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Auto Racing
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
It’s Richmond! Maybe now they’ll stop strokin’ and start rock-n-rollin’ Saturday night
Whoops! Now that’s real NASCAR racing—Maybe California Speedway ought to be chopped down to Richmond-size (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
By Mike Mulhern
RICHMOND, Va.
So this is why all those normally hardnosed racers have been stroking so diligently the last so many weeks, or maybe so many months, to judge by wins – the last race of the regular season, Saturday night’s 400-lapper, and the championship playoff cut.
Maybe now we can get back to some serious NASCAR racing.
Or maybe the 12 men who will be in the title chase, which begins next week at Loudon, N.H., will keep on stroking, hoping not to make the mistake that takes them out of the hunt.
Five men have locked in, Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Jeff Burton. Kevin Harvick and Greg Biffle will lock in just by making it to the starting line here Saturday.
Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth --- all NASCAR Cup champions, and all still winless this season – and Denny Hamlin should all also make the chase.
The real battle is for the last place, which Clint Bowyers holds tenuously, a spot that David Ragan may well snake from him, a spot that Kasey Kahne desperately needs to keep Dodge from being shut out of the 10-race championship run.
Tony Eury Jr., Earnhardt’s crew chief, says of the 26-race regular season “Your first 10 races are everything. Then I’ve got my next 16 to try what I need to try.
“If you’re established when you come out of the first 10, you can really take chances and try to learn things with the car.
“But when you get down to the last 10, you know it’s all business. Everything you’ve spent all year working for, you’ve got to put it all on one plate and go for it.”
Some good racing might reverse the sudden decline in NASCAR’s TV ratings: ESPN (which had late Saturday and late Sunday starting times) reports ratings down for both the NASCAR Sprint Cup and NASCAR Nationwide races in Fontana, Calif.. The Sunday night Cup event pulled only a 3.9, off last year’s disappointing 4.3. Saturday night’s Nationwide event (which didn’t start until 10 p.m. EDT) earned a 1.1 household coverage rating on ESPN2, down from last year’s 1.3.
The California 500 Cup race was ESPN’s sixth and last race of the second half; ABC picks up the chase this weekend (the production crew and talent will be the same). For its six Cup races ESPN reports ratings down seven percent from last year, 4.12 compared to 4.41 (for five events).
For Stewart and Joey Logano, the 18-year-old sensation who will replace Stewart in Joe Gibbs’ number 20 Cup machine next season, there was some good news out of Daytona yesterday – a NASCAR appeals board reversed their probation for a post-race Nationwide incident at Michigan three weeks ago. Their Nationwide crews put kitchen magnets under the throttle pedals of their cars after the race in an attempt to foil NASCAR’s chassis dyno engine tests. Seven crewmen were suspended.
The official appeals reports:
“Briefly, the penalties concern Section 12-4-A of the NASCAR Rule Book ‘Actions detrimental to stock car racing.’
“Section 8-9 Competitive Analysis – From time to time, NASCAR may determine, in the interest of competition that it is necessary or appropriate to undertake an analysis of the performance capabilities of a car, car part, component or equipment.
“The Competitor shall take whatever steps are requested by NASCAR Officials for this purpose.
“NASCAR also has the right to seal or impound cars, car parts, components and/or equipment for this purpose.
“NASCAR is not responsible for payment, reimbursement, damage or loss to the Competitor as a result of such analysis, sealing or impounding.”
“Section 12-4-Q (1) ‘Any determination by NASCAR Officials that a car, car component, engine, engine component, or any other part or related equipment used in the Event does not conform to NASCAR Rules, detailed in Section 20A of the Rule Book, or has not been approved by NASCAR prior to the Event, or is not required for the normal functional operation of the race car, or has been altered to detract from or compromise its integrity or effectiveness, whether operational or not.’
