Pre-Pocono Miscellanea
One monster has been wrapped up and another looms further north. Some
observations entering the Pocono 500:
I always hear or read two gripes about Pocono – one is the traffic. A new
interchange off I-80 at Stoney Hollow Road is being worked on and should debut
in June 2004. And this additional defense of the situation should be offered –
in the thirteen-plus years I’ve attended Pocono, I’ve counted some two hours
shaved in time from the late ’80s to last year. So while it may be frustrating,
it IS getting better.
The second gripe is about the sight lines – "You can’t see all the
track" or "they’re too far away in One, the Long Pond Straight, and
the North Straight." Garages do block some sight lines from the grandstands
to the north straight. All I can say about the sight lines is that the track is
much smaller in person than it looks on TV and the sight lines overall are very
good – there is also something to be said about how far away the cars are; it
does engage the attention more tightly.
Whenever great races in the sport’s history are discussed, Pocono for some
reason never gets its due. The track has seen some of the very best races ever
seen anywhere in its 29 seasons of hosting Winston Cup.
The 1975 Summer 500 saw 43 lead changes and a controversial finish; David
Pearson’s car spilled smoke throughout the final ten laps, and it was such that
by Lap 198 Pearson was lapping his own smoke. With two to go was black flagged,
but with a three-lap grace period to obey, the flag’s timing made it irrelevant,
but did cause controversy as Purolator sponsored the #21 and the race.
The 1976 Purolator 500 was even better – 44 lead changes in the first 124
laps, then Pearson had it won, but skidded in Turn One with three to go, then
blew out a tire in the Tunnel Turn coming to the white flag, giving Richard
Petty the win.
In 1977 the lead changed 46 times and Benny Parsons sweated out a two-lap
charge by Richard Petty at the finish for the win.
1979 was rained out and run on Monday, and saw the lead change hands 55
times. Darrell Waltrip crashed his DiGard Chevrolet in practice and had to start
Al Rudd’s #22 in the race. He started 18th, passed seventeen cars on the first
two laps, and fought all out for the lead, but with four to go pitted for tires
and gave up third place – a drop of 19 points that proved fatal to his title
hopes that year. Dale Earnhardt suffered very serious injuries when he smashed
into the boilerplate in the Tunnel Turn.
In 1980 Indianapolis Motor Speedway helped the financially troubled Pocono
track promote their race. The lead changed hands 50 times that day. Richard
Petty was gunning for his first superspeedway win of the year, but while leading
handily broke the right front wheel, smashed the boilerplate, lifted off the
ground, then got hit in the door by Waltrip. Petty broke his neck, while Neil
Bonnett got a lap back. Bonnett fought with Buddy Baker and Cale Yarborough for
the win, and on the last lap Baker and Cale banged doors, Baker tried to reach
into Cale’s cockpit, and passed him for second.
A second race was added in 1982 and Bobby Allison outlasted 44 lead changes,
a stout Richard Petty challenge, and the rain for the win in June. In July Petty
led the most laps amid some of the most ferocious combat ever seen at the track
as Allison, Harry Gant, Darrell Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt, Tim Richmond, and Cale
fought it out. Earnhardt and Richmond slammed the first turn boilerplate and
Earnhardt got hard on his roof. Petty ran out of gas in the final laps and
Waltrip ran out in One of the final lap, thus giving Allison the win.
Tim Richmond then became Pocono’s dominator, and in July 1986 he tried a
nervy three-abreast pass for the lead in the Tunnel Turn, lost it, slid into
Geoff Bodine, then spun into Richard Petty. Richmond lost a lap, but got it back
after some hard combat with Darrell Waltrip, then rocketed through the field
with five to go and won a sensational photo finish over Bodine and Ricky Rudd.
Richmond came back from illness for a very gutsy win in 1987 and thus secured
his place in NASCAR’s 50 Greatest Drivers list.
Bill Elliott came back himself in July 1989 in a tense, competitive 500.
