The Record Nineteen, Tempers, and Hunger
Now Winston Cup is within four.
In 1961 the Grand National Series saw a
record that has curiously gone unnoticed by most who follow the sport. The
winners that season were Joe Weatherly, Lee Petty, Glenn Roberts, Marvin Panch,
Cotton Owens, the previous season’s GN champ Rex White, Bob Burdick, Emanual
Zervakis, Fred Lorenzen, Junior Johnson, Richard Petty, Lloyd Dane, Eddie Gray
David Pearson, Jim Paschal, Ned Jarrett (ultimately the ’61 GN champ), Jack
Smith, Buck Baker, and Nelson Stacy.
Nineteen drivers took victories in the
1961 season, one above the 1960 tab of eighteen different winners.
In the Winston era, there were twelve
different winners in the inaugural season of 1971. With the factory withdrawal
and the schedule reduction of the Modern Era, the number of different winners
declined to eight in 1972 and ’73. 1974 saw the fewest number of winners at
five, and also illustrated paradoxes common to racing; the five drivers who won
races – Petty, Cale Yarborough, Pearson, Bobby Allison, and rookie Earl Ross –
usually had quite a bit of competition from season non-winners Buddy Baker,
Donnie Allison, Darrell Waltrip, and defending Cup champ Benny Parsons, all of
whom certainly could have won that season.
The tour averaged eight different winners
until hitting ten in 1980, and then twelve in 1983 and ’84. Thirteen different
drivers won in 1986 and then in the tire war season of 1988 the Modern Era
reached its record of fourteen different winners, a number matched twice in
subsequent seasons.
In 1993 the number of winners dropped to
nine, then with the resumption of the tire war the number of winners swelled to
twelve. 1995 and ’96 each saw eleven winners, and 2000 tied the Modern Era
record with fourteen.
Now the record has been broken. In 2001
Michael Waltrip, Steve Park, Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick, Dale Jarett, Elliott
Sadler, Bobby Hamilton, Rusty Wallace, Tony Stewart, Jeff Burton, Ricky Rudd,
Dale Junior, Bobby Labonte, Sterling Marlin, and Ward Burton have won races.
Should Winston Cup see four more winners in the final eleven races, it will tie
the all-time record for different winners in a season. I’m not sure anyone who
ever thought about such things ever dreamed such a record would ever be within
reach. Certainly given that even today’s schedule doesn’t approach those of the
1960s there has been less opportunity to see the record for different winners
broken.
Certainly there are plenty of deserving
candidates for reaching and breaking the season winners record.
Tempers flared during the weekend as they
generally have not during the season. Jeff Green, still mad at Kevin Harvick,
roughed up Scott Wimmer – "I got put in the wall on the white flag
lap," Wimmer said – and Wimmer flew over Greg Biffle’s door trying to get
up to Green, then later the two hashed it out before Wimmer got summoned to the
NASCAR truck by John Darby. Chad Little got Earnhardted by Kevin Harvick and a
scuffle ensued – Richard Childress tongue-in-cheeked
that they tripped over one another.
And then came Sunday. Junior showed why
Senior was long an justly the most hated driver in NASCAR with cheap shots on
Hut Stricklin, Stacy Compton, and Mike Skinner. Junior failed to turn Skinner
and that may explain the finger salute caught on camera. It was reminiscent of
Senior’s self-important fist-waving at Skinner under yellow because Skinner
wouldn’t surrender the lead to him at the 2000 Atlanta 500 – curses, foiled
again!!!
>From the near-universal reaction from
the audience at Stafford Motor Speedway during the sat-feed telecast of the 1999
Daytona 500 onward, Skinner has become a driver I’ve noticed is quite intensely
and curiously disliked. From that ’99 500 I gauged that his refusal to not go
for the win instead of simply pushing Earnhardt was the reason for the dislike,
and nothing since then has given reason to doubt this motive. Certainly no other
plausible reason for disliking Skinner has presented itself.
But the cheapest shot at Darlington came
with supreme irony – from Terry Labonte, who blasted Robert Pressley so hard
into the front stretch pit wall that Pressley stood on two wheels.
