Pre-Indy Miscellanea
Entering the Brickyard, some thoughts –
Bill
Fleischman, less is not better.
Shortening races at Pocono is never a good idea. 500 miles is a much better
test of drivers and machinery than 400 miles, and 200 laps at Pocono is a better
test than 160 laps. 160 laps on a 2.5 mile track is not a complete distance.
That is why, to quote Geoff Bodine, "we’re talking on deaf ears, because
nobody is listening."
Shortening the race doesn’t save anyone any money and doesn’t make better
racing. When Dover shortened its races, their competitiveness dropped
dramatically. Far from being more interesting and better shows, they are more
boring, less competitive, less interesting.
The gripe that any event lasting more than three hours is too long for
television only betrays how little fire is left in the belly of so many
participants. Those drivers complaining about 500 miles at Pocono act not like
serious racers, but whiners more concerned with fringe benefits than winning
races.
But then the sport has become like that, hasn’t it? The T-shirt sales and
souvenir profits mean more to drivers than winning. The desire isn’t there, the
desire to go for the win no matter what, the desire that is what makes race
drivers real race drivers.
That is why the IRL is starting to steal NASCAR’s thunder.
The Michigan Indy 400 was surprisingly dull, and even the final 25 laps were
not as ferocious as they ought to have been, and as previous IRL events at
Texas, Kentucky, Kansas, and Fontana have been. Yet the racing was still better
than anything other than Daytona and Talladega.
The IRL, though, has some problems it needs to address with the much weaker
draft in evidence at MIS. Sound familiar? It should – NASCAR has also long had
the need to dirty up the aerodynamics and get the draft back to where it really
works.
As for the IRL finish, Tomas Scheckter finally got things working his way
after failing to finish almost every week. It became clear at Indy that he would
be all but unstoppable, but inability to finish plagued the team all year, and
with Infiniti leaving the team, a win was quite necessary to get a good engine
deal for 2003.
That Cheever Racing finished 1-2 was also remarkable. Rookie Buddy Rice, the
team’s test driver, jumped into a hastily-fielded third car, timed on the front
row, led, and finished second with a great apron pass on the final lap.
The other hot story was Sara Fisher, for almost the first time ever actually
battling for a win. It was quite a turnaround for a driver who looked unable to
regain anything the last two seasons.
When it was over the point battle has become exceptionally close, and Sam
Hornish looks like he can overhaul the Penskes by the season finale at Texas.
Why go to smaller fuel cells for Talladega?
The idea is to necessitate four or five pit stops as opposed to the normal
two to three. Supposedly this will spread the field out more.
Except in reality it won’t. More stops means more likelihood of a pit
accident, and since the cars will all pit at once, the field won’t be spread out
– it hasn’t in the last three or four seasons of plate racing.
And the goal of spreading out the field is wrong in any event. Competition is
supposed to mean more, not fewer, cars in contention for the win. Pit stops are
not supposed to usurp chances of winning in any event – the winner is supposed
to outfight his opposition on the racetrack, AIDED by pit stops when necessary.
Stops are not supposed ton be the only means of winning a race.
The stupidity of the idea should have made it a non-starter, but it shows how
cowardly the sport is becoming that it will be tried. This sport is supposed to
be about backbone – backbone to not worry about how packed the field is,
backbone to go out there and fight for the win. The rules are supposed to feed
this backbone, not castrate the competition.
They still don’t get it.
The stories are now circulating about how Indianapolis Motor Speedway is not
suited to stock cars. As usual, the cars are never blamed, the track is.
It isn’t the track, at NHIS, at Pocono, at Indy, anywhere. It is the
racecars. Change the cars so they can suck up on and pass, and you won’t have
the problems of passing you have presently.
Just how pathetic can these "We miss Dale" sob-stories be? Consider
Jeff Gordon’s whine, reported by Dick
Mittman.
Gordon says it isn’t the same without the black #3 on the track. Actually it
is the same. Earnhardt’s "dominating" personality wasn’t that
dominating – if anything, it had become dull and Hollywood. Most sensible people
got over it within a few weeks, and frankly there isn’t much to miss.
I still remember the real Earnhardt – the bully, the full-of-himself type who
never accepted blame for his crashes, the driver who radiated a blue-collar hue
but by 1998 had made it a Hollywood self-parody. Some people may still miss him,
but most sensible people don’t.
What he did for the sport is easy to forget – the bullying, the buck-passing
– "Does he ever say he means to wreck somebody?" Terry Labonte once
famously asked – and so forth. People still say he won his seven titles against
real competition, but such people are lying. He won his last six titles against
a generation of drivers who don’t have the desire to win – consider Gordon’s
comment that "knowing we’re 188 points out of the lead, fourth in points
and have cars capable of winning, it makes (not winning) easier to
swallow." That is the wrong attitude, and Gordon’s follow-up, "That
doesn’t mean we don’t want to win," is laughable. That Earnhardt won his
titles with a point system infamous for rewarding mediocrity should say
something.
No, I don’t miss Dale Earnhardt, because there really isn’t any reason to.