Category: Racing

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NASCAR: The Big One

I was a little surprised with this last Daytona 500, or at least the coverage of it. Normally you hear drivers complaining about restrictor plates and how those plates are dangerous because they cause “the big one”. Never mind the fact that most of those “big ones” are caused by driver error (or if you’re Junior, stupidity). Somehow it’s those plates that cause big pile ups.

But if you look back at the history of the Daytona 500, you’ll find that they had “big ones” before restrictor plates. As a matter of fact, in the 1960 500, they had the biggest ever “big one”: 37 cars. Yes, 37 cars were involved in one wreck on lap one of the 1960 Daytona 500. The field was pretty big too: 68 cars.

My point here is that big wrecks aren’t caused by restrictor plates; they’re usually caused by human error or mechanical failure. I’m sure people will say that restrictor plates cause the cars to be bunched up together, and that’s true to a certain extent.  But cars are going to be bunched up together on other tracks. Take Bristol (please). Wrecks involving 25% of the field happen there regularly, but all we hear is the NASCAR propaganda that Bristol is one of the most exciting tracks they race on. Bull.

Anyway, here’s a little video of that big wreck at Daytona in 1960.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Eb3Sf6Kf1I[/youtube]

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NASCAR: Random Racin’ Ruminations

SHOOTOUT: Rookies shouldn’t be allowed in the Shootout. Enough said.

TRUCK SERIES: The truck series new rule about not having more than five men over the wall at a time showed itself to be stupid the other night. Trucks would come in and either get tires or fuel, then circle back around and get fuel or tires. I can see only having 12 pit crew members as a valid cost cutting measure. But it doesn’t make sense to force the trucks to make two pit stops under one caution. NASCAR already extends cautions too long to allow teams to pit; this just makes them even longer. If they want to do something crazy, why not have a rule that makes teams choose between fuel and tires on a pit stop under caution? In other words, if a caution comes out, you can pit, and you can choose to change tires or fill up with fuel. None of this “double dipping” nonsense we saw the other night.

LOGANO: I’m a little tired already of people telling me how great Joey Logano is. It kind of puts me off of him, especially when there are others as (if not more) talented than he is. Gibbs should have let him run a couple years in the Grand National series before giving him a Cup ride.

GRAND NATIONALS: (Since I don’t get paid to mention the series sponsors, I refer to it by its old name, the Grand National Series.) Saturday’s race was pretty decent. It shows that NASCAR should have left that aero package on the Cup cars up until the new car was mandated. They passed, they ran three wide, and, they didn’t have “the big one”.

RETIRING DRIVERS: Memo to Mark Martin and Bill Elliot – if you’re going to retire, then retire. I realize Mark is back to a full-time ride this year with Hendrick, to try to accomplish something he could never do with Roush (that is, to win a championship). But a few years ago, he announced he was retiring. Aging drivers run the risk of falling into the Petty/Waltrip trap: continuing to drive way past the time they should have gotten out of the car. Take a page from Rusty Wallace and Dale Jarrett – just retire.

PAINT SCHEMES: I have to say, I really like the scheme of the 24 Cup car this season. Don’t know what it is, but it’s really sharp. And who would have ever thought we’d see a #43 without a trace of Petty Blue? Seeing that it really solidified the fact that Richard Petty is now just a figurehead in “Richard Petty Motorsports”.

START TIMES: I realize the broadcasters want me to watch the pre-race shows, but frankly, I’m not interested. I want to see on my DVR’s guide when the actual race coverage starts. Back when I was a bigger fan, I watched all the coverage I could find. But now I actually have a life, and I’ve got other things to. By combining the pre-race coverage with the actual race coverage, I’m prevented from time-shifting the race without paying a little attention to the pre-race show. NASCAR has the start time on their schedule on their web site, but it was still 20 minutes earlier than the actual race start. And one more thing: NASCAR needs to move the start times up. This race should have started about two hours earlier than it did. If it had started earlier, it would have been over by the time the rain came.

ANTHEM: One of my pet peeves is the performance of the National Anthem. Nine times out of ten it’s just awful: the performers try to “make it their own” or show their improvisational skills or whatever. The one before the Daytona 500 was no exception. I don’t know who the guy was, but it sounded like he’d rather have been anywhere else but Daytona. Who auditions these people?

