Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Humpy Wheeler’s NASCAR Burnout Challenge…but how about getting Danica Patrick in a stocker?
Danica Patrick
(Photo credit: Indy Racing League)
By Mike Mulhern
CHARLOTTE
You’ll have to pardon Charlotte promoter Humpy Wheeler for having mixed emotions about Danica Patrick’s historic Indy-car tour victory Sunday….because, first of all, women have been racing in NASCAR since this sport’s very earliest days, and second, Wheeler now has to promote head-to-head against America’s best-known and now most-successful female racer: She’ll be headlining May’s Indianapolis 500, and Wheeler will be hosting the second Memorial Day feature, his Coke 600.
After all, heck, Wheeler was the guy who almost single-handedly made Janet Guthrie such a national success story more than 30 years ago. She’d ‘flunked’ out of the Indy 500 qualifying in 1976, but Wheeler quickly brought her to Charlotte for his 600 – she finished a respectable 15th, and thus earned a spot in next season’s Daytona 500, becoming the first woman to earn a starting spot in the field for that legendary event. Guthrie was an amazing eighth with only 25 miles to go when her motor started failing; she wound up 12th.
So he’s been there, done that.
Nevertheless a woman has yet to win a NASCAR Cup tour event in the modern era.
So Tuesday Wheeler was a bit more animated about his latest creative touch, for the upcoming All-Star race May 17th:
“We’ve been wracking our brains about what we can do to add some excitement to the All-Star week,” Wheeler was saying Tuesday at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, while Clint Bowyer – the day’s featured driver – was out testing the soft walls. ("Me and the wall disagreed,” Bowyer explained with a laugh.)
Now certainly these two brilliant promoters, Humpy Wheeler and Bruton Smith, aren’t just going to ignore Danica Patrick, are they?
(Photo credit: Lowe’s Motor Speedway)
“The NBA has a slam-dunk competition. Major League Baseball has a homerun derby.
“So we’ve come up with we’re calling the Pennzoil Burnout – we pick five top drivers, and see who can do the best burnout,” Wheeler says. “The winner will get $10,000, to donate to his favorite charity.”
The five – “We’ll have a secret panel to choose them”—will be picked from among the 20 drivers already in the All-Star race. Each run will be timed, from a standing start. Each driver will have to do a frontstretch burnout, including a pair of 360-degree spins, and then slide into a designated victory lane. Anyone hitting the grass will be sacked $50,000, Wheeler said. The cars will be provided by the Richard Petty Driving Experience.
Style points will also be given.
NASCAR’s top burnout artists? No question: Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
But then maybe some of those other guys are slowed down by their traction control.....
Charlotte promoter Humpy Wheeler listens skeptically to Clint Bowyer’s explanation of Tuesday’s run-in with the wall
(Photo credit: Harold Hinson for Lowe’s Motor Speedway)
“This is all about having fun…and competing,” Wheeler says. “We’re still working on all the rules – and we should have them pretty much finalized a few minutes before the start.
“We’d like to see one of these guys do a pirouette down the frontstretch, though that might be a little hard.
“But then Clint is known for his upside-down finishes. Maybe he can do that here.”
And the judges’ scores: Clint Bowyer gets all 10s for this Daytona 500 finish
(Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images for NASCAR)
Huh?
Okay, it’s Wheeler at his finest. But if part of the spectacle of a victory burnout is the amount of tire-smoke generated, maybe he should include some laser measurements of the density of the smoke…..
Ryan Newman’s Daytona 500 victory burnout
(Photo Credit: Marc Serota/Getty Images for NASCAR)
Danica: Just a good ol’ girl? So where’s that NASCAR spirit?
(Photo credit: Indy Racing League)
Oh, well, anything to generate some buzz. Not that the $1 million to win shouldn’t generate enough buzz on its own. Running second on the last lap, with that much money on the line, Bowyer says his strategy is simple: “It’s ‘Oops, sorry. Hope you understand.’
“And maybe send him $100,000 in the mail.
“Put yourself in that situation – you’d do some pretty crazy things for $1 million.
“And it’s all about those fans in the stands, putting on a good show for them.”
Clint Bowyer lost style points for Tuesday’s ‘wall’ at Charlotte, but he’s getting quite the PR workout this year
(Photo by Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR)
Victory antics have become rather interesting in NASCAR lately: Carl Edwards does his backflips. Some drivers do Polish victory laps. Many drivers do burnouts – and some do burnouts with quite a flare: “Kyle Busch has got his down pretty neat,” Bowyer says. “He creates this huge cloud of tire smoke….and then when it starts to clear, there he is standing atop his car, like a beanpole.
“And Kevin Harvick, now he thinks he’s John Force’s nephew, the way he does that burnout all the way down the frontstretch.”
Hmmmm. So this being NASCAR, how to cheat to win the Burnout?
Soaking tires? “Maybe a little Clorox on the tires,” Bowyer says with a grin. “I’m an old drag racer from way back when.”
Kyle Busch’s Phoenix burnout
(Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images)
Meanwhile, on the more serious side of things this week Danica Patrick’s historic win, and NASCAR’s reaction…and response.
How can NASCAR leverage Patrick’s breakthrough win; how can Wheeler leverage her victory?
“It was a great achievement, very historic, and I congratulate her for doing that….particularly for taking that 12-hour flight back to Long Beach (to watch the Champ Car half of the Indy-car weekend double-header), because not many people would have done that,” Wheeler said.
“Her win will certainly go down as one of the magic moments in racing history.
“As far as its impact on NASCAR, NASCAR is doing its own thing, and Indy-car is trying to get its act back together, and return to its glory days, and this will certainly help.
