Pre-Winston Miscellanea Now On TRAC…..
As we approach NASCAR’s big gimmick race "The
Winston," we still have some tiresome issues being bandied about, and also
a new issue:
The Team Racing Auto Circuit.
Thus is the name of a new stock car body announced in
Charlotte, a series that intends to be "complimentary" to Winston Cup,
but which, as David Poole notes, will likely see some inevitable rivalry.
Jon Pritchett is head of TRAC’s parent, Maxx Motorsports,
subsidiary of Team Sports Entertainment, Inc. Pritchett makes clear that TRAC
does not intend to swipe drivers from NASCAR; the intent is to "serve
markets presently under served by stock car racing…..I think there is plenty
of room in the marketplace….Our concept is a way to create new fans."
TRAC intends to consist of some twelve two-car teams placed
in major markets with motorsports venues. It will use a single-entity structure
like those in use by Major League Soccer, where team owners invest in the entire
venture as well as in their team. Teams themselves are to be geographically
focused – that is, they will be known as Team Charlotte, Team Atlanta, and so
forth. The season, to begin in 2003, envisions some 24 races spanning February
to latter summer, with a "playoff" series leading to a season-ending
championship race.
TRAC rules intend to be structured with safety, parity, and
cost containment in mind. Car specs naturally will have to be determined, and
how they intend to maintain competitive parity will be interesting to see.
TRAC intends to run on ovals, including some that presently
run Winston Cup – most notably tracks of Bruton Smith’s SMI empire; Pritchett
indicated, though, that Bruton Smith will not be a stakeholder in TRAC. While
lacking direct Bruton stake holding won’t help, running on his racetracks will
help TRAC establish a base, as SMI has good sponsorship deals and its own radio
network in PRN. As for TV, Robert Wussler, who has headed both CBS and TBS, is
also involved.
A curious potential oversight is that TRAC comes amid
numerous other stock car organizations – ASA, ARCA, USAR, and so forth – already
in place. If TRAC were to merge with an existing body such as USAR, it would
provide a nucleus of additional tracks, sponsorships, and teams, as well as an
officiating corps. Aligning with a short track body like the ARA would
strengthen the new series’ nucleus by providing a potential development area.
Rumors of something such as TRAC have circulated for quite
some time and Bruton Smith involvement was consistently a factor; such rumors
swelled with word that CBS and ABC/ESPN, upset over losing NASCAR coverage to
FOX and NBC/Turner, wanted back into stock car racing in a big way. The rumors
have even led to speculation of which Winston Cup teams would, if the
opportunity arose, switch to a rival series – some scenarios have teams like the
RAD Alliance, the Davis-Evernham-Petty Dodges, the Wood Brothers, and a few
other similar teams staying with NASCAR while teams such as Yates, Roush,
Ganassi, etc. went to TRAC.
Granted TRAC’s reluctance to go after NASCAR teams and
drivers, but a switch by several high-profile NASCAR teams would certainly boost
the league’s prestige and power.
TRAC’s initial big card appears to be that it intends to
invite foreign manufacturers into stock car racing. Certainly the presence of
Toyota and Honda, two of the more obvious potential entries, in TRAC would shake
things up in stock car racing – and might serve as a doorway to eventual entry
into NASCAR itself.
TRAC has some good ideas listed, such as a system of revenue
sharing – something NASCAR likely needs to adapt with costs long since beyond
any reason. But a potential pitfall lies in the team concept within its rules –
the emphasis is on a championship team; "The teams will accumulate points
by the placing of BOTH cars." We have, however, seen the pitfalls of team
racing – we saw the controversy between the Ferraris at a recent F1 race where
Michael Schumacher was allowed to take second from his teammate on orders from
the team boss, and we saw team racing in Indy Lights’ Texas 100 where Bob
Dorricott’s cars ran 1-2 with Damian Faulkner and Townsend Bell, and Bell never
once made a move for the lead but instead ran interference for teammate Faulkner
against Derek Higgins.
