Holiday RacinDeals

BETWEEN AN IROC AND A HARD PLACE: Poor Jeff Gordon. Being the
Winston Cup champion and a new partial car owner, his time is
just not his own these days. That’s why he declined the
International Race of Champions I guess.

Sorry, but I don’t get it. How much time does it take to run
in the series? Let’s see: the races are maybe 30 minutes long,
there’s probably a couple of hours of practice before the races,
so that’s three hours. Say four hours per race just to be safe.
Gordon’s claiming that he doesn’t have 16 hours free that
correspond with the IROC races next year… even though they’re
all usually run on weekends that he’s already at the track.

No, this isn’t about a lack of time; this is an out and out
snub. IROC deserves to have the Winston Cup defending champion in
the field, and by his not being there, he’s not representing the
series that well if you ask me. And it’s not just me who thinks this. David
Poole of the Charlotte Observer thinks it’s a mistake
for Gordon to decline the IROC invitation. Larry McReynolds also thinks
Gordon should have accepted the offer.

But it looks like Hendrick will have some
representation in the IROC Series, since Jack Sprague accepted a bid to run as
the Truck Series champion. He seems to understand something his Hendrick
teammate doesn’t: "The chance to drive in an IROC race doesn’t come along
often – it’s never happened for anyone from the Truck series and it’s a first
for me, too," he said upon accepting the invitation.

Kevin Harvick should find the going pretty
easy in the IROC Series. He’ll be cutting back quite a bit from what he ran this
year. Did someone mention that the IROC took too much time? Too much time
compared to running in two different series and winning the championship in one
and rookie of the year in the other?

NASCARDOTCOM: NASCAR.com is touting its annual facelift. Yes,
there are cosmetic problems with the site, but hopefully the
folks at Turner will work on a lot of the problems under the hood.

For example, did you know that the practice and race results
were entered by hand? ESPN, when they didn’t get the contract to
do upkeep on the site, took the technology with them that allowed
the web site to have those results almost immediately. Turner has
had a year to work on this and there’s no reason for them to
continue entering data by hand.

A RAD IDEA: Over the last couple of
years, cars in the RAD alliance have dominated restrictor plate races. That
might be coming to an end, since the RAD guys didn’t extend their contract with
the aerodynamic firm they were using.

You may need to get used to Bobby Labonte
and Tony Stewart winning those plate races, since Joe Gibbs Racing signed on
with the aero company that helped RAD.

GETTING OFF TRAC: Team Racing Auto
Circuit recently released some specs for the cars they’ll be running. 

• Riley & Scott will manufacture all
  the cars and will make them as close as possible. That’s a good thing.

• The cars will have air jacks. That’s a
  bad thing.

• The cars will use sealed engines (like
  the ASA does). That’s a good thing.

• They will also use a single lug nut in
  the center. That’s a bad thing.

Generally, I think the TRAC series is,
excuse the pun, on the right track. But if they want stock car fans to adopt
this series, then they need to get rid of the internal air jacks and the single
lug nut. Sure, that’ll give you lightning fast pit stops (they haven’t said
whether or not refueling will be done with cans or with a hose), but I don’t
think the fans will be able to identify with the cars as well as if they used
traditional stock car pit paraphernalia.

24 HOURS: What is it with all these
NASCAR guys all of a sudden getting rides in the 24 Hour race at Daytona? The
only reason I can think of is that it gives them some road course seat time. I
can’t imagine that the promoter is paying them appearance money… is he?

ANOTHER AWARD: MSNBC (once you get
past their disruptive ads) is running a poll on the 2001 person of the year. One
category is sports. Barry Bonds, Dale Earnhardt, Lance Armstrong, Michael
Jordan, and Curt Schilling & Randy Johnson are the nominees.

Who, MSNBC asks, "mattered most this
year"? Barry Bonds broke baseball’s home run record. Dale Earnhardt’s death
"lead (sic) to improved racing safety rules." Lance Armstrong,
recovering from cancer, won his third Tour de France. Michael Jordan unretired
again. Schilling and Johnson led Arizona’s baseball team to a World Series Win.

So, who among those is most deserving of
the title? Despite the fact that Dale Earnhardt is leading the poll with 31%
(I’m pretty sure the Bill Elliott fans aren’t stuffing that ballot box),
Earnhardt doesn’t deserve the recognition. He didn’t "do" anything.
Barry Bonds overcame a dismal start to the season to get the home run title. So
his "never give up" attitude should be a consideration. The same is
true for Jordan, Schilling, and Johnson. They all had a "never give
up" attitude.

But Lance Armstrong is the one who truly
deserves the title. Not only did he have a "never give up" attitude,
but he had a "never say die" attitude as well. To recover from cancer
and then go on to win one of the most physical of races a third time is an
incredible feat. Nothing the others on the list did even comes close to it.

It’s a shame that Earnhardt is winning,
simply because he died. What a sad way to be remembered by "fans."

TROUBLE IN PARADISE: Wonder what
explains the defection of the pit crew from the #9 team?