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.

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.

My feelings on Monday are about how the events of Sunday cheated all of the fans of some great competition.

Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari engine expired during the Japanese Grand Prix this weekend giving Fernando Alonzo a big advantage going into the last race of the 2006 Formula One season. The race was developing to exactly what was needed for a last race showdown between the two champions. Both of them has had great seasons, but the fan favorite is Schumacher in his last season of his esteemed career. Now Alonzo has a ten-point advantage. Schumacher must win the race and Alonzo not score any points. According to the race announcers, Schumacher will win the tiebreakers at this point if that is the scenario.

And of course there was Talladega. Brian Vickers may have made a move that could be bad for he career. Everyone has seen the video over and over at this point. While making the move to help his teammate, Jimmy Johnson, complete a pass on the leader, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Vickers managed to tag Johnson’s right rear corner turning him into the side of Dale, Jr. spinning them both out, leaving the win to Vickers.

During the now traditional burnouts, the fans expressed their displeasure with the shower of Budweiser cans and bottles sent Vickers’ way. There was also much boo-ing during the victory lane celebration. Vickers was understandably excited about his first win, but it sounded like he was the only one at the track that felt that way.

Vickers only way out of the situation would have been for him to forget the burnouts, and express a serious mea culpa in Victory Lane. But that didn’t happen. It appears that now Lowe’s Motor Speedway is arranging extra security for Vickers during the upcoming race weekend. One hopes the fans listen to their hero, Dale, Jr., who said this was just a racing accident, and he congratulated Brian on his first win.

But there was actually very good news from Talladega. Juan Pedro Montoya ran a good race in the ARCA to a nice 3rd place finish. It was a good training experience. JPM ran up front, ran in the rear of the field, came through the pack and made a nice save after the car being slightly involved in an incident of others making. Good race for the open wheel star. He will learn more about stock car racing in his next start at the 3/4ths mile Iowa Speedway next weekend. We will be watching.

Lastly Mark Martin ran a great race in the Craftsman truck race to a well-earned victory in the first Craftsman Truck race at Talladega. The only problem with this is that Martin is leaving his Ford rides with Roush for a deal that better meets his personal needs for a reduced schedule. The Ford loyalists are going to have a problem with this. The world is upside down with Elliott and Martin running Chevrolets.

I have been thinking quite a lot about how the face of NASCAR racing is going to change next year. There have always been such nice people who fill the grid at a NASCAR race. Back in the 70’s there were many unheard of racers like Bill Champion, Blackie Wangerin, J. D. McDuffie and literally hundreds of others. I often had the chance to meet many of these people over the years, and I always pulled for them…. not to win the race, but to run well, finish well, and hopefully make enough to be able to continue their racing efforts.

I realize times have changed and there are huge opportunities in NASCAR these days. The success of NASCAR has really spread around to where there are three top level touring series that are funding many teams, many full time mechanics, technicians, publicists, etc. This is all good, great actually. But something is missing from being able to see J. D. McDuffie standing in the infield at Darlington after qualifying 41st, and being thrilled about making the race.

Now NASCAR has a new rule that gives a sure starting position to the top 35 teams in points. Being in the top 35 all season is really worth somewhere around $3-4 Million in prize money for the season. That is a serious chunk of change no matter how you look at it. That can make a huge difference in how a team approaches a race.

For 2007 there are several new upstart teams that will be fighting for starting spots. I forget the number of new Toyotas that will be hitting the track. A couple will be in the top 35 for the start, but there will be quite a few fighting with a few other new cars, and enough existing cars that, there are going to be several well funded racing teams going home from every race. I unfortunately don’t see any room in any race for drivers like Morgan Shepard, Carl Long, or Kirk Shelmerdine. There is going to be no room for a new driver on a new team to race their way into a cup race.

The part of this that upsets me the most this week is realizing that a blown engine with 10 laps left at NHIS last weekend dropped Kyle Petty to 36th in the points. At 46, Kyle is in the later years of his driving career. He has had a good career with many wins, but he will always be overshadowed by being the son of the winningest driver of all time in Grand National/Winston Cup/Nextel Cup/Grand racing.

Kyle’s on track performance has definitely suffered somewhat by all the things he has done for other people the past 6 years since the death of his son Adam. He is one of the most liked drivers in the garage area. He works very hard running Petty Enterprises, Victory Junction Camp, and the #45 car around the racetracks. He has benefited from running soundly in most of the races all season long. Unfortunately with the mediocre performance of the #45 car, the blown engine dropping him to 36th in the points, and the influx of new teams making qualifying for the eight available positions outside the top 35, I see a possible end to Kyle Petty’s driving career. It really bothers me that he may be forced out, rather than being able to end his career as it should, by his own chosing.

2007 might sadly be the first NASCAR season ever (since its inception in 1949) without someone from the Petty family competing. Maybe this is our last link back to the days of finding one of the drivers out in the infield leaning against the fence, happy about their 41st starting postion.

