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NBC Sports
15-06-2025
- Climate
- NBC Sports
What to watch for in today's NASCAR Cup race in Mexico City
MEXICO CITY — With a forecast that could include rain during Sunday's race at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, the challenge for drivers will increase. 'I absolutely hate racing in the rain, but I'm good at it,' said Shane van Gisbergen, who starts on the pole for the first Cup race held outside the continental United States since 1958. 'I'd rather it didn't rain, but if it happens, we put the wets on and go.' How can van Gisbergen dislike something he's so good at? 'I just don't enjoy it,' he said. 'It's just never fun. You're always sliding around, and it just turns stuff into chaos. It's fun to watch, but I don't really enjoy driving.' Dustin Long, Michael McDowell, who starts fifth can relate. 'I like what SVG said because I feel the same way,' McDowell told NBC Sports. 'I'm good in the rain. I have a lot of experience in the rain, but I'm never super pumped for the rain because it's hard. It creates variables that are tough to overcome.' One of the challenges in wet conditions is the water spray that cars in front create. The Weather Underground forecast calls for a 38% chance of scattered thunderstorms near the start of the race, increasing to about 60% by the end of the event. Should the track be wet at the beginning of the race (3 p.m. ET on Prime), it will make a front starting spot even more important. That makes his third starting spot even more valuable to Ross Chastain. 'You'll just get gapped out just from the spray being part throttle on the straightway, not being able to have any vision if you're back in the field,' Chastain told NBC Sports. 'I've been there and it's terrifying when you can't see. It's like driving blindfolded.' Wet conditions at the start also present opportunities. 'You want to be aggressive, honestly, in the beginning if it is raining to get up front, be the first one or two cars so that you have the best vision you can,' McDowell said. The right (pit) decision? Trent Owens, crew chief for AJ Allmendinger had an interesting choice to make when it was time for him to pick his pit stall Saturday. Pit stalls are selected in order of how a team qualifies, so the pole-sitter gets the first pick and on down. Allmendinger qualified eighth, giving him the eighth pick of stalls. Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez's pit road is limited to 40 stalls. There will be 37 cars in the race. That leaves only three openings (and a small opening across the start/finish line). Teams prefer to have an opening either in front of their stall (for easy access out) or an opening before their stall (for easy access into their box). When it came time for Owens to pick his pits, he had two viable options. He could pick the second pit stall — near pit exit. That would put Allmendinger in the box behind Shane van Gisbergen and in front of Kyle Larson. Or Owens could have picked pit stall 13, which was further away from pit exit but had an opening before it for easy access into the box. Owens chose pit stall 2, meaning the first three pit stalls — van Gisbergen, Allmendinger and Larson — could have three of the top cars in the race. That could mean they could be pitting together. Add to it that the pit boxes are 26.5 feet long — the shortest in the series — and it could get tight. 'Our biggest reason is (van Gisbergen) is in stall 1 and we feel like he's the dominant car,' Owens told NBC Sports for his reasoning in picking stall 2. 'So we feel like when we pit we're not going to get blocked in. 'We could have chose (stall) 13, which has a small opening in, but it's also a narrow pit road, short pit boxes. We just feel like pit stall 2 can potentially limit our errors because (Larson), which is behind us, has a full pit stall opening behind him, so if (Larson's crew chief Cliff Daniels) plays nice, he'll stop back at his stall and give us enough room.' That is likely to happen because that would allow Larson to exit his stall without being blocked in by Allmendinger. Much goes into winning a race, but could Owens' decision to pick pit stall 2 help Allmendinger get to victory lane? Too fast on pit road? Another key area to watch with pit road is toward pit exit. There are 11 timing loops on pit road used to determine pit road speeding. Pit road speed is 40 mph and with the 5 mph allowance, drivers can go 45 mph before they are penalized. Seven of the zones are either 147-feet-7 inches long or 157-6. But the last two are significantly shorter. The next-to-last timing zone — encompassing pit stalls 1-3 near pit exit — is 73-feet-2 inches. The last timing line, which goes to pit exit — is 46-feet-7 inches. NASCAR's pit road speeding is determined based on time over distance. So if a driver enters a zone too fast, he can slow before the end of it and still make speed. With two shorter zones at the end of pit road, drivers won't have as much a a chance to do so. Get caught speeding on pit road in those two sections — or any for that matter — and the pass-through penalty will cost a driver positions on the track. 'You just can't afford to speed,' Ryan Preece, who starts second today, told NBC Sports. 'Track position is obviously a huge thing no matter where it is. For me, you want to push those lights, you don't want to give up one position, but if you overdo it, you're going to give up 36, so it's kind of a risk vs. reward type of situation.'
