Ricky Craven will be on NASCAR Now today, Thursday, May 17th. As always, the show will be on at 3 PM Eastern on ESPN2, as well as available on computers via WatchESPN.com and on smartphones and tablets via the WatchESPN app (if available in your area). This half-hour show is also scheduled to re-air at 11 PM Pacific (2 AM Eastern Friday).

QUICK UPDATE - I’m getting conflicting reports as to when the west coast re-air will be. Now hearing it will be at 11:30 PM (2:30 AM Eastern Friday). Please plan appropriately!

Ricky spent time yesterday with PASS (Pro All Star Series) Driver Gary Gaulding, who won his first Super Late Model race of 2012 last weekend and is starting to get national media attention. Some of their time together should make todays show.

By the way, Gary is just 14 years old.

Ricky and show host Mike Massaro will also be covering several current NASCAR topics and they want your input. All you need to do is go to their Twitter page – @NASCARESPN – and send a Tweet. Among things that they will discuss is the Kurt Busch / Ryan Newman “issues” from Darlington and the resulting penalties. The hashtag is #TalkOfTheTrack.

The past week and a half have been full of highs and lows in the racing community.

This past Saturday night, Jimmie Johnson (finally) delivered to his boss, Rick Hendrick, Cup Series win number 200. It was “just” 16 races ago, back in October, that Jimmie got Rick win number 199. For such a potent multi-car team, that seemed like an eternity, but to get the 200th victory at such an important and revered track as Darlington does, in the grand scheme of life, seem appropriate.

Just a few days prior, ESPN’s Marty Smith wrote a story that I feel really makes even the casual sports fan sit up and take notice. In his commentary piece, “How do you cope when it’s over?” Marty talks about how “Athletes die twice”. He writes about how athletes in general have to deal with the end of a career, and talks with several folks involved with NASCAR in particular about how they felt and dealt with the end of their sports career, as well as how they moved on. This article came about specifically due to the suicide death of NFL player Junior Seau and the discussions that followed in the sports media. If you missed reading the story, go check it out. If you’ve never even thought about what it must be like to go from being at the top of your game (or your field of work) to zero in the blink of an eye, this will definitely be a good primer for you.

By coincidence, Marty’s story came several days after a huge and violent accident in the Nationwide Series race at Talladega. During the first attempt at a “Green – White – Checkered” finish, Eric McClure got caught up in a 10-car accident on the backstretch. He hit the brakes, and nothing happened. His car ended up going head-on into the SAFER-barrier on the inside wall at a way to fast rate of speed. If you watch the video of the accident, the SAFER-barrier did it’s job to perfection, flexing and absorbing a tremendous amount of the crash energy. They cut Eric out of his car and airlifted him to a local hospital, where he spent two nights before returning home.

But more importantly, he was alive. NASCAR’s mandated safety improvements have once again come through, and because of that, his wife still has a husband and his four little girls still have a Dad.

Eric did not drive in this past weekends Nationwide race at Darlington, but he was at the track. Once he gets medical clearance to race, he will be back in the his number 14 Toyota.

Why wait? Simple. Concussions. Which sort of brings us back to Marty Smith’s article.

Basically, the NFL and NASCAR share this concern. As NFL players have gotten bigger, so to have the hits being taken by it’s players. The human body just isn’t designed to take the abuse that can happen, and as medical technology improves, we are learning about the effect that injury, and in particular concussions, can have.

Back in the day, it wasn’t such a huge deal, but it is now.

The NFL will do what it can to minimize the risk. They have no choice, if they want football to remain a mainstream sport in America.

NASCAR has already been down this road, and while it took several tragic deaths in a relatively short time to get it’s attention, the death of Dale Earnhardt, Sr. just over 11 years ago forced NASCAR to aggressively attack the problem and find solutions to try and solve it.

So far, so good. But while NASCAR does not seem to understand their fan base anymore, they do fully understand that they must continue to do what they can too improve overall safety. Just like some, back in the day, understood they must do what they could to make better race cars.

Last Thursday, we lost a racing icon. Not from a racing accident, but from a long and fruitful life.

Carroll Shelby lived all 89 years he walked, or rather drove, on this earth. Throughout his life, through many highs and lows, he always tried his best. He is, of course, best known for his accomplishments and contributions to the sport of auto racing.

