Wir suchen Dich! » forefront of his mind and his voice cracked with emo

HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- I dont know about you, but Im ready to see a racing championship resolved the old-fashioned way.Im tired of the artificial elements that have been introduced to the sport in an effort to create or maintain excitement instead of letting things take their natural course.Nothing happens organically anymore. So much effort is put into creating the ultimate finish -- whether its for a race or a championship -- that things are rarely allowed to evolve naturally.Take the overtime rule. Without it, last weeks NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Phoenix would have ended under yellow, and Matt Kenseth would have been the winner. Its a system that worked well for decades.Same with season-long championships. How do you think William Byron feels right now? The talented 18-year-old rookie won seven Camping World Truck Series races this year, yet it was Johnny Sauter hoisting the championship trophy Friday night at Homestead-Miami Speedway.Make no mistake, Sauter put together a quality season with three wins, 12 top-5 and 19 top-10 finishes in 23 starts.But Byrons numbers are arguably better. There are those seven wins, plus he nearly matched Sauter with 11 top-5s. Byron led 727 laps over the course of the year compared to Sauters 130.The title was decided in Sauters favor because this is the first year NASCAR thrust a Chase format into the Truck Series championship. Sauter earned two of his three wins late in the season when only six drivers were eligible for the championship. ?Byron was eliminated from contention when his Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota blew an engine while he was leading with a handful of laps to go at Phoenix a week ago in the race that cut the Truck Chase field from six to four.I just feel so bad for William and the way this point situation worked out this year and not having an opportunity to come out here and race for the title, said team owner Busch, who successfully negotiated the Cup Series Chase eliminations to make the Final Four for the second year in a row.The bitter part is this kid is the champion, and hes not going to get the big trophy, added Rudy Fugle, crew chief of Byrons No. 9 KBM Toyota.???It could happen again today in the Xfinity Series. Erik Jones claimed nine poles, won four races, scored 15 top-5s and has led 624 laps to date this year. Yet thanks to an elimination-style Chase, also in its first year in Xfinity competition, Justin Allgaier (no wins, and just 28 laps led) could emerge as the champion.Of course thats ignoring the fact that despite notching up nine poles and leading 2,052 laps on the way to 10 wins (in just 17 starts), Busch is flat-out ineligible for the Xfinity championship.Ironically, NASCAR created the original Chase in 2004 for this very reason. Ryan Newman won eight Cup Series races in 2003, claimed 11 poles and led 1,173 laps, yet finished a distant sixth in the championship standings to Matt Kenseth, who never started from pole once, had six fewer top-5s and led just 354 laps.That statistical imbalance, and the perception that Kenseth was somehow a less worthy champion than Newman, was what pushed NASCAR into action. Since then, the Chase has grown -- to 10, 12, 13, and finally 16 drivers, with the additional artificiality of a series of eliminations intended to mimic the format successfully used in stick-and-ball sports.To NASCARs credit, there has not been an unworthy champion during the Chase era. The Chase created the classic 2011 championship battle between Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart, which Stewart would not have been in if the traditional season-long format had been used.But its going to happen in the Cup Series one of these days. Newman nearly pulled it off in 2014 in the first year for the elimination Chase -- and wouldnt that have been the ultimate demonstration of poetic justice?What it all comes down to is a philosophy of managed competition, and NASCAR has long been the industry leader in that regard.You hear a lot of talk in America today about too much government, and that certainly applies in NASCARs case.?From making small adjustments to cars to ensure that no manufacturer gains the slightest advantage, to instituting increasingly gimmicky ways to guarantee the season championship goes down to the wire, NASCAR has always had a heavy hand when it comes to artificially spicing up the show.Its not worth going back to add up the points the old way to figure out who would have been any Chase years moral champion -- though it can be fun -- because the advent of the various forms of the Chase fundamentally changed the way people raced throughout the season. It changed the entire dynamic of racing for a championship.And thats what is so frustrating. These days, once a team locks itself into the Chase, the rest of the regular season becomes pretty much irrelevant. The focus shifts to preparing for the final 10 races of the year rather than putting in 100 percent effort