ENTERING WEEK FIVE: WHAT THE SPORT NEEDED – AND WHAT IT DOESN’T
Richard Childress is as tough as anyone
can be. He is among the sport’s ultimate grown men. And at Atlanta we found that
grown men do cry.
In the Winston era, Ron Bouchard held the
record for fewest starts – eleven – before the first win. Kevin Harvick smashed
that record, and he did it in similar circumstances.
But the eeriest aspect of the Atlanta 500
was how it turned out. In 2000 the sport needed a boost of great competition,
and Dale Earnhardt gave it that boost with a photo finish win over Bobby
Labonte. A year later, the sport needed some kind of closure after Earnhardt’s
death – and in a near-exact rerun of the 2000 photo finish, Kevin Harvick
delivered, by a bumper over Jeff Gordon.
The win smashes forever the 1992 Dixie
500’s reputation as Atlanta’s greatest event. Never have the cheers been more
sustained, more teary, more heavenly, more liberating. Never has a rookie driver
proven to the sport that life is not such a sour racket after all.
And the fight for the win in the final
eight laps was extraordinary – not since Gordon’s insane suicide squeeze at the
1999 Daytona 500 has the spot seen a three-wide fight for the win in the final
laps. It’s been quite a change from the reconfigured track’s first few races
when it seemed there would never been side by side racing there.
So the 2001 Atlanta 500 was something the
sport needed, and now it approaches the first event of the year at its oldest
superspeedway, but now with a recovering sense of confidence in itself. The
racing has been surprisingly good, and the sport is riding a string of ten
different winners in its last ten events – for good measure one might as well
include the Daytona Shootout and the 125s and thus count twelve different
winners in its last thirteen events.
Surprisingly left out of the party this
year has been Ford. Only Dale Jarrett at Atlanta and Mark Martin at Vegas have
shown Ford muscle so far. The collapse of the Roush Racing fleet in general is a
big surprise – in addition to their early-season Winston Cup struggles, their
Craftsman Truck program has faltered so far; only Greg Biffle in Grand National
has shown the usual muscle.
The horsepower kings of 2000, Penske
Racing, have also seen their advantage disappear, and in the last two races
they’ve struggled, crashing at Vegas and never getting untracked at Atlanta.
The Yates organization has had an
up-and-down year highlighted by Dale Jarrett’s Atlanta run and Ricky Rudd’s
third at Daytona.
The Ford team that has shown the most
muscle so far has been Ricky Craven, his career rejuvenated with Cal Wells. If
Craven can get some consistency in finishes going, he may finally break into the
top ten in points.
But amid all this the safety overkill
continues. The American Society of Safety Engineers weighed in with a letter to
NASCAR urging the immediate implementation of soft walls and of data boxes in
the cars. Mike Helton’s response was short and terse. Unfortunately, he should
have pointed out that racing has worked fine for decades without soft walls and
crash boxes; indeed, there is little need for either now.
What IS needed is a wholesale change in
the rigidity of the race cars. Again, the teams can convert them to softer steel
roll bars with crush zones in a week if given the word.
Also unneeded is the melancholy that
continues to circulate in the sport. Kyle Petty is certainly right when he notes
that "Dale’s accident has knocked this whole sport off-stride, and in more
ways than people are willing to admit…this thing has knocked everyone in the
garage area off-stride, and it will take them a awhile to get back on."
All true. Still, they need to start
getting their heads screwed on straight again. They can’t keep mourning forever.
The common feeling is summed up by Mike
Mulhern when he writes about "NASCAR’s need to open up, perhaps to show a
kinder, gentler face in light of all these tragedies." Mulhern criticizes
NASCAR because they sent Jeremy Mayfield to the rear for missing the pre-race
drivers meeting, even though Mayfield was sick with the flu – Mulhern curtly
describes NASCAR’s response as "but that (Mayfield’s illness) was no
excuse, according to NASCAR officials."
But is "kinder and gentler"
really good? Ignorance may not be bliss, but knowledge isn’t necessarily better.
The sport doesn’t need to be emasculated. Much of the criticism of NASCAR’s
secretive approach is that "it isn’t good PR," as if PR is everything.
We know NASCAR is working on safety areas, they’re just not making a big PR
production out of it.
Emasculation is the only word to describe
the consideration for removing aero anchors for the coming Talladega 500. Mike
Mulhern notes, "Despite drivers’ complaints about the new Daytona-Talladega
rules package……..NASCAR officials appear to be leaning toward running the
same aerodynamic rules for Talladega next month. That has some drivers privately
talking about skipping that race, as shocking as that might be."
