Race Car Stuff

I just watched the finish of the Daytona 500 and the long winter (AKA off season) is officially over for most forms of racing. Granted it is not in full swing yet, but speed weeks means that the car shows for the local short tracks will be seen at local shopping malls soon, the earliest autocrosses can be seen and we will hear the sounds of race engines being tested in local racers garages and driveways. The full swing of the racing season is just around the corner.

For most racers and race fans alike this has been a tough off season. The economy has caused many businesses to re-evaluate their marketing plans, leaving tighter budgets and often axing the racing sponsorships at all levels. We have read about layoffs totaling about a thousand employees in the NASCAR shops around Charlotte, NC. Similar things have happened at all other levels of racing all around the country and probably the world. NASCAR had responded with a ban on testing intended to save the teams money. Some other sanctioning bodies had done the same or similar measures to save the participants money. This all meant that for the fans it was going to be a long and anxious winter with no testing to watch and speculate what it would all bring for the 2009 racing season.

The opening of Daytona Speed Weeks began with the Rolex 24 and Koni Challenge cars. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief with 63 Koni Challenge cars taking the green flag. Most were adorned with the usual sponsor logos, but there were a few more cars with empty fenders than usual, but this surely would not make the racing any worse. I thought the battle between the Mustangs, Porsches and BMW’s was truly classic. It was reminiscent of early days of Trans Am races with the close racing with some truly great driving. I was only slightly disapointed that the Turner BMW of Auberlin and Bell barely beat the Roush prepared Mustang of Plumb and Roush.

In the Rolex 24, I am somewhat disappointed in the fact that caution flags are comming out as often as they do in NASCAR races. It is road racing, if a car is off the course and not blocking traffic, there needs to be a local yellow for a few laps, send out facilities to remove the car, etc. But the racing continues. The frequent yellows kept the racing close, but this would not have done had this effect had there not been so many well prepared race cars racing. There were four cars running nose to tail with 15 minutes left in the race. To make it all better the classic colors of the #59 Brumos Porsche returned to victory lane. The drivers names were Donahue, Law, Garcia and Rice but Hurley Haywood was in the pit lane with the team and I am sure Peter Gregg was there in spirit. It was a great race had it been a one hour sprint, but add to it the fact that it was a 24 hour endurance race and it should be remembered in history.

Then it was the NASCAR teams chance. We had read of nothing good during the offseason. Many teams no longer had sponsorhips, many good drivers were without rides, many teams had folded, there was just nothing good in the news. But when the gates to the garages in Daytona opened, there were many teams without garage space because all of the slots were full. There were many of the teams that had folded were actually folded into other teams planning for the future. Many of the laid off shop workers had gotten together and put together volunteer efforts to get an unsponsored single car effort in the 500, or the truck race, or Nationwide race. Sure there were plenty of blank fenders and hoods on the cars, but racers are used to dealing with tough circumstances and had found ways to make it all happen. This was not unlike racing during the ‘74 fuel crisis, or during the lean times of the ’70’s or in the early years when drivers drove the cars to the race track. Bottom line is that racers are racers. They work harder when times are tough and get a car to the race track.

The racing stated with practice sessions in which many cars were needing to be adjusted, tuned and many drivers had to clean out the cobwebs of the off season with no testing. The Budweiser shootout was a crash fest, but generally this was from drivers being aggressive and trying to win the race at all costs, not any side effects from the lack of testing. The finish was a surprise (you already know who won) but I think it was yet another argument for an adjustment to the rules that allow the cars to race back to the line on the last lap, rather than making the finish a judgement call at an arbitrary point around the track and feeding all of the blogs with fuel for comment. There can be exceptions when the wreck is ahead of the leaders and there can be a gentleman’s agreement to not pass if you are behind the accident, but it is something that need changing.

The ARCA race was somewhat bothersome. In distant years past this race was a crash fest with many inexperienced drivers. More recent years the RE/Max ARCA drivers had done a good job at Daytona, with more experienced drivers, teams and better cars. But this year seemed to be a return to days of some big violent crashes. There were three drivers with serious injuries (update they are all home and resting comfortably). Was this a cause of the off season? Not really, most of the ARCA teams are small budget teams that do very little testing in the off season. It was just a series of racing accidents that happen. This year the ones that happened collected a few more cars than typical. The ARCA teams should have a good year, even if some of them will find it tougher than usual to find funding for their racing efforts.

