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.
Virginia’s Hamlin Takes Martinsville, Otto’s Book Tries To Take The Cake
Monday, March 31st, 2008 Write a CommentA son of Virginia won the Sprint Cup’s sixth round at the Martinsville track better known for its springtime blooms than Sunday’s blustery spring weather and drizzle.
It’s a track also better known for American makes winning rather than a Toyota, this one driven by Denny Hamlin. And, it’s usually a facility showing no empty seats at a Sprint Cup race, but instead there was a cusp of blank bleachers down low in some of the corners.
There are those who would continue to see any empty seats at Martinsville as a sign of a downslide at NASCAR — one that could be accelerated by the presence of a Japanese manufacturer. Given the weather conditions and the distinct possibility a Camry might win, I see it from the other point of view. The almost sold-out grandstands in miserable racing weather at NASCAR’s version of the Masters was proof positive of the dedication of the sport’s fans.
Having bought a ticket on race day some 30 years ago at the storied Virginia track, experience confirms that it’s dead solid certain those empty seats are where the tire grit and dust flies, are the cheapest in the house and are the last to sell. They’re usually sold to walk-ups and in better weather. Ironically, on this day the drizzle kept the dust to a minimum and the mandatory right side exhausts on the Car of Today helped make those seats some of the warmest in the grandstands!
That’s the long way around to a racing book review, one that rests on the question of whether NASCAR belongs to the South, even on cold, rainy days. The book in question is an interesting history of one of America’s best racing promoters, Ed Otto. Titled NASCAR’s Silent Partner, it details how this brilliant, energetic and highly successful promoter helped bring the Northeast into the NASCAR fold in the sanctioning body’s first decade and a half.
The book, co-written by Otto’s son Edgar and Joann Biondi, is an excellent portrayal of what it took to promote over 1,000 races, including 25 NASCAR Grand National (i.e. Sprint Cup)events. On the life, times and stout character of Otto, this book is a must read for those who want more detail on the early days of American racing and NASCAR.
Perhaps the best part is the anthology of first-person accounts in the closing pages from those who knew Otto and covered racing, such as Chris Economaki, or Tom Pistone, one of the drivers in an event promoted by Otto at Solider Field in Chicago. (The book includes what I suspect was a doctored photo of stock cars racing in front of a packed Soldier Field, likely the artful juxtaposition of two events, one being a football game. If the race was a sell-out, why was only one Grand National event run?)
In sum, the book adds rich flavor and detail to how the weather was before World War II and afterward when it came to motor racing. The remarkably confident Otto, who cheerfully referred to his promotions as “swindles,” independently promoted races at Yankee Stadium, was the man behind that Jaguar victory in New Jersey (NASCAR’s lone foreign car winner until this year) and was the first to take NASCAR to Canada. The story of Otto’s role on the origin of Miami’s Orange Bowl before he retreated back to New Jersey reveals the ample breadth of his influence. An honest, reliable promoter, Otto always provided a unique edge to everything he did such as calling his races “swindles,” or introducing himself as a “crook.”
The book dishes dirt on occasion, some of it well placed, particularly when it came to the transition of Otto out of NASCAR and his 40 percent ownership, which he sold to founder Bill France for $250,000 in 1963. One of the four original officers, Otto was in the thick of things. An autobiography, in this sense, would have been phenomenal; a son’s account is the next best thing.
The book suffers from the inevitable shifting sands of time when it comes to who did what to build NASCAR and how much credit is deserved by each individual. France, in this approach, becomes an easy mark in the often misplaced view of any powerful sanctioning body by fans and participants. On the one hand, NASCAR, i.e. Bill France, is always seen as an omnipotent ruler and self-promoting publicity mongerer. On the other, the sanctioning body is often portrayed as a helpless, semi-competent giant that could hardly have survived without the guidance and participation by those who got short shrift for their efforts.
History falls somewhere in between. Given the angle of the title, it’s clear this book attempts to demonstrate the latter premise as a hook for intrigue as well as proposing to set the record straight. But the biography raises more questions than it answers when it strays from the focus on Otto due to a lack of credible detail in key areas, particularly on the now famous organizational meeting in Daytona in December of 1947 that led to the incorporation of NASCAR the following year.
