Booing Drivers, More Schedule Whines, and Michigan Maneuvers
The first big story of the weekend came when Billy France made a tardy
announcement – that low-ride-height violations for race winners will now result
in a loss of points – tardy because the loss of points realistically should have
been part of the package of punishing post race inspection failures long ago.
Despite raindrops ranging from Michigan Int’l Speedway to Stafford Motor
Speedway to Star Speedway in Epping, NH to Pikes Peak Int’l Raceway, the weekend
got some racing in. Dale Jarrett used his Pocono car at Michigan and put it on
the pole, while Michael Waltrip likely saved his job with a pair of top tens at
Charlotte and Pocono and then a spectacular fourth in the race at Michigan.
The Michigan 400 itself proved surprisingly good, thanks to a spate of
yellows just past halfway onward. Jarrett dominated the first half but tightened
up as the second half transpired and thus could not hold off Jimmie Johnson’s
charge until Elliott Sadler’s late-race crash. This saved Jarrett for the
second-place finish thanks to four fresh tires on the final stop.
Matt Kenseth’s recent slide came to a thundering end and Ford once again
monopolized Michigan International Speedway – 1-2-3 and 7-8-9-10. The Roush resurgence
thus stands at five Winston Cup wins to date this season.
Chevrolet as a class once again rode in the wake of the Fords, but the longer
the sun shone on the track the better Johnson and Mikey Waltrip got. Johnson’s
victory bid then went up in smoke on the final restart.
Pontiac was all but MIA despite the half-inch nose kick out and fraction
increase in spoiler. Johnny Benson ran well in his second race back in the seat
of James Ince’s Grand Prix – he even made a very gutsy apron pass on Gordon –
but the other Pontiacs struggled – Tony Stewart only managed 16th and Bobby
Labonte’s slide becomes increasingly ominous, though 24th is a vast improvement
over the finish at Pocono.
Dodge as a class also struggled. Bill Elliott’s struggle after leading a
large number of laps early, Ward Burton’s second straight blown engine, and John
Andretti’s slide to the wall all typified their season. Kyle Petty’s
nickel-&-dime improvement continued and Hut Stricklin is starting to get
something going as well with a top-20 finish. Ganassi Racing, meanwhile, had a
very mediocre day but nonetheless Sterling Marlin kept the point lead – yet
another slam on the Latford point system, given that a winless driver (Jeff
Gordon) is now tied for second in points after 15 races.
While Ford romped at Michigan, Winston Cup’s Grand National stepchildren were
washed out after 86 laps at Kentucky Speedway and finished up running parallel
with the Cup race. Todd Bodine stayed behind to finish the Kentucky 300 – Oreo
cookies was one of the event’s presenting sponsors, but curiously missing from
Oreo’s race was the brand’s newest celebrity shills, the chick-country trio
SheDaisy; presumably they were taking their own little goodbyes here – and no
doubt he is glad of that after gouging outside Greg Biffle on the final lap, and
Biffle wound up sideways at the stripe.
Crashes thinned out the field and included Jack Sprague – Sprague salvaged a
top-15, while Bobby Hamilton Jr., also involved, was eliminated – but for once
didn’t include Kerry Earnhardt, who finished seventh in Terry Bradshaw and
Armando Fitz’ #12. The win was the second in GN for Herzog Motorsports, the
previous one coming last July at Chicago; it was also Todd’s first GN win since
Las Vegas in 2001.
Meanwhile, short tracking continued up and down the continent – among the
highlights was a spectacular flip at Elko, MN’s inaugural ASA feature won by
Joey Clanton; Russ Tuttle and Pat Kelley had collided and Tuttle spun to the
apron when Doug Mahlik nailed Tuttle, who promptly got onto his roof – and one
of the few New England area tracks not rained out was Thursday night Thunder at
Thompson, CT. Bert Marvin edged Ted Christopher in the SK-class Modified
feature, and Roger Godin beat Mike O’Sullivan in a ProStock feature that saw a
rather vicious last-lap impact involving Jim Banfield and Ronnie Cosentino.
