Welcome to...."The View from Treasure Island"

News and events that relate to the Bed and Breakfast and Travel Industries.

Latest News

Carl is cool and Brad is bad

Yes, NASCAR needs personality again. Yes, that means fightin’ and yellin’ and spittin’ and slammin’ and wreckin’ And damn’t! More trophy girls, too! Can we start a movement to bring back Miss Winston? Because I’m sorry but Miss Smart Phone With Unlimited Texting just doesn’t sound right, you know? But back to NASCAR: This was the wrong call. I’m not saying Edwards should’ve been suspended for the season. Or even a month. But at least one race? I mean, can you give me Bristol? Martinsville? That incident was kinda ridiculous. The race was nearly over. Edwards (170) was 152 laps behind Keselowski (322). This wasn’t about going for a win. Keselowski wasn’t injured. Fortunately, neither were any fans. But a question: Is that what it’s going to take for NASCAR to take action? NASCAR clearly is desperate for sold out grandstands and fat TV ratings again. It believes fans want wrecks again, even at the possible risk of a fender landing on their cheeseburger, or possibly in their left ear. But this was weak, boys. Really weak.

Posted: March 11th, 2010 under BARBER MOTORSPORTS NEWS - No Comments. Tags: Talladega Superspeedway Race

Aaron’s To Sponsor Michael Waltrip’s Return

In celebration of its 55th year, Aaron’s, Inc. will sponsor PRISM Motorsports’ No. 55 with driver Michael Waltrip in the Aaron’s 499 at Talladega Superspeedway April 25.

Waltrip, a two-time Daytona 500 champion and former winner at Talladega, will return to NASCAR Sprint Cup Series racing with a long-time sponsor in Aaron’s and a long-time friend in PRISM co-owner Phil Parsons.

“This is cool. I’m ready to race again and Talladega is a place where I know we will be very competitive,” said Waltrip who owns four restrictor plate victories including a Talladega win in the fall of 2003.

Parsons said Waltrip was a natural choice for the Talladega high banks. Read more »

Posted: March 11th, 2010 under BARBER MOTORSPORTS NEWS - No Comments. Tags: Talladega Superspeedway Race

Q & A: Franchitti Set To Defend

Posted: March 10th, 2010 under BARBER MOTORSPORTS NEWS - No Comments. Tags: Barber Motorsports

Edwards got off very easy

It doesn’t sound very good now.

Carl Edwards intentionally wrecked Brad Keselowski at Atlanta on Sunday and got off with a slap on the wrist Tuesday. Yes, Edwards received a three-race probation, but he gets to keep racing. Yes, he got parked right after he wrecked Keselowski, but Edwards was more than 150 laps down at the time.

I would have given Edwards a one-race suspension and docked the No.99 team some driver and owner points, too.

This is the dark side of “Boys, have at it.” Those four words make economic sense – adding more excitement and selling more tickets. But sometimes, when emotions are boiling, it’s a philosophy that is tantamount to letting the inmates run the asylum.

As Keselowski himself pointed out Sunday, his No.12 car could have killed somebody in the grandstands. Keselowski’s car went airborne after Edwards hit him from behind before flipping and returning to earth.

“It’s not cool to wreck someone intentionally at 195 mph,” Keselowski said.

Now I know these drivers have a checkered history. Keselowski and Edwards had banged into each other earlier in the race. And Keselowski helped send Edwards airborne at Talladega (Ala.) last year, which resulted in one of the scariest wrecks in the history of the sport.

“At least when I did it, it wasn’t intentional,” Keselowski said.

Edwards, of course, didn’t mean to punt Keselowski’s car into the sky Sunday. “I wish that it wouldn’t have gone like it did,” Edwards said shortly after the wreck.

I believe that. But it happened.

NASCAR is trying to spin this by separating Edwards’ retaliatory nudge and Keselowski’s resulting flip, but the fact is one doesn’t happen without the other. Work on the cars all you want, NASCAR, but don’t pretend this is simply an engineering issue.

Edwards was at fault, and he should have been punished more severely.

If you drive 90 mph on a road with a 55-mph speed limit and a policeman catches you, then you get a nasty speeding ticket and pay higher insurance rates. But if you run into another car while you’re doing it and hurt or kill somebody, you’re in a lot more trouble.

Edwards had bad intentions. Think about what would happen if a similar incident occurred in another sport and was obviously intentional. A pitcher beans a batter. A hockey player high-sticks an opponent. An NBA player throws a punch.

Would they be suspended? I think so.

