Sofa Sideline – A Not So Hot Weekend in Charlotte
On Thursday, October 4, Blaise Alexander
died from massive head injuries sustained during the ARCA series race being held
at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Funeral services were held Tuesday, October 9th in
Montoursville, Pennsylvania. The family has requested, in lieu of flowers,
donations be made to the following:
The Blaise Alexander Jr. Memorial
Make-A-Wish Foundation of Northeast Pennsylvania
515 Sandhill Road
Montoursville, PA 17754
800-489-17754
Our thoughts and prayers go out to the
Alexander family during this very sad time.
In Winston Cup action, the UAW 500 held at
Lowe’s Motor Speedway this past weekend was won hands down by the number 40
Dodge driven by Sterling Marlin. Congratulations go out to him for a great run!
Sterling’s car was extremely good on the long run, and he was able to take the
lead easily, and capture the win with over a six second lead.
Finishing second was Tony Stewart,
himself, led for a total of 130 laps, and after pit stops would gain a huge lead
on the short run, only to be reeled in by Marlin on the longer runs. Once
Stewart’s tires started going away, it was all over and Marlin would just blow
by – Stewart not even attempting to hold him off.
Rounding out the top ten were Ward Burton
3rd, Dale Earnhardt Jr., 4th, Jeff Burton 5th, Dale Jarrett 6th, Rusty Wallace
7th, Kevin Harvick, 8th, Mark Martin 9th, and Bobby Labonte 10th. Jeff Gordon,
series points leader, finished 16th.
Normally Charlotte is one of my favorite
tracks to watch a race. The cars generally get pretty spread out, but there is
still competitive racing going on. This was not the case on Sunday. I write
based on what I see, and what I saw were a bunch of ill-handling cars, with the
drivers spending all of the energies just trying to stay out of the wall, never
mind trying to compete with one another.
From the first green flag, we watched
Kenny Wallace back up to get out of the way, and Michael Waltrip was so loose it
was scary watching him. Jeff Gordon would keep drifting up toward the fourth
turn wall every few laps, and you wondered each time, if he was going to make it
through. Bobby Labonte spent most of the race "floating" not ever
having a handle on the car. When Gordon and Labonte, who normally dominate at
Charlotte can’t even begin to be competitive, you have to assume that all the
complaints about the tires are warranted, and a solution needs to be found. As
one crew chief said, we don’t have to worry about how the engine is running
anymore, as we have to spend all out time trying to figure out what do to with
the tires. Regardless, the end result – a long, boring race.
Rusty Wallace, under the circumstances,
had an okay day, finishing seventh. During a pit stop on lap 49, he and Ricky
Rudd collided on pit road, causing damage to both cars. Robin Pemberton and his
crew worked hard to correct the resulting toe-in problem, but unfortunately,
Rusty went a lap down in the process. Rusty was able to make the lap up later in
the race, and looked strong, getting as high as fourth place at one point. Rudd
on the other hand, finished a dismal 21st.
One good note for the day – Mike Wallace
ran a decent race in the number 12 car. Mike was as high as fifth at one point,
but unfortunately lost the engine late in the race and finished 34th.
Other notes:
The Busch series Little Trees 300 was won
by Greg Biffle on Saturday. After a couple of hours delay due to rain, the race
finally was able to get started. Biffle hung around the front most of the race,
but it looked like Matt Kenseth would be the winner, as he appeared to be the
strongest car out there. Kenseth was in the lead, but with just a few laps to
go, he went in to the fourth turn too hard, and just lost it. Biffle managed to
get by him unscathed, and went on to take the win. It was tough luck for Kenseth,
and a nice break for Biffle.
Silly season is getting even worse, and
the reality is we all probably won’t know what’s really going on until after the
season ends. Once Mayfield decides where he’s going, there will be a trickle
down effect as to what happens elsewhere. New rumors have Jeremy going to either
Evernham or Childress. But then you hear that Ford is also trying to find a
place for him – maybe with Robert Yates? DEI has also been talking to Mayfield,
and Johnny Benson as well. It will be interesting to see how this all falls out.
We had a chance to talk to both Carl Long
and Stuart Kirby over the weekend. These two drivers pose an interesting dilemma
facing the racing industry. Carl Long is a driver in his early 30’s, has
"paid his dues" learning the ropes in other classes of racing with
several years experience and is hoping to catch a ride in the Busch Series or
Winston Cup. Long got some help from Kyle Petty this past weekend, with Kyle
providing an engine and crew members to help with pit stops, but other than
that, no definite sponsorship or ride in sight. His passion for the sport is
great, but at the same time, he knows the odds are against him these days,
because the new rule appears to be catching drivers at a much younger age. A
prime example is Stuart Kirby who I believe, is just 19 years old. When you talk
to him, he’s articulate, polished, says all the politically correct things. He’s
a nice kid, and you know his future is pretty much set – he’s already signed
with a big marketing firm. They both started the race Sunday; Kirby hit the wall
early in the race, and was out for the day. Carl Long started 30th and finished
29th. He spun out coming off the fourth turn and did a real nice save himself,
and stay out of the wall, and went on to finish the race. Long accomplished what
he set out to do; get some laps and experience with the big guys. These young
kids are fearless, and probably don’t know enough to worry about the tires and
just go out there and run like a bat out of, well you know. But, is this the way
to go? It’s never been more apparent that safety is the number one concern in
the sport. Should experience and time spent learning in other levels of racing
be part of the equation? Until the past couple of years, this was pretty much
the way you got into Winston Cup racing. Maybe it still should be. Just
something to thing about….
NASCAR has turned into "big
business" and sometimes it appears that the leaders of that organization
were not ready, and as a consequence many details and processes that should be
in place, apparently have fallen through the cracks. One example, was the last
minute controversy between NBC and Humpy Wheeler regarding the use of the
official name of the speedway – Lowe’s Motor Speedway. NBC was not going to use
the name as Lowe’s had not paid for additional advertising during this race, and
Wheeler was threatening to "pull the plug" if they didn’t. A last
minute agreement finally settled the dispute, but not without a lot of hard
feelings and ill-will. The contract between NASCAR and NBC was negotiated
without a lot of input from the tracks, teams, or owners where some of these
things may have been addressed and possibly avoided. From the lay person’s
perspective, this type of incident just makes NASCAR look bad, and not as well
organized as they should be.
The race this weekend is in Martinsville,
Virginia. Short-track racing, yeah!
That’s it for now.