people have more stressful lives than you. And of course it didn’t hurt that you really loved a bratty cat-fight. Scripted or not, it was undeniably as entertaining as a train wreck.

It would seem that your mother’s definition of ‘late’ was around 45 minutes, she walked in the door as chipper as ever. Doing wonders for your earlier worries; nothing seemed amiss to her.

She took in your comfortable nest of blankets in your recliner, Anakin’s lanky legs draped over the armrest of the couch with his head propped on a pillow. She was… assessing the scene and found no evidence of any foul deeds.

“It was a good idea for take out.” She said, tossing her items on the table. “I’ve missed these noodles.”

“Oh I know.” You agreed. “I saved an egg roll for you.”

“Thanks sweetie.” She said, flashing a blank stare and an empty smile over her shoulder that went unnoticed by the both of you.

“So Marzettis, is that alright for tomorrow?” She asked Anakin sitting on the couch near him with her food.

“That new Italian place?” He asked, his eyebrows pinched together. “That’s the one Obi took Satine to isn’t it?”

“Yeah it is,” she nodded, seemingly pleased he remembered. “They gushed about it so much I figured it was time we try it.”

“Alright, as long as there’s breadsticks I’m happy.” Anakin smiled.

Meanwhile you were boiling in your seat as you listened to their conversation. Just like in an old cartoon you swore the top of your head would screw itself off and rattle with white hot steam. Honestly, you wished it would. That might just be the only way to get rid of this pressure in your skull without *actually* combusting.

You suffered through their small talk and meaningless conversation about blah, blah and blah. Finally, the episode of Housewives ended and you made your quick egress to your room with a wave goodnight.

You lay awake in bed, planning your to-do list for the next day. You needed to keep yourself busy and entertained to avoid falling victim to the wallowing hole of self pity that is your mind’s way of ‘coping’ with your jealousy.

To-Do:

Wake up

Scream

Nap

Repeat

Perfect.

You woke up, unsure as to when you actually fell asleep; though arguably in a 73% better mood just from the simple fact that you could hear power tools being used in the garage. It was comforting. The noise used to bother you, irk you to the edge of insanity, because who in their right mind would wake up and use the loudest power tools known to man at 6:00am?

Anakin would.

Every time you woke up to the noise, it reminded you of your first kiss, what could be a better way to wake up? Except for maybe an actual kiss from him.

You had stomped from your room to the garage, having been woken up at 6:00am *on summer break* for the previous 4 days. You threw the door open and yelled for him, but he didn’t hear you. Between the loud grinding sound of metal on metal and the earbuds he had in, you had little choice but to pull something dramatic.

Spotting the extension cord you had unplugged it and relished in the momentary silence before hearing Anakin cursing and repeatedly flipping the switch. You stood and observed with a self-satisfied grin, crossing your arms and jutting out your hip as you waited for his small man brain to figure out what happened.

Karma wasn’t something you believed in until right then, because without even looking up he yanked on the extension cord and the hard plastic socket whipped your thigh leaving an almost immediate bruise.

“Fuck!” You yelled, clenching your fists and biting back a string of words so hellish you might’ve burst into flames if you screamed like you wanted to.

Anakin’s head shot up and he ripped out his earbuds, momentarily confused when he didn’t see the source of the very angry curse word. That was until you hissed as you poked at the tender bruise.

“Oh shit.” He mumbled, rounding the front end of the car to get to you. “Hey- hey sweetheart, what the hell are you doing down here? It’s awful early for you to be up.”

Oh that was it. That was not the thing to say to you right then. He could’ve called you a crybaby and you would’ve took it better than that innocent comment.

“Yeah? It’s awful early to be using whatever the fuck that thing is!” You grumbled, shaking his hand off your arm. “Do you seriously have to do that this early in the morning? Can’t you do something less… grating?!”

“Do you see any other vehicle here for me to work on?” He deadpanned.

“God you’re insufferable sometimes you know that?” You huffed, looking back down at your leg.

“Did you unplug that grinder I was using?” He asked accusingly.

“Yes I did.” You shot back. “It was getting on my fucking nerves Anakin.”

“Well shit- just let me-“ He sighed trying to pry your hands away from your thigh but you batted him away, swiping a droplet of blood across his wrist.

One of the sharp plastic corners had bit into your skin on impact and caused a teeny tiny nick. Though from the amount of blood trickling down your leg, one would automatically assume you had a proper slice of an injury.

“Baby c’mon just let me see? I’m sorry.” He said in a pained tone, you could tell he genuinely felt bad, even though this was mostly your fault.

“Don’t ‘baby’ me.” You had scoffed.

“Fine. My liege.” He grumbled sarcastically.

He approached with paper towels and crouched down to swat your hands away and dab gently at the wound, or rather, lack thereof. He attempted to hand you a paper towel to clean off your hand but you declined, anti-politely wiping off the blood onto his dirty work shirt.

“Are you serious right now?” He scowled.

“Are you almost done?” You countered, crossing your arms again.

“Yeah. It’s just a scratch. Turns out every inch of you is just as dramatic as your shit attitude.” He said, standing up, his height making you feel dwarfed.

“Yeah that’s what happens when-“ you started in an angry, belittling tone.

Though you were cut off and the world paused around you. You went stiff as he grabbed you by the shoulders and leaned down to kiss you. Before you even registered what was happening top-side, your body had already begun to relax in his arms. His big strong, work-worn hands pulling you into him while he slipped his tongue between your lips. Gliding lightly just behind your top row of teeth before you finally gave in and kissed him back.

Your eyes fluttered closed and you hummed know content when he released your waist to cradle your head with both hands, your own fisting his shirt as you kissed like your lives depended on it.

“Hey! You up?” Your mom knocked loudly on your door and broke the trance of the sweet memory. That 73%? Reduced to 32%.

“Yes.” You huffed and rolled out of bed, unlocking your door and letting her in.

“Great, I want to borrow a dress of yours is that okay?” She asked, heading to your closet before you could even respond.

No way. Absolutely no way. She was not wearing that.

“No. Pick something else.” You said sternly, taking the red summer dress and hanging it back up.

“What why?” She questioned.

“Because it has a hole in it.” You lied, “can’t have you going on your big date like that.”

“I didn’t see a hole.” She countered, going to grab it again.

“Trust me. There’s a hole.” And they’ll be another one: in the ground for her if she didn’t accept defeat on this.

“Fine.” She scoffed and drug out a few more options under your watchful eye.

“This one?” She asked.

“Yeah that one’s fine. It’ll look great.” You forced a smile and tracked her during her retreat down the hall.

As soon as she entered her room you slammed your own door shut and locked it again. You went straight to your closet and got the red dress, folding it and tucking it into the bottom of your sock drawer.

Was she intentionally trying to piss you off? No. She couldn’t have known. No one could’ve known other than you and Anakin. You had been so careful, going out of town for a date at the drive-in while your mom was away on a business trip. You’d worn that dress for Anakin and only Anakin, and you’d never worn it since that night, that first night.

In your state of confusion you didn’t notice the sound of Anakin’s garage noise die down.

Anakin had stopped for a coffee break and came inside, finding his wife at the kitchen counter. He gave her a quick smile and and poured some black coffee into a big thermos.

“Sugar? ‘Sugar’?” She asked sweetly, sliding the large sugar canister across the countertop to him.

“Uh, yeah.” He blinked slowly as if trying to rewind her words. “Yeah okay thanks.”

He shook his head and shrugged, raising his eyebrows in concentrated thought as he stirred the sugar into his coffee. The only person who has *ever* said that to him is you. That’s such a weird coincidence… what are the chances? It’s not like you call him ‘sugar’ any other time either. Only ever for the sake of making him smile when he fixes his coffee.

“Well. I’ll be out here then.” He said awkwardly, still very much miffed by the odd comment.

She ‘mhm’d’ in response, enjoying watching him slink back into the garage with his cheeks tinted in shame.

By the time 5:30 rolled around Anakin was in a nice button-up and dress pants, looking absolutely exquisite. That man really knew how to wear… anything, and nothing too. You had to ogle him from afar, watching his cute butt in those well-fit pants as he walked out the door following closely behind your mother. Who was wearing your dress.

You made a mental note to find an industrial shredder to take care of that ruined fabric when she returned it.

At Marzetti’s dinner was going well, much better than Anakin had expected to be honest. It was almost nice, in a weird way. The food was good, the atmosphere was pretty… he couldn’t help but be startled every now and again when he glanced over and didn’t see you across the table from him. You’d love this place, and damn he’d love to see you in it. He just knew the lighting would show off those sexy bedroom eyes you *swore* you never knew when you were making.

The biggest downside was that this place was alittle too expensive to be wasted on your mother. This kind of luxury should be reserved for his princess.

After an hour’s worth of awkward small talk and stupid conversational questions, Anakin got up to use the restroom.

When he returned he was shocked to say the least. The table had been cleared and all that remained was the check, and a thick manila envelope, he hesitantly picked it up and tucked it under his arm.

Fast walking to the front of the restaurant he quickly paid, despite the hostess’s request for him to return to his table because ‘payment is collected at your seat’. He fumbled with his car keys and clicked the lock button to quickly locate his black vintage Camaro… no dice.

He stood frozen in the middle of the parking lot, spinning slowly and spotting his parking spot… where the car *should* have been.

“That bitch took my fucking Camaro.” He whispered to himself, internally screaming at himself for being a responsible adult and having a spare set of keys safely stashed away.

He already had an idea of what was in that envelope, but now he didn’t even need to look at the title page. He just needed a goddamn pen.

Final Part

Tag-List:

@wickedtactics @tsugumiholic @kingdomhate

@burnthecheshirewitch@cherrylooney@star611

@tahliac11 @exquisit3corpse @jeldog @arzua10

@bby-imasociopath @depressed-kay

@aliciaasky @naty-1001 @mrsmikaelsxn

@illiethefairy @bunnylovesani @offthethir/wall

@slutforhayden @ausskywalker @angelsadmired

@slut4starwarssmut @chocolatepalacecloudhoagie

@starkiller419 @hearts4mitski4 @no1klet @lethargic

@allhailbuckybarnes @shadowhuntyi

@bobtheturmpetman29 @mortalheartache

@fallinlovewithevil @sythethecarrot

@joshfutturmansrighthand @chaoticantihero

@vadersslut @luvvfromme @anakinsbaee

@sweetcheesecakesblog@rga11 @luvskywxlker

@angelsadmired @kaminokatie @anakin-pilled

@graveyard-stray

Let me know if you wanna be added/removed from the tag lists

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 5.3 (after 1940)

1942 – World War II: Japanese naval troops invade Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands during the first part of Operation Mo that results in the Battle of the Coral Sea between Japanese forces and forces from the United States and Australia. 1945 – World War II: Sinking of the prison ships Cap Arcona, Thielbek and Deutschland by the Royal Air Force in Lübeck Bay. 1947 – New post-war Japanese constitution goes into effect. 1948 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Shelley v. Kraemer that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to blacks and other minorities are legally unenforceable. 1951 – London's Royal Festival Hall opens with the Festival of Britain. 1951 – The United States Senate Committee on Armed Services and United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations begin their closed door hearings into the relief of Douglas MacArthur by U.S. President Harry Truman. 1952 – Lieutenant Colonels Joseph O. Fletcher and William P. Benedict of the United States land a plane at the North Pole. 1952 – The Kentucky Derby is televised nationally for the first time, on the CBS network. 1953 – Two men are rescued from a semitrailer that crashed over the side of the Pit River Bridge before it fell into the Sacramento River. Amateur photographer Virginia Schau photographs "Rescue on Pit River Bridge", the first and only winning submission for the Pulitzer Prize for Photography to have been taken by a woman. 1957 – Walter O'Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, agrees to move the team from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. 1963 – The police force in Birmingham, Alabama switches tactics and responds with violent force to stop the "Birmingham campaign" protesters. Images of the violent suppression are transmitted worldwide, bringing new-found attention to the civil rights movement. 1968 – Eighty-five people are killed when Braniff International Airways Flight 352 crashes near Dawson, Texas. 1971 – Erich Honecker becomes First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, remaining in power until 1989. 1978 – The first unsolicited bulk commercial email (which would later become known as "spam") is sent by a Digital Equipment Corporation marketing representative to every ARPANET address on the west coast of the United States. 1979 – Margaret Thatcher wins the United Kingdom general election. The following day, she becomes the first female British Prime Minister. 1986 – Twenty-one people are killed and forty-one are injured after a bomb explodes on Air Lanka Flight 512 at Colombo airport in Sri Lanka. 1987 – A crash by Bobby Allison at the Talladega Superspeedway, Alabama fencing at the start-finish line would lead NASCAR to develop the restrictor plate for the following season both at Daytona International Speedway and Talladega. 1999 – The southwestern portion of Oklahoma City is devastated by an F5 tornado, killing forty-five people, injuring 665, and causing $1 billion in damage. The tornado is one of 66 from the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak. This tornado also produces the highest wind speed ever recorded, measured at 301 +/- 20 mph (484 +/- 32 km/h). In meteorology, the term “May 3” is synonymous with the F5 tornado. 1999 – Infiltration of Pakistani soldiers on Indian side results in the Kargil War. 2000 – The sport of geocaching begins, with the first cache placed and the coordinates from a GPS posted on Usenet. 2001 – The United States loses its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission for the first time since the commission was formed in 1947. 2006 – Armavia Flight 967 crashes into the Black Sea near Sochi International Airport in Sochi, Russia, killing 113 people. 2007 – The three-year-old British girl Madeleine McCann disappears in Praia da Luz, Portugal, starting "the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history". 2015 – Two gunmen launch an attempted attack on an anti-Islam event in Garland, Texas, which was held in response to the Charlie Hebdo shooting.

[aman-acan-andacityplan]

Sports and Regional Brands

Link

Let’s talks sports! At first glance, sports may seems an odd diversion from my usual planning rants and photography, but sports have been deeply intertwined within the American urban fabric. New stadiums are built at breakneck speed and major professional franchises are lucrative bargaining chips owners can use to empty city coffers and bolster their personal prestige. A professional franchise is seen as a major asset, and there are still a few cities that can be goosed up for a move to the majors. With the stigma on sports betting gone, Las Vegas and its casino dollars have been in play for some time now and the city has quickly obtained a professional hockey and football team.  

Sports has also become the keystone for a decadent American culture of excess. Professional sports organizations have a penchant for taking the most banal and inane aspects of the sports experience and monetizing them to death. Even the mild diversion of watching college players get selected by pro teams has become bloated beyond belief, complete with an elaborate outdoor spectacle and host cities contributing millions of dollars to secure the event. Has your small city achieved minor notoriety as a training site for a professional team? Well be prepared to pony up some funds to maintain that status. How about broadcasting NFL games on Nickelodeon with low-effort gimmicks to attract younger viewers and cultivate a new audience? A few cheap marketing ploys can be tolerable, even mildly amusing to some, but the big picture that forms around professional sports is one of cynical opportunism and rampant rent-seeking.   

