Chicago: Crossed Flags & Halfway Awards
The season has now reached crossed flags –
eighteen down, eighteen to go. And with halfway has come the stretch to the
finale, encompassing twenty straight weeks with two of them already down.
The newest speedway in the sport opened
with a pair of crash-torn affairs high on torn-up sheet metal, low on quality
competition, and reportedly getting what amounted to a cold shoulder from its
namesake nearby city – the track sold out its 75,000 seats, but reportedly most
came from well away from the Chicago area, even though Governor Ryan was booed
harshly when he gave the command to start engines.
About the only saving grace was the win by
Kevin Harvick. The Atlanta triumph may have been considered something of a fluke
in some corners, but the Chicago win erased such doubts. Having said that,
though, far better would it have been if Robert Pressley had won the race – at
this point the more first time winners, the better.
The race was also a surprisingly good one
for Chevrolet, which displayed a depth that is very uncharacteristic for the
notoriously favoritist racing approach of the manufacturer. The Harvick win was
the second of the year for RCR to go with three for Earnhardt Inc. and three for
Jeff Gordon.
But the problems were there – with
parking, with the no-cooler policy, with the prices for tickets and food, and so
forth. And that the racing wasn’t all that memorable is an even bigger problem –
some scuttlebutt has it that the NASCAR control tower told MRN to not use the
term single-file racing during its race cast. Of course getting Joe Moore and
company to use a different term doesn’t erase the problem, and some major
changes to the racecars and elsewhere, such as in the point system, have to be
in the offing to solve it.
So with the halfway signal for the season,
where are we?
For starters, we have a point race. No,
honest – a close, legitimate point race. Dale Jarrett and Jeff Gordon tied for
the lead after Chicago and had three wins apiece. Right behind them, Ricky Rudd
had his first win in three years and has been finishing high almost every week.
Beyond that, though, the title looks lost
for Rusty Wallace, Sterling Marlin, etc. So barring a collapse by those three,
the title chase has come down to just them.
We also have a new network doing the
series, and criticisms of NBC’s approach have been near-endless, from frequency
of commercials to Benny Parsons’ bizarre reference to his victory trophies not
being in a closet (this in regard to continuing fix allegations about Earnhardt
Junior’s Daytona win) to Ed Hinton (more on him later) criticisms because NBC
didn’t do a Pavlov dog experiment and assert in tautological style that the HANS
collar saved the lives of Mike Skinner and Buckshot Jones.
We also have Dodge at a crossroads of
sorts, halfway through the year with no wins and only Sterling Marlin as a
continuing threat to win. The Bill Davis and Petty Enterprises teams have shown
decent and better form at various points in the year, and the Evernham outfit
had a top ten at Chicago, but aside from these efforts the Dodge program has
stalled with racecars sporting too much nose weight and thus being more
difficult to balance properly than the other makes. That Dodge’s first year was
going to be rough was a reality largely lost amid the glow of its Daytona 500
power, even though Dodge partisans such as John Andretti and Kyle Petty warned
fans before the season began of teething problems to come.
So the first half of 2001 has overall been
grossly mixed, with a regrettable tilt toward forgettable. The Daytona 500 was
by far the best race of the year, but it’s been largely downward since. The
Carolina 400 and Atlanta 500 saw memorable finishes, Bristol saw a much-needed
return to nostalgia (one the sport needs some more shots of this season), Pocono
saw some excellent dicing on a track thankfully unlike the cookie-cutter layouts
such as Chicagoland and the return of Ricky Rudd to victory, while Sears Point
saw a dramatic ending and controversy.
Beyond those, however, most weeks have
been forgettable. Darlington was a Steve Park rout confiscated by the aero push
for Dale Jarrett; Talladega should have topped Daytona and did feature a
record-tying number of leaders and 37 lead changes, but this was ruined by
gunshy drivers and a foolish out of bounds rule that had no justification; the
return to Daytona also saw exciting combat for the win, but also displayed the
idiocy of the out of bounds rule in graphic style; Texas showed again why it is
not a real racetrack for stock cars – and ironically later showed why it is the
ideal racetrack for Indy-type cars; and so forth.
Will it change? It had better.
The first half also saw a safety hysteria
that led to embarrassment in several areas and wild exaggeration in others. At
Charlotte Jeff Gordon all but stated the HANS collar saved his life, despite his
Lap One Winston crash never approaching truly serious impacts in violence.
And the Tribune company’s Ed Hinton added
yet again to safety hysteria in his July 16 Chicago Tribune piece belittling
NASCAR’s debut at Chicagoland. "You have to believe FOX with Darrell
Waltrip would have made a real issue of Skinner and Jones being saved by the
HANS."
The problem, Ed, is the HANS arguably
didn’t make any difference. Skinner suffered some head and neck pain despite the
HANS, and the bell-ringing that he and Buckshot Jones suffered was consistent
with pre-HANS impacts they and everyone else have suffered over their careers.
