Trying to explain which drivers we’ll see in the All-Star Challenge next week is just as confusing to people as it is trying to explain the Daytona 500 qualifying procedure. Bottom line is just know that the fans have the right to vote in one driver and they can do so online and through text voting (which is what Sprint prefers). Last year, Kasey Kahne reaped the benefit as he did not qualify for the event based on previous wins, championships, or racing his way in during the Showdown event just prior to the All-Star. Nope, he has no one but the fans to thank for his ability to race last year. And race he did. He took home the victory, bragging rights, a nice check and most importantly, the right to participate in the event for the next 10 years. Plus, you can't argue that winning that race restored a little confidence.
So, now that Kasey is in, who’s going to win the hearts of our fans to get into this year’s race? In seasons past, there was usually a charity tie or big push to get a driver in. Kyle Petty and Michael Waltrip’s campaigns comes to mind. I haven’t heard a word this year. Now, don’t get mad when I say this, but my bet is that only these six have a shot at the fan vote: Marcos Ambrose, Bill Elliott, Robby Gordon, Joey Logano, Elliott Sadler and Michael Waltrip. Even though Joey doesn’t have a huge fan base, it only takes a few thousand employees of The Home Depot to easily push him through. Bill is just a fan favorite and all-around good guy. He took himself out of the Chex Most Popular Driver voting because he kept winning year after year. Classy indeed.
Marcos, Robby, Elliott and Michael are set apart from the rest of the field because they have personalities. Bad or good, they are liked by many because of fan perception on television interviews, in commercials, what they’ve heard from others and I’ve always felt that our sport needs more of that. It’ll be the drivers who are coming into the sport to prove that they are not “vanilla” and as Juan would say, “a corporate puppet.” It’ll be those guys who can rely on the fan vote in the future All-Star races.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nice to hear a good spin on RG!! Let's keep voting!!
I'd be interested to know how many of the new members are actually new. I was dropped off of Planet Robby last week and had to reapply for membership. Did this happen to anybody else? I'm now listed as a new member.
I imagine that members that are "dropped" are taken out of the total and then are readded to the total if they reapply. We have over 3100 members now.. don't know how many are active, hope you are voting for Robby.. while the all-star race voting results are quite questionable, the chex most popular driver voting seems to be legit. It's important we get RG into the top 10 before the chase.. he's still in 14th currently!
my family gets 6 votes in daily, 1 family member computer was down for 1 week. i am trying to get others to vote. he is going to stay where he is if we don't get more people.