Sprint Cup qualifying had some unusual people show up at the top of the heap, but that is nothing new. There are surprises many years. The only surprise was how strong some of the new teams belonging to Jeremy Mayfield and Tommy Baldwin were. These were brand new single car teams that showed up to see if they could find a miracle. Those teams did find the miracle, but teams for Joe Nemechek, Brad Keselowski, Kirk Shelmerdine, Mike Wallace and others did not catch the miracle. The twin 150 qualifying racers were good races with few mishaps. There were some team efforts to get cars into the field. There were many great stories, but also many dreams shattered. If there had been a consolation race for the teams that did not qualify it would have been a good race. Surely this could be fit into the schedule somewere during the week in the future maybe.

The Camping World Truck series race was a great story in battling the odds. Todd Bodine showed up at the race with no sponsors, in hopes to something would turn up. He battled back from penalties and mishaps to win the race.

Saturday opened with Sprint Cup practice. The ugly gremlin of tire problems reared its head. Of all of the teams for it to affect, it chose one of Goodyear’s most regular critics in the garage area, Tony Stewart. His teammate, Ryan Newman exploded a tire right in front of Tony. The two crashed and both ended up going to back up cars. Tony made comments he might not have really wanted to make, but a tire failure had just cost his team two race cars, and their best chances to win the Daytona 500.

Tony Stewart took out his anger in the form of a great drive in the Nationwide series race later in he day, winning a great battle with Carl Edwards finshing second. The race was no more eventful than typical for the season opener for the Natiowide cars. The most notable thing to me this series is the number of announcers, drivers, and fans that still refer this as the Busch series. Old habits die hard (was that another sponsor plug?).

Finally we get to the main event, the Daytona 500. The first thing I noted was that there were no empty fenders. Tommy Baldwin’s car now had Red Bank Outfitters (I don’t know, look them up on the Google search up there in the corner) as a sponsor for at least this race. NASCAR played things on the cautious side with a caution flag for everyone to check tires after 25 laps. The notable thing at this point was that Jeff Gordon was going to have tire trouble all day because of some overly aggressive camber settings. This just can’t be easily changed during pit stops and it causes big changes in many other chassis settings. Gordon seemed to realize this and basically drove slower later in the race running outside of the top ten most of the day.

Kyle Busch seemed to have started off where he was at the end of the 26 race “regular season” from last year by dominating the race in the early going. There was one big accident during the race. I suppose how you saw the accident depended on your opinion of Dale Jr., but there was a comming together of him and Brian Vickers with both of them racing for the lucky dog position. Rookie sensation was taken out in one of those racing accidents that everyone gets involved in from time to time. That left Scott Speed’s unimpressive 35th place finish as the best finishing rookie. Defending race champion, Ryna Newman had bad luck all week and the 500 was no exception. He got down two laps due to a long green flag pit stop early and never fought his way back from it.

The hope for the Ford teams had come from the Wood Brothers entry for Bill Elliott, but during the race he was never a factor running quietly all day in the 20-25th position. The only Fords that were close otherwise were Kenseth and McMurry. McMurry got caught up in the Dale Jr-Brian Vickers incident, leving Kenseth as the only Ford anywhere near the top of the race.

I spent half of the afternoon with the laptop on weather.com watching how fast the rain was approaching. So was everyone in the pit lane. Matt Kenseth took the lead just before Aric Almirola spun and had contact with Kasey Kahne. This caution ended up being the last, as the rains soon came. Looking at the weather radar, it appeared that 3/4th to one hour of rain was going to be at the track at least. Then it would involve more drying of the track. This is more of a problem after the sun has set, so NASCAR called off the race with Matt Kenseth as the winner.