Edwards only seems to have received a stern talking-to and a three-race, double-secret, don’t-do-it-again-and-you’re-OK probation. That’s just not enough.

So what would it take for a driver to actually get suspended for a race under the “boys, have at it” rules?

I have two guesses. Either you seriously maim or kill somebody. Or else you punt Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s car into the air instead of Brad Keselowski’s.

Posted: March 10th, 2010 under Talladega Superspeedway Race News - No Comments. Tags: Talladega Superspeedway Race

NASCAR Puts Carl Edwards On Probation

After taking out some of his pent up aggression on fellow NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Brad Keselowski during Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 500, resulting in the No. 12 car taking wing and slamming into the retaining wall and track surface with its roof, NASCAR has put Carl Edwards on probation for three races.

The controversial incident happened after Edwards was put into the wall earlier in the race after contact with Keselowski. The two had tangled previously during last year’s race at Talladega when Edwards went airborne into the catch fence injuring fans.

  Read more »

Posted: March 10th, 2010 under BARBER MOTORSPORTS NEWS - No Comments. Tags: Talladega Superspeedway Race

Irvan Rocked, Rolled And Swerved

Ernie Irvan was Brad Keselowski before Brad Keselowski was Brad Keselowski.

A driver in the Cup Series from 1987 to 1999 (and eventually named as one of the top 50 drivers of NASCAR’s first 50 years), Irvan’s fierce, take-no-prisoners style of racing earned him the nickname Swervin’ Irvan. Unfortunately, some of the wrecks Irvan caused on the way to establishing himself at stock car racing’s top level also brought along a darker nickname: Gurney Ernie. Read more »

Posted: March 10th, 2010 under BARBER MOTORSPORTS NEWS - No Comments. Tags: Talladega Superspeedway Race

Red Bull Racing Team race report

The spotters picked the holes. Brian Vickers and Scott Speed trusted the call and drove right through as both Red Bull Toyotas finished in the top 10 for the second time in three-plus years of Sprint Cup racing.

Vickers survived two overtime restarts and 16 extra laps to finish seventh in Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 500 – 525, really – at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Not far behind was Speed, whose 10th-place finish was his best at a track not named Talladega.

The defining moment that gave Red Bull Racing Team its third-best combined result in history came on lap 332 – NASCAR’s first attempt at a green-white- checkered finish. Jamie McMurray had a smoky spin in turns three and four and collected five other cars. Right behind the mess in 14th and 15th were Vickers and Speed, and both made evasive maneuvers with the guidance their respective spotters. Chris Lambert sent Vickers up high near the wall, and Tim Fedewa helped Speed dive to the apron below.

Speed predicted the restart was going to be “a cluster,” and after the smoke cleared Vickers countered with, “That was straight up Days of Thunder.” But both cars made it through unscathed, and eventually the field strung together two clean laps to the checkered flag.

Vickers posted his first top 10 of the season, third in a row at Atlanta and fifth in the past six races there. He’s finished in the top 10 in half of his 14 starts at the 1.54-mile track. Read more »

Posted: March 9th, 2010 under BARBER MOTORSPORTS NEWS - No Comments. Tags: alabama bed and breakfast, Talladega Superspeedway Race

Should drivers speak up?

For the second time in less than a year at a high-speed NASCAR track a car has spun around, lifted off the ground, turned upside down and slamed into a retaining wall and catchfence.

At Talladega Superspeedway last year, it was Carl Edwards flying into the fence, nearly windshield first, with Brad Keselowski, the driver he’d just tangled with, going on to win the race. At Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday it was Keselowski flying upside down, almost head first into the wall, after contact, apparently intentional, from Edwards.

This time it wasn’t for the win. Edwards was 156 laps down and from all indications delivering payback for an earlier incident or incidents between the two of them.

The crashes may look exciting on TV, but in person, they’re sickening.

At Talladega, fellow reporter Monte Dutton and I left our seats in the press box and went to the crash scene below where we found a handful of battered and bruised fans who looked like they’d just lost a bar room brawl. Up at the top of the stands, a young lady was lying flat on her back on a stretcher attached to a rescue vehicle. She had bled enough from her jaw to turn a starched white towel nearly completely red.

NASCAR and track officials went out of their way to label the injuries “minor.”

At Atlanta, Keselowski’s car stayed out of the spectator area. Mercifully there were no injuries.

If there’s an upside to the crash at Atlanta it’s that it raised questions about the “Have at it, boys” approach to racing that NASCAR officials announced earlier this year.

