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.

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.

The last major racing event of the 2006 season was yesterday, with the exception of some awards banquets, winter time arena racing, indoor monster truck events, and racing in the southern hemisphere. So looking back I was wondering about the major stories of last year. Locally I was able to participate in a handful of events that were quite enjoyable for me, but I doubt they are the big stories of the year, except to me.

The big story of the weekend were the events at Homestead. Jimmy Johnson won the NASCAR Nextel Cup championship, but there was also the story of Mark Martin’s last race with Jack Roush. I suppose it would be a bigger story if it were his last race. It feels like we have had two years of farewell tours for Martin, and in the end, he is still going to be at Nextel Cup races next year.

Toyota made the big announcement that they are entering Nextel Cup, and the shuffle of teams and drivers scurrying around for a piece of the Toyota pie. It is a bigger story that there will be somewhere around 55 well funded teams qualifying for 43 starting positions. That is going to be lots of disjointed sponsors not getting their moneys worth. The sad side effect of this is that teams like Kirk Shelmerdine and Carl Long will probably never qualify again. It also could well mean the end of teams like the Wood Brothers and PPI Motorsports. The strong will survive and those teams may be vulnerable without some major help.

In ChampCar racing (yaaaaawwwnnnnnn) the only entertainment were the antics of Paul Tracy. Unfortunately the tremendous skills he once had seemed to slip a little for whatever reason. He was in the news time after time about incidents both on and off the track. I am a Paul Tracy fan, but he seems to be on a path of career destruction. It is a shame that the championship of Sebastian Bourdais, or the breakthrough of AJ Almandinger could not make bigger headlines, but the competition level of the series that is scrapping to fill the field is lacking.

In the other half of the American open wheel world, the IRL the news was almost as uninteresting. I think Sam Hornish won the championship and the Indy 500. The championship went down to the wire, but it was fairly much a given that a Penske car would win it all. Danica Patrick had a bit of a sophomore slump, to all except those really in the know. She actually drove better this year, but was in a slower car, but the bottom line is that she did not generate the mainstream media headlines she had made the year before.

In sportscar racing the ALMS series made attention with the appearance of the diesel Audis. But there were no other real surprises on the track. The Grand American series had some great racing, but nothing that was really news worthy.

In NHRA drag racing there were two big stories. On was John Force winning yet another championship. But the last round comeback to win the championship by Tony Schumacher. Tony needed to win the last round and set a national record at the same time to win the championship. As he said, there were about 2000 ways to lose the championship and one way to win it, and he found that one way. It was truly one of the stories that keeps true fans interested when we get tired of the commercialism and bland-ness of all forms of professional racing.

Then there was exactly one story that can be the story of the year. It was the retirement of Michael Schumacher. Michael had rewritten every record in the books. He won when he had the best car, but he also won when others had better cars. He retires with seven F1 world championships, but could have very nearly had ten or eleven with just a few breaks. With two races left it looked like he was on a roll for his eighth championship, but two very uncharacteristic mechanical failures with his trusty Ferrari relegated him sadly to second place.

The feel good story it would have been if Schumacher and Mark Martin won their respective championships as they retire would have been unparalleled. But as it turns out they are just the best stories of the 2006, not in the history of racing.

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Click here for part I

Last time we got the car through tech inspection and found the screws that were causing a run out problem on the rear wheels.

The previous commentary did not give justice to the process of a car going through the first tech inspection. Everyone is nervous through this process. Building a racecar takes at least hundreds of parts. The theory of technical inspection is that someone looks over the car and checks for the most obvious problems. As with all other SCCA specialties, Tech is manned by a great group of volunteers. They spend much of the race weekend looking closely over racecars. They don’t get to watch the races. They are very good at what they do in making sure the racecars that hit the track are safe and meet the rules. When a new racecar comes through tech, there may be some small thing that the inspectors find that may keep the car from getting on the track for that weekend. The entire crew is nervous until the inspector’s finish and the tech sticker is placed on the car allowing it to run for the weekend.