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - Trump and Vance are hanging out with conspiracy theorists and kooks
President Lincoln had a team of rivals. President Trump has a team of conspiracy mongers. Do you remember when Republicans raised holy hell about the people around President Obama? They obsessed over Jeremiah Wright, his former pastor, who made inflammatory statements about race. How many conservative media segments fixated on Bill Ayers, formerly of the Weather Underground, claiming Obama 'kicked off his political career in the guy's living room?' In today's Trump-led Republican Party, there is a far more alarming cast of characters firmly in the mainstream of Trump's power. Here is a look at the views of some eye-opening players exercising actual power and making actual policy in the Trump administration. Elon Musk: Last week, Musk's alliance with Trump blew up in a memorable episode of social media back-stabbing worthy of a reality television show. The clash left them both bloodied. But before the personal drama, Musk left a trail of human wounds, fear and confusion with his erratic, reckless firing of tens of thousands of federal workers as well as devil-may-care spending cuts throughout the federal government. And according to the New York Times, Musk was regularly taking drugs during last year's campaign, in which he was the president's top donor. This led one Democratic lawmaker to question whether Musk was regularly taking drugs as a special government employee this year. Trump allowed the unelected Musk to swing a metaphorical chainsaw — he actually did wield a literal one on stage — at government agencies and their workers. Some of those cuts, particularly to the U.S. Agency for International Development, have canceled vital medical treatment, resulting in needless suffering and death. Now, Trump is attacking Musk for condemning his tax and spending bill. Somehow, there is no condemnation of Trump for granting Musk's team access to private information about Americans from government computers. Imagine the explosion in the right-wing echo chamber if Rev. Wright had done anything close to that in the Obama years. Laura Loomer: Last week, the conspiracy theorist and proud podcasting provocateur was spotted meeting one-on-one with Vice President JD Vance at the White House complex. As The Hill reported, this was a repeat visit to the White House grounds, as Loomer met earlier this year with Trump in the Oval Office to raise concerns about certain National Security Council staffers. They were soon fired. When Loomer is in the White House, she brings with her quite a history, including reports that she described herself as a 'white advocate' as well as having posted a video online claiming that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. were 'an inside job.' Loomer is also a leading voice pushing the conspiracy theory suggesting that U.S. law enforcement agencies knew in advance about several mass school shootings and allowed them to happen to help Democrats win elections in order to enact gun control. In thinking about Loomer having access to the president and vice president, an old saying comes to mind: We are the average of the people we spend the most time with. Curtis Yarvin: A leading influence on Vance, Yarvin has called for replacing American democracy with a 'monarch.' His proposals include calls to 'retire all government employees' and, in one especially grotesque idea, he proposed a racial hierarchy to 'put the church Blacks in charge of the ghetto Blacks.' As the New Yorker put it in a profile, Yarvin advocates 'the liquidation of democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law,' and the transfer of power to a CEO-in-chief (such as Steve Jobs or Marc Andreessen) who would transform government into 'a heavily armed, ultra-profitable corporation.' This regime would sell off public schools, destroy universities, abolish the press and imprison 'decivilized populations.' Odd characters are nothing new in politics. But Trump's second term stands out for putting provocateurs into positions of authority. This starts with the president. Just last week, Trump, on his personal social media platform, called attention to a bizarre claim that President Biden is dead, having been executed in 2020 and his power taken over by an imposter, a 'soulless mindless' robot. And, of course, Trump relentlessly promoted the 'birther' conspiracy theory about Obama — that he had been secretly born abroad — more than a decade ago. Trump's willingness to grab attention by embracing conspiracy theories recently backfired. His critics are taking great delight in the right-wing echo chamber's backlash against Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino. They are being castigated by Trump loyalists for failing to unearth any evidence of a conspiracy by elites to kill Jeffrey Epstein. After years of being primed with conspiracy theories, Trump supporters reacted angrily to Patel and Bongino's conclusion that Epstein killed himself in prison and no one else was involved. This brand of conspiracy thinking is in line with the energy that fueled the Proud Boys' attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. It fits with Trump's repeated lie that the 2020 election was stolen. It is in line with the 'Great Replacement Theory' — that Jewish elites are importing brown-skinned immigrants to replace the white working class and the chants of white supremacists in their Charlottesville rally during Trump's first term: 'Jews will not replace us.' And it keeps going. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) recently promised to hold Senate hearings based on 9/11 conspiracy theories. 'What actually happened on 9/11? What do we know? What is being covered up?' Johnson said on a MAGA podcast appearance. 'My guess is there's an awful lot being covered up, in terms of what the American government knows about 9/11.' Johnson isn't alone. House Republicans have pledged to reopen investigations into everything from the JFK assassination to the existence of UFOs. I knew William F. Buckley Jr. a bit — from television, from D.C. and from his days as editor of National Review. He fearlessly called out the excesses of his own movement, particularly the conspiracy mongers in the far-right John Birch Society. Where is the Buckley of today? Juan Williams is senior political analyst for Fox News Channel and a prize-winning civil rights historian. He is the author of the new book 'New Prize for These Eyes: The Rise of America's Second Civil Rights Movement.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