Born in 1923, the Texan won the 24 Hours of Le Mans back in 1959. With a bad heart, no less. One that he kept until finally getting a heart transplant, 31 years later.

He put together the classic roadster, the Shelby Cobra in the early 1960′s, then in 1964 he came on board to help Ford Motor Company design and build a race car to dominate long distance racing, eventually having a 1-2-3 photo finish with 3 Ford GT40′s at the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans race.

Carroll also did other work for Ford in the 1960′s, most notably on the Mustang-based Shelby GT350 and GT500, before leaving for other pursuits overseas. In the early 1990′s he worked with Chrysler on their Viper program, and more recently, in 2003 he went back to Ford to help with their Ford GT project, helping to add muscle and horsepower to the car that eventually became the Shelby GT500.

The legacy that Carroll Shelby left us is not over. Whether or not you are a hard-core race fan or just an admirer of his horsepower and design work, he will live on.

The View From Arthur’s World
© 2012 Ricky Craven Fan Club Archive

No points, just bragging rights and a big pay day! It’s the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series All-Star Race this Saturday, May 19th. NASCAR Now kicks off the day at 11 AM Eastern with a one-hour preview of both races to be run Saturday Night, the Sprint Showdown and the All-Star race.

Ricky Craven will be live at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina, along with ESPN reporters Marty Smith and Ryan McGee. Lindsay Czarniak will host the show, which will be available on ESPN2 as well as on your computer via WatchESPN.com and on your smartphone and tablet via the WatchESPN apps (if available in your area).

If it had been anyone else, this would not have been an issue.

Minutes before, there had been a red flag situation during the Aaron’s 312 Nationwide Series race at Talladega. During the first attempt at a “Green-White-Checkered” finish, Eric McClure went head-on into the SAFER barrier at a high rate of speed. Officials had to cut the roof off his car to get him out, and then he was flown to a nearby hospital in Birmingham.

Eric was held in the hospital until Monday night with a diagnosis of a concussion and mild internal bruising. He’s at home now, and has several doctors appointments scheduled. Normally it takes seven days before an appropriate neurosurgeon will give a driver the OK to drive again, but since the Nationwide Series races this Friday at Darlington, his status for that race (as of early this afternoon) is up in the air.

Meanwhile, during the second attempt at a “Green-White-Checkered” finish, there was an altercation between Sam Hornish, Jr. and Danica Patrick. Sam’s yellow number 12 car seemed to push Danica’s number 7 car up into the tri-oval wall coming to the Checkered Flag. Danica quickly retaliated by hooking Sam into the Turn One wall.

During a TV interview right after the race, Hornish reported that he had a right front tire going down and couldn’t steer, causing him to drift up and into the wall and taking Patrick, who was on his outside at the time, up into the wall with him. He had already gone over to talk to Danica and let her know about the tire issue.

Danica, during her TV interview, was still upset and probably not quite believing Sam’s story.

Since Saturday’s race, it appears that Danica and Sam are both OK with each other again. Let’s hope so. Other folks might be making a big deal about the history between these two drivers, which stretches back not only to when they both drove Indy Cars, but all the way back to their days driving go karts.

But in this case, I don’t care. NASCAR screwed up.

If anybody else had done what Danica did, they would have been called to a meeting in the NASCAR trailer. They would have been asked what was going on, and just what the heck they were thinking.

And then NASCAR could do whatever they wanted, or deemed necessary , to do.

But instead, they chose not to have a meeting, and with that decision, lit up a firestorm.

Fans are livid at the appearance of a double-standard.

It’s bad enough that the media has hyped Danica up like no other driver in history. Not even her car owner, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., has gotten this much hype.

But when the sanctioning body apparently turns a blind eye toward a driver and what he or she is doing on the track, that tears down any credibility they may try to maintain.

They needed to at least have a meeting Saturday afternoon. Even if they then chose to not hand out any punishment, at least they could have told Danica that she probably should have handled the situation differently, and the NASCAR fan base, whether or not they liked Danica or not, would have seen her held to the same standard as every other NASCAR driver.

Instead, now NASCAR looks like they decided to play a little favoritism toward one driver.

The ripple effect has already begun with the fans, and is picking up momentum.

This is not good.