“But I don’t think it will have any significant impact on NASCAR.”
Maybe it would, if NASCAR executives and promoters and TV bosses would push for NASCAR-Indy Racing League doubleheaders: Both series already run on just about every track in the country (except Daytona and Talladega), so IRL cars and drivers have shown themselves able to handle everything from California Speedway and Michigan International Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway and Chicagolands Speedway, even Richmond International Raceway.
Maybe NASCAR men are scared to run such double-headers.
Hey, how about adding Danica Patrick to this Burnout challenge: can she really do a burnout?
(Photo credit: Indy Racing League)
Humpy Wheeler is always the center of attention
(Photo credit: Lowe’s Motor Speedway)
“We’ve got speedways, and they’re not ‘NASCAR’ speedways, just speedways, and we need to run things on them,” Wheeler concedes. “But running a race without a roof over your head (against bad weather), you have to make sure everything you do is right.
“I don’t know if a NASCAR Sprint Cup-IRL double-header the same day would work….”
But maybe a Saturday night IRL event followed by a Sunday NASCAR event?
“You could look at that,” Wheeler agreed.
So there’s no way for NASCAR men – promoters, executives, team owners – to get Danica Patrick in a stock car?
“A number of (NASCAR) people have talked to her (about coming to NASCAR),” Wheeler says. “But right now she’s comfortable where she is. And this is a big jump, as we know, to move from open-wheel Indy-cars. Because of the wide tires.
“People forget Indy-cars have tires twice as wide as ours, and significantly softer. Making this move would be tough, and she probably just doesn’t want to do it right now, and I don’t blame her.”
Danica Patrick has shown little interest in NASCAR...so maybe NASCAR executives and promoters need to try a little harder....
or maybe NASCAR men are scared she’ll come south with Honda....
After all, wherever Toyota goes, Honda is surely to follow.
(Photo credit: Indy Racing League)
Is Patrick scared to try NASCAR? “Oh, no, she’s not scared of NASCAR,” Wheeler says. “She’s got it made where she is. Why change?”
Still, Patrick’s win again raises the question is NASCAR – the sanctioning body, its teams, the Detroit car makers, the sport’s many sponsors, and the promoters – doing enough for diversity?
“I don’t think you ever do enough,” Wheeler replied. “But it’s just going to be a natural process. And I just had a female come to my office last week (looking for a NASCAR ride), and I’ve got another one coming this week.
“There are a lot of females racing across American right now. In our Legends and Bandoleros programs, we probably have 150 females racing across the country. And a lot of them are young, one as young as seven.
“And there’s where you have to start with diversity – whether it’s females, Hispanics, or African-Americans – getting them started young enough.
“We just have to let them get in cars and go.
“But some drivers can run short tracks and not superspeedways….and some drivers when they get on the big tracks just thrive. That’s why we have this new program with our new Thundercars – to enable young drivers get on superspeedways and race. They’re not running terribly fast, only about 135 mph. But they run in packs. And we can see if they’re getting used to the bigger tracks.
“Janet was, unfortunately, 39, before she ran her first major NASCAR race, our 600 in 1976. If she’d come in when she was 22 or 23, she could have won a (Cup) race.
“She had a lot of hurdles to overcome. And that was a very intimidating atmosphere she walked into.
“It’s amazing she could stand up straight, surrounded by that atmosphere. A lot of people don’t remember that, but I do. In 1976, before that women weren’t even allowed in the pits or the garage area. So she broke the ice there.
“To get a female winning in NASCAR will take an all-out assault. It will take four or five women all racing, and getting them on the track and seeing who’s got what.
“And equipment is the big issue; a driver can make up for equipment on dirt but not on asphalt.
“And the first thing a car owner looks at is ‘Can that person win races? Can that person run up front?’”
Kyle Busch’s Atlanta burnout
(Photo credit: Toyota Motorsports)
Okay, Clint: For $10,000 be the fastest All-Star driver doing a frontstretch burnout, with two 360 donuts, and sliding into ‘victory lane’ without touching the grass or hittting the wall.
(Photo credit: Harold Hinson for Lowe’s Motor Speedway)
Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s Daytona Shootout burnout
(Photo by Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images)
THE NASCAR NOTEBOOK
Robby Gordon, despite running an off-road machine designed for Mauritanian desert rather than snowy Romanian mountains, managed to gain a little ground on Dakar Rally leader Stephan Peterhansel in Stage Three of the seven-day Central Europe Rally Tuesday. So he heads into Stage Four sixth overall, pulling within 5:33 of the leader.
Stages Two and Three, over the same terrain, were muddy and snowy, favoring four-wheel-drive racers, over Gordon’s Hummer. Nevertheless Gordon, despite having to run the final miles on a flat tire, did better than he anticipated.
Still Gordon says the seven-day rally – a substitute event for the original 16-day Sahara challenge – is too much of a sprint for him to make up much more ground, he worries.
“I’m a little more excited today than I was yesterday,” Gordon said. “I was thinking we were going to be over 10 minutes behind after the Romania stages.
“But I think the weather may have helped by roughing up the course.
“We are five minutes back and in this short a rally that is going to be tough to make up. But I have seen stranger things happen.
“We really are looking forward to getting back on ‘Hummer’ terrain and attacking the course.”
Stage Four, in Debrecan, Hungary, should better suit Gordon’s vehicle. The stage will have two runs, 40 miles and 60 miles.
But Gordon’s teammate, B. J. Baldwin had tough luck, when a navigation error sent him into a snow bank. That cost that team over 20 minutes after getting stuck. Baldwin and navigator Kevin Heath are 20th.
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(Photo credit: Robby Gordon Motorsports)
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