What Would Dale Sr. Think?
Monday, June 16th, 2008 Write a comment
Not long after Dale Earnhardt Jr. won his first points race for Hendrick Motorsports at Michigan, I put in a call to one of my friends in High Places and asked a favor. I needed to talk to Dale Earnhardt Sr. and could he please put me in touch? Within a miraculous minute or two, the phone rang. It was Dale.
‘Dale,’ I said, ‘Thanks for calling. Did you see June Bug win that race at Michigan today driving for Hendrick Motorsports?’
There was a long pause. “Yeah, I saw it,” he said. Then you could almost see that big grin breaking out on his face. “Pretty darned good, wadn’t it? I was really proud of the way Junior and Tony Eury Jr. worked together to win it on fuel mileage. Kind of reminded me of beating Bill Elliott on the last lap at Darlington one year.”
‘But Dale,’ I said, ‘He left Dale Earnhardt Inc. and now he’s winning for Rick Hendrick, never one of your closest friends in the garage, especially back in the days when you used to hammer on Geoff Bodine.’
‘Yeah, well,” said Dale after another pause, “Whenever your son wins a race, it’s a big deal. It don’t matter who he’s driving for. A father has to be happy when a son wins a big race, especially one at Michigan on Father’s Day. Chevy really needed a win there and it will probably help sell some cars at Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet.”
‘Well jeez,’ I replied. ‘It’s not like I’m fishing for a controversial quote. I mean who’s going to believe me, anyway? It just doesn’t seem like you would cotton to the idea of Little E and his sister Kelly splitting from DEI to move to Hendrick. Pardon the expression, but as the Intimidator you’ve always been pretty black and white about such things.’
“I guess it looks like two choices,” said Dale. “But the way the situation is now, I don’t have to pick sides. I’m pulling for everybody to win, including DEI. I mean, how do you think I got admitted to this place up here, anyway?”
‘OK, OK, I get it,’ I said. ‘But you don’t mean you’re pulling for everybody literally. Jack Roush is still a peckerhead in your book, right?’
“Man,” said Dale, “You don’t get it. Once you’re up here, giving driving lessons to the Big Guy, the perspective changes. Things start rubbing off on you, and I’m not talking about fender and door paint. Some days, though, even He thinks He’s Dale Earnhardt and I have to straighten Him out about that.”
‘Speaking of getting things straight,’ I said, trying to regain the momentum, ‘Did you hear how Dale Jr. said he had you whupped at Michigan in the IROC race back in 2000 on the last lap until Rusty Wallace gave you a bump draft?’
Just then a bolt of lightning came out of nowhere and landed just outside the window to my office. Funny thing, though, it didn’t affect the phone connection.
“I had his ass whupped at the finish line, didn’t I?” thundered Dale.
‘I see,’ I said, now getting warmed up. ‘As long as you’re not on the track, everything’s OK, because you’re not getting beat. Is that it?’
“What makes you think I’m not out there?” said Dale. And once again I could sense that sly grin begin to uncurl at the corners of his mouth. “I mighta even been there the day my son Kerry won at Michigan in the ARCA race back in 2001, too.”
‘Well Dale,’ I said. ‘You’ve never failed to amaze me, so I guess anything’s possible, including this phone call.’ I decided to tuck into the draft at this point. ‘So what do you think about Little E winning this year’s championship?’
“I don’t like talking about the Chase, even though Bill France Jr. and I finally worked that out once he got up here. I think Dale Jr.’s got a good chance, if Hendrick can get its act together on the Car of Tomorrow. It looks like they’ve turned the corner. Jimmy Johnson had a pretty good race at Michigan. I think Dale Jr.’s really been carrying the car a lot up until now. You can’t win the championship on fuel mileage. But if they really catch up, maybe ol’ DW’s prediction of six race victories ain’t too bad.”
‘He’s already got three if you include the two prelims from Daytona,’ I said. ‘And four if you include Brad Keselowski’s first Nationwide win for JR Motorsports. How do you think Dale Jr.’s doing as a team owner?’
