Mammoth Blog

Even though the NASCAR Hall of Fame is currently under construction in Charlotte, storied items from six decades of stock car racing are already being collected for future display.

This past Friday, NASCAR Hall of Fame executive director Winston Kelley announced that the Petty Blue 1967 Plymouth Belvedere from Petty Enterprises is "the first significant artifact" publicly presented by the hall.

Seven-time NASCAR champion Richard Petty drove the Plymouth to more wins than any other car in NASCAR history. During the 1967 season, Petty won 27 races, including a NASCAR-record 10 consecutive events. The car, however, was actually a 1966 Plymouth Belvedere that was updated through 1967. In all, the dominant machine tallied 36 wins from 1966-67. It will be on loan for two years from the Richard Petty Museum in Randleman.

Petty smiles widely at the mere mention of the Plymouth that was the winningest car in Petty Enterprises history.

"The Plymouth Belvedere was a special car," Petty said at the presentation conducted in Mooresville. "Back then we usually found a car that was good on short tracks or speedways or dirt tracks, but not many that were good everywhere. That Plymouth was fast no matter where we ran. It belongs in the NASCAR Hall of Fame and I have to thank Winston and everyone at the hall for giving us the honor of providing one of the first pieces to go in."

Adds Petty's longtime crew chief Dale Inman: "Back then, it was such a feat to not fall out of 10 races in a row, let alone win them. There were a lot of 100-mile races, but still, to win that many was remarkable with the way the motors, wheel bearings and rear-ends were in that era. All that stuff is so much better now."

Back at that time, to have a car finish 27 races was quite a feat, let alone win them. For whatever reason, everything at Petty Enterprises was established in 1949, one year after the formation of NASCAR. Throughout NASCAR's history, 268 wins, 10 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championships and 10 Daytona 500 wins have made Petty Enterprises the winningest organization in the history of American motorsports. It seems only natural that the legendary team would have a prominent place in the NASCAR Hall of Fame when the doors open in the spring of 2010 in Charlotte.

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The British trio Keane have had considerable success since their 2004 debut "Hopes And Fears" and the single, "Somewhere Only We Know."

On their latest studio album, "Perfect Symmetry," the group displays their trademark melodic songcraft and soaring vocals, and weaves in a decidedly 1980s New Wave pop flair on many of the album's 11 tracks, which are mostly uptempo.

But don't mistake "Perfect Symmetry" for a collection of lightweight, retro pop.

Perhaps reflecting the band's struggles after singer Tom Chaplin's publicized bout with drug and alcohol addiction following the release of the band's second album two years ago, "Perfect Symmetry" sees Keane exploring more sombre themes, including the dark side of fame, the inevitability of karmic payback and heartbreak.

The best tracks on "Perfect Symmetry" soar in contrast to their sombre subject matter.

The opening track, "Spiralling," starts off with heavyweight '80s pop beat, synths and a recurrent "Ooh!" that feels pulled straight out of song by fellow Brits Wang Chung. But Chaplin is not slinging fluff when he sings "When we fall in love/We're just falling in love with ourselves."

In "Better Than This," another deceivingly bright pop number, Chaplin sings "Could have been something, but you're too late/And you weren't invited anyway."

Perhaps the strongest song, the piano-driven title track, "Perfect Symmetry," glides from one sing-along hook to the next and soars into an epic anthem as Chaplin implores, "And maybe you'll find life is unkind/And over so soon/There is no golden gate/There's no heaven waiting for you."

Keane leaves the best for last with "Love Is The End," a slow, lullaby-like track stripped down mostly to little more than a drum loop, piano and vocals. Chaplin is at his most melodic here, weaving a tale of love lost with an angelic, mournful touch that builds to a full, cathartic choral outro.

CHECK THIS TRACK OUT: "Black Burning Heart" is instantly catchy modern pop without the '80s effects audible in many of the other tracks on the album - and even features a bit of French vocals. source>>>

Available Now on Itunes Music from the Hit Show Yo Gabba Gabba

Alicia Keys leads the nominees for the 2008 American Music Awards with five, including artist of the year, favorite female artist -- pop or rock music, favorite female artist -- soul/rhythm & blues music and favorite album in pop or rock music and soul/R&B music for "As I Am."

Coldplay and the Eagles earned four nominations each. Coldplay was nominated for artist of the year, favorite band, duo or group -- pop or rock music, favorite artist -- alternative rock music and favorite album -- pop or rock music for "Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends."