Drivers and series officials spent most of the post-race news conference time answering questions about just how much wrecking is acceptable in the “Have at it, boys” era.

Is there a difference, from an enforcement standpoint, in wrecking someone at Martinsville at 90 miles per hour and putting them in the fence at Atlanta at 200? What kind of punishment, if any, can drivers expect? Will the sport continue to cater to a segment of the fan base – hopefully a small one – that shows up at the track or turns on the TV just to see bone-jarring, potentially deadly wrecks?

What all this calls for is some leadership from the garage – not NASCAR officials or TV commentators or even members of the press but veteran drivers like Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon and Jeff Burton and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

They need to stand up and demand professional, civil behavior in the sport, and if they don’t they’re dishonoring the legacy of the people who helped bring NASCAR from the rough and tumble bullrings of the South to the national scene.

They need to stand up and tell their fans in no uncertain terms that the sport has been over-hyped. They need to spread the word to the public and to their younger peers that rivalries are good but irresponsible driving is not.

They need to tell their fans that the fact that the Car of Tomorrow is safer does not mean that a driver or fan won’t be hurt or killed.

They need to point out that NASCAR racing is about dueling for positions, with mutual respect among drivers, and strategy and doing everything possible on the track and on pit road to get the best result possible.

They need to use the media to get the word out instead of trying to spend as little time as possible with the press.

They need to explain to fans that just as motorists on the highway have to trust that oncoming drivers will stay in their lane and abide by the rules of the road, NASCAR drivers need to know they can do their jobs without worrying about a competitor having no regard for common decency.

They need to demand that something be done about the track at Talladega, where a “boring” race last year got all of this mess started.

Drivers and race teams and sponsors and promoters need to be prepared to run a race with a top driver sitting out a race as punishment.

Carl Edwards is a great guy, and has been one of the most helpful to many of us in the media over the years, but when a driver pulls a stunt like Edwards did at Atlanta he needs to sit out a race so he can rethink his and the sport’s priorities.

If he or any other driver is frustrated by pressure from his sponsors or team owners, the sponsors and team owners should back off and work on fixing whatever the problem may be.

For years, NASCAR has grown while portraying its athletes as role models and for the most part they have been.

But wrecking another driver intentionally sends a terrible message.

Demolition Derbies are amateur events that belong at county fairs or local short tracks.

NASCAR racing should be a professional sport. It’s time for its stars to step up and insist that it be that way. Read more »

Posted: March 9th, 2010 under BARBER MOTORSPORTS NEWS - No Comments. Tags: Talladega Superspeedway Race

NASCAR centerpiece: Brad’s rough start

For a driver with just 21 Sprint Cup starts, Brad Keselowski has made a lot of enemies. And while the violence of his wreck at Atlanta was shocking – his flip into the fence caved the roof in around his roll cage – the dynamics of the crash surprised nobody. Said Juan Pablo Montoya, one of several drivers who have vowed to retaliate after run-ins with Keselowski, “I’m sure a lot of people wanted to pay him back. Looking at the TV (replay), somebody did.” So how did Keselowski, driver of the Penske Racing No. 12, get to this point? Read more »

Posted: March 9th, 2010 under BARBER MOTORSPORTS NEWS - No Comments. Tags: Barber Motorsports, Talladega Superspeedway Race

Lodging near Barber Motorsports

There are many places to stay near Barber Motorsports Park in Leeds, Alabama. For those just wanting to find a utilitarian and generic lodging to lay there head after a day at the Park, there are hotels and motels aplenty. However, for those who desire a unique lodging experience with a personal touch, there are a number of Bed and Breakfast inns located even closer to the Park than most of the motels. Only twenty minutes away is Treasure Island Bed and Breakfast located on the shore of the Coosa river on Logan Martin Lake. The inn offers a variety of rooms from $100 for $175 for their top of the line, Anniversary Suite. This room has a huge glassed marble shower with multiple shower heads that give a “car wash” shower effect. There is also a whirlpool heated tub in the room with his and her sinks. The room over looks the main channel of the lake with a private entrance. Of course, a delicious full breakfast is served each morning overlooking the lake. Staying here with your significant other and attending the Barber Motorsports events doesn’t get much better. For a truly memorable weekend of racing events and relaxing lodging experience, you will find that combination at Barber Motorsports Park and Treasure Island Bed and Breakfast. For more complete information, all their facilities can be found at http://www.treasureislandbedandbreakfast.com

Posted: March 8th, 2010 under BARBER MOTORSPORTS NEWS - No Comments. Tags: alabama bed and breakfast, Barber Motorsports