“He’s getting there, ain’t he?” said Dale. “I honestly think that comment Teresa made about him having to choose between being a celebrity and a race car driver got his attention. She prayed a lot about it beforehand, so I can’t fault her for that. It’s too bad the rest of it didn’t work out. But I really couldn’t see Dale Jr. running the team and the rest of the DEI stuff better than her at this point in his life. He’s better off sticking to driving.”
‘I see,’ I replied, this time really mystified. Was I really talking to my old friend Dale? Could he be this mellow? So I gave it one more try.
‘You probably saw where Dale Jarrett and Bill Elliott are hanging up their helmets. Sterling Marlin’s almost done. So I guess your career in NASCAR would be over about now. Otherwise, I’d ask you whether you could beat Junior to the championship if you were still driving for Richard Childress.’
“Well, I guess you already know who did the better job the last time we drove the same equipment, that Corvette in the Daytona 24-hour,” said Dale calmly, not missing a beat.
‘OK, OK,’ I replied, on the short end yet again in a conversation with the seven-time champion. ‘You got me there. Too bad you never had a chance to get your Corvette team together. I know how much you wanted to race at Le Mans. By the way, did you see the Le Mans race this weekend? Allan McNish was incredible when he ran that quadruple stint against the Peugeots at the start and put the Audi into the lead.’
“Did I see it?” said Dale. “I was right there on his shoulder.”
Jonathan can be reached at jonathan@jingrambooks.com.
The King Loses His Crown In Atlanta
Monday, October 29th, 2007 Write a Comment
Fifteen years ago, the ticket sales were brisk at the Atlanta Motor Speedway prior to the season finale of what was then known as the Winston Cup. In addition to the closest championship in NASCAR history, “The King,” Richard Petty, was running his last race and local hero Bill Elliott was among the title contenders.
According to Francis Goss, the ticket manager, demand for tickets in 1992 so far exceeded capacity that “We could have sold every blade of grass in the track if we had tried.”
This year, Petty waved the green flag as the honorary starter for the Atlanta race. His cap blew off in the process as the field roared past. In other words, “The King” lost his crown. Given all the empty seats around one of the South’s oldest superspeedways — and arguably its finest racing venue — the question was begged once again on the subject of whether NASCAR’s crown status among professional sports has become tarnished. For the first time since that 1992 race — other than events postponed by rain — the track held less than 100,000 fans.
I’ll skip through the usual explanations for this current phenomenon, due to laboring under the quite possibly false assumption that readers expect to find something unusual, different and perhaps even enlightening in this cyberspace.
The usual explanations — in no particular order — are as follows. Atlanta has historically been a tough sell and this track was overbuilt following the success of 1992. Atlanta always draws more Earnhardt fans than any other track and the following of the “heir apparent” is down considerably after a year and a half of lackluster results as well as the squabbling at Dale Earnhardt Inc. The sad bloom and boom in interest that came in the wake of the death of Dale Earnhardt Sr. is finally off. Local hero Bill Elliott, meanwhile, is making no waves with the Wood Brothers.
In the past, Atlanta has hosted three races on this weekend. This year, NASCAR elected to have the Busch race in Memphis, which definitely hurt the value of a weekend ticket.
As for the more general explanations, Atlanta seems to suffer from the same problem as Charlotte and Talladega. These tracks comprise six race dates within close physical proximity on similar type facilities with huge grandstands. Interestingly, the short track races at Bristol, Martinsville and Richmond are within a close radius of one another, but continue to sell out in part due to lower seating capacity and an ongoing fondness for bullrings.
A slow economy, a slower Championship Chase between two teammates who occasionally raise their voices toward one another — but never their fists — are also familiar explanations. New on the horizon are questions about ESPN’s feckless coverage. Finally, NASCAR’s administration directed by an often absent Chairman and CEO Brian France is being held responsible for everything from the drab Car of Tomorrow to the wrong driver given a race victory in Kansas.
Here’s some of the reasons you won’t hear as often, for what they’re worth.