SELLOUTS: They said during the broadcast that it took until Saturday night to sell out all the seats for the 500. And for the first time I can ever remember, Bristol has season tickets available. Perhaps this might give the promoters a clue that their product is overpriced.

COMPETITION CAUTIONS: If NASCAR is going to mandate that teams come in for a competition caution to check tires, then the teams should restart in the same order they were running in before the caution. This is not like a caution for a wreck; this is something the teams have foreknowledge of. Plus, they shouldn’t let them make any chassis adjustments. Just change four tires, fill up with gas, and go back out in the order you came in.

SPONSOR RESTRAINT: It’s obvious that Verizon and AT&T have a TON of money to spend in sponsorships. That’s why it’s mind boggling that NASCAR would give the series sponsor exclusivity. So we have two sponsors that could help underfunded teams being shut out. As a result, they’re paying the TV networks instead of teams. I think one of the interesting side effects of the exclusivity deal is that AT&T and Verizon have more mentions during the broadcast than Sprint.

ROUGH DRIVING: Apparently there’s a different standard for rough driving in the Grand National Series than there is in the Cup Series. Jason Leffler did a move similar to Dale Earnhardt, Jr., but got penalized five laps for it. Imagine if it’d been Kyle Busch who’d made that stupid, boneheaded move that wrecked the whole field. We’d never hear the end of it. Busch showed a LOT of class and maturity in his interview after the wreck. Earnhardt’s excuse during the rain delay rang hollow. What, he doesn’t have a brake pedal?

2009: I was kind of excited for the racing season to get started back up again. But after seeing NASCAR’s blatent favoritism toward’s Dale Jr., it’s put me off. I’d kind of planned on watching more races this year than I had in the last few years, but I think I’ll probably have other things to do most weekends. So, thanks NASCAR. You’ve lost a fan, again.

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NASCAR: End of BHR

Bobby Hamilton Racing is no more. The team, run by Hamilton’s widow, closed up shop last week.

I guess the reason was lack of sponsorship. Without Hamilton running the operation, I’d suspect that sponsors weren’t exactly breaking the doors down.

One also has to wonder about the management. You had to know something was up with the organization when Bobby Hamilton, Jr. washed his hands of the operation.

I remember when the Truck Series came to Nashville Speedway USA for the first time in 1996. It was when they still had “half times” during the races, where they would stop the race in the middle so teams could do unhurried pit stops. It also meant that teams didn’t have to spend a ton of money on pit crews.

Bobby Hamilton was there with a truck for that first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at the Fairgrounds. He wasn’t driving it; he left that up to his Nashville Late Model driver Casey Atwood. His pit crew consisted of himself and maybe two other people. They didn’t have a pit box, just a small tool box. Unfortunately, Atwood got caught up on a wreck early and exited after 5 laps. But still, it was pretty incredible being there at the beginning of what would become Bobby Hamilton Racing.

Bobby Hamilton was always helping local racers. He pretty much gave Casey Atwood his start at Nashville. He even loaned a car to Dale Earnhardt, Jr. in a Late Model race one year at Nashville. Earnhardt’s car was destroyed in a fire during practice, and Hamilton let him use one of Atwood’s backup cars.

It’s a shame that his race team couldn’t be saved, but I guess it’s better this way than trying to run a team that’s nothing but an also-ran.

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NASCAR: All Over But The Shouting

About nine o’clock on Sunday night, I realized I’d completely missed the Phoenix Cup race. As it turns out, I didn’t miss much. Jimmie Johnson won again and virtually clinched the title. Here are a few random thoughts I’ve had about the race and the season.

