Lewis Hamilton visiting fans at the 2018 Formula 1 British Grand Prix at Silverstone (Photo by Jen_ross83) It's the greatest time of the year for sports fans as a variety of games and events overlap. College and professional football games fill up our weekends, and for the National Football League (NFL) our Mondays and Thursdays. Pucks have dropped in National Hockey League (NHL) arenas. The National Basketball Association (NBA) preseason will give way next week to match-ups that count. And, of course, four Major League Baseball (MLB) teams are facing off to determine which two will make it into the... Read more →
Motorsports
NASCAR's 2019 season started today with the auto racing series' biggest event, the Daytona 500. Congratulations to Denny Hamlin and Joe Gibbs Racing for taking the checkered flag in the Great American Race. Things aren't so clear-cut, though for the expired tax break for motorsports speedway improvements and more than two dozen other assorted tax benefits. These tax breaks expired in 2017 and are not on track for reinstatement. Yet. In fact, they're looking as messy as today's closing laps pile-up. Extenders indecision: These assorted tax breaks are known collectively as the extenders. They get that name because they are... Read more →
Lewis Hamilton was all hat and F1 2017 champion after he won the U.S. Grand Prix in Austin TX on Oct 29 2017. That was the race where the U.K. driver earned enough points to take another title. A few days later, Hamilton's name showed up in the Paradise Papers as one of the rich and famous individuals around the world who uses questionable tax shelters. (Photo courtesy Formula1.com) Formula 1's final race of the year was today in Abu Dhabi (no spoiler here unless you click the link), ending the 2017 season in which Lewis Hamilton claimed the motorsports'... Read more →
Memorial Day in the United States is the biggest day in motorsports worldwide. The starting lights in Monte Carlo signal the beginning of the glamorous F1 race in Monaco. Next, the green flag drops at Indianapolis Motor Speedway to get the cars rolling in the Indy 500. The day wraps up with the checkered flag in Charlotte, North Carolina, marking the end of NASCAR's longest race of its season. While race fans across the globe will watch at least some of the races, law enforcement officials in Thailand and the United Kingdom are focusing on other vehicles. Pol Lt-Colonel Korrawat... Read more →
Labor Day weekend means one thing for NASCAR fans: The Southern 500 from Darlington, South Carolina. The race at the Track Too Tough to Tame was a tradition ... until 2004 when the NASCAR fools in charge powers that be decided to move the early September race to other spots in the schedule. But this year the race is back where and when it belongs, underscoring not only the sport's roots, but America's enduring love affair with cars. Kansas car lover's tough tax choice: Dorce Stapleton knows a thing or two about what a car can mean. The 78-year-old Hutchinson,... Read more →
Stop me if you're heard this before. And before. And before. Yep, I'm talking, again, about tax extenders legislation. These 50+ temporary tax laws must be renewed periodically, with the one to two year extensions, sometimes retroactively, giving them their name. Senate Finance Committee Ranking Minority Member Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), left, and SFC Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) will guide their tax-writing colleagues today in examining tax provisions that expired at the end of the 2014 tax year. (Official Senate Finance Committee photo) The current batch of extenders expired on Dec. 31, 2014, after being given new life retroactively for... Read more →
NASCAR fans are gearing up for tonight's night race at Daytona International Speedway. Still referred to as the Firecracker 400 by veteran stock car fans, the corporately renamed Coke Zero 400 marks NBC's return to the sport after a 10 year hiatus. While some race fans are grumbling because the top-tier NASCAR race was bumped from its traditional first Saturday night in July to Sunday to capture a bigger TV audience, it still should be a good show. And it will give those at the track as well as those of us watching on television a chance to see what's... Read more →
It's here! The greatest day in motorsports. It starts early for Formula One fans in the United States. We set our alarm clocks to watch those multimillion dollar wheeled rockets maneuver the streets of magnificent Monte Carlo, Monaco. Click image to view Formula1.com's onboard camera capture of $155 million dollar man Lewis Hamilton's Monaco Grand Prix pole winning run. Midday the green flag drops on the Greatest Spectacle in Racing, the Indianapolis 500. Then late afternoon racing turns to night driving at Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina, where NASCAR holds the Coca-Cola 600, its longest race. You now know... Read more →
You know those heart-tugging salutes to the troops you've seen at various sporting events over the years? The teams didn't feature those moments because of unbridled patriotism and a simple desire to recognize and thank military personnel for their sacrifices. The Department of Defense paid for those touching moments. NFL military salutes have prompted official inquiries, but the promotions also have occurred at Major League Baseball Games. These members of the Georgia National Guard participated in a tribute to troops in July 2012 at an Atlanta Braves game at Turner Field. (Photo courtesy Georgia National Guard via Flickr Creative Commons)... Read more →
Sunday's Daytona 500 was great. Well, it was until a late-race wreck forced a contrived green-white-checkers finish and the dreaded but always expected "big one" mass crash at the back of the field. Despite that disappointment, congratulations to 2015 Daytona 500 champion Joey Logano. He deserves the trophy. He and his #22 Shell Ford were the class of the field all day. Daytona is the first NASCAR race every season. It's the sport's Super Bowl and an event the stock car community prizes. A few years ago, NASCAR set out to memorialize past and future Daytona 500s and other notable... Read more →