My observations from the weeks? Well I have a few, one is that racing is alive and well in spite of the economy. In fact I think it will be better in the long run. Many of the teams had gotten into a cost is no object race of money. With the consolidations and fund shortages it has brought some reality into the way they race. The ban on testing may be a good thing with some modifications. I hope NASCAR and other sanctioning bodies realize the sensibility of this, even when economic times are good. In some sort of modified way these testing bans will be good for everyone. Last year I had predicted that there would no longer be small independent teams making races, that the emergence of Toyota had left no room for them. Well, the state of the economy has made room for them. There were several at Daytona with a good chance of making the race, and a couple of them did. I do wish that NASCAR would eleminate the 35 reserved spots for the races. Kirk Shelmerdine had a real chance, enough of a chance that they will be back for more. NASCAR has no worry of short fields this year.

More to come.

I know it has been a long time since I have been active here. Racing season it starting up, and this site will see regular updates. Keep watching.

To start, this is a great video that explains how I grew up. At one point in my life, my Mother, both of her sisters, one of her sister’s boyfriends, my younger cousin, my wife, and my oldest daughter were all autocrossers. Each Sunday my grandparents came out to the events and watched, and mostly visited with all of the family in one place, since all of the spouses and kids also came to the events. This was a great time in my life. This video, captures that feeling. This is not my family, but it captures the same feeling, I wish that was something everyone involved in racing could experience.

Yes, I have promised to start writing again in the past, and I am going to do it again. Maybe I will actually keep my promise this time. Life for me has gone through many changes since I was getting 10-20 articles a month here, some for the better and some not so much for the better.

Ideas for articles are always floating around in my head. Some of the ideas are the best ever written, but they never seem to get flushed out of the cerebral spheres to the digital media. That is a pattern that has to change for the better. There is too much pent up frustration in keeping good articles about racing in my head.

Tonight, my favorite racing news show, Wind Tunnel had a special episode for the week of the NASCAR All-Star race. The Jarretts, Ned and Dale, were special guests. They had the usual questions about their careers, and Dale’s impending last race of his career. But the thing that got my attention was the comment about Ned’s broadcasting with ESPN. Dave Despain said that the years of Ned, Benny Parsons, and Bob Jenkins were thought by most of the hardcore racing fans to be the best broadcasts ever done for a race.

This comment made me start thinking. I had always felt that way, but why? In prior years there had been teams that were usually made up of an “expert” and a couple of professional broadcasters. What was better about Ned, Benny, and Bob? The thing I liked about it was the fact that they realized this was a “series”. Prior to the ESPN years of the ’80’s and ’90’s racing was occasionally covered on mixed in with figure skating on ABC’s Wide World or Sports. The sport had to be “sold” to fans of stick and ball sports. That meant that every race had to have a presentation of the art of drafting, the examination of pit crew members jobs, and more crashes in the tape delay post production than laps of good racing. Saying it simply, we were being treated as 5 year olds every race.

With the growth of cable TV in the early days, the creation of 24 hour sports networks, and dedicated sports fans all came together to make the most of a special opportunity. Racing was an easy fit in that many of the races could be cheaply covered, and sponsor opportunities were everywhere. The influx of money gave the production team the opportunities to develop new ideas with moving scoring, in-car cameras at all angles, and reporters that were participants in the race.

Soon rather than coverage of 3-5 races a year, we had coverage of every race, live flag to flag. Instead of targeting a baseball fan, that only knew how to put gas in his/her daily commuter, now the broadcast was aimed at people who watched from week to week. The fans now knew all of drivers, they knew how drafting worked at Daytona and Talladega, and they were tired of being treated like 5 year olds. The broadcast team now could target a true fan for a change. They could discuss one car being stronger in the middle of a turn, and another being better at corner entry. They could handle discussions of camber and caster angles at Charlotte being different than Pocono. The fans could be treated like RACING fans.

The other big factor was the fact that the costs involved with the coverage were still fairly low. There were relatively few commercials. We got to watch racing… not graphics shows, constant repeats of the “best parts”. It was just good simple racing coverage. Just what the doctor ordered.

Today, the broadcast seems to be aimed more at entertainment, which honestly the racing has been geared more in that direction as well. The graphics and cyber replays are nice, but the true fan would probably rather see the battle going on for 14th place than an analysis of if Dale Jr. moved down or Kyle Bush moved up. The true racing fan appreciates what the sponsors had given then free of charge (at least directly) but there are as many commercials in a hundred laps now as there were in the whole race back then.

