Pre-Shootout Rambling – Wild To Uncompetitive

I’m still a little on Cloud Nine from the Patriots’ win in Super Bowl XXXVI,
but as far as racing goes, I was just thinking……..

– First off an apology for an oversight. In my 2002 Preview piece I neglected
to mention Brett Bodine’s team. While a win is admittedly out of the realm of
possibility for a team that has pressed on since 1996 despite being hopelessly
outgunned resource-wise, the 2001 season did see several strong moments, so top
tens should come for Brett this season.

– Remember those official denials that Chicago Motor Speedway would cancel
its season in 2002? I suppose CART could move their race to a second Milwaukee
date, and the Trucks can run Chicagoland.

– Do you suppose NASCAR gave a little nudge to Autoliv to sponsor Andy
Petree’s #33 at Daytona?

– If there was any chance KMart would stick around after the Carolina 400,
it’s gone now. Keep an eye on that Winston rumor, as RJR and Travis Carter had a
good thing going 1994-9.

– The Rolex 24 wasn’t much – such endurance races never are. Still, there’s
always an interesting angle to the event. The heavy NASCAR contingent did okay;
Robby Gordon’s team did the best at second overall, while Kyle Petty’s guys
overcame several big problems to finish 15th after starting 51st. Derrike Cope’s
team also did a decent job finishing 25th.

– Is it safe to call Ed Hinton a Jeff Gordon toady?

– Is it also safe to call Ed Hinton insulting? Or maybe such a term is
redundant. His piece "New
Rules – Wild To Mild" insults the intelligence of the reader by acting
as little more than a cipher for Dale Jarrett and Mark Martin’s whining about
how the roof spoiler rules were "unsafe (because) you could pass when you
shouldn’t be passing," as if that is somehow out of the driver’s hands.
Hinton lectures the reader about how "the beholder will have to put more
mental effort into it – view it as chess, rather than checkers."
Lead-change racing is ALSO chess, but it is also real competition. What
aero-clean rules of late produce isn’t real racing; what they produce is
boredom.

Hinton is being dishonest when he writes (citing "several drivers")
the belief that "the rules made the racing so tight that it put (Earnhardt)
in a position to get into that wreck." He knows full well that the wreck
happened because Earnhardt was hogging the groove to keep three other cars from
passing – that had zero to do with the rules. The onus rightfully is on the
drivers, not the rules, something the drivers who griped about the rules always
seem to forget.

Dale Jarrett lectures, "But can it still be good racing? It can
be." If the draft cooperates as it did in past years and as it did with the
roof spoilers, then the racing will be good – trouble is the way the
aerodynamics of the cars work in aero-clean configuration the draft is grossly
inconsistent – that is why passing has been so difficult over the years.

"Will the fans and media give us that opportunity, and look at it and
say, ‘OK, that was good racing without all that (wild shuffling)?’ I hope
so." No you shouldn’t, Jarrett. Real racing is lead changes, passing,
continuous combat for the win. The intelligence of spectators isn’t lessened
when they actually RACE for the win, but the intelligence of drivers is
questionable with patronizing comments such as Martin’s "This will require
a really good racecar and a really smart driver." No, Mark, racing ought to
require determination to take the lead. Such comments helped drum Joe Heitzler
out of CART.

– While NASCAR prepares for Speedweeks, the IRL is testing out west at
Fontana. I doubt anyone thinks the IRL’s inaugural California 400 won’t see more
lead changes than the Daytona 500 – simply because in the IRL we have racecars
that can go to the front in dirty air and can draft – they’re built for racing
rather than for raw speed.

– Though the IRL certainly has raw speed with 220 MPH laps at Fontana. The
body also announced new safety changes to the cars for 2003, including
increasing the front bulkhead by three inches, bulkheads behind front suspension
mounting points, integrating wheel tether mounts into the chassis, and lessening
the overall weight of the car. While such moves are commendable – notably the
emphasis to prevent a recurrence of Davey Hamilton’s Texas crash – like NASCAR
the IRL really hasn’t dealt with safety the proper way – the focus should be on
slower racecars; they can run 190 at Fontana and no one would really know the
difference – if anything they’d race even better at that speed than at and would
certainly be substantially safer.

– Here’s an international name we haven’t seen for quite some time –
Scheckter. Jody Scheckter won the 1979 F1 championship and has raced in IROC.
His son Tomas tested an Eddie Cheever car at Fontana and was fastest of the 25
running. Cheever ran him in traffic and "he beat me on speed," Cheever
said afterward.

– I don’t like to comment on TV, but I’m kind of glad to see Bob Jenkins axed
from IRL race casts and Bob Varsha return to CART TV with Speed Channel.

– I know sponsors are racing’s lifeblood, but can’t racing put an end to
these joke sponsors and schemes and get back to real sponsors like STP,
Purolator, Sunoco, Valvoline, Champion, Splitfire, PEAK, and so forth? Some of
the schemes – like the Petty-Garfield show car theme – are embarrassing.

– Speaking of sponsor embarrassment – the track’s REAL name is CHARLOTTE
Motor Speedway.

– Pocono is moving to get a new off-ramp built off I-80 to the track to
better move race traffic. This, of course, is a good sign. I’ve read the gripes
about Pocono’s traffic, but in my ten-plus years going I can say that that
situation was far worse then than it is now.

– Forget about any reduction in the Winston Cup schedule – the TV deal locks
in the schedule for at least five years, and the schedule should stay the same
after that, too.

– Several other pre-season previews have shown a denigrating attitude toward
some teams. The New England Patriots got the same treatment throughout the past
NFL season. Some of these NASCAR writers may need to talk to their NFL
counterparts about that.

– When will Charlotte Motor Speedway unveil its Edward Glenn Roberts and
Harold Kite statues? I’m also awaiting Talladega’s Davey Allison statue.
Pocono’s Tim Richmond statue will look great in the Turn Three infield. Where
will Atlanta put its Grant Adcox and Terry Schoonover statues? Whatever is on
the site of the old Riverside Int’l Raceway, they have room enough for Joe
Weatherly and Tim Williamson statues. Darlington’s Myers brothers and Buren
Skeen statues await their debut.

In case you haven’t figured out where I’m going with this, consider this code
of honor of Hanoi Hilton POWs – One goes, they all go.