TEXAS RACINDEALS

THE PHOTOS: Well, the low life in Florida who’s suing to get access to the Dale Earnhardt autopsy photos showed exactly what he wants to do with them. Apparently during all the noise caused by the Orlando paper, this human refuse took the opportunity to get the photos of Neil Bonnett and Rodney Orr. And of course he posted them on his sick web site.

You know, it’s a shame that hackers recently attacked a
Parkinson’s Disease web site. Why don’t they go after truly deserving sites like this guy’s?

MOVE THE WINSTON: There’s been talk of moving The Winston all star race. I think the fans would like it held somewhere different each year. Can you imagine a 50-lap shootout at Bristol? And why limit it to a current Winston Cup track? 

I still don’t see the need to have it on a weekend by itself. Put it on a Friday night or Saturday after the Busch race.

APRIL FOOLED: Turned on the TV on Sunday morning at 11:30 in time to catch all of Fox’s pre-race stuff and the start of the race at noon (central DAYLIGHT time). Only I forgot to set the clocks ahead last night, so I missed the first 34 laps. Doh!

CITGONE: So, Citgo apparently gets tired of being on a team that hasn’t won in a LONG time. If you’re spending a few bucks on sponsorship, you want to get the most bang for the buck. If you’re team’s not getting the job done, you might start looking at moving to a team that’s successful. That’s what Citgo did when they pretty much abandoned the Wood brothers and went to the Roush #99 car late last year.

Fast forward to seven races into the 2001 season. The car they moved to, the one with multiple wins in 2000, is sitting 35th in points and has zero top tens (and about that much TV time). The car they left has one win, and is 8th in points.

You think they’re having second thoughts now?

HELMETS FOR THE CREW: I could have sworn that I heard that Chip Ganassi was going to have his over the wall pit crew start wearing helmets. Some of Sterling Marlin’s crew were wearing helmets, but the tire carrier who got hit by Rusty Wallace’s car wasn’t.

Wonder if the crewmen who weren’t wearing a helmet will have second thoughts next week?

And if NASCAR wants to be quick about handing out fines, then why not start fining drivers who cause crewmen to be hit or who hit crewmen? I think in F1 if you hit a crew member you’re disqualified from the race. I’m not suggesting that they go that far, but certainly a lap or two penalty is warranted.

FORDS NEED HELP?: Wonder if Dale Jarrett still thinks the Fords need help from NASCAR? 

JUST WHY, NOT WHAT: I’ve given Fox high marks here in my RacinDeals columns in the past. Overall, I think they’ve done an outstanding job and NBC/TNT are going to have a tough act to follow. But…

There are three guys in the booth. Mike Joy is the play by play announcer (or I guess that should be lap by lap). Joy tells us what is happening. Darrell Waltrip and Larry McReynolds are the color announcers. They tell us why it’s happening. Or at least they should.

Way too much lately they’re
interrupting their color commentary to exclaim that someone is pitting or hitting the wall or making a pass. That’s Joy’s job. It was nice to let DW call the last few laps of the Daytona 500, but both he and McReynolds need to be reigned in a little bit I think. Sure, they’re getting used to each other, but how hard could it be to not talk?