09-06-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Trump and Vance are hanging out with conspiracy theorists and kooks
President Lincoln had a team of rivals. President Trump has a team of conspiracy mongers. Do you remember when Republicans raised holy hell about the people around President Obama? They obsessed over Jeremiah Wright, his former pastor, who made inflammatory statements about race. How many conservative media segments fixated on Bill Ayers, formerly of the Weather Underground, claiming Obama 'kicked off his political career in the guy's living room?' In today's Trump-led Republican Party, there is a far more alarming cast of characters firmly in the mainstream of Trump's power. Here is a look at the views of some eye-opening players exercising actual power and making actual policy in the Trump administration. Elon Musk: Last week, Musk's alliance with Trump blew up in a memorable episode of social media back-stabbing worthy of a reality television show. The clash left them both bloodied. But before the personal drama, Musk left a trail of human wounds, fear and confusion with his erratic, reckless firing of tens of thousands of federal workers as well as devil-may-care spending cuts throughout the federal government. And according to the New York Times, Musk was regularly taking drugs during last year's campaign, in which he was the president's top donor. This led one Democratic lawmaker to question whether Musk was regularly taking drugs as a special government employee this year. Trump allowed the unelected Musk to swing a metaphorical chainsaw — he actually did wield a literal one on stage — at government agencies and their workers. Some of those cuts, particularly to the U.S. Agency for International Development, have canceled vital medical treatment, resulting in needless suffering and death. Now, Trump is attacking Musk for condemning his tax and spending bill. Somehow, there is no condemnation of Trump for granting Musk's team access to private information about Americans from government computers. Imagine the explosion in the right-wing echo chamber if Rev. Wright had done anything close to that in the Obama years. Laura Loomer: Last week, the conspiracy theorist and proud podcasting provocateur was spotted meeting one-on-one with Vice President JD Vance at the White House complex. As The Hill reported, this was a repeat visit to the White House grounds, as Loomer met earlier this year with Trump in the Oval Office to raise concerns about certain National Security Council staffers. They were soon fired. When Loomer is in the White House, she brings with her quite a history, including reports that she described herself as a 'white advocate' as well as having posted a video online claiming that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. were 'an inside job.' Loomer is also a leading voice pushing the conspiracy theory suggesting that U.S. law enforcement agencies knew in advance about several mass school shootings and allowed them to happen to help Democrats win elections in order to enact gun control. In thinking about Loomer having access to the president and vice president, an old saying comes to mind: We are the average of the people we spend the most time with. Curtis Yarvin: A leading influence on Vance, Yarvin has called for replacing American democracy with a 'monarch.' His proposals include calls to 'retire all government employees' and, in one especially grotesque idea, he proposed a racial hierarchy to 'put the church Blacks in charge of the ghetto Blacks.' As the New Yorker put it in a profile, Yarvin advocates 'the liquidation of democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law,' and the transfer of power to a CEO-in-chief (such as Steve Jobs or Marc Andreessen) who would transform government into 'a heavily armed, ultra-profitable corporation.' This regime would sell off public schools, destroy universities, abolish the press and imprison 'decivilized populations.' Odd characters are nothing new in politics. But Trump's second term stands out for putting provocateurs into positions of authority. This starts with the president. Just last week, Trump, on his personal social media platform, called attention to a bizarre claim that President Biden is dead, having been executed in 2020 and his power taken over by an imposter, a 'soulless mindless' robot. And, of course, Trump relentlessly promoted the 'birther' conspiracy theory about Obama — that he had been secretly born abroad — more than a decade ago. Trump's willingness to grab attention by embracing conspiracy theories recently backfired. His critics are taking great delight in the right-wing echo chamber's backlash against Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino. They are being castigated by Trump loyalists for failing to unearth any evidence of a conspiracy by elites to kill Jeffrey Epstein. After years of being primed with conspiracy theories, Trump supporters reacted angrily to Patel and Bongino's conclusion that Epstein killed himself in prison and no one else was involved. This brand of conspiracy thinking is in line with the energy that fueled the Proud Boys' attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. It fits with Trump's repeated lie that the 2020 election was stolen. It is in line with the 'Great Replacement Theory' — that Jewish elites are importing brown-skinned immigrants to replace the white working class and the chants of white supremacists in their Charlottesville rally during Trump's first term: 'Jews will not replace us.' And it keeps going. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) recently promised to hold Senate hearings based on 9/11 conspiracy theories. 'What actually happened on 9/11? What do we know? What is being covered up?' Johnson said on a MAGA podcast appearance. 'My guess is there's an awful lot being covered up, in terms of what the American government knows about 9/11.' Johnson isn't alone. House Republicans have pledged to reopen investigations into everything from the JFK assassination to the existence of UFOs. I knew William F. Buckley Jr. a bit — from television, from D.C. and from his days as editor of National Review. He fearlessly called out the excesses of his own movement, particularly the conspiracy mongers in the far-right John Birch Society. Where is the Buckley of today? Juan Williams is senior political analyst for Fox News Channel and a prize-winning civil rights historian. He is the author of the new book 'New Prize for These Eyes: The Rise of America's Second Civil Rights Movement.'
