The BulleTin • Sunday, auguST 21, 2022 B3
MOTOR SPORTS | NASCAR CUP SERIES
Playoff spots to fill at Watkins Glen
day’s race, watch out.
“At the end of these road
courses, those are wild cards,
too,” Busch said. “I don’t know
that we can get five wide on
the front stretch at Watkins
Glen, but watch us. We’ll try
and see what happens.”
associated Press
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y.
— There are two races left in
NASCAR’s regular season,
and Chris Buescher has only
one avenue to make the play-
offs — winning.
His next chance comes
Sunday at Watkins Glen In-
ternational, a high-speed road
course where one small mis-
take in the 90 laps around the
2.45-mile track can ruin a day.
“I think it’s going to be
a tough race to win,” said
Buescher, who finished sec-
ond to Daniel Suárez on
the road course at Sonoma
in June. “I feel really strong
about our opportunity, our
chances. I know what we’ve
been able to do as an orga-
nization and what I’ve been
able to do behind the wheel
at some of these other road
courses.”
Last week at Richmond,
Buescher gave another indica-
tion that RFK Racing is mak-
ing strides with the Next Gen
car. He drove the No. 17 Ford
to the back bumper of leader
Kevin Harvick in the closing
laps before fading to third as
Harvick claimed his second
straight win.
“We’ve got to remember
that it’s big progress for us,”
said Buescher, whose lone
Cup victory in 245 starts
came in a weather-shortened
race at Pocono six years ago.
Watkins Glen and the reg-
ular-season finale at Day-
tona International Speedway
on Aug. 27 are also the last
chances for Ryan Blaney and
Martin Truex Jr. to make the
16-driver playoff field. They
are not among the 15 who
have won this season and sit
second and fourth in points,
larry lage/aP
James Bromsey III, left, a sixth-grader at LeBron James’ I Promise
School in Akron, Ohio, poses with NASCAR driver Chris Buescher
Aug. 7 in Brooklyn, Michigan.
separated by just 26. That
leaves little margin for error if
neither can get to victory lane
and there is no breakthrough
by one of the other winless
drivers.
“It feels odd,” said Truex,
who has four career road
course victories, including
at Watkins Glen in 2017 on
the way to the Cup champi-
onship. “I feel like we missed
some opportunities through-
out the year and it’s been frus-
trating, honestly. But we’re still
not out of it. We’ve got two
shots. We’re working hard and
trying to put ourselves in po-
sition to have a shot to win.”
Blaney, who signed a long-
term contract with Team Pen-
ske this week, has made the
playoffs every season since
2017 and has a pair of top-10
finishes in five career starts at
The Glen.
“You can’t stress yourself
out about it. It’s either going
to happen or it’s not going to
happen, whether you make
the playoffs or not,” Blaney
said Saturday before practice.
Roughing it
Watkins Glen zoomed in
popularity a decade ago with
three straight fender-bang-
ing finishes involving the trio
of Kyle Busch, Brad Kesel-
owki and Marcos Ambrose. If
there’s a late caution in Sun-
Elliott claims pole in Watkins Glen qualifying
WaTKinS glen, n.y. — Chase elliott won the naSCaR Cup pole
on Saturday at Watkins glen international, edging hendrick Mo-
torsports teammate Kyle larson for the top spot.
elliott, a two-time winner at The glen, turned a fast lap of 1
minute, 10.477 seconds around the 2.45-mile natural terrain road
course. larson, who won last year’s race at The glen, finished in
1:10.516, just ahead of Michael Mcdowell.
William Byron was fourth and Tyler Reddick, winner of the past
two road races on the Cup schedule, will start fifth as Chevrolet
took four of the top five spots.
a.J. allmendinger was sixth, followed by Chris Buescher, austin
Cindric, daniel Suárez and Kyle Busch.
Former Formula One champion Kimi Raikkonen, who came out
of retirement for the chance to enter naSCaR’S top series, quali-
fied 27th in his Cup debut.
