2000 RACING’S LITTLE GOODBYES

They may not sell as well as The Dixie
Chicks and they may not sing as well as Micky Dolenz & Michael Nesmith, but
Kristyn, Kelsi, and Kassidy Osborne of SheDaisy still manage to be an engaging
country-pop group. Their debut CD has sold well and opens with their
breakthrough hit, "Little Goodbyes."

The song is appropriate because the title
serves as an anthem to the 2000 season in motorsports, a season awash in more
little goodbyes – and several big ones – than one can really fathom.

The latest little goodbye comes from MRN
Radio. The Sam’s Town 250 at Memphis was the final MRN racecast for veteran
Allen Bestwick. Given Bestwick’s growing role with NBC and TBS television in the
last four seasons, I guess one could see this coming. But there is still the
disappointment that apparantly he will be unable to continue with MRN when his
TV work doesn’t conflict.

Bestwick came from Seekonk Speedway in
Massachusetts and was a fixture at MRN in one of his better known early calls,
in the infamous 1988 Miller 500 at Pocono. His horror at witnessing Bobby
Allison’s savage crash in the Tunnel Turn carried into his description, and he
felt compelled to apologize for it off-air, though the reassurances of others
indicated he had nothing to apologize for.

From there Bestwick’s role grew, and in a
few races in the early 1990s he was moved to the main booth; it wasn’t until the
1996 Daytona 500 that he arrived in the main booth fulltime, and his
"debut" in the main booth proved an auspicious one with his polished
call of one of NASCAR’s greatest races ever.

Bestwick’s delivery can be described as
sing-songy, and for some reason it doesn’t work as well on his television work
as it does on radio. In any event, his future looks bright with NBC & TBS,
but he’ll nonetheless be missed at MRN.

On the other side of the country that
weekend another set of goodbyes occurred at Fontana, California. First, veteran
CART racer Michael Andretti bade farewell, perhaps for good, to Newman-Haas
Racing, the team with which he is automatically identified. He first drove for
Newman-Haas in 1989 and won the CART title in ’91. A failed sojourn to F1 ensued
in 1993 and a one-year stint with Chip Ganassi, which gave Chip and Reynard
Chassis their first CART win, preceded Michael’s return to Newman-Haas. Now
Andretti moves on to a satellite Barry Green outfit.

Also bidding farewell was Juan Montoya,
whose blown engine – but one of 18 DNFs that plagued the Marlboro 500 – ended
his bid for three 500-mile race wins in a season. Montoya’s farewell to CART
comes after only two seasons with the series, a surprisingly short career.
Montoya hopes to succeed in F1, but after the disasterous forays of Michael
Andretti and Alex Zanardi, I’m not so sure he’ll make it.

Two more little goodbyes occur in November
– TNN will telecast its final Winston Cup race and ESPN’s finale comes at
Atlanta. Victims of NASCAR’s ill-planned TV deal, the two networks have been
blamed by NASCAR for allegedly insifficient promotion of their Winston Cup
racecasts; one is hard-pressed, however, to see just what NASCAR is talking
about on that front. Promotion has been the same as it had always been.

ESPN’s NASCAR tenure began in 1981 at
Rockingham on tape-delay, and the first live telecast occurred at Atlanta that
November. There have been over 1,000 ESPN NASCAR racecasts ever since. TNN’s
racing forays began in BGN in the latter 1980s and reached Winston Cup in 1991,
also beginning at Rockingham. As its Winston Cup tenure has been shorter than
ESPN’s, TNN does not have as many of the sport’s unforgettable moments as ESPN,
but it has shown a number of great races.

Atlanta sees the final goodbye of Darrell
Waltrip as driver. After an embarrassing final few seasons and a consistently
controversial career, it’s easy to forget that Darrell has been one of the
sport’s best – 84 Winston Cup wins, three titles, some 20,000 laps led, a number
of Grand National wins, including five at Daytona. That his career ends in
comparative ignominy doesn’t really sound appropriate.

Darrell’s home speedway also said goodbye
in 2000 – Nashville Speedway will give way to a new superspeedway and short
track complex built by Dover Downs Interantional Speedway. Though at least the
track’s weekly program and its Grand National and Truck events will have a new
home, losing the historic fairgrounds track is still a loss to the sport.

There have also been the unplanned and
grossly premature goodbyes – the ones that devastated the Petty, Irwin, and
Roper families. There was even the goodbye that wasn’t in Geoff Bodine’s Truck
crash at Daytona.

It all goes to show how bitter and
distasteful the word goodbye really is.