Thanks for what you gave us Ned, Benny, and Bob. It was something we will never see again.

Racecarstuff.com has been dormant for quite a while. Forgive me for that, but I hope to make up for it in the future. I have some good ideas for interesting articles that will come along shortly. But for now I am simply going to catch everyone up with what has been happening since sometime in the spring.

Personally I have been very busy with life other than racing. Sometimes the real world complicates our ability to be totally immersed in racing. It is a sad thing, but it does happen. So lets recap what has happened in my personal world (since this is my blog) since March or so.

I have run a number of autocrosses. Some have been in the RX7 and some have been in the family Shelby. Throughout the year most have been rather uneventful autocrosses, but the last one near the end of August was very worth mentioning. As you may remember I have been running the Shelby with 5 year old Kumho V710 tires that by the standards for E Street Prepared (ESP) are way too small for the car. We have been happy with the results, but we know we are slower than we should be in the class. I have a certain love for running in C Prepared (CP), which is a class that is mostly populated by gutted out, trailered race cars. I have run cars that were good CP cars over the years, but I don’t have one in autocrossable trim these days. But the Shelby is legal in CP, even though it is a street car. My good friend, Marc Lisner made some Hoosier racing slicks available to me (HUGE Thanks Marc!!!!). I mounted them on some nice American 200S rims that we used to use on our old SCCA road racing Mustang. They barely fit the Shelby, even though there is a little tire rubbing. The car looks awesome on the new (old) tire and wheel combination.

Shortly before the August autocross, I got an email from our old friend Lee Mathias. Lee has gotten a new 2007 Shelby GT. Lee has been more excited about the new Shelby GT than he has been with any new car he has ever owned. You may remember mentions of Lee from some of my previous posts in that when my family started autocrossing, Lee was an autocross veteran in his ’65 Shelby GT-350, serial # SFM5S071. Any Shelby aficionados will notice that is one of the heavily sought after ‘65’s out of the first batch of 100 cars. These cars were sort of special and the most race car like street Shelbys built during the first run of cars. Lee is one of the drivers with very natural ability. Watching him autocross 5S071 was truly a religious experience to a Shelby lover like me.

Lee said that he and his son Matt, were going to come up to the Tidewater area from Georgia to visit some family and they would like to take in an autocross with the new Shelby. This would be a great chance to have the new and the old Shelbys at an event together. Plus we would get to catch up with a friend that we had not seen in years. Lee is the person who sold us our Shelby in 1974. He needed a new roof for his house and since he had 5S071 and was building a race car ’66 GT350 (SFM6S1774), the dark green ’68 GT350 had to go. Lee had owned some incredible Mustangs and Shelbys over the years. Recently he had been Shelby-less for a while, but when the 2007 Shelby GT was introduced, he found a great buy on one at Jackie Jones Ford in Georgia. He changed it to the CS66 rims (basically modern versions of the old ’66 Shelby ten spokes). Since he took delivery of the Shelby GT he has posted many great stores to the Shelby lists on the internet. He had said many times that this was the car he had waited 40 years to have.

So this was going to be a great opportunity to have our old ’68 GT350 at an autocross, and the car built 39 years later (would that be a grandchild to a person?). To make the long story short, the times of our two cars don’t represent anything about the performance of the two cars. We were on racing tires, and Lee was on pure street tires. I have also been autocrossing regularly, while Lee said his last autocross was about 20 years ago. In that time Lee spent much time road racing his vintage race cars, and he also has run a couple of open track type events in his Shelby GT. But there are many autocross specific skills that make someone a good autocrosser. Lee still has the natural driving ability, but those specific autocross skills are rusty.

But the important thing was Mom and I had a great opportunity to spend the day with several old friends that we don’t get to spend enough time with these days. One was with Lee and his son Matt. Another was the Shelby GT350 that has been a part of our lives for so many years. My daughter, Shelby, who has grown up to appreciate the cars that carry her name, also came out to the event. Finally it gave all of us the opportunity to say thanks in the proper way to an old Texan, named Carroll Shelby, that had a dream many years ago that made it all possible.

