Whoopsies, meant to post this all yesterday. There were things this weekend. Things we loosely write about sometimes on this website. These are those things.
Burnley
When we last spoke of the Burnleys, they led Cottonham one-nil. Sadly, they yielded a goal after that, so they had to settle for a draw, but they’re still only four points back of the Europa League slot heading into Manchester this weekend to play that Man City team that evidently cheated? I don’t know many details and will delve into it more fully in that match preview (probably won’t, to be honest), but I’m assuming they did a lot of handballs and have been suspended by UEFA for it. Regardless of the crime, Burnley’s the good guy. Get amped.
NASCAR
I still do not know what FanShield is, but the FanShield 500 exceeded my expectations. Yes, I ended up watching a lot of it it. There weren’t many good games on! Take that, college basketball.
Anyway, it sounds like NASCAR did something to the Phoenix track—some sort of traction treatment—and what they did made it easier to pass at weird angles, so there were some wild restarts. No major crashes or anything. Just five-wide behavior, and no, I’m not exaggerating (unless I’m misunderstanding something in which case I’m exaggerating but it’s unintentional). Fun stuff all around.
The winner: Joey Logano, which is kind of boring because he already won one and that means he already qualified for the playoffs, which are forever from now. Also, he doesn’t seem very likable. Kept running into his own teammate, Brad Keselowski (who used to seem unlikable but I haven’t checked in a while) on restarts, similarly to how he came after his other teammate, Ryan Blaney, pretty aggressively at Las Vegas a couple weeks back.
How he won: Keselowski had somehow managed to stay really fast even after being involved in a dustup early in the race, and was leading, but then there kept being cautions as the race wound down, and the people at the front had to decide whether to give up their spot or pit to get tires, and the people further back got tires, and Logano ran Keselowski down on fresher rubber.
What it means: I think Logano’s got more points when the playoffs start or something like that. Nothing all that important, especially right now.
Anything else? A rookie whose name I’m forgetting (update: Tyler Reddick is his name) was having a good day but got knocked out. Forget how, guessing a collision of some sort. Also, Martin Truex Jr. got big mad at Aric Almirola for running into him. Sounds like there’s some beef there.
Iditarod
The good stuff.
Most of my Iditarod knowledge comes from following Blair Braverman on Twitter. She’s a writer, and a musher, and she competed in the Iditarod last year, and she posts some wonderful threads about her dogs that make me all sorts of happy. Her husband, Quince Mountain, is competing in his first Iditarod this year, which is very exciting for #UglyDogs Twitter, which is what the diehards call themselves. Instead of just parroting back to you all what I’m learning from following her, I’ll share some highlights directly.
Helpful resource if you want to get really into this:
Part of a larger thread:
Another helpful resource:
Life on the trail:
Fire talk:
Dog:
This is cool:
And these next two are very cool:
