Category: Racing

The cars of Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jeff Gordon and Jimmy Johnson failed pre-qualifying inspection at Sears Point the other day. NASCAR has been pretty strict on policing COT rules infractions (even ones without any performance or safety issue), so everyone is expecting the hammer to drop on the two crew chiefs and a hefty fine and points deduction.

Big deal.

They’ve already gotten away with it as far as I’m concerned.  NASCAR didn’t let the two cars qualify, but still let them start. If the rule infraction was so bad, the teams should have been sent home.

Gordon started 41st and finished 7th, while Johnson started 42nd and finished 17th. Together they took over a quarter of a million dollars in prize money away from the other teams. Sure, NASCAR will probably fine the crew chiefs and drivers and maybe even suspend the crew chiefs.

It should be painfully obvious however, that that doesn’t work. If your crew chief is sent home from the Daytona 500 and you still win, what’s the punishment there? “Oh, that shows how deep the talent runs at Hendrick Motorsports,” some might say. That may be the case, and reports are that both crew chiefs are preparing their teams for their suspensions.

But can anyone explain to me how a car can win if it’s not on the track? Obviously, it can’t. Fines, points deductions, and suspensions aren’t working. Tell the team to pack up and go home, then you’ll get their attention. Basically, that’s all three penalties in one. Plus, they may end up having to refund some sponsor money. It won’t take too many missed races for the sponsor to start putting pressure on the teams to behave.

As far as the race itself goes, as usual with road course races, it bored me nearly to tears (at least what I watched of it).  That race is way too long. I’d pass by that channel in my channel surfing, and it just seemed to go on forever. There’d be 50 laps to go, then 45 minutes later, there’d be 45 laps to go (ok, that’s a slight exaggeration, but not by much).

I did watch the last 10 or so laps (or was that the last hour?) and was interested to see if Juan Montoya would run out of gas or not.  I wonder if they intentionally said they were two laps short just to get Kevin Harvick to back off?

When Dale Earnhardt, Jr. announced last month that he was leaving DEI, I posted my reaction (and a prediction) to it in a post titled “NASCAR: Junior Drops a Bomb“.

In a press conference today, Junior finished his bombing run. He announced that he’d be going over to Hendrick Motorsports. In the “I told you so” department, I pretty much nailed that one.

What I didn’t nail was which driver Hendrick would boot to make room for Junior. I predicted that it’d be Casey Mears. Instead it’s going to be Kyle Busch to gets the hook.

While Busch has won a few races, he certainly hasn’t won any friends. His driving style would lead one to believe that he runs out of talent a little too soon. Now the rumor is that he’ll be going to DEI in a swap or to Ginn racing next year. Either way, he is a proven winner, and despite his over-aggressive driving style, he should be able to land with a half-way decent team.

The next question in the Junior saga is, who’s the sponsor? The obvious assumption would be Budweiser moving back to Hendrick. I’d guess there’s probably an 80% chance of that happening. As far as the car number goes, I daresay that Junior’s replacement will be driving the #8 next year; I don’t see DEI relinquishing control of that number.

So, one piece of the Silly Season puzzle gets put into place for 2008. Now we need to see where Busch lands.

Bill France, Jr. passed away Monday, fittingly on a day they ran the postponed Dover Nextel Cup race.

I think that it could be argued that he resided over the Golden Age of NASCAR. He took over from his dad and grew the sport in the way it needed to go. When he left a few years ago, you could almost see the sport start going downhill: TV ratings are declining, historically significant tracks losing dates, cookie-cutter tracks taking their place, competition getting boring.

Granted, during his tenure, he had drivers like Earnhardt, Petty, Waltrip, and others who made the races exciting to watch. But I don’t believe NASCAR made any major changes like they have recently with the so-called “Car of Tomorrow”. The car of tomorrow has proven to be a dog to watch; it hasn’t added anything to the excitement of the races.

Also during his watch, NASCAR held very few Cup events on Saturday night. We’ve just completed a three-week run of Saturday night races. That has a major effect on local tracks, which until recently were where the next generation drivers came from. Nowadays, it seems like most drivers come from some open-wheel series, so I guess it’s a moot point that NASCAR is killing the local tracks.