  • Top Dog: You’ve got to wonder what Jeff Gordon’s thinking. It’s been 40 races since he won. Have we seen a changing of the guard at Hendrick Motorsports? Remind me of when Roush started pushing Mark Martin out for his younger drivers like Kenseth and Busch.
  • Retire already: What is it about motorsports that makes drivers who are past their prime think they can still win races? Kyle Petty, Mark Martin, Bill Elliot, Kenny Schrader, and much as I hate to say it, Sterling Marlin all really need to rethink their involvement in the sport’s highest level. Yeah, I know Martin’s going to “run for the championship” next year in a Hendrick car. While I’d actually like to see him win it, I don’t think it’ll happen. I don’t see Hendrick giving him the same equipment he’s giving Johnson.
  • Is this the US? The race Sunday was a 500k race. I guess that sounds more impressive than the “CHECKER O’REILLY AUTO PARTS 311 PRESENTED BY PENNZOIL”. But still, this is the US. Make the race 300 miles like those at that gawdawful New Hamshire track.
  • What’s Yer Point: Kyle Busch has to be cussing NASCAR for that new gimmicky points system. It’s gonna cost him a bunch of money. Under the old system, he’d probably end up finishing third. Under this new scheme, he could end up anywhere from 7th to 12th. NASCAR needs to fix what wasn’t broken to begin with.
  • Mergers and Acquisitions: There’s a lot of talk about different teams merging and otherwise getting new ownership money. Before they do that, they ought to ask Ray Evernham and Richard Petty how that’s working out.
  • No Testing For You: NASCAR has indicated that they’re going to possibly ban testing next year, at least for the first part of the year. This is in order to help cut costs for the teams. Here’s an idea: if you want to cut costs, limit the number of teams per owner (whether real or on paper) to two. Right now there are three or four owners who pretty much stink up the show. If your favorite driver isn’t driving for one of those teams, he doesn’t have a realistic chance of winning.

Next week is the last race of the season. I remember when I counted the days from the last race of the year to the Daytona 500. NASCAR has changed so much in the last few years that it’s just not much fun to watch anymore. And based on this year’s TV ratings (which are mostly flat or lower than last year’s), I’m not the only one NASCAR is losing. They’ve got to know that some of the stuff they’re doing is turning fans off. I don’t have the answer, but I know the product they’re putting out now can’t compare to even the mid-90’s. We’ve already seen some of the lower tier sanctioning bodies go out of business (ASA comes to mind). If I were a NASCAR stockholder I’d be concerned.

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NASCAR Chase Thoughts

Chase This – NASCAR couldn’t have done a better job of keeping Kyle Busch from winning the championship if they’d tried. A driver who would still be in the hunt under the old system is now pretty much out of the race. The new system came about because people complained that the driver with the most wins wasn’t winning championships. Guess that’s gonna happen again this year. Will those same people complain now? I doubt it. This chase format has so many problems it’s not funny.

TV Coverage – ESPN shows how much respect it has for the Nationwide Series by broadcasting it on ESPN Classic, a network that maybe three people in the country get. I understand that it’s going to be simulcast on the Speed channel; yeah, that’ll help. NASCAR should specify in the TV contracts what networks the races should be shown on.

Qualifying Rain-outs – There have been more qualifying sessions rained out this year than in any other year going back to the last 50’s. Why is it that NASCAR couldn’t postpone qualifying a day? Or even have same day qualifying? Go to a one-day show format. The teams that aren’t in the top 35 deserve a shot at the race. And don’t get me started about having 35 provisional starting spots… seems like a few years ago, everyone complained about seven provisionals.

Time’s Up – Somewhere around here, I still have a hat I got from the Dodge announcement at Talladega in 2000 that they were coming back into the Cup Series. The front of the hat said “It’s Time”. Now that it looks like GM is going to gobble up Dodge, it’s unclear what will happen to those consumer brands. As to what GM will do with the Dodge brand on the race track? I think we can look at GM’s past to figure that out. How long has it been since you saw a Pontiac, Oldsmobile, or Buick on the race track? GM still sells those brands (at least I think they do), but they pretty much made everyone not in a Chevy have to make the choice of going to a new body style. It’s not good to give folks those kinds of choices; sometimes they go with a competitor.

Petty Politics – What’s the deal over at the Petty’s? Kyle doesn’t seem to know, and isn’t he the president or something? Maybe that was before they got those other investors, since he doesn’t seem to know from week to week if he’ll be driving the car. Face it: the Petty operation hasn’t been up to competitive levels in decades. That includes the cars and  Kyle. Bobby Hamilton was a breath of fresh air for that organization, and they managed to get a couple of wins with him as the driver. I think they’ve had one or two wins since him, but they’ve pretty much been a back marker for a long time. And now there’s talk about a Petty merger with DEI. This definitely ain’t your father’s NASCAR.