Sports ownership too is fraught with land mines. A city may be blessed to have a low-profile, competent owner or it can be cursed with some plutocrat who would love nothing more than to move the team to greener pastures. In our increasingly globalized world, sports ownership often falls to owners with marginal stake in their communities who take a kind of mercenary attitude to their franchises. The notion that owners of professional sports franchises are assholes is nothing new necessarily. Pro sports has been a pretty rotten endeavor for longer than most of us would like to admit, but fans could take small consolation in that while owners were assholes, they were generally assholes with a stake in the local economy. For example, former Cincinnati Reds owners Marge Schott may be loathsome by contemporary standards and her acumen as a team owner did leave something to be desired. However, she did keep ticket prices low and used her personal wealth to enrich important city institutions and assets.  

Some sports may be more amenable to reform than others due to the nature of their fanbase. NASCAR, for example, is deeply connected to the South and attempts to expand the brand in the 2000′s have largely backfired. Today there appears to be some interest in bringing the brand back to its roots as historic tracks like North Wilkesboro Speedway are hosting NASCAR events once more. Major League Baseball may be heading towards a reckoning as well as attendance has plummeted precipitously in the league, while other major leagues have largely held serve. The NFL and NBA though remain the major stumbling blocks to a better sports experience. The NFL is still wildly popular, with the Super Bowl being one of the few remaining mass culture events in America. While NBA team brands are less lucrative than in football, elite players such as Lebron James remain household names that can secure major endorsement deals from a bevy of large companies.

My own impressions are that pro sports can best be reformed only after it dies a horrible death. Few operations live and die as much by the personal eccentricities of their owners as professional sports operations do and I don’t see the mindless expansions, relocations and unrelenting monetization of all aspects of professional sports operations ceasing until the franchises start to hemorrhage money. For 10 dollars I can watch multiple amateur wrestling matches a night and see interesting stunts and feat of strength, so why shelve out lots of money to see one pro game? Today professional sports is essentially an exercise in rubbernecking, a car wreck with giant egos and temperamental personalities to boot. Its entertaining in a tabloid sort of way, but it isn’t something that is worth your time and, more importantly, your money.

[deehollowaywrites]

A serendipitous confluence of events occurred over the past several days when one of my favorite television shows returned with an unexpected side character, the AWP writing conference took over downtown Tampa, and three Kentucky Derby preps ran, including a much-contested San Felipe Stakes.

If these seem disjointed, know that horses are always--shall we say--the glue of my spiritual landscape.

A few friends who also watch the soapy, sneakily feminist Lifetime twist-buffet UnREAL admitted that they didn’t want to spoil my delight at the inclusion of a jockey character, however briefly poor, much-maligned Norman was onscreen (I assume my Twitter reaction delivered). The show, which is a dramatized take on the Bachelor empire of reality TV, attempted to lampshade the ingrained humor of a petite man trying to win the affections of a statuesque woman by having all the characters involved remark on this apparent absurdity. Producers Rachel and Quinn, Everlasting’s star Serena, and Norman all know he’s being played for giggles. A few heated conversations and a drunken bathroom tryst later, Serena cuts Norman from her lineup of possible future husbands. Knowing the show, he might pop up again, but I was sorry to see only one episode devoted to exploring this particular corner of heteronormative masculinity.

“So you’re a jockey jumper, then?” asks the protagonist of Jason Beem’s racetracker novel Southbound. The narrative elaborates, noting that most of the women one might reasonably class as race-rider groupies are “at least five foot seven,” and then moves onto the more pressing topic of whether the woman in question, beautiful and popular paddock host Maria, might shift her interest to the horseplayer protagonist. Despite the novel centering around various racetracks, jockeys rarely show up; there are 44 instances of the word in a 400-page novel. When jockeys do appear, they’re at a distance, on horseback or in the saddling paddock, and seen through a specific, borderline-hostile lens: that of the horseplayer who mistrusts riders. Jockeys are there to be yelled at by spectators, to “stiff” bettors, to do anything other than their jobs, and most saliently, they’re “notoriously horny little creatures” who can be trusted neither to ride their horses honestly nor remain faithful to their partners. Simultaneously sexualized by their in-group and unsexed by external observers, (male) riders are shrouded in layers of marginalization. How is it possible for a rider to be trite joke fodder in one context and erotically imposing in another? In both the universes of UnREAL and Southbound, jockeys fuck women but they’re not meeting the parents--the difference lies in admission, in context required for comprehension.

“I’m an elite athlete!” Norman protests, standing on his five-five dignity, and later, as it seems Serena might be opening up to him, starts a spiel about how his profession is misunderstood. But Serena is intent on hiding their hook-up once she’s sober again, the show’s narrative turning ambiguous as to whether her shame is rooted in poor decision-making, loss of control, or the fact that the guy giving it to her doggy-style was half her height. Meanwhile, Maria the paddock host is casual about dating or sleeping with riders; protagonist Ryan is the one with opinions about it, and so the reader’s attitudes are directed by this point of view. It’s normative but distasteful, where the cast and producers of Everlasting find the idea of a jockey romantic lead neither normative nor tasteful.

Readers of the nonfiction canon of Thoroughbred writing will see reference to a few superstars of the sport edging into popular consciousness as viable romantic heroes. These nearly always fit within a certain profile: white, blond, all-American. Steve Cauthen, Chris Antley, Gary Stevens. Norman of UnREAL is, of course, white. Observers might also note that the current lineup of rock-star jocks is heavily Latino. The sport relies on sexy imagery to sell itself as glamorous and attractive but limits this imagery to female spectators and participants, largely sidelining the appeal of male participants. Barbara Livingston’s infamous beefcake calendar notwithstanding, racing is shot for, marketed to, and discussed almost totally within the realm of the heteronormative male gaze. It’s impossible to untangle the overarching reputation of jockeys from their status within the sport, their concurrent location at its center and its fringes. Physically, according to UnREAL and the accepted romantic tropes it trades on, riders cannot fit the profile of a romantic lead (they might tick the box marked abs with a bullet but they’re--gasp!--short). According to Southbound, reams of five-foot-seven-and-above women are willing to set this deficit aside, and starfucking can’t always account for taste, since low-level Portland Meadows riders get their fair share too.

It’s almost like the height-gap trope beloved of romance enthusiasts only applies to tall men and short women. Who’da thunk?

My favorite panel out of the two days I attended AWP’s writing conference was “Shooters Gotta Shoot: Voice in Sports.” Never have I felt so understood by a bunch of strangers! Author and panelist Katherine Hill noted that football players talk a lot, an offhand comment that kicked the hamster wheel of my brain into high gear. Do jockeys talk? Not where horseplayers can hear them, usually. What they say is filtered through the lens of what the trainer wanted from the race, how the odds stacked up, whether their horse won or lost. Their voices are reduced and fragmented from intersecting angles:

English may be a second language;

The sport of racing itself is a niche one, replete with specific, exclusive vocabulary;

Secretiveness prevails on the backstretch, while the pop-media view of Thoroughbreds relies on tired images of corruption, rigging, and under-the-table deals;

The riders’ place within their sport is layered with uncertainty, from physical danger to the tentative handshake that confirms a mount or takes it away.

If certain trainers had their way, jocks wouldn’t talk at all and no one would request it of them. They would be emotional whipping boys for the losing horse, emotionless mannequins for the winner. Within the shelves of fiction, it’s also rare to hear a jockey speak, likeliest in the crime-novel aisle under Francis. On Harlequin’s website, a search for “football” returns 142 titles, while “baseball” gets 94 options and “hockey” 73. These are the Big Three of sports romance, with basketball, soccer, tennis, NASCAR/F1, and all Olympics-related sports making minor showings as well. Horse racing, when it shows up, falls largely into historical-romance settings--a scandalous duchess at Newmarket, a sheikh’s stable girl--or again in crime and suspense, with horse-theft plots and murdered barn managers. Trainers appear as romantic hero/ines almost to a fault; out of Harlequin’s 9 results for “jockey,” only 2 titles feature an actual Thoroughbred jockey, and both characters are female. While I’m always pleased to read (and write) about female jocks, I don’t find it cynical to assume that these books exist in part because short women are palatable and appealing romantic heroines, while short men are perceived as having Napoleon complexes or little-guy syndromes, and generally being 200 pounds of testosterone in a 115-pound body. So who gets the happily-ever-after? Viking-esque hockey hotshots, American-beefcake ball players, and any hero who falls within an appropriate, narrow conception of heterosexual masculinity. Whose voices are reflected and amplified within the larger field of sports fiction? Whose experiences are projected as normatively male and typically American? Whose bodies are portrayed and received as alluring and desirable, and whose are operating within a historic context of abuse, control, and ownership?

I ground up my nerve to ask a question in that “Voice in Sports” panel, which I rarely manage because I’m a shy doofus. After the panelists’ conversation shifted to the imperial "we” of sports fandom, I asked Hill and poet Jason Koo to discuss how the collective love of fans for their sport can turn toxic--how the boundary is transgressed, at what point possessiveness becomes ownership and how that in turn affects how players are permitted to speak. I was thinking, as I am always thinking, of the relationships between horseplayers, trainers, owners, and jockeys; of that word, owner, and racing’s intertwined history with slavery; of a sport built on the underpaid and sometimes unpaid labor of people of color; of the vitriol casually displayed on the apron, as two days later at Tampa Bay Downs I’d listen to a man next to me yell SHITHEAD! at Julien Leparoux in a post parade. I said that racing is my sport of choice, waited for someone to say that racing isn’t a sport. I said after the panel, thanking Hill and Koo for their remarks, that I write romance--that I have marginalized my own voice in my choice of sport to write about, and my choice of genre to frame that sport, and my choice of mostly queer characters to people that sport’s fictional world.

Nonetheless Javier Castellano has his better story, his voice triumphing over Mike Smith’s. Nonetheless I write on, delighted in the space in which I’ve found myself, continue to find myself.

It’s my job as a romance writer to depict race-rider leads and love interests as exciting, sexy, and appealing. It’s my pleasure as a racing fan to depict jockeys themselves as multifaceted, compelling, and human.

[rickhorrow]

10 To Watch : Mayors Edition 41519

RICK HORROW’S TOP 10 SPORTS/BIZ/TECH/PHILANTHROPY ISSUES FOR THE WEEK OF APRIL 15 : MAYORS EDITION with Jacob Aere

Tigers’ Masters victory: other winners and losers. Let’s start with the biggest winner: CBS. According to a release from CBS Sports, Saturday’s Masters coverage was the highest-rated Saturday golf telecast on any network since 2015. It also featured a 5% increase in ratings over last year. Given the Tiger Effect, Sunday’s final ratings will blow the doors off those increases. Other major stakeholders benefitting from Tiger’s victory are Nike, which stuck by him during the troubled years, the PGA and the state of New York, looking ahead to the PGA Championship at Bethpage Black May 16-19, the golf industry as a whole, and fans. But even on this happy sports day, there are losers. The NBA and NHL had to air playoff games across from a Masters final round held early due to weather. Ditto the U.S. women’s hockey team, which defeated Finland to win their fifth consecutive women’s hockey world championship gold medal but likely had few casual fans watching back home. At Bethpage and elsewhere Tiger tees it up, the rest of the field will see its screen time vanish as TigerTV – every hole, every shot – blasts back. The biggest losers? The pocketbooks of 2020 Masters patrons. Secondary market badges averaged $2,500 per day this year. Next year, look for that marker to move north of $3,000.

Heads up! This year, Minor League Baseball fans might notice new digital screens and displays at their favorite stadiums. Together with ISM Connect, over 25 MiLB teams will be adding new smart displays to their ballparks. But beyond delivering unique stories and creative ads to fans during each game, these displays are also equipped with smart cameras to measure audience engagement. These smart cameras will help keep ads and content fresh. The cameras record anonymous interactions -- how long someone watches the screen or their age range -- not individual images of specific people. By measuring foot traffic and engagement, MiLB teams and ad sponsors can better understand who their fans are, what resonates with them, and how they’re experiencing each game. The result is a better, more engaging experience for fans, and a better way for teams and partners to learn how to best serve their loyal audience.

Stanley Cup Playoff storylines intrigue as the NHL enters its second week of the post season. Here are a few big picture scenarios for 2019. First, the Tampa Bay Lightning are in the conversation for best regular season team ever. The Lightning won 62 games, something only one other team has done -- the Detroit Red Wings in 1995-1996. However, of the 13 teams that have finished with the NHL's best record since the 2004-2005 lockout, only two -- the 2007-2008 Red Wings and the 2012-2013 Chicago Blackhawks — have gone on to lift the Stanley Cup. Second, the Stanley Cup hasn't been won by a Canadian team since Montreal took it home 26 years ago. However, three Canadian squads are in this year's mix — the Toronto Maple Leafs, Calgary Flames, and Winnipeg Jets — and Calgary has the second-best odds of capturing the title, per The Action Network. Finally, in his first full season as NHL owner, Tom Dundon helped the Carolina Hurricanes make the playoffs for the first time since 2009. In Raleigh, Dundon is a hero. Elsewhere, he's more of a villain, as he pulled the plug on the Alliance of American Football's inaugural season less than seven weeks after investing $250 million to rescue the league.

Congressmen threaten MLB antitrust exemption over RSN bid. U.S. Representatives Elijah Cummings and Raja Krishnamoorthi threatened MLB’s antitrust exemption over the league’s attempt to buy the 21 Fox-branded RSNs. In a letter sent to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, the two House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform members wrote that they are concerned about the potential for “anticompetitive conduct that harms American consumers” if MLB buys the RSNs. “MLB’s potential purchase of these RSNs raises significant questions about the antitrust exemption that professional baseball has enjoyed for nearly a century,” they wrote. “Although the Supreme Court has upheld baseball’s unique, judicially-created antitrust exemption for nearly a century on the basis of stare decisis, the Court has also described the exemption as an ‘aberration’ and recognized Congress’ ability to limit or even eliminate it.” The congressmen gave MLB only two weeks to produce documents relating to MLB’s potential acquisition and operation of the RSNs.

The Trump administration has nixed Major League Baseball's historic agreement with the Cuban Baseball Federation (CBF) that would have made it easier for Cuban players to enter the U.S. legally without needing to defect. According to Axios Sports, the goal of this deal was to help end the dangerous trafficking of Cuban players that has gone on for decades, resulting in players being threatened, extorted or even kidnapped. Take Yasiel Puig, now an outfielder with the Cincinnati Reds. After helping Puig escape Cuba, traffickers affiliated with a notorious Mexican drug cartel held him for ransom on a small island for weeks. The Cuban agreement is similar to the deals MLB has with China, Korean, and Japan, and dates back to the Obama administration’s détente with Cuba, which intended to soften relations between the two nations. However, the Trump White House last Monday argued that the CBF is a branch of the Cuban government and that the agreement, therefore, violates U.S. trade law since MLB would be paying a fee in exchange for each player. A geopolitical war is being waged — and young baseball players with dreams of a better life are the collateral damage.

