Michigan & Mayhem
Some teams got their Irish up in the Irish Hills. A look at the weekend:
Just when we thought the Silly Season couldn’t get more bizarre – it did.
Greg Specht of Ford isn’t the only one stunned at Cal Wells’ decision to
switch to Pontiac – the whole idea never sounded plausible. Switch from a good
body and engine lease program to an untested body, a marque that gets little to
no respect from its parent, a program in GM that needed nose kick outs to get
anything going, and an engine program that may not be able to support a lease
deal – the last time Richard Childress, the rumored supplier of Wells’ engines,
had such a deal, it was with Martin Birrane’s team in 1992, and it didn’t work
out for either side.
But then logic doesn’t always win out in racing, does it?
Then there is the latest twist in the Ricky Rudd saga – the Ganassi Dodge
deal may now be dead, killed off after a reported blowup between Rudd and
Ganassi. Ford, which has fought to keep Rudd in their camp, saddled Rudd in the
Wood Brothers’ #21, a ride that is questionably rich in heritage and a very
competitive ride still today, but nonetheless is something of a step down from
the Yates #28. The #28 now becomes the #38 – last seen as a car number with
Australian Dick Johnson – and M&Ms joins the team with Elliott Sadler as
driver.
As for Rudd, where does this leave Ganassi? Where does it leave Jerry Jones
and Andy Petree – Rudd reportedly tried to contact Jones but was rebuffed.
How much stranger can this Silly Season get?
John Darby’s goal of lower downforce got a slap of ice water in the face at
Michigan, before qualifying and during the Yankee 400. In pre-qualifying
practice there were several spins of cars running by themselves. Then in
the 400 several cars took off by themselves – the most prominent were Dale
Jarrett, whose car survived his spin, and Steve Park, whose car didn’t. When
cars in their present state of downforce loop around by themselves, you know
that shaving downforce can best be described as ill-advised.
And speaking of bad rules ideas – there has been some talk of running 13
gallon fuel cells on all tracks, the idea being that extra pit stops supposedly
create more exciting racing. Except here’s the reality – more pit stops DO NOT
make more exciting racing; they make for total frustration for all involved, and
they tend to overwork the crews – if extra stops don’t lead to more pit
accidents first. Oh, you see a lot of bizarre pit strategies, but since when is
that real racing? What happened to passing and re-passing people on the
racetrack?
Has John Darby ever seen races at Rockingham and Darlington? There teams pit
every 60 or so miles for tires – hardly anyone ever runs close to a full fuel
run at those tracks. And it all makes for some of the most frustratingly
uncompetitive racing in the sport. The whole 13-gallon fuel cell idea may be the
worst since 1991’s thoroughly stupid no-tires-under-yellow rule, a rule that
made for bizarre pit strategies and crushingly uncompetitive racing.
Rusty Wallace added his two cents to the whole pit stop issue with his rather
offensive blast at Kurt Busch’s Bristol win during TV’s pre-race show on
downforce. Rusty pined at how Busch ran the final third of the race without
stopping, calling it ridiculous that a driver could run that far without
stopping.
Ridiculous? Pit stops aren’t the reason for racing, Rusty. The reason for
racing is to take the checkered flag first, and if you do so by NOT pitting,
then it can be all the better. Pit stops are not supposed to supplant the
on-track action; pit stops are supposed to support it.
There was a comment by Jimmie Johnson in that piece about how, with higher
downforce and harder tires, drivers can actually go faster by driving harder.
Speed up to go faster? What a concept. It is certainly preferable to the
age-old reality of slow down to go faster – strictly speaking, slow down to go
faster means you’re not racing anyone.
Lobbying by Rusty has apparently paid off with news that Goodyear will run
softer tires at Dover. There was also praise when teams tested softer tires
during the greenhouse test at Charlotte – never mind that softer tires mean
higher tire bills than harder tires, a thought that hasn’t crossed people’s mind
in this whole issue.
Harder tires have helped team tire bills because now teams can run 500-mile
races with fewer tires than when they run soft compounds. While it is certainly
true that they have not helped the racing, the reason why remains misunderstood
– wider tread and higher stagger would make up for deficiencies in these tires
without sacrificing their durability.
And Dover, with its concrete surface, is among the worst tracks to prepare
tires for.
The GM kick out rule change was something of a wash at Michigan. While there
was substantially better racing there than we’ve seen since August 1999, the
longer the race ran the weaker the GM squadron got. But then it’s been that way
with them all season, and GM’s Cal Wells coup may come back and haunt Ricky
Craven.
Once again only RCR showed any real muscle in the GM camp, despite Junior’s
laps led and Tony Stewart’s strong effort. Pontiac had a better-than-expected
day, with four GPs in the top fifteen at the end. But it helped the GM group
that two of the best Fords – Kurt Busch and Ryan Newman – blew up. So the kick out
NASCAR granted should not be treated as a scandal by the Fords.
Dodge, though, could use a nose kick out after having one taken away earlier
– only one Dodge finished in the top ten.
The big sports story of the weekend was that Tiger Woods LOST a title game.
That he lost brought a comment on a radio show, asking if it is good for the
game that Tiger didn’t win.
Is it good for the game? One has to wonder at some people. It is a variant of
the old question, "Is domination good for sports?"
No, it isn’t. Short-term there is a boost in interest, but long-term,
domination is boring. Around the time of the Brickyard Ed Hinton made a comment
along the lines of "the tedious parity in NASCAR." Tedious parity?
That no one is dominating in NASCAR right now is anything but a negative
development. So far the Winston Cup Series has seen fourteen different winners,
and the most wins by anyone has been three. This is far preferable to a season
like 1997, when after the Yankee 400 the series had just eight winners and three
drivers controlled wins and the point race – Jeff Gordon had eight wins while
Dale Jarrett and Mark Martin had three apiece; Gordon would win twice more,
Jarrett four times more, and Martin once more.
SHORT-TRACKING – How many of you have been to racetracks and seen the same
driver battle for the win and two weeks in a row wind up in a huge crash?
That happened to SK Modified driver Jeff Baral at Stafford. In the track’s SK
150 before the Watkins Glen race, Baral had clawed his way to the front, but on
a restart got nailed by a spinning car and launched onto the front stretch
fencing. Now, a week later, he’d led the 50-lap feature for much of the second
half, but after a late restart a huge crash erupted at the stripe and Lloyd Agor
sliced off the rear deck and rear portion of the roof of Baral’s #18.
Bo Gunning wound up the winner of the SK feature. John Leger won the Late
Model feature after some chaotic occurrences there – Chuck Zentarsky and Scott
Garrity fused together off Two and Zentarsky was dragging Garrity for half the
length of the backstretch.
The Winston Cup and Grand National cars head to Bristol this weekend. They
call it short tracking, but Bristol is more demo derby than short track.