More than shocking – pathetic is a better
description. Emasculating competition never promoted safety, and weakening the
draft is perhaps the worst form of emasculation possible. I doubt drivers will
in fact skip Talladega – they know it’s better to go racing than to whine about
it. Competition is what this sport is all about, and the more competition, the
more ferocious the competition, the better.
So the aero package must stay and be
phased into more tracks. If NASCAR is worried about rate of closure, use a
smaller restrictor plate, something they did at Talladega last October, but
leave the draft where it is powerful enough to keep these cars in contention.
The Atlanta 500 showed again the need for
such an aero package at more tracks. As great as the finish was, the cars
throughout the weekend struggled through the twin competition-killers of an aero
push and lack of a strong draft. At the speeds presently run the draft can kick
in and produce even superior competition if the rules package would let it.
Atlanta also showed the apples-and-oranges
nature of crashes – the Grand National 500k saw two nasty pileups, notably the
one involving Elton Sawyer and Tim Sauter; Sauter reported on PRN that his
helmet was cracked. In both crashes the cars were strung out, and this made the
crash worse because they got a running start before hitting.
Indeed, for awhile it appeared they’d
wreck more cars than were lost at Daytona.
How upside down is the point race right
now? In addition to Roush Racing’s bad start, Joe Gibbs Racing’s teams have
either broken or crashed or never got untracked.
A major culprit in the upside-down efforts
of so many traditional front runners has been Goodyear’s new tires. They are
harder, but they’ve gone back to an old problem – too little stagger – and their
characteristics have clearly caught a great many teams off guard. Goodyear
intends to use their Atlanta tire at the majority of racetracks, but Atlanta
didn’t show them to be all that racy. There is a need to revert to the higher
stagger first used in August 1999, a change that greatly improved the racability
of the cars.
Dodge’s return has also turned things
upside down. Among the Dodges, Sterling Marlin is clearly the top dog. Despite
his blown engine late in the Atlanta 500, Marlin looks to be in the best
position for the title he’s ever been in. Before qualifying I had a phone
conversation with team consultant Lorin Ranier, and he isn’t kidding when he
notes that "We’ve got a great team."
Ranier noted to me that there isn’t much
cooperation between his team and the other Dodges – which supports an August
2000 National Speed Sport News story where Bill Davis made much the same point
in noting that information gathered by his team, Ray Evernham, and Petty
Enterprises will not be shared with Ganassi Racing. One should also remember
reports from Sports Writers Direct of a fight between Petty Enterprises and Bill
Davis Racing against Lou Patane over the inclusion of Ganassi in the Dodge
program.
We may be seeing a RAD-style alliance of
Davis, Evernham, and Petty forming against Ganassi, something that may have
affect on Dodge’s one-team approach. Certainly the comparative performance
disparity between the Dodge teams is surprising and disquieting. It should be
kept in mind, though, that in the Trucks Dodge’s one-team approach took several
seasons to pay off big.
As for the other Dodges at Atlanta, BDR
had a good day in Dave Blaney’s run and a bad day in his disastrous finish and
Ward Burton’s productive – 11th place is a solid finish – but still
disappointing run. Petty Enterprises cleared a hurdle in qualifying and had a
pretty productive day in top twenties for John Andretti and Buckshot Jones. Ray
Evernham had a bad day with Casey Atwood’s DNQ, but Bill Elliott’s top twenty
salvaged something.
FOX’s more innovative use of camera angles
showed in the prominence of several attractive angles at Atlanta, including the
return of the high side angle not used since the start-finish line was inverted
to its present location. The network’s use of camera angles is perhaps the
biggest individual improvement over ESPN.
I’ve also realized just how good Mike Joy
and Darrell Waltrip are as racecasters. After years of the tiresome Bob and
Benny show at ESPN, hearing the Stafford Motor Speedway grad and 1970s-80s MRN
anchor and the overly cocky ex-driver is quite refreshing.
There has been a lot of bashing of Jeannie
Zelasko, though, and it is not all that fair. She has handled herself well and
comes off as cooler than the somewhat hyper Amy East at ESPN.
The only broadcast change I’m still
somewhat resisting is the departure of Allen Bestwick from MRN. Joe Moore is
handling the main booth well, but for some reason lacks the power to truly
command the position – a power derived from Bestwick or a radiocaster like
Howard David.
So now we approach Week Five, at
Darlington, and so far Darrell Waltrip’s description fits – this is turning into
the most amazing season in memory.