— Associated Press
Blazers
Continued from B1
Ask yourself: Would her
brother have pulled a stunt
like this? Would Phil Knight?
The same team that paid
to bring in ESPN anchor Neil
Everett to serve as its studio
host is now pinching pen-
nies over hotel rooms and per
diem for a small, dedicated
team of broadcasters.
It doesn’t add up. Absent
the announcers unanimously
requesting this move over
COVID-19 concerns, then
the Blazers have no defense.
That’s at least one thing fans
have gotten used to during
the past decade. If margins
are truly that tight over at Vul-
can LLC, the Blazers could
find ways to cut back on the
broadcast without gutting it
entirely.
But fans have to ask them-
selves, just how much do the
Blazers really care about the
viewing experience if they
won’t put their employees in
the best position to do their
jobs?
Even in the digital age,
maybe especially, the majority
of fans experience the team
through the local broadcast.
But the Blazers seem to
think they can get by with a
watered-down version. In a
statement, the team’s presi-
dent of business, Dewayne
Hankins, said the Blazers will
be “leaning in” to statistics,
data visualization and will
“incorporate all the lessons
we’ve learned through doing
remote broadcasts during
Gymnastics
Continued from B1
And president Li Li Leung,
hired in 2019, knows it.
“We’re truly committed to
the pursuit of a culture that will
prevent these failings from ever
happening again,” Leung said
Wednesday on the eve of the
2022 U.S. Championships. “So
now how we feel doesn’t really
matter. It’s our actions that
matter.”
One of the most visible will
be on display for the first time
this weekend at Amalie Arena.
USA Gymnastics overhauled
its women’s elite program over
the winter, dividing the job
of national team coordinator
into three separate but equal
gigs. Dan Baker is now the de-
Sean Meagher/The Oregonian via TnS, file
Portland Trail Blazers television broadcasters Kevin Calabro, left,
and Lamar Hurd.
COVID-19 over the last two
years.”
What everyone has learned
during the past two years is
that remote broadcasts stink.
Broadcasters fumbled to iden-
tify players, had no feel for the
scene and offered little unique
insight.
That’s not a knock on Ca-
labro and Hurd — or Jordan
Kent, who gamely navigated
the 2020 bubble year along-
side Hurd.
Broadcasts around the
NBA, and across sports, were
awkward, but that awkward-
ness was forgiven as we all
could extend a modicum of
grace as everyone made the
best of pandemic-induced cir-
cumstances.
What’s the excuse now?
It’s an impossible ask.
Broadcasters may get paid
by the team, but they work
for the fans. These are people
who board the same planes
and buses as players, who
velopmental lead, with Olym-
pic medalist and 2005 world
champion Chellsie Memmel
serving as the technical lead
and 2008 Olympic silver med-
alist Alicia Sacramone Quinn
serving as the strategic lead.
The new paradigm was de-
signed to make sure no one
person wielded too much
power and influence within
the program. The arrangement
is still very much in the feel-
ing-out stage, though the hir-
ing of two former athletes who
have excelled in the crucible
of world-class competition —
Memmel herself just a year re-
moved from an unlikely come-
back in her early 30s — caught
the attention of 2020 Olympic
silver medalist Jordan Chiles.
“It is kind of cool having
Foreign factor
Former Formula One
champ Kimi Raikkonen of
Finland is coming out of re-
tirement to make his Cup de-
but for Justin Marks’ Track-
House Racing. He’s among a
contingent of international
drivers entered at Watkins
Glen that could elevate the
stress level.
Also in the field are sports-
car aces Mike Rockenfeller
of Germany and English-
man Kyle Tilley, NASCAR
Euro Series champ Loris
Hezemans of the Netherlands
and former F1 driver Daniil
Kvyat of Russia.
Raikkonen worked with
Suárez to prepare for the race.
“It’s a new experience. I don’t
know how it’s going to go,”
Raikkonen said Saturday.
share off-night dinners with
coaches, gleaning information
and reaping the benefits of
behind-the-scenes access that
fans dream of.