The vast majority of the participants in that meeting wanted to go racing and were happy to leave the organizing to others. Those organizers were just as happy to have the former star driver and successful beach course promoter France in charge of a permanent structure.
Otto was not present at this meeting, but that doesn’t prevent a flawed re-telling of it in this book. The book places Raymond Parks at the meetings, for example, or a bevy of showgirls in swimsuits to entertain the gathered racers. In fact, Parks, the wily bootlegger from Atlanta, was nowhere in sight and the showgirls had been present at an event earlier in the year, a trophy presentation and celebration on the same top floor of the Streamline Hotel that was part of an unsuccessful effort by France to declare his regional Modified circuit winner, Fonty Flock, as a national champion.
This failure to get recognition for national status at the end of the 1947 season forced France to recognize he needed a truly national circuit. His model for simply declaring a national champion was the AAA, which before World War II had simply tallied points from selected races to name a titlist in the realm of stock cars. In 1947, France actually ran a series of races in the Southeast focused on one championship trophy for the pre-war cars that came to be known as Modifieds. But he lacked the AAA’s clout to get Flock recognized as a national champion.
Hence, the birth of NASCAR with the goal of running a truly national schedule of races in order to credibly claim to represent a national series. At a time when he faced competition from many regional promoters just like himself, France elected to divide and conquer by bringing in the best promoters he could convince to join him. Enter Otto, at the time busy promoting midget races in the Northeast. Otto was invited to participate by his friend and fellow promoter Bill Tuthill, also one of the four original partners and a France ally.
These men did battle with Southern Racing Enterprises, the Coastal States Racing Association (original promoter of the Southern 500) and the Midwest Auto Racing Club among others, as well as individual promoters such as North Carolina’s Bruton Smith and Sam Nunis at Lakewood in Atlanta.
Otto’s life as a promoter and key role in NASCAR makes an excellent read despite the slightly off-base premise of a power behind the throne and a lack of broader perspective on the over-all history of stock car racing. That, in turn, brings up Monday Morning Crew Chief’s question. Given all its action in the Northeast, Midwest, Canada and on the West Coast (through an alliance with promoter Bob Barkheimer) in the 1950’s, was NASCAR ever really just a southern sport?
Of course not. But it could not have survived or flourished over time without a permanent base run by France in the Southeast. Stock car racing really took off with the creation of the Daytona International Speedway, which resulted from the vision, labor and risk-taking of one man who saw far beyond the idea of leasing facilities all over the country to host races.
After France’s vision and sweat built Daytona, the ensuing Roaring Sixties at superspeedways in Atlanta and Charlotte brought major league scale to stock car racing and eventually more superspeedways across the country. These big tracks provided a permanent, undeniable structure to the passion for the sport, the same passion on ready display at a rainy, cold bullring in Virginia yesterday.
NASCAR’s Silent Partner conveniently downplays the role of Daytona among other important milestones and building blocks. The inanimate yet majestic track, one might say, remains the France family’s real silent partner to this day. So when it comes to history, reader beware. But there’s no denying Otto’s role in helping Bill France achieve his vision was crucial or the fact that Otto’s incredible career stands on its own as classic Americana.
conveniently downplays the role of Daytona among other important milestones and building blocks. The inanimate yet majestic track, one might say, remains the France family’s real silent partner to this day. So when it comes to history, reader beware. But there’s no denying Otto’s role in helping Bill France achieve his vision was crucial or the fact that Otto’s incredible career stands on its own as classic Americana.
Top Ten Reasons Why Michael Schumacher Was Nervous On The Superbike Grid In Hungary
Friday, March 28th, 2008 Write a Comment10. Mikey was nervous because he heard through the rumor mill that motorcycle great Kenny Roberts was coming out of retirement to replace Felipe Massa at Ferrari.
9. He was nervous because at any moment, a phone call might arrive from his wife back home, asking him to forget this whole motorcycle racing thing.
