Posted: 07 May 2010 09:52 AM PDT

Brian Scott doesn't quite fit the mold of the classic stock-car racer. First, he's a native of Idaho, not exactly a hotbed of NASCAR racing. And second, he's a self-described "free spirit," someone who would rather jump off the side of a cliff than sit around and watch life go by.

But just because the 22-year-old doesn't exactly fit the stereotype has little bearing on his ability to race -- and beat -- the best. He won at Dover in the Camping World Truck Series last season. In nine Nationwide Series races so far in 2010, Scott's had a pair of 10th-place finishes, and he's 10th in points heading into Friday night's Royal Purple 200 at Darlington Raceway.

Scott's philosophy of life is simple and sounds like an athletic shoe slogan: Go do it.

"I'm free-spirited, I'm open-minded," Scott said. "I love experiences. I love doing things out of the mold. I guess if I had a choice to sit at the house or going base jumping, I'd go base jumping. I like experiences that you don't normally get to do. I just like having fun.

"We're on this planet for such a short time, relative to the whole big picture, you should make the most of it. Whether you're around for 70 years or 90 years, just have fun. No regrets."

Scott said that philosophy carries over to his driving career.

"That's ultimately why I got into racing," Scott said. "I had a little knack for it. I thought I could do it. You know, you can look back and be 30 and go to college. But you don't normally get a chance to do something like racing. I looked at it as something that if I had passed it up, it'd be something I'd regret the rest of my life."

The Boise native got his start racing sprint cars on the dirt bullrings of Idaho and Washington, then moved to North Carolina in 2006 to try his hand at pavement racing in stock cars. He said the hardest thing might have been making the cross-country journey.

"The 42-hour drive," Scott said. "It was a culture shock. You don't really realize how geographically things are different, even in the United States. You might go visit somewhere like Hawaii for a couple of days but you don't really assimilate into the culture. That was way, way more drastic than I thought it would be -- going from the Northwest to the Southeast.

"There were some pleasant surprises, and then there were things that took adjustments. Overall, I think I've adapted to North Carolina. I really like Mooresville. I really like being around all the racing. I like doing what I love. It's been a fun ride, and looking back, it's crazy that I've been there for almost four years. It's a dream come true."

Even though Scott loves where his career is going, he still misses things about Idaho. He hopes to get back, perhaps in September.

"I got used to a culture and style of life," Scott said. "I got used to spending a lot of time in the outdoors, hunting in the fall, fishing, snowmobiling. Doing a lot of things with my family and with my dad. That's a lot tougher to do with the distance that separates us. And that's been the hardest thing to get used to. The things you do to fill in your time on the weekends or here and there, it's just not the same and it's something I'm adjusting to."

Scott's 28th-place finish at Richmond ruined a nice run of consistent top-15 finishes, including a 10th at Talladega.

"If I had to rate the season so far on a scale to 1 to 10, it's probably about a 6 1/2 or 7," Scott said. "We've had some good surprises. We've had some good runs. We've had some disappointments, things that we didn't anticipate. Things can always be worse, and I try to keep that in mind when I think about the season so far."

What has helped Scott's enthusiasm this season is how he and crew chief Billy Wilburn have meshed.

"I'm happy," Scott said. "I think that Billy Wilburn and myself are really clicking. We're starting to figure each other out, we're starting to figure out our race cars. And we're getting better every weekend. It feels like we're learning something every time out. We're going to just keep getting better and better."

Scott's No. 1 goal this season is to be the top rookie in the Nationwide Series. And if he can accomplish that goal, he believes the rest of his goals will fall into place.

"I looked at the rookie class and the caliber of the equipment they were in," Scott said. "And I think if we can just get the rookie of the year title, that will eclipse all our other goals. I think all of the rookies will have good years. It's been a rocky start for all of us. I've been able to stay out of trouble a little bit [more] than them, but I know they're going to have good runs.

"If we can just keep clicking away and beating them and eventually capture the rookie of the year title, I think we'll get the top-10s that we want, the top-fives that we want, and we might even get the win that we want. But overall, we'll have a solid points year, perhaps finish in the top 10 in owner points and maybe even better than that. We'll see."

The key to his season, Scott said, will be to stay within himself while he's learning the equipment and the tracks, and then build upon that experience in the second half of the season.