Vin Scully just died and a
nation of sports fans wept.
Why?
Surely, not because he
could recount Don Drysdale’s
xFIP or Maury Wills’ WAR or
Mike Piazza’s wRC+.
It’s stories. It’s always been
stories.
The pandemic served a
crushing blow to quality
sports journalism. But not a
fatal one.
And it will stay that way as
long as misguided instincts
like these don’t prevail.
Without broadcasters on
the road, relationships will
suffer. Yes, the Blazers will
have their broadcasters on
site for the 41 home games at
Moda Center, but take it from
someone whose spent the
bulk of his professional life
chasing pro basketball teams
across the globe. Home games
are not where the magic hap-
pens for reporters and broad-
casters. They aren’t where
trust is built.
It’s exploring the world’s
largest Bass Pro Shops inside
The Pyramid because that’s
what there is to do on a Tues-
day in Memphis. It’s practi-
cal jokes. It’s joining tables in
Boston because what are you
doing at this restaurant, too?
It’s being stranded in Min-
neapolis because the bus
froze on New Year’s Eve. It’s
a broadcaster swapping ties
with a head coach because the
coach realized he was wearing
the opposing team’s colors.
It’s sharing pictures of your
kids because these are some of
the only people in the world
who would understand what
a grind life on the road can be.
These are the moments that
make broadcasters part of the
team. Part of the family that
fans also belong to. Without
them, broadcasters like Cal-
abro, Hurd and Demers are
just detached narrators locked
in a box, straining to summon
the excitement that fans on
the ground get to actually feel.
Intangible, maybe, but I
promise you these moments
enrich the fan experience
of turning on a game after a
hard day at work.
You can’t put a price on
them, although Jody Allen is
trying.
Maybe the result is some
small savings for the Blazers.
It’s an unquantifiable loss for
their fans.
USA Gymnastics Championships schedule
uSa gymnastics Championships wraps up four days of competition
this afternoon in Tampa. Junior Women begin the second day of
their competition at 10:30 a.m. (PdT). Senior Women begin the sec-
ond day of competition at 4 p.m. (PdT). More information at usgym-
championships.com.
people who were just there do-
ing the same thing that we did
in this elite world,” said Chiles,
who is in the women’s field this
weekend. “It’s kind of cool that
they can connect to us in that
way. So it is kind of exciting to
see how they’re going to work
with us.”
The 21-year-old Chiles
joined the senior national team
in 2017 as the scope of the Nas-
sar scandal deepened and as
USA Gymnastics tried to plot
a way forward, a path riddled
by missteps as it went through
multiple presidents and na-
tional team coordinators.
While there is a general
sense there has been incre-
mental progress at the upper
levels of the sport over the
last five years, Chiles believes
more work needs to be done.
“Having that ability to make
our voices heard is where it
needs to kind of change a little,
I would have to say, because
Ryan Brennecke/The Bulletin
Diggory Dillingham prepares to dive off the block while practicing at
Juniper Swim & Fitness on Friday.
Swimming
Continued from B1
“He said: ‘After I win on
Saturday can we go to the
taco place?’” said Dillingham’s
mother and swim coach, Me-
gan Oesting. “He doesn’t say, ‘I
want to win.’ For him, it is like
a foregone conclusion. He has
refined the way that I think
about confidence.”
Celebratory tacos were
in order after winning the
50-meter freestyle in 20.50
seconds the first weekend in
August to claim the junior na-
tional title.
Now, Dillingham is off to
Honolulu to compete against
the best of the best under
18-year-olds from Australia,
Japan, New Zealand and Can-
ada in the Junior Pan Pacific
Championships.
“I’m feeling good. I’m really
glad I get to go to Hawaii and
compete against other coun-
tries,” Dillingham said. “I’m
looking forward to meeting
other teams and people from
other countries but I also re-
ally want to win. That is prob-
ably the No. 1 thing that I am
looking forward to.”