“And Section 12-4-K ‘When NASCAR Officials mandate inspection during the Event, if any car, car parts, components, and/or equipment which have been used in the Event are taken from the racing premises without permission of a NASCAR Official, or are tampered with by any member of the team or anyone associated with the team: Magnetic spacer attached under the gas pedal with the intent of compromising the chassis dyno test.’
“The penalties assessed against each driver were: a loss of 150 Nationwide driver points, and probation until Dec 31, 2008.
“Records indicate that others, including the car owners, crew chiefs and team members also received penalties for these same infractions. However, the Appellants specifically requested that the Commission review the probation portion of the driver penalties only. The Appellants also requested and were granted a deferral of the driver probation portions of the penalties until this hearing could be convened.
“After reviewing the testimony presented during the hearing, the National Stock Car Racing Commission unanimously decided to amend the penalties assessed by NASCAR, removing the probation portions of both driver penalties, while leaving the driver points portions intact.”
The commission was chaired by NASCAR’s George Silbermann, Buddy Baker and Jim Williams.
Two men who certainly haven’t been stroking are Red Bull teammates Brian Vickers and AJ Allmendinger. In fact Vickers has come ever closer to winning his first Cup race for Toyota, and Allmendinger may well have clinched a contract renewal with his strong runs since Jimmy Elledge was signed as his new crew chief.
On top of that, Scott Speed, who appears in line for a Cup ride next season with the Jay Frye-run Bull team, is romping through the ARCA series this season – his stock car transition from Formula One.
Vickers, though he’s not banking on it, does still have a mathematically shot at making the championship playoffs this weekend, and that’s a sharp reversal from last year’s struggles. Vickers could make if he wins Richmond and leads the most laps, and Bowyer, Ragan and Kahne all come down with debilitating cases of the flu and can’t make the race.
Looking at it more dryly, Vickers is 15th in the standings, 190 points out of 12th.
While much of this summer’s praise has been heaped on up-and-comer Ragan, Vickers too deserves a big pat on the back. Vickers is just 24 but he’s in his fifth season on the Cup tour – another hotshot that car owner Rick Hendrick gave up on too quickly.
Vickers holds the Richmond qualifying record of 129.983 mph.
And, hey, teammate Allmendinger is guaranteed a spot in Saturday’s field, with his run at California moving up 31st in the car owner standings. Locking into the top-35 has been one of Frye’s goals for that team.
Speed, though, won’t be here. He’ll be in Chicago for Saturday’s ARCA race. For a Formula One racer to jump down to full-time ARCA has been amazing, and Speed has done it with both style and grace: He even ran eighth in ARCA’s two dirt races, Labor Day in Springfield, Ill., the latest. Now he’ll be on Chicagoland’s high-banks.
“We will never, ever be as bad as we were on dirt,” Scott says…."and we still finished in the top 10 both times.
“On any asphalt track, even on a really, really bad day.… Heck, we had a bad day at Cayuga, went five laps down and still finished fifth.
“If we don’t wreck or break, we should have no problem winning this championship.”
Speed’s next NASCAR run will be in Trucks at Las Vegas Sept. 20.
Footnote to Speed’s Chicago run: Erin Crocker will make her SPEED TV broadcasting debut with that event.
Clint Bowyer burns out after winning the spring race at Richmond International Raceway (Photo by Chris Trotman/Getty Images for NASCAR)
Agree? Disagree? Don’t just brood. Express yourself here, and make your voice heard clearly in NASCAR headquarters in Daytona and Charlotte and in NASCAR race shops throughout North Carolina and the rest of the country.
We want your reaction, so please comment on this story and offer your own opinions and insight, on this topic, on our NASCAR videos, and anything about NASCAR. Any questions, just ask Mike at . And bookmark this page for continually updated NASCAR reports: http://independenttribune.net/index.php/sports/mulhern/
Uh-oh. With NASCAR’s championship playoffs looming, looks like the stock car racing marketers are pulling out all the celebs they can find, like Jay Leno, here with Richard Petty. And, no, that’s not one of Petty’s old Superbirds.... (Photo Credit: Ron Bermudez)
