Week 24 RacinDeals

UNHAPPY HOUR: I just happened to
tune in to TNT’s coverage of Happy Hour at Michigan, right about
the time Michael Waltrip wrecked. His car came to rest with the
driver’s side next to the wall and caught fire. Waltrip, wearing
the HANS® device, had to take the device off in order to get out
of the car on the right side. Luckily, the fire wasn’t spreading
too fast, or Waltrip could have been badly burned.

I was surprised to hear in his comments
after the crash that this was the first time he’d ever had to
exit the car on the right side. I remember watching the Late
Models being inspected one time at Nashville Speedway, and part
of the inspection process that day was to see if the driver could
get out of the right side of the car.

Two things: the HANS® device again (for
the 3rd or 4th time this season) inhibited a driver when he
needed to get out of a car on fire; and I’m astonished that
NASCAR hasn’t mandated some type of inspection where they see how
fast it takes a driver to exit the right side of the car. With
people like Jeff Burton using seats that have long head rests on
the right side, you’d think NASCAR would want to make sure those
head rests didn’t interfere with the driver in case of fire.

TELEMETRY TRIALS: Boo and
hiss to those few teams that chose not to run the telemetry box.
Most notably, Jeff Gordon, Ricky Rudd, and Dale Jarrett. Sure,
they’re all afraid to take chances because they’re the top three
in the championship chase, but what good did it do them? Is Rudd
not going to run an engine next week because his engine failed
this week?

In 945 out of 946 uses through the first 22
races this year, the boxes worked fine. One bad installation amounts to
about 1/10th of one percent chance of failure. Those odds are
pretty good if you ask me.

And with NASCAR mandating that the teams
run a "black box" next year, what’s going to happen if one of those
causes a problem? Are we going to see the internet racing sites go crazy with
drivers claiming that "NASCAR cost me the race?"

TIM RICHMOND: I got some hate email
from a fellow who obviously took offense at my comments about Tim
Richmond. By all accounts, Richmond was an incredible driver.
Heck, he even won a race after going through a bout of illness
related to AIDS.

But I don’t suggest anyone go out and
contract this deadly disease to emulate Richmond.

MEDIA LIES: "A driver
was killed Sunday during a race…" reads the intro to the
story about the sad death of Dean Roper. Every news account I
read before the true cause of his death was released said that he
died after wrecking. This is just sloppy reporting and there’s no
excuse for it.

The Roper family has had to endure more
than one family should in the past year. Reporting that a crash
was the cause of death in this situation just adds to the misery
that they must be going through.

Condolences once again to the Roper family.

MEDIA CIRCUS: Can you
imagine how much of a circus the Tuesday announcement of the
results of the Earnhardt investigation would have been had the
media been informed of who NASCAR had doing the investigation?
Actually, had the media got the information they wanted (e.g.
who’s conducting the investigation, etc.), we probably wouldn’t
be having the results now. They’d have been delayed by the
countless questions from reporters that would have inevitably
happened.

I had a chance to watch most of the report
live. I fully expected that the news media would think I’m too stupid to
understand all those big words and would tell me what I should
think about this. Sure enough, almost before the press
conference was over, I saw reports where "NASCAR’s"
experts are blaming the belt…and that’s not what I heard. They
said it was one factor among several.

The only people to blame for this media
circus is the public. We obviously buy the garbage they’re
putting out. If everyone boycotted these so-called "reporters"
and their papers and web sites, maybe they’d get the message.

MEDIA MADNESS: I’m not sure which is
more frustrating: watching news organizations like CBS make
stupid remarks about the Dale Earnhardt investigation (e.g.
"the report doesn’t say how to prevent accidents"), or
watching racing reporters like Monte Dutton make stupid remarks
about it on national TV.

CLOSURE: So, the media
tells us that everyone was expecting "closure" with the
report of the investigation. But now that the report has been
released, we find that (surprise) there’s no way anyone could
know what happened precisely to cause Earnhardt’s death. If any
one of 3 or 4 things had not happened simultaneously, Earnhardt
would probably still be here.

Sometimes you just can’t explain a freak
accident.

SIMPSON VS. NASCAR: Unfortunately,
that’s more likely to be the title of a lawsuit than one of my RacinDeals here. Bill Simpson is sill insisting his belt wasn’t at
fault. While that may be true to some extent, his belt did break. 

So instead of being the safety innovator, he’s going around with his lawyers blaming NASCAR, Dale
Earnhardt, Richard Childress, and anyone else who happens to
cross his path. Instead of playing the blame game, he should be
working to find out exactly why his belt broke, and what can be
done to prevent it in the future. 

He certainly has every right to
say "the belt wasn’t installed correctly and it broke."
And while that may be true in a legal sense, it’s not very
helpful.  Was Mike Harmon’s belt not installed correctly at
Nashville in April? And isn’t there a pending lawsuit against Simpson
regarding another broken belt? Is the "installation wrong,
not my fault" defense working in that case?