The Boston Marathon passes $200 million in economic impact, and welcomes seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson to its field. This year's Boston Marathon, held Monday April 15 and carried on NBCSports Network, will be the 123rd running of the race that winds its way 26.2 miles from the town of Hopkinton to the finish line at Copley Square. It is the world's oldest annual marathon, starting in 1897 after the successful debut of the marathon at the first modern Olympics in 1896. The Boston Marathon is traditionally held on Patriots Day, the third Monday in April. The Boston Red Sox also have a traditional home game on Patriots Day with an 11:05 a.m. first pitch against the Orioles this year. Boston is among the six largest marathons, along with Tokyo, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York City. A special prize purse is given to runners who accumulate the most points in the majors. Here's a bit of trivia: Just five national sporting events were held during the two World Wars, and the Boston Marathon was one. The others? The Kentucky Derby, Penn Relays, Rose Parade, and Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. 

NASCAR has reportedly rejected an offer from Monster Energy to extend its title sponsorship of the US stock car racing series in order to push ahead with a new tiered partnership model. According to SportsBusiness Journal, the energy drink brand offered to extend its deal for an additional year to give NASCAR more time to finalize its sponsorship restructure. However, NASCAR has apparently turned down that option to keep moving forward with the new model, with Monster now in talks about becoming a lower-level partner. NASCAR’s switch to a tiered sponsorship model has been rumored for some time, and the series is reportedly asking for close to $20 million per year for top-tier deals. SportsBusiness Journal added that Monster would likely land a second-tier sponsorship deal, although it is not yet clear how much NASCAR wants for those slots. Monster was first named NASCAR title sponsor in 2017 as part of a two-year deal estimated to be worth an annual $20 million. The company then extended the partnership for a further season last April. The new arrangement would see NASCAR’s premier series be known as the NASCAR Cup Series, rather than the title-sponsored Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series.

Your Call Football looks to change the future of the game through tech. According to ESPN, YCF is part football, part gaming, part fantasy and allows fans to decide how an actual in-progress game is played, as if Madden came to life. Every Monday night for four weeks in the spring, fans get a notification at 8 p.m. to open the YCF app. They are given a coach-selected "bundle" of three plays to choose from and each fan has 10 seconds to decide what the team's offense should do next on their app. The game is free to play, there are cash prizes, and fans are awarded points when they select what the coach wanted and when their play selection is successful. On the other hand, fans who don't pick with the majority are awarded points when the majority-chosen play results in a negative play, like a sack or an incompletion. At the end of the 10 seconds, the play is radioed into the huddle with the whole sequence taking just 19 seconds, no longer than a normal football game. For a generation of hyper-connectivity, YCF wants to bring the digital world into live sports and give millennials who have stopped paying attention a reason to actually care.

AT&T becomes the first non-apparel company with logo on WNBA jerseys. AT&T will become the first non-apparel partner to have its logo featured on all WNBA jerseys as part of a new deal, with the tech company and the league also planning to collaborate on programs that support women in sports. According to Hashtag Sports, the jerseys debuted during last week’s WNBA Draft held at Nike’s new NYHQ. “Whether it’s women in sports, supporting small businesses like those owned by WNBA players, being a leading voice in LGBTQ rights, or giving back to communities in which we operate, we have much in common and many opportunities to empower these incredible athletes and their fans,” said Fiona Carter, AT&T’s chief brand officer. Sports sponsorship deals can be important gateways to philanthropy. With this latest move, AT&T is demonstrating that giving back is as important to the telecom company as selling mobile phones and service plans.

April is National Autism Awareness Month, and the MLF Bass Pro Tour roster is participating in the way they know best: by catching fish. Most of the field of 80 anglers competing in the next two Bass Pro Tour events are pledging “dollars per pound” donations to their favorite autism awareness organization, and they’re asking their fans to consider doing the same. “Autism affects so many families, we’re just doing our best to encourage people to do whatever they can for their local autism awareness organization,” said Kevin VanDam, who is pledging a robust $5 for every pound of fish he records on SCORETRACKER. MLF anglers participating in April’s awareness and fundraising effort will combine their weights and contributions from the Stage Four event on Lake Chickamauga in Tennessee, and the Stage Five event on Smith Lake in Alabama. With big weights of Florida-strain largemouth expected on Chickamauga and even heavier overall weights of spotted bass on Smith Lake, those dollars-per-pound pledge could add up quickly. The angler with the most weight at these two tournaments will be recognized as the Autism Awareness Champion.

[esportsguide-blog]

Are E-Sports Really Sports?

Competitive gaming has been around a long time on the PC with professional Starcraft leagues or tournaments for games like Quake and Counter-Strike. The Xbox 360 has made competitive gaming much more popular in recent years with the pro-gaming console league Major League Gaming, or MLG for short, and has begun to be classified as a sport by many gamers. Even sports news coverage, such as ESPN, have bought into this new fad called E-Sports (electronic sports) and now covers MLG games on their website and even sometimes mentions it on Sportscenter. But is this attention justified? Are E-Sports really sports? The answer is no and here are reasons why this is so.

Lack of wide innate skill gap

I thought I would start off with this reason so that any gamers who think this is the sole reason for this article can be settled right off. I'm not saying that I could beat a Halo 3 player such as Tsquared. He is better than me. A lack of innate skill gap means that, with dedication, almost any gamer can become a pro at the game they want to compete in. This is not true for everybody and here is an example. When I used to play SOCOM II, a friend of mine had over 2,000 hours logged onto the game online. I had less than 50 hours, but I was far and away a much better player than him. I think that no matter how much he played, I would have always been better. But, on the other hand, there are many players such as myself that are just naturally good at video games. I have a 2.5 K/D ratio on Halo 3, but I rarely play the game and do not take it seriously. I don't even like it. I have a feeling, though, that if I played 8 hours a day or more with the intent to take it very seriously, I could probably compete at the MLG level. I have a feeling a majority of the players on Halo 3 that are dedicated to it, could compete at the MLG level.

This is not so with sports like hockey, basketball, baseball, even golf or tennis. I used to play hockey as a kid but no matter how much I played, there is a 99.999% chance I would never make it into the NHL. I think the same can be said for thousands, maybe even millions of athletes in major sports. But not gaming. You have a very good chance of being able to compete in the field of gaming simply by training and staying dedicated to it.

Perhaps I could never beat TSquared but because gaming does not involve physicality, the difference between us would be only dedication. He is a lot more dedicated than I am, and has been for a very long time. The professional gaming plays video games as his life. I chose a different career path. Just like I wouldn't be as good a forensic investigator as someone who has 20 years experience, I wouldn't be as good a gamer as TSquared if I competed against him right now.

There is no scouting combine

In most major sports leagues like the NBA, NHL, NFL, and MLB, there are minor leagues or college level play. This is how players make it up to the majors, they play through college and then get drafted to a team or play in the minors, prove themselves, and are called up. In E-Sports, there's no minors. You don't have to prove yourself to compete, you just pay to enter an event. I can't tell you the number of times I have watched a sports game on TV to hear an announcer say something along the lines of 'You're in the Majors, you should be able to make that play' or something similar. There's no prestige being an MLG player, it's meaningless. Anybody can become one at anytime. Now, you might get badly beaten if you're no good, but it's because you're competing at a level you shouldn't be. There's a reason when major league players in MLB are sent down to the minors on a rehab assignment or something that they dominate or that a player who might dominate at triple A or the AHL for hockey might suck in the NHL or MLB, it's a completely different level of play.

E-Sports don't have levels of play like this (sure there's the CAL and CPL but it doesn't work the same way). Either you are competing or you're not. I think to be considered a sport, MLG should remedy this by incorporating a minor league where players are farmed from to competing in the majors. This would be the only way to get into the majors is to be invited, not simply sign up and paying a fee.

A lack of unity or organization

There are a lot of gaming leagues out there. There's the MLG, CAL, CPL, GGL, Gamebattles (actually a branch of MLG), Starleagues, and many others, some more legitimate or popular than others. Sure there are different sports leagues, but I don't think anybody is going to say that in America there is a football league more legitimate or popular than the NFL or a hockey league more legitimate and popular than the NHL. Why doesn't gaming have one legitimate league? Why is it so fragmented? If it was a true sport, it should have a unity of organization. Instead, leagues are just privately owned and run which leads to so many different ones. Are players in MLG better than a player in CPL? Who knows, they are different leagues with different games. I can confidently say players in the NHL are better than players in a European League.

This brings me to another point, the organization of E-Sports is nothing like a sport. There is no regular season, there are only events and ladders. Even the leagues that pretend to have seasons are only running ladders for a specific time-frame and call it a season. Ladders don't work like seasons because you can join or leave a ladder at any time. If you go 0-5 on Gamebattles, delete your team and remake it and you erase your bad start. Teams don't have the same number of games played. You can challenge other teams at your whim so you never have to play a team that you know could beat you unless you reach the Playoffs. Real sports aren't like this. There aren't just a handful of tournament-style events throughout the season.

Making it more sports-like

Overall, E-Sports leagues seem to be trying to make gaming appear to be a sport without actually making it into one. Like the addition of coaches in MLG games like Gears of War and Halo. That seems like a completely ludicrous addition to professional gaming and one that doesn't even make it more like a sport. Why does a gamer need a coach?

To make gaming into a sport, they should make organizational changes. Let's continue to use MLG as an example. A Halo 3 team in MLG should have to be sponsored by a corporation or person. A sponsor doesn't just pay for trips to Meadowlands and give you cool gaming rigs. That person should own the team and they make the roster changes. If Ogre 1 and Ogre 2 don't like Walshy anymore, too bad. They don't have a say, the sponsor does. Teams shouldn't be just a group of friends that got together one day and have played together ever since. They should be solid foundations that will exist years from now, with our without it's current player roster.

They should implement a regular season. Instead of going to a handful of tournament events or competing in some online ladder, the teams involved in the season are set at the beginning of the season. No more can teams join or leave once the season is underway. Thus, schedules are set for each team. If you are scheduled to play a team, you go to that location and play them. Real sports teams and players travel a lot. It seems gamers sit at home training for the next event. You train during the off-season in a sport, and play during the season. Why would competitive play be held online when you have network issues, potential cheating, and lag? It doesn't make sense. So there's no reason they shouldn't be traveling around the country to play their next scheduled opponent.

Each team would have the same number of games played. After the season is over, playoffs would be seeded and played in the tournament-style events like Meadowlands. That should be how playoffs are done. Right now it seems they have no relevance at all other than winning you money and giving you points.

There should also be a scouting combine. You can't simply up and join an MLG competition one day. You will have to enter into a separate league and compete there until you are invited by a team owner to join an MLG team. That would give legitimacy to the league and also probably weed out a lot of want to-be's and posers because they aren't going to want to compete and travel a lot.

Another idea I had for American professional gaming would be to hold state tournaments which would recognize the best players that live in each state. These players would then be eligible to compete on the main MLG or professional circuit. I think something like this would be more feasible than a minor leagues for gaming. And c'mon, who doesn't like saying things like I went to states in 2009.'

Physicality doesn't matter 

A lot of people say gaming isn't a sport because it's not physical. I'm not saying this because it is debatable whether or not sports require physical activity. After all, NASCAR is considered a sport by some and the driver just sits there. Bowling is also considered a sport and that involves very little physicality. It's also debatable whether or not gaming has no physicality in the first place. Gaming requires reaction time and motor skills as well as critical and analytical thinking, just like real sports. I think the real reasons that people say gaming is not a sport is because of the ones outlined above. It just seems more like a hobby and doesn't conduct itself in a professional or sports-like manner.

[gizedcom]

‘Yes we exist’ – Black fans eye NASCAR’s work to diversify – Examiner Online

Kevin Johnson became enamored with NASCAR as a kid through clips on “ Wide World of Sports,” decades before billion-dollar broadcast deals when auto racing shared precious air time with barrel jumping and demolition derby.

Raised in the South Bronx, Johnson considered himself “a closet NASCAR fan,” without a friend or family member who truly shared his interest in catching the latest race.

“As you can imagine,” Johnson said, “there just simply weren’t a lot of people receptive to the sport given its history.”

Johnson recalled staying in his Temple University dorm during the massive blizzard that wreaked havoc on the East Coast in 1979 to watch the Daytona 500, broadcast live in its entirety for the first time. His roommate was stuck elsewhere because of the weather, leaving Johnson alone with the TV.

“Nobody knew,” Johnson said, laughing. “As a Black person in an urban area, it wasn’t acceptable. I wasn’t really out there. But that love continued to this day.”

The 61-year-old Johnson, who has retired to Miami, shares his passion for the sport with a Black NASCAR Fans group on Facebook. The group’s bio says: “Yes we exist.”

The fans share favorite race memories, photos of their collectibles and, yes, stories of the historically uneasy relationship NASCAR has had with the Black community.

Johnson has been called racist slurs at the track, felt queasy at the sight of the Confederate flag and often wondered if the good-ol’-boy Southern attitudes seeped in the sport would ever fade.

The catalyst for change has come for the U.S. with the death of George Floydin the custody of Minneapolis police. Not long after that, driver Bubba Wallace shoved NASCAR toward the overdue step of banning the Confederate flag, for decades a waving, nylon symbol to Blacks that they were not welcome in NASCAR Nation.

FILE – In this June 10, 2020, file photo, driver Bubba Wallace waits for the start of a NASCAR Cup Series auto race in Martinsville, Va. Some Black NASCAR fans have felt uncomfortable at the track. They’re worried about hearing racial slurs or feeling unwelcome from a predominantly white fan base. The catalyst for change has come. Bubba Wallace prodded NASCAR to ban the Confederate flag last month. There is hope the ban opens the doors to more fans. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)

The thought of facing the flag and the potential of alcohol-fueled anger from its staunchest defenders has kept many Black fans away and made the ones who did come watch their step. Johnson said banning the flag will make NASCAR “more inviting.”

“We need to get more people, encourage more people of color to come and enjoy what goes on around race weekend,” added Brad Daugherty, the lone Black team owner in NASCAR.

According to NASCAR, the latest demographics show an overwhelmingly white fan base — 75% — but the multicultural slice of 25% has climbed from 20% in 2011. Black fans make up 9% of the total.