Elliott cut a tire on the start but ran down Rusty Wallace and Geoff Bodine in
the final laps for the win; the race saw a wild crash where Greg Sacks and Lake
Speed punched open the first turn boilerplate and Sacks tumbled down the turn.
Bodine finished third in a wild, caution-filled Pocono 500 in 1990, while
Harry Gant survived a spin and an overheating engine for the win. In July
Bodine, Sacks, and Davey Allison swapped the lead back and forth before Bodine
emerged with another win.
And so it has gone through the years at Pocono. For all the well-known
controversies over the competitiveness of the racecars, last June’s 500 saw some
gutsy passing for the lead for much of the day, so Pocono should be a
competitive race.
Despite several races being won by cars that changed engines beforehand, the
one-engine rule keeps coming up roses week after week, and yet there are still
team honchos out there who want to change engines after every run. Before the
Mason-Dixon 400 weekend, Don
Miller of Penske Racing commented about Pocono and how NASCAR needs to let
teams run practice motors – "(NASCAR should have) let you qualify with the
race engine and then let you pull it out and practice with another engine.
Because we’re not really saving any money now….. you’re tearing the whole darn
thing apart in the pits and rebuilding it inside the chassis."
Actually, Mr. Miller, NASCAR needs to start enforcing the one engine rule
more tightly, and make teams run one engine for the entire weekend. That teams
are rebuilding engines inside the chassis is certainly reason for NASCAR to
start cracking down harder, because the one engine rule can only work if teams
are forced to build their engines to run 1,000 or more miles in a race weekend
and thus have to leave them alone every day.
NASCAR has hinted at disqualifications for future ride-height failings – it
ought to consider not letting any team run the race after changing an engine, be
it on Friday, Saturday, or on Sunday morning. If you have to change an engine,
you’re done for the weekend, go home, no points, no purse money.
Speaking of those who persist, there is Sherry
Fisher’s few concerns to Mr. NASCAR.
Sherry Fisher pines over the quality of singers of the National Anthem at
Winston Cup races – at least Martina McBride wasn’t the worst of the lot there,
and it isn’t universal to Winston Cup; Stafford Motor Speedway has some singers
who are downright dreadful. So I have no quibbles here.
Fisher then asks why the inside line moved up when the first, third, and
fifth qualifiers went to the back at Dover. The reason is simple – it is easier
to align the field by moving the affected line up a spot each than to realign
second to first and so forth. "How fair is that to the driver
who……qualified second? Or fourth?" It wasn’t the fault of the car
qualifying seventh that the three cars ahead of him in the inside line screwed
up and had to go to the back.
Finally, Sherry Fisher really misses ESPN. "When I’m watching FOX do
their thing…..I think to myself ‘Bob and Benny and Ned would have done it
better.’" Sherry, Bob and Benny never did it better (Benny is the biggest
drawback to NBC’s coverage); Ned did, but his best work was usually on CBS. ESPN
does not broadcast Winston Cup or Grand National anymore because it doesn’t
deserve to. It did them on the comparative cheap, lost the bidding war fair
& square, and would solve its garage access issues by simply putting all of
its NASCAR coverage on SportsCenter.
Goodyear’s Stu
Grant has said another tire test will be run at Richmond, even though he and
his engineers state the Richmond 400 "was an excellent race from the tire
performance point of view. The tire performed well, and there were no
tire-related issues."
Goodyear’s tire at Richmond was different
from last year’s, because "too many teams blew out right front tires
because of extreme chassis setups."
Too many teams blew out right fronts due to extreme chassis setups. Where
have we heard this before? Just about every week, perhaps?
No question, just about every week. We saw some more of that at Dover as
well, as several hard hits, notably Jeff Green and Matt Kenseth, came after
blown right fronts – nowadays more often than not when the right front blows,
it’s because of the above-mentioned extreme chassis setups, which are abusing a
tire that already takes the most stress of the four on the car.
