Not Another Year-End Awards Column
Okay, so the makers of Not Another Teen
Movie will realize where I got the idea for the title of this piece. So yell at
me for using the Not Another title – it’s still a pretty appropriate usage. With
all the other Year-end awards columns, it was inevitable from this corner,
wasn’t it?
So here is the inevitable Another Year-end
Awards Column –
BEST RACE – By far the best race
was the Daytona 500. It had the most lead changes of any NASCAR race this year
and was almost the only race to live up to the hype about how any team can win.
It was certainly the kind of race the sport needs more of. A close second was
the Alabama 500 in October, another ferocious slugfest that, unlike the two
Daytonas, did not end in a team-order victory.
WORST RACE – A pitifully high
number of candidates, but the vote goes to the National 500 at Charlotte.
"The fans got cheated," was Tony Stewart’s summation of a race where
the top three were spread over ten seconds of racetrack. Inability to close up
and pass plagued the racing all year.
IN-BETWEEN RACE – There were also a
number of races with too few lead changes but nonetheless also quite a bit of
combat for the win. The vote goes to the Pocono 500; here Jeff Gordon, Dale
Jarrett, and Ricky Rudd engaged in some downright exciting combat for the lead
over the course of 500 miles amid three of the sport’s tightest and trickiest
turns.
HOAX OF THE YEAR – Remember the
Stock Car Reporters website? Second place goes to Shawna Robinson.
BEST TEAM – The RAD Alliance, three
independent teams working together and who all saw great success.
FINISH OF THE YEAR – #21 vs. #43 –
Elliott Sadler over John Andretti at the Southeastern 500 at Bristol. Second
place goes to Robby Gordon’s win over Jeff Gordon at the New Hampshire 300.
PSEUDO-CONTROVERSY OF THE YEAR –
The anger over sponsor airtime freeloading on TV – on CGIs of racecars FOX
airbrushed out sponsor logos that didn’t buy time on the Daytona Shootout
broadcast and got wrongly hammered for it – when NBC didn’t call Charlotte Motor
Speedway by its sponsor name, Rootin Tootin Bruton deployed some trucks near
NBC’s trucks threatening to tow them off the property – though it later came out
that the trucks Bruton sent were not up to a tow job – Cracker Barrel whined
that it didn’t get enough plugging on TV, even though it got plenty of such on
radio and in print.
FAILURE OF THE YEAR – Goodyear’s
hard compound tire. It was unraceable, unreliable, unwanted.
COMEBACK OF THE YEAR – Dodge. A
corollary goes to Sterling Marlin, Dodge’s point man in points.
LOBOTOMY OF THE YEAR – To Dale
Jarrett after his condescending lecture on CNN/SI about fans being patient and
knowing what it takes to make a good pass – Jarrett, there is no such thing as a
bad pass or too many of them.
LOSER OF THE YEAR – Jeff Gordon for
refusing to run IROC and for citing worthless "quality time" reasons
behind this. Second place goes to Michael Waltrip.
DALE WHO? – This award goes to
Kevin Harvick, for taking over the Goodwrench car, winning with it, and acting
as much like a first-class expletive deleted as the old Goodwrench driver.
WHICH LABONTE? – Terry proved his
days are numbered this year.
PROVED WHAT? – Dale Junior said his
Talladega win proved his Firecracker win was not the result of suspicious
circumstances – except that he led half the laps in 100 more miles at Talladega
than he did at Daytona – i.e. the Talladega win made the Daytona win more, not
less, suspicious.
BAD IDEA OF THE YEAR – The
Chicagoland and Kansas Speedways. The IRL took to Kansas and to a lesser extent
Chicagoland quite nicely; NASCAR couldn’t race to save itself at either track.
Second place goes to the stupid yellow line rule at the plate tracks, a rule
whose idiocy was shown by Tony Stewart.
OFF THE WAIVER WIRE – Robby Gordon
– from chump with Morgan-McClure to near-winner with Jim Smith to winner with
RCR.
OUCH AWARD – To Steve Park,
crunched badly in a bizarre Darlington accident and recovering for resumption of
racing in 2002. Steve has been banged up badly before in Winston Cup.
MOTOR MOUTH AWARD – Jaws Waltrip,
who said a lot all year – little of it sensible, though. Second place goes to
Jimmy Spencer, who is outspoken but usually drivelous at the same time.
IDIOT MOVE OF THE YEAR – Bobby
Labonte running Bobby Hamilton to the wall at Talladega in October.
SHAFT JOB OF THE YEAR – Andy
Houston, whose career was shot by less than stellar leadership by his team
owner.
PASS OF THE YEAR – Little noticed,
but at the New Hampshire 300 John Andretti passed three abreast up the middle.
MINI-TREND OF THE YEAR – Winston
Cup drivers are running road races at Winston Cup tracks with increasing
frequency. Kyle Petty and John Andretti won a supporting road race at Watkins
Glen during the NASCAR weekend in August; the Earnhardts scored a victory in the
Daytona 24. In this year’s Daytona 24 Kyle and John will be joined by Kevin
Harvick, Robby Gordon, Tony Stewart, Rick Carelli, and Wally Dallenbach; Junior
may also return.
WORST MOVE OF THE YEAR – The
Earnhardts deliberately not trying to pass Mikey Waltrip at the Daytona 500;
second place goes to Mikey deliberately not trying to pass Junior at the
Firecracker.
PHOBIA OF THE YEAR – The sport’s
safety overkill campaign. Too much effort was made on peripheral solutions while
core problems – i.e. race speeds and pit crowding brought on by pit-road closure
– went unchecked, and the sport as a whole forgot a cardinal rule of life – when
you worry about getting hurt, that is when you get hurt; when you worry about
crashing i.e. the so-called "big one", that is when you crash.
WHINE OF THE YEAR – That the
schedule has too many races. It manifestly has too few races.
BREATH OF FRESH AIR OF THE YEAR –
The Petty team. They never complained, they never made excuses, they just kept
digging.
THE REAL IRONMAN – Kevin Harvick,
running the full GN and Winston Cup schedules and being a season-long factor in
both.
GAS PAIN AWARD – Jerry Nadeau at
the Dixie 500.
MOST OF A BAD OPPORTUNITY – Mike
Wallace with the lame duck Penske #12 team; several excellent efforts couldn’t
save the team.
So much for 2001. Now it’s on to 2002, and
we should hope for a genuinely exciting season with a new record for different
winners and a return to the kind of racing the sport needs.