Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie

Juan Pablo Montoya, Come on Down

This weekend the NASCAR International Series aka The Busch (for a while longer) Series takes the caravan south of the border to the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez at Mexico City.  If the NASCAR stars are aligned as we have come to expect, this will be Juan Pablo Montoya's moment to shine.  Crowds for the first two races in Mexico have been disappointingly sparse after early predictions of upwards of half a million spectators for the inaugural event in 2005.  There were local Latin drivers in the first two events and I expect that there will be qualifiers this weekend who are not Busch Series regulars.  Still the best chance for a Latin born representative of the NASCAR Diversity program to win this race will come from the trio of Montoya, Adrian Fernandez and Michel Jourdain Jr.  All three are hugely popular in Latin America.  That should solve the crowd problem.  My money is on Montoya.  And the NASCAR stars, too.

with friends like NASCAR...

As if it isn't hard enough to start a new NASCAR Nextel Cup team; try doing it with NASCAR working against you.  Many have asked, "Didn't Jeremy Mayfield hook up with Bill Davis Racing for the upcoming season?"  Well..yes he has, but after not making the Daytona 500 the #36 OTC team went to Calli hoping to start their season on the left coast.  But NASCAR's lengthy inspection process kept the team in the inspection line while the top points teams were on the track, practicing for qualifying.

NASCAR lines the cars up for inspection according to their current rank in points.  Not only are the top 35 in points assured of a starting spot in the race, they are the first ones on the track for practice.  Once again; those that need it the most, get the least.  NASCAR--if you absolutely find it necessary to begin a practice session before ALL cars are through inspection, reverse the order of inspection.  Inspect the cars with the LOWEST point totals first.  These are the teams that cannot afford to go without even a minutes worth of practice.

And, I'd bet that if you cut Mark Martin's or Kevin Harvick's practice time in half, there would be some angry car owners (ones with big time clout) in the Big Yellow trailer having a "sit down" with King Brian.  Changes to the system would then be forthcoming--pronto.

Steve 

Matt Kenseth Times Two

Matt Kenseth saved me from a total prediction wipeout this week.  I had been telling anyone who asked that I thought a Ford and specifically a Roush Ford would win this week.  Maybe everyone will forget that the two Fords I actually took were Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle in my two official picks.  Close. So close.  It was fun though, to hear Matt screaming over the radio as he crossed the line in the cup race.  He doesn't usually let it go like that for all of us to hear.  Pretty cool.  And a double win, with the Saturday Busch race to boot.

Kenseth is already one of the great drivers of his era.  He's just quiet about it.

Price of fame

As the NASCAR circus moves to left coast for a couple of weeks at California and Vegas, whatever your take is on the finish of the Daytona 500, NASCAR has done much more RIGHT than Wrong.

MRN Radio's Dave Moody quotes, open wheel advocate Robin Miller, concerning the disparity in monies between various US racing series.

"In total, NASCAR's Nextel Cup Series paid over 219 million in purse money last season. The Indy Racing League paid 24 million; 10 million of which came from a single race, the Indy 500. Champ Car paid a paltry 6.5 million in purse money for its 14 events, and just 1.5 million in point fund money." more..

I believe NASCAR has to be happy with all the exposure they get; good bad or indifferent, the circus is hard to ignore.

Steve

I said this is about sponsors

The cheating talk and controversy won't let up.  Once again, our friend Lee Spenser weighs in with her typical insight on the Michael Waltrip story.

Now, it may take longer to identify the mysterious substance found in Waltrip's fuel system than it will to determine the paternity of Anna Nicole's baby, but the bigger mystery is this: Why was Waltrip allowed to race? How did the early rumblings of a four- to six-week suspension for Waltrip somehow devolve into a $100,000 fine, 100 points and a vacation for crew chief David Hyder and VP of competition Bobby Kennedy?

It was a pass for NAPA, it was a pass for Toyota — and about 10 to 15 percent pass for Mikey," said a source close to the situation. "If the sponsor was Burger King and the driver was David Reutimann, he'd be sitting at home. more..

Lee has alot more to say and it's all good. Check it out. 

Think about this though.  The paranoia in the NASCAR garages and press about Toyota possibly already using their, supposedly, forboding Formula One knowlege and experience to somehow steal the Nextel Cup, needs perspective.  I can argue that Toyota, for all of the massive amounts of yen expended,  has been a miserable failure in F1. They, in fact, suck.  In the Craftsman Truck Series however, they have been pretty close to dominant. And they didn't seem to need secret blue fluids to pull it off.

