The Call – A Satire and an Analysis – And A Remembrance of Rick Lewis
With appropriate apologies to the Richmond
Times-Dispatch and writer Bob Lipper —
The following is a "transcript"
culled by FlyOnTheWall Surveillance Systems, using their state of the art Blue
Thunder helicopter. The transcript is of a conversation between William C.
France, Michael J. Helton, and Gary P. Nelson of NASCAR.
BF – Bill France
MH – Mike Helton
GN – Gary Nelson
BF – Okay, we’ve managed to pull off the
Atlanta and Firecracker fixes with Harvick and Dale Junior. Now we need to keep
it jazzed up.
MH – Indeed, we do, though we’d better lay
off the Call for awhile, because more and more people are getting a little
close.
BF – I agree with you there.
GN – I wouldn’t worry too much. This
Junior thing will blow over. WE need to get to work on the next ones. The 2002
Daytona 500 – that’s the 20th anniversary of Bobby Allison and Robert Yates’
finest win.
BF – So the #88 Yates car has to win that
one.
GN – Exactly. It would sure shut Jarrett
up about the roof spoilers.
MH – It sure would. But you’re not going
to have his rear bumper fall off like you did with Bobby, are you?
GN – Hell no. I did that back then because
the Gazaways pi$$ed me off in inspections. Bill, I’m still amazed Junior Johnson
doesn’t like you despite his car being The Company Car.
BF – Well, that’s Junior.
GN – But anyway, get that done, and we
need to get the #7 car winning again, because 2002 is the tenth anniversary of
Alan Kulwicki’s title.
BF – Yeah, you’re right. I almost forgot
about that.
GN – The attention that would come when
that #7 wins ten years after Alan’s title, man, it will be huge.
MH – We need to get Bill Elliott and Ricky
Rudd in there too next year – Bill and the #28 were in the thick of the 1992
season also.
GN – We’re working on it. But the big
enchilada is 2004.
BF – 2004. The 20th anniversary of Richard
Petty’s 200th win.
GN – Absolutely. Get the #43 to win the
Daytona 500 – it can’t be the Firecracker, because it would be too obvious. The
Andretti and Petty families together in Daytona’s victory circle.
BF – God, that’s GOT to happen.
MH – We need to make it look good – 49
lead changes this past Daytona 500 was awesome, and more than that and no one
will notice any kind of fix.
GN – I know. And also we need the #43, the
#44, and the #45 to win races that year as well to get some heat off a 43-only
fix – like Andretti win at Pocono, the Andretti family’s home track, and
Atlanta, Buckshot Jones’ home track.
MH – But we can’t forget the big picture
for 2004.
BF – You mean the tenth anniversary of
Earnhardt’s last title.
GN – Exactly. Harvick vs. Dale Junior for
the title with the bad cop of Tony Stewart in the thick of things. The attention
we’ll get will be even bigger than what we’ve got now.
BF – Man, it sure will be.
MH – What about the Labontes? 2004 will
also be the 20th of Terry’s first title.
GN – Well, I doubt we can get Terry
competitive again, but Bobby go for another title, that will also be big.
BF – Boy, at this rate we’d better have a
thousand lead changes in a season to keep everyone from suspecting anything.
MH – We sure need a lot of lead changes,
but we also need some periods of dominance, but it has to be like a seesaw –
Petty Enterprises wins three or four races, then Ganassi and Marlin explode
forward for several weeks, then Yates wins a few, then RCR, then DEI, Bill Davis
then wins everything for a few weeks, and so forth.
BF – Man, pulling all this off will be
real tough.
GN – I know, but we’ve done it before, so
we can do it again.
BF – I know. I can’t wait.
This little satire, however, deals with an
issue that has become all too real. The allegation that condoning a
preordained outcome by NASCAR has long been a staple of rumor, and in 1995
Autoweek magazine brought the issue to the open with a piece alleging race fixes
such as the 1984 Firecracker 400 (see The Firecracker – Closure, Robbery By
Rulebook, And A History Case Closed for analysis of that), Jimmy Spencer’s 1994
restrictor plate wins, and Jeff Gordon’s 1994 Brickyard 400 win.