"To have a good year, you've got to be consistent, whether that's top-10s or top-15s," Scott said. "Because that gives you an opportunity to at least make your equipment better, and all these tracks we pretty much go to twice except for the road courses. It's the second half of the year where you really start clicking away and that's the meat of the season. If you can have a good roll there and have good equipment -- you've worked on it all year -- that's when you're going to start clicking away positions."

And one final piece of philosophy from Scott: "With every change comes new challenges and new adaptations. There are things you've got to get used to and figure out. It's a work in progress."

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Green philosophy drives Erdenheim consignment shop

Posted: 07 May 2010 05:30 AM PDT

Angela Sipe is the owner of Phantastic Phinds consignment shop, Erdenheim. Staff photo by BOB RAINES

View and purchase photos

By Amanda Glensky
Staff Writer

Angela Sipe has everything from original wine stems, desks and chairs to a horse saddle and a King Tut statue at her consignment shop Phantastic Phinds, 631 Bethlehem Pike, Erdenheim, where she set up shop a little more than three months ago.

"This is such a great area for it," Sipe said. "We get all kinds of people here."

And those customers have been keeping her busy, she added.

From its full online catalogue to its environmentally friendly point of view, Phantastic Phinds isn't your average consignment store.

"Save the planet and your wallet, buy secondhand," is written on a portion of the wall in the store.

And sending her customers away with their purchases in recycled plastic shopping bags is just one piece of the pie.

The green aspect of consignment is a big draw for Sipe. When she sees furniture set out for the trash, going to waste, she often knows the pieces still have some life left in them.

"Her whole idea is just recycling and reusing things that truly would have gone in the trash," said Lisa Wright of Erdenheim, a former customer who now also works for Sipe two days a week.

Through magazines and other sources, the two find design ideas that might work with the items on display. They encourage customers to look at the items creatively and to think outside of the box, such as reupholstering a chair in a particular way or adding a shelf to a telephone table, Wright said.

"That's a huge hit in the store," Sipe said.

Even just adding a sign to a piece of furniture that says "paint me, don't be afraid," has made customers more likely to buy, Sipe said.

Sipe was inspired to get into the got consignment business six years ago when she learned through her husband, Tim, a real estate developer, about furniture that gets left behind when people sell their houses. She began taking the furniture home, fixing it up, and selling it online.

Previously, she consigned at her home and online, but she always wanted a store.

She inspects items by appointment only, so she can give people fair play, she said. Currently, she is booked until June 20. She puts the items on a three month consignment and splits the end cost 50/50.

"We try to keep our prices fair because we have a lot of people coming in to consign," she said. "You get better quality than thrift but better prices than antique."

The most expensive lamp on her website was $168. The most inexpensive, a lamp that needs rewiring, with shade, was $5.

Sipe is also a certified trading assistant on eBay. If someone comes in with an item she feels would sell better online, such as antique World War II binoculars, she puts it up for online auction instead, she said.

"I just love the concept — I think she's done such a wonderful job of incorporating the community and getting them involved," Wright said. "People are just so excited that it's there. We have so many regular customers come in everyday to see what's new."

Phantastic Phinds is open Tuesdays to Fridays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

For more information contact the store at 215-233-3325 or visit Sipe's revamped website, which launched May 1, at www.phantasticphinds.com.

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Will the Browns' Brian Daboll Successfully Implement the Hybrid Offense?

Posted: 07 May 2010 01:34 PM PDT

Ideally, Brian Daboll would have been an offensive coordinator at some point in his life prior to taking the job with the Cleveland Browns in 2009. Unfortunately for him and the team, he did not have any experience and it showed. Now the Browns are undergoing a major transition in offensive philosophy in the offseason and there is a whole lot riding on Daboll's shoulders.

Brian Daboll was born in Ontario and lived in Buffalo, New York, growing up. Daboll played football for all of his life and went to the University of Rochester in New York, where he became the starting safety.

In his senior season, he had three interceptions in a game against Case Western Reserve, but suffered a career-ending neck injury. After hurting his neck. he stayed close to the game by helping out the coaches at Rochester in whatever capacity he could.

In 1997 he was visiting friends at William & Mary College when one of the quality control assistants on their football team decided he was going to law school and quit his job. Daboll walked in, talked to the coach, applied for the position, which was a restricted earnings position, and started his coaching career.

