{"id":352,"date":"2002-03-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2002-03-18T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/archive-348-damned-race-leaders-can-t-get-outta-the-way\/"},"modified":"2002-03-18T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2002-03-18T00:00:00","slug":"archive-348-damned-race-leaders-can-t-get-outta-the-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/archive-348-damned-race-leaders-can-t-get-outta-the-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Damned Race Leaders Can’t Get Outta The Way"},"content":{"rendered":"

Erin
\nTitman<\/a> is miffed that some race fans described the wrecks at Darlington as
\n"cool." Now there is certainly validity in Titman’s criticisms, but
\nthere is also a bit of exaggeration as well.<\/p>\n

The blunt truth is that crashes are the sport’s guilty pleasure; that doesn’t
\ndetract from the genuine concern felt when someone gets in a serious crash such
\nas Tony Stewart’s. One may not like Stewart, one may take pleasure in that he
\ncrashed out, but I doubt even those who called the wreck "cool" really
\nbore any malicious view toward Stewart’s well-being in the wreck. If Stewart’s
\nwreck involved just him and Buckshot Jones there wouldn’t be much in the way of
\ncontroversy – the big issue came when a third of the field, in two groups over
\nfour seconds back, plunged headlong into Stewart’s snout. It was fortunate that
\nStewart got off as well as he did, though Titman exaggerates when he writes that
\nten years ago such a wreck would have been more injurious – I remember such
\ngrinders ten years ago and later, and the results were the same – the drivers
\nwere uninjured.<\/p>\n

\n

The Stewart crash happened when Buckshot Jones slapped the wall about two
\nseconds ahead of Stewart and skated about Turn Two trying to save the car,
\nStewart ran into him, hit the wall, and then the aforementioned two other groups
\nplowed in. This came after race leaders Steve Park and Ricky Craven were
\neliminated after Park tried to pass Stacy Compton and crowded Compton and
\nhimself into the wall.<\/p>\n

Such incidents led to denunciation of lapped cars – Jimmy
\nSpencer<\/a> growled, "Lapped cars have just got to realize they’ve got to
\nget out of the way."<\/p>\n

Now there is substantially more involved here. Park tried a slide job on
\nCompton after Compton moved as high as he could out of Park’s way – Park just
\nflat misjudged the corner and swerved into Compton. Nor did Buckshot Jones do
\nanything wrong in his incident – this is, after all, Darlington, a track that in
\nthe 1976 Southern 500 deflated the tires of several competitors on pit road
\nBEFORE the command to fire engines, never mind having the wall jump out in front
\nof cars – the wall remark is an exaggeration, of course, but it’s as apt a
\ndescription of Darlington as one can find.<\/p>\n

Lapped cars are often a hassle, but Compton gave park enough room and
\nBuckshot got bit by the Lady In Black – those wrecks weren’t the fault of lapped
\ncars.<\/p>\n

\n

Sterling Marlin had to change engines before the race and thus started in the
\nfinal five spots. The fact he won after changing engines will no doubt heat up
\nthe one-engine rule controversy – Kevin Harvick said his team installed a rev
\nlimiter and were real conservative on the engine; no doubt such situations will
\nbe cited in opposition to the rule.<\/p>\n

Perhaps in anticipation of more team shenanigans NASCAR has made an amendment
\nwhere teams may lose some points if they change engines before a race. Let’s
\nhope they enforce it to the letter, and teams finally get the hint and stop
\nbuilding for speed and instead built to run all out for 1,000 miles.<\/p>\n

\n

Amid Richard Childress’ recrimination that NASCAR "flat out lied to
\nme" on aero rule changes, Chevrolet had its best day of the season. Gordon
\nled nearly 180 laps, Kevin Harvick finished third, Dale Junior took fourth, and
\nJimmie Johnson finished sixth. The Chevy camp isn’t happy, though – "it’s
\nreally obvious how unbalanced the whole field is, from Chevrolet to Dodge, an
\nungodly amount of down force. That’s something we can’t compete with," Harvick
\nsaid<\/a> afterward.<\/p>\n

Mike
\nHelton<\/a> got into the act before the Rebel 400 and hinted the sport will see
\ndifferent rules for the different kind of tracks – one set of rules for Daytona
\nand Talladega, one for the short tracks, one for banked intermediate supers like
\nAtlanta and Charlotte, and one for flat tracks like Pocono and Homestead –
\n"if that’s what we have to do, that’s what we’ll do to keep everybody in
\nthe hunt."<\/p>\n

Helton also noted the difficulty with Ray Evernham’s cut down force argument,
\nnoting what ought to be obvious – the more comfortable the car, the better the
\nracing. "We have to step back and look at all the issues, the handling, down force,
\nthe drag, the horsepower, and make decisions."<\/p>\n

Fine, but the sport needs some decisions made soon, decisions that will get
\nthe sport back to the kind of racing it ought to have.<\/p>\n

\n

Finally, David Pearson may be helping Elliott Sadler.<\/p>\n

Officially, David is consulting with Jon Wood in the Truck Series, but the
\nway Elliott Sadler finished at Darlington Glen and Leonard may have hustled him
\nto the Winston Cup garage after the Truck race to consult with Sadler.<\/p>\n

Newer fans had better brush up on their history, for the Wood Brothers used
\nto own Darlington like no one else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Erin Titman is miffed that some race fans described the wrecks at Darlington as "cool." Now there is certainly validity in Titman’s criticisms, but there is also a bit of exaggeration as well. The blunt truth is that crashes are the sport’s guilty pleasure; that doesn’t detract from the genuine concern felt when someone gets […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-original-archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}