First, NASCAR is a sport that has long represented not just a lifestyle among its fans, but a way of life. Long associated with Anglo-Saxon and Scots Irish southerners, the sport has historically, in fact, belonged to the working class stretching far beyond the borders of the Old South. But it appears the biggest problem in both TV viewing and attendance have occurred south of the Mason-Dixon line. This is an important consideration, because the working class fans elsewhere seem to have less problem with the ongoing changes in NASCAR.
The southern fans may have often disagreed with NASCAR in the past, but they kept coming in support of drivers they closely identified with. Indeed, when a tornado struck the Atlanta track in 1974, fans from all over the Southeast showed up to help re-build it. For one reason or another, that kind of support has ebbed. Beyond ticket prices, the most likely reason has been a conscious effort by NASCAR to expand the appeal of stock car racing beyond its white working class fan base in the Southeast.
The dropping of dates at traditional tracks and events such as the Southern 500 at Darlington on the Labor Day weekend in favor of a race in California — to mention but one glaring example — is chief among the alienation factors. The invitation to participate extended to Toyota is another. (The parking lot in Atlanta, home to Ford and GM factories that have recently been slated for closing, had aproximately 1/124th of a Tundra for each Ford or Chevy pick-up.)
The Drive for Diversity may be the American way, but has not been the traditional route to the top for NASCAR heroes. Nor has an Indy 500 victory such as those scored by current crossovers Juan Pablo Montoya, Dario Franchitti and Jacques Villeneuve. In other words, some traditonal southern fans no longer believe the sport belongs to them and their kind. Even worse, more than a few fully believe that NASCAR doesn’t want them.
As one longtime observer said on Saturday, in anticipation of Sunday’s blank bleachers, “NASCAR has made it clear they don’t want the rednecks. So the rednecks aren’t showing up.”
The biggest change in the whole enchilada may well be the change in the lifestyles of the working class from one generation to the next. Instead of saving their vacation time and money to drive motor homes to four races in the Southeast, perhaps they now fly to Las Vegas for one NASCAR weekend. Eventually, track owner Bruton Smith, whose promotion efforts have always been far weaker in Atlanta than Charlotte, may decide to move one of his Atlanta weekends to Las Vegas to cash in on the getaway mecca’s appeal.
There’s also changes in TV viewing habits. The “whatever” generation is not parked in front of the TV every weekend. On the plus side, this same generation is more likely to embrace changes that encourage drivers from non-traditional sources and ethnic groups than older fans who can remember the good ol’ days of Petty vs. Pearson. And that trade-off, when all is said and done, is more than likely better for NASCAR growth in the long run.
In a supreme irony, it appears that Brian France, the third generation of the France family to run NASCAR, is less enthusiastic than his father, Bill France Jr, and grandfather, “Big Bill” France. His past interest in buying an NFL team and current talk of his interest in moving from Daytona to Los Angeles not long after his father’s death confirm that the grandstands are not the only indication of changing times.
Jonathan Ingram can be reached at jonathan@jingrambooks.com
Jim Clark, Tony Stewart And The Golden Ages
Monday, October 8th, 2007 Write a CommentAre we in a golden age of motor racing — once again?
Given that I spent the last four days commuting between the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta and NASCAR’s 500-miler at Talladega, my bias in terms of enthusiasm for different types of racing is self-evident. That same enthusiasm carries over to seeing drivers challenge themselves in different disciplines.
If one defines a golden age in motor racing as a period of an unmatched volume of great racing, which includes consideration for cars, technology, drivers and teams, then the question is a no brainer. But I think the definition must also include motor racing’s unique caveat. Only when drivers move from one discipline to another, leveraging their own interests as well as fan appreciation, can it be said that a golden age exists.
Andretti, Clark, Foyt, Gurney, Hill, Surtees, the Unsers — to name a few where no first names are required — tried different venues when opportunities were presented in the 1960’s, the last true golden age. They were regarded as great drivers in no small part because they won in different types of cars (or motorcycles in the case of Surtees) and series as well as one-off events such as Pikes Peak, Le Mans or the Indy 500.