Restricted earnings means exactly that, almost nothing, so Daboll relied on his grandparents to help him out while he pursued his passion. From William & Mary, Daboll moved onto a coveted graduate assistant position with Michigan State Coach Nick Saban in 1998-1999, who was an assistant coach for Bill Belichick when he was in Cleveland.

While at Michigan State Daboll apparently impressed Saban because he recommended him to Belichick when he was looking for a defensive assistant in 2000. Eric Mangini was the defensive backs coach when Daboll came to New England.

Daboll was promoted to wide receivers' coach under Charlie Weis in 2002 and spent the next five seasons in that capacity. He has received credit for the development of Deion Branch and David Givens.

Daboll left New England and went to the New York Jets, where he served as the quarterbacks' coach from 2007-2008 under Mangini.

When Daboll came to Cleveland with Coach Eric Mangini with no prior offensive coordinator experience, it was assumed that he would run an offense similar to that of Charlie Weis's Patriots. We never actually saw it or recognized it if we did.

Charlie Weis ran what is known as the Erhardt-Perkins Offense in New England. This offense often uses "the run to set up the pass" via play action passing, faking the run in order to throw deep downfield when the defense is least expecting it. Despite its reputation, this system is not always a run-first offense.

Weis commonly ran the system with Tom Brady, spread wide open, with multiple receivers. The Patriots will frequently run this offense with five potential receivers and an empty backfield should a favorable matchup present itself or as a function of available personnel.

The running game would take advantage of the nickel and dime packages and pick up four-to-six yard bursts inside the tackles, and when the safeties would creep into the box Brady would go over the top. It was a very nice, elegant offense to watch. He would work Welker, and Branch before him, underneath.

The point is that we saw nothing resembling this last year. Daboll called a game reminiscent of a neighborhood pee-wee game. Run after run up the middle or inside the tackles would be followed by a short slant or intermediate post.

The most imaginative part of our offense was the wildcat, and by midseason everybody knew Cribbs was going to keep it. Daboll looked hopelessly over-matched and the Browns scored 132 less points then their opponents did in 2009.

At the end of the year the Browns ripped off four straight wins on the strength of Rob Ryan's creative defensive pressure and Jerome Harrison's determined running.

Now Mike Holmgren has brought in Senior Advisor to the President Gil Haskell to teach Brian Daboll, who couldn't successfully implement his own offense, how to combine the West Coast with the Erhardt-Perkins.

Does anybody else feel like this is a disaster waiting to happen?

The West Coast offense is more of a philosophy than a set of scripted plays. It stipulates that an offense should pass the ball to spread the defense horizontally to set up the run, not the other way around. Therefore, it is a passing, ball-control offense.

It achieves this by using short, high-percentage passing routes. Since the routes are short, ideally the quarterback throws quickly; thus the need for additional blockers is lessened, and more receivers can be used.

Combine that with Weis's Erhardt-Perkins, which uses "the run to set up the pass" via play action passing, faking the run in order to throw deep downfield when the defense is least expecting it.

Keep in mind it often uses five receivers and the two offenses could be a really good match.

They could use the West Coast's precision short routes to move the chains and stretch the field horizontally, opening up the field for the running game and the intermediate passing game.

This also would open up short routes that get talented receivers like Josh Cribbs in space with defenders, and that would be to our benefit.

Finally, they could use play action to come over the top for the money shot. Sounds great in theory but can Daboll grasp it well enough to teach it?

Jake Delhomme could actually flourish in a system like this and it would play to the strengths of an accurate, mobile, young quarterback, ahem.

Ben Watson, Mohamed Massaquoi, Josh Cribbs, Brian Robiskie, all of these players have skill sets that would fit this type of offense.

Montario Hardesty has a reputation for running wonderful routes and having great hands and would be a potential weapon in the hybrid.

If Daboll does understand it and the young players on the Browns get comfortable with the hybrid offense, will Daboll have the guts to call the plays in actual games or will he revert to his security blanket, the running game, and send Harrison, or Montario Hardesty, out there 30-35 times a game?

I don't know. Can you win consistently in the NFL running the ball 40+ times a game? Holmgren didn't bring Haskell in to teach Daboll how to call Harrison's number, and if he does, he could very well be one of the first coaching casualties of the upcoming season.

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Philosophy

Saturday, May 8, 2010

“'Free-spirited' Scott carries philosophy to the track, behind wheel” plus 2 more

“'Free-spirited' Scott carries philosophy to the track, behind wheel” plus 2 more

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