The sight of Black fans lined against the Talladega fence to cheer for Wallace a day after a noose was found in his stall was a heartening moment for NASCAR. But earning the trust of a new generation of fans extends beyond “if you ban it, they will come.” NASCAR and its tracks need bolder attempts at ticket and community outreach programs, much in the way baseball, the NHL and the NBA celebrate pride or ethnic-themed nights.

Minorities may not necessarily become the dominant demographic for the stock car series, but they can certainly grab a larger share of the marketplace.

“I think the challenge for NASCAR is this: they spent a lot of time and money over the years building up a specific brand that centered on Confederate flag-waving Southern white folks as their target market, and aligned themselves with business partners and politicians who also found symmetry with this demographic group,” said Joshua Newman, a Florida State professor and author of “Sport, Spectacle, and NASCAR Nation: Consumption and the Cultural Politics of Neoliberalism.”

“This worked well to create a very specific NASCAR culture, a spectacle of celebrity politicians, military flyovers, conservative symbolism, an all-white driver line-up — for many years, but not always — and grandstands filled with predominantly white consumer fans,” Newman said. “It was unique in the North American sports landscape for its racial homogeneity and pronounced affiliations with one political party.”

But cultural politics can change and NASCAR’s boom has faded. To Newman, that means NASCAR limited its growth potential and now must find a solution.

Could Wallace, who f inished second in the 2018 Daytona 500, engage new fans if he won a checkered flag or two driving for an underfunded team? Would a diversity program that places more drivers in the Cup Series — where Wallace is the only Black driver — broaden exposure and create fans of all genders, ethnicities and backgrounds?

NASCAR has worked on building awareness among multicultural audiences for years, including Latino-focused efforts at Auto Club Speedway in California. Last year, NASCAR and the Urban Chamber of Commerce in Las Vegas teamed with a local youth group to bring a group of Black children to the race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The Drive for Diversity program dates to 2004 and a separate effort to work with key minority business and community leaders started three years later.

“If people look at the sport and see the stars of the sport are representative of different groups, I think it’s just another step toward making the sport feel more open to a larger audience of folks,” Drive for Diversity director Jusan Hamilton said. “If people look at the sport and feel that it’s open, that in turn will help make more folks be interested in coming to the sport.”

The few Black drivers who came before Wallace have heard that hopefulness before only to often end up discouraged at the frayed bond between NASCAR and minorities.

“It’s time to realize it’s a new day,” said Bill Lester, who made 145 career NASCAR starts from 1999-2006. “Not all the race car drivers happen to be white. There are people of color. There are women out there who want to race.”

Lester said he believes NASCAR President Steve Phelps, who tearfully told Wallace about the noose in the garage, and veteran executive Brandon Thompson can provoke tangible culture change within the sport.

“There’s a willingness to listen and engage that NASCAR has that I don’t believe they were sincere about earlier,” Lester said.

Still, Wallace is one of just a handful of non-white drivers. Daniel Suarez is Mexican and Aric Almirola is of Cuban descent. Kyle Larson, who is half Asian, was fired in April for using a racial slur.

NASCAR met this month with the Rev. Greg Drumwright, who organized members of his ministry to make the trip to Talladega to support Wallace. Drumwright said he and his group planned to attend other races, too, and he posted a series of encouraging interactions on his Twitter feed from the All-Star race at Bristol on Wednesday.

FILE – In this June 3, 2020, file photo, Rev. Greg Drumwright, right, greets people at the memorial site for Greg Floyd in Minneapolis. Drumwright, a minister at the Citadel Church & Campus Ministries, helped organize a group of Black fans to attend the NASCAR race at Talladega and support driver Bubba Wallace. Drumwright now hopes he can become an advocate of change for NASCAR. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)

“We don’t want window dressing,” Drumwright said. “This is a national dialogue.”

Toni Addison, her husband and three children of Newark, Delaware, have never attended a NASCAR race. They drive by Dover International Speedway on race weekends and catch a glimpse of the carnival-type atmosphere at the track and wondered if they’d feel welcomed.

“It sounds like something we’d be interested in,” Addison said. “But guess I couldn’t wear my Black Live Matter shirt or my Barack Obama shirt to that. I’m a (Dallas) Cowboys fan. It’s kind of like a Cowboys fan doesn’t go into the Eagles stadium, at least not with all the Cowboys gear on.”

She’s become one of Wallace’s newest fans (“I didn’t even know there was a Black NASCAR driver”) and watched him slap hands with fans at Talladega, but acknowledged “fear may keep me away from that.”

“My impression of it is they’re mostly Trump supporters, Confederate flag supporters,” the 51-year-old Addison said. “I don’t know how comfortable I would feel fitting in.”

She could talk to fans like Johnson who, while hurt by the slurs, generally have a great time on race day and want all fans to draw the same enjoyment from the sport he has for more than 40 years.

One memory rises about the rest: Johnson and his wife, Julie, attended a meet-and-greet at Atlanta Motor Speedway with Hall of Fame driver Tony Stewart in the mid-2000s. The couple were fervent supporters of Smoke, who asked a group of fans in a suite if they had any questions for him.

Julie stepped up from the back and told Stewart, “As probably your only Black female fan, I really don’t have a question, I just want a hug.”

Stewart smiled and her invited her up for a big hug and later sent over several autographed photos.

It’s the kind of moment that can make a fan forever — from any walk of life.

Credit: Source link

The post ‘Yes we exist’ – Black fans eye NASCAR’s work to diversify – Examiner Online appeared first on GIZED - Breaking News Worldwide.

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[michellelewis7162]

esports system podcast - esports information

esports system podcast - esports information

 Competitive pc gaming has actually been actually around a long period of time on the Personal Computer with specialist Starcraft leagues or even tournaments for video games like Quake and also Counter-Strike. The Xbox 360 has actually created very competitive games far more well-known lately with the pro-gaming console league Major League Gaming, or even MLG for quick, and has started to be actually categorized as a sport through a lot of players. Even esports network podcast coverage, like ESPN, have gotten into this brand new gimmick contacted esportz system (digital sporting activities) and also right now covers MLG activities on their website as well as even at times mentions it on Sportscenter. Is this focus warranted? Are E-Sports definitely sporting activities? The solution is actually no as well as below are main reason whies this is actually so. Esports News

 Shortage of large inherent skill void

When I utilized to play SOCOM II, a friend of mine had over 2,000 hours logged onto the activity online. On the other palm, there are lots of gamers such as myself that are merely normally excellent at video recording activities. I possess a 2.5 K/D ratio on Halo 3, yet I rarely participate in the game as well as carry out not take it very seriously.

 This is certainly not therefore with esports like hockey, baseball, baseball, also golf or even tennis. I made use of to play hockey as a youngster yet despite just how much I participated in, there is actually a 99.999% opportunity I would certainly never make it in to the NHL. I believe the exact same may be actually stated for thousands, maybe even millions of sportsmens in primary sports. Not games. You possess an excellent opportunity of having the capacity to contend in the business of video gaming merely through training and staying committed to it.

 Perhaps I could possibly certainly never defeat TSquared however given that pc gaming does not include physicality, the variation between us will be just dedication. He is actually a whole lot even more specialized than I am actually, and has been for a lengthy opportunity. The qualified pc gaming participates in video clip activities as his life. I decided on a various career road. Much like I definitely would not be as really good a forensic detective as a person that possesses twenty years knowledge, I would not be actually as excellent a player as TSquared if I completed versus him immediately.

 There is no hunting mix

In most major sports games like the NBA, NHL, NFL, and also MLB, there are minor circles or college amount play. I can not inform you the number of opportunities I have enjoyed a sports activity on TELEVISION to listen to an announcer mention something along the lines of 'You're in the Majors, you need to be actually able to make that play' or one thing comparable. There's a factor when primary rank gamers in MLB are sent out down to the minors on a rehab assignment or something that they dominate or that a gamer that may control at three-way An or the AHL for hockey could pull in the NHL or MLB, it's a completely different amount of stage show.

 E-Sports do not possess levels of play similar to this (sure there's the CAL as well as CPL however it doesn't function the very same means). Either you are actually contending or you're certainly not. I believe to be actually considered a sport, MLG ought to treat this by combining a small organization where gamers are cultivated coming from to competing in the majors. This would certainly be the only way to get involved in the majors is actually to be actually welcomed, not just sign up and also paying out a cost.

 An absence of unity or even organization

Sure there are different sports organizations, yet I do not think any person is going to say that in America there is a volleyball organization extra well-known or reputable than the NFL or even a hockey organization more legitimate and preferred than the NHL. If it was actually an accurate sport, it needs to have an unity of institution. That recognizes, they are various games with different games.

 This takes me to another point, the association of E-Sports is absolutely nothing like a sport. There is no normal time, there are actually only activities as well as ladders. Even the leagues that pretend to have seasons are actually simply operating ladders for a details time-frame and also phone it a time. Due to the fact that you can easily leave behind a step ladder or even join at any sort of time, Ladders don't function such as periods. If you go 0-5 on Gamebattles, erase your crew and also remake it as well as you remove your bad beginning. Staffs don't have the very same variety of activities participated in. You can test other teams at your desire so you never must participate in a group that you understand might beat you unless you reach out to the Playoffs. Actual sports aren't like this. There may not be merely a handful of tournament-style events throughout the time.

 Making it a lot more sports-like

Overall, E-Sports games appear to become trying out to create video gaming look to be a sporting activity without actually making it right into one. Like the enhancement of trains in MLG activities like Gears of War and Halo. That looks like an entirely ridiculous addition to expert gaming and also one that doesn't even produce it much more like a sport. Why carries out a gamer require an instructor?

 To help make games in to a sporting activity, they must help make organizational modifications. An enroller doesn't only spend for trips to Meadowlands and also offer you trendy gaming rigs. Staffs should not be merely a team of close friends that got with each other one day as well as have played all together ever before since.

 They ought to apply a normal season. Instead of visiting a handful of event contests or competing in some internet step ladder, the teams included in the period are prepared at the start of the season. No a lot more can easily groups participate in or even leave when the season is actually underway. Thus, routines are actually established for each team. If you are actually scheduled to participate in a team, you visit that location and also play all of them. Real sporting activities groups as well as players journey a lot. It appears players rest in your home training for the upcoming occasion. You qualify during the course of the off-season in a sport, and also participate in throughout the season. Why will competitive play be actually held online when you have system issues, potential cheating, and lag? It does not make feeling. Thus there is actually no main reason they shouldn't be actually taking a trip around the country to play their next set up opponent.

 Each team would possess the very same lot of games participated in. After the time ends, playoffs would certainly be actually seeded as well as played in the tournament-style contests like Meadowlands. That ought to be actually how playoffs are actually done. Today it seems they possess no importance whatsoever other than gaining you funds as well as providing you factors.

 There must additionally be a scouting incorporate. You can't simply up and sign up with an MLG competition 1 day. You will definitely need to become part of a separate game and also complete certainly there until you are welcomed through a staff owner to sign up with an MLG staff. That will provide authenticity to the league as well as additionally most likely extract a bunch of wish to-be's and posers because they may not be mosting likely to wish to travel a lot and also compete.

 One more suggestion I possessed for American professional pc gaming would certainly be actually to store condition tournaments which would recognize the absolute best players that reside in each state. I think something like this would certainly be much more feasible than a slight games for video gaming.

 Physicality doesn't matter

A great deal of folks claim games isn't a sport considering that it is actually not physical. Considering that it is open to question whether or not sports demand bodily task, I'm not stating this. NASCAR is considered a sport through some as well as the driver simply rests there. Bowling is actually also looked at a sporting activity as well as that includes very little physicality. It's also debatable regardless if video gaming has no physicality to begin with. Games demands response opportunity and also motor capabilities as properly as rational as well as vital thinking, similar to real sports. Considering that of the ones laid out over, I presume the true main reasons that individuals state video gaming is certainly not a sport is actually. It simply seems a lot more like an interest and does not conduct itself in a sports-like or even professional way.

 Normally, many games that are entailed in these competitions involve a multiplier factor as the entire point of eSports is actually to interact with various other gamers. There are actually numerous possibilities currently available that players can easily play in various tournaments as well as competitions. The trick is to participate in the video game kind that you appreciate very most or are actually well at.

 Mostly all video game types are accommodated in eSports and also our experts discovered that the best prominent kinds were actually 1st person shooter (FPS), sport and also MMORPGs. Our company anticipate so much more to be actually included to this listing in the future.

 Currently, eSports are actually typically taken in and also appreciated by men with 85% of men comprising engagement of events. Sector forerunners are definitely trying to encourage female engagement and also our experts experience our team will certainly view some progress on this as our experts progress in to 2017. Also, the eSports market generated ₤ 258 million in 2015 and also our experts anticipate this to become around ₤ 391 for 2016 which is actually pretty crazy!

 Where Can I View eSports?

It all audios quite stimulating, does not it? The business is predicted to proceed its own dramatic development in 2017 and involvement is actually at an everlasting high as a result of to the media systems available. You may look at eSports on numerous different systems and also sites. Twitch as well as YouTube are actually the absolute most noticeable ones with ESPN and Yahoo additionally possessing their personal specialized eSports sections. Added web sites that you may certainly not have actually heard of resemble Twitch and supply some wonderful information. These are Azubu and MLG therefore inspect them out for some high quality eSports streams.

 Such is the development of eSports that typical sporting activities web sites (our team use ESPN over as an example) are actually starting to cater their web content to eSports supporters. This is rather amazing and really stresses to our team how very seriously sports journalists are actually taking the eSports sector.

 Generally, buyers are going to consume the eSports item in such a way that they are actually comfy with. This may be practically spectating or even if you possess a video game that you are actually especially experienced at after that you might would like to engage in competitors! Have a look at the websites our company listed above as well as these are going to offer you a better concept of exactly how you may acquire entailed.

 Form 1958 Tennis for pair of to nowadays League of Legends and DOTA2, we must confess that Esports is actually expanding swiftly. It has influenced every components of our life instinctively and produced a group of Esports celebrities. But you may ponder: when did it enter concentration? Exactly how did it alter unexpectedly? Right here are the 3 causes for this inquiry.

 1. Technology

Esports is actually a sporting activities activity carried out through Internet and also regional location system, based upon computer system and computer game. The advancement of details and innovation and renovation of system facilities all risked the product foundation of Esports. Simple assurance provided to Esports by the growth of high-end personal computer application system. Increasingly more popular Internet creates it achievable for significant, constant and also challenging online games. Conditions for a great deal of gamers online simultaneously are actually mature enough to support such a big video game. Infotech, system base and also pc application platform have actually generated superb chances for the competitors as well as rebroadcast of the Esports.

