Chester Whipplefilter

incognito in Thunder Hollow // sideblog: bleachbleachbleach

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the evolution of gratitude » cars (2006) & cars 3 (2017)

“This ain't a one-man deal, kid. You need to wise up and get your self a good crew chief and a good team. And you ain't gonna win unless you got good folks behind you.”

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It's been a while since I've worked on a sincere, longer-form landscape study. I still had to keep a time limit of one hour on this, but I still had a lot of fun focusing on this. Daily drawing 2472.

[urie]

sports is not serious except it is its not important so you have to calm down a little bit but also its the most important thing in the world nothing has ever been more important its dead serious its life or death but maybe we can all relax a little bit but dont relax too much because it is so crucial it is so massive it is culture it is identity it is intrinsically woven into the fabric of society however we could maybe chill out sometimes except i wont because its that serious its so so serious

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Today I learned (well, confirmed once again, I am completely unsurprised by this) that I am the kind of race fan who will have a 4-car multiview up on one laptop, a full race broadcast on another, and then choose to instead watch a car run 34th (out of 38) for two straight hours.

Like, all those screens were running right in front of my eyeballs and I choose to sit here and watch absolutely nothing happen in one little square instead. Because WE'RE IN THIS TOGETHER, TEAM. WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER.

Given the chance, I would rather watch you see this through than watch anything else.

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💖💖 Happy 20th Birthday 🥳 Oilbaby 💖💖

In June 2006, my baby car rolled off the line at Subaru of Indiana. To honor the occasion, he has received a small friend (who in turn brought another small friend of a similar era to the birthday party).

Small friend has a turbo, hood scoop, JDM bumper, fog lights, tan interior, different center console, clear turn signal lights, a center-mounted front plate, silver roof rails, and is RHD; unlike large friend, it does not have a sunroof or skidplate. But you get as close as you can get. 🥰

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NASCAR Team Radio Observations (Sonoma)

[I know I've made like 8898 racecar posts this week; I'm trying to get it all out of my system so I can finaly task switch. ToT SO LAST ONE FOR A BIT. MAYBE. DEPENDS ON HOW CHICAGOLAND GOES. HELP.]

Because TNT has NASCAR for 5 races/1 month and its broadcasts are simulcast on HBO, I decided to break out the wallet and purchase HBO for the month. This is particularly exciting because HBO also houses the on-demand replay available immediately after the live broadcast, AND has all the driver cameras/team radio, both live and for one week after the race.

This last bit is VERY exciting to me, because I listen to team radio alongside the broadcast, but I've mostly never been able to listen to other team's radios.

My first introduction to NASCAR was aural/linguistic--listening to race broadcasts on the radio. And so one of the things that I really love is getting a sense of the specific language of the sport--in the booth; in various styles of interviews; what team communications are like. The HBO replays are a TROVE of chances for me to see what types of communications across teams are consistent, and what flavors are more particular!!!!!

(I just. Love.

Dialogue.)

So far I've listened to exactly three radios from exactly one race, so I don't have enough of a sample size to make generalizations, but some observations from Sonoma, specifically:

Bubba

Bubba's CC and spotter(s) used back channel communication (i.e. the radio stream without Bubba) a lot more than I am used to, to coordinate with each other, check in, and strategize--both race strategy and morale strategy.

23 Team radio cheerleading was focused on verbalizing mental resets immediately after getting off-track and gentle instruction in the midst of sticky situations.

A comparatively very talkative radio from all parties--driver, crew chief, spotter(s), relative to my usual experience.

Denny

Denny had no idea what was going on with the 45 until the end of Stage 2 when he asked "Why is the 45 the Lucky Dog?" Which I think drives home the fact that inside the racecar, drivers are 99% focused on their own race, and have no context for anything else. The other 1% is when their race has been, uh, intruded upon by someone else's (and Kyle Larson will usually ask how his teammates are doing).

At Sonoma, Denny usually took a few laps to audibly react to anything while he kept driving. Rather than asking immediately, for example, he took a beat before he asked "Who wrecked me?" and a fairly looooong while after that--and after the splitter issues fully revealed themselves/revealed themselves to be chronic--before he added something along the lines of "FUCKING DAMN IT."

Denny has a pretty quiet radio/not dissimilar from the 5 radio, which was also pretty quiet at Sonoma, even by 5 standards.

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#5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevy Camaro

Sonoma Raceway | June 28, 2026

Driver: Kyle Larson

Crew Chief: Cliff Daniels

Nikon D7500, 200-500mm

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Sonoma, but the only-Kyle-Larson edition, ehehe 👉👈

It's funny because based on Cliff's feedback via the team radio, all of KL's worst turns were the ones that I could see. I am a curse. 😂 But he still finished P4, so it's you vs. me, KL. You vs. me.