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NASCAR Gets It Right, and Wrong

Was that race at Talladega something else or what?

I’ve always maintained that the restrictor plate races are some of the best races around, and today’s race was no exception.

Generally the talk of “the big one” is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Carl Edwards’ bonehead move tore up a lot of cars; he was right to be sorry during his interview. They talk about the “big one” as if it’s a foregone conclusion, and therefore they drive that way. Edwards had been a back marker all day, and when he did decide to get up front, his mind wasn’t right.

While NASCAR’s yellow-line rule may or may not be a good idea, at least they enforced it (finally) today. Tony Stewart was passed on the last lap by Regan Smith when Smith went below the yellow line. NASCAR gave Smith a post-race penalty of going to the tail end of the lead lap. One has to wonder if NASCAR would have done the same if the roles had been reversed, with Stewart making the last lap pass under the yellow line…

What seems odd to me though is that NASCAR seemingly violated its policy of “whoever crosses the finish line first is the winner”. Had Smith been on the outside of Stewart and won, but then had been found to have an illegal part, he’d still be listed as the “winner” but have points taken away. Smith got a 76 point penalty for his illegal pass, and probably lost close to $100,000. So now NASCAR has established a precedent for changing the winner of the race because the apparent winner violated a rule. Whether they’ll continue to do that remains to be seen (somehow I doubt it).

One thing that NASCAR needs to change is this stupid “chase” system. No other professional sport that I know of allows the championship to be affected by teams that aren’t in the playoffs. I think it’s a crime that Kyle Busch is 11th in the points now. At least under the old system he’d be in 3rd, only 82 points out. Under this chase format, he’s in 11th, 331 points out, and pretty much out of contention to win the championship. I thought the reason behind the chase format was to reward the drivers who won races during the season. The driver with the most races won is now the one getting the shaft.

At the very least, NASCAR should award points separately for the chase drivers. That is, award 1-12th place points for those in the chase, and don’t include non-chase drivers. While that’s not a perfect solution, it would at least mitigate the effect of the non-chase drivers.

You can bet your sweet bippy that if Dale Earnhardt, Sr. were still alive, and went from 1st place in the championship one week to 12th place the next week, NASCAR would have made some changes; the fan outcry would have been huge. Actually, I think that if this had been any other driver than Kyle Busch, there might have been a fan outcry (say if it was Junior or Gordon).

The chase concept is interesting, but there are still too many problems with it that NASCAR needs to address.

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The Brickyard 25

I almost forgot about the race at Indy on Sunday. When I tuned into it, they were about 30 or so laps in and the commentators were talking about “competition” caution. Since I missed the pre-race show, I figured that it must’ve rained and washed all the rubber off the track, and NASCAR was throwing the caution to let the teams check tire wear.

Wow, was I wrong.

What happened Sunday was unacceptable. If I’d paid money to go see that race, I’d be demanding a refund (and by the way, who in their right mind would actually pay to go to a race track where, if you’ve got a good spot, you can only see 25% of the action?).

It was interesting to see how the commentators, drivers, owners, NASCAR and even Goodyear fell all over themselves not to blame the tire or Goodyear. So I’ll do it: Goodyear brought a lousy tire. I thought it was especially ironic when they’d talk about the tire situation, and then go to a shot from the blimp and part of the pitch was about the quality of Goodyear tires.

This is one reason I’m not as big a race fan now as I used to be. It just doesn’t matter much anymore.

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Memorial Weekend Racing

Between NASCAR and Indy Racing, there are quite a few races over Memorial Day weekend. I spent most of Sunday in front of the TV.

BACK HOME AGAIN: Almost missed the start of the Indianapolis 500 race for some reason. As it turns out, I did miss most of the pre-race show. I got to see the National Anthem, Taps, and Jim Nabors sing. I have to wonder what the drivers think when they hear Taps played right before they get ready to risk their lives.

WOMEN DRIVERS: Because of the way the Indy 500 qualifying is structured, I really didn’t know who’d made the field. So I was surprised to see there were three women who did make the field. It’s a shame all three ended up not finishing the race.