GRAND OLD LAWSUIT: Cracker
Barrel is suing NASCAR, Speedway Motorsports, Fox, and anyone
else they think they have a shot at. Why? Seems they think that
they were supposed to get more than four mentions on the air
during their race last spring at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

There are a few things that need to be
asked about this suit that won’t even go to trial for another 16
months: Did Cracker Barrel sign a sponsorship contract that
guaranteed that they’d get mentioned on TV? If so, how can a
third party be bound to a contract that it isn’t a part of? In
other words, how could Fox be obligated to even acknowledge the existence of Cracker
Barrel when they weren’t a signatory on the
contract?

What’s NASCAR got to do with it? If the
contract was between Speedway Motorsports and Cracker Barrel,
why involve NASCAR? Supposedly, NASCAR interfered with the
existing contract between Cracker Barrel and Speedway
Motorsports by retaking the TV rights from the tracks and signing
their contract with Fox.

All these and other details will probably
never be revealed because this will be settled out of court.

If you’re a sponsor that wants mentions of
your name or product on TV these days without buying a ton of
commercial time during the race, there’s only one way to do it:
purchase the naming rights to a track. You think Lowe’s paid any
sponsorship money to Fox? Probably not. But when they go to
Charlotte Motor Speedway, they refer to it by the sponsor name,
so Lowe’s gets a ton of exposure that they’re not paying the
networks for.

SPONSORSHIP MONEY NOT NEEDED: One
company that doesn’t need to spend any money on advertising or
sponsorship is Hubbard/Downing, Inc. You’ve never heard of
Hubbard/Downing, Inc. you say? They’re the makers of the HANS®
Head And Neck Support® device. While Cracker Barrel can’t get
mentioned more than 4 times in a race broadcast, it seems that
all we hear are references to HANS®. Surely they know how much
free exposure they’re getting.

So, from all the media attention the HANS®
device has gotten lately, you’d think it’s designed to prevent
injury or death, right? I mean, isn’t that the whole idea behind
it? Why then do you have to sign a pre-purchase agreement that
says this: "No warranty or representation of any kind is
made as to the merchantability or fitness for any purpose as to
any HANS® device."

Would you trust your life to something that
doesn’t have a "fitness for any purpose?"

Also, I’m not sure I’d want anyone other
than the helmet manufacturer messing with the integrity of the
helmet shell. You have to send Hubbard/Downing, Inc. your helmet
so they can install the clips necessary to attach the HANS®
straps. Of course, you waive your rights to file suit against
Hubbard/Downing, Inc. when you buy the device, so those guys are
in the clear.

HELMETS: Since everyone
seems to be on the safety bandwagon these days, I might as well
jump on. Dale Earnhardt refused to wear a full-faced helmet
because he believed it contributed to the death of his friend
Neil Bonnett. That makes sense. If your head moves forward enough
so that the front of the helmet hits your chest, then that’ll act
as a fulcrum and extend the back of the neck, possibly causing a
lot of damage. Plus, the weight of the helmet has to be a factor
as well. Also, a driver’s vision could be obstructed by the full
face helmet.

But on the other side, you have a situation
like we had with Ward Burton a few years ago. Burton used to wear
an open-faced helmet but received an injury to his face in a
wreck that caused him to start wearing the full-faced helmet.

So, what’s the solution?

I think I have one, that’s simple, light
weight, and I think will be as effective as current full-faced
helmets but without the dangers. What is it? Facemasks. Yeah,
facemasks like the ones on a football helmet. It could be as
simple as the one or two bars that you typically see on a
quarterback’s helmet. Mount the bars on an open-faced helmet and
you get the protection without the risks. It’d be lighter, but
you’d still have the protection from the bars.

SPEAKING OF LAWSUITS: The ASA is
suing TNN to try to prevent them from tape delaying a couple of races in the
remainder of the season. Since TNN was taken over by the suits in New York, it’s
gone so far downhill it’s pathetic.

ASA had what they thought was a good deal
when they signed a contract with TNN giving TNN 5 year exclusive broadcast
rights. TNN acquired a 25% equity stake in the company at the time. Then a few
months later, TNN was acquired by Viacom, and they put it under the control of
the yahoos who run MTV. It was just a matter of time at that point. (I didn’t
like the fact that TNN acquired an ownership position in ASA racing at the time,
and wrote about it here.)

TNN lost the NASCAR deal but gained WWF. (Incidentally,
they’ve had much higher ratings with the WWF than they ever had with NASCAR).
This Saturday night, TNN will debut a new wrestling show at 10 pm. One of the
races they want to tape delay is on a Saturday night (September 29) and you have
to think that TNN is not willing to delay or preempt their new wrestling show so
they can show the race live.

TNN has also made it clear to the ASA that
they’re not interested in broadcasting motorsports. This could be a severe blow
to this racing organization that’s produced such stars as Rusty Wallace, Mark
Martin, Alan Kulwicki, Johnny Benson, the Sauters, and others. 

Maybe we need to start lobbying ESPN to
pick up the ASA races for next year.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: The current NASCAR
Winston Cup points system is 26 years old this week. There’s been
a lot of criticism leveled against the system, but in my opinion,
there’s nothing better out there.