 2. Commerce

Undoubtedly, taking off Esports has shut relationships along with its own business market values. Esports has magic power to entice public, specifically the younger. Besides, advertising and marketing is also a hidden service opportunity. As an example, in-game ad is actually popular amongst pc gaming sector for its upgrading velocity, unfamiliar format and higher pertinence. Esports is actually a fantasizing system for activity manufacturing plants to elevate appeal of their brand. Therefore, activity producers spare no initiatives to assist it. The association and function of this particular competition limited due to the revenues of the games market. This type of regulation seems to be possess adverse impact, but really it is good for the conduction of Esports coming from the principal city part.

 3. Esports on its own

In recent years, with the expansion of Internet insurance coverage location and also the variety of request platform, participating in on-line games possesses no regulation coming from the place or opportunity. At present, electronic activities usually tend to compensate much attention to the mixture of virtuality and also fact, which is actually in order to apply the communication of digital games. It attracts therefore numerous folks considering that players can easily address on their own as the roles in the game and also discover that online planet as well as journey on their very own.

[robertkstone]

Celebrity Drive: ‘Lucky Dog’ Host Brandon McMillan

Quick Stats: Brandon McMillan, host of Emmy-winning “Lucky Dog” Daily Driver: 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee (Brandon’s rating: 8 on a scale of 1 to 10) Other cars: See below Favorite road trip: Pacific Coast Highway to Oregon Car he learned to drive in: 1980s Toyota pickup truck First car bought: 1980s Toyota pickup truck

Animal trainer turned TV host of Lucky Dog Brandon McMillan is living his dream life. “You have two options: live the life you dream, or dream of a life you’re not living,” he tells Motor Trend.

Each week he saves a dog that would’ve been euthanized and trains it for a home, transporting each in his 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee. And although McMillan often describes certain cars as “sexy,” the Jeep is more utilitarian than hot. But it serves its purpose and hasn’t let him down, so it’s a keeper.

Photo courtesy Brandon McMillan

“That’s my dog car, man. I’m going to drive that thing till it dies. I’ve been a Jeep guy my whole life. It’s a comfy ride. The only drawback is the [electrical system] has been a little glitchy, and that’s a Jeep thing. It’s almost like Jaguar,” he jokes.

This is McMillan’s third Jeep, which he rates an 8. “I had a Wrangler and a Cherokee before this. I’ve always liked them. They’re tough, and they’re a perfect mix of rugged with that sexy look that I like. The beauty of Jeeps [is that] you can beat them up and they’re still good. I’m not very demanding when it comes to cars, as long as the damn thing gets me from here to there. Hopefully if I crash, it’s safe. I haven’t tested that part out yet,” he says with a laugh.

McMillan has thought about getting the newer Grand Cherokee. “They made minor tweaks to make it better. Maybe that’s my next one,” he says. “Although I will say, those Toyota Tundras are looking pretty sexy right now. They’re just known for their reputation. They have to be the most reliable car on the planet.”

McMillan’s decision to buy the Jeep represented a conscious choice to support the American auto industry. “I do like classic American cars, and since I wouldn’t drive one every day, why not get just a modern American car?” he says.

The Jeep isn’t a loaded model. The SUV has power windows and a CD player, and that’s about it, McMillan says.

Photo courtesy Brandon McMillan

“It’s a dog car at the end of the day, and when you have a dog car, you don’t want it too nice. You don’t want it too fancy because the dogs will make sure that it’s not nice and fancy by the time they’re done with it,” he says.

He’s run errands in the past and left dogs inside for a few minutes with the car running and the AC on. When he came back, they’ve made a mess. “If you’ve got a $100,000 BMW and you put a bunch of dogs in it, I don’t think so,” he says, laughing.

McMillan adds that he doesn’t feel like he’s missing out on a car that has all the bells and whistles. “To me, a car [should be] like an old pair of shoes. Yeah, they’re not the prettiest things, but they’re so comfortable,” he says.

Car he learned to drive in

McMillan learned to drive in an early 1980s Toyota. “It was already 15 to 20 years past its prime, but then again, it’s a Toyota so it was still running fine,” he says. “It had four different wheels, it was rusted, I couldn’t even tell you the paint color because it didn’t have an actual color. It was a stick shift, too, so to this day I still know how to drive a stick because of that.”

He taught himself how to drive. “Driving is not that difficult. My mother taught me a few things and driving a stick. I’d be a liar to say I didn’t steal my parents’ car a couple times when I was a kid just to go up the street and back,” he says. “What I’ve learned is some people have a natural ability to drive well. I knew how to drive really well from day one. It wasn’t much of a learning curve for me. I failed the written test twice, but the driving test was easy.”

The windshield wiper on the old Toyota didn’t work, so when it rained he’d wear a diving mask and snorkel and stick his head out the window.

Photo courtesy CBS

McMillan lived in Hawaii when he was a teenager and was able to get his license at 15. “Learning to drive in Hawaii is fun because you learn to drive on the roads and off the roads. Off-road driving in Hawaii is awesome,” he says.

McMillan saved $1,500 to buy the Toyota. “It had no accessories, it had no radio, it had no windshield wipers, all the tires were pretty much bald, but it ran. And I ran that thing into the ground!” he says. “And it was still running after I ran it into the ground. It just wanted to live.”

McMillan made money from jobs like mowing neighbors’ lawns and walking and training dogs, and he saved his lunch money for five years. “I would get $2 a day for lunch, and I would put the money under my carpet every single day, and I would eat the free lunch at school, which was a peanut butter and jelly and a milk,” he says. “I was able to acquire enough money, and when you’re in your teenage years, you think $1,000 is like a million.”

McMillan doesn’t have his dream car yet, since he used money he’s made to buy a ranch. “My ultimate dream with a car is to get a 1966 Chevelle convertible, midnight blue. That right there, in my opinion, is a dream car. The bottom line is, the older that car gets, the better it gets,” he says. “These new cars, they’re built to last three to five years. It’s no fluke that these 1960s hot rod classics get better over time, and the rarer they get, the more valuable they get. I don’t see a 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee becoming a classic like a ’66 Chevelle.”

He plans to get this dream car in the next couple of years. “They’re hard to come by, though; they really are,” he says.

Favorite road trip

McMillan’s favorite road trip memory was the time he drove to Oregon on the Pacific Coast Highway over two days. “We did PCH the entire time. What gorgeous scenery that is,” he says. “You’ve got places in Central and Northern California, where, especially [in] Northern California near Oregon, the PCH turns into sheer cliffs. You’re riding pretty much over the ocean. It’s awesome.”

He took that drive when he was filming Great White Serial Killer for Discovery’s Shark Week in Northern California and Oregon. But McMillan also loves Mulholland Drive.

“This is my favorite driving moment ever—about 10 years ago I had a client, very wealthy guy,” McMillan says. “He called me up and said, ‘I hear you’re a dog trainer. Can you get to my house tomorrow, 12 o’clock?’”

Photo courtesy Brandon McMillan

It turns out the client’s dog was scared of being in the car. The dog would shake and panic and drool with anxiety the whole time. So McMillan said the solution, besides opening the window, was to drive the dog in the car a lot. The client didn’t have time to do that, so it was up to McMillan.

“He opens his garage, he has a collection of supercars—Ferraris, Lambos, Bentleys,” McMillan says. “I’m like, ‘Oh, which one am I training him to?’ He goes, ‘All of them, pal.’”

McMillan did that for six weeks. “He put me on his insurance for every single one of these cars. I would take these $350,000 sports cars out. Of course, I had a dog in there, but I’d always bring the dog back and go for a quick little run myself,” he says with a chuckle.

He drove the dog all along Mulholland. “There is something to be said about these sports cars. When you pay that much for them, you see them hug the road much more than a Jeep Cherokee,” he says. “I had never been in a Ferrari in my life and [heard] all this hype. Then you drive one one day, [and] you’re like, ‘Wow, it’s all it’s cracked up to be and more.’”

It turned out the dog was afraid of getting carsick, and the remedy was a little booster seat so he could see out the window, as well as opening the window for fresh air.

“Problem was solved. Of course I had to drive the dogs plenty of times to let him know he wasn’t going to get sick,” he says.

Lucky Dog on CBS

Each week, viewers watch McMillan work with dogs that were going to be euthanized. He prepares the dogs for new owners who are well matched to them.

“So I save their life, bring them back to my ranch. I rehabilitate them [and] train them tailor made to the family that I’m going to give them to,” he says. “It’s a long journey. I’m training service dogs and therapy dogs.”

It takes weeks or sometimes—in the case of service dogs—months to train them. And there are times when McMillan finds it hard to let a dog go.

“There’s been a few in the past, especially the service dogs, because the longer I have the dog, the harder it is to get rid of them,” he says. “If I have them for weeks, it’s not that difficult to release them, but if I have them for six or eight months, it’s tough, because they feel like a family member.”

Lucky Dog airs weekends on CBS. McMillan is also the author of the book Lucky Dog Lessons, has a nonprofit, and offers training products. For more information, visit canineminded.com.

READ MORE CELEBRITY DRIVES HERE:

Pedro Martinez, Baseball Hall of Famer and MLB Network Analyst

Poison Lead Singer Bret Michaels

Fox Sports Analyst and Former NFL Tight End Tony Gonzalez

Captain Wild Bill Wichrowski of Discovery’s ‘Deadliest Catch’

Actor Ralph Macchio

NASCAR’s Joey Logano 

Photo courtesy CBS

The post Celebrity Drive: ‘Lucky Dog’ Host Brandon McMillan appeared first on Motor Trend.

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Can I get motorcycle insurance without a license?

"Can I get motorcycle insurance without a license?

Can I get motorcycle insurance without a license?

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Cheapest car and car insurance for a 21 year old.?

Well i dont know anything about cars so please dont criticise me lol my partner is having his test next month and he is 21 so his insurance will be sky high, so whats the best car for cheapest car insurance at his age? We need it as cheap as possible as were only looking for a second hand one due to it being his first car and he isnt botherd about the looks like as long as it gets us n the kids A to B lol please help.""

I have a a term life insurance calculator?

I have a term life insurance calculator, i want to place the link in to other sites which are relevant to term life insurance. Can any one please suggest me list of those sites which are relevant to term life insurance or any article or blogs site which belongs to an individual person and is relevant to life insurance. Please provide me only US site. thanks""

Where to get Motor Trade insurance?

I'm 23 years old and I live in Bradford so getting a quote is near impossible. I've called a lot of Motor Trade insurance companies but none have been able to quote me either due to me being under 25 or because I live in Bradford. Do you guys know any companies I can try?

Auto insurance settlement offer too low?

We were in an accident in September, my 4 y/o son and i went to see a chiropractor and i also seen a physical therapist a few times, (i actually still have pain from time to time in ...show more""

How much will teen car insurance cost?

Okay so I'm getting my license soon. How much will my insurance be approx

What is the cheapest car insurance company ?

The only way i can get a inexpensive sports car is to find my dad a better insurance company.

Who has the cheapest liability car insurance in California?

I live in the South Bay, and I am purchasing a car along with insurance. I just need a cheap insurance company because I will not be driving the car for long, as I am going to the Air Force at the beginning of next year.""

Where can I buy the most affordable business liability insurance?

Hi there, I have a very small start up business and I am in need of liability insurance for a business. Does anyone know a good cheap company to use?""

What kind of insurance would I need to start a home improvement referral service?

What kind of insurance would I need to start a home improvement referral service?

Can i drive my parent's car without insurance having my name on the policy?

Can i drive a parent's car without insurance? like they have their car insured and in 17 and i just got my license so can i used their car with their permission? my dad says that i would have to be added to the policy and they would have to pay extra for it..... but i remember my dad letting my uncle and a few other ppl drive the car like not all the time but a few times ? so if they could why cant i?! I LIVE IN CA

Car Insurance and Driving Restrictions?

Hey! I pay car insurance under both of my parents vehicles but don't actually own one myself. The cars are not registered in my name or anything, I just want to specify that I AM on the insurance and that I PAY for it (I literally use my own money) myself. My question is: If I pay to be on the insurance, am I legally allowed to drive the vehicle without permission from the owner, since I pay for the insurance. Any response will be much appreciated. Thanks!""

Can people tell me how much they pay for their car insurance please?

i have a 1996 vw polo and im 17. i know its different for all cars and people, but i just wanna know roughly what people in similar to my position pay please :) thanks""

Buying Car - Insurance Question?

I'm buying a Z-28 Camaro, and I have encountered a problem. I was told when I register it (which I have to apparently) that I have to insure it. I plan on leaving the car just setting in my yard. Yes it runs perfectly, but I can't afford gas for it or insurance at the time. 1) Do I legally have to register it 2) How long do I have to register it 3) Does it HAVE to be insured 4) If yes to 3, what's the cheapest insurance I can get and about how much is it. I don't care what it covers. I don't know if the state makes a difference but I live in Michigan. Thanks A Million""

How much does an ER vist cost w/ no insurance?

I went to the ER the other day. I was there for a few hours and only have an IV. I dont have insurance...how much do you think this will cost?

How much do you pay for car insurance?

How much do you pay for car insurance?

Who will give car insurance with a drivers permit?

My DL was suspended and I restored them today due to parking ticket but I have to start all over so I have a permit so who will give me car insurance with a permit need A.S.A.P

Can I get motorcycle insurance without a license?

Can I get motorcycle insurance without a license?

Car Insurance Change?

Hi. I currently own a car insurance with Commerce Insurance Company. It will be expiring this month end. I am thinking to change to Progressive Insurance starting next month. Will this switching of Insurance will be a smooth process? please advice the steps. thanks

How much is car insurance?

i'm 18 n i want 2 get a car very soon. i'm paying for my own insurance so i want 2 get an idea of an estimated price. if i get a care made between 1999 n 2005. so if any1 has an idea can u please help me out

What is the cost of the insurance for the car i want ?

I want a Suzuki Ignis 1.5 sport im just about to start driving wants the insurance going to cost ?

What's the song from the new progressive motorcycle insurance commercial?

it's a rock song

""Im 20 years old and a full time student and work part time, if i move out, can i stay on my dad's insurance?""

Im 20 years old and a full time student and work part time, if i move out, can i stay on my dad's car and medical insurance even though i do not live at home but im under 25""

""Liability only car insurance, does it matter what car you get?

I'm pretty sure you pay more if you get a mustang than a honda 4 door civic. Just liability only - not full comp and collission. No notes that if you have a loan in the car you have to carry full coverage. I know that already. Car would be cash and use same year for both cars.

Whats the cheapest car insurance for teen?

Hi I'm getting my drivers license in two weeks I don't have a car still trying to find one. I'm 17 I live in Hollywood,fl and I'm just trying to find out the cheapest insurance for me. So if you can help me and tell me who has the best policy for teens full coverage and or liability for the cheapest price. Also I didn't Go to driving school""

Progressive auto insurance? or AAA..which one is cheaper?

in terms of (monthly payments)

Is health insurance worth getting if you are 23?