In the end we were faster with the old Shelby, but that is truly not a comparison of the two cars. Each was a proper icon of automotive performance of its time.

Since I started my appreciation for the quirky car known as the First Generation Mazda RX7, one of the people who has halped me learn all of the ins and out of the workings of the car has been David Lane. David has owned a 1985 RX7 GSL-SE since it was new. That happens to be the same year and model as my car. In his years of ownership David has subtley upgraded his car constantly. Today he has an incredible performing sports car. The car is original paint that looks phenominal. He loved the car, but wanted to make it a little better in every parameter, but still not lose the character of the GSL-SE. I had the good fortune of driving David’s car about a year and a half ago. He has achieved his goal to perfection.

David was invited to travel across the country and give the opening presentation at an event called SevenStock. SevenStock is the yearly pilgrimage to southern California where Mazda opens their doors to us, the rotary enthusiast, and allow the event at the Corporate HQs in Irvine. Mazda RX enthusiasts get together and celebrate one of the greatest sports cars of all time the Mazda RX-7, and the greatest engine ever, the Rotary!

With David’s permission I have reporduced his SevenStock intorduction here. At the end I let you see a few pictures of David’s wonderful RX7 that simply don’t do the car justice.

I had the pleasure of opening the presentations at the Sevenstock 10 banquet on Saturday, September 22nd. It was an honor to express my thoughts to friends and heros present. Several people suggested creating a version of the presentation for distribution on the internet. Here it is.

David Lane
1985 GSL-SE
Cartech Turbo
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We are here tonight for various reasons–good, rational reasons for some of us, but I’m thinking that for MOST of us the reasons would be hard to explain to others. I’m not an automotive professional of any sort. I’m just a clarinet player. Yet it was….somehow…important for me to be with you today. The reason we get together, of course, is that we own GREAT cars. Mine is a 1985 RX-7. I’ve owned it since new.

And that’s what I want to talk about. Great Cars.

Collectors might tell us that a great car is one that is rare and gains value over time. Collectors don’t want to drive their great cars very much. It decreases the value, and makes them dusty. Collector cars are not the sort of cars I’m talking about. Their greatness typically resides in a motionless state–stationary on the grass at Pebble Beach, or on the auction block.

Exotic cars are not always great cars.
Costly, yes.
Relatively rare, yes.
Fun to drive?……..Sometimes.
Practical for us average types? Hardly. Even if we could squeeze the money together to buy one, we’d never be able to deal with the upkeep.

Some might tell us that a great car requires the kind of power that results in instant immortality when the accelerator is pressed.

Two words: Bugeye Sprite.

So, What makes the kind of cars you and I drive GREAT cars.

Great cars were meant to be driven every day. There is no other way an owner can truly bond with a machine.

Great cars are visual candy. How many of you turn back to look at your car when you get just the right distance away? Research tells us that when a male sees a beautiful female, the physiological reaction is similar to the one a woman gets when she takes a bite of chocolate. That explains a lot of things, but certainly looking at a beautiful car is a pleasure of its own. After all, that’s what we have been doing all afternoon. At least looking at cars won’t make you fat, or get you fired for creating a hostile environment in the work place.

Great cars create great memories. Certainly we all have our favorite car stories–whether from the track, the street, or an event likethis one. But more than that, a great car creates memories in others. I can’t bring my 1st gen to an autocross without people stopping by:

“My Dad owned one of those.”

“I had an Aunt who drove a car like that to work every day.”

“I had 1983 RX-7. I beat the living hell outa that car for 70 thousand miles, and it never gave me a lick of trouble”

And–I knew it was going to happen eventually: “That’s an RX-7? I didn’t KNOW Mazda made an RX-7 that looked like that.”

I was putting gas in the car last week, when a fellow came up behind me and started to stare. All he said was: “Rotary!” I nodded myhead, and asked if he had owned one. “Not me,” he replied. “My brother.” I asked if he had a “pet car” in his past, and he had. A BMW 2002. Another great car.