The HANS made no difference here anymore than a similar neck protector made any
difference with Ward Burton’s Fontana concussion or Joe Nemechek’s lack of head
and neck injury (without the HANS) in his otherwise seriously injurious Dover
crash.
The whole Hinton piece is in keeping with
a writer specializing in character assassination in such pieces as his 1993
mocking of Michael and Sandra Andretti’s Formula One foray through his character
assassination of Tony George and the IRL over the tragedy at Charlotte in 1999
(there was a reason why he didn’t issue you credentials, Ed – you got what you
deserved in that one) through his manipulative and misleading tear-jerker story
before the Firecracker on widows of drivers killed over the years.
So Ed, here’s my question – amid all the
hate-mongering you’ve written, just what do you want out of NASCAR racing?
Ty Norris fired back at the Firecracker
Fix story before Chicago and managed only to confirm the criticism of one of the
writers he took to task. Norris noted Ed Hinton’s role in "running around
the press box (at Daytona) saying this was a fix and an atrocity and that NASCAR
should be ashamed of themselves. He’s with the same organization that has made
it so difficult for Teresa to put Dale Earnhardt in the ground and let him rest
in piece. That’s a pretty disgusting display….."
Norris also took to task Robin Miller over
Miller’s statement on ESPN that he’s "known drivers for 40 years and I’ve
never heard a driver worth his salt ever say he didn’t have the heart to pass
somebody. That’s not a racer." Norris only confirms Miller’s criticism when
he asserts that DEI is "one organization with three drivers. We’re not a
cutthroat organization. Maybe some people who’ve been involved with that open
wheel crowd are all cutthroat and maybe they don’t understand it. But the people
in the NASCAR family will understand that and what we mean by it."
Ty, the only thing worth understanding is
that here Miller is right. At the Daytona 500 Dale Earnhardt Jr. should have
passed Michael Waltrip for the win, and at the Firecracker Michael should have
shot down Junior at the finish. Team orders are dishonest for racing and for
NASCAR. No racer worth his salt cares if it’s his teammate or whoever – if
passing this guy will win the race, you do it.
A similar silliness falls over the
controversy between Ward Burton and Joe Nemechek because Nemechek wouldn’t let
Burton get a lap back. Ward responded by bashing the side of Nemechek’s
Chevrolet. Race leaders are not supposed to let fast cars back on the lead lap –
never mind "racing etiquette."
Adding to the endless safety hysteria was
Tim Cronin’s July 12 list at Dailysouthtown.com. "How to make NASCAR
better? Here are ten ways to do so….." with appropriate comments –
1 – Develop soft-wall technology – Mr.
Cronin, read Bob Bahre’s comments on the completeness of soft-wall failure in
NHIS testing at Speedway Illustrated.
2 – Make head restraints mandatory – As if
they did any good for Ward Burton at Fontana or Mike Skinner at Chicagoland.
3 – Make chassis more impact absorbent –
I’ll go with that, though again we ought to consider data to the contrary that
is out there.
4 – Make black box data recorders
mandatory – Why? In the above-mentioned Bob Bahre piece, he notes how test cars
had such recorders that showed zero cushioning effect from soft walls – a
conclusion already known from such real-world experiences as Arie Luyendyk’s
Indy crash of 1998 – contrary to Cronin’s assertion, Luyendyk didn’t exactly
walk away from his crash, and the soft wall there accomplished nothing of safety
worth.
5 – Establish full-time medical and
equipment safety units – Tracks already have such in-house.
6 – Eliminate racing back to the yellow –
There is no reason to. There is no safety problem in such, and it is still the
best way to delineate the running order coming to the caution.
7 – Without sacrificing safety, make stock
car bodies more stock, cutting aerodynamics – The aero of modern stock cars is,
with the exception of the spoilers, built into the body styles. "Drop the
aerodynamic package…." Absolutely not – it adds drag that can’t be
massaged out of the cars and it greatly improves the power of the draft, which
greatly assists passing.
8 – Cut engines to six or four cylinders –
Contrary to Cronin, it won’t eliminate the need for plates (Grand National V6s
still needed them in the 1990s). Cronin also repeats the multi-car accident
tautology despite the far more serious injury aspect seen in Chicago’s crashes.
9 – Phase out provisionals – The idea
behind provisionals does make sense – what needs to change is the size of the
starting field, which needs to be expanded to above 43.
10 – Allow import brands – There is no
reason for them in NASCAR – import brands is TRAC’s avenue and should remain
such.
Though it isn’t the end of the year yet,
two year-end awards need to be passed out –
HOAX OF THE YEAR – The Stock Car Reporters
website.
FRAUD OF THE YEAR – Tom Propst’s
belt-was-intact story.
SCANDAL OF THE YEAR – Media coverage of
Earnhardt, most notably by the Tribune company through the Orlando Sentinel –
consistently intrusive, hysterical, endlessly inaccurate or grossly misleading,
and accomplishing nothing of any worth.