Thank you all for the entertaining suggestions, and I'm glad to see you have as much fun with these as I do. Here are the winners, and we expect the ESPN and IMS Radio people to adopt these immediately...right!
Jay “Hot Rod” Howard – Not only because it invokes the Rod Stewart vibe, but also because every sporting series needs a guy nicknamed “Hot Rod”.
O-Ryan “The Hunter” Reay – Because that’s about as good as this will get.
Hideki “Godzilla” Mutoh – Self-explanatory, and for the race at Motegi it will be changed to “Gojira” because we’re culturally sensitive like that.
Franck “Fronkensteen” Perera – When ESPN does his bio they need to have Edgar Winter playing in the background. This is not open for discussion.
Will "Ricky Bobby" Power - As appealing as "Willpower” is, you can't deny he does in fact look more than a bit like the Will Ferrell character. Plus I can feel the comments section filling up with "Shake and Bake!" and "If you ain't first you're last!" already.
Graham “Rahal 2.0” – If for no other reason than it indirectly manufactures a rivalry with Andretti 3.0. And besides, as someone in the comments pointed out he’s probably heard “cracker” since he was in grade school, which admittedly wasn’t very long ago. Now, if we can just get him to grow a mustache.
Oriol “El Matador” Servia – El matador ha perdido muchas veces, pero él todavía compite admirable.
Justin “The Cajun Sheff” Wilson – He still resembles a giraffe, but the fact that he was born in Sheffield sealed the deal.
As an addendum, Mr Carpenter will henceforth be referred to as “Hammer” because his hobby is rebuilding houses and he’s had prominent collisions with popular series starts like Helio and Danica. And considering the possibility that he’s going to run the league someday, it’s probably in our best interest to give him a name with some authority.
Also, as tempting as it is to stick Helio with “Happy Feet” or “Twinkle Toes”, he’s still "Spiderman". Scaling the heights is his thing, as evidenced by the fact that when he won the National Dance-Off the first thing he did was climb the nearest large object, which just so happened to be Cameron Mathison. It’s who he is, and it’s what he does.
Something New to Complain About
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This is old news now by now, and the furor has already died down. But I was
out of commission when this occurred and the reaction it brought is still
fresh...
2 days ago
Franck “Fronkensteen” Perera – When ESPN does his bio they need to have Edgar Winter playing in the background. This is not open for discussion.
Jeff,
Either that, or Puttin' on the Ritz from Young Frankenstein:
"If you're blue and you don't know where to go to why don't you go where fashion sits?"
"PUUUTINNN ON DA RIIIIITZ!"
Tell me, should I call him "Froderick"?
"Supaaa Dupaaa!!!"
May he rest in peace.
I love how full the class of 08 looks...just effing love it...
Now that Mutoh's number is no longer 55, but 27, does the "Gojira / Godzilla" moniker fit still?
"Godzilla" will fit so long as he remains a fire-breathing beast of a driver, which given the AGR car seems likely.
However, should Mutoh struggle we may have to look up the name of those tiny twin girls that start singing every time Mothra appears.
Were those girls Fook Yu and Fook Mi?
Well his hot teammate can Fook Me, if you know what I'm talkin about. I have to put my money on Danica to win a race before Godzilla does. Although his performance at Kentucky last year was very impressive. I've been a fan ever since he laid out a quality burn out under the lights.
Love the nicknames. Sounds to me like some long-needed "Marketing 101" for ICS/IRL. How about "Go Daddy-ca" Patrick?
Like em.
Any chance you can use the 'stached version of Rahal 2.0 that for his mugshot?
Is that Rahal's 3rd-grade school picture?