But what causes such extremities in setups? One big reason – likely the
biggest individual one – is lack of stagger. Teams are abusing their right
fronts because the tires as they are won’t let the car turn. Higher stagger
solved that problem at the 1999 Yankee 400 at Michigan – a change made with a
tire used at Fontana for Winston West competition, and designed to battle
Hoosier Tire. The latter third of 1999 saw a marked improvement in the quality
of racing as a result of Goodyear’s switch to a higher stagger – that Michigan
race in particular was a rather dramatic display of what higher stagger brings
to the racing.
There was also the New Hampshire doubleheader in May – Grand National cars
with radials, GN North cars with bias-plies, which run a higher stagger and
otherwise are far more forgiving a tire to race hard on.
Goodyear would be well advised to start phasing the stagger of its tires
upward again, so teams won’t run such extreme chassis setups, and otherwise make
changes so teams get tires they can race hard on again.
It now appears to be a matter of when for Toyota. Toyota wants to enter the
Craftsman Truck series next year with its Tundra, and one story has it that 2005
is a target date for a Toyota Winston Cup effort. This may help explain NASCAR’s
apparent zeal for aero-matching – to allow another manufacturer to enter the
series without the policing hassles NASCAR has put up with on different bodies.
GM,
though, may balk. If it does, its own participation in the series may be in
some jeopardy – I’m certainly not too optimistic that Pontiac will be allowed to
stay, either past 2003 or even before it.
I’m not too enamored of aero-matching, though I will confess that I’d
probably like the idea better if the aero-match baseline was the real Dodge
Intrepid, which is longer and slightly bigger than the Taurus baseline being
used. In any event, should Toyota thus be able to enter NASCAR, they have a very
respectable body with which to campaign – the two-door Camry Solara.
The big Japanese auto honcho that might look at NASCAR, though, may not want
to deal with the politics involved. The latest scuttlebutt has it that Honda,
reentering Indy cars through the IRL next year, wants no part of a NASCAR
effort. The two-door aero coupe-flavored Accord would certainly be a good body
to run.
Jerry Jones Motorsports – aka Dallas Cowboys Motorsports – will presumably
debut two teams in 2003, but what will Andy Petree’s role be? Jones, with a
reputation as a control freak – years ago Dan Le Batard wrote about how coach
Barry Switzer was summoned, God-like, to Jones’ office via Texas Stadium’s PA
system, and how Switzer, who lost his mother and father to violence, was not one
to get flustered by having his boss constantly over his shoulder – has
reportedly been pushing for greater control of Petree’s existing organization
than Andy was willing to allow. Petree for his part will not discuss such
matters until all the i’s have been dotted and t’s crossed.
So will Petree stay with the team he purchased from Leo Jackson during 1996
and which he made into a scrappy, competitive outfit that finally broke through
to victory in 2001?
I can’t help but suspect that Petree may "go home again" to Richard
Childress, whose own organization could certainly use a team manager of Petree’s
caliber; Jones’ team will switch to Fords next year, and Petree has spent so
much of his life on Chevrolets he may not fit well with a Ford team.
As for Jerry Jones’ drivers, Bobby Hamilton’s contract ends after the season
finishes, and the two rumored drivers on Jones’ list are Dale Jarrett – Jarrett
insists he will not leave Robert Yates, but Jones may be willing to pay more
than anyone’s ever dreamed to get him – and David Starr.
Which begs the question – does this sport really want Jerry Jones involved? I
haven’t seen much enthusiasm in the sport or among fandom for a Jerry Jones
entry – in contrast to the warm welcome extended Joe Gibbs from the beginning.
Two finally’s –
The archenemy of racing is the rainout, and Stafford had two straight. Doubly
frustrating is that Stafford’s events have been more competitive than usual,
with some downright spectacular action in Late Models and SK Mods.
Second, last year’s Pocono 500 program had information on the Grand National
and Craftsman Truck series – series that presently don’t race there. Could their
schedules include a date at Pocono? And could a rumored IRL Pocono date come
next year?