Fans want things fair for all the participants, even if the rules seem to be written with a Number 2 pencil. Purposely hooking a driver into the wall, especially after the race is over, needs to be dealt with immediately after it happens with the drivers involved. Not in the media over the next week.

NASCAR’s decision to not do anything after the race will have far reaching effects down the road.

The drivers and teams now know where they stand in the pecking order. If your name is Danica, you can pretty much do whatever you want.

NASCAR has a lot of explaining to do. But nobody will believe them.

The View From Arthur’s World
© 2012 Ricky Craven Fan Club Archive

Ricky Craven is scheduled to be on NASCAR Now on Tuesday, May 8th.

Scheduled to join Ricky and show host Nicole Briscoe on this 30-minute edition of NASCAR Now are Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin and NASCAR K&N Pro East Series driver Darrell Wallace, Jr., who is scheduled to make his NASCAR Nationwide Series debut on May 20th at Iowa Speedway in the Joe Gibbs Racing number 20 car.

The show will air at 3 PM Eastern on ESPN2, with a rebroadcast scheduled for 10 PM Pacific (1 AM Eastern on Wednesday). NASCAR Now is also available on computers via WatchESPN.com and on smartphones and tablets via the WatchESPN App for those who have access.

I have several computers. I believe it has much to do with the fact that I like toys and gadgets, so I regularly used to buy the biggest, baddest computer I could (almost) afford when it was time to upgrade.

Eventually the old computers got to the point that they just could not keep up with all the new software. I believe at last count there are about 9 or 10 old computers stored in my attic right now. All but 3 of them have a monitor that could, in an emergency, still be used today.

Currently, I have six working computers. Two of them are just for emergency back-up use, with a third used primarily as the test-bed and off-line backup location for this web site. All three of these computers are old and slow, but still get the job done. Eventually. They all run on the Windows XP operating system.

My other three computers are my workhorse computers, with two of them are also running Windows XP.

One is my laptop, which I have had to rebuild once using parts from a donor computer. It is the computer I use the most. In fact, most of this web site and almost every “The View From Arthur’s World” post is done on my laptop. It is showing it’s age, but is my most trustworthy (and convenient) computer, so I probably will max out the RAM to get the final two years of use with it before Microsoft stops all support for this now almost 12 year old operating system.

The other XP computer is my big “Master” computer in my home. It does just about everything. It has my primary printer hooked to it so I don’t have to plug a printer into my laptop, and my wife and kids use it all the time for various reports or surfing the Internet. So much so, that I barely ever get a chance to use it.

The last of my computers is also my biggest. However, it has been a pain in my side almost from day one.

Reader Warning: I am about to use a bad work. You might want to keep any small children away from your computer while you read the rest of this post.

My big computer, dear reader, runs Vista.

Early on, it got messed up big time. Mostly it was because some of the software I had didn’t yet have updates to run on Vista. This was most frustrating as I had bought the Vista computer specifically to run a particular piece of software. Why? I had bought my big XP computer for the same reason, and that same piece of software would absolutely not run on the particular version of XP that came on it.

Finally I had to wipe everything off the Vista computers hard drive and start over. And all was good, sort of, for several years. Until last month.

By last week, I had had enough. So I weighed my options.

Buying a new computer was my normal route, but while I would be a happy camper with a new toy to play with, I really could not afford to get one right now. Besides, where would I put it?

Upgrading the Vista computer to Windows 7 seemed like the most logical choice. The only problem there was I’d still be spending a chunk of money I really didn’t have, and I’d be stuck copying files to put back on later. And if I had to spend all that time and effort on the Vista computer any way, I figured I might just as well go the cheapest route possible.

So Sunday evening, I started Project “SMV”. Short for “Save My Vista”.

Now, because I do have a life, I couldn’t just sit there in front of the computer while it downloaded and installed all the files that were needed to rebuild Vista. This was fortunate for me, because it would have driven me crazy.

And although some folks think I’m already crazy and, therefore, being driven crazy would be slightly redundant, you would be wrong. I am not crazy. I do, though, apparently suffer from “Post Concussion Syndrome: Inner Ear Edition”. But that is a story for another day.

So, just how many files does it take to get Vista (Home Edition) from it’s original shipped version to todays May, 2012 version? I can’t say. I can’t count that high. I’m pretty sure that while Mr. Owl could count how many licks it took to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Tootsie Pop (even if he did cheat) that even he couldn’t do it, either.