trying to be competitive and build a points cushion throughout the summer.One or two bad races used to be a bump in the road for a championship contender. But now, if it happens at the wrong time, it can ruin a whole years worth of work.I look back at 2007, my final year at Hendrick [Motorsports], and we were running pretty good, Busch recalled.?I think we were third in the Chase at the time, and we were either leading or running third at Kansas, and I think Junior [Dale Earnhardt Jr.] came off of 2 and wrecked me. From there on, that killed the rest of our mojo, our momentum, the things that we had going for us in that season.Then in 2008, right the exact year after that, we got into the Chase as the top seed, Busch continued. We won eight races, and then boom, right out of the gate in the Chase we tried to start doing things a different way. It messed us up, and we totally lost what we were doing and what our focus was. That killed us there.Im not saying that going back to a season-long championship slog is automatically going to make racing great again.But it would at least do a better job of recognizing greatness over the course of a calendar year rather than through a smaller sampling of a few weeks.This years Cup Series Final Four is representative of the best the 2016 season had to offer because there was a fair amount of parity throughout the field and no driver won more than four races. But that wont always be the case, and even this year, some drivers could argue that the system has been unfair to them -- among them, four-time winners Brad Keselowski and Martin Truex Jr.Busch and Joey Logano would still be in the top four in the standings using the classic point standings, but Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson would rank seventh and ninth respectively. Points leader Kevin Harvick would theoretically clinch the championship Sunday with a top 20 finish under the old system, but hes not title-eligible.Time moves on, and sports gradually evolve, but you can be certain that NASCAR will never backtrack and revert to a classic, season-long championship format -- even though the advent of the Chase is the number one reason fans cite when asked about their declining interest in stock car racing.The Chase is here to stay, and if the drivers dont necessarily like it, they still generally respect the results it produces.Weve worked really hard to get here, said Logano.?I dont think its ever easy, and everyone is here for a reason.?These are the four best teams this year. Its been proven that theyve either been consistent, or can win when they have to.?If they had some troubles earlier in one of the rounds, everyone was able to get through. Theres not many guys who are able to do it, and obviously it was so close.?Theres a lot of pressure thats been put on these race teams, and these are the race teams that were able to handle it, he added.?A lot of people can go a different way when theres pressure put on them, but these teams here seem to be the ones that are best this year, and one of them will prevail at the end.Fake Nike NFL Jerseys . Reigning world champion Eve Muirhead of Scotland opened with a 12-2 rout of Winnipegs Jennifer Jones in a battle of teams bound for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Wholesale NFL Jerseys China ., for the next three years with the signings on Monday of Daryl Townsend and Michael Carter. https://www.chinajerseysnfl.us/ . Traditional contenders Brazil, Greece and Turkey drew the other three spots to complete the 24-team field for this summers tournament in Spain, basketball governing body FIBA announced Saturday at its meeting in Barcelona. Cheap Nike NFL Jerseys Free Shipping . Vokoun departed practice on Saturday morning after discovering swelling in his thigh. He was taken to a local hospital where the clot was revealed. The club announced the surgery following a 5-3 exhibition loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets. Nike NFL Jerseys Outlet . The parade and rally were held to celebrate the Saskatchewan Roughriders 45-23 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Sunday in the CFLs championship game.In the space of 30 short minutes, Team GB stormed to two gold medals in the womens pair and mens four at Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas. It was a breath-taking performance from the two crews, built on power and sheer bloody-mindedness but also emotion, family, trust and fear.First up in the double gold run were Helen Glover and Heather Stanning who stormed home in the womens pair. It was their 39th consecutive win and it secured their place in history: they are the first female British rowers to retain their Olympic crown after their triumph at London 2012.But their focus speaking moments after their race was not on their personal journeys to Olympic gold, their place in history but instead, it was on the role their coach Robin Williams played in getting them to gold after he was diagnosed and then recovered from cancer a little over two and a half years ago.He [Williams] was quite chatty before the race, quite