Granite State Bash
Now we know why the race had to be run.
New Hampshire’s Turkey Weekend 300 proved
to be anything but anticlimactic despite the near-universal belief that it would
amount to just a waste of people’s holiday weekend. It saw the sport set a new
all time record for seasonal winners at nineteen. It saw an overdue fall from
grace of Jeff Gordon. And it saw a first-time winner, the fifth of the season –
doubly remarkable given there were no first-time winners at all in 1992 and
1993.
The race once again confirmed the
unraceability of modern stock cars – the top five or six pulled away at will,
getting clean air where mid-pack cars were mired in dirty air and thus were
unable to catch up. Tony Stewart and John Andretti were hurt worst by this
condition – Stewart was fastest in the morning practice but could never get up
to the leader. Andretti was fifth fastest in the morning practice and put on
some of the best moves of the race, passing several times up the middle in
three-wide situations and generally diving deeper into the corners than most
others. That he and his Petty Enterprises teammates struggled as badly as they
did makes his driving all the more frustrating, as they’re a much better team
than their results show and John certainly showed winning moves at Loudon and
elsewhere.
Goodyear’s new tire blistered to a
considerable extent – and necessitated two tire-check yellows in the first 100
laps – but showed greater competitive promise than its harder counterpart from
the season past. The word that Goodyear will integrate softer tires into tracks
next year is a good sign that Akron has finally begun to grasp the huge error
made with the hard tires of 2001.
NASCAR’s new pit policies and the helmets
crew members are beginning to wear made no difference, as one of Brett Bodine’s
tire changers was clipped by Andretti during stops around the second tire-check
caution. Brett soldiered home eighth, a fitting tribute and a strong showing for
the independents of racing in general.
Lapped traffic proved decisive at the end
– first Robby Gordon was raced too hard by Kyle Petty and thus lost the lead,
then Jeff was hung up by Robert Pressley and Mike Wallace, which contributed to
the contact from Robby. There was of course little sympathy for Jeff, especially
after the black flag for rough driving, and Gordon’s comments afterward didn’t
sway anyone.
It was fitting that the driver who
finished first in the first race of the year was the first to go out of the last
race of the year – Mikey Waltrip crashed before the first tire-check yellow,
though he got back out while Ward Burton blew up and finished last.
In all, the Turkey Bowl 300 was worth the
wait despite the chilly air. The only downside was the dearth of mobile eateries
that usually grace the parking lot, and the shortage of help in the track’s
grandstand concession blocks, which made lines far longer than necessary.
Jeff Gordon whined before the race that he
will beg and plead for NASCAR to cut a race or two from the schedule. If he gets
on his knees, NASCAR should kick him in the face and tell him to shut up and
race. The rescheduled race went off without a problem and showed the idiocy of
those complaints about drivers and crews missing Thanksgiving with their
families. Guys, racing comes first – you can celebrate the holiday after the
race is over.
So with year’s end come the inevitable
year in review pieces, few of which are worth the paper they’re written on. Some
are worse than others – Ed Hinton’s grotesquely self-congratulatory Sentinel
piece further cements him as the sport’s worst writer – but none are worth
remembering.
At NOL Tim Packman recommends renaming
Daytona’s victory lane after Earnhardt. Nothing of the kind should be done.
Jerry Bonkowski laments at ESPN’s racing website that nothing has been done to
memorialize Earnhardt – as if anything should be done.
What the year-end pieces consistently do
is reaffirm the lack of maturity in the sport’s handling of Earnhardt’s death.
Instead of properly examining safety issues, the sport adapted media-pushed
measures it does not need and that have less going for them than the hype
implies – the pit road crew fiasco is but the latest chapter in the sport’s
safety myopia – all in the name of "Dale’s memory." Instead of putting
it aside and getting on with life, the sport still had those pointless silent 3
laps and tributes right to the last race. The sport ought to know better when
drivers die of basilar skull fractures while wearing head restraints.