Great cars are totally involving. Every sense is heightened when you are driving a great car–even if you are just moving the thing from one parking space to another. There are no words for this, but Mazda got it right when the little kid, who looked like one of the Munsters, whispered, “zoom zoom.”

It’s that quality in a car that makes you want to take the long way home.

It’s what makes you look at a twisty road, and wonder what would happen if you tried it just a little bit differently this time.

A great car doesn’t demand. It just wants to play.

There are highly capable cars out there that are simply too reserved to get excited about anything. You know the ones I mean–expensive, usually German, stylish, and capable of mighty feats. But most lack the spirit Mazda captures. It’s a happy puppy thing, responding to every move you make. “Come on! Let’s go for a ride!”

Great cars beget other great cars. It’s what happens when people like you and me take one of Mazda’s great cars, and make it our own. The results are, well, unpredictable, but as we all know, delightful.

….. which brings up the next item:

Great cars are not perfect cars. They are simply the cars worth fixing and worrying about.

Great Cars change lives. In 1967 I bought a Lotus Elan, and someone said: “Why not autocross it?” Three years later, my Mom was watching me get totally lost in a sea of cones when she struck up a conversation with a fellow enthusiast. She ended up marrying the gentleman.

In 1985 I bought the RX-7. A year later I put one of Corky Bell’s turbo kits on it–just to get even with the 5-liter Mustangs of the day. And here I am….

People thought I was nuts when I bought the Elan, and people thought I was nuts when I put the turbo on the RX-7.

They were right.

But sometimes you just have to do something quirky……and it can change your life.

Great Cars don’t just happen. They come from great people.
Great cars do not come from committees.
They do not come from bean counters.
They do not come from car companies that always play it safe.

Great cars come from people of vision and passion. And in the hands of nut-balls like us, they morph into personal expressions of our dreams and desires.

Okay……and our pocketbooks.

Some of us dream of what would happen if our cars had just fifty more horsepower. Others dream of racing. At a quarter of a century old, 1st gen RX-7s are STILL being beat to death as Spec-7 racers on tracks across the country. Can you imagine a Spec-8 racing class in 2028? That’s what you can do with a truly great car.

So, here’s to the great people at Mazda who dream of great cars and bring them to market. And here’s to the great people who provide us with what we need to keep them running, and to make them our own.
And here’s to the great people who bring us together around the country–but especially here at Sevenstock.

As a musician, I understand that the most powerful part of being human comes from our ability to feel; to be passionate; to experience life more fully. In truth, there are no words for it. But for people like us, it’s about great cars. And to paraphrase my favorite philosopher–Tom Lehrer: “When there are no words for what you wish to say, the least you can do is to SHUT UP. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

Most of you probably thought I had gone away and given up on this site. I have had a great many personal issues happening, in addition to a couple of months of unemployment and starting a new job, getting adjusted to various other aspects of life that have changed in my world. Add all of these corruptions of life and combine them with the racing off-season (except for the various Australian and New Zealand racing series) and the end result is that Racecarstuff.com has suffered. For anyone that reads this site, please tell everyone you know that it is back. I have some plans that will make it better than it was before — promise!!!

The one thing that doesn’t change for me is my love of racing, both from the grandstands and the drivers seat. So this past weekend I ran my first autocross event since the report I gave on the Joy Fund Autocross last year. If you want to see how the autocross went then check out the “Event Reports” section on Autocross.us and look for the reports on the TidewaterSportsCarClub.com (TSCC) event on February 18th 2007. You will see it started snowing during the event!!!!! I did not fair so well in the competition, as the car had a small coolant hose failure. It was fixed in time to drive the car home, but unfortunately the problem could not be solved in time to finish the remainder of my runs. In spite of that it felt GREAT to be back at any sort of motorsports event after the long downtime that life had imposed on me.

Oh yeah, this is a Daytona report. Well it is going to be a pretty thin report, but included will be a few of my observations.

The Daytona Prototype coupes are setting new standard still in sportscar endurance racing. After 24 hours the top two teams finished seconds apart. In the last hour or two the top three teams spent much time trading positions during pit stops often with the three teams running nose to tail. Similar levels of competition were seen in all of the other classes.