The big fireworks came in the Late Model feature ultimately won by Bill
Wheeler over Jeff Plakius and Woody Pitkat. Two cars up front collided entering
Three, and when the smoke cleared fully half of the 36-car field were involved;
while the majority were able to continue the field was nonetheless thinned out.
The weather wasn’t so kind to other area tracks, with rain washing out events
at Stafford, Epping NH, and Monadnock, NH.
With rain winning a lot of races this weekend, some serious rumor-mongering
is available to chew on, with at least one big story potentially breaking – the
possibly final meltdown of Kevin Harvick’s career. Don
Coble reports that Richard Childress has in effect told Harvick to take a
hike, and he quotes several unnamed RCR crewmen as in effect saying Harvick can
no longer be worked with – "He’s still out of control," said one
anonymous RCR crewman.
Childress, though, disputes the rumor, saying a caustic story at Ford
Racing’s site (written without a byline) is untrue, and that Harvick will drive
the #29 Chevrolet in 2003.
In any event, an unnamed car owner got the best shot of the dispute in the Ford
Racing piece – asked if he could tame Harvick, the owner replied, "I
don’t know anyone that tough."
A sizable portion of the story is that Childress worked in Robby Gordon’s pit
rather than the flagship pit he has always roamed. "I am on the pit box for
Robby Gordon," Childress says, "but that’s because I’ve always worked race days
with Kevin Hamlin, and Gil Martin works with David Smith, and Scott Miller and
Todd Berrier work together. I can’t desert Kevin (Hamlin) right now, but we’re
looking at putting Chris Andrews in there."
For its part, Ford also has to deal with Mike
Mulhern’s report that a Penske to Dodge deal is already done, with Jerry
Jones purchasing all of Penske’s Ford equipment. Ford officials, though, insist
Penske is staying with the Blue Oval squad.
And there are potential driver changes. Bobby Hamilton is rumored as going to
either Ganassi Racing or even The Wood Brothers – an unlikely scenario given
Hamilton’s Dodge ties. Ward Burton reportedly hasn’t signed his contract renewal
with Bill Davis, and BDR general manager Mike Brown stated that Davis is now
"looking at all our options" – one being hiring Steve Park, who once
worked with crew chief Tommy Baldwin on the Mod Tour. John Andretti, rumored to
be leaving Petty Enterprises, recently stated that such is not the case. Elliott
Sadler’s 2003 employment is still up in the air despite the recent controversy
pegging him as in Robert Yates’ #28.
Amid all this, one unnamed crew chief tells Mike Mulhern that "some
major Winston Cup team owners and privately becoming increasingly upset and
disenchanted…’And it’s fixing to explode. People just don’t know how close it
is. He then made reference to the TRAC series….which most in the NASCAR world
have been dismissing as a non-starter."
So some big Winston Cup team owners might jump to TRAC? Go ahead. There are
some Winston Cup money guys (a lot, really) who frankly the series would be
better off without, and TRAC can certainly use some powerhouses as it prepares
to get going in 2003. So if some of NASCAR’s major teams jump ship, good for
them and for TRAC.
Message to Bill
Whitehead of The Stuart News in Florida – your recommended changes to the
Winston Cup schedule are stupid.
Whitehead suggest eliminating a date from Rockingham, because "apparently
the track has fallen out of graces with ISC." There has been no indication
of such anywhere other than at rumor-control central, and the idea has zero
merit in any event – Rockingham has two dates because it earned them and is a
good racetrack.
Whitehead recommends exempting Darlington and Martinsville from losing any
dates, because "both tracks have some of the most exciting racing every
year…" They do? Martinsville is usually a pretty good show, but
Darlington rarely is a really competitive race anymore. And contrary to
Whitehead’s assertion, I’ve never seen any website poll of fans indicating
Darlington to be in the top five of favorite tracks.
In any event, there is certainly good reason to leave Darlington and
Martinsville’s dates alone, but it ruins Whitehead’s argument without him apparently
realizing it – if Darlington and Martinsville should be exempt, then ALL the
tracks should be exempt.
Whitehead digs his grave deeper with some thoroughly dishonest cheap shots at
Pocono. Poor visibility for the fans? Wrong. No grandstands except on the front straight?
