More Daytona Postscript and a Chicagoland Prelim
NASCAR’s "fuzzy" red-flag rules are still being discussed after the
Firecracker 400 and the predictable calls for more clearly-defined rules are
going out. The obvious proposal is a green-white-checker rule common to short
tracks and the Truck Series. It would certainly work at all the tracks. The
caveat is always added that it would not work at Daytona and Talladega
because "it would almost certainly lead to a big wreck."
There they go again, blaming the rules for drivers’ own boneheadedness. For
years the drivers kept insisting that the rules are the problem. You see, it’s
never the drivers’ fault, it’s never them, it’s ALWAYS something else.
And the drivers are whining that the fans wanted to see wrecks – said Robby
Gordon, "Besides, they probably got to see what they wanted to see, and
that’s a lot of wrecks." Jeremy Mayfield said, "I don’t know what we
have to do (to please fans at Daytona and Talladega)."
First off, the fans do not particularly want to see wrecks. Fans want to see
RACING – side by side competition, passing and repassing, dicing for the win.
Ending the Firecracker under yellow cheated the fans (and the other drivers) out
of a shot at the win.
There was commentary after last October’s Alabama 500 about how fans were
supposedly cheering the melee on the last lap, but such was self-deceiving
nonsense. The cheering was for Dale Junior’s win. Tony Stewart was also the
magnet of fan reaction for his slam at Talladega fans, and when he was knocked
out in the crash in April, that is what fans were cheering, not the fact of a
big crash. There was also fan cheering when Jeff Gordon got T-boned at Talladega
in 1999 – the fans cheered the fact he was eliminated from the race.
Jeremy, what the drivers have to do to please the fans is what I noted last
time out – stop blaming the rules for boneheadedness in driver ranks; stop
complaining about how "miserable" or stressful restrictor plate racing
is; stop lobbying for changes that castrate the ability of the cars to run open
throttle; admit you were wrong about the roof spoiler and lobby to get it back
on the cars; and race for the win for the entirety of the race.
The other gripefest at Daytona was the apparently slow reaction of the safety
crew, and among the whines is Russell
Schmidt’s piece, with a silly dire warning that "had (Brett) Bodine
still been in the car, we’d be talking about the latest fatality." No we
wouldn’t, Russ – the safety crew got to the car in expedient time, saw Brett was
okay and that the initial flash fire extinguished itself, and went to cars that
were in more immediate need. Schmidt approvingly cites the rescue teams in CART,
IRL, and NHRA, but none of those groups would have handled that situation any
better.
This issue was clearly a red herring even before Jim
Hunter stood up for Daytona’s safety crew. Hunter should not have had to
belabor what was obvious – that the crews went to the cars that were most
damaged first after seeing that Dale Jarrett and Brett Bodine and others were
clearly okay. Jarrett’s "the hell with them" remark about the ambulance
was sheer petulance on his part – the hell with you, Jarrett; just because you
suck as a racecar driver doesn’t give you the right to act like a spoiled child.
Amid everything there appears be a growing rift between drivers and fans.
Reactions to the rowdiness of the fans at Daytona suggests that at least some of
these drivers are no longer up to racing. Granted throwing stuff on the
racetrack is outlandish, but fans do have a right to be angry at drivers, who
seem increasingly exasperated with the fans.
We’ve seen more and more lectures to fans from drivers like Jarrett and Jeff
Burton about how the fans should accept inferior competition rather than
three-abreast lap-after-lap combat for the lead. It shows – A, drivers like
those two are more concerned with points and the paycheck, not with winning –
and B, they’ve been coddled for so long that seeing angry reaction from fans,
however excessive, comes off like a complete surprise.
It shouldn’t be. Again, Richard Childress had it right after the greatest
race in NASCAR history, the 2000 Winston 500: "The race fans got the race
they deserve." Between their self-important lobbying against the roof
spoiler and so forth, their constant refusal to accept fault for boneheadedness
in their ranks – contrast Dale Jarrett and other Winston Cup drivers’ blame for
crashes on anything except themselves to Eddie Cheever’s famous tirade after the
June 2001 IRL Texas 500; Cheever took other drivers to task for the way they
raced, in close quarters hardly dissimilar to Daytona – their arrogant lectures
to fans to accept inferior competition over real racing, and their own excessive
concern for points and the paycheck, more than a few Winston Cup drivers deserve
to be booed and deserve to themselves be lectured about what racing is all
about, something they have apparently forgotten.