I just started working my first real adult job and have become eligible for a health insurance package. If I decided to get the benefits, about $88 dollars will be taken from my paycheck--that will be $176 a month ($2,112 over a year) that I will be loosing. That's a lot! I'm 23 (female) and I never get sick and I haven't had the need to go to the the doctor for anything serious in over 4 years. It may seem like a stupid question since Health Coverage right now is a current hot topic that many people are fighting about, but....SHOULD I GET MY BENEFITS? I just don't see the point of having all that money taken out of my paycheck and then STILL having to pay a co-pay. I might go see a Obgyn but that costs less than $250 out off pocket which is still less than $2112. I also just left college so I'm current on all my physicals, and I don't need any eye prescriptions. So is it worth the gamble?""

Where can I get a cheap insurance for a new bussines?

Im about starting cleaning houses but i need an insurance

Is it cheaper to only out me on the insurance for one night?

Is it cheaper to only out me on the insurance for one night?

Car insurance scenarios?

i need help with a few car insurance scenarios, please. 1) A seventeen year old male has just purchased a used Corvette. Three insurance companies have turned him down. Is there any type of plan that will let this person buy insurance? What type of coverage will this person probably only be able to purchase? 2) A friend has just bought a two year old mid-sized car. What type of coverage would you recommend? 3) You just purchased a ten year old compact to drive back and forth to school. What type of coverage should you buy? If you could explain why, it would be greatly appreciated. I'm not exactly sure if the information given is enough to explain, based on what I know.""

Can i drive my friends car without insurance?

Hi, I am 17 years old and I've had my G2 for almost a year. Can I drive my friends car without being under that cars insurance? i have insuracne on both my cars but is it cool if i use his? i live in ontario btw.""

Another car insurance question to British drivers!?

My brother's car was written off yesterday [was the other party's fault]. He was told today the car wasn't redeemable so that's that! So he is waiting to see how much they are going to pay him for the loss, but the question is does he have to keep paying full comprehensive insurance when he no longer has a car to drive? Can he now pay a reduced rate until the insurance is sorted out? It seems unfair to continue paying out for fully comp insurance when there is no car to insure!""

Does the Motorcycle Safety Course lower your insurance?

If so by how much? If you've been riding for years would your insurance still be lowered?

Cheap Car Insurance in Kentucky?

Next month my husband and I are going to need to get car insurance. So this month I'm shopping around for the best deals. I was wondering which were the best rated or cheapest companies that are for drivers in Kentucky. I'm looking for companies with good discounts too please. Thank you.

Car insurance bait and switch?

I admit I have a not so favorable driving record. The company I was with had elected to discontinue my coverage, leaving me to shop around. After calling every company I could think of, I got all extremely high, but understandable quotes. My last call was to a insurance broker . I know not the best route, but left with no other choice. The company got me a quote. . After I signed all paperwork and agreed to the deductions, I called the company just to verify all the information. All was said and fine. A week later they call to tell me the premium was significantly increased due to my record. While I understand, can they really tell me one thing first, have me agree and sign, then change it up like that? I had specifically asked if my record was already pulled and all my info was correct and they said yes.""

What is the cost for home insurance based on?

I am thinking of buying properties in other states to use as rental income. The properties are cheap so i can afford to pay cash the issue how ever is that the rent is also cheap in Update : Yes i know being a distant landlord is difficult so if it makes economic

Car insurance in differnt states ?

My grandmother lives in new Hampshire and there you do not need any insurance on your car , but in Connecticut by law you have to have it, so I was wondering if she comes to see us would she have to put insurance on her car to leave her state??""

How do I get Cheap Car Insurance?

I am looking at buying a car for the first time in 8 years. So the problem is that I do not have any No Claims Discount for my insurance. Even though I am 40 years old, clean driving license, no convictions etc, I am being quoted over 400 TPF&T for a 1.4L Astra of Golf even with my retired Mum added as a named driver. I am an office worker, single, won't use it for commuting and will do less than 8000 miles a year. It will sit parked on the street for 4 or 5 days of the week. Does anyone have any top tips for reducing car insurance? It seems daft to be paying over 400 to insure a car that costs under 2000 Thanks Paul""

Moped insurance for 16 year olds?

about how much would the insurance cost me for my moped, i'm 16, i have my provisional licence? x""

Cheap insurance for 22 year old male?

Hello, my insurance is really expensive because of some DMV points and accidents. I am currently with farmers insurance but I need to look for a cheaper insurance. I am a 22 year old male driving a sports car. Which insurance company will I be most likely be able to get as close to $350 per month?""

How long does it usually take for an insurance company to pay a life insurance claim?

My father-in-law passed away in April 2009. He died of pneumonia. He had a life policy with a large national company. My sister-in-law is the beneficiary. Here it is, almost a year and a half later, and they still have not paid on the claim. I told her to contact the state insurance commission.""

""Average monthly cost of renter's insurance for an apartment in Galveston, TX?

I need to see if I can work it onto my budget

Insurance?

how much does insurance cost for a novice driver in nova scotia? i just got my license today and i need to know how much its gonna cost me...im 16 yrs old and im gonna have my own car and im gonna be the only driver.

Can I get motorcycle insurance without a license?

Can I get motorcycle insurance without a license?

What questions can I expect if I want to get a car insurance?

Also how can I lower my insurance rate. Currently I have IP only (not the actual driver's license) but have recently purchased the car. I live in OH.

Should I be pestered to buy more insurance?

I have the current minimum coverage for auto insurance required by state. About 2 years ago I changed agents so that it is closer to me. At the time I was told how horrible my coverage is and for like $3 month I can get so much more. I just had a car problem and gave a towing bill my insurance covers. He was telling me again how horrible my coverage is. I feel if I have the minimum coverage and it is all I want that he shouldn't be telling me to buy more. Is it fair for me to be asked to buy more insurance if I don't want it?

What does insurance car mean?

I'm trying to purchase a car on craigslist and the add said it had to go through state patrol. I asked the seller what he meant, and he said insurance car . I still don't know what that means!""

Will geico insurance rate go up from storm damage?

My car got hit from a piece of tree/brances and scratched and dent it a little, will insurace go up?""

Does car insurance really go down when you get married?

I have heard that insurance goes down once you get married. Is this true? If it is, how much? Is it significan't? Do you have to be married before you turn 25 for this to apply? I have heard so many conflicting answers. Help??..""

Ca dmv insurance online?

heres the deal. i want to renew my tags online but it says my insurance needs to be on dmv file to be able to do that. so is there a online system i can file my insurance on or do i still have to go to dmv to do that

""What is the best insurance for a single, 23 yr old female college student?""

oh, i'm looking for health insurance and definitely affordable""

Can I take my car to get repaired anywhere even if my insurance says no?

I got my window broken when someone broke into my car and I had an appt at the dealership where I bought to the car to get it repaired ASAP (and was going to) but my insurance nixed the idea. They said they wouldnt pay a dime if I did that. I HAVE to go to their suggested business. Now I have to drive to and from work with a taped up window for 2 more days till THEIR guy can fit me in. Is this legal??? It seems so unfair. BTW- I have Mercury auto insurance and I live in California.

Insurance rates on sporty cars ?

Would insurance be absolutly insane for a 16 yr old in a 91 toyota mr2 turbo or a 95 mitsubishi eclipse gst or a 95 mustang gt or a 91 toyota mr2 non turbo? Does anybody know about the difference in rates for these cars ir cars like acura integras. Thanks

Auto insurance for drivers with little/no credit history?

While shopping for car insurance, I usually use a fake name/address with all my real information (DOB, driving record, etc) just so I don't get a bunch of annoying calls/emails from every company I get a quote from. The fake email address I always use got an email the other day, which basically said that when they ran a credit check they consumer reporting agency couldn't provide a full credit history (not surprising seeing as they were checking on a name that doesn't exist). The thing that concerns me is that being only 19, I also don't have much of a credit history (the only credit I do currently have is a card I got a month ago). I couldn't really tell from the email (since I didn't read it too closely, I was really just clearing out the fake inbox) but I'm not sure if they were saying We couldn't get a credit history on you, if we had been able to, the rate you were quoted could have been lower or something more drastic like because we couldn't find a credit history, the quote we gave is no longer valid and either they won't cover me or will charge way more. I'm concerned because the email came several days after I got the quote. When I decide which company to use, and I get a quote with my real name/contact info and buy it right way online, am I going to get an email in a few days saying the because of my lack of credit they either want more money or are cancelling my policy?""

Car insurance companies?

with low or 0% interest if paying monthly? is 8.5% too high or average? can they increase the interest or does it have to stay the same? does it matter if all your paying is 35 per month with interest? please help

Lying to insurance driving record?

It's time to renew my insurance. In the quote I got in the mail, they didn't include the speeding violation that I got back in July 2009. If I tell them about it it would bring the premium up of about 120 dollars. I'm debating if I should tell them or not. After all it's their job to prepare the quote and check driving records. I'm just afraid that in case something happened they would use this as a reason not to pay eventual claims.. What would you do? Thanks""

Car insurance LUDICROUS! whats happening ?

passed my test a week ago.. (UK) been looking for car insurance on any car thats below a 1.2 and im still getting quotes for 4000 what the ***** am i doing wrong to deserve this ? it's really frustrating as all my friends have car insurance and cars and drive about happily, yet im stuck catching busses, waiting around and generally feeling like a twit... what is it that i am doing wrong ?""

How much does car insurance cost?

I have a land rover that costed 51,120 pounds and I cannot drive it until I have insurance on it, so I was wondering how much car insurance would cost?""

How do you find the cheapest car insurance?

I'm almost 20 been driving since I was 16. No accidents, no tickets. I've been on my grandparents insurance but now it's time I get my own. How do I go about finding the cheapest car insurance?""

Is a subaru wrx a good car for an 18 year old?

I'm 18 and I'm thinking about buying a wrx. It has 150000 miles with maintenance history and was run on high octane gas... seems to be mechanically taken care of. It needs a new paint job but I don't mind the project. Is it hard to drive this car on 5spd for people who have minimum manual experience? (i can drive a manual but I haven't had much practice) I plan on taking care of it and running it easy. How much does insurance increase if there's a lein in the car? Is it difficult to transfer leins? Car has 6600 left on lein and its a 2003.

What the hell is wrong with my insurance quote?? Help please?

Hi, I've just been to confused.com and obtained a quote for the car I want - FORD MONDEO VERONA 16V 1997-2000 1796cc 5 DOOR HATCHBACK Manual Petrol - this 2nd hand car has done around 12,0000 mileage My cheapest premium was 4329?? Why on earth is it so expensive?? Is it the fact that I'm a 20 year old male? Or that I've just had my licence for a month? Or I've only lived in the UK for 3 years? Engine size?? State of car??? Please let me know than you""

Ive been offered Traders Car insurance for 1800 a year?

Hi im 18 and have been offered traders car insurance online for 1800 per year or 900 for 6 months. Is this likely to be legit I can pay through PayPal and I know alot of people drive on Traders insurance nowadays. Also the AskMID database, how up to date is this and what information does this website provide""

Where to Get Free Auto Insurance Quotes online?

I live in California USA. I heard from peoples that its best to have Car insurance Online Quotes free from some trusted online Car Insurance Service. Anyone please help me in getting online cheap motor insurance Quotes for my Car. Regards

What is the best low cost health insurance for a small business owner with no employees?

I have two daughters, one fifteen years old in high school and the other is 21 and a college student. I am a 49 year old woman and in fair health. My husband is a Vietnam vet in fair health as well and will be eligible for medicare this year, so he will not need this insurance.""

Who are good for cheap insurance without any no claims?

previous vehicle was mobility and insurance was not in my name so I have no no claims

ChEAPEST CAR INSURER FOR?

I want to get either a reno clio 2001 or an old mini. i know the mini is likely to be cheapest. I'm a 17year old male. Which company would give me the cheapest car insurance? DON'T TELL ME TO GO TO GOCOMPARE.COM TRIED THIS ALREADY, AND ON VARIOUS OTHER COMPARISON SITES. Thanks""

Trying to get free motorcycle insurance quote from progressive?

Its asking me this though: What date would you like your Progressive policy to start? Im confused. I just want a free quote, i dont want to actually sign up for insurance""

How much would my insurance cost? (volkswagon knowledge needed)?

Hi so i am in the process of looking for my first car....now i am not spoiled i promise i earned all my own money...My friends father buys cars, fixes them up, and resells them. It so happens to be that he has a very good condition 2001 Volkswagon Passat W8 with basically everything you can get in a car. Sunroof, heated seats, memory seats, cd and cassette player, nice stereo system, auto matic seats, steering radio controls, and a few other simple things... The color is black. Now he is asking about 9000 give or take for the car.. I need help with how much my insurance could cost as a 17 year old. If it helps i'm not in it for the car as much as just something that looks nice and goes that i know wont break down....everything is new, the brakes, oil, everything all checks out....I know that the color and the model will have a big effect with what the cost is... I am pretty much an A to a B+ average student so thats good... I just want a general idea of what it would cost for insurance a month. Like i said the car is black and has stock rims, and has a W8 engine. Please and thank you...If you need information just say so""

""If I move to a new state and buy a new car insurance policy, must I report violations in other states?""

i had two car accidents - one in arizona in summer 2004 and the other in texas in summer 2005, both of which i was at fault. at the time, i had california car insurance, which covered my accidents. i did everything legally and paid for my mistakes. i just moved to pennsylvania and need to buy a new car insurance policy here. do i need to report my prior car accdidents to my new insurance company? if I don't tell them about them, willl they find out anyway?""

Can I get motorcycle insurance without a license?

Can I get motorcycle insurance without a license?

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-much-do-you-pay-car-insurance-dorchesterma-ethan-cervantes/"

[eddiejpoplar]

Rolex and Motorsports: Partners in Speed

LOS ANGELES, California — “Rolexes are indestructible,” says Hurley Haywood, one of America’s most successful endurance racers, as he stands on the terrace during a private reception at a mansion deep in the Hollywood Hills. Haywood pulls back his shirt cuff, gives a small smile—which, if you’ve spent any time with the laconic race car driver, you know a smile means high praise—and starts to tap on the watch’s sapphire crystal as lights from the Sunset Strip below cast a pinkish glow on his grin. “I’m rough on a watch. It’s got to withstand all of the rigors of racing, all the tax I put it through.” Haywood should know about the watch’s durability—he owns nearly every model of Rolex Daytona ever made, most of them hard won from time in a race car.

Rolex employs official spokespeople to talk up the brand, including Formula 1 champion Jackie Stewart and nine-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen, but Haywood, crooked grin and all, isn’t on the watchmaker’s payroll. He’s a genuine fan, converted from the moment in 1970 when he bought his first Rolex for $260 at a U.S. Army post exchange while stationed in Vietnam. “Since then, I always had Rolexes. It’s just the watch I want to wear.”