8. Mikey was nervous because his former technical director at Ferrari, Ross Brawn, was too busy at Honda and had failed to call and wish him well, much less give him any strategy tips.
7. He was nervous because Jean Todt had called to tell him that if he won, Ferrari would consider giving him his ride back.
6. After falling behind in the chase by his betters, Mikey knew he would be chafed by his leathers.
5. He was nervous because Willie G. Davidson called to say that if Mikey won, he would offer him a factory-backed Harley-Davidson ride at the Springfield Mile.
4. Mikey was nervous because he had heard through the rumor mill that former Ferrari teammate Eddie Irvine had bribed his way onto the grid disguised as one of the regular Superbike entrants.
3. He was nervous because Jean Todt called back to say that if Mikey won and Ross Brawn offered him a ride, Jean would consider leaving Ferrari and moving to Honda.
2. Dude, you’d be nervous, too, at the thought of racing a Harley sideways for 25 miles at the Kenny Roberts’ old stomping grounds.
1. He was nervous because an attractive young woman had just asked him for Kimi Raikkonen’s phone number.
Jonathan Ingram can be reached at jonathan@jingrambooks.com.
Remember The Driver, Forget Technology?
Monday, March 17th, 2008 Write a CommentFor those who follow all forms of motor racing, the blessings of St. Patrick brought an outstanding weekend of racing. And, through the magic of different time zones, TV and tape delays, it was all available at staggered viewing hours.
My individual time was staggered between a GT3 RS road test in northern Florida earlier in the week (more on that in a later column), the paddock at the Sebring 12-hour and a hurried trip back to Atlanta to catch all the weekend’s back-to-back racing that was scheduled to run almost non-stop throughout the weekend.
It was with no small regret that I drove straight through Gainesville without stopping at the GatorNationals. In the old days, i.e. when I was younger, taking in the 12 hours at Sebring on a Saturday and either the GatorNationals or the NASCAR race in Atlanta on the same weekend was a standard option. (My deadlines were based on the bi-weekly publication of On Track; since the magazine was published in California, deadlines for race reports could be as late as 8 p.m. on Monday, making it possible to cover more than one event during a weekend.)
In the paddock at Sebring, the focus was dominated by the presence of yet another V-12 turbo diesel prototype, this one from France, as well as the improved aerodynamics and drive train of the Acura prototypes. The latter are the forerunners of a full-blown, in-house version of a prototype to be built by Honda Performance Development with an eye on winning at the Le Mans 24-hour when the new rules era begins in earnest in 2010.
Oh yes, there was some talk about ethanol blends of fuel, at best a petit bon mot for endurance racing’s claim to be on the technical cutting edge. Up the road at the GatorNationals, they’ve been using a methane blend, with a dash of nitro, for quite some time now to routinely achieve speeds of well over 300 mph. The Indy 500 was won many times with methanol in the tank. So the breast beating on the 10 percent ethanol blend used at Sebring — as well as on the not-your-typical-diesel found in the Peugeot and Audis — seems a little over the top, as the Brits like to say.
It used to be that there was a lot more emphasis on British racing green than green racing, of course. Nowadays, there’s a mixture of saving greenbacks by not so gently tamping down the technical regulations and on going green in order to promote the idea of being on the technical cutting edge.
I must say it was one of my British colleagues who brought up another popular topic of discussion: the F1 race in Australia. Without traction control, the cars were visibly sliding through some of the corners — just like the good ol’ days. That had more than a few craggy, seen-it-all journalists excited. Since racing journalists are fans at heart with a large dash of skepticism, this was a sure indication F1’s decision to ban traction control was playing very well.
Traction control has saved me, if not my insurance company, on at least two major occasions on wet, steep, downhill bends. So it’s a modern miracle as far as I’m concerned. The GT3 RS, meanwhile, was capable of taking any entrance or exit ramp at 90 to 100 mph due to the modern miracle of racing-developed chassis for road cars. But clearly all the action in the Australian Grand Prix demonstrated that the absence of traction control produces a more compelling form of racing than last year’s version of the world championship.