Yet it would be wrong to assign all blame for the sport’s present competitive
quandary on the drivers. Daytona again showed that the sport can’t afford
aero-clean racecars; aero anchors are necessary. It should not be necessary to
again point out that when they ran the roof spoiler blocking was drastically cut
down and passing was far easier and more prolific.
With Daytona done the sport moves on to Chicagoland, and the prospect is for
a dismal weekend with little passing and some bone-jarring crashes to be
expected – with impacts likely to be harder there than at Daytona. The common
running target of blame is that the cars supposedly have "too much" down force,
generating some 1,300 pounds versus the 700 of around 1995. A by-product has
been the hardening of Goodyear tires.
John Darby has expressed desire for a lower down force car, but this plan is
dependent on softer Goodyear tires, and Goodyear does not want to go back to
softer tires given that its new generation hard tires are working well enough
that blistering and wear are non-issues.
The complaint by some crew chiefs is that these hard tires allow drivers to
run them wide open instead of managing them. Jimmy
Makar for one claims, "inside Goodyear there are a lot of guys who
favor…… getting back to a tire that gives up a little bit, that is a little
softer, that drivers can ‘hurt’ (and abuse and thus) they start going
backwards…. so that the guy who takes care of his tires is more in the
game."
First off, saving your tires may be smart, but it is not racing – it is just
driving around, waiting instead of making things happen. Second, does Makar make
no connection between softer tires that wear quicker, and team tire bills? (Last
time I checked, JGR got their tires free of charge, so perhaps Makar hasn’t made
that connection.) What we’ve seen with Goodyear’s hard tires is that teams have
less need to change tires, and we’ve seen numerous occasions where teams could
skip tire changes and wound up finishing well. So with less need to change
tires, tire bills can only be helped – whether it is sufficiently is likely an altogether
different story.
Remember Tiregate at NHIS in 1998? Those tires were substantially softer
then; today, Goodyear’s hard tires are such that skipping a final tire change
isn’t as big a deal anymore. While there is need for some changes to Goodyear’s
tires – such as higher stagger and a widening of the tread so the tires better
help the car turn and teams can race harder on them in the corners longer – the
hardness is no liability.
That the tires don’t wear and cars are running almost the same speeds at the
end of a run as at the beginning is not why side-by-side racing has disappeared.
The reasons are the elimination of the draft – Makar says that with increased down force
the cars have also increased drag; this, though, is exceedingly difficult to
believe given how little air is displaced by the cars – the excessive tightness
of the cars, and the lack of ability to lean hard on tires through the corners.
After Chicagoland the NASCAR stars invade New Hampshire, and after Cup
qualifying the Modifeds will race; they usually change the lead 20 times in 100
laps, and the reasons why they can lie in their use of restrictor plates; the
enormity of the hole punched in the air due to high-drag aero; the far superior
grip due to their own down force and the width of their tires; that their tires
(for the record, Hoosier bias-plies), due to width and stagger, allow the
drivers to race hard on them through the corners. In the Mods the bigger NASCAR
divisions have the answers they can apply to vastly improve their own
competitive juices.
Rumors, rumors – first it is Bobby Hamilton penciled in for Petty
Enterprises, now Ken Schrader has supposedly been penciled in. Hamilton, though,
is the better choice – he’s won in the last six seasons, he’s familiar with the
team, and he’s worked with their aero engineer Richard Buck.
More rumors – Ricky Rudd has supposedly been talking with Jerry Jones. Why
would Rudd take a chance like that toward the end of his career?
There’s been a lot of talk about how Jeff Gordon has gone 25 races without a
win and that it is his longest stretch without a win.
It is not. He went the 1992 Dixie 500 until the 1994 World 600 before winning
– a span of 41 races before his first win came, in his 42nd start.
Whether it is 25 or 41, this winless streak doesn’t compare to much longer
winless streaks by drivers more deserving of sympathetic press than Gordon.
Finally, if you thought Shawna Robinson was going to last in the #49, think
again – Ron Hornaday will drive the car at Chicagoland and there is no realistic
prospect that Shawna will get it back for long, if at all. So just go away,
Shawna.