The Eagles scored nominations for: artist of the year, favorite band, duo or group -- pop or rock music, favorite artist -- adult contemporary music, and favorite album pop or rock music for "Long Road Out of Eden."

The other artists nominated for artist of the year are Lil Wayne, who was also nominated for favorite male artist -- rap/hip-hop music and favorite album rap/hip-hop music for "Tha Carter III"; and Chris Brown, who also received nominations for favorite male artist -- pop or rock music and favorite male artist -- soul/rhythm & blues music.

Other artists receiving multiple nominations are Mary J. Blige, Garth Brooks, Mariah Carey, Daughtry, Flo Rida, Rihanna, Carrie Underwood, Usher and Kanye West.

Voting for the awards is done online via ABC.com's American Music Awards website. The AMAs will be held Nov. 23 at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles. They will be aired live on ABC and hosted by Jimmy Kimmel. source>>>

The 4 track Sway EP is available to download now from iTunes for £1.99. The bundle includes an exclusive string version of Sway which isn't included on the album and a wonderful live version of Sway which was recorded in a studio in Woodstock, upstate New York whilst the band were on their sell out tour of North America. It's also available on CD and 2 x 7"s. The tracklisting across all formats is:

ITunes bundle:

1. Sway (Radio Mix)
2. Sway (Live Woodstock Session)
3. Stole Away (Demo)
4. It Can Be So Hard (Demo)

CD:

1. Sway (Radio Mix)

2. Stole Away (Demo)

7"

1. Sway

2. It Can Be So Hard (Demo)

7"

1. Sway (Radio Mix)

2. Sway (Live Woodstock Session)

The Big Ten Network will capture the madness and hysteria associated with the beginning of another thrilling basketball season with 2½ hours of live coverage during Big Ten Tonight: Basketball Season Tip-off Special at 9 PM ET on Friday.

Big Ten Tonight will be live on the campuses of Indiana, Michigan State, Minnesota, Purdue and Wisconsin for the teams' first official basketball practices. Host Rick Pizzo and analyst Jim Jackson will anchor coverage from network studios in Chicago.

The show will include live coverage from "Hoosier Hysteria" at Indiana, Michigan State's "Midnight Madness," "Tubby's Tipoff" at Minnesota, "Mackey Madness" at Purdue and Wisconsin's "Night of the Grateful Red."

"This is a special time of year," Pizzo said. "There's already great anticipation for the new season and this will be the fans' first chance to see some of the conference's new faces and emerging stars."

In addition to the studio coverage, the show will provide extended live look-ins from Bloomington, East Lansing, Minneapolis, West Lafayette and Madison for team introductions, three-point and dunk contests, performances from pep bands, and all the excitement that comes with a new basketball season.

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The global economic crisis is likely to have profound, long-range consequences for American politics and for the relations of the United States with the rest of the world, severely constraining any effort to maintain or revive the Bush administration's propensity for unilateralism, and posing a broad international challenge to free market ideologies, according to a range of experts.

The scope of these changes remains uncertain, and all those who responded to October 11 and 12 inquiries from the Huffington Post warned that predictions in these circumstances are perilous. But there is a strong consensus that it would be a mistake to minimize the coming upheavals.

In the United States, economic developments have the potential to lay the groundwork for a political transformation with major alterations in both the composition of, and balance of power between, the major political parties. There are "reasons for thinking that the American election of 2008 may be the equivalent of the election of 1932 - an electoral sea change ushering in a new wave of government intervention and, if that intervention is successful, a durable electoral realignment," says Peter Hall, Krupp Foundation Professor of European Studies at Harvard, in a wide-ranging analysis he provided to the Huffington Post, available in full at the end of this article.

In Europe, Hall contends, "the political effects are likely to be more diffuse. If the ensuing recession is not too deep, the current crisis may provide Prime Minister Gordon Brown with just enough credit for the Labour party to survive the next British election and Angela Merkel with the wherewithal to remain German Chancellor. But history suggests that electorates tend to punish governments that preside over deep recessions and to look, in some cases, to the political extremes for new faces and voices. Therefore, there is reason to worry about the rise of far right parties in Europe, in particular, where they have already made inroads by running against the market-oriented policies of the European Union."

"Although enthusiasm for market competition has been waning in European capitals for some years, the current financial crisis will strike it a serious and potentially fatal blow," according to Hall.