That brings us, ahem, to today’s topic of discussion. Which racing cars display the most technology on the track? And, is than an even valid question in the era where the entertainment quotient on TV is the single most important driving factor in the health of any racing series?
On the first question, I would suggest that the full-bodied Le Mans prototypes seen at Sebring may now be the most sophisticated racing machines in the world. Alternate fuels aside, with the downforce of full bodywork and traction control, they corner as well, if not better, than any other type of racing machine. Given that the Le Mans rulebook allows for a wide variety of engine types and fuels as well as two categories of prototypes based on weight, the sheer freedom of choice for manufacturers puts them one step ahead in technical diversity, if nothing else.
These days, F1 is limited by its need to align entertainment value with cost control, the jettisoning of traction control being the lastest example. In addition to standard spec Honda engines, IndyCar must produce a vehicle strong enough to withstand the punishment of oval racing, hence its relative slower cornering speeds on road courses. The drag racers are limited as straightliners. And NASCAR has been aligned with carburetors, pushrod engines and standard suspensions since midway in the last century. Its Car of Today reflects age-old values by limiting certain technical parameters in the car construction while borrowing wings and front splitters from road racing as a more race worthy solution to aerodynamics.
Meanwhile, the Daytona Prototypes that race in the Daytona 24-hour have achieved close side-by-side racing that keeps the driver in the equation with limited technology by design. They use common parts in the suspension and ignition. Most significantly, the Daytona Prototypes are heavily restricted in body dimensions and their horsepower output is based on a relatively low standard output.
The second question: how important is sheer technology in motor racing?
That is most likely in the eye of the beholder. A cultural bias — the human equivalent of traction control — likely has far more to do with determining a fan’s response to any racing series or type of car. Both NASCAR and F1, which are not coincidentally the world’s most popular forms of racing, have made major changes to put more emphasis on the driver being in control of his destiny while subtracting technology.
I doubt very much that these decisions will slow down the popularity of either F1 or NASCAR in the least, and more than likely will accelerate it in both cases. Much as in Melbourne, they were sliding, bashing and crashing on Sunday in Tennessee, too.
Jonathan Ingram can be reached at jonathan@jingrambooks.com.
Fightin’ In Atlanta
Monday, March 10th, 2008 Write a CommentNASCAR got back to its roots in Atlanta, a place where the city’s first stock car race was won by the legendary Lloyd Seay on the dirt mile at Lakewood in 1937. There was plenty of dirt in the air at the Atlana Motor Speedway, too, where this time the fighting was among the upper echelon. Ford and Toyota executives exchanged unpleasantries on the subject of cheating and winning.
NASCAR fined Las Vegas winner Carl Edwards 100 points, his Roush Fenway Racing team $100,000 and suspended his crew chief Bob Osbourne for six races for having lost the oil tank cover during last week’s race. In other words, NASCAR decided the team was outside the rules, which require the lid to be bolted on to prevent teams from reducing air pressure underneath cars. That adds considerable downforce without any penalty in drag.
Current Toyota executive Lee White, a former Roush employee, pointed out that during his tenure the Roush team had tested in the wind tunnel the gains found by taking the lid off the box holding the oil reserve tank, located behind the driver’s seat. Numerous veterans in the garage confirmed the tactic had been used in various ways over the years by a variety of teams. The object, of course, is to loosen the lid enough to let air pressure out, directed from underneath the car, without the lid becoming entirely disengaged, a telltale for officials.
With the advent of the Car of Today, officials at NASCAR mandated the lid had to be bolted into place. The bolt failed, said team owner Jack Roush, and White, he added, was an “ankle-biting Chihuahua” as far as he and his team were concerned.
OK. So it’s not McLaren vs. Ferrari over stolen F1 car design documents. But it wound up the rivalry between Toyota and Ford’s chief car owner, whose bitterness toward the Japanese manufacturer knows no boundaries.
On top of that, Roush said at various points the facts were not necessarily important to NASCAR officials. “If NASCAR decides your car is out of spec and they decide it gives you an advantage, regardless of whether it’s intentional or not, you’re going to get penalized.”