In the current era, we have the volume of all the requisite parts (plus TV coverage) to declare a golden age except for one. The same gold that has driven the explosive growth in racing has also prevented drivers from moving back and forth among disciplines due to contractual obligations. Two of the greatest drivers of the current frame, Michael Schumacher and Jeff Gordon, have rarely been seen in a bona fide racing event since joining the series that have been the yardstick for their abilities as champions. (Both have done the Race of Champions and Gordon has competed at Daytona’s 24-hour.)
There is a major change afoot these days that also implies some dictation by gold. When drivers such as Juan Pablo Montoya, Jacques Villeneuve, Dario Franchitti and Sam Hornish Jr. all start showing up in NASCAR, one knows that some of the motivation is lucre as well as the challenge of new competition. But if you take the consideration a step or two further, all of them could have retired comfortably and safely instead of seeking the current challenge in stock cars.
Do these changes of contractual considerations — i.e. swapping one series for another — constitute a golden age? What about the fans who still think NASCAR is racing taxi cabs or those who would consider it a waste of time to even spit on an oval? Confining one’s self to a 36-race schedule in NASCAR, plus perhaps a few appearances in the understudy traveling series, can hardly be called interdisciplinary.
But can we still call it a golden age if we can judge, say, Montoya in the draft at Talladega against the best in the stock car business?
Personally, I’d rather see more of a push by drivers, team owners, sponsors and manufacturers to leverage everybody’s self-interest into more crossover participation. Alas, even with the best intentions by these parties the sanctioning bodies then become yet another impediment to sharing the gold. The IRL has made it next-to-impossible for any of the above mentioned four horsemen to attempt a double at the Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 600, even though teams could make it happen.
The biggest current crossover event, Daytona’s 24-hour, has taken on that dimension because drivers, teams and manufactuers involved in NASCAR want to curry favor with the France family, which owns the stock car series and the Grand American Road Racing Association.
So we just have to take what we can get and call it what you will. We’ve seen former champs Rosberg and Hakkinen in Touring Cars, so maybe one day we’ll see Schumacher do something in those cars or perhaps return to Le Mans.
As for Gordon, he can consider the influx into NASCAR by other world talents a golden opportunity to diversify in place. And besides, he has yet to catch Richard Petty or Dale Earnhardt in the all-time championship category. So he’s likely to continue to leave the multi-faceted career to Tony Stewart. (If there’s a ringleader in the current version of the golden age, it would be Stewart.)
All this brings to mind the story of two other blokes from the same series back in the 1960’s.
As legend has it, Jimmy Clark and Jackie Stewart were on vacation after the F1 world championship in the Bahamas in 1967 when they received a phone call from Ford asking if they wanted to drive in a NASCAR race? Only Clark took up the opportunity to drive a Holman-Moody Ford at Rockingham, where he started and finished mid-pack. He was killed the next year in a fatal crash aboard an F2 entry at Hockenheim. Three years removed from winning the Indy 500, he ran the F2 race presumably for the joy of racing as well as pocket change and a perhaps bit of useful experience.
Jonathan Ingram can be reached at jonathan@jingrambooks.com.
McBride’s Way Or The Highway
Monday, October 8th, 2007 Write a CommentMy name is Michael McBride and I’m from Horseshoe Bend, North Carolina, which, as the saying goes, is closer to the ground than anything else.
I started racing back in the early days when there was more fun than money in the sport.I have never driven a car into a swimming pool or put a mule on the second floor of a hotel. But I must confess that I once drove backwards into the scoring stand to register my disgust about officiating one night at the Tri-Counties half-mile, but only after spinning two 360’s to gain momentum and to avoid looking like I was doing it on purpose. You never know when a little demolition derby experience might come in handy — and a steel re-inforced rear bumper. It turned out some floorboards got knocked loose in the scoring tower that led people to follow some steps down to an underground still, a discovery for which I’m still famous, har-har. I’m here today because Jonathan, one of my old racing buddies, was not available to write his usual Monday Morning Crew Chief column. So I’m steppin’ in just like any real crew chief to show Jonathan how it’s done. We’d hang his lazy ass from the nearest oak in the meantime, but evidently his beer consumption is down (in favor of whiskey probably) and he’s so damned skinny he’d just flap around in the breeze.