"Most Europeans and some Americans attribute the crisis to subprime lending in the US housing market, but that was only the trigger for contemporary events," Hall argues. "The deeper roots of the crisis lie in shifts in banking practices that led many financial institutions to borrow heavily in short-term capital markets to finance the purchase of riskier securities than they once held. The 'financial innovation' behind the development of these securities was said to diffuse risk. Indeed, it did and now everyone is at risk. These developments are symbolized by the practice of many European banks of using credit default swaps to purchase 'insurance' on risky securities, thereby allowing them to count them as part of the asset base required to meet regulatory requirements on the banking sector."

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Britney Spears didn't just debut her new video for the single "Womanizer" on ABC Friday night (October 10th), she also debuted a newly toned body. The video opens with a naked Britney, dripping in sweat and writhing around in a sauna. She's lying on her back with her arms folded across her chest, and the scene is shot so none of her private parts are revealed. It's not clear what the sauna scenes have to do with the rest of the video, which shows the singer dressed as a housewife, an office worker, a waitress and a limo driver all roughing up the same womanizing guy.

The song is from Britney's upcoming album, Circus, which is due out on December 2 -- Britney's 27th birthday. source>>>

Ohio State Buckeyes junior defensive end Lawrence Wilson will miss the rest of the season after tearing the ACL in his left knee during last Saturday's win against Purdue.

This marks the second consecutive year Wilson has suffered a season-ending injury. He broke his leg in the 2007 opener against Youngstown State.

"I feel terrible for Lawrence," Ohio State coach Jim Tressel said. "I feel worse for Lawrence than for us. Guys can sprain an ankle and then you don't have them in that game, but for a guy who went through a surgery a year ago to have another surgery now -- unfortunately, that's what happens in these games."

Wilson had started all seven games this season, racking up 18 tackles with a sack, an interception and a fumble recovery.

Rob Rose or Curtis Terry likely will start Saturday against No. 20 Michigan State (ABC, 3:30 p.m. ET), or Ohio State could move Cameron Heyward from defensive tackle back to defensive end. source>>>

Kim Roberson

What does Mother Nature have against NASCAR? For the 8th time this season, rain fell from the heavens above and cancelled qualifying for the Sprint Cup series, allowing the field to be set by points and sending several hopefuls home without a chance to get their two laps.

8 times equals 25% of the efforts this season. That is a lot of races set by points. And we still have five races left...plenty of chances for Mother Nature to dampen the hopes of teams again.

It used to be that qualifying took place over a two day period. It was the true "knock out" qualifying, where if you stood on your first days qualifying speed, someone who decided to take a chance on the second day after working on their car could knock you out and send you home. In the end, the fastest 43 cars lined up and took the flag on race day, and everyone else watched from home.

In a fan's perfect world, the fastest 43 cars that show up for NASCAR qualifying would be the 43 that are on the starting grid. However, NASCAR has mandated that in order to reward the teams -- that show up week in and week out -- 35 of those teams will be locked in, no matter how poorly they perform during qualifying. Unfortunately, there are more than 35 teams that show up week in and week out. And now we have "Go-or-Go homers", many of whom never seem to get a chance in a year like this when rain decides the line up at least once a month.

Admittedly, in any format, the three rookies who didn't make the race this weekend still wouldn't have made the race. Scott Speed and his shiny toenails would still have been sitting on the sidelines watching.

The top 35 was originally created because we had 50+ cars showing up each week to qualify, and we had big name drivers being sent home by a team who was going to only run 10 laps and then park the car and take the money. These days, with few exceptions, we have no "start and park" teams showing up at a track to race. Everyone who is at the track is there to race the entire race. The need to lock in the top 35 for fear of being booted by a team who won't race to the end is gone.

"Every car that comes to a track should have the right to attempt to qualify. This week, they could have lined up 1-35 as per points and (Friday) morning they could have filled the remaining positions by qualifying the "Go-or-Go homers". Again the back-markers are filled by "what have they done before today" and one car because the driver won a championship in the Stone Age. So far we have seen cars come to the track, practice and then sent home -- unable to make an attempt. How in the hell is a new team suppose to even have a chance. Logano was sent home and now Keselowski was also. This is bulls**t" decried a friend of mine on Friday.

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ESPN and the University of Hawaii have announced a new eight-team, holiday men's college basketball tournament starting in 2009.

The Diamond Head Classic will feature 12 games played over three days, around the Dec. 24 Hawaii Bowl football game, with the championship played on Christmas.

