Great new book about racing & family now available

Jessica Dana is a 17-year-old high school student from Tumwater, Washington, who started riding ATVs at 4 and racing them at 8. She moved up to karts and just months after sitting in a rental kart for the first time was at the U.S. Indoor Nationals.

She’s beaten NASCAR champ Jeff Gordon and X-Games/NASCAR star Travis Pastrana in charity kart races and became the youngest female to ever race a late-model in the Miller 200 at South Sound Speedway in Tenino, Washington.

And She Thinks We’re Just Racing is a new book written by her father Troy Dana that talks about how Jessica started racing. In the book, Troy discusses how he started racing motorcycles as a young boy, and some of the lessons he’s learned along the way that shaped the way he and his wife Pam raised Jessica.

Jessica’s goal is to make it to the top of racing — to NASCAR — but the path has been tough. The Danas do not have a history with car racing, and the old saying heard around the tracks to never trust anyone in racing has come true for them more than once. The book follows along with them as they struggle to find the funding and the right support crew to help their daughter achieve her dreams.

Available at Amazon.com for $12.95, proceeds will go to help Jessica’s racing.

Newspapers Are America’s Fastest-Shrinking Industry – The Atlantic

Newspapers Are America’s Fastest-Shrinking Industry – The Atlantic.

Rules of the game change as sports journalists compete against teams they cover | Poynter.

An interesting piece by Jason C. Fry of the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana University. I strongly recommend sportswriters also pick up a copy of Fry’s book “Sportswriting for the Digital Age” on Amazon, too.

Rules of the game change as sports journalists compete against teams they cover | Poynter.

Facing trust issues in a post-newspaper age

The on-going slow-motion death spiral of newspapers has concerned me for quite some time. Normally I wouldn’t want to artificially prop up a business sector that can’t find a way to make itself profitable, but the loss of newspapers also means a serious diminishment of independent journalism.

That’s something I don’t want to see.

Sure, cable news networks will still be available to cover big events, with local TV news divisions filling in the blanks closer to home. But as we saw with the many of the Midwest tornadoes this past summer, cable news closes up shop in the late afternoon. While TV stations close to the action covered the devastation, folks like me — way off in the Pacific Northwest — scrambled to find out what happened through the Internet and social media sites.

And what about sports?

Soapbox time!

Looks like I’m thinking about something, doesn’t it?  Once again, I’m dusting off the soapbox. In a surprise move though, this has very little to do with auto racing.

Excerpt from a Sportswriting 101 lecture

Okay, class. Let’s look at a case study from the Spring of 2010.

Tacoma News Tribune sportswriter Larry LaRue wrote a story about two conversations he had with unnamed Seattle Mariners players who told him legend Ken Griffy Jr. was asleep in the clubhouse and missed a chance to pinch-hit in the late innings of a close game.

Digging up an old post

This post originally appeared in my blog, Trackside, on the website of The Herald newspaper, www.heraldnet.com. I’ve been gone from the paper for a while now, and my old articles are harder and harder to dig up out of the archives. Therefore, I’ve pulled this one out. It was originally published on Monday, July 20, 2009

And now for something completely different
By Scott Whitmore

Diatribe (di-a-tribe) – noun; a bitter, sharply abusive denunciation, attack, or criticism; Origin: 1575–85; deriv. of diatríbein, to rub away; Synonyms: tirade, harangue. — From Dictionary.com

OK, you’ve been warned. Read on at your own peril.

Who is/isn’t a member of the media

“Curious as to your definition of being in the media. …”    @christopherlion

I’d like to think I’m someone who doesn’t feel the need — the compulsion, practically — to share my opinion with all and sundry. I often go for days without telling folks what I think, while simultaneously browsing through the views, opinions and feelings of others (Ed: Ah, Twitter. What a great medium).

But as you can see above, my fellow blogger and Twitter friend ChristopherLeone of OpenWheelAmerica.com called me out the other day on an opinion I’ve given more than once without really stopping to define what criteria I use.

Fixing racing on TV

 
Recently there has been increased scrutiny and criticism of televised race broadcasts. While some of these negative reviews have come from average folks like me who are used to following racing from the comfort of home, some have come from professional motorsports writers who for whatever reason did not get to watch from their normal spot in the pressbox or infield.

I don’t disagree with criticism that focuses on poorly directed and executed broadcasts. I’ve seen too many. But my Navy training and background has instilled in me the need to be constructive and offer some suggestions along with the criticism. Therefore, below are three ways to improve race broadcasts on TV. As always, you are free to agree or disagree, and to offer your own ideas.