March Madness: TDZ edition

Earlier this week I tried an attempt at humor; today I figured I’d post something that’s actually serious. How I have the gusto to put another few hundred words together after the last month is beyond me. But, I digress, here’s why the last month has been as crazy as it has.

On the work front

Napleton Racing's Porsche Cayman

Essentially, a month ago, I stood at the crossroads of wondering what it would be like to not be in racing after a one-off PR assignment at the Rolex 24 at Daytona. That went well and one of our cars won in class, a  Napleton Racing-entered Porsche Cayman in the GX class.

The daily grind to find a “real job” is not for the faint of heart. You may think you know what you’re doing in the search process, but in many respects, you have no idea. It’s a tough market out there.

The biggest thing I could advise any soon-to-be graduate entering the market in May, once Easter break is through, is to make and maximize your connections, because you never know what may spring up. That’s what’s now led to going from having one bi-weekly commitment to that plus two major new opportunities.

My name was tossed in the ring for a new blog NBC was launching to complement its Formula 1 and IndyCar coverage, and that launched in late February. MotorSports Talk can be found online as part of NBC’s SportsTalk blog network at motorsportstalk.nbcsports.com.

Additionally, with a few changes happening behind the scenes in terms of equipment and personnel, I have also joined up with the fascinating, innovative and revolutionary DeltaWing project (right) as its PR representative.

The first month has been both exciting and challenging as we thrashed to get to and through the 12 Hours of Sebring. The frustrating element was having such an early engine failure in the race, but we learned a lot as a team, and I certainly learned a lot from my first full week as the lead PR rep for a team. The cliff notes version is that team PR is much harder than it looks. IndyCar blogger Bill Zahren, better known as Pressdog, wrote a good blog post on that topic here. 

On the travel front

What those commitments all meant was a month from February 27 through March 25 where I was home exactly three full days.

I’ve now been to Atlanta as many times in the last month (twice) as in the rest of my life prior to that. That discounts the countless times of actually flying through Atlanta, but with four trips in the bank, it’s now a city I think I know fairly well.

After Atlanta, we road tripped as a team down to Sebring, which was fun. The funny part of the place I stayed in Sebring – a very nice condo/villa that had been rented out for the week – is that the view was gorgeous, the channel lineup was plentiful (it had both NBC Sports Network and SPEED), but it didn’t have Internet! That little wrinkle made it even harder to get all the work done, as it needed to be finished at the track. On the upside, that ensured once I was back to the villa, it was time to put down the laptop and open up a beer.

Post-Sebring I was able to, for the first time, do the Florida double of Sebring, then St. Petersburg for IndyCar and Pirelli World Challenge.

The interim meant a few days up in Tampa, and with that, a chance to take in a Tampa Bay Lightning hockey game with a friend. That might have been one of the most fun nights I’ve had in a while; I’d love to bottle that up and take it forward. Otherwise, a restful few days with work done from the hotel room.

I was pleasantly surprised by St. Pete. The city’s nice without being flashy, the track is fairly compact so you can get to most of it quickly, and the racing was pretty solid across all the divisions going on. Great food and drinks with the “racing family” enhanced the experience; it was a very fun weekend.

Josef Newgarden's car on the grid.

IndyCar can’t catch a break

Three of the drivers I’ve been lucky to “grow up with” in my motorsports writing career, as they have progressed up the ladder, all made headlines in St. Pete – two of them for very good reasons. James Hinchcliffe scored a popular and well-judged first win, Simona de Silvestro starred all weekend and was unlucky to finish sixth despite podium pace, and JR Hildebrand… has made better moves in his career.

It was one of the better curtain-raisers in recent years and yet no more than a couple hours after the race, NASCAR was making all the headlines with its last lap contretemps at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana. Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin were crashing, Logano and Tony Stewart were fighting, and Hamlin was sitting in his car, shaken and stirred. Suddenly another IndyCar race, where the pure racing was the star, took a backseat to the entertainment in NASCAR… and come Monday, it was the NASCAR race that made the rounds on the talking heads shows. This never surprises me but it never ceases to frustrate me, either.

Marquette’s magical run

Until its dud this Saturday against Syracuse, when all the magic ran out, it has been a remarkable ride for my Marquette Golden Eagles this year.

This was a team picked to finish seventh in the Big East, with an obvious lack of talent compared to the Big East big dogs and two major departures in 2012 BEAST POY Jae Crowder and Darius Johnson-Odom, “DJO.”

Buzz Williams did everything and more with this bunch, where Vander Blue emerged as a breakout star after two lackluster seasons and the rest of the team all seemed to improve in one or more areas. Some games were heartbreakers, notably Rotnei Clarke’s miracle three for Butler in Maui.

But more often than not, Marquette pulled it out – from Junior Cadougan’s prayer to send the UConn game into overtime, the Georgetown miss on the third free throw, Jake Thomas (!) and his four-point play against Syracuse, a road-and-home sweep of Pitt and Vander’s buzzer beater to beat St. John’s and clinch a share of the regular season Big East, ensured this was a magical season.

This team had no business playing as well as it did and going as far as it did. But what a ride and what a testament to Buzz and his staff’s coaching effort. I was so happy to be back in Milwaukee from late December to witness it.