Haywood isn’t the only race-car driver who has had a love affair with the brand, of course. Rolex and motorsports have been inextricably linked since British racer Malcolm Campbell wore a Rolex Oyster while breaking the 300-mph speed record on the Bonneville Salt Flats in 1935. Campbell is said to have mailed Rolex letters extolling the virtues of its products. But when you think of racing and watches, Rolex and the now iconic Daytona comes to mind. The relationship with Florida’s Daytona International Speedway predates the famous endurance race held at the track. It began when Rolex Watch U.S.A.’s then-president, Rene P. Dentan, forged a friendship with NASCAR founder Bill France Sr.

In 1964, Rolex started to award the chronograph to the winning drivers of the Daytona Continental—then an FIA-sanctioned, three-hour endurance race—and added the word “Daytona” to the dial, altering the watch world forever. (The race’s familiar 24-hour format made its debut in 1966.) “It’s all about the watch,” says Scott Pruett, the American racer who has won 15 Rolex watches, including five for overall wins at the Rolex 24, during a career that spans more than three decades. “Every one is sacred, and there are stories behind every one of these watches. It becomes more than a timepiece, it becomes an heirloom and even more so if it says ‘Winner of the Rolex 24’ on the back.”

Aside from its ties to American sports-car racing, Rolex is also the official timepiece of the 24 Hours of Le Mans and Formula 1. Vintage racing is also high on its priority list—it is the title sponsor of the annual Monterey Motorsports Reunion and is also heavily involved with the U.K.’s Goodwood Revival.

Like a Porsche 911, the Rolex Daytona is instantly recognizable, and over the years the changes to both have been incremental rather than evolutionary. It’s these minor changes—and the obsessive nature of collectors of both products—that add to the lore and start to drive collectors crazy as they obsess over the smallest details. Although Rolex is tight-lipped about most of the changes, it’s not too hard to find a hardcore fan to opine about the tiny tweaks to the dial, bezels, pushers, and significantly, the movements.

“With the Daytona, you had this idea that you were going to market these things to people,” says Benjamin Clymer, founder of the watch website, Hodinkee. “Before, chronographs were really ‘tool’ watches for those in the racing industry, and that’s about it. And Rolex said, ‘OK, we’re going to make this the racer’s watch.’ There’s a history of these watches going on the wrists of great racers. And when you have these famous racers wearing this watch because they’ve actually won at Daytona, it creates a secondary level of appreciation and understanding from the motorsports community.”

A paul Newman Daytona sold at Christie’s for $1.1 million. Not too shabby an investment for a watch that cost only $210 in 1963.

If the racing world wasn’t enamored with the Daytona before, it certainly was after Paul Newman, who was just starting his professional racing career, wore a Reference 6239 on his wrist in 1972. Given to him as a gift by his wife, actress Joanne Woodward, these Daytonas are set apart by subtle but important differences, such as an art-deco font for the numerals on the subdials and small squares at the end of the hash marks.

Although never officially named after the actor, the “Paul Newman” Daytona is one of the rarest and most sought-out variants of the timepiece. You can pick one up in good condition starting around $75,000 and, depending on the year, the prices can skyrocket from there. In May, 2017 at Philips Geneva Watch Auction, a Daytona Ref 6263 dubbed “The Legend” and one of three known yellow gold Paul Newman Daytonas sold for $3,717,906. In 2013, a 1969 stainless-steel Paul Newman Daytona sold at Christie’s for $1.1 million. Not too shabby an investment for a watch that cost only $210 in 1963.

“I never really gravitated to the Daytona, and I passed on many when they were ‘cheap,’ but I’ve learned to appreciate them and like them aesthetically,” says Matt Hranek, author of the new book, “A Man and His Watch” (see page 105). In the book, Hranek weaves the stories of 70 one-of-a-kind timepieces from the men who’ve owned these watches via personal anecdotes.

This steel Daytona belongs to Automobile contributor Andy Pilgrim, awarded for his overall win at the 2004 24 Hours of Daytona.

“Rolex makes real tool watches, and I love the fact that they specialize,” Hranek says. “The Submariner for divers, the GMT for pilots. It’s hard not to love the Daytona in terms of its design and because of its iconic status. A lot of that is due to the famous owners. When I visited Mario Andretti for my book, he pulled out every watch he had ever owned and placed them all on a big table. In the middle was an older Daytona, and I said to him, ‘Wow, look at the Daytona,’ and Mario looked at me, shrugged, and said, ‘Yeah, I did win that race a couple times.’ I just sighed and said, ‘Oh yeah, of course you did.’”

Rolex introduced a new Daytona with a black ceramic bezel during the 2016 edition of Baselworld, the watch industry’s top expo, and the news excited even the most jaded watch insiders. The New York Times called it the hottest watch money can’t buy. a waiting list, if you don’t know the right people, can stretch into a yearslong proposition. A few months after its release, we asked Haywood if he had one. “Not yet,” he says. “But I’m working on it.”

The first precision certificate ever issued for a wristwatch, commissioned by Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf.

Rolex SA, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, was founded in London in 1905 by Hans Wilsdorf and his brother-in-law Alfred Davis. Wilsdorf reportedly chose the Rolex name because it was short enough to fit on the face of a watch, consisted of symmetrical letters of the same size, and was easy to pronounce in many languages. Today it is the largest luxury watch brand by volume, producing some 2,000 watches a day. Forbes in 2016 ranked the company the 64th most valuable brand in the world with $4.7 billion in sales.

A classic Rolex Daytona Reference 6239 “Paul Newman” sits next to a brand-new, black-over- black Daytona with the very desirable ceramic bezel, courtesy of BobsWatches.com.

For a brand that revolves so much around wealth, Rolex is hesitant to talk about money. Sponsorship terms are not disclosed to the public, and company executives do not do interviews.

Ariel Adams, founder of seminal watch website aBlogtoWatch.com, says Rolex is secretive in most areas, including money matters. “It spends more than any other watch brand on marketing,” he says, “and it’s a key reason for the brand’s success. I’m not comfortable speculating an amount it spends since I have no idea, but I do know its strategy is to sponsor the top-tier events in each sport and to ensure no other watch brands take its place.”

At left, a trademark document for the Rolex name was signed by Wilsdorf himself in 1946.

Rolex in 2015 extended its title-sponsor contract for Daytona’s 24-hour race with IMSA, signing up through 2025. At the same time, Daytona International Speedway began an ambitious, $400 million remodel and expansion of a towering complex. Rolex announced itself as a partner in the undertaking and now has its name on the new luxury lounge along the front stretch. When asked about financial details on the Rolex partnership, a spokesperson for Daytona International Speedway declined to reveal the deal’s value. But it is not difficult to imagine the sums required to keep the brand front and center of a global audience. In 2012, when Rolex succeeded Hublot as the official timekeeper and official timepiece of F1, it was speculated to cost at least $20 million per year.

Rolex signage is inescapable at modern motorsports events. Look for branded clocks, hats, lanyards, advertisements, banners, and flags at the biggest circuits in the world.

Despite Rolex’s significant involvement in the world of motorsports, a spokesperson for the watchmaker told us that its timepieces have never been used to time the races, and the timing in early F1 years was done with Heuer chronographs. So why do so many get so excited about Rolex and its relationship with racing? You could say the connection is symbolic. A Rolex spokeswoman said, “Rolex is very much about individual achievement. We sponsor people, not teams. Think of a race-car driver. Sure, there is a team involved, but it’s just that one person out there on the track.”

Haywood sees a connection to velocity. “They’re really at the top of the line of motorsports,” he says, “but they also do a lot of other sports—tennis, riding, sports that involve speed and timing. So I think they like to have that identification.”

In addition to its connections with sports, Rolex actively supports music, culture, the arts, and scientific achievement with its Enterprise Awards. So what is the return on investment for all those sponsorship dollars? By some measures, Rolex is considered the most powerful luxury brand in the world, with a cachet no one else in the business has been able to replicate. What can’t be measured in dollars, however, can perhaps be measured in influence and the number of watches you see on the wrists of race fans and automotive enthusiasts alike.

“A Rolex is kind of like a Porsche,” says Haywood, who knows firsthand after spending so many years racing and winning for the German car manufacturer. “It’s a brand that’s got a great history to it. I like simplicity, and I like engineering. And that’s what I like about a Rolex. You look at it, and you know what time it is.”

The post Rolex and Motorsports: Partners in Speed appeared first on Automobile Magazine.

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Rolex and Motorsports: Partners in Speed

LOS ANGELES, California — “Rolexes are indestructible,” says Hurley Haywood, one of America’s most successful endurance racers, as he stands on the terrace during a private reception at a mansion deep in the Hollywood Hills. Haywood pulls back his shirt cuff, gives a small smile—which, if you’ve spent any time with the laconic race car driver, you know a smile means high praise—and starts to tap on the watch’s sapphire crystal as lights from the Sunset Strip below cast a pinkish glow on his grin. “I’m rough on a watch. It’s got to withstand all of the rigors of racing, all the tax I put it through.” Haywood should know about the watch’s durability—he owns nearly every model of Rolex Daytona ever made, most of them hard won from time in a race car.

Rolex employs official spokespeople to talk up the brand, including Formula 1 champion Jackie Stewart and nine-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen, but Haywood, crooked grin and all, isn’t on the watchmaker’s payroll. He’s a genuine fan, converted from the moment in 1970 when he bought his first Rolex for $260 at a U.S. Army post exchange while stationed in Vietnam. “Since then, I always had Rolexes. It’s just the watch I want to wear.”

Haywood isn’t the only race-car driver who has had a love affair with the brand, of course. Rolex and motorsports have been inextricably linked since British racer Malcolm Campbell wore a Rolex Oyster while breaking the 300-mph speed record on the Bonneville Salt Flats in 1935. Campbell is said to have mailed Rolex letters extolling the virtues of its products. But when you think of racing and watches, Rolex and the now iconic Daytona comes to mind. The relationship with Florida’s Daytona International Speedway predates the famous endurance race held at the track. It began when Rolex Watch U.S.A.’s then-president, Rene P. Dentan, forged a friendship with NASCAR founder Bill France Sr.

In 1964, Rolex started to award the chronograph to the winning drivers of the Daytona Continental—then an FIA-sanctioned, three-hour endurance race—and added the word “Daytona” to the dial, altering the watch world forever. (The race’s familiar 24-hour format made its debut in 1966.) “It’s all about the watch,” says Scott Pruett, the American racer who has won 15 Rolex watches, including five for overall wins at the Rolex 24, during a career that spans more than three decades. “Every one is sacred, and there are stories behind every one of these watches. It becomes more than a timepiece, it becomes an heirloom and even more so if it says ‘Winner of the Rolex 24’ on the back.”

Aside from its ties to American sports-car racing, Rolex is also the official timepiece of the 24 Hours of Le Mans and Formula 1. Vintage racing is also high on its priority list—it is the title sponsor of the annual Monterey Motorsports Reunion and is also heavily involved with the U.K.’s Goodwood Revival.

Like a Porsche 911, the Rolex Daytona is instantly recognizable, and over the years the changes to both have been incremental rather than evolutionary. It’s these minor changes—and the obsessive nature of collectors of both products—that add to the lore and start to drive collectors crazy as they obsess over the smallest details. Although Rolex is tight-lipped about most of the changes, it’s not too hard to find a hardcore fan to opine about the tiny tweaks to the dial, bezels, pushers, and significantly, the movements.

“With the Daytona, you had this idea that you were going to market these things to people,” says Benjamin Clymer, founder of the watch website, Hodinkee. “Before, chronographs were really ‘tool’ watches for those in the racing industry, and that’s about it. And Rolex said, ‘OK, we’re going to make this the racer’s watch.’ There’s a history of these watches going on the wrists of great racers. And when you have these famous racers wearing this watch because they’ve actually won at Daytona, it creates a secondary level of appreciation and understanding from the motorsports community.”

A paul Newman Daytona sold at Christie’s for $1.1 million. Not too shabby an investment for a watch that cost only $210 in 1963.

If the racing world wasn’t enamored with the Daytona before, it certainly was after Paul Newman, who was just starting his professional racing career, wore a Reference 6239 on his wrist in 1972. Given to him as a gift by his wife, actress Joanne Woodward, these Daytonas are set apart by subtle but important differences, such as an art-deco font for the numerals on the subdials and small squares at the end of the hash marks.

Although never officially named after the actor, the “Paul Newman” Daytona is one of the rarest and most sought-out variants of the timepiece. You can pick one up in good condition starting around $75,000 and, depending on the year, the prices can skyrocket from there. In May, 2017 at Philips Geneva Watch Auction, a Daytona Ref 6263 dubbed “The Legend” and one of three known yellow gold Paul Newman Daytonas sold for $3,717,906. In 2013, a 1969 stainless-steel Paul Newman Daytona sold at Christie’s for $1.1 million. Not too shabby an investment for a watch that cost only $210 in 1963.

“I never really gravitated to the Daytona, and I passed on many when they were ‘cheap,’ but I’ve learned to appreciate them and like them aesthetically,” says Matt Hranek, author of the new book, “A Man and His Watch” (see page 105). In the book, Hranek weaves the stories of 70 one-of-a-kind timepieces from the men who’ve owned these watches via personal anecdotes.

This steel Daytona belongs to Automobile contributor Andy Pilgrim, awarded for his overall win at the 2004 24 Hours of Daytona.

“Rolex makes real tool watches, and I love the fact that they specialize,” Hranek says. “The Submariner for divers, the GMT for pilots. It’s hard not to love the Daytona in terms of its design and because of its iconic status. A lot of that is due to the famous owners. When I visited Mario Andretti for my book, he pulled out every watch he had ever owned and placed them all on a big table. In the middle was an older Daytona, and I said to him, ‘Wow, look at the Daytona,’ and Mario looked at me, shrugged, and said, ‘Yeah, I did win that race a couple times.’ I just sighed and said, ‘Oh yeah, of course you did.’”

Rolex introduced a new Daytona with a black ceramic bezel during the 2016 edition of Baselworld, the watch industry’s top expo, and the news excited even the most jaded watch insiders. The New York Times called it the hottest watch money can’t buy. a waiting list, if you don’t know the right people, can stretch into a yearslong proposition. A few months after its release, we asked Haywood if he had one. “Not yet,” he says. “But I’m working on it.”

The first precision certificate ever issued for a wristwatch, commissioned by Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf.

Rolex SA, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, was founded in London in 1905 by Hans Wilsdorf and his brother-in-law Alfred Davis. Wilsdorf reportedly chose the Rolex name because it was short enough to fit on the face of a watch, consisted of symmetrical letters of the same size, and was easy to pronounce in many languages. Today it is the largest luxury watch brand by volume, producing some 2,000 watches a day. Forbes in 2016 ranked the company the 64th most valuable brand in the world with $4.7 billion in sales.