Team racing isn’t good racing, even though the Indy Lights at
Texas did see some very good competition. If TRAC downplays team racing, it will
advance farther.
So will TRAC amount to anything in racing? I suspect it will,
if foreign manufacturers enter the series and if it aligns with an existing
stock car body like USAR; and if some NASCAR teams enter the series, it will
gain considerable strength quickly. Some say there is too much racing already;
perhaps there is, but something new won’t hurt.
Some TRACisans are already contrasting TRAC with NASCAR in
terms of the never-ending safety debate.
A belated blow to the "smoking gun" of the safety
debate – the Earnhardt seat belt and dismissal of its role in his death – came
in a Paul Wenske piece in the Kansas City Star, where, many weeks tardy,
peer-review criticism of Dr. Barry Myers’ report came. Medical examiners such as
Thomas Young, Joe Burton, Wayne Ross, and Martha Bedez disputed the report’s
assertion that whiplash killed Earnhardt, and the piece makes clear that the
issue is important in terms of the three driver deaths of 2000.
A strong clue can be found in Joe Nemechek’s brutal Dover
crash – he was not wearing a HANS collar, and his injuries (broken right scapula
and bruised lungs) were not of the kind that a HANS collar would have prevented.
Nor were any head or neck injuries sustained.
Actually, it is not surprising that peer-review criticism has
come toward Myers’ report; the notion that whiplash alone would kill a driver in
the millisecond between the beginning of impact and the delivery of fatal injury
never sounded believable on its face. And as mentioned above, it undercuts the
selling point of the HANS – if whiplash didn’t kill any of those drivers, then
why are we wasting time on a bulky neck collar that we’ve seen so press down on
drivers as to almost crack their shoulders? The ineffectiveness of Bill
Simpson’s Decelerator system in Ward Burton’s Fontana crash likewise indicates a
flaw in the concept behind the HANS.
Another blow to the "smoking gun" came when
Speedway Scene reported that Autoliv has reenacted Earnhardt’s crash numerous
times using identical conditions, and in several cases the belt broke, due to a
process called "dumping" – strands snag on the metal adjuster and are
stressed to the point of breakage by constant wear. One should also remember the
tear in Mike Harmon’s belt at Nashville.
Liz Chandler noted in early May that Bill Simpson discussed
the "dumping" process with NASCAR after Earnhardt’s crash, and that it
is a plausible explanation for the separation. The piece also noted that the
group did not reach a consensus on whether the belt was mounted properly, and
that dumping has many causes.
A consensus appears to have formed in terms of public debate
that stock car chassis are too rigid. Certainly there is ample reason for such a
view – not least of which is the experience of the Featherlite Modifieds – but
I’m a bit disturbed that a dissenting view on the subject has not received much
play. I remember a TV interview with Rusty Wallace where he cited crash data
from Ford that disagrees with the view that chassis are too rigid.
Also, I’ve read and heard numerous assertions that NASCAR
needs to revert to pre-2000 chassis specs, but such a view forgets the multiple
serious driver injuries and the deaths of John Nemechek and an ARCA driver at
Atlanta in the 1996-8 period with those pre-2000 chassis specs.
And surprisingly, there is no talk about slowing the cars
down, something that would contribute to improving safety – certainly Joe
Nemechek’s Dover crash would not have been as severe at speeds some fifteen or
more MPH below what are now turned by these cars.
Finally, of the three races run on the day before Mother’s
Day – Grand National, GN North, and Trucks, the North 125 at NHIS was the best,
with a spirited shootout between Ted Christopher and Tom Carey amid some of the
worst lapped traffic NHIS has ever seen. Carey appeared a lock until his right
front went down with just three laps to go.
Teddy’s win came on the heals of his second place in SK
Modifieds at Stafford Motor Speedway the night before – a division that saw its
second airborne crash in two weeks when Renee Dupuis socked the wall off Four
and landed on another car’s roof.
That racecars remain safer than passenger cars despite the
safety imbroglio of recent was shown again in that crash.