I finally got it finished this morning. Now, I get to start putting other programs and files back on.

Maybe I’ll be close to done by this weekend.

I talked to my computer advisor down the street this afternoon. He said that if he started installing Vista first thing in the morning, he might have it all completed by the time he was ready to close his shop for the evening. But usually it took him two days.

Once I’m done, I will probably double the RAM in the Vista computer to keep it working as well as possible for the next five years, when Microsoft currently expects to stop all support for Vista.

By that time, I should have been able to save enough pennies to have purchased the next biggest and baddest computer available.

And then the Vista computer can join all the other old computers in my attic.

The View From Arthur’s World
© 2012 Ricky Craven Fan Club Archive

I’m taking this weekend off. Sort of.

NASCAR heads to Virginia this weekend, as both the Nationwide and Sprint Cup Series race at Richmond International Raceway. They will be racing on Friday and Saturday night.

But I need a break. Not from racing, but from bad television coverage.

If you’ve followed me for any amount of time, you know this is not a new rant. The TV coverage has been horrible and shows absolutely no sign of improving.

It has gotten so bad recently on FOX that I read a story that compared the race last weekend on FOX to an infomercial.

ESPN doesn’t seem much better. Heck, they butchered arguably their best NASCAR show of the week, the hour-long Monday roundtable edition of NASCAR Now, down to a half hour this season. And that was after moving it to the middle of the afternoon on the east coast. That’s lunch time on the west coast.

Guess what? That is when most of us NASCAR fans are at work.

And while ESPN seems to find time to re-air Poker games over and over and over again, lately they rarely find time to re-air NASCAR Now. Sometimes, they can’t even bother to air NASCAR Now at all.

When the heck did sitting around playing cards become a “sport”, anyway?

Apparently, so-called “Sports Executives” have decided that the broadcast of live sporting events must “entertain” the viewers. How else do you explain what FOX has been jamming down the TV viewers throats lately? Talk and opinion, disguised as commentary, delivered by folks with an agenda and who either don’t care about what is happening on the race track or don’t know what is happening because the producer and director in the TV truck are not letting them see what is going on. Lord knows the TV truck isn’t letting the TV viewer see the race.

About the only thing I’ve seen that is worse than the race broadcasts by FOX this year is ESPN’s coverage on the NBA. Last year it was so bad that the few times I tried to watch a game, the opinionated non-stop blather by several of the folks who were doing the broadcast caused me to give up and turn off the game before I threw something through my TV.

Even I, a long-time fan of racing in general and NASCAR in particular, have just about had it with the current (lack of) TV coverage.

So here is what I’m going to do this coming weekend. Saturday night, instead of watching the race from Richmond, I will be at a concert with my family. It happens to be a sold out concert, and I believe I just happened to grab the last tickets available.

Now, to make up for not being able to watch the Cup race this weekend, I will make plans to go to my local race track.

If you’ve never been to your local race track, by all means go check them out. This is where all the big racing stars start out their careers, and you never know when you might see the next future Ricky Craven or Jimmie Johnson.

Admission to your local track usually is not expensive, so you can afford to bring friends and family along, and whether you are new to racing or a decades-long fan, getting the chance to watch racing live at a track will either make you appreciate the sport more, or rejuvenate your inner racing fan, who has been starving for racing action that, unfortunately, we no longer can get on TV.

At least not until real race FANS get a chance to run the TV broadcasts.

The View From Arthur’s World
© 2012 Ricky Craven Fan Club Archive

Yeah, I know. It’s kind of a bit late.

When I started “The View From Arthur’s World”, I decided to make it a weekly blog about … well, whatever I happened to be thinking about, or stumbled upon, or basically whatever I thought needed to be blogged about. I also decided to make it on Tuesday, mostly because that was the day that the “Loose Lugnutz” radio show was on, and as I helped out Mark and Dave more and more with the show, it seemed like Tuesday was the obvious day for me to do a weekly blog post. After all, I was already spending the day researching for the show anyway.

But, unfortunately, the Loose Lugnutz did not return this year. I miss it, as I know others do. Who knows what may happen in the future, but I still hold out hope that it may someday return.