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
On This Date: Dust Bowl Heat, Rainfall Records Smashed
The Dust Bowl was infamous for its agricultural devastation in the Plains. It was also known for some of the most infamous heat waves, even floods, and not just in summer. From May 28-31, 1934, 91 years ago, a blistering heat wave smashed all-time May records in 11 states, according to weather historian Christopher Burt, all plotted in the map below. Highs soared into the 110s in six of those state, including Langdon, North Dakota; Maple Plain, Minnesota; and Maryville, Missouri. A 108 degree high in Morden, Manitoba, was a Canadian national May record, Burt noted. Four different locations in Michigan's Upper Peninsula hit 100 degrees on May 31. The next day, Houghton Lake set Michigan's all-time June record, soaring to 107 degrees. One year later, a pair of incredible rainfalls happened in late May. On May 30, 1935, two separate rain gauges, one northeast of Colorado Springs and another just north of Burlington, Colorado, recorded 24 inches of rainfall in just six hours. The resulting flash floods killed at least 21 and caused $8-10 million damage, among the state's biggest floods, Burt detailed in a 2013 Weather Underground blog post. Heavy rain also triggered catastrophic flooding along the Republican River in Nebraska, claiming 92 lives, there. Then, before dawn on May 31, 22 inches of rain fell in just 2 hours and 45 minutes near D'Hanis, Texas, about 45 miles west of San Antonio. That is a world record rainfall for that period of time, according to Burt. Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Will weather impact Kyle Larson's bid to run both Indy 500 and Coke 600 again?
Kyle Larson's bid to compete in both the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600 on Sunday should not be hindered by weather. Larson sought to be the fifth driver to compete in the Indy 500 and Coke 600 on the same day last year but a four-hour rain delay at Indianapolis caused him to miss the start of the Coke 600. By the time he got to Charlotte and was ready to get into his car, rain ended the 600 early and Larson never got into the vehicle. IndyCar: Miller Lite Carb Day Kyle Larson's quest to run Indy 500, Coke 600 begins, but will it be his last attempt? Advertisement Several challenges, including a new NASCAR rule, make the feat of running in those signature races in the same day much more difficult. Sunday's Weather Underground forecast for the Indianapolis 500 (start time of 12:45 p.m. ET) calls for cloudy skies, a high of 65 degrees and a 17% chance of rain. The chance of rain is less than 20% the rest of the afternoon. The Coca-Cola 600 is scheduled to take the green flag at 6:27 p.m. ET Sunday. The Weather Underground forecast calls for cloudy skies, a high of 76 degrees and a 17% chance of rain at the start of the Charlotte race. The chance of rain increases to 51% at 9 p.m. ET and goes up to 56% at 10 p.m. NASCAR: Coca-Cola 600 How to watch Sunday's Cup race at Charlotte: Start time, TV info and weather Advertisement The focus will be on Kyle Larson seeking redemption at the 1.5-mile oval. John Andretti, Robby Gordon, Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch, who was selected to the NASCAR Hall of Fame's Class of 2026 this week, are the only drivers to compete in both the Indy 500 and Coke 600 in the same day. Stewart is the only driver to complete all 1,100 miles on the same day, doing so in 2001. He finished sixth in Indy and third at Charlotte that day. Gordon fell one lap short at Charlotte of completing all 1,100 miles in 2002. He was eight at Indianapolis and 16th at Charlotte.