At Sonoma, I took ~1700 photos, kept 397, selected 21 that seemed like they could tell a story, and ultimately used 12. I also, for some completely unknown reason, kept 114 photos of just the 5 car (28% of the total 397).

Here's the unedited original of the last pic, which I am still absolutely CHUFFED about <3_<3

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Hendrick Motorsports at Sonoma Raceway

NASCAR Cup Series | June 28, 2026

#48 Alex Bowman

#9 Chase Elliott

#5 Kyle Larson

#24 William Byron

Nikon D7500, 400-500mm

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I really love that photo of Chase because even though I know NAPA Auto Parts has nothing to do with Napa, CA, Sonoma and Napa are basically the same place:

So it *FEELS* regional!

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NASCAR Cup Series Toyota SaveMart 350

Sonoma Raceway | June 28, 2026

Pole: #54 Ty Gibbs (JGR)

Winner: #97 Shane van Gisbergen (Trackhouse)

Nikon D7500, 200-500mm

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Sonoooomaaaaaaa my Northern California hometown hiiiiiiillssssssss! @the-kings-tail-fin and I generally plan what races we are going to about a year in advance, when NASCAR drops the next season's schedule. This one wasn't part of the gameplan. But as it happened, I was going to be in NorCal Sonoma weekend, so I asked my dad if he'd be interested in attending.

One of the greatest things is that the sponsor for the race was actually my dad's regular... grocery store... And they were selling subsidized tickets if you bought them while you were getting groceries. THE TICKETS PRINTED EXACTLY LIKE A GROCERY STORE COUPON:

Which is 9000000x better than a digital ticket. We sat in the Turn 3 Terraces, which were (sorry, NASCAR) a total ghost town. All the more for me, though! These were the GA seats that you'd get if you bought them at Lucky's or took advantage of the college student discount. Apparently buying your NASCAR tickets at the grocery store is not a hack many took advantage of.

We could see the hill up from Turn 3 then all the way through Turn 7 and into the Esses, which was pretty solid! Lots of passing in Turn 7, the vantage point onto the hilly elevation was cool, and while we missed out on the S/F line and an eventful Turn 11, we could see more of the track than at Watkins Glen, and frankly only a little bit less than the Indy oval.

Josh Berry [got] spun right in front of our salads (as did Chase and technically also John Hunter Nemecheck, ...multiple times).

I included that middle shot of Chase/Joey/AJ/Bubba because this race marked AJ Allmendinger's 500th start in the Cup series. Congrats!

Look at SVG's RF tire clear leaving the ground in the second-to-last shot!

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Ode to Chicagoland

I am SO excited for the return of Chicagoland, even as I try very hard to temper my expectations. I feel like no one can really say how the track surface will treat the tires seven years later (tire test be damned). There are probably better guesses as far as the Next Gen itself goes, based on how the other 1.5s race, which is encouraging. But I'm a 1.5 fan, and was still a 1.5 fan even for those years the rules package destroyed 1.5s. It certainly helps that both Chicagolands I've seen--2018 and 2019--were fantastic and good for my guys, hahaha.

But I also just really like Chicagoland as a track location. I've never actually been to the Speedway itself, but I worked a Subaru event once at Route 66 Raceway, which is right outside, and it pleased me very much to be able to see its outsides from where we were. Any track that is right next to another track which is next to another track really seems like it's approaching the ideal number of tracks in a given location (Chicagoland Speedway/Route 66 Raceway/Dirt Oval 66). Plus it's by the Illinois and Michigan Canal Trail, a pretty nice bikepath, even if it did gift me a flat tire. Chicagoland Speedway is within 20 miles of the Orland Park Costco, which is one of my favorite Costcos!! (It happens that that Costco is exactly 3/4 of a tank away from metro Detroit.) Chicagoland Speedway is also, importantly, well south of Chicago, which allows you to avoid the problem of traffic in Chicago. What more could you need out of a track?

You could ask racing of it, I suppose. One of my favorite Kyle Larson eras was "Kyle Larson gets eaten alive by JGR" when "JGR" meant KyBu and Denny, and 2018 Chicagoland absolutely delivered, with a finish that was pure racing. That race is probably the most outwardly happy/thrilled I have ever seen Kyle Larson be, and I have so much fondness for it.