It isn’t relevant to anything – and that single line of grandstands helps house
150,000 a race at a track that sells out both dates despite their close
proximity to each other. Terrible traffic patterns? Name a Winston Cup track
that has GOOD ones – there isn’t one. The track’s remote location? Huh? It’s 90
miles from Philly, from New York, and just under an hour from
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre – that isn’t "remote" to anyone other than one
who has to drive over four hours to the track, and that drive is usually worth
it anyway.
But he doesn’t stop there; next he cheap shots New Hampshire without offering
anything in the way of a decent argument in his favor – he simply says it should
lose one of its dates. That he offers no reason is telling, for it shows he
can’t come up with one. New Hampshire is Martinsville on steroids, with far more
room to race than the Virginia paperclip.
Once he is done with subtractions, he asks, "Does NASCAR finally award a
second date to Texas?" It can just put one in late November, without
disrupting any other race date. "Would it dare give a third date to
Bristol, the most popular track on the schedule?" Give a third date to a
hellhole where all the cars crash, passing is all but impossible, and no one can
race anyone? Bristol may be the most popular track, but it is anything but one
of the best.
"What about sparkling new venues at Nashville and Kentucky?" What
about them? Nashville is just another concrete quad-oval – concrete has no
business being a racing surface; asphalt only should be mandatory – and Kentucky
is just another Vegas clone.
"I’ll even supply the paper," Whitehead writes in conclusion.
Instead of supplying the paper, Bill, supply some basic sense to your
viewpoints, because your schedule piece lacks basic sense. If Kentucky and
Nashville want Winston Cup dates, then put them in present-day bye weeks and
leave all the other dates alone. No track should lose a date – if one is exempt,
all of them must be exempt, and there is no reason not to exempt any track’s
dates.
As if more whining about the schedule isn’t enough, we have a very silly
letter from one Dave Saniti of Maplewood, MN in Winston Cup Illustrated’s July
Letters Section.
"I agree completely (with a June 2002 letter) that booing any driver is
completely unacceptable….Every driver who goes out on that track is risking
their life for their fans; I think that deserves respect."
The drivers are not risking their lives for their fans; they’re going out
there to race – or at least they’re supposed to be doing so; given the general
lack of fire they show in their driving one has to occasionally wonder.
And some of these guys frankly are unworthy of sympathy. Kevin Harvick’s
buffoonery is now well-known (see above), and there was a time when Robby Gordon
could be counted on to be a jerk. Jeff Gordon still gets the most boos, because
he deserves them – he never earned his way to the top, instead getting it all
given to him by Rick Hendrick and General Motors; and his own driving is the old
Ironhead/Swervin’ Irvan stereotype plus – wiping out a third of the field at
Daytona and seven cars a week later at Rockingham is typical Gordon.
I haven’t noticed much reaction to Kurt Busch, but commentary like "I
needed a caution" in relation to why he took out Robby Gordon at The
Winston show a lack of respect on his part – and harkens back to setting off the
melee that hospitalized Geoff Bodine at Daytona in 2000 – makes one deserving of
fan disrespect.
Those are the obvious ones, but there are some others out there who get booed
for perfectly valid reasons. Some of them have no business being on a racetrack;
many just aren’t trying hard enough (at Pocono I saw only two drivers – Ricky
Craven and John Andretti – making any sustained effort to pass people; most of
the rest, unable to pass, just rode for points instead of trying hard).
And it boils down to that drivers deserve to be booed. They are not supposed
to be exempt from such.
The Indy Racing League suffered a surprising blow with the announcement that
Nissan will disband its program after this year and concentrate solely on its
involvement in the revamped IRL-sanctioned Indy Lights series, the Infiniti Indy
Pro Series.
Two teams, Cheever Racing and the team driven by Robbie Buhl, are the most
affected. Cheever Racing in particular was made into a powerhouse thanks to
Nissan involvement, and is a valuable team for Honda, Toyota, or Chevrolet in
the series.
Penske Racing’s dominance of one-milers continued despite a hailstorm at
Pikes Peak. So chances are the Penskes will be the force at Richmond in two
weeks.