Commenter Newbie writes about obscure sports every week -- exploring the underbelly of the underbelly. He says this is the 23rd edition of Scratching a Niche, which we dispute. Most of what he says is not true. Newbie? --------

In radio, most new talent cut their teeth reading weather and traffic. The Star Tribune is reporting there was a lot of interest after Clarence filled in over at "On Weather." In fact, they noticed that Dan Barrerio read the blog for the first time, "not ironically." And why would he? Given that success, the editors at the Star Tribune have asked if I can take over the Traffic Blog. Of course my first question was, "there's a traffic blog?" The answer was no, of course not. They don't even want to start one, which makes this whole thing all the more confusing. Anyway, here is the first and probably last installment of "On Traffic.

Because traffic is more impossible to predict than a Nishioka walk, this advice may not be timely.

If you are planning to go to the Kentucky Motor Speedway race last month, don't. Unless you are interested in being part of the world's largest definition of 'Irony', I'd suggest staying at home and watching it on TV. See, while they have held races there before, they have not had the Sprint Cup (the big boys). Therefore, they had some traffic issues that were not expected. Meaning some fans had to sit in traffic for 4-6 hours, just to watch other cars drive around for 3 hours. Others finally made it but could not park. I put the over under on the phrase "put 'em into the wall, dad" being uttered at 26,000. Take that Jerry Jones!


Forecast:

Sunday: NASCAR race televised in West Virginia. Friday: Expect an increase in vehicle accidents, in West Virigina. The 'Journal of Applied Social Psychology' is publishing an article that claims NASCAR races (seen on TV Sunday) are responsible for an increase of auto accidents on Fridays in West Virginia. Apparently there is a delay when after watching the three-wide bump drafting and trying it yourself. To be fair, this is West Virgina so let's just say there aren't jokes about how "quick" they are.

*Did not play Correlation: For the past few years my Yahoo! Public fantasy baseball team has mirrored the Twins. Finished second on the last day of 2008. Finished first on the last day of 2009. I did not play last year. This year my team was ravaged by injuries early, various waiver moves were made and I started to climb my way to contention. Now I have teetered in the middle. When I was offered a trade I did nothing, and it's not working. I'm running out of ideas.