Michigan RacinDeals

PLAYING HURT: I guess it’s time to let the cat out of the bag. I’m really a professional golfer, but I’ve been hurt and unable to play for the last few years. In reality, Tiger Woods is my replacement, and all the wins he’s getting are in reality mine. I let him keep some of the money though.

That sounds stupid, doesn’t it? Of course I’m not a professional golfer, and Tiger Woods is playing for himself.

Just as a race car driver should. NASCAR awards driver points to the driver who starts the race. In the past, we’ve seen drivers who have been hurt start the race but get out at the first caution and let a relief driver take over. Some of those drivers have even won races.

If a driver is too hurt to start the race, then he shouldn’t start the race. Look at Joe Nemechek for example. I’m sure that he wishes he were at least starting the races so he could get the points, but he’s not. He and his doctors decided that it was too risky for him (and by extension the other drivers). Will it cost him points? Of course.

So the next question is, should Dale Jarrett be racing? If his doctor has cleared him to drive, then it’s up to him to make that decision…. even though his driving may be inhibiting his healing.

If he were to have a substitute driver, who accumulated points for Jarrett while Jarrett was at home watching the race, and then Jarrett went on to win the championship, that would be a false accomplishment at best.

LIZ?: I guess I’m just naturally skeptical, but what in the world is TNT doing hiring Liz Allison for TV reporting? Sure, she’s supposed to be doing behind the scene stuff on human-interest topics, but I’m still not sure. To me, it sounds like TNT has answered a question no one asked.

I hope I’m pleasantly surprised by what she does, but with no TV experience, she’s gonna have a tough job. I just don’t know what she can bring to the table.

SSDD: I only got to watch the first few laps of the race Sunday (enough to see the K-Mart cars cause three cautions). I listened to the rest of the race on the radio in the car as I made the three-hour trip to East Tennessee. Good thing I had the window open to keep me awake.

Yeah, I heard where there were a couple of drivers who had a shot at winning the race other than Jeff Gordon. And if I were a conspiracy fanatic, I’d swear that NASCAR was influencing things to make him win (but I’m not, and I don’t believe they are). But it sure looks like the #24 team has regained its dominating ways from the Ray Evernham days.

Good for them. Bad for the fans.

Which brings me to my next point…

WHY THEY BOO: Some people are just shocked and mystified as to why Jeff Gordon gets booed. “Why are we not celebrating this team’s success instead of putting it down?” the mainstream NASCAR media asks.

Here’s why: If you’re a Jeff Gordon fan, his winning race after race is probably great. But for the fans of the other 42 teams, it’s frustrating. Why even bother rooting for another driver if Gordon is going to lead 90% of the laps and get the win? It’d be one thing if they started out with a car that was junk, worked throughout the race, and ended up squeaking by with a win on the last lap. That would be exciting to watch no matter who won.

But where’s the fun in watching the same car win week after week? I taped Sunday’s race, but I’m not likely to watch it because I know how the story ends. How soon will it get to the point where I don’t watch a race as it’s broadcast because I know that no one can beat the #24?

Richard Petty says that NASCAR needs a dominating driver, one for all the other teams to try to shoot down. It’s like professional wrestling, where the bad guy champion never loses. Week after week, good guys and bad guys alike just can’t seem to beat the guy. Sure, it’s interesting for a while. Can this guy beat him, can that guy beat him, etc. But after a while, it gets predictable and boring.

The non-dominant teams might need a dominant driver to measure themselves against, but the fans sure don’t. And I don’t think the sport needs it either. How many of these new fans who have come on board this year will stick with it if they see the same two or three guys winning week in and week out?

RATINGS: NASCAR is touting the fact that the last 15 minutes of the Michigan race had 6.3 million viewers, up from the race average of 4.9 million viewers. What they don’t highlight is that if the race averaged 4.9 million viewers, with one 15-minute segment having 6.3 million, then another 15-minute segment must have had around 3.5 million viewers.

It’d be interesting to see the quarter hour ratings breakdown as the race progressed, and compare that to what was happening on the track. Maybe those people who tuned in at the top of the hour for the race’s last 15 minutes thought “Married With Children” or “Son of the Beach” was coming on, and were tuning in for that.

ONE RACE, ONE ENGINE: Looks like NASCAR is thinking about possibly, almost, nearly, just about implementing a rules change that would make Winston Cup teams use only one engine per race weekend, just like the Busch guys do now. While it’s something that’s been needed for a while (how many races did Dave Marcis make last year using an engine that Dale Earnhardt had already qualified with?), there’s already talk of teams getting another dyno to use to make sure the engines last.

So what should in theory be an equalizer for the underfunded teams will now force them to play catch up with the high dollar teams again, because if they don’t get the same dyno they’ll be at a disadvantage.

What’s the answer? NASCAR could prohibit teams from building their own engines. Why not let Ford build Ford engines, Chevy build Chevy engines, and Dodge build Dodge engines? Require the teams to get their engines from the manufacturer, and don’t let them mess with it. The ASA is doing that now, only they’ve got just one engine maker. The teams get a sealed engine and use it for several races. They send it back to the manufacturer for refreshing, and use it again. Engine costs are now an item that a team can actually budget for.

THE (RACE) NEWS, WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS: So is Brian Williams still going to be the “host” for NBC’s race coverage?

MARKETING HYPE: NASCAR says that when they add races to the Winston Cup schedule, they want to go to an area of the country that’s not already saturated with races. The thinking is that they want to go to other areas where the sponsors are.

Seems to me, what with this being the 21st century and all, it doesn’t matter where the races are held, from a marketing standpoint. If a company has enough money to sponsor a race, then they’re likely going to have enough money to fly people to the race and put them up. Plus, with all the races on TV, what does it matter if the race has 150,000 in attendance or 150?

The more popular Winston Cup racing gets, the less viable this excuse is.

FOUR-WHEELERS: I see where there’s now going to be an “official” ATV for NASCAR. I’m sure that’ll mean that they’ll be seen more and more in the pits, driven by crew members or whoever.

I sure hope NASCAR controls them better than the ASA does. A few weeks ago at the ASA race in Nashville, there were ATV’s all over the place, and the drivers of those contraptions assumed that they always had the right of way. I’m surprised no one was run over by one of those things.

ASA needs to curb the use of those things in the pits in a big way.

THE ANTHEM, REVISITED: I don’t know who the lady was who sung the anthem Sunday, but she did a pretty good job. But what’s with the Canadian anthem? Did Michigan secede?

I know it’s customary to play the Canadian anthem in baseball and hockey when there’s a Canadian team playing a US team on US soil. But as far as I know, there weren’t any Canadian drivers in the field Sunday. So it’s baffling to me as to why it needed to be sung.

DECENCY TWO, BOTTOM FEEDERS ZERO: A Florida court ruled that the new law that requires a judge to ok the release of autopsy photos was ruled constitutional this week. Also, a court has ruled that there’s no legitimate reason for some school (well, I guess technically it’s a college, but you see what they’re teaching in college these days) paper and a web site (I assume it’s the same site that had other autopsy photos up) to have the pictures.

From day one, the school paper and the web site have only been interested in publicity. (Topic for investigation: does this school newspaper get money from the state?) I wonder what the parents of kids going to this school think about this? Is that what they want their kids doing, spending time in court so they can get autopsy photos to publish? At least the Orlando paper had a marginally legitimate reason for wanting the pictures.

Of course, they’re talking about appealing. I sure hope this doesn’t go to the Florida Supreme Court though. There’s no telling what those “justices” will do. They’ll probably order all autopsy photos printed in the local papers.