Steve’s first session is wet. There has been rain, but it has slowed to a mist. I stress to Steve to keep the car on the track. The two worst results from this session are to have the car stuck in a gravel trap or worse to come in contact with barriers around the track. He went cautiously, gradually getting faster during the session. Each of the first few laps there was a different car spinning at the exit of turn 10. I think that Steve was the only Spec RX7 that did not spin during this session. Maybe he had good coaching .

After the session Steve had nothing negative to say about the car, but said that there were cars off the track at several places around the track. One of the Spec Miatas came in on a roll back very bent up. The car was definitely totaled; his race school weekend was over in the first session. Not a desirable situation.

Steve quickly learned why a crewmember was required for a race school. He immediately had to go to debriefing, chalk talk, and classroom sessions. He returned just a few minutes before his next session was ready to go out. I spent much of the time between the session doing small things to the car. I did the usual fluid checks, felt the brakes, a quick glance at all the important nuts and bolts, and cleaning of the windows. I glance at the alignment, and can tell from looking that there would be much gained with a more aggressive alignment. Steve’s car seems to sit much higher than most of the other Spec RX7’s, so I know there is something to be gained there as well. Steve is running a complete stockish exhaust system. There are many small things that will make the car faster, but right now the concern is to finish the weekend with no problems. So, there are no changes that will be made this weekend. Those are for going fast, which is another weekend.

The second session is sunny, but the track is still wet, without even a dry line around at the start of the session. I remind Steve that it has been raining heavily for more than 24 hours, and that if he goes off the track, chances of him getting the car stuck in the mud are high…. So keep the car on the track. Steve goes out and runs well. He passes a couple of cars and a couple others pass him. I lose track of him a couple of laps, but pick him and follow him through the rest of the session. After the session we discuss the car, but Steve is quick to admit that he spun the car while the track was still wet, but he did stay on the track. The car is no worse for the wear, and everything still looks great on the car. Steve takes off to the classroom sessions and I jack up the car give things a check.

The sun has now come out, and the temp warms up to where I have to remove my jacket, and consider removing my long sleeve shirt for a short sleeve t-shirt. Lunch break gives me a break with a trip to the Summit Point concession stand and a step back into my past. Most of the racetracks have tried to do something special for the racers, crews, and fans. Summit Point has excellent bratwurst, wraps, etc in addition to the usual concession stand fare.

Steve’s next session is finally in the dry. Again I remind him that off the pavement is still plenty of mud that is anxiously waiting to ruin a session with the car stuck it the special Summit Point mix. But he keeps the car on the track, and gets some dry track experience. After this session Steve goes to the classroom, and I drive the car out to the nearest gas station. We did not bring gasoline to the track, and his Spec RX7 is street licensed, so I drive it there. On the way I discover a troublesome shimmy in the right front suspension. I have to look at this before the car hits the track.

Jacking up the front, I find something disturbing. The bolts that hold the strut to the lower ball joint have been changed on this car. These struts have through bolts with nuts, and they have loosened. The nuts falling out can cause a catastrophic failure. I disassemble everything and realize that I can’t do much about it with what I have available to me. I tighten up everything, apply some Locktite and put it together the best I can. I warn Steve what feeling to be aware of while on the track.

In the mean time, the clouds have come, and the wind blows very hard. The few awnings that were still up have either been blown away or they have been taken down. As I take the car to the grid, there is rain again. But the sun comes out…. And what is that in the rain? That is ice. There is with small hail or sleet mixed in the rain. All during bright sunshine? This has been a very strange day from a weather point of view. I tell Steve that we don’t have and snow tires for the icy conditions.

As Steve goes out, I run down to the carousel area of the track to see if there are any driving pointers I can give Steve. I watch several cars go off the track, but Steve drives a steady session. After the session Steve and I discuss the bolts in the front struts. I have driven my daughters car to this race specifically for the reason of having spare parts. I may use the struts off her car. We had over to the traditional beer party after the Saturday of racing. But the weather turns very cold, colder than we have coats for. So our trip to the party is cut short and I head back to the hotel for diner.

It was a successful day at a drivers school. Steve was a little slow, but some of that is his car, and some of it is my coaching attempt to keep him focused on the need to finish the weekend without incident. I realize that he is one of the slower Spec RX7’s but this is a drivers school, not a race….. At least not yet.

