Boring RacinDeals

CALI-BORIN-YA: The "Taking a Nap" 500 Sunday was a snoozer.
I literally fell asleep watching the race, something I haven’t done in a long
time. The only racing excitement happened at the start and at the restarts after
the cautions. I don’t know how many lead changes they’re claiming happened, but
as usual, most of them happened during pit cycles and caution flags.

It’s not just me. Monte Dutton says
it better than I can. 

COMPETITION YELLOW: The ASA came to the conclusion a few years ago
that long green runs equals boring racing. Boring racing equals loss of fans.
Loss of fans equal no ASA.

So, they instituted a "competition caution" rule where they throw
the caution after a certain number of contiguous green-flag laps. I can’t
remember the formula; it’s something like a percentage of the race distance.

But the idea is that it prevents one car from stinking up the show. It’s
something that NASCAR needs to look at seriously. They made a big mistake when
they eliminated it from the Truck Series (look at the ratings and the quality of
the racing since they did). A few more races like the one we had Sunday and
people are going to start wondering if they don’t have something better to do,
like mow the yard.

THE ANTHEM RATING: I missed the first part of the race on TV,
including the singing of the National Anthem. I did hear it on the radio
however. If the girl who sung it was really 12, she sure sounded older. She did
a pretty good job too. The lyrics were right, and the melody was about 90%
right. I’d give her an 8.5 out of 10.

THE CHOSEN ONE: If you had any doubts about the pecking order in the
Hendrick organization before Sunday, Jimmie Johnson’s win should erase them. One
has to wonder why he got a car that had won a race when Terry Labonte and Jerry
Nadeau can’t seem to get anything but junk.

THE SAGA CONTINUES: Maybe Jeff Gordon wishes he’d kept the car he gave
to Johnson. His winless streak is now at 18. Will it ever end?

What bugs me about all this is that when other drivers have had
"winless" streaks, the print and electronic media don’t make a big
deal out of it. Dale Earnhardt had to go a whole season before people started
asking if his streak would end. Mark Martin did too (and is in a bigger slump
than Gordon right now) if memory serves.

Rusty Wallace’s fans aren’t getting a countdown on his winless streak, which
I guess is at 36 races now. Sure, they mentioned on TV Sunday that he hadn’t won
since California last year, but there was not the hand wringing associated with
Gordon’s streak.

I just don’t get it.

ANOTHER SATURDAY NIGHT: NASCAR continues to show the weekly racers
what it thinks of them by running another race on a Saturday night. They know
full well that there are a lot of tracks that they themselves sanction that run
a weekly show on Saturday night. Yet we still see Richmond and Bristol continue
to cost those tracks in attendance.

Here’s a challenge: learn how to set your VCR, tape the race, and go to a
local track this Saturday. Then watch the race Sunday when you normally would.
And as a bonus, you’ll get to fast forward through all the commercials.

STUPID NASCAR FANS: No, I don’t think NASCAR fans are stupid. But
NASCAR does. They continue to insult our intelligence and offend our sensibilities
with those "How Bad Have You Got It" commercials. The latest one with
the yellow flag is just offensive.

A TALE OF TWO DRIVERS: Casey Atwood raced three or so years at
Fairgrounds Speedway at Nashville. During that time, he was Rookie of the Year
and captured three wins. He also got a shot at a Busch ride where he grabbed the
pole and finished second in the race. That grabbed the attention of some folks
in NASCAR, and led directly to his Busch ride with Brewco Motorsports. He won a
couple of Busch races, and kept attracting attention with his driving talent.
The attention he attracted was that of Rick Hendrick and Ray Evernham. Both
wanted the young driver for their teams, but Evernham won out, based on his
track record with Jeff Gordon. Last year, Atwood ran in the Cup Series, but this
year was demoted to a third-rate car "co-owned" by Evernham. The
reasoning behind his demotion? Atwood’s lack of "charisma". He’s
naturally a shy person, and is somewhat uncomfortable in front of people. But
there’s no doubt he’s got the talent, and given decent equipment, I think he can
get the job done.

Now take Deborah Renshaw. Who? She’s currently in her second season at
Fairgrounds Speedway at Nashville. She’s a couple of years older than Atwood and
has a degree in automotive marketing. And up until Saturday night, she was
leading in the Late Model points at the track. She’s gotten a LOT of press
locally, mostly because as a female driver, she’s a novelty, as is any female
driver at this point in history. Yes, she has charisma, she’s good looking, and
is well spoken. She’d make a good spokeswoman for any sponsor.

So, what’s my point? Well, I think Casey and Deborah are opposites, in other
ways than the obvious. It was evident that Casey had natural talent, while
Deborah is still developing hers. Deborah is outgoing, while Casey is shy.

The moral of this story? Sad to say, that if Casey and Deborah were going
head to head in competition for a Winston Cup ride, I’d be willing to bet that
Deborah would win out. This isn’t a reflection on Deborah or Casey as much as it
is on the state of the sport. Look at how many mediocre drivers are running in
Winston Cup simply because they perform for the sponsors off the track. Hut
Stricklin is a good example. He has a relationship with the sponsor that’s so
good he was able to take the sponsor to another team.

Speaking of Deborah and Casey going head to head, they’ll get just that
chance on May 11 when Casey will return to race in the Late Model feature that
night.

RACING IN NASCAR: It always amuses me when I hear someone say
something to the effect that they want to see someone in the Busch series move
up to "NASCAR" racing. Or here in Middle Tennessee, people are asking
if NASCAR will come back to the area at the superspeedway in Gladeville.

But people who should know better make the same mistake. Take this headline
for example: "Johnson
gets 1st win in 13th NASCAR start". Uh, someone needs to tell the
headline writer that Johnson was racing in "NASCAR" last year in the
Busch Series… and I think he got a win last year too.

Along those same lines, I cringe whenever I hear someone say "he drives
a NASCAR." There’s no such thing as a "NASCAR." There’s an
organization which has the initials N.A.S.C.A.R. which we pronounce nazkar but
there’s no vehicle with that name.

AN APOLOGY: Well, like a lot of other people, the Klez virus/Trojan/worm
got me. I was retrieving email Saturday night on the laptop at the track and inadvertently
opened up an infected message. Stupid me. When I got home later that night, I
cleaned the virus and then checked email on my main computer, where I had a ton
of undeliverable replies from messages the worm had sent out, in addition to messages telling me the attachment was
stripped because of the virus. 

So, if you got a message from me that had the virus in it, I apologize. I’ve
updated the software on the laptop and I guess I’m ok until the next moron who
has nothing better to do decides to send out another virus.