It’s Old, It’s In The Dominion, It’s The Last Short Tracker
The Old Dominion 500, the last short track race of the season. Considerable
focus has been placed here because of its position in the season and because of
the point battle. Given the chaos that is so frequent on short tracks one
certainly should be wary. But given the increasing spread of the point battle,
the chaos will have to be unusually high to really change the championship
outcome.
Brakes, torque, everything needed to manhandle flat ovals are vital here. It
may be more important than usual this time around, for smoothing efforts on
bumps in the turns reportedly caused some teams to cancel tests there for the
track being too slick. Not that it is necessarily all that different from the
past, so one can reasonably expect quite a few spins.
If recent precedent is worth anything, then the track’s Late Model 300 last
month should be a good indication of what to expect come Sunday. Former Grand
National North competitor Brandon Butler led 80 laps but never got past Lap 95
after getting his nose wiped off by "that idiot Randy Ratliff (who) was a
lap down and pulled up right in front of me."1
Their Turn Four scrum set the tone – Butch Hamlet led until his engine fried at
Lap 160; Denny Hamlin led but blew out his right front after five laps up front.
In all the yellow flew a race-record 19 times. When it was over Frank Deiny Jr.
beat out the event’s 2000 winner, Philip Morris.
The Cup guys aren’t the only ones with a point race to settle. The
Featherlite Modifieds hit the asphalt-concrete paperclip first and just 94
points split the top seven. Mike Stefanik’s strategic Stafford win was his
second in three races and leaves him eight points ahead of Jerry Marquis. Chuck
Hossfeld is third in points while Ted Christopher has the season’s highest win
total and is 81 points out. Still hurting from back to back heartbreak is Eddie
Flemke, 87 points out with Rick Fuller one point behind him and top rookie Todd
Szegedy another six points behind.
The Modifieds have come down to the wire from their Martinsville shows the
last two years. Stefanik blew up in this race last year and saw his point lead
shrink to less than 20. The others are no doubt hoping something like that
happens again.
Also on tap for the weekend is Grand National at Memphis. Greg Biffle’s point
lead is close to unreachable, so everyone else is largely racing for a win.
Randy Lajoie won this race last year and is winless so far. Considerable
attention is being paid that he has won a race a year since 1996, but he’ll
really have to hustle to keep that streak going. Mike McLaughlin wants a win
before leaving Joe Gibbs Racing, and Jamie McMurray needs to prove his Charlotte
Winston Cup win was not a fluke; he still has never won in Grand National or
Craftsman Trucks and while he is on good ground in Grand National points he has
only two top ten finishes since the Indy 200 in August.
The entry list for the Grand National race exceeds 50 cars, a rather striking
development given how the change to higher-compression engines hurt car counts
in the series for so long.
Finally, a rarity occurred in NASCAR after Charlotte – a driver was put on
probation for what was called "careless driving." Some fan sites have
chortled over Todd Bodine’s penalty, but the penalty is curious. Todd’s move at
Charlotte did cause a crash, but it was hardly an unusual move. While he got a
probationary penalty, no penalty was given to Jimmy Spencer at Indianapolis –
NASCAR said it was accidental because he got on the brakes after drilling Kurt
Busch – and if Todd’s move was careless, what does that call Jeff Gordon’s
blasts at Daytona and Rockingham?
Of course he is Jeff Gordon – so maybe that explains why.