Voting for your favorite moment in the GrandAm Rolex series so far this year:

Voting for Rolex Moment of the Year Now Open

I had thought the finish of the VIR 400 race was one of the best road racing finishes ever in any form of racing when I watched it. Just to be sure my VIR central bias was not showing through too much I watched all of the clips and still came to the same conclusion. It definately got my vote.

Sorry posting has been so slim lately. Much has been going on in my life lately, but preparations are underway for the Mazda Driving Associates High Performance Driving Seminar at the Summit Point Raceway, Shenandoah Circuit in less than two weeks. Anyone going, look me up. I will be in a faded and peeling paint first generation RX7 being towed by a blue Expedition.

More Mayfield

In a story that might take few readers away from the tabloid headlines for a few minutes, it seems that the entire garage at NSACAR (and CART/IRL) races knew of the personal relationship between Erin Crocker and Ray Evernham. I have to admit that information lends more credibility to Jeremy Mayfield’s claim of lack of attention from his car owner.

But I am still going to miss the Mayfield and Stewart Nextel commercials.

Why did they make it so ugly?

The “Car of Tomorrow” finished a test Monday at Michigan. This was the biggest track it has tested on, in addition it was the first time the Toyota was tested on the track with Ford, Chevrolet, and Dodge. The tests apparently went pretty much as expected with no real surprises. The one exception is the comment of Matt Kenseth who said “They’re kind of hard to look at, but I’m sure we’ll get used to them.” I guess that sums up my feeling on the subject.

Tracy on Tunnel

Paul Tracy was on Wind Tunnel Sandy night. He is a refreshing breath of fresh air. In Today’s world of drivers being corporate spokesmen, it is nice to find a driver that seems to honestly speak from the heart and the head. Tracy has made many statements that would have had lesser caliber drivers been released from their services. But his sponsors give him that freedom. As a fan I am thankful.

Tracy made an interesting comment about Dale Earnhardt Jr taking the heat off of him for at least a little while after being involved with spinning out Carl Edwards. Carl retaliated after the completion of the race. Problem was that Edwards was already on probation after the incident on pit lane at Pocono. I am sure there is some interesting conversation going on between NASCAR officials and Edwards and Earnhardt.

My Sunday Races

I did not see any professional racing live Sunday as I was out autocrossing my RX7 at the Tidewater Sports Car Club autocross. The event was huge for the average events in the area. I happened to end up the worst that I have done in quite some time. The problem is that I felt like I had a pretty decent run. Other drivers that I had run close to, were now several seconds faster than me. Here are some pictures from the event:

Cameron’s photos from the 8/20/2006.

About 15, maybe 20 years ago there was a video produced freaturing James Hunt driving a Ford Sierra, John Watson driving a Porsche 928, and Nikki Lauda driving a McLaren Formula 1 car that was current at the time. Basically they all dorve a lap around a fairly long race track. Hunt started first and about 30 seconds later Watson started, each showing in car footage and makeing comments about how good of a performance car each of them was. Lauda was still standing at the starting line, drinking coffee. He finished his coffee, casually put on his helmet, climbed in the car, got buckled in, started the engine and took off in persuit of the others. To make a long story short, Lauda beat the other two cars to the finish line.

Well the concept has been reproduced with Fiat and a Ferrari 575M Maranello being given a head start against Michael Schumacher in a current Ferrari F1 car. It is done just as well today as it was then. Let me know what you think.

From our friends at AutoBlog.com comes this important news:

The Sports Car Club of America will keep the longest-running U.S. road race series on track for at least another year. With 2006 marking the 40th anniversary of the famous series, two events are scheduled at Heartland Park, Topeka, Kansas, starting with “Trans-Am Thunder in the Heartland” in September.

Heartland Park Topeka owner Raymond Irwin says that he and the SCCA are trying to keep the Trans-Am series alive in the hopes that the new generation of Ford Mustang, Chevy Camaro and Dodge Challenger will bring back the series’ glory days of the late ’60s and early ’70s, when factory-sponsored Mustangs, Camaros, Challengers, Barracudas and Javelins fought it out on America’s road courses.

Parnelli Jones, who drove for the Ford factory team, says it best - “The Trans-Am was a no-holds-barred, highly competitive series. We had the best American drivers, we ran on the best North American circuits, and we drove cars that were spectacular to watch and that the fans could easily identify with. The Trans-Am was the greatest road racing series that has ever been run over here…”

In the meantime, the Historic Trans-Am Group is keeping the memory alive, actively racing the cars that actually competed during the heyday of the series.

–>>More…

As you may have realized, this is my favorite racing series of all time. I love the cars and everything about the series. I was somewhat involved during one of the good times for the Trans Am series, the middle to late 80’s. Like everyone else, I think the 67-70 seasons were the best, but I was too young to be involved then.