A classic Rolex Daytona Reference 6239 “Paul Newman” sits next to a brand-new, black-over- black Daytona with the very desirable ceramic bezel, courtesy of BobsWatches.com.

For a brand that revolves so much around wealth, Rolex is hesitant to talk about money. Sponsorship terms are not disclosed to the public, and company executives do not do interviews.

Ariel Adams, founder of seminal watch website aBlogtoWatch.com, says Rolex is secretive in most areas, including money matters. “It spends more than any other watch brand on marketing,” he says, “and it’s a key reason for the brand’s success. I’m not comfortable speculating an amount it spends since I have no idea, but I do know its strategy is to sponsor the top-tier events in each sport and to ensure no other watch brands take its place.”

At left, a trademark document for the Rolex name was signed by Wilsdorf himself in 1946.

Rolex in 2015 extended its title-sponsor contract for Daytona’s 24-hour race with IMSA, signing up through 2025. At the same time, Daytona International Speedway began an ambitious, $400 million remodel and expansion of a towering complex. Rolex announced itself as a partner in the undertaking and now has its name on the new luxury lounge along the front stretch. When asked about financial details on the Rolex partnership, a spokesperson for Daytona International Speedway declined to reveal the deal’s value. But it is not difficult to imagine the sums required to keep the brand front and center of a global audience. In 2012, when Rolex succeeded Hublot as the official timekeeper and official timepiece of F1, it was speculated to cost at least $20 million per year.

Rolex signage is inescapable at modern motorsports events. Look for branded clocks, hats, lanyards, advertisements, banners, and flags at the biggest circuits in the world.

Despite Rolex’s significant involvement in the world of motorsports, a spokesperson for the watchmaker told us that its timepieces have never been used to time the races, and the timing in early F1 years was done with Heuer chronographs. So why do so many get so excited about Rolex and its relationship with racing? You could say the connection is symbolic. A Rolex spokeswoman said, “Rolex is very much about individual achievement. We sponsor people, not teams. Think of a race-car driver. Sure, there is a team involved, but it’s just that one person out there on the track.”

Haywood sees a connection to velocity. “They’re really at the top of the line of motorsports,” he says, “but they also do a lot of other sports—tennis, riding, sports that involve speed and timing. So I think they like to have that identification.”

In addition to its connections with sports, Rolex actively supports music, culture, the arts, and scientific achievement with its Enterprise Awards. So what is the return on investment for all those sponsorship dollars? By some measures, Rolex is considered the most powerful luxury brand in the world, with a cachet no one else in the business has been able to replicate. What can’t be measured in dollars, however, can perhaps be measured in influence and the number of watches you see on the wrists of race fans and automotive enthusiasts alike.

“A Rolex is kind of like a Porsche,” says Haywood, who knows firsthand after spending so many years racing and winning for the German car manufacturer. “It’s a brand that’s got a great history to it. I like simplicity, and I like engineering. And that’s what I like about a Rolex. You look at it, and you know what time it is.”

The post Rolex and Motorsports: Partners in Speed appeared first on Automobile Magazine.

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Rolex and Motorsports: Partners in Speed

LOS ANGELES, California — “Rolexes are indestructible,” says Hurley Haywood, one of America’s most successful endurance racers, as he stands on the terrace during a private reception at a mansion deep in the Hollywood Hills. Haywood pulls back his shirt cuff, gives a small smile—which, if you’ve spent any time with the laconic race car driver, you know a smile means high praise—and starts to tap on the watch’s sapphire crystal as lights from the Sunset Strip below cast a pinkish glow on his grin. “I’m rough on a watch. It’s got to withstand all of the rigors of racing, all the tax I put it through.” Haywood should know about the watch’s durability—he owns nearly every model of Rolex Daytona ever made, most of them hard won from time in a race car.

Rolex employs official spokespeople to talk up the brand, including Formula 1 champion Jackie Stewart and nine-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen, but Haywood, crooked grin and all, isn’t on the watchmaker’s payroll. He’s a genuine fan, converted from the moment in 1970 when he bought his first Rolex for $260 at a U.S. Army post exchange while stationed in Vietnam. “Since then, I always had Rolexes. It’s just the watch I want to wear.”

Haywood isn’t the only race-car driver who has had a love affair with the brand, of course. Rolex and motorsports have been inextricably linked since British racer Malcolm Campbell wore a Rolex Oyster while breaking the 300-mph speed record on the Bonneville Salt Flats in 1935. Campbell is said to have mailed Rolex letters extolling the virtues of its products. But when you think of racing and watches, Rolex and the now iconic Daytona comes to mind. The relationship with Florida’s Daytona International Speedway predates the famous endurance race held at the track. It began when Rolex Watch U.S.A.’s then-president, Rene P. Dentan, forged a friendship with NASCAR founder Bill France Sr.

In 1964, Rolex started to award the chronograph to the winning drivers of the Daytona Continental—then an FIA-sanctioned, three-hour endurance race—and added the word “Daytona” to the dial, altering the watch world forever. (The race’s familiar 24-hour format made its debut in 1966.) “It’s all about the watch,” says Scott Pruett, the American racer who has won 15 Rolex watches, including five for overall wins at the Rolex 24, during a career that spans more than three decades. “Every one is sacred, and there are stories behind every one of these watches. It becomes more than a timepiece, it becomes an heirloom and even more so if it says ‘Winner of the Rolex 24’ on the back.”

Aside from its ties to American sports-car racing, Rolex is also the official timepiece of the 24 Hours of Le Mans and Formula 1. Vintage racing is also high on its priority list—it is the title sponsor of the annual Monterey Motorsports Reunion and is also heavily involved with the U.K.’s Goodwood Revival.

Like a Porsche 911, the Rolex Daytona is instantly recognizable, and over the years the changes to both have been incremental rather than evolutionary. It’s these minor changes—and the obsessive nature of collectors of both products—that add to the lore and start to drive collectors crazy as they obsess over the smallest details. Although Rolex is tight-lipped about most of the changes, it’s not too hard to find a hardcore fan to opine about the tiny tweaks to the dial, bezels, pushers, and significantly, the movements.

“With the Daytona, you had this idea that you were going to market these things to people,” says Benjamin Clymer, founder of the watch website, Hodinkee. “Before, chronographs were really ‘tool’ watches for those in the racing industry, and that’s about it. And Rolex said, ‘OK, we’re going to make this the racer’s watch.’ There’s a history of these watches going on the wrists of great racers. And when you have these famous racers wearing this watch because they’ve actually won at Daytona, it creates a secondary level of appreciation and understanding from the motorsports community.”

A paul Newman Daytona sold at Christie’s for $1.1 million. Not too shabby an investment for a watch that cost only $210 in 1963.

If the racing world wasn’t enamored with the Daytona before, it certainly was after Paul Newman, who was just starting his professional racing career, wore a Reference 6239 on his wrist in 1972. Given to him as a gift by his wife, actress Joanne Woodward, these Daytonas are set apart by subtle but important differences, such as an art-deco font for the numerals on the subdials and small squares at the end of the hash marks.

Although never officially named after the actor, the “Paul Newman” Daytona is one of the rarest and most sought-out variants of the timepiece. You can pick one up in good condition starting around $75,000 and, depending on the year, the prices can skyrocket from there. In May, 2017 at Philips Geneva Watch Auction, a Daytona Ref 6263 dubbed “The Legend” and one of three known yellow gold Paul Newman Daytonas sold for $3,717,906. In 2013, a 1969 stainless-steel Paul Newman Daytona sold at Christie’s for $1.1 million. Not too shabby an investment for a watch that cost only $210 in 1963.

“I never really gravitated to the Daytona, and I passed on many when they were ‘cheap,’ but I’ve learned to appreciate them and like them aesthetically,” says Matt Hranek, author of the new book, “A Man and His Watch” (see page 105). In the book, Hranek weaves the stories of 70 one-of-a-kind timepieces from the men who’ve owned these watches via personal anecdotes.

This steel Daytona belongs to Automobile contributor Andy Pilgrim, awarded for his overall win at the 2004 24 Hours of Daytona.

“Rolex makes real tool watches, and I love the fact that they specialize,” Hranek says. “The Submariner for divers, the GMT for pilots. It’s hard not to love the Daytona in terms of its design and because of its iconic status. A lot of that is due to the famous owners. When I visited Mario Andretti for my book, he pulled out every watch he had ever owned and placed them all on a big table. In the middle was an older Daytona, and I said to him, ‘Wow, look at the Daytona,’ and Mario looked at me, shrugged, and said, ‘Yeah, I did win that race a couple times.’ I just sighed and said, ‘Oh yeah, of course you did.’”

Rolex introduced a new Daytona with a black ceramic bezel during the 2016 edition of Baselworld, the watch industry’s top expo, and the news excited even the most jaded watch insiders. The New York Times called it the hottest watch money can’t buy. a waiting list, if you don’t know the right people, can stretch into a yearslong proposition. A few months after its release, we asked Haywood if he had one. “Not yet,” he says. “But I’m working on it.”

The first precision certificate ever issued for a wristwatch, commissioned by Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf.

Rolex SA, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, was founded in London in 1905 by Hans Wilsdorf and his brother-in-law Alfred Davis. Wilsdorf reportedly chose the Rolex name because it was short enough to fit on the face of a watch, consisted of symmetrical letters of the same size, and was easy to pronounce in many languages. Today it is the largest luxury watch brand by volume, producing some 2,000 watches a day. Forbes in 2016 ranked the company the 64th most valuable brand in the world with $4.7 billion in sales.

A classic Rolex Daytona Reference 6239 “Paul Newman” sits next to a brand-new, black-over- black Daytona with the very desirable ceramic bezel, courtesy of BobsWatches.com.

For a brand that revolves so much around wealth, Rolex is hesitant to talk about money. Sponsorship terms are not disclosed to the public, and company executives do not do interviews.

Ariel Adams, founder of seminal watch website aBlogtoWatch.com, says Rolex is secretive in most areas, including money matters. “It spends more than any other watch brand on marketing,” he says, “and it’s a key reason for the brand’s success. I’m not comfortable speculating an amount it spends since I have no idea, but I do know its strategy is to sponsor the top-tier events in each sport and to ensure no other watch brands take its place.”

At left, a trademark document for the Rolex name was signed by Wilsdorf himself in 1946.

Rolex in 2015 extended its title-sponsor contract for Daytona’s 24-hour race with IMSA, signing up through 2025. At the same time, Daytona International Speedway began an ambitious, $400 million remodel and expansion of a towering complex. Rolex announced itself as a partner in the undertaking and now has its name on the new luxury lounge along the front stretch. When asked about financial details on the Rolex partnership, a spokesperson for Daytona International Speedway declined to reveal the deal’s value. But it is not difficult to imagine the sums required to keep the brand front and center of a global audience. In 2012, when Rolex succeeded Hublot as the official timekeeper and official timepiece of F1, it was speculated to cost at least $20 million per year.

Rolex signage is inescapable at modern motorsports events. Look for branded clocks, hats, lanyards, advertisements, banners, and flags at the biggest circuits in the world.

Despite Rolex’s significant involvement in the world of motorsports, a spokesperson for the watchmaker told us that its timepieces have never been used to time the races, and the timing in early F1 years was done with Heuer chronographs. So why do so many get so excited about Rolex and its relationship with racing? You could say the connection is symbolic. A Rolex spokeswoman said, “Rolex is very much about individual achievement. We sponsor people, not teams. Think of a race-car driver. Sure, there is a team involved, but it’s just that one person out there on the track.”

Haywood sees a connection to velocity. “They’re really at the top of the line of motorsports,” he says, “but they also do a lot of other sports—tennis, riding, sports that involve speed and timing. So I think they like to have that identification.”

In addition to its connections with sports, Rolex actively supports music, culture, the arts, and scientific achievement with its Enterprise Awards. So what is the return on investment for all those sponsorship dollars? By some measures, Rolex is considered the most powerful luxury brand in the world, with a cachet no one else in the business has been able to replicate. What can’t be measured in dollars, however, can perhaps be measured in influence and the number of watches you see on the wrists of race fans and automotive enthusiasts alike.

“A Rolex is kind of like a Porsche,” says Haywood, who knows firsthand after spending so many years racing and winning for the German car manufacturer. “It’s a brand that’s got a great history to it. I like simplicity, and I like engineering. And that’s what I like about a Rolex. You look at it, and you know what time it is.”

The post Rolex and Motorsports: Partners in Speed appeared first on Automobile Magazine.

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Richard Petty Motorsports loses primary sponsor to Stewart-Haas Racing

Smithfield Foods will no longer be the anchor sponsor for the No. 43 Richard Petty Motorsports team, instead shifting to Stewart-Haas Racing next season.

Richard Petty Motorsports’ future is in limbo after primary sponsor Smithfield Foods announced Tuesday will move to Stewart-Haas Racing in 2018.

RPM had believed Smithfield would sign an extension to continue as primary sponsor of the No. 43 car and driver Aric Almirola, a relationship that’s been in place since 2012. But those negotiations recently fell apart, leaving RPM without an anchor sponsor for next year and with little time to find a replacement.

RPM is a single-car operation owned primarily by Andrew Murstein, with seven-time Cup champion Richard Petty a minority owner. One of NASCAR’s venerable organizations, RPM has struggled to remain consistently competitive and a lack of funding prompted the team to downsize from two cars to one this season.

"The decision to leave Richard Petty Motorsports and join Stewart-Haas Racing was difficult but we feel this move will improve our competitiveness on the track and strengthen our position as a leading consumer packaged goods company," Smithfield said in a statement.

SHR is regarded as one of NASCAR’s upper-echelon organizations having won Cup Series championships in 2011 (Tony Stewart) and 2014 (Kevin Harvick). In addition to Harvick, the team co-owned by Stewart and Gene Haas also fields cars for Kurt Busch, Danica Patrick and Clint Bowyer, who replaced the retiring Stewart this season.

Which SHR driver Smithfield will sponsor in 2018 was not announced, though the company indicated in a statement that the team may be changing its driver roster.

Harvick and Bowyer are under contract, while Busch and Patrick are free agents whose returns to the organization are predicated on sponsorship. Harvick is the only fully sponsored driver, with significant gaps on Bowyer’s and Patrick’s cars.

If SHR were to bring in a new driver, it would have no shortage of options. Matt Kenseth and Kasey Kahne are notable free agents who could replace Busch or Patrick. Almirola is also available, but whether he and Smithfield could both leave RPM and join SHR in a package deal depends on the language in Smithfield’s contract with RPM.

“Although we’re not ready to announce the full details of the program, we look forward to this new endeavor while remaining focused on the upcoming playoffs and putting forth the best effort possible to win more races and contend for another championship,” SHR President Brett Frood said in a statement.