SEARS POINT, ROAD RACING, AND HISTORY
JUST SIT RIGHT BACK: I believe that after this season,
all the tracks with two pit roads will have fixed that problem… or will they?
The pit situation at Sears Point is almost worse than that of oval tracks that
have a front- and backstretch pit road.
Sears Point has the “Gilligan’s Island” pit area inside turn 11 where an
unlucky nine drivers have to pit. Because they don’t have to exit on pit road,
NASCAR holds the drivers 20 seconds before they can reenter the track.
If Bruton can fix the pit situation at Bristol, he can certainly fix it
here. There’s no excuse for having two pit areas on a track, because
invariably one area is a big disadvantage to the drivers who have to pit
there.
ROAD RACING: I still don’t really like road courses, at
least from a NASCAR perspective. All three of NASCAR’s major touring series are
at a road course this weekend, so the only real racing I got to see this weekend
was Saturday
night at Nashville Speedway. The Late Models had one of the closest finishes in
history with the margin of victory less than a foot.
They could make it interesting and make the cars go around
the road courses counter clockwise, like they do on ovals. Anybody know why they
go clockwise on road courses?
NO CUP GUYS, BUT…: Well, the Busch Series cars
(and Craftsman Trucks) were at Watkins Glen this weekend. With the Winston Cup
Series on the other side of the continent, this’ll be another race where they
get to compete amongst themselves.
Well, almost. Seems like a lot of the teams have found
hired guns to run the road course. Butch Leitzinger and Ron Fellows were
entered in the race. The #77 team replaced Chad Chaffin with Bryan Wall
initially, then put Mike Wallace in the car. Joe Gibbs replaced Jeff Purvis with Curtis
Markham. With Fellows getting the win, that’s just another race that the Busch
regulars missed out on.
Steve deSouza of Gibbs Racing said "Jeff is clearly
our driver, we remain behind him 100 percent." Uh, Steve… if you were
behind him 100 percent, then he would’ve been in the car this weekend. I don’t know
what the deal is with the #77 car either, but you certainly can’t get road
racing experience when you’re not behind the wheel.
GO KYLE! Was that Kyle Petty up front in qualifying
for the Sears Point race? And Sterling Marlin will start 6th? Maybe this
road racing stuff isn’t so bad, if we get a chance to see some "new"
faces up front. It gets old seeing the same 6 or 8 cars start out front every
race.
I wonder if they’re gonna rename it to the Miller Pole
Award?
FOLLOW THE LEADER: I’m sure someone
will correct me if I’m wrong, but I only saw one pass on the track for the lead
during the Sears Point race, and that was with about 27 laps to go when Gordon
passed Kenny Wallace (who was on older tires). The record books will record 7 or
8 lead changes among 10 or so drivers, but that doesn’t have anything to do with
the racing action. And before you road course fans complain, yeah, I know there
were a lot of changes for position back in the field. But do you really like
rooting for a driver to make a pass for 15th place?
RACE LENGTH: When RJ Reynolds came
aboard to sponsor what has become the Winston Cup series, one provision was that
only races over 250 miles in length were included. That’s why the races at
Nashville Speedway were made 420 laps (250.32 miles). The race at Sears
Point falls about 32 miles short in length. Watkins Glen is about 20 miles
short. I wonder when Winston released the 250-mile race length
requirement?
HISTORY: I was thinking during the
Sears Point race about the roots of NASCAR. A lot of the early drivers ran
moonshine when they weren’t racing (and a track or two had a still underneath
the grandstands). Maybe NASCAR, to make the road races more exciting for
the fans, should add another dimension to the race. Put a 100 gallon tank in the
trunk fill it with moonshine, and whoever finishes with the most left wins. I
guess out west they would probably have to use wine instead of liquor.