Dillingham has been win-
ning swim meets across the
country throughout his teen
years. He moved to Bend be-
fore his junior year in high
school.
As a high school freshman
in Iowa, he won state cham-
pionships in the 50 and 100
freestyle. As a sophomore in
North Carolina, he won a state
championship in the 100 free-
style.
Last year, at the Oregon
Class 6A state championship
while nursing a sore back, he
won both the 50 and 100 free-
style.
Being an elite swimmer
appeared to be in the cards
for Dillingham. After all, his
mother was an elite swimmer
in the 1990s, with multiple
junior national titles herself.
When Dillingham was un-
packing his box of gear at
junior nationals, she was re-
minded of what doors these
high-level meets opened for
her, Oesting said.
“Some of the things that he
will experience the next week
are going to change his life,”
said Oesting, who also won
gold medals at junior nation-
als and would go on to swim
sometimes it can be hard,”
Chiles said.
Listening is one of Quinn’s
primary goals. She intends to
meet with each athlete during
national team camps to be both
a sounding board and a guide.
“(I want to) to be able to see
how they’re doing physically
and mentally and tell them
where I think they’re doing
great, where I think they need
to put some work in,” she said.
“And that way everybody kind
of knows where they stand.”
Where the women’s program
stands at the moment is at a bit
of a crossroads. The easing of
NCAA rules on name, image
and likeness compensation has
allowed Olympians like Chiles
and floor exercise gold medal-
ist Jade Carey to compete col-
collegiately at UCLA. “You are
exposed to people at a level
where you have not had peers
before. Everyone on that (na-
tional) team is an extreme
outlier.”
Swimming almost ended
before the age of 10 when
a coach asked him to do a
500-meter warm up, some-
thing he did not want to do.
So he left the pool that day,
Oesting recalls.
“I said ‘OK, let’s go get
breakfast,’” she said.
Had it been a 50-meter
warmup, perhaps Dilling-
ham would have stayed in the
pool. When his mother’s team
needed a fourth for a relay
team, Dillingham returned
to the pool at age 12. Then he
started to see his times drop.
But most importantly, he
started to enjoy it.
“Then a couple years after
that I made my first junior
nationals cut,” he said. “And
I’ve been working hard since
then.”
Part of his confidence stems
from knowing his limits. Dil-
lingham knows that anything
longer than 100 meters is not
for him.
Dillingham said some
swimmers are like a Prius:
they can go forever without
needing fuel. But Dilling-
ham is a drag racer that burns
through fuel in a matter of
seconds. “The way I am as a
drag racer, getting down to
one end of the pool is all I got,”
he said. “Getting back from
the other end in the 100 is
something that hurts a lot.”
Or as his mother jokes:
“He’s a one-trick pony, but it is
one heck of a trick.”
When Dillingham steps
onto the blocks before a race,
not much is going on in his
head. He has already mapped
out how he is going to race
about 20 minutes before the
start. He thinks about how he
is going to push harder as the
race goes on and how he is go-
ing to get the perfect dive off
the blocks. Then he takes deep
breaths to relax his mind so
when the horn sounds, all that
is on his mind is touching the
wall first.
“I like not wondering if I
can win,” Dillingham said. “I
like saying, ‘I’m going to win
this.’”
█
Reporter: 541-383-0307,
brathbone@bendbulletin.com
legiately and at the elite level at
the same time.
They’ll also be getting a first-
hand glimpse at the latest iter-
ation of “change” in an organi-
zation that’s seen plenty during
the past five-plus years. Chiles
is curious about what this latest
shift will look like, to see if the
metamorphosis goes deeper
than a new logo and mission
statement.
Like nearly everyone else
associated with the sport, she’s
both skeptical and cautiously
optimistic.
“I mean, obviously, I am go-
ing to be looking at what’s new
and what’s different and how
everything’s just going to play
out this weekend,” Chiles said.
“So we’ll see how everything
turns out.”