THE 500: The actual race was a little on the boring side. The track turned out to be pretty much a one-groove track, so there wasn’t much passing. The first two hours were pretty frustrating. Here I am trying to watch it in High Def, and the local ABC affiliate is having trouble with their High Def signal. The audio kept dropping out, there was major pixelation, and the video would just stop. I had to watch most of the first two hours on the regular channel. They finally got it working.

THE 600: I wish Fox wouldn’t list the start time of the race so early. What they do is actually tell you the start time of their pre-race show. I don’t really watch that stuff. Just tell me when the green flag is supposed to start (thanks to Jayski, I knew when to tune in).

A TALE OF TWO RACES: The 600 is so long that it’s really more like two races. Cars that work great in the daylight seem to go away at night, and vice versa. Tony Stewart and Bobby Labonte were nowhere to be found during the daylight, but when the night fell, they started moving to the front.

FOX’S SURROUND SOUND: i don’t know who the audio engineer is on Fox’s broadcasts, but he needs to get a better setup. When I put my receiver in Dolby Surround Sound mode, all I can hear are the cars, with the announcers way in the background. I had to go to basic sterio to even hear what the announceers were saying. It’s not my setup, since I don’t have that problem with other shows.

ANTHEM CRITIQUES: The National Anthem is not a song you’re supposed to “make your own”. It should be sung the same way by everyone. Unfortunately, the folks who sung it before both races didn’t seem to know that. While the version sung by Daryl Worley before the 600 was ok, the one sung before the 500 seemed like a completely different tune. Please singers, don’t improvise the melody.

THE PETTY EFFECT: There’s a problem in NASCAR with drivers continuing to drive way past the point when they should have retired. Richard Petty did this back through the 80’s and the early 90’s. Then, my favorite driver, Darrell Waltrip did it through the late 90’s. Now Richard’s son Kyle is doing it. Kyle hasn’t really been competitive for a long time. Kyle’s flirting with a TV career; perhaps it’s time he stayed in the booth.

GANASSI: I guess it’s pretty obvious where Chip Ganassi’s major effort is going, and it’s not NASCAR. His NASCAR teams seem to be lacking speed or maybe the resources needed to get them to the front. Sterling Marlin’s substituting for Dario Franchitti should have been a good opportunity to get his career back on track. But he’s had bad runs in both outings. And after Juan Montoya’s complaints about having three different crew chiefs in almost as many races, you have to wonder what’s going on at Ganassi’s team.

SPEAK ENGLISH: NASCAR’S misguided “diversity” project took another turn during the broadcast. They acatually ran a commercail for NASCAR in Spanish! Can you believe it?

DOVER: I’ll be avoiding the Dover races next week. That’s always been a boring track, ever since they converted it to concrete. You’d think they’d have figured that out by now.

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NASCAR Richmond Thoughts

Just a few random racing thoughts heading into the weekend races at Richmond.

MORE PLATES PLEASE: How about those races from Talladega? Both the NASCAR Cup race and the NASCAR Series races were pretty exciting. We should have more restrictor plate racing.

LESS ESPN PLEASE: In a move that shows why ESPN should never have been given any more NASCAR races, they’re not even broadcasting the NASCAR Series event on Friday night on one of their two main (or three if you count ABC) channels. In a move reminiscent of when they preempted racing to show the football draft, they’ve moved the Friday night Richmond telecast to something called “ESPN Classic”. To lessen the impact, SPEED will be picking up the slack by simulcasting it. I do get both channels, but not in hi-def, which is what I watch all racing in now. Again, ESPN shows their complete disrespect for the racing fan.

SMOKIN’ TIRES: Tony Stewart and Matt Yokum are providing the tires for Morgan Shepherd this weekend. Shepherd had a great run at Talladega last Saturday, and Stewart and Yokum have decided to help him out this week. Good job guys!

POKER RUN: Bobby Hamilton, Jr., himself coming off a great Talladega finish (3rd), will be hosting a poker run on May 10. The proceeds benefit the American Cancer Society. Should be a good ride through the back roads of Robertson County.

