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Does every F1 race start off
with a crash in the first turn? Or is it just the ones I happen to
catch while channel surfing? |
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NASCAR is playing a
semantics game with the results from Friday’s Craftsman Truck
Series race. If Greg Biffle has an illegal engine part, then he
should be disqualified and the win taken away, no questions asked.
The way he came through the pack at the end of the race pretty
much shows how much if an advantage he had. Instead, NASCAR
penalizes him 120 points and fines his crew chief $48,000, and he
keeps the win. |
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Dave Marcis committed an
unpardonable sin. He spoke ill of another driver’s sponsor. In a
sport where a driver sponsored by Miller wins a Bud Pole award,
you don’t demean a sponsor. But even worse, on the radio he wasn’t
exactly using family friendly language. NASCAR needs to tell Dave
that if he runs another race, he needs to watch is mouth. Perhaps
a fine (and a race suspension?) would get his attention. |
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And while I’m on the subject
of Marcis, there was absolutely no reason for him to stay out on
the track as long as he did when he came back out. There was no
way he could make up his deficit to Sterling Marlin. You wonder if
he was gunning for Little and just didn’t get a chance to get
revenge… |
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TNN needs to put Glenn
Jarrett in the booth and put Dick Berggren in the pits. |
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TNN also needs to realize
that when they’re doing the rundown, the interval between cars is
more important than the manufacturer, where they started, or their
lap speed. |
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I’ve been a fan of Jeff
Green since I found out he raced here at Nashville Speedway. But
I’m losing more and more respect for him. For him to say that he
didn’t touch Adam Petty is just not factual. He can stop claiming
that he doesn’t drive "that way" now. |
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In 1995, I read an article
in the local paper about a kid racing at Highland Rim Speedway, a
quarter mile paved oval just a few miles north of Nashville. He’d
started out in their 4-cylindar division, won a few raced, then
moved to their late model division and, even though he didn’t run
all the points races, finished in the top ten, and grabbed a
couple of wins in the process. The were calling him the next Jeff
Gordon then. They were wrong. He’s the first Casey Atwood. |
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Little Earnhardt showed a
lot of class in his interview after the race. He knew he messed up
and admitted it. (Jeff Green, you watching?) |
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Tony Stewart got a lot of
heat from the media a few months ago when he disappeared after a
bad day. "He needs to be accessible to us," they all
cried. Maybe Tony had the right idea. If the pit reporters and TV
cameras hadn’t been in Marcis’ and Green’s face, then they
wouldn’t have made fools of themselves. It’s almost like
"Bobby Hillin’s burning up in his car. Get a mike and a
camera over there and find out how he feels about that." They
need to give the drivers time to collect themselves, even let them
watch a replay of what happened, before getting in their face to
find out how they "feel." |
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So the IRL and CART talks
are off? Big deal. The IRL got me interested in open wheel racing
enough when it started so that I watched more of it than I
normally would have (both the IRL and CART races). It’s obvious
that CART really, really wants to be the F1 of America, whereas
the IRL tries to appeal to more mainstream America. Even if they
could have agreed on an engine combination, those two philosophies
are diametrically opposed. |
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If you can believe all the
stuff you read, it looks like Batman and Robin are splitting up.
Evernham looks to be leaving Hendrick altogether, leaving Gordon
in a situation he’s never been in before in the Cup Series: racing
without Ray. Is the whole greater than the sum of the parts?
Perhaps we’ll see. |
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It looks like the media has anointed
Tony Stewart to take Gordon’s place. Granted, he’s had an
incredible year, but talk of Stewart overtaking Jarrett for the
title is a little far fetched if you ask me. |