The dislike between these two sides runs deep, as well.
So fans got a chance to see teams with an axe to grind come Sunday. Who led the most laps? Toyota’s Kyle Busch wracked up the most at the beginning, Roush’s Edwards, who pled innocent to the oil tank incident in Vegas, took a dominant lead near the end before blue oil smoke began pouring from the back of his car as Toyota executives surely cried crocodile tears. That put Busch’s Toyota back into the lead with teammate Tony Stewart right behind him.
“I think we showed them we had a fast race car,” said Edwards after his engine failure put him into the garage following 33 laps in the lead. “They’re going to have to deal with us every week.” It was unclear if “they” meant Toyota or the entire field.
Meanwhile, a question or two was begged. Did Edwards’ engine expire due to pushing his car to the front with more drag than the previous week — now that his oil tank lid was bolted into place? Was there a change to the dry-sump and the cooling of oil due to some re-arrangement of the oil reservoir system?
If that wasn’t enough to ponder, Dale Earnhardt Jr., the driver who replaced Busch the Younger at Hendrick Motorsports, was running second. Chevy as well as Hendrick thus looked to Little E to hold up its honor versus Toyota. The latter, of course, paid Joe Gibbs Racing a reported $25 million to drop GM in favor of the Japanese company. That left plenty of money to hire Busch once he was dropped at Hendrick to make room for Earnhardt.
In the end, Earnhardt Jr. didn’t have enough for the Toyotas and finished third, saying his mid-race chassis adjustments went sour. For his part, while leading 173 laps winner Busch kicked fenders, tires, rear wings, butts, front splitters, Chevy’s, Fords, Dodges and teammate Stewart to take Toyota’s first Sprint Cup victory after 201 collective starts since last season.
They’re calling Busch “Rowdy” these days, a nickname last seen in the movie “Days of Thunder.” Well, he did ride Dale Jarrett’s bumper on the backstraight on the last lap when leading by 2.5 seconds while calling out on the radio, “Coming to the checkers.”
Over-all, he led 365 laps in the Truck, Nationwide and Sprint Cup races. He passed several cars on the apron and wrecked at least one rookie en route to victory in the Truck race. He ran so hard he blew a right front tire in the Nationwide race while pushing a whopping four-second lead. That none-too-gentle kiss with the wall hardly slowed him on Sunday, where Busch became the youngest Sprint Cup series winner on one of NASCAR’s most daunting tracks — after he brushed the wall in Turn 1 again hard enough to bend the rear frame.
On a day when the griping about Goodyear’s hard tires reached epic proportions, I asked Stewart if his teammate was faster because he was more willing to throw caution to the wind and drive it sideways. “He will drive a car far beyond what it’s capable of,” said Stewart, after the usual jokes that Busch has yet to hit the wall really hard.
It’s difficult to believe from the present perspective that as the younger brother of Kurt Busch, Kyle once was known as “Shrub.” He’s now blossomed into one of the weekly go-to guys when it comes to victory lane following the “trade” with Hendrick Motorsports. That now looks like a win-win deal for both teams and drivers involved — not to mention NASCAR in general. It even has the makings of a friendly rivalry between these two drivers as opposed to the scorched earth tactics of the upper crust.
All in a day at the races.
Jonathan Ingram can be reached at jonathan@jingrambooks.com.
World Stage Gives F1 Edge Vs. NASCAR, IndyCar
Monday, March 3rd, 2008 Write a Comment
One never knows the best time to bring up the state of racing in general. But given the upheaval in the last 12 months some changes in the scale, i.e. the balance of power, may be in the offing. So now’s as good a time as any to consider which type of racing stands where.
F1 continues to be at the top of the heap in terms of star power, financial clout and a relative lack of vulnerability. The best thing possible when it comes to any professional series are serious rivalries among top teams and drivers, which is precisely the state of F1 given the less-than-friendly competition among Ferrari, McLaren and Renault, much less Kimi Raikkonen, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso. The Schumacher era is indeed over.