Next time, Sunday, and the race

That is correct. I decided to be a crewmember for my recent student Steve as he went to his first SCCA Competition Licensing School at Summit Point Raceway. As some of my more regular readers probably know, I consider Summit Point home. Most of my racing years were spent at this track during the years that Virginia International Raceway was closed down. VIR may be a nicer facility, but Summit is where I belong. I know the place well. It has changed over the years, but in most ways it remains unchanged. It still has the character it always had, even if now if has some nicer window dressing.

Part II
While the basic format of an SCCA school has not changed since I attended my first one more than 25 years ago, they have added some features. Each student is required to have at least one crewmember since all of the driver’s time is pretty much accounted for during the weekend. Someone has to keep the car. I really looked forward to getting back to the grassroots of the sport.

One of the nice additions in the last quarter century is the crew classroom session while the driver is attending the Friday night chalk talk. Since my feeling is that there are always things to be learned, so even though I have spent more years crewing than I have driving, I looked forward to the experience. As it was, I learned a few things from the classroom session, but I learned more about the other crewmembers that would be here this weekend. After the class I finally met up with Steve. He took me for a quick tour of the car (your basic Spec RX7) which he has recently completed building from an 85 RX7 GSL. The car was built well, but Steve was also a first time builder, so I planned on checking everything I could over the weekend. Time to go back to the hotel and crash.

Early to the track the next morning, it is still raining. The weather forecast says that the rain will end early, but it will be windy with gusts possibly as high at 50mph. Guess that means any awning will be useless. I get to the track and give the car a quick once over and take it to tech inspection. Steve drove the car there, and I watched it drive there. I noticed a huge amount of runout on the rear wheels. I know the tech inspectors will not notice this, so I let the car go through tech and get the sticker. They asked me to come by later and get the log book number stamped in the rollbar. So the car passed tech.

As soon as we get the car to the paddock space I tell Steve about the wheel runout. He only has time to look before he has to go attend more class sessions and go for his instructor ride around session. I realize that the cause of the runout is either the rim is bent or the axle is bent. So I plan to replace the rear wheels with a set of aluminum wheels Steve has as spares. When I remove the wheel I discover the problem. The brake rotors are held on by screws that are not flush with the mating surface of the rim. So I only have to remove the screws and put the wheels back on. I had to borrow a couple of tools from nearby competitors to remove the screws, but it was accomplished and the problem was fixed. I check the car over some more and find a few details, but nothing the must be changed.

Next time… The car hits the track.

The racing world without Michael Schumacher is going to be a different place. He has retired from Formula One with a series of small mechanical failures in his last two races keeping him from his 8th world championship. It was a shame as he drove the best of anyone in the last two races. Had it not been for the uncharacteristic engine failure at Japan and the fuel pump failure in qualifying, and the flat tire in the race, his performance would have been easily good enough for a pair of wins. But it was not to be, and Alonzo won the championship.

Michael is the driver that restored everyone with the idea that the driver could make a difference. Maybe it is unfair to Senna and Prost to say that, but their time seemed to be dominated my mechanical superiority of one team over another. There were times that Michael had the best equipment, but there were also times he won with a ride that should have been second tier.

He completely re-wrote the record books. There is no record of significance that he does not own. He restored Ferrari to greatness, and brought along all of his team and teammates. I remember interviews of mechanics in the pre-Schumacher years where it was obvious the wrench turners had no respect for the drivers. The enthusiastic response of the Ferrari crewmembers as Michael made his last pass for his career near the end of the race showed the respect they had for their driver. Michael changed much about Formula One, not the least of which is the perception of the drivers being such premadonas, and their tendency to re-enforce the perception.

The 2007 year will be different, I am not sure how, except that there will be a new driver in the familiar red Ferrari.

NASCAR at Martinsville

I maintain that Martinsville is the last of a breed of tracks that is now gone from Nextel Cup racing. It is the flat half-mile track. These tracks made up most of the top level NACAR circuit at one time, with the super speedways at Charlotte, Daytona, and Darlington being the exceptions. But there are no more Martinsville’s left, other than Martinsville. Bristol is the same size, but it is a different animal entirely.