SHOW NASCAR WHO’S BOSS: NASCAR again is running a NASCAR Cup race on Saturday night, in direct competition against the local short tracks. In a time when local tracks are threatened with being shut down, I don’t understand why NASCAR continues to do this. They’re putting the local tracks at risk.

Here’s what I propose: don’t watch the Richmond race Saturday night. Tape it, Tivo it, DVR it, or otherwise record it and watch it Sunday. Then go to your local bull ring and watch some great racing. I’m lucky; I live in Nashville where we have the track at the Fairgrounds (its existence too is threatened) that’s spawned so many great drivers like Darrell Waltrip, Sterling Marlin, Bobby Hamilton, Casey Atwood, Jeff Green, and Jeremy Mayfield.

So, show NASCAR you support local racing. Don’t watch the Cup race live Saturday night; pack your local track.

STERLING SUPPORTS LOCAL RACING: Speaking of Sterling Marlin and local racing, Marlin has committed to running several races at Music City Motorplex. May 10th, June 14th, July 18th, August 8th, August 30th and October 11th are the dates Marlin announced he would run. He’s back with Coors Light as a sponsor, both on his car and as sponsor of the events. Looks like he won’t get to run the May 10th race though. He’s announced that he’ll be replacing Dario Franchitti in the #40 car at Darlington.

During the public meetings last January to kick off the study by the consultant the Tennessee State Fair Board hired to figure out what to do with the track, Sterling was the only big name driver to show up.  I’m glad to see he still remembers where he came from.

DUELING NETWORKS: And finally, seems that both MRN and PRN want to broadcast the New Hampshire races. MRN says they’ve got a contract, and PRN says it’s not valid. I don’t listen to races much on the radio anymore, but the difference between MRN and PRN is like night and day. Here’s hoping MRN prevails.

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NASCAR: Who Made Out Better?

After last season, Hendrick unceremoniously got rid of Kyle Busch and put Dale Earnhardt, Jr. in that spot. Gibbs got rid of JJ Yeley, who went to Hall of Fame Racing. DEI replaces Earnhardt with Mark Martin (and gets Regan Smith too) by buying the team Martin was with.

So, who got the best deal?

Let’s see… Hendrick, now instead of having two top drivers, has three they have to outfit. Of those three, only Earnhardt is in the top ten in points. Gordon and Johnson are just barely inside the top 15.

DEI has Martin Truex in 11th place. Martin is in 18th after Atlanta. He’s not running a full season, but you’d expect him to do better than 1 top 10 in 4 races. Smith is still at the back of the pack, and Menard is in the middle of the pack.

Hall of Fame Racing won’t have to worry about any racing halls of fame. They got rid of, who was it, Tony Raines? for Yeley. Raines finished in the top 30 last year; Yeley’s 25th so far. These guys need to step up if they’re going to run with the big dogs.

Who does that leave? Oh yeah, Joe Gibbs. Not only did they get Kyle Busch in the off season, they switched to Toyota to boot. What better way to have a successful team than to let others knock the rough edges off a new manufacturer and a driver? By far they’ve gotten the best deal of this year. Busch is winning everything he’s entered in, and when he’s not winning, he’s dominating until mechanical failures put him out of the race. Tony Stewart is sitting pretty in the 8th spot.

So, early in the 2008 season, I’d have to say that Gibbs is the big winner, and DEI and Hendrick are the big losers so far.

Speaking of big winners, I keep hearing that Toyota’s win Sunday in Atlanta was the “first time a foreign manufacturer has won a Cup race since Al Keller won in a Jaguar on June 13, 1954.” Maybe it’s me, but when Mercedes Benz bought out Crysler a few years ago, to me that made Dodge a foreign manufacturer. Seems to me that some of their wins while under Mercedes ownership ought to be counted as wins by a foreign manufacturer.

Bristol is next week. Watch for more wrecks and carnage at Bristol than ever happen at a restrictor plate track. But watch for everyone (fans, competitors, team owners) tell you how “great” Bristol is. Fact is, the cars are too fast for Bristol. Maybe the new car will slow down things a little; if they were running 20 seconds a lap, that might make the race watchable. I know I won’t be watching it; I’ll be in the Caribbean somewhere on a boat.