JJ Captures the 500!

Hendrick Motorsports driver Jimmie Johnson won the Great American Race, the Daytona 500, a couple of Sundays ago. Congrats Jimmie! The win was the second straight Daytona 500 victory for Hendrick, who won with Jeff Gordon a year ago.

We made our Daytona 500 predictions in this post. So how did we do? Not too shabby! My pick to win, Tony Stewart, finished fifth. I'm disappointed he didn't win, but he can only blame himself. His impatience in Turn Two early in the race damaged not only his race car, but that of Jeff Gordon. Stewart had little reason not to lift off the gas at that point in the race, and let Gordon slide in front of him. Then Stewart further handicapped himself by running over the jack while making a caution-flag pit stop, and he had to restart at the back. Stewart's busy day also saw him wreck the extremely fast Matt Kenseth on the backstretch. Through all that, Tony and his crew worked on his car, and had it running well enough for Stewart to navigate through to a top-five finish!

Our darkhorse pick, Casey Mears, finished second! He was excellent on long runs - a great sign that Casey's getting more skilled at setting up a stock car. Mears never led the race, but he was steady all race long, and looks like a possible top-ten points championship contender. Congrats, Casey!

Congratulations Denny!

What a win for Denny Hamlin in Saturday night's Budweiser Shootout at Daytona! Since taking the seat of the FedEx #11 Chevy for Joe Gibbs Racing late last season, Denny has completely changed the fortunes of the third Joe Gibbs car, winning the Bud Pole at Phoenix, scoring three top tens in seven starts, and now winning the Shootout.

And he's now clinched a starting spot in the Budweiser Shootout for life (assuming no changes in the eligibility rules for this annual special event for pole winners). Keep it going, Denny!

Fabricated Stats

A coworker forwarded this link to me a couple of weeks ago. It's a fascinating story, as NASCAR continues trying to think of ways to expand their market and make their sport more understandable to the general sports fan.

According to the article, NASCAR is working with STATS, LLC to invent some new, trackable statistics for their races. The article states:

Starting soon, NASCAR hopes race fans will talk about drivers' "quality passes," "speed in traffic" or "consecutive passes", three of the roughly 30 new stats it will begin releasing after races.

Here's my problem with this: These statistics don't measure a driver's ability. How do I know this before even seeing the first "box score?" Easy. NASCAR race car drivers are limited by their motorized equipment, and behind that is money.

Sports statistics are supposed to measure skill. If a race team lacks funding, they can't hire the best engineers or crewmen. Without the best minds, the chances are higher that the team will field a poorly-designed aerodynamic machine, or a car with less-than-optimum tuning in its engine. That car will drive slower, and won't handle as well in traffic, even if Dale Earnhardt is at the wheel. How accurately, then, are the "new statistics" going to measure a driver's skill?

In a particular five-year stretch, Dale Earnhardt won championships in 1990, 1991, 1993 and 1994. What about the one year in that stretch when he didn't win the title? It was 1992, the year of Alan, and Dale Earnhardt stumbled to a 12th place points finish. He didn't even make the TOP TEN! Does that mean he lost his skill that year? Of course not. The team had a down year, equipment-wise, and Dale suffered for it. As if his mediocre finishes weren't evidence enough of an off-year, his "new stats" that year probably would've shown Dale as suddenly less capable of "quality passes," and that would've been hogwash.

In baseball, the best American sport, a batter faces a pitcher. The batter swings at the pitch, and a variety of outcomes is possible. It's skill versus skill, with no engines, tires, body shops or multi-million dollar engineering departments factoring into the equation (illegal substances aside, of course.) Baseball statistics, the more subtle, underlying ones, measure the skills possessed by the baseball player.

Without even seeing these 30 new statistics, I'm skeptical. Scott Wimmer is a talented driver, in my opinion. But with Wimmer driving for the now-fringe Morgan-McClure Motorsports #4 team, how will these stats show he's the talent equal to someone like Jamie McMurray, who'll be piloting a car for the Roush juggernaut? How will these stats show that Wimmer is as skilled as another driver?

Maybe NASCAR doesn't care. If the intention of these stats is to track how a certain driver/team combination is doing THIS YEAR, and THIS YEAR ONLY, then I think NASCAR will get what it wants from these new numbers. But for a fan interested in discovering which driver possesses the most talent, these numbers won't help, and may in fact mislead.

This all smells a little funny to me. "Hello, is this STATS, LLC? Brian France calling. The Chase for the Championship helped us increase viewership in its first year, but in year two, TV viewership levelled off. We need something else. Something. We're bored with meaningless stats like laps completed and top-five finishes. Can you help us come up with something new?"

Preseason Picks

With qualifying just a few days away, we thought we'd offer up our predictions for Daytona and for the season-long Cup championship. We'll check back to see how we did!

DAYTONA 500

Winner:
Tony Stewart, #20 Home Depot Chevy, Joe Gibbs Racing

Darkhorse pick:
Casey Mears, #42 Texaco Havoline Dodge, Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates


CUP CHAMPIONSHIP

Winner:
Jeff Gordon, #24 DuPont Chevy, Hendrick Motorsports

Darkhorse pick:
Mark Martin, #6 AAA Ford, Roush Racing


EXPLANATIONS
Tony won the most recent race at Daytona, and finished second at both Talladega races last season. He also dominated the 2005 Daytona 500, leading the most laps, before settling for a disappointing 7th place finish. He finally won NASCAR's second-most prestigious event, the Brickyard 400. In short, Tony's extremely strong at the plate tracks, and in this opinion, he's due to capture the premier event on the schedule.

Casey Mears is a hunch pick, but he finally showed consistency in the second half of last season. I think he'll be strong out of the box as he switches seats within the Chip Ganassi organization.

As for the series championship, look for Jeff Gordon to ride the momentum of his strong 2005 "Chase," and be a contender week-in and week-out. You may ask, "what about Tony Stewart?" I'm a big fan of Tony, but these days, it's awfully difficult to repeat as champion. Tony's a big-time talent, and he'll surely be in it, but I think Gordon will net his fifth title.

Mark Martin may not be a true "darkhorse" since he's contended for the Cup the past two years, but he's a veteran driver and is no longer considered part of the Junior, Gordon, Johnson, Stewart, Biffle group of top drivers. I think Roush Racing will pull out all the stops for their flagship driver. Mark can flat drive, and he'll be looking to go out on top. Rusty Wallace performed well in his final season in 2005. I think Mark will be better this year than Rusty was a year ago.

Chip Williams Arrested

I don't embrace tabloid journalism, and it's certainly not my objective to turn this into a blog that highlights people's mistakes.

But after reading of the arrest of Chip Williams on child sex charges, Dale Earnhardt fans (Dale Sr., that is) may believe that "what goes around comes around." Williams (pictured here from 1987), the former PR director for NASCAR and current executive of his own public relations company, was involved in a dispute with The Intimidator during Speedweeks back in February of 1994.

That was a dