The World Series of Racing The Rain
Apparently Jo Dee Messina and Michael Nesmith didn’t get the hint.
A few columns back I noted how rain and racing don’t mix, with
tongue-planted-firmly-in-cheek growls about rain-themed country-pop songs.
Obviously someone was still playing Jo Dee Messina’s "Bring On The
rain" and Michael Nesmith’s "The Rainmaker," for racing and rain
didn’t mix again at the end of October.
The Grand National cars raced the rain, and won, though there were several
crashes in the Dixie 312, and fuel mileage reared its ugly head as Jamie
McMurray stroked his way to his first Grand National win. Mileage thus bit
Michael Waltrip and Joe Nemechek when it looked like the win was theirs.
And then came the real delight – The Rainmaker came to Kansas in the middle
of a dusty day, but first he stopped at the Dixie 500 at Atlanta for some more
fun on Sunday. Two and one-half hours later, the race picked up from 26 laps and
Tony Stewart looked unbeatable. Kurt Busch, though, must have gotten sponsorship
from Pillsbury dough, because he is on a roll – complete with butter.
Busch’s win was Ford’s first at Atlanta since 1997, first ever on Atlanta’s
quad-oval shape, and only its second at Atlanta since GM introduced its W-body
in 1995 – Ford is now 2-for-16 at Atlanta since 1995, and for good measure they
put five cars in the top ten. It also clinched the manufacturer’s title for
Ford, though that was more a formality than anything – you expected Ford to LOSE
the manufacturer title?
Tony Stewart didn’t win the race, but he sure tried, a rarity in the
ludicrous points-mongering world of modern NASCAR. "They can’t say we were
points racing today," he noted afterward – on that score he’s right.
SMI, though, will have to fork over $11 off next year’s ticket prices – the
price for missing by 11 the 30-lead-change promise for Atlanta’s autumn
500-miler. At times, though, it looked like it would reach the magic number, so
the 30-pick can be re-racked and tried again come March.
While rain hit Atlanta, it also wiped out a crucial day in the biggest short
track show of the Northeast racing season – the World Series of Auto Racing at
Thompson Speedway. The schedule called for twelve features plus Featherlite
Modified qualifying and four SK-class heats in two days. With Saturday rains,
all of this wound up blasting along in one day.
The big show was the finale of the Featherlite Modified Series season. Mike
Stefanik had a lousy day, colliding with Eddie Flemke and damaging the car
enough that he had to limp home ninth, a lap down to John Blewitt III. It was
more than enough to win an unprecedented sixth series title, and second for Art
Barry, and the win was surprisingly the only one of the year for Blewitt and
Curt Chase’s #77 Pontiac.
It was a minor miracle for Stefanik, seventh in points before September. It
was also something of a swan song for Stefanik, as he will leave Art Barry’s
team and run the Grand National North series in 2003, where he already has two
titles. His sixth Tour title "is a nice way to leave the series,"
Stefanik said.
Mighty Mike’s new team reunites him with an old sponsor – Steve Griswold,
owner of Brad Leighton’s #55, will expand to two teams in 2003 and Stefanik
reunites with Burnham Boilers as sponsor, his sponsor to his 1997-8 Busch North
and Mod Tour titles. Griswold had Stefanik test one of his cars at Nazareth and
the combination fit right away. The car will be #10. It is uncertain if Stefanik
will be able to run any Modified races; it would certainly help the Tour if he
would.
The day for the Mod Tour began with six yellows in the one-hour
pre-qualifying practice – the most spectacular was Nevin George’s impact that
wiped out his right front corner. Despite that, Nevin George rallied from that
and finished fifth, one of only six cars on the lead lap. "I think we had a
great season," Nevin said. "This was our first year with Ralph Solheim,
everyone meshed and everything came together. We won in our fourth race
together, and right from the get-go we really had good things happen."
George finished eighth in points, while Jerry Marquis started on the race
pole, finished sixth, and held down fourth in the points for Boehler Racing.
"We needed a caution to make a race of it," he said. "Everyone
got strung out and that’s the way it stayed. It’s been a roller-coaster ride, we
got a win out of the season, it’s been a hell of a season, so I’m happy."
Dave Berghman could only finish 11th in Mod Tour points and 13th in the 125.
"We were loose at the start and neer got a chance to adjust on it," he
said. "It’s been a good year for the most part. We hit a little lull there,
but all in all it wasn’t too bad." The day, though, got better, as Berghman
entered Thompson’s Pro Stock race, survived three wrecks on three attempts to
start, and ran down Todd Owen with two to go.
Late Models were similarly rough; among the wrecks involved Stafford Late
Modeler Charles Lewandowski, who practically beat up what was left of his rear
spoiler before throwing his helmet into the cockpit, clearly upset at getting
blasted into the wall. John Ekdall was the hard-luck story, challenging for the
lead but falling out of the top ten past halfway. Woody Pitkat ran away to the
win over Jeff Zuidema.
The Sunoco-sponsored SK-class Modifieds had some of the wildest fireworks,
and given the night sky fireworks was the aptest description. The fireworks
started on Lap Four when Ted Christopher blew his engine in Three and Josh
Steeves punched the wall in Three head-on. Glen Griswold Jr. and Ricky Young
were involved in a backstretch melee before halfway and later Scott Estrella
hooked another car’s left-front and punched the backstretch wall. When it was
over Bo Gunning took the win over Eric Berndt.
The best race of the day was the Supermodifieds; the fight for the lead was
quite fierce for lap after lap. Lou Cicconi spun out of the lead, Dave McKnight
and Chris Perley broke, and Russ Wood emerged the race winner and season champ.
In all, 14 classes got in their races on a very long day and night. That they
all got in was quite an effort by Thompson and its competitors.
The pathetic nature of the SMI lawsuit against NASCAR showed with the
unusually venomous comments by NASCAR after SMI agreed, per requirement in a
derivative-action lawsuit, with the major points of the suit. NASCAR’s response
was cutting, asserting that SMI "doesn’t seek to better the sport but only
to enrich itself at the expense of the sport and its fans."
What is so cutting here is that one need remember the fate of North
Wilkesboro, closed thanks to SMI. One should also remember Bruton Smith’s
attempt to buy Rockingham with a clear intent to close it down, and his probe to
buy Pocono and close it down – can anyone remember a track purchased by Int’l
Speedway Corporation that lost its Winston Cup dates?
The there is the simple fact that no written promise by NASCAR for a Texas
date exists, and also keep in mind that no witness has ever come forward for
Bruton’s claim of a verbal agreement. The monopoly argument advanced by SMI only
works if one thinks ISC has always owned the tracks it does; when one considers
that Las Vegas, an SMI track, got a Winston Cup date even though ISC had no
involvement in its construction, that weakens the monopoly argument. When one
considers that only Daytona, Talladega, Watkins Glen, Kansas, and Chicagoland
got their Winston Cup dates after ISC helped build (or in The Glen’s case,
reopen) them, that weakens the monopoly argument more; all the other tracks
owned by ISC got their Cup dates when someone else owned them.
ISC is more trustworthy than SMI as far as racetrack ownership goes. SMI
closed North Wilkesboro; ISC kept tracks SMI wanted to close open.
So J.L. Maida is very upset over "The Imitator."1
There is an individual who has appeared at some Winston Cup tracks dressed
exactly as Dale Earnhardt and bears a striking resemblance to him. "It
leaves many wondering, how can someone be so disrespectful?"
It does? I’ve seen photos of the guy and doesn’t do anything to me. What it
really shows is how pathetic the whole Earnhardt fandom has gotten. The
"Imitator" looks like Earnhardt and some are upset that it
"degrades" the man.
But this can only be true by forgetting the real man. It’s difficult to take
offense at "degradation" of someone who spent decades earning
disrespect. The hagiographies do more disrespect than the "Imitator"
because they gloss over the real man’s manifest faults and reprehensible
on-track conduct.
"Earnhardt was enormously popular." The booing for years showed
popularity was a two-way street. Earnhardt never changed; what changed was that
newer stars emerged and people clung to what they knew best.
What the Imitator really shows is how some people, particular those who take
offense, are incapable of going on with their lives. J.L. Maida’s mawkish
rhetoric about how "someone truly special was taken away" makes me
want to join the Imitator, just to show how stupid and pathetic such sentiment
really is. Earnhardt wasn’t someone "special," and a great many of us
have gotten over his death like the sport got over the deaths of Davey Allison,
Glenn Roberts, Alan Kulwicki, Tiny Lund, and others.
To deify Earnhardt as J.L Maida does is far more degrading than anything the
Imitator has done, because Earnhardt was not more special than Allison, Kulwicki,
or the others. Certainly Alan Kulwicki was more special because he showed the
sport the right way – the way of the owner-driver, not the way of the
money-guys.
One area where old is better than new, though, is the direction of NASCAR.2
Writer Steve Nash notes how much different NASCAR is from 2001. "Pit
crew members without helmets? Drivers without head and neck restraints? Spotters
not required during practice sessions? Lax medical goings-on?"
NASCAR supposedly "finally upped the ante and stepped up to the
plate" in response to "media and fan pressures…." But the net
result is that the sport has gone in a direction is should not be going in –
away from toughness and into weakness.
Nash notes that NASCAR is "trying harder and harder to see what works
and how to change what doesn’t." He cites the smaller fuel-cell at
Talladega as an example of "not just keeping the same old restrictor-plate
nonsense," even though that experiment "failed horribly."
Actually it didn’t fail at all; it was the goal (breaking up the packs) that was
wrong to start with, and serves as the worst example of how the "new"
NASCAR is worse than the old. The old NASCAR would have told teams to shut up
and race, would have kept the roof spoiler, and would have seen far better
racing as a result.
The old NASCAR would have done this because that is the right thing to do.
The new NASCAR, in contrast, has "worked hard to see what works" but
has found that very little of the new works. Helmets for crew members was never
the answer to pit problems, but media pressure always ignored that. Spotters
realistically are not that necessary, but media pressure again ignores this
reality – many of these writers remember when teams didn’t use spotters at all,
and no particular problem resulted. In any event it all ignores the real problem
– drivers not looking past the nose of their cars.
Nash also notes how NASCAR went about the end of the Firecracker 400
"with their heads on intact. Remember when they went green at Talladega in
May 1993 with two to go?" Yes, and NASCAR should have done the exact same
at the Firecracker. The rules were not the problem at Talladega in 1993; the
problem was Dale Earnhardt (I’m sure that was "special," right J.L.
Maida?).
NASCAR has big problems, and contrary to Mr. Nash they don’t involve ending
the season at Homestead or add in Kansas and Chicagoland to the series. NASCAR’s
problems remain cars that are too fast, uncompetitive racing, boring points
showdowns, and drivers and teams who won’t shut up and race. It needs to address
these problems a lot sooner than anything else.