The number one problem facing motor racing these days is a lack of understanding. Take NASCAR, for instance. Everybody has a solution for NASCAR’s problems with declining attendance and TV ratings. Maybe Brian France is trying to give NASCAR universal appeal in a way that’s draining the passion, which will cripple it faster than a holed radiator.
Take away points for fighting only if they use tools, I say. Give ‘em fines for expletives only if they use four syllables. Find some TV producers who understand side drafting — or rakin’ as my ol’ buddy Earnhardt used to call it — for what it is: brass knuckles in a velvet glove. Above all, track owners can help by bringing ticket prices back to where you don’t need to find a Wall Street investor to afford a weekend at the track.
Ron Dennis is another guy who appears to be finding the handle awful slippery. Back when I knew him from his Formula 3 days and later during those wacky nights at Watkins Glen, he was more inclined to be himself, which I got to admit was always a little weird. Even back then as an F1 team owner he seemed to think he occupied the planet Earth and everyone else was out around, say, Pluto.
Nowadays Ron seems to be the one in the odd axis, a lone ranger. Take it from your pal Michael and get a grip, old man, and borrow a page from Frank Williams. Take two lawyers to the track in the morning at Brazil and fire Fernando Alonso the second the checkered flag waves. You’ll feel a lot better no matter what the outcome of the race.
As for Max Mosley, back in my sports car racing days I met him while he was chairman of the manufacturer’s commission for Group C. I asked him for his viewpoint on a few of the pertinent issues of the day and he replied with candor, or so I thought. I read in Autosport magazine a couple of weeks later statements that were diametrically opposed, but more likely to pave the way to the FIA presidency. Hmmm. He carries enough hindquarters for an oak tree, which perhaps should be located before the signing of the next Concorde Agreement.
Welp, there’s no need to take exception in all directions. If IndyCar racing keeps concentrating on ovals, adds a few street courses to bring the heroes of Indy to the people and runs a couple circuits laid out like the roads back home in North Carolina, then the driving talent will keep coming along with the sponsors. Lord knows the hills and valleys, deserts and plains of America are chock full of series for those spindly little starter cars and there’s got to be some home-bred talent and interest in its draft, guys who can sell tickets. Tony George just may yet prove he can carry the ball if those grass roots ever get to growing.
Speaking of growing and grass roots, drag racing’s growing like somebody has figured out how to make it go without tobacco money. It seemed to have fallen into a manure pile after Winston got overly addicted to pushing nicotene and had to quit. But these days drag racing smells more like money than ever before without forgetting the fans pay the bills, roll on Wally Parks.
Sports car racing has been one of my favorite departments since I scored a demolition derby victory in a Porsche 944 with a tube frame chassis built by Richard Childress Racing. Those boys on the endurance racing side are fighting one another like Champ Car and IndyCar back in the 1990’s. The racing’s good in both places and probably will stay that way as long as Wall Street’s on the upswing since those sporty car team owners usually carry sponsorship in their wallets.
One side’s got Daytona in its holster and the other side’s got the Le Mans 24-hour. One side runs its races like demolition derbies — which are kindly unique and close to my heart — and the other one has cars so damned fast they could have run with my daddy’s old cherry Ford, the one stuffed with a Cadillac ambulance engine supercharged by Junior Johnson.
There are some new styles of competition out there, too, but I’m none too certain about them. It’s mostly car shows on wheels, if you get my drift. I’m not even certain my dog Sheba would chase those guys.
Michael McBride can be reached via jonathan@jingrambooks.com.
Were F1 And NASCAR Separated At Birth?
Monday, October 1st, 2007 Write a CommentWith apologies to those race fans who follow only one series or type of racing, did anybody notice the similarities between the F1 race at Fuji and the NASCAR race in Kansas?