And then in 2019 we were gifted Alex Bowman's first and hard-fought win!!! With KL in P2 yet again. Just delightful. Despite my love of KL P2s, I find it very difficult to root against KL no matter the circumstances (it was hard not to root for the 5 even when I wanted Denny to win the 2025 Championship, though I think I might have said "KL I'M GOING TO KILL YOU" at some point late in that race; and I still wanted KL to win at 2025 Homestead over Bowman even if Bowman needed the win a lot more. But I did at least successfully root against KL on Bubba's behalf at the 2025 Brickyard, even if this was greatly aided by KL having won that same race the year before). That Bowman win at Chicagoland still makes me feel warm. <3

So, Chicagoland. 2026. I would even accept heinous amounts of rain delay if we truly must, Chicagoland. I love youuuuuu

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TBT to the last time the NASCAR Cup Series used a Chase format (2016)

True friendship is throwing trash into your buddy's window during a red flag:

Impeccable aim. What's funniest to me is that Denny's just about to flash KL a peace sign but it turns out true friendship is actually flipping each other off:

And then even after the race they're still messing around--during the Chase photo op, KL turns around to say something to Denny; what he says, we'll never know, but Carl and Jimmie get involved, too:

Meanwhile Harvick and Kenseth are really trying to take the dang picture and get on with the rest of the night. AD is just happy to be here.

--

Drivers from the 2016 Chase who are still full-time active Cup drivers in 2026:

Denny Hamlin (2006-)

Joey Logano (2009-)

Brad Keselowski (2009/2010-)

Kyle Larson (2014-)

Austin Dillon (2014-)

Chris Buescher (2016-)

Chase Elliott (2016-)

Source: NASCAR

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NASCAR Goes Outlaws Racing

Every so often the moon does something weird and NASCAR responds accordingly, like this one time they did a four-wide salute for the regular season finale at Richmond Raceway:

NASCAR Cup Series, Richmond Raceway [2], September 2016

Every World of Outlaws (410 dirt winged sprints) race begins with a 4-wide salute, a reference that Tony Stewart and Kyle Larson are intimately familiar with.

What's kind of funny, though, is that the full spiel is:

You wanted the best--you got 'em four abreast. Often imitated, never duplicated--the Greatest Show on Dirt, the [Advance Auto Parts] World of Outlaws!

NASCAR was just like "yeah, we're cool with just imitating it's fine," haha.

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For the most part, I try not to do a ton of post-processing, because my favorite look for the cars is basically the way they looked in person. I usually do some gradient masks in the background to guide the eye, though sometimes even that seems a bit much to me. GOOD LORD, though, sometimes post-processing is what it takes, because light and color and truly mystical entities.

For instance, this is the original image for the above shot:

The Robinhood green-yellow does not read under direct sunlight, apparently, because wow. I eyeballed the color based on my memory of the Robinhood car when I was doing color-correction, and I feel like I did a pretty good job. This is what that color is SUPPOSED to be (though tbh even the below promo feels a little greener than what that car looks like in person. Maybe it's the bg that's causing that?):

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Bubba was still running the "Rowdy" nameplate at Sonoma. 💔❤️

Prior to the race, Sonoma Raceway ran a pre-race airshow. I'm not sure how true this rings of everyone's associations with Sonoma, but *I* associate Sonoma County with flying, because my grandparents have lived there my entire life--we pass the Raceway every time we drive to their current home--and my grandfather has always been an avid private aviator. Before they closed and opening ceremonies began, they asked the audience to stand for a Missing Man formation in honor of Kyle Busch, which I'm glad I got to experience.

Like every track since May 21, Sonoma ran a silent salute lap on Lap 8, where the screens, ticker, and commentary all go dark for the duration of the lap, and it's just the roar of the racecars on the straightaways. They also changed the Turn 8 signage to KyBu's tribute decal.

On race day Sunday, Sonoma officially inducted Kyle Busch onto its Wall of Fame. I don't know if it's by virtue of serendipity or planning, but he is the only one featured on a white tile so far.

As you can see, someone has left fresh flowers and M&Ms in tribute. The sandwich board on the other side describes Samantha and Kyle Busch's commitment to the Bundle of Joy fund and IVF. I'm not sure what it was about this wall, specifically, but this is the part that made me cry:

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Wipergate

Man, the things you notice when taking race photos. This is zanier than when I found out the 9 and 48 ran painted wheel spokes (at Indy in...2024?). I'm not quite to the point where I want to go back through the archived footage of every road course race to figure this out, but I noticed at Sonoma that...

We aren't doing black windshield wipers anymore???

Since when????

Some teams still run black windshield wipers, but a TON are using colored ones now:

Pink! Red! Orange!