Who can argue with a series that commands a sanctioning fee of up to $30 million and a world-wide TV market? Despite the arrival of A1GP and the stillborn efforts of Champ Car in Europe, there’s not much in the way of rivalry for those big bucks, either. Despite the European Union’s arrival (hence an oversight of anti-competitive practices), the loss of tobacco money and the uptick in the popularity of sports car racing in Europe, F1 is as strong as ever.
The major weakness of F1 has been its increasing regimentation of rules that squelch the kind of technical development of the days of yore to keep costs in check. But the exciting flipside to that coin is the green evolution that promises some dramatic new technical developments in areas such as regenerative energy.
Speaking of which, another weakness is the lack of a succession plan for the aging Bernie Ecclestone.
For U.S. fans, the biggest weakness is the lack of a U.S.G.P. and an American driver. According to informed sources, at least one major manufacturer is looking to promote a young American. It remains to be seen if a combined open-wheel structure in the U.S. will help the chances of Marco Andretti or Graham Rahal.
More importantly, perhaps, do either of those young Americans consider NASCAR an option? I’d bet that the new IndyCar Series is likely to hold their attention far better than a 34-race oval season in the Car of Today plus two road course events. Also, given recent performances by Jacques Villeneuve, A.J. Allmendinger, Sam Hornish Jr. and Patrick Carpentier, one wonders if NASCAR team owners may give up on Indy car drivers in the near future anyway.
These are ultimately smaller pototaoes in the larger stew of NASCAR vs. IndyCar.
On the NASCAR front, the Car of Today has proven to be a driver’s vehicle, but remains as unwieldy as, well, a stock car. In Las Vegas, Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon each made mistakes in the closing laps of the Nationwide and Sprint Cup races, respectively, albeit with different results. On the other hand, the cars are “catchable” at high speeds and make one look forward to restrictor plate racing vs. the follow-the-leader drafts of the past. So in this case, NASCAR’s ruling France family has once again proven to be successful in its aggressive pursuit of building the sport.
It remains to be seen if the schedule changes, the multitude of new faces, the crackdown on driver behavior and the awkward TV times will linger as high negatives with NASCAR’s core fan group. I’d bet that lots of lead changes and slam-bang action with the COT is likely to be just like an exciting finish to a boring race when it comes to the recent drop in popularity. Most fans will forget about the negatives and the sport will benefit from more focus on the racing.
If a driver like two-time winner Carl Edwards stays hot and wins 10 this year for Roush Fenway Racing, watch out.
Can IndyCar begin to make a dent in NASCAR hegemony? Why not?
The 12-year schism between open wheel series was rightly blamed for some of NASCAR’s advantage, so the end of the split will help. Over the long haul, a series with fewer races and regular street events is going to have a difficult time posting significant numbers when it comes to ticket buyers compared to NASCAR. Can the IRL do something to promote TV numbers to comparable levels with NASCAR? Well, a unified Indy 500 is a good place to start.
By the criteria of increasing events and a diverse group of driving stars, the NHRA, no longer on the auction block, is the dark horse in American racing. Its limitation is the number of seats that can be built around a quarter mile track and, according to industry insiders, the inability to get a major TV contract. As it is, fan loyalty remains unsurpassed.
American sports car racing is as healthy as its ever been due to the number of financially fit individuals who want to pursue it. The Grand American series benefits most from the “back gate” income that arrives with a multitude of teams, including the “showroom stock” category of the Grand-Am Cup featuring up-rated road cars. The American Le Mans Series benefits more from the presence of manufacturers, which has proven to be a better “front gate” draw for fans, in addition to wealthy team owners.
Unlike the split in open wheel racing, the two sports car series can continue to co-exist profitably. The ALMS and the Grand-Am will run a total of 25 races this year. It was inconceivable to think of that many professional endurance racing events during the mid-1990’s. On the other hand, the sport is built around its major long distance races, which currently present insurmountable problems for a mjor TV contract.
Jonathan Ingram can be reached at jonathan@jingrambooks.com.