Pre Michigan 2 RacinDeals

GORDON WINS, GORDON LOSES:
I guess when Lady Luck is smiling on one person, she’s taking a
dump on another. How wierd is it that a "black box"
would catch on fire in Robby Gordon’s car and basically give Jeff
Gordon the win?

AFFECTING THE OUTCOME:
Just three or four months ago, people were wondering if those GPS
black boxes could be used to somehow recreate Dale Earnhardt’s
crash. Now, after one of them catches fire, NASCAR or NBC is
somehow responsible for affecting the outcome of the race.

That’s crazy.

NASCAR mandates Goodyear tires in the
Winston Cup series. Does NASCAR get blamed when someone gets a
bad set of tires? I’ve seen comments like "The fastest car
didn’t win the race." Duh. How many races have we seen
recently where the fast car the first half of the race didn’t
win?

Who knows, maybe RCR put their traction
control device inside the GPS box and that’s what caused the fire…?

I think we need a thorough investigation on
this. Yes, the box broke…or did it? Will Sportvision take the
blame? Will their main guy resign over this? Will the Orlando
paper do an expose’ on how dangerous GPS devices are? We need to
interview the people who went inside the car to get Gordon out.
What did they see and when did they see it? NASCAR should
immediately start a lengthy investigation over this. We can’t let
something like this affect the outcome of the race. Just ask
Rusty Wallace…oh wait. His engine blew up. Hmm, NASCAR mandates
engines in these cars, so maybe NASCAR is to blame for Wallace’s
problems. Yeah, that’s it.

TRUCK RACING: I was at
Nashville Superspeedway last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday for the
Truck and ARCA races. Maybe it’s the surface, but they’ve had
three snoozers in a row. The IRL race in July was dominated by
one driver (who ultimately didn’t win), and the Truck and ARCA
races were dominated by one driver (who won, in both cases).

I think back to the Truck race in Nashville
in 1999, and I have to say that it was one of the best races I’ve
ever seen. And as it turns out, there were only maybe 15,000
people who saw it, period. The race was supposed to start at 3
pm, but due to persistent rains, it didn’t start until 8 pm. CBS
was supposed to broadcast the race, but they bailed out at 5, and
didn’t hand the race over to TNN. They took their cameras and
went home, so there’s not even a video of the race available.

That’s a shame.

MET PAYS: Speaking of the
Trucks at Nashville, Lance Hooper ran 12th in a truck sponsored
by Metropolitan Life. Frankly, I’m surprised that Met Life has
enough money for a sponsor, after settling a class action lawsuit
against them by their customers forf $1.7 billion (that’s $1,700,000,000) for
illegal marketing. I just hope Hooper’s team got the money up
front.

THE BLAME GAME: Bill
Simpson still wants NASCAR to absolve him of any responsibility in
Dale Earnhardt’s death. Uh, Bill, NASCAR hasn’t blamed you. You
might want to talk to Little E though. He’s been all over the
news lately blaming the belt.

And I see reports where you’ve stopped
taking your mobile safety rig to the races. I’m not sure what to
make of that, but it sounds an awful lot like "I’m talking
by ball if we can’t play by my rules."

TIM RICHMOND: This week
marks the anniversary of Tim Richmond’s death. I didn’t pay much
attention to stock car racing when he was alive; I got interested
in racing right around the time DW won Daytona, so I never saw
him race.

But over the years I’ve seen a lot of
gushing articles about how great Tim Richmond was. He might have
been a great driver, and who knows? Would Earnhardt have won
seven championships if Richmond were still around? Would Gordon
be where he is today? Sadly, we’ll never know.

Richmond died of a self-inflicted venereal disease, AIDS. Going fast on the track wasn’t enough for him; he
had to have women everywhere he went. Who knows how many women he
infected after he found out he had the virus. We do know of at
least one, who has I think sadly died herself now.

So, Tim Richmond may have been a great race
car driver. But as for being someone to look up to, no, not even
close.

LICENSE TO DRIVE: I saw on
another web site a comment about how unfair it was to Bobby
Norfleet that NASCAR didn’t let him race on superspeedways but
will let Kyle Busch race on a one mile track after his
impressive run at IRP. Busch’s
run at IRP showed that he had the sense not only to stay out of
others’ way, but run smart. My understanding is that NASCAR evaluates the
drivers on the track during practice, and if they think he’s not safe, then they
don’t let him race. Busch qualified the truck fifth for this weekend’s race. If
you ask me, Busch’s biggest career mistake is getting involved in the Roush
Racing organization.

I daresay that if Norfleet could have
shown NASCAR that he could get out of his own way in a race,
they’d have been happy to let him race on superspeedways. Norfleet has yet to prove he can do
either of those. 

By the way, where is Norfleet? Why haven’t
we seen him apply for one of Dodge’s "if you’re black,
you’re hired" diversity drives?

ROUSH PECKING ORDER: Has
Jeff Burton finally passed Mark Martin in the Roush Racing
hierarchy? It sure looks that way. Martin is winless this year,
and is out of the top ten in points for the first time in a long
time.

I daresay that if next year Mark Martin has
another season like this one, Roush won’t have any compunction
against releasing him. He proved with Joe Ruttman that he doesn’t
have any loyalty, and Ruttman finished high in the points and won
races.