What this has meant to me, however, is now I must “focus” on doing blog post on Tuesday, instead of focusing on NASCAR over the race weekend and then pouring over more NASCAR stuff on Monday and Tuesday to prep for a radio show. While doing show prep, I had lots of news to pick from for this blog. But without the show, I’m back to watching the race and then having things fill my time until the next race weekend.

And then, Tuesday arrives.

Seriously, it is not like I am not busy. A typical day for me starts off with what too many folks are also doing every day: Job Searching.

Yeah, after several hours of searching each day for a much longer time frame than I care to divulge, it wears on you. But it has to be done, so I search. But not today.

Today, I had much more important things to do.

First, if all continues well and the good Lord willing, I’m about to add a title to my name. Grandpa.

This morning, we were off to have an ultrasound. For those who have been so blessed, you know just how cool it is to be able to see images of a baby while still in it’s mothers womb. This one today was an important one, so we spent about 45 minutes looking at my granddaughter-to-be. Today, she managed to do the same thing she did a couple of months ago, which was be slightly non-cooperative and manage to make it almost impossible for the technician (and, of course, the rest of us) to see one part of her. Both times, what we could see was just enough to decide that everything was actually OK.

Today we did another count of fingers and toes, measured her arms and legs, and checked her heart and blood flow. All continue to look great.

But in a couple of weeks, everything changes.

We already were having more than the normal amount of appointments. They were to not only keep an eye on the baby, but also my daughter.

Without going into a lot of detail, suffice it to know that my daughter has lots of meds to take. Lots of pills. Twice a day.

Two of her many meds are for seizures, and those are the ones the doctors, nurses and specialists are most concerned with.

Now that my daughter is entering the third trimester, she and I will soon be making trips to the regional hospital every other week, which is a 45 minute drive, each way. She also will start to have regular blood tests done, as now it is time to start cutting back on her seizure meds. Some of you understand that those meds had to increase during the first two trimesters, but for the rest of you, the safety of both my daughter and granddaughter-to-be required the increase to make sure that my daughter did not have a seizure. But these seizure meds could cause huge issues for the baby, so during this final trimester the doctors need to start decreasing those doses. The lower the dose can get without causing Mom to have seizures, the easier it will be on my granddaughter when she finally makes her appearance.

Right now, her due date is early July. However, given that she has already shown her ability to cause minor trouble, I have no doubt that she will make her debut when she damn well feels like it!

The rest of the day my wife and I did a little shopping, and then did what undoubtedly millions of Americans were doing today: We scrambled to finish our taxes. We finished it and got it mailed out with about fifteen minutes to spare.

After finishing up a little more paperwork and starting to write checks to pay a couple of bills, my Dad called from Florida. We chatted for a while, and I told him how my day had gone. While I have definitely gotten used to the idea of becoming a Grandpa soon, it seems my Dad still has a way to go to get used to becoming a Great-Grandpa.

Don’t worry, he’ll come around. He is already planning a trip north at the end of July.

Finally, after supper, it was time to sit down and relax for a while.

That is, until I remembered it was Tuesday.

Anyway, that just about covers what the view from my world was today. Now, I have just one more thing left to do before I call it a night.

I still need to catch up on my job search.

The View From Arthur’s World
© 2012 Ricky Craven Fan Club Archive

Ricky Craven and NASCAR Now reviews all that happened at the STP 400 on Monday, April 23rd.

Joining Ricky will be show host Mike Massaro as they wrap up the weekend race from Kansas Speedway in Kansas City.

The 30 minute show will air at 3 PM Eastern on ESPN2, with a replay scheduled for 10:30 PM Pacific Time (1:30 AM Eastern Tuesday morning, April 24th).

This edition of NASCAR Now will also be available via WatchESPN on-line as well as on tablets and smartphones via apps, for those who have that access available to them.

The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series heads off to Kansas City, Kansas this weekend for the STP 400, and Ricky Craven will help kick-off the race day preview.

NASCAR Now hits the air on Sunday, April 22nd at 9 AM Eastern, with show host Mike Massaro in the NASCAR Now studios with Ricky as they break down everything that has happened in Kansas City, as well as the latest information from the NASCAR garage area. Joining Ricky and Mike will be ESPN reporters Marty Smith and Jim Noble live from the track.

This one-hour race preview edition will be on ESPN2, and will also be available via WatchESPN on-line as well as on tablets and smartphones via apps, for those who have that access available to them.