nervous and he was using a lot of words, Glover said. He is so passionate, he has done everything from todays chat to when he was dangerously ill and having to take time off work.He was still there for us to being away from his family for months on end, its just all him, we couldnt have done it without him.Stanning added: Without Robin wed be nobodies, hes the best coach in the world.Williams, 59, was diagnosed with bladder cancer in December 2013 and a month on he was undergoing life-saving surgery. By May 2014 he was given the all-clear but in those dark, life-threatening days of December and January, his message to the duo was succinct: carry on, email me your times.I needed to get paid so I had to get better quickly, Williams said. It was an incentive. I was in hospital and I was walking around the ward - 20 ft, 30 ft, 50 ft at a time when they were saying a few steps is enough.Thats how it starts off and I now go running and biking. Rowing in itself is a journey but that makes it a bit bigger.Now standing alongside Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas minutes after Glover and Stanning had won gold, his face told the story of the emotional journey he had been through as he reflected on the key role the womens pair played in his recovery.They were a big, big part of my fight back, Williams said. I felt there was a lot to achieve still with them. I didnt lack drive to get better but it was an extra incentive.They were fantastic that year and now that I think we have got to Rio 2016 and won I feel we have completely written the last chapter of the book with the best ending possible for all of us.Whatever happens next we can hold this moment as a nugget in our memories and be proud and thrilled forever.As he spoke, the national anthem was being played as the mens fours picked up their gold; there was a wonderful synergy between the two triumphs. Their victory here in Brazil stretches the run for the mens fours to five straight golds from Sydney 2000 to now.Their individual motivation was divided between their friends and familys roles in getting them to the top of the podium but also the fear of failure, with the weight of history sitting heavy on their shoulders.George Nash, who won bronze in 2012, woke up in a cold sweat. This morning I thought I was definitely going to cock this up, he said. This feels like a gamble thats not going to go my way.Everythings just felt a little bit off and this morning I thought if the Aussies are on, and were not, were going to get turned over. That put the fear of God into me. And when we crossed the line thought wow, it has gone our way.The same went for Alex Gregory, who missed the births of two of hhis three children to pursue his charge to double Olympic gold following on from his 2012 success in the fours.dddddddddddd. Today I was looking at the guys on the launches on the lake, thinking: You dont know what I am feeling now. Youre just sat there bobbing around on the lake. I wish I could swap with you.I did feel pressure of history. I didnt want to let this record go. I didnt want to have to look [Sir Steve] Redgrave or [Sir Matthew] Pinsent in the eye. I didnt want to have to listen to the commentary of Garry Herbert [gold-medal winning cox from 1992] and James Cracknell.Their voices were going through my mind during the warm up: Oh my goodness, the British arent going to do it. You have to snap out of it as soon as those thoughts creep in. But it was always there. It was definitely there and it was a worry.Theyre horrible feelings. I dont enjoy those feelings; its not why I do sport. Its not for that adrenaline rush before the start; its a numb, horrible, painful feeling.But then came the relief. His family back home in Oxfordshire would have been fresh in his thoughts with Jesse -- he was on a rowing machine in South Africa when he was being born --Daisy, who arrived when he was competing in the world championships in South Korea, Jasper and his partner Emily watching on.Gregorys teammate Moe Sbihi also had family at the forefront of his mind and his voice cracked with emotion as he spoke. My main aim is to make my parents proud, he said. And thats it. I was picked to do this sport and Im really lucky but its just to make them proud.Then there was the yearly commitment of fasting through Ramadan while continuing his training. I relish it, Sbihi said. When I have to make up my fast in the winter its tough training but I get through it.I push myself to the limits with these boys but Im doing it without food and drink. I really like it -- its an unrivalled feeling. It challenges me and makes me mentally stronger.The approaches varied. Sbihi embraced the motivation of making his parents proud while Constantine Louloudis, who is said to be the pace setter in the group, tried to block out external factors, wary of being overloaded.Theres no lack of motivation, Louloudis said. In the run into the final I was trying to put things out rather than recall things as if you try and recall every bit of motivation, youre going to overload your mind with it. So Im not even t