Rusty, I'll be the first to tell you I was never a fan of yours. Nothing personal, but I just never jumped on the blue deuce bandwagon.
Sure, you're a former champion, and I respect the effort and skill it took to win that coveted title. I know you won scads of races, and went out on a high note by finishing int the top 10.
I really appreciate your efforts in building the Iowa Speedway, and your advocating for Nascar and IRL races at Newton is unparalleled in the sport. It amazes me that you are there for all the important events, and make many efforts to meet the fans.
That said, before you announce the next Nextel Cup race, could you do two things for me?
First, I know you call every car you ever drove a "hot rod." And it was cute for the first three times you used it during the broadcast. It was not cute the next 83 times you used it to describe a car.
"Hot Rod" is getting tired. And frankly, the rest of the crew is catching this phrase like the "boogity, boogity, boogity" plague. Once Brad Daugherty used it, the charm was gone. Daugherty is better than that, and so are you. Suzy Kolber is clueless about Nascar racing, and I'm sure she'll try to use it during the next broadcast, certain that it is the way the cars are described in the Nascar Rulebook. (Please don't let perpetual pranksters Stewart, Harvick or Marlin talk to her or God knows what will come out of her mouth as the "Nascar gospel.")
I'll hold you personally responsible if Brent Musburger starts using it in his little diatribes.
I'm sure if you sat and thought about it for a few minutes, you could come up with seven or eight cute little phrases to use instead of "race car" or "hot rod." If you can't, you have paid assistants to do these things. I'm sure the girl who brings the coffee every morning would love a new assignment. Heck, Steve may have a few ideas. At least at the rate he's crashing out of races, he has time to think while he sits in the hauler.
The second thing will require a bit more work - think of it as homework. When you first started announcing IRL races, you got a few things wrong. While I follow IRL to some degree, I am not an avid fan. However, even I noticed that you had things excruitatingly wrong. It was as if Roger Penske deliberately told you the wrong information to get a chuckle about it when you announced it at the races. The errors were forgivable - after all, you didn't follow IRL racing that closely, and were relying on others to keep you up to date.
The same cannot be said for the Cup series. You should know this stuff cold. You know most of the drivers personally. You were there for how many decades of racing? And while there are new guys, they aren't complete surprises that mysteriously show up at the track one week without any warning.
The most appalling comment regarded Juan Pablo Montoya. You commented you couldn't believe how a rookie who had never driven at Indy before could finish second.
Rusty, Juan won the Indy 500 in 2000.
And he raced Formula One cars there for several years.
And he also "traded" his F1 car with Jeff Gordon for a stock car. At Indy.
More shocking was that neither of your compatriots knew this information either.
All this despite a pre-race segment on the Ganassi-Montoya connection to Indy.
There is no excuse for these simple mistakes. Do your homework. Since Watkins Glen is coming up on the calendar, I would suggest you learn lots about Montoya - it's likely he'll be a contender at a road course.
Just two little assignments - stop using "hot rod" every other sentence and do your homework before you get to the track. For a former champion like you, this should be a piece of cake.
Hey, with these changes, I may even decided you're a cool guy (the "Dude" thing is wearing thin too).
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