2002 – The Top Ten Stories And The Awards, Please
So 2002 is finished and Tony Stewart is champion. Now we can look back on a
season that frustrated even its winners and see what its top stories and
bests-and-worsts were.
To start, we have the top ten stories of the season –
1 – PARITY IS HERE TO STAY – Some might have thought that 2001’s
number of winners – 19 – was some kind of fluke. Eighteen winners in 2002 showed
it wasn’t. Parity also showed in the stats of Tony Stewart’s title run. Tony is
not the first champion to win with six DNFs – in his 1974 title Richard Petty
blew up in five races and crashed out of two others – but Stewart’s other stats
showed how much parity there is – only three wins (the lowest win total for a
champion since Terry Labonte’s two wins in 1996) and fifteen top fives – in
contrast, Petty’s 1974 came with ten wins, eight seconds, and four thirds; Terry
Labonte had nineteen additional top fives to his two wins in 1996, and so forth.
Here’s perhaps the ultimate stat for Stewart – he had three more wins and two
more top tens in 2000, where he finished sixth in points in a season with two
fewer races, than in his title year.
There was also a parity of sorts in the manufacturer battle. Ford won the
manufacturer title with 14 wins, Chevrolet was second with ten wins, Dodge
managed seven wins, and Pontiac bagged five wins.
Inevitably will come the concern that there is too much parity, that the lack
of a dominating force somehow demeans the accomplishment of the championship or
of a strong season. To some extent it does, but in the long term it is always
better for the sport to have parity.
2 – RELATIONAL MELTDOWNS – By far the most spectacular was the
meltdown between Ricky Rudd and Robert Yates Racing. When Elliott Sadler
announced his release from Wood Brothers Racing it set off the silly season soap
opera to end all such. Rudd feuded with Yates, with crew chief Michael McSwain,
and with his engine builders; Yates flip-flopped on the issues involved and
eventually got Sadler and M&Ms sponsorship while Rudd got the #21 ride.
That wasn’t the only meltdown, though, as Stewart’s emotional meltdown nearly
derailed his title chase. Another meltdown erupted between car owners Jim Smith
and Ray Evernham, a relationship that never got anywhere to begin with. Jimmy
Spencer was hired for Chip Ganassi’s #41 Dodge, but that relationship soured at
Watkins Glen and reportedly finally melted down after a confrontation between
Spencer and a NASCAR official at Rockingham witnessed by an angered sponsor rep.
The most tabloid-esque meltdown was between Jeff and Brooke Gordon, now
largely forgotten amid the seasonal pursuit.
3 – THE END OF THE OLD GUARD – Rudd’s most controversial comment was
his blast at the surge in young drivers and the neglect of veterans that
resulted. He had a point, as younger drivers won all but two races in the
season’s final fifteen and veterans Jimmy Spencer and Hut Stricklin lost rides
with no realistic hope of getting new ones. Old guardsmen now are declining in
the sport and only a few will be able to hang on for the next few years.
The surprise of the young guard lies in two who didn’t make it – Casey Atwood
and Buckshot Jones, both winners in Grand National.
4 – NASCAR AND DRIVERS AT CROSS-PURPOSES WITH EACH OTHER, AND WITH FANS –
Steve Hmiel succinctly summarized the ongoing feud between NASCAR and drivers at
Talladega when he noted that drivers and teams welcomed rules intended to spread
cars out at restrictor plate tracks yet were going to work extremely hard to
overcome those rules.
It summed up the absurdity of the whole situation. Drivers should not be at
cross-purposes with NASCAR; they want to go to the front and should not be
advocating rules that impede ability to go to the front; NASCAR should not be
putting in rules that weaken ability to race; it solved its competition problems
in 2001 but abandoned it because drivers acted like hypocrites. Nor should
NASCAR be putting in, nor drivers lobbying for, rules that make for boring
racing – a situation that led to ugly fan reaction at the Firecracker 400, a
regrettable incident but still one where NASCAR and drivers got what they
deserved.
5 – MORE INJURIES AND MORE SAFETY OVERKILL – Several short track and
other race drivers were killed or seriously injured in 2002, the most gruesome
being the death of Eric Martin at Charlotte. This tragedy displayed the sport’s
frustrating tendency to overreact, and the wrong way, in the wake of such
tragedies; NASCAR mandated spotters for all practice and qualifying sessions,
instead of taking the other driver involved to task for not looking past the
nose of the racecar. Of course also forgotten is the fact that drivers are no
longer driving their own cars, but are instead just puppets for their spotters,
a situation that should not be.
And the safety overkill may not be done – Darrell Waltrip claims that in 2003
NASCAR will implement a substitute driver rule, allowing injured drivers to earn
points without starting in a race.1
Why? Why should drivers get points for sitting out races?
6 – POINTS PENALTIES – NASCAR finally started getting tough on
cheating by subtracting points from drivers and teams, a move that led to
another of Jack Roush’s petulant tantrums when Mark Martin was docked 25 points
for an illegal spring at Rockingham.
7 – THE FOREIGNERS ARE COMING! – Two non-American drivers made Winston
Cup debuts in 2002 – Hideo Fukuyama drove for Travis Carter and made no
impression, while Christian Fittipaldi drove for Petty Enterprises and got
slammed into the wall at Phoenix.
And a foreign manufacturer is coming – Toyota, already in NASCAR’s Dash
series, all but announced it will enter NASCAR big-track competition in 2004,
with 2006 penciled in as the year of Toyota’s Winston Cup debut.
8 – LAWSUITS AND SUIT LAWS – Driver and crewmen deportment became an
issue with fines for on-air use of profanity.