 

One down and thirty five to go.

Old habits die hard.  As I was watching the end of , what turned out to be a very entertaining Daytona 500, I couldn't believe I was rooting against Mark Martin to win.  There was only one reason that I didn't want him to win. He is the latest Ford guy to defect.  Plain and simple--I don't want him winning anything while driving a Chevy!

I was happy to see Kevin Harvick beat MM at the line however.  That seems wierd considering Harvick is the lead driver for RCR's Chevy stable.  But, Harvick is a Chevy driver and I can live with that.  I can't live with, or accept, the defectors; Jeff Gordon, Jeff Burton and now even Bill Elliott are all driving Chevies and it bugs me.  I wonder how my overall dislike for Gordon would be different if he had not jumped from his Ford Busch ride to his Hendrick Cup ride?

With all that said; what a great ending to an overall ho-hum race.  With Harvick making his last turn surge to the win and Clint Bowyer crossing the finish line on his lid, this 500 will be one to remember.  Lets hope, with the race ending in prime time on the east coast, the tv ratings will show that a lot of people saw the great ending and will tune in in the future to see more great racing.

Lets just hope everyone mkes it through post race inspection.

Steve

Daytona Daydreamin

Lap 57.... All three rookies in the field are running dead last. The Toyotas appear to suck. Only one caution flag, for a Boris Said -no contact spin. These cars have run up front the whole race: Stewart,Junior, both Busch's, Gillilan, Newman(?!) and Stremme. Ho Hum. At one point, about 20 laps in, Gilliland had been leading, Stewart blew by him with the help of the #8 and a whole line of guys who knew Tony better that the guy in the #38. They froze David G out. He was like on an island, by hissownself, out of line. I will from, now on, think of this predicament as being on "Gilliland's Island".
Laps 58 to 199.... Several really good commercials and alot of wrecks ensued.
Lap 200.... Happy Harvick edges Mark Martin by just enough. More wrecks occur, it's been a while since I saw a car cross the line on it's roof.... behind the only race of the day that counted, the one for the win. Congrats to Kevin Harvick and Richard Childress Racing, winners of the 2007 Great American Race.

Is it the cream or the scum?

After the, late Wednesday, bloodbath administered by NASCAR's ever inconsistant rules gurus had all but sent poor Michael Waltrip on a cross country trip in a Toyota Prius to clear his head (and maybe his name), Speed weeks resumed.
The dual 150's were contested and new stories surfaced, as they always do in NASCAR races. Who would transfer? How will Toyota recover? Could a 70 year old really get in this thing? Would Sterlin be able to help his teammate Joe Nemechek qualify? Was it really jet fuel?

Toyota's recovery from sternogate seems well along, as all three Watrip Racing Camrys along with Dave Blaney's car are in the Great American Race thanks in part to a heroic drive by Mikey and the coincidence of the #00 David Reutiman Toyota getting in due to race one events.

The Waltrip team has probably been the best funded, not to mention marketed, organization in the new Camry clan.  It really should not be a surprise that they pulled relative success from the maw of disgrace. Still, one has to wonder. Jeff Gordon's #24 Hendrick Motorsports team has arguably been the best in NASCAR. They win the second Dual. And then are found to have an illegal car.

Is it a case of the cream rising to the top, or is it the scum? I don't know.

Bench Racing

That night in the mid sixties was like most others; after the dinner dishes were done and put away, it was time for the "beetle factory" to open. The "beetle factory" was the left side of the two-car garage at our home in suburban Toledo, OH., where numerous race cars of varying types were built then raced over the years by my dad and his racing buddies. Building sessions usually lasted the length of one load of wood in the pot belly stove that was the heating system for the garage. This night was particularly cold and while the heart was willing the hands never warmed up enough to do whatever it was that I would assist with that night. I was after all one of the best light holders and tool fetchers around.

While waiting for the temperature to get above freezing there was talk about yesterday's Wide World of Sports segment of the Daytona 500 and who was the best driver. Lee Roy Yarbrough was my guy and he could do no wrong. My dad was an AJ Foyt man. I tried in vain to convince him of the error of his thinking for about an hour, until the cold wouldn't go away and that night's work on the race car in progress was abandoned.

We went into the warmth of the house where mom asked what we had accomplished. "It was too cold. We just did some BENCH RACING" dad replied. BENCH RACING--huh? That's what you call doing nothing but standing around talking racing with your friends?

        Charlie and I have been bench racing for 7 years "ON PIT ROW".  We encourage YOU to join us.