And then came the late sprint and Dave
Blaney’s slide job – a trick he learned in years of Outlaw sprint car success –
into Junior. So Junior, take that!
Of course, drivers were ticked off that
NASCAR red-flagged the Southern 500 near the end to clean up wreckage in two
places in the final ten laps. Explanations are that the red flag rule is for the
fans, and while true enough, it is a grossly incomplete answer – the red flag
also allows drivers one last shot at the win on the ensuing restart instead of
locking them in position over the final ten laps of a race under yellow.
This makes nonsense of driver complaints
about the red flag, and also underscores an irony and a general problem with
modern racing. In those incidents the drivers involved showed greater fire and
hunger than they’ve shown almost every other lap this season.
Lack of hunger in modern race drivers is
one of those mini-scandals that is, annoyingly, never discussed to any serious
extent, and which usually brings about some hot denials. "They say, ‘We
want to win,’" former engine builder Lou Larosa wrote in 1998,
"but……where is the incentive when you’re making $4 million racing and
$40 million selling souvenirs?"
Larosa’s former boss, Richard Childress, cuts
to the chase even better in discussing the recent Talladega test: "The
current rules (with the roof spoiler and rear wicker) are doing exactly what
(they are supposed to). They’ve got cars that can pull up and pass; you’ve got
lead changes. That rules package is……not for these drivers who don’t want to
get out there and do their job…….The biggest problem is a bunch of these
drivers are sitting back whining they don’t want to run in packs. If they can
single-file it for 500 miles and get a paycheck at the end of the day, they need
to go drive somewhere else…..It just ticks me off……Right now you can
qualify 40th and be up there leading the race, and that’s what the package is
for."
Amen, Richard.
Of course there are numerous reasons why
the competition has not seen the kind of racing that should be out there, which
brings the question of why there are not similar mass aero tests at non-plate
tracks to come up with something that will address their biggest problem – the
aero push. Mass aero testing at Daytona led to the roof spoiler and wicker and
mass aero testing at Talladega showed no feasible alternative to that package.
Holding similar mass aero tests at Charlotte, Pocono, etc. can serve two
purposes – they can at least somewhat lessen the testing gap that presently
exists among teams, and they can come up with aero changes that can kill the
aero push and allow the cars to suck up to one another and pass.
Finally, Tony Siscone was one of the best
Modified drivers in the Northeast, winning 109 races over nearly twenty years of
driving. Spending seventeen seasons with the Dick Barney #14 team, Siscone won
the 1984 Cardinal 500 at Martinsville and the 1994 Race Of Champions.
Presently a racing safety equipment
purveyor, Siscone offered an overlooked insight into belt breakage in Area Auto
Racing News’ August 28 edition.
Dale Earnhardt used what is called "a
‘pull-up’ seatbelt, and the adjuster is all the way down by the floor and it
comes through the side of the seat."
Siscone expressed dislike for the pull-up
belt adjuster. "It’s down by the bottom of the seat……and it can have a
tendency – depending on how the belt is mounted – to get right in the opening
where it passes through the seat. If it gets hung up in there I always had a
fear that it could possibly……come loose because it got hung up……"
Most of the belts Siscone provides drivers
are "pull-down" belts. On such the adjuster pulls down from the latch
area, located around the driver’s pelvic area. "The pull-down style belts
are pulled tight across the lap and the adjusters are held against the driver’s
body."
Cars with large cockpit areas tend to see
drivers use pull-up belts, as the extra room allows the driver to reach down and
adjust the belt from the bottom. Modified drivers tend to use pull-down belts as
there is no room in their cockpits to reach next to the seat.
Siscone explains in the AARN story why
Earnhardt used pull-up belts – in 1989 Earnhardt tumbled his Grand National car
during Daytona practice. "He had some abrasions and bruising around the
lower stomach and upper pelvic area from the adjusters being there, so his
(Grand National) crew was looking for a pull-up belt. (Bill) Simpson didn’t have
any at the time, but they got in touch with me and I had several sets in stock
and I shipped two sets down to Dale’s Busch shop……he was very sore in that
lower area. I’ve been in accidents and a lot of drivers have, and those
adjusters can dig into you….."
"I strongly advise anybody that has
(the pull-up) belt to go to a pull-down style."