Martinsville is known as a rough and tumble test of brakes, tight quarters, and patience. But this weekend it ended up being a test of equipment as well as several of the “Chasers” ran into trouble, including the points leader Jeff Burton. Jeff suffered an engine failure in the middle of he race relegating him to a 42nd place finish.

A couple of weeks ago most people were calling Jimmy Johnson “out of it”. But the combination of his win and the bad luck of Harvick and Burton have left Matt Kenseth in the lead and several others knocking on the door, including Johnson.

In other new for the weekend, Ward Burton returned to Nextel Cup racing driving the McClure Racing Lucas Oil sponsored Chevrolet. One of he major players for the weekend was David Reagan. The son of veteran driver Ken Reagan was not in the news for good reason. He was involved in several incidents, most of which he was the cause. As a result NASCAR has not approved him to drive at Atlanta this weekend. Finally was the great news of the good results of Petty Enterprises. Bobby Labonte drove the familiar #43 to a fine third place finish. The #45 car driven by team leader Kyle Petty finished 10th. I had been sometime since there had been two Petty Enterprises entries in the top ten.

Everything Else

In other weekend news the Audi R10’s continued their undefeated string in the ALMS race at Mazda Raceway at Laguna Seca.

In the Champ Car series Nelson Philippe got his breakthrough win making him the youngest winner in the series.

Sebastian Bourdais did manage to clinch his third series championship, despite trying to throw it away in a passing attempt that nearly took himself and local hero Will Power out of the race.

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.

This past weekend Michael Schumacher proved to all of the doubters that he still has the fire to win Formula One races. The race was one not to be missed as Schumacher started from P6 on the grid and through a combination of great driving, great strategy, and misfortune of the Renault team showed what he still had left. He won the race leaving China with a tie with Alonzo for the world driving championship with Japan and Brazil left on the schedule. This will definitely go down to the last race and could end up being decided in a tiebreaker to decide the championship.

In NASCAR Tony Stewart is proving to be the wildcard in the mix. He cannot win the championship, but he can play a part in deciding who wins. He does have a teammate in the chase. This week is Talladega, the only restrictor plate race in the chase. If my memory is correct Tony pushed his teammate, Denny Hamlin across the finish line at the Budweiser Shootout earlier this season at Daytona. Don’t be surprised to see something similar now.

Racing is going to return to Detroit in 2007 with the IndyCar and American LeMans series. They are returning to the Belle Isle course on the island in the Detroit River. Formula One started the racing in 1982 in the streets of Detroit. In ‘89 the CART Indy cars took over the event. The following year the event moves to Belle Isle and seemed to run in relative obscurity until the contracts expired in 2001. The racing in the streets of downtown was always exciting with some of the most spirited drives in series history. But the move to Belle Isle never produced the same results or fan interest. I wish the IRL and ALMS the best with the race, but I don’t expect anything exciting on the racetrack.

But the Petite LeMans this past weekend at Road Atlanta for the ALMS cars was a different story. The races were very good with very close championship races in all of the classes. But the thing I found most interesting was the fact that the attendance for the weekend was said to be 90,000 spectators. It has been decades since 90,000 people have watched a sportscar race in the United States. We can only hope this is a sign of a future trend. All forms of racing have been complaining for about a decade that NASCAR has been the 800 lb gorilla that is sucking up all of the attendance. I didn’t subscribe to that philosophy, thinking instead that the other forms of racing simply were not that good. The show was merely an ego exercise for rich guys or companies throwing their money around. The last real sportscar racing in the US was at least a couple of decades ago. The images and sounds of the Porsche 934’s, the BMW 3.0’s, the Dekon Monzas, and John Greenwood’s monster Corvette still ring in my head. I have yet to see racecars that looked as cool as the cars from that time. The IMSAblog remains one of my favorite with those wonderful images of the cars from that time.
We can only hope the ALMS has captured some of the magic. The cars are beautiful, well developed, and well driven. There is marque competition in all of the classes. The formula has potential.

The GrandAm is considered a rival of the ALMS by most people. I see them as alies that can help each other be better. Each series has great things and great racing to offer the fans. The interest is showing at all of their races. Lets hope 2006 was not the high point, but rather the begining of the trend.