Non-Gambling RacinDeals

CRAPS, NOT AGAIN: It’s Saturday night as I write this paragraph, and I’m already sick of
the Las Vegas puns. It was one after another today during the Busch race and
happy hour, and after about the 5,000th reference to gambling, it gets a little
old.

NOT SO GRAND PRIX: No, I’m not talking about Joe Gibbs’ team switching to
Chevrolet. I’m talking about the 20th Grand Prix of Miami ran
Saturday at Homestead. Last year’s champion Sam Hornish spanked the field in his
win in the 200 lap event. The only other two cars on the lead lap were Roger
Penske’s two cars, and the only reason they were on the lead lap is that they
didn’t pit under one of the last cautions and were able to come around when the
pace car picked up Hornish.

The race was about as exciting as any could be with one car picking up 1 or 2
seconds a lap on all the others. The IRL has proved that they can put on a good
show, but tracks like Homestead apparently don’t lend themselves to those good
shows. I’m glad I didn’t pay to see the race. The Las Vegas Busch race was
almost as boring.

SPEAKING OF GRANDS PRIX: Have those Formula One drivers ever started a
race without wrecking? Looked to me like the pole sitter nearly got decapitated
at the start of the Australian Grand Prix the other day. I thought these were
the "best" race car drivers in the world?

RACING, NOT RACE: Kudos to the IRL for not trying to gain some cheap
race-based PR on rookie driver George Mack.

DAD, CAN I BORROW THE CAR?: It struck me today that if I were Terry Labonte,
I’d be concerned about having a ride next year with the Hendrick organization.
It’s pretty clear that Ricky Hendrick is being groomed to move up to Winston
Cup, and with Hendrick already having four cars, I don’t see him adding a fifth.
So, if you’ve got a young, mostly talented driver waiting in the wings, which
car are you going to put him in if you’re the owner, and he’s your son?

Of course, that’d mean that the 5 team would actually start getting equal
equipment.

VEGAS 400: This was one of the better Las Vegas races. Seems like the
majority of the lead changes occurred on the track as opposed to under yellow or
during pit cycles.

ANTHEM RATING: Bruton Smith had a member of the military sing the anthem on
both days, before the Busch race and before the Winston Cup race. Both
performances were better than any so far this year. I’d give both a rating of 8
out of 10.

LEAD LAP CARS: I remember a few years ago trying to explain to Larry Woody
how cars can end up on the tail end of the lead lap on a restart. We ended up
getting the flagman from Nashville Speedway to tell him that it really can
happen. But I think he was still mystified about it.

After seeing it happen a few times last year and several times during the Las
Vega race, I’m no longer so sure about it. Here’s the scenario: say you have 25
cars on the lead lap, with the last 5 in front of the leader on a restart. So
that means that cars in the 26th through 30th position are on the inside, all in
front of the leader. So technically they’re on the lead lap, because when the
race goes back to green, they’re in front of the leader, and if a yellow comes
right back out, they can get their lap back.

I think what NASCAR needs to do is to enact a rule like the IRL has (which is
how the Penske cars got their laps back in the IRL race). Any cars at the tail
end of the lead lap go on around before the green. That way you only have lapped
cars on the inside and there are no phantom "tail end" lead lap cars.

SPEEDING: Well, they tried to make a big deal out of Sterling Marlin
"speeding" on pit road during the broadcast, but I don’t think their explanation
of NASCAR’s decision to not penalize him made any sense. I think Darrell Waltrip
had it right in that he had, in effect, served his penalty when he got spun out,
which cost him time getting to the pits.

Hmm, I wonder why the official who was supposed to enforce the speeding
penalty against Marlin didn’t hear it? Could his helmet have been a factor?

THOSE FOUR FAMOUS WORDS: I don’t have a clue about what to say about the
little girl who (I guess) gave the command to start engines. Perhaps they should
write out the sentence to make sure it’s said correctly (i.e. gentlemen or
drivers).

BEST BALLOT  STUFFING AWARD: Looks like they’ve already started the PR for the
"most popular" driver award. The award has a sponsor this year (too
bad they’re spending money on that when they could have put the money into
sponsoring a car). Anyway, they’re encouraging motorsports-related web sites to
add a link to the voting site. Sorry, I don’t think so. Not on RacinDeals.com.
This award makes the presidential voting in Florida look normal.

DODGING A GOOD RUN: Jeremy Mayfield had a pretty good run in what should
have been Casey Atwood’s car. But Casey got the shaft in the off season and got
shuffled to the #7 team, and they had another lousy finish. Hopefully Casey
won’t damage his hopes for a good ride this year and can find a decent team next
year, away from the Evernham bunch.

THE ENGINE NON-STORY: Last week it was all over the racing media about how
the one-engine rule affected the race at Rockingham (even though it didn’t).
Well, at Las Vegas, there were no engine failures that I’m aware of. Looks like
it worked to me.

WHAT’S AN ENGINE, ANYWAY?: Speaking of the one-engine rule, I guess I was
like everyone else: when they said "engine" I assumed that it was that
big thing they put in the front of the car that makes it go. But apparently in
NASCAR-speak, an engine is just the block. Do what you want to it, but once you
put the block in the car, you can’t take it out. Seems to me that if they can
literally tear down and rebuild an engine while it’s in the car, that defeats
the whole purpose of the rule. So what’d it take, two races before the teams
figured out a way around it?