Some are single-color, and coordinated with the rest of the paint scheme, like Brad's green one and bb Gibb's white one:

Then you have Legacy, which is using colors that aren't even part of the scheme. Instead they're an accent color that coordinates with all the parts of the car that the pit crew might need (splitter edges, lift point, fueling point), kind of like they're tape marks on a stage:

WB and Bowman have dual-color wipers, yellow-orange and purple-chartreuse:

Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott are EXTREMELY extra and have TRI-COLOR WIPERS FOR SOME REASON:

And you might think, well, can't get more extra than that. HMS sure would.

But Todd Gilliland's wiper is ADDITIONAL AD SPACE:

A D D I T I O N A L * A D * S P A C E.

My last road course photos are from Watkins Glen and the Indy Road Course in 2023, and almost everyone is running black wiper blades:

Except...

TYLER REDDICK.

So I was like, is this a 23XI thing??? Did they start this???

But then:

Look at this colorful wipers in Xfinity at the Indy Road Course in 2023!! Was this an Xfinity thing first?

WHO DID THIS.

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Sonoma Raceway, June 28, 2026.

Kyle Larson giving SVG a ✌️ to congratulate his 2026 Sonoma win.

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NASCAR San Diego 2026

I already talked about Flat Kyle and scooters and Corey Day but we seriously had SUCH an excellent time. <333 Here's a list of some of the other memorable sights and sounds and "got to dos":

⛴️ RODE THE FERRY TO/FROM CORONADO ⛴️ "Ride boat to NASCAR race" wasn't on the bingo card, but we checked it off anyway, and it was a great way of avoiding the experience of race traffic. Probably some of the smoothest ingress/egress we've ever had (at least at a Cup race)

Followed cute chalk drawings some resident of Coronado had written onto the sidewalk that said "NASCAR" with arrows pointing the way:

Saw this funny sign, which was so, so close:

Though tbh I wouldn't put it past KL to prefer a 9:45PM appearance to a 9:45AM one (fully 5.25 hours after the Cup race ended). That's basically the track prep window between the B and the A-Main, right?

Happened across Cup drivers crossing from the garages to the pits for qualifying, which was fun and serendipitous!! It's funny to see them in real-person sizing, because some drivers you know are small (KL, Reddick, AJ) and then you find out Jimmie Johnson is jockey-shaped, too. Despite being, according to the Internet, 5'11"???

Wandered around on the track surface and see the start/finish line after the Xfinity/NOAPS race. I LOVE being on the track surface. <3333

Critiqued a sign that said that Coronado was only NASCAR's second-ever road course. Incorrect????? It's the second street course, but certainly not second road course...

Got late-night tacos in our neighborhood and ran into two guys who were working the event. They were super cool! Though they said that working the merch tent felt like Black Friday because the crowds were 5x what NASCAR had anticipated. They said they still enjoyed the overall atmosphere, though.

Went to Alex Bowman's Ally activation and met the nice lady who runs the AllyRacing Twitter account. Bowman also signed my Bunny Book (lol)

Perfectly timed arrival at Kyle Larson's Q&A as well, where we learned that he has a laser memory for things he's said about Christopher Bell, LOL

Got compliments on my KL57 hoodie. 🥰🥰🥰🥰

Got to see a Kevin Magnussen race in person!! Noah Gragson dustup an added bonus.

Enjoyed my personal favorite Tweet of the weekend:

(Apparently--I assume during the red--Riley Herbst had asked if Kyle Larson could describe the damage to the 35 so they could decide if they were good, or if they should pit. KL obliged, and Herbst offered him payment in Clif bars. So wholesome.)

Had personal beef with the local MC, who needed to know NASCAR a little better than he did. Once when he was working the crowd he was pointing out peoples' team hats/shirts and said of a guy wearing a Kyle Busch hat, "KB, yup, we'll see him race today!" No, we won't.

We really won't.

Prior to the Cup driver intros, the track played NASCAR's driver superlatives video they'd released before Daytona, after having made the choice to cut out Kyle Busch's appearances. I understand why--it'd be confusing to most of the crowd, who wouldn't know who Kyle Busch was or what had happened, and sad for everyone else. But knowing what was missing from the cut, I was sad anyway.

I've never rooted for Austin Hill in my life and I probably never actually did on Saturday, either, but he gave the world a fantastic burnout and specifically came around the track to Turn 8 to do a burnout around the painted 8 tribute, and I will always love and remember that Austin Hill did, at least, once give me that. <3

^ Some lovely family's house on Coronado.