Pete Derzis, senior vice president and general manager of ESPN Regional Television, says a minimum of 10 games will be televised nationally.

No teams were announced on Monday.

The Diamond Head Classic is the second major basketball tournament to be played in Hawaii, joining the Maui Invitational, which features top-tier teams across the country during Thanksgiving week. source>>>

The first inkling that turbulence could be ahead for the Ohio State men's basketball team last season came five months before the season, when captain and three-year starter Jamar Butler went home for the summer rather than stay on campus and bond with his new teammates.

Another starter, David Lighty, was gone about a month, with coach Thad Matta's blessing, to play for the United States in an age-group world championship tournament in Serbia.

A freshman whose production would be counted on, Kosta Koufos, prevailed upon Matta to allow him to play for Greece in another age-group world championship in Spain. He was gone two months.

In retrospect, maybe it was not so surprising the Buckeyes didn't mesh until it was too late to make the NCAA Tournament.

"I didn't think all the oars were rowing in the same direction at all times," Matta said last week.

"I think this group on the surface -- we haven't started divvying up minutes or anything -- appears to be more on the same page."

Preseason practice begins this week for the 2008-09 team, which has been intact since June. The players played pickup games together all summer, began skills work with coaches in mid-September and can fully come together Friday to begin building on Matta's blueprint for the season. The returning players meet with the media today.

At a news conference last week to promote the Dec. 6 doubleheader in Indianapolis in which Ohio State will play Notre Dame, Matta said that besides the time spent on fundamentals the past few weeks, he has been emphasizing "team camaraderie getting these guys to understand (the importance of) putting aside the personal goals for team goals and in the end everybody's going to get what they want."

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Light heavyweights Stephan Bonnar (12-4) and Jon Jones (6-0) will clash at UFC 94 on January 31st in Las Vegas, according to Five Ounces of Pain.

Bonnar returns to the octagon for the first time in over a year, after a knee injury knocked him out of an April bout with Matt Hamill and required surgery which kept him out of action for all of 2008. Prior to the injury Bonnar rebounded from back-to-back losses to Rashad Evans and Forrest Griffin to win two-straight bouts over Mike Nickels and Eric Schafer.

A high school and junior college wrestling champion, Jones is one of the youngest fighters on the UFC roster at just 21-years-old. Despite already having compiled an undefeated 6-0 professional record, including a decision win over Andre Gusmao in his UFC debut at UFC 87 in August, Jones has been fighting professionally for just six-months.

UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre and UFC lightweight champion BJ Penn clash for the 170-pound title in the main event of UFC 94, which will air live on pay-per-view.

For the latest UFC rumors check out the MMAFrenzy.com MMA rumors section. source>>>

Say hello to the premier conference in college football -- and it's not the SEC.

Like I've said in the past, the SEC is overhyped. I'm not saying it's overrated, because it is a great football conference. But the fans and participants of the SEC carry with them an arrogant, holier-than-thou superiority complex that clouds the judgment that they have about the rest of the college football world.

I'm not going to lie: The SEC coaches whine too much and usually whine their way into the national championship. Many of the backwoods SEC fans are ignorant to the game of football and usually only cheer, not for the love of the game and their school, but for territorial pride.

Every year, the SEC claims top to bottom conference dominance while failing to even recognize the talent of any other teams across the nation.

Then when Florida ends up losing to Michigan or Georgia loses to West Virginia come bowl season, it's the same old thing year after year: They're so beat up from playing in the SEC that it's hard for them at the end of the season.

Please, just stop contradicting yourselves because the SEC's fourth or fifth-best team is not better than the Big East's or ACC's top team, or the Big 12's or the Big Ten's second or third-best team. That is not a valid theory, nor has it ever been one.

Vandy, Kentucky, and South Carolina could not just march into any other conference and automatically win the title like they claim they can.

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St. Petersburg, Florida-If there is a game 6, and we could know that tonight, tickets will go on sale Wednesday to those who win a chance in the lottery.

Winners will receive an email Wednesday morning, and then the internet sale starts at 5 pm Wednesday.

Remaining tickets will go on sale at www.raysbaseball.com at 9am Thursday.

If there is a game 6, the Rays will remove all the tarps in the upper level adding 5,762 seats.

The Rays are still working on details for tickets to game 7.

Now if the Rays make it to the World Series, you can still register for the chance at getting those tickets until Thursday evening. Just go to www.raysbaseball.com to register.

If you purchase tickets to game 6, and then there is not a game, refunds will be given. source>>>