Scott Pruett is still proving that he is truly the best overall sportscar racer in the US. In my opinion there are only a few who can challenge him. One of which is beginning to show signs that his talents are beginning to be on the decline as he is counting the years, and the other is currently unemployed as a competitive driver. Those are Ron Fellows and Tommy Kendall. Maybe there is some bias on my part showing through, and I do think Boris Said on any given day can run with these guys, but he is focusing his efforts in another direction these days, trying to make another go at a NASCAR career.

And then the NASCAR part of Speedweeks was one of the most exciting ever. My personal Ford bias left me with high expectations. The results did not leave me disappointed surprisingly. In the recent years the Fords have not faired vary well at the Daytona 500. This year there was simple inexperience on the part of the part of Travis Kvapil that kept his Roush F150 from victory lane. That is not to take anything from the fantastic job by the winner, Jack Sprague and second place finisher, Johnny Benson who both edged out Travis in the last hundred feet or so.

Then there was the finish of the Daytona 500. Mark Martin is one of my favorites. With the laps winding down, it would have been a great thing to see him pull his Bobby Ginn owned Chevrolet (WHAT???) into victory lane. Mark lost the race because of his gentleman racing style. He should never complain about losing a race because of that, and he did not have any complaints after the race. He was disappointed, but took it in stride. In addition, the ending of the race ended in some controversy.

Ever since NASCAR started their policy of not racing back to the line when a caution flag came out, there have been controversial finishes. I have felt like they should modify the policy in some way for cautions on the last lap. I have always felt like the cars ahead of the accident should be allowed to race back to the finish line. Cars behind the accident should be told to hold their position. NASCAR can surely work within this ideal and come up with a workable set of guidelines that would retain safety and still give the exciting last lap finishes back to the fans that were commonplace before the current caution flag policy.

If it was by accident or by circumstances or whatever, this raced ended the way I have felt a race that had an accident on the last lap should have ended. NASCAR held off with the yellow flag until the race leaders had passed under the finish line. After the accident Kevin Harvick nudged his car ahead of Martin giving Harvick the win. As much as my heart was with Mark Martin, my ideals said that Harvick is the person who should have won that race.

More to come next time.

This has been around the internet for some time. If you have never seen it, take a few minutes and watch the video. The workmanship is literally amazing.

I have always been a fan of Morgan Shepard. He is a past NASCAR Late Model Sportsman champion, and is the winner of 4 NASCAR Winston Cup (Nextel Cup) races. He has raced for 36 seasons in NASCAR’s top division, and has raced stock cars for nearly 40 years total. Nintendo is known for games for the yourger generation, but they have given due recognition to Shepard recently as reported by Faith Motorsports PR:

Shepherd wins 2006 Nintendo Ageless Award

Date Posted: 12-01-06

REDMOND, WA - Veteran NASCAR racer Morgan Shepherd is one of 100 people across America who have been honored by game-maker Nintendo for their ageless endeavors, the company announced December 1.

Amber McCollom, senior manager of public relations for Nintendo, said as part of his recognition as a 2006 Nintendo Ageless American, the 65-year-old Shepherd will be presented with a Nintendo DS player and Brain Age software to help allow him to “keep his mental muscle flexed.”

“Your devotion to challenging the limits of what one can accomplish is remarkable,” McCollom said of Shepherd. “Your unbounded enthusiasm sets such a positive example for all ages.”

Shepherd will celebrate his 40th year in stock car racing during the 2007 season, beginning in February at the historic Daytona 500. Shepherd will again pilot the #89 Racing With Jesus Dodge Charger for Faith Motorsports in 2007.

Anyone at a Winston Cup race early in the morning in the 80’s will remember Morgan moving around the paddock on a pair of roller skates. He is truly one of the good guys in racing. Though he will enter Nextel Cup races in 2007, it is unlikely that he will qualify for any races. The expansion of several of the larger teams and the appearance of the new Toyota teams will make qualifying very tough for all of the smaller teams like Morgan’s Faith Motorsports team. There will be many cars going home after qualifying. I wish Morgan all the best, and I would like nothing more than to see him with 2007 finishes, but it is going to be tougher than it ever has.

All the Best Morgan.

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