Each series had crazy events due to weather and championship pressure, but that’s just the beginning. Were these series actually separated at birth long, long ago?
OK, so they didn’t race in the rain on the high banks of the Kansas Speedway. But, just as surely as the monsoon conditions in Japan dramatically affected the race’s outcome, so too the high winds and rain delays sent the usual pit stop strategies catawampus on the pit road in Toto-land.
In Japan the oddball rule controversy may have occurred at the beginning of the race when Ferrari did not start on “extreme wet” tires and was penalized despite protests from the Scuderia that it was the only team on the grid not to receive the special notification from the FIA. (McLaren, I presume, intercepted the e-mail intended for Ferrari sent by the stewards to team managers on the pit road. Or perhaps it was Nigel Stepney. More later on this from Ferrari’s attorneys and the Italian police.)
In Kansas, it was the finish that sent everybody searching for rulebooks. NASCAR decided Greg Biffle could putter across the finish line on the apron while running out of gas — despite trailing the pace of the safety car.
(Maybe it’s just me, but I thought Kimi Raikkonen and Biffle had a lot in common regarding the rules issues. The Finn said with his usual straight face that Ferrari somehow didn’t get the message despite receiving all other messages about safety car deployments and the uncharacteristic rolling start. For his part, Biffle, in Bunyan-esque exageration, said he was just saving gas for a post-race burnout… .)
Meanwhile, the CLK safety car driven expertly by Bernd Maylander had an incredible number of laps even for the predictably rainy Fuji — and at least as many miles, it would seem, as NASCAR’s Brett Bodine clocked behind the wheel in the American heartland. (And call me supercilious, if not suspicious, but the Mercedes-powered car won at the race where the safety vehicle was provided by Mercedes and a Ford won behind the auspices of a Mustang in KC.)
Beyond rules interpretations, officiating was sorely questioned in both places when it came to decision whether to race — or not to race? The idea of starting behind the safety car in Japan brought angry comments about a lack of visibility from some cockpits, then the decision to continue beyond the 75 percent of total laps in tough conditions was also questioned in various quarters (especially in sleeping quarters for those watching live in the Eastern time zone!). In Kansas, the decision to re-start the race after the second rain delay raised some eyebrows when the field, re-arranged by pit stops, was engulfed by carnage shortly after the green.
Granted, the F1 race only had one late-season title contender — Fernando Alonso — who was knocked out of contention by errant driving. Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth, Tony Stewart, Carl Edwards and Denny Hamlin took direct hits in the points in Kansas when involved in accidents not directly of their making. (Well, I guess Felipe Massa was involved in a pit stop not of his own making as Ferrari advanced teammate Raikkonen for the sake of team tactics and points, now fashionably regarded as illegal by the FIA, which may want to attempt another e-mail to Ferrari.)
OK, so I guess I’m exagerating a bit about all the similarities. In Fuji, there was a helluva lot more exchanges of positions in the closing laps than there were in Kansas, given that Massa and Robert Kubica passed each other four times coming up the hill to the checkered flag at Mount Fuji. (On the other hand, by some counts, at least four cars passed the belated Biffle at the checkers.)
There was another distinguishing characteristic. Home-grown hero and runner-up Clint Bowyer, who was racing on local dirt tracks until Richard Childress saw him on TV, nearly won the race in Kansas. Some say he did win since Biffle puttered his way to the stripe. In Japan, the home boys didn’t fare too well most of the weekend. In fact, Sakon Yamamoto drove more like Quasi Motor Control in the wet. As with the weather, local manufacturers hardly shined in Japan, either.
Oops. Come to think of it, there were Toyotas racing in both rainy places. And in neither case did they go very well.
Call me irresponsible, but perhaps all these similarities are an omen. After all, we’re going to see Villeneuve versus Montoya in Alabama this weekend, where an ARCA preliminary features Scott Speed on the entry list. Can Ralf Schumacher be far behind?
Jonathan Ingram can be reached at jonathan@jingrambooks.com