Meanwhile, the biggest issue off the track is Speedway Motorsports’ lawsuit
against NASCAR for a second Texas date, a suit prosecuted by O.J. Simpson
hustler Johnnie Cochrane, and which has featured reckless use of the term
monopoly against NASCAR.
9 – THE END OF ESPN MOTORSPORTS – ESPN suffered its final blow in
major-league motorsports coverage by losing the Craftsman Trucks to SPEED
Channel. With that the former worldwide leader in sports coverage is reduced to
the IRL and a few other racing bodies, with little prospect of having any
motorsports coverage by 2005. It’s been a huge downfall for the company from
Bristol, CT that once prospered in motorsports coverage but which could not
handle real competition.
10 – RISE IN COSTS AND FALL IN TEAMS – Despite confident comments that
the team will return in 2003, Andy Petree Racing has laid off a number of
employees, and as Travis Carter found out this past season, coming back is all
but impossible. So it appears APR will not last beyond 2003 if it runs beyond
Speedweeks at all.
The twin falls of two owner-crew chief teams can be blamed on several issues,
and the rising cost of racing remains a big one. NASCAR’s new aero-matching rule
is intended to cut some costs, but it is impossible to see how. The one-engine
rule has been effective, but has been broken repeatedly in the season, and needs
to be vastly toughened – teams should not be allowed to work on their engine at
any point of the weekend, and if they blow up, they should be done for the
weekend.
NASCAR also needs to put the screws on teams to open their books, because we
will not be able to effectively cut costs until we all know where everyone is
spending their money and where they should not be spending money. Cutting costs
is the first step toward allowing lower ticket prices.
With the top ten stories of the year, we look at the bests, worsts, and
weirdests of 2002:
BEST TEAM – Roush Racing –
This is more by default than anything. Ten wins in 36 races is unquestionably
the strongest run of anyone in 2002, and more memorable than the driver
championship. Roush now holds 60 wins in Winston Cup and is the sport’s
strongest team.
WORST TEAM – BAM Racing –
Not only did they not have anything in the way of either serious resources
(which makes that they ran as many races as they did all the more remarkable)
nor competitive form, their initial choice for driver collapsed them into the
hole, and it took far too many races before they finally fired Shawna Robinson.
MOST IMPROVED TEAM – Petty Enterprises –
The only owner-participant team that survived 2002 reasonably intact. After
massive struggle in 2001 the hiring of Robin Pemberton, Richard Buck, and Mike
Ege put the three-Dodge team back toward competitive form. Three top tens don’t
really show how much more competitive the organization was over 2001. The team
was hurt, though, by the revolving door at the #44; Buckshot Jones’ firing after
a promising opening quarter to the season hurt overall team stability; the
hiring of Jerry Nadeau brought that stability back. The team is also taking a
risk in hiring CART castoff Christian Fittipaldi, banking on his technical
knowledge from his years in CART to help as NASCAR technology increases.
MOST RELAPSED TEAM – Robert Yates Racing –
The Ricky Rudd soap opera puzzled many because Robert Yates’ organization
seemed more stable than most others; at times some may have wondered who, if
anyone, was in charge. The Yates team still won three races and was strong
almost everywhere, but it was a rather sharp drop from 2001’s power.
MOST INCONSISTENT TEAM – Joe Gibbs Racing –
It has become a tautology that six DNFs mean no shot at the title, but Tony
Stewart disproved the tautology by winning the title with that many DNFs. Adding
to the inconsistency was the collapse of Bobby Labonte’s team after Labonte
finally won a short track race, at Martinsville in April. The switch to
Chevrolet is a risk, as they go from big fish in a small pond to small fish in a
bigger pond.
BEST RACE – By far the best race was the Autumn 500 at Talladega.
There were 35 lead changes among almost the entire field racing three abreast
for most of the day. Fuel mileage and late splash-and-go stops (both a product
of 13-gallon fuel cells) wiped out the battle for the win, but it was still
easily the best race of the year.
Honorable mention needs to go to the Atlanta 500, which saw 34 lead changes.
WORST RACE – There were regrettably few good races in 2002, but the
one that stood out was the Firecracker 400, because of how it ended – under
yellow, and with enraged backstretch fans bombarding the cars and drivers in
anger. Driver justifications for not restarting the race were an insult to basic
intelligence and showed how much drivers deserved the bombardment.
BEST TRACK – Talladega.
WORST TRACK – Bristol.
BEST DRIVER – Ricky Craven, competitive all season and largely at
every track.
WORST DRIVER – Shawna Robinson.
BEST MOMENT – Three abreast for the lead on back at Talladega.
Honorable mention goes to the Schrader-Andretti battle for the lead at the
Daytona 500.
WORST MOMENT – The crash at Charlotte in ARCA practice.
MOST EMBARRASSING COMMENT – Richard Childress’ comment about Todd
Bodine at Charlotte in October – Childress is in no position to call anyone a
bonehead, since he still worships the worst such in the sport’s history.
DUMBEST CONTROVERSY – Over injured drivers not getting points from
substitute drivers. Drivers who don’t start races don’t deserve the points.
FEUD OF THE YEAR – Fans, media, and everyone else versus drivers.
BLOOD FEUD OF THE YEAR – SMI vs. NASCAR.
LOUDMOUTH OF THE YEAR – Tie between Jack Roush and Darrell Waltrip.
ENCOURAGING SIGN OF THE YEAR – The number of different winners.
And thus do we follow football and other things before the NASCAR season
starts up in 2003.