Damned Race Leaders Can’t Get Outta The Way
Erin
Titman is miffed that some race fans described the wrecks at Darlington as
"cool." Now there is certainly validity in Titman’s criticisms, but
there is also a bit of exaggeration as well.
The blunt truth is that crashes are the sport’s guilty pleasure; that doesn’t
detract from the genuine concern felt when someone gets in a serious crash such
as Tony Stewart’s. One may not like Stewart, one may take pleasure in that he
crashed out, but I doubt even those who called the wreck "cool" really
bore any malicious view toward Stewart’s well-being in the wreck. If Stewart’s
wreck involved just him and Buckshot Jones there wouldn’t be much in the way of
controversy – the big issue came when a third of the field, in two groups over
four seconds back, plunged headlong into Stewart’s snout. It was fortunate that
Stewart got off as well as he did, though Titman exaggerates when he writes that
ten years ago such a wreck would have been more injurious – I remember such
grinders ten years ago and later, and the results were the same – the drivers
were uninjured.
The Stewart crash happened when Buckshot Jones slapped the wall about two
seconds ahead of Stewart and skated about Turn Two trying to save the car,
Stewart ran into him, hit the wall, and then the aforementioned two other groups
plowed in. This came after race leaders Steve Park and Ricky Craven were
eliminated after Park tried to pass Stacy Compton and crowded Compton and
himself into the wall.
Such incidents led to denunciation of lapped cars – Jimmy
Spencer growled, "Lapped cars have just got to realize they’ve got to
get out of the way."
Now there is substantially more involved here. Park tried a slide job on
Compton after Compton moved as high as he could out of Park’s way – Park just
flat misjudged the corner and swerved into Compton. Nor did Buckshot Jones do
anything wrong in his incident – this is, after all, Darlington, a track that in
the 1976 Southern 500 deflated the tires of several competitors on pit road
BEFORE the command to fire engines, never mind having the wall jump out in front
of cars – the wall remark is an exaggeration, of course, but it’s as apt a
description of Darlington as one can find.
Lapped cars are often a hassle, but Compton gave park enough room and
Buckshot got bit by the Lady In Black – those wrecks weren’t the fault of lapped
cars.
Sterling Marlin had to change engines before the race and thus started in the
final five spots. The fact he won after changing engines will no doubt heat up
the one-engine rule controversy – Kevin Harvick said his team installed a rev
limiter and were real conservative on the engine; no doubt such situations will
be cited in opposition to the rule.
Perhaps in anticipation of more team shenanigans NASCAR has made an amendment
where teams may lose some points if they change engines before a race. Let’s
hope they enforce it to the letter, and teams finally get the hint and stop
building for speed and instead built to run all out for 1,000 miles.
Amid Richard Childress’ recrimination that NASCAR "flat out lied to
me" on aero rule changes, Chevrolet had its best day of the season. Gordon
led nearly 180 laps, Kevin Harvick finished third, Dale Junior took fourth, and
Jimmie Johnson finished sixth. The Chevy camp isn’t happy, though – "it’s
really obvious how unbalanced the whole field is, from Chevrolet to Dodge, an
ungodly amount of down force. That’s something we can’t compete with," Harvick
said afterward.
Mike
Helton got into the act before the Rebel 400 and hinted the sport will see
different rules for the different kind of tracks – one set of rules for Daytona
and Talladega, one for the short tracks, one for banked intermediate supers like
Atlanta and Charlotte, and one for flat tracks like Pocono and Homestead –
"if that’s what we have to do, that’s what we’ll do to keep everybody in
the hunt."
Helton also noted the difficulty with Ray Evernham’s cut down force argument,
noting what ought to be obvious – the more comfortable the car, the better the
racing. "We have to step back and look at all the issues, the handling, down force,
the drag, the horsepower, and make decisions."
Fine, but the sport needs some decisions made soon, decisions that will get
the sport back to the kind of racing it ought to have.
Finally, David Pearson may be helping Elliott Sadler.
Officially, David is consulting with Jon Wood in the Truck Series, but the
way Elliott Sadler finished at Darlington Glen and Leonard may have hustled him
to the Winston Cup garage after the Truck race to consult with Sadler.
Newer fans had better brush up on their history, for the Wood Brothers used
to own Darlington like no one else.