What do college football and professional auto racing have in common this Labor Day holiday weekend? Taxes. But not like you think. JR Motorsports' #7 vehicle sports a new TaxSlayer Bowl paint scheme for tonight's NASCAR Nationwide series race in Atlanta. Cross-sports tax sponsorships: The tax preparation software company has sponsored the college football post-season game since 2011. In sports days before corporate sponsorship -- some of us are old enough to remember those quaint times -- the annual January match-up in Jacksonville, Florida, was known as the Gator Bowl. The partnership with JR Motorsports is great for TaxSlayer. It... Read more →
The best day in auto racing is two-thirds over, with the checkers having waved for the Formula 1 race along Monte Carlo's streets and at the Indianapolis 500. We race faces now await the green flag for NASCAR's longest race of the season, 600 miles that will end under the lights at Charlotte Motor Speedway. One of the reasons I like watching races is that I get glimpses of incredible pieces of engineering. That's especially true of the F1 vehicles. I seen some of these magnificent autos, both the racetrack and regular road versions, on trips the hubby and I... Read more →
The adage that the more things change the more they stay the same definitely applies to Congress in general and to tax legislation in particular. New Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) called his panel together this morning to review the Expiring Provisions Improvement Reform and Efficiency (EXPIRE) Act. That's Wyden's version of the extenders tax measures that ended with the start of 2014. Wyden's original version of EXPIRE called for many, but not all, of the now-dead measures to go back into the tax code for the 2014 and 2015 tax years. In his opening statement, Wyden emphasized... Read more →
Although I am glued to my couch today, autos are still a major component of this Sunday. The Sunday of the annual Memorial Day weekend is gearhead nirvana. There are three major car races today. Don't worry, race fans, no spoilers here! It starts early, 6:30 a.m. here in the Central time zone, with the Formula 1 race from Monte Carlo. I love F1 racing, but I must admit that I watch these land-based rockets maneuver the twists of Monaco as much for the scenery as for the race itself. Grandstands set up in front of Monaco harbor await spectators... Read more →
It's South by Southwest festival time here in Austin. Each year, thousands descend on Texas' capital city and many discover our otherwise enticing city's dirty little secret: Austin doesn't have enough hotel space for all y'all. The accommodations crush offers many Austinites a way to get a piece of the more than $190 million that's pumped into the local economy over the next two weeks. Many of my neighbors head out of town for the duration of SXSW and rent their houses to the event's attendees. Tax-free rental income: Even better, in most short-term landlord instances, the rental money is... Read more →
Maybe it was the rain. Mitt Romney has gone to two NASCAR races this year. Both times the events were delayed, one until the next day, by heavy showers. Sports fans are superstitious and perhaps followers of America's favorite auto racing series equated the politician's attendance with the disruptions. Or maybe NASCAR fans are no longer confined to traditional Southern red states. Whatever the reason, the latest Zogby Poll found NASCAR fans favored Barack Obama over Mitt Romney by 49 percent to 42 percent, respectively. That's outside the poll's 3.4 percent margin of error. Almost 10 percent were undecided. Click... Read more →
NASCAR kicks off every new racing season with its biggest race, the Daytona 500. This 2012 event is getting added attention thanks to driver Danica Patrick and two Republican presidential candidates. Danica daze: OK, the really big news first. Danica will be making her Daytona 500 debut. She won the pole for yesterday's Nationwide Daytona race (she'll be running in this second-tier series all year long), but crashed out early. She'll take the green in today's Sprint Cup race from 29th on the grid. Yes, Danica fans, I know that her starting position today is ahead of series regulars Clint... Read more →
After four years without a U.S. Formula 1 race, there soon will be two. Maybe. In May 2010, the FIA announced that starting with its 2012 season the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix will be run in Austin. The deal calls for F1 races in the Lone Star State through 2021. Now comes word that in 2013 there will be a second U.S. F1 race. The Grand Prix of America at Port Imperial will be held in New Jersey. That event also has a 10-year contract. And this second U.S. race has given new hope to Texas taxpayers who... Read more →
Are you ready for some football, er, taxes? The 2011 college football season is underway, so that means there's already speculation about who will face off for the national title in the BCS Championship game on Jan. 9, 2012, at the New Orleans Superdome. I'm more a fan of pro football, probably because my alma mater doesn't have even a remote chance at a national college football crown. But good old Texas Tech University usually manages an invite to one of the lower-tier bowls. This season, I'm pulling for the Gator Bowl. It has nothing to do with the Red... Read more →
Summer is a great sports season, especially for folks who like to participate. But there are lots of offerings for us spectators, too. U.S. soccer nuts have a full Major League Soccer schedule. Every weekend brings gearheads a combination of motorsports, from NASCAR to Formula 1 to IndyCar to endurance races. Rory McIlroy's dominating U.S. Open win has captivated old and new golf fans. Internationally, tennis at Wimbledon just wrapped up and the bicyclists have just started the annual Tour de France. And it's prime time for Major League Baseball, aka the celebrated Boys of Summer. I follow my "O"... Read more →