The current leadership of NASCAR can’t hold a candle to Mr. France. May he rest in peace.

Wow. So I hear that Dale Earnhardt, Jr. had called a press conference this morning. I figured it was to announce his new contract with DEI for next year. Was I ever wrong. Continue reading “NASCAR: Junior Drops a Bomb”

ROUSH REFUGEE ALMOST GETS WIN: NASCAR snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory from Mark Martin in the Daytona 500. After making a BIG deal about how teams are not supposed to race back to the start finish line anymore, and implementing rules and technology to determine running/finish orders when the caution comes out, they ignore their own rules and let the race finish under green after a big wreck on the last lap.
Continue reading “NASCAR Daytona 500 Thoughts”

NASCAR DOT WHAT?: I guess I’m getting stupid in my old age. Yesterday I went to NASCAR.com to see how the Truck Series qualifying went, and today I went to see how Busch qualifying went. Neither time was I able to actually find what I was looking for. NASCAR’s yearly web redesign this year is a major step backwards. What happened to the good old days when you could actually get real information from NASCAR.com?

Continue reading “NASCAR: Mishmash of events this week”

NASCAR today unveiled some changes to the points system for this coming year’s Nextel Cup Series. The changes are meant to put more emphasis on winning, and make sure that NASCAR favorites like Jeff Gordan and Dale Earnhardt, Jr., consistently make the Chase for the Championship.

As a public service, I’ve decided to publish this guide to the new system.

• Anyone winning a race throughout the year is automatically eligible for the Chase (unless you’re in one of those underfunded single-car teams).
• They’ve done away with the 400 points from the leader after 26 races rule. Instead, the top 12 drivers (if those drivers have led a lap) are eligible for the Chase.
• During the regular season, the winner of a race gets 185 points. Losers get the distinction of having won some money.
• If a driver wins a race, and there’s a full moon, then that driver gets to pick another car from the field and that car’s driver loses all of his points.
• For the first time ever “non-points” races will pay out points. The winners of the Gatorade 150 will each receive a lifetime supply of Gatorade and 25 points. The winner of the All Star race will receive the 25 points plus have everyone in the stands added to his family call list on his Nextel phone.
• If a race winner happens to be a woman, she’ll get 1000 extra points, just because it’s harder for women to drive and put makeup on.

NASCAR is contemplating changes to the points system in the Busch series as well. The most significant of those is that if the winner of a Busch Series race isn’t a full-time Nextel Cup driver, he automatically wins the championship and the rest of the season is cancelled.

I hope this summary of the new points systems has been helpful.

Wow. Another NASCAR death from cancer. NASCAR Champion and broadcaster Benny Parsons died today in North Carolina.

Although I worked as a reporter for Racing Information Systems and attended about a dozen Winston Cup races, I never got to talk to him in person. I did see him from time to time, and he always had a smile on his face.

NASCAR and the world is a little dimmer now.

Rest in peace, Benny.

Wow. I just surfed over to Jayski’s site a few minutes ago and was stunned to see that Bobby Hamilton had passed away.

I think everyone had expected him to get better, but the cancer must have been worse than publicized. I’d guess that that’s what he wanted; he didn’t want the team or the public to be distracted by or fixated on his illness.

I got to see him race at the Fairgrounds a few times. He gave Casey Atwood a lot of help when he was getting started, and Atwood drove the #43 at the Fairgrounds that was owned by Hamilton. One memorable moment was when Dale Earnhardt, Jr. was practicing for a late model race at the track. He and another car wrecked, and both cars burned to the ground. Everyone was ok, but Earnhardt was left without a ride.

Hamilton offered Little Earnhardt the use of one of Atwood’s spare cars. That season, Atwood was driving Fords. Little E had to get permission from his dad before he could drive the Ford.

The racing world lost a truly nice guy today.

Below the fold is the second column I wrote after I created Racindeals.com (sadly, the current version of the site doesn’t go back that far (to 9/3/1999)). The gist of the article (and the whole reason I created Racindeals.com) was to get off my chest things that, as a race fan, I felt NASCAR needed to do to make the sport better.

Continue reading “If I Ruled NASCAR, Seven Years Later”