With Dale Junior’s victory in the
Firecracker 400 the story of The Call has surfaced again. Johnny Benson and
Jimmy Spencer all but openly accused Junior of winning via sanctioning fiat, and
writer Robin Miller – who can usually be counted on to take a position that will
cause a ruckus – has made clear he believes there was a fix.
That NASCAR has the tightest rules in
racing and enforces them is true enough – that this leaves room for potential
abuse is also true. There have certainly been situations to justify concerns
about The Call. Over the years some teams have gotten more than their share of
inspection and officiating nitpicking than others. The Pettys, Harry Ranier, the
Wood Brothers, Harry Hyde, the Elliotts, Hoss Ellington, and Gary Nelson’s
DiGard have been among the most nitpicked teams over the years in the garage
area – Richard Petty has written that there were quite a few races where he
could have lapped the field before the first pit stop or David Pearson could
have done likewise but neither did because they would then have been handicapped
more than they already were; a similar situation involved the story behind
Bumpergate at Daytona in 1982 – the Gazaways ran the inspection process and
would nitpick really fast cars to slow them down; before the ’82 500 they got
into Gary Nelson’s hair about the rear bumper, and made him lower it for more
drag, so Nelson had it slapped on weakly to fall off on contact with another
car, which would then lighten the car and make it faster.
And of course there was The Company Car –
Junior Johnson’s #11. In perhaps the biggest cheating scandal of all, Junior’s
#11 and Cale Yarborough won the 1973 National 500 at Charlotte amid accusations
that he and the Petty #43 ran too many cubic inches. Junior claims in his
biography that NASCAR only checked one cylinder in the engine in question; in
contrast, Petty asserted at the time that NASCAR checked three of his engine’s
eight cylinders. Whether Junior ran too many cubes or not (I’m sure he did), it certainly
displays a lesser concern by inspectors for the #11 than for the #43.
Then there were the other controversies –
Cale winning at Nashville in 1974 despite being credited with a lap he hadn’t
run; "Surely he must have a big engine, because when it comes down to the
end, he runs off and leaves us," said David Pearson after Cale won the 1978
Michigan 400; and J.C. "Jake" Elder has quoted (in two 1990s
interviews in Circle Track magazine) Junior’s long time crew chief Herb Nab as
admitting to him that Junior often ran more CID than allowed.
But one has to ask what NASCAR would
really hope to gain from fixing races. That Dale Junior led more laps in the
Firecracker than he’d led all season long was a surprise, but again, I doubt it
will be replicated at Talladega in October. That there is more to lose than to
gain by sanctioning body condoning cheating should be enough of a deterrent
to such mischief.
One sad note that must be mentioned is the
killing of MRN narrator Rick Lewis. Found shot dead with his wife Wanda Lewis
shot in the head and in bad condition, Lewis’ life ended after some 18 years in
radio. He began in 1983 in South Daytona, Florida, and broadcast just about
anything, from baseball and football to races at Daytona and voice work for
Cypress Gardens.
Lewis is perhaps best known for his
baritone openings and closings and commercial bridges on MRN radiocasts –
"The following is a presentation of MRN Radio, the Voice of NASCAR"
— "Friday, Bud Pole Qualifying from……" — "Next Sunday,
NASCAR Winston Cup racing from……. — "This is Rick Lewis. This
broadcast was a production of MRN Radio, a division of International Speedway
Corporation." Such narrations infused a power to MRN that will be missed
now.
Rick is survived by his children Rick Jr.,
Leland, and Nichole. He is also survived by three grandchildren. The entire
family "is into NASCAR racing," he said. "We usually have family
over at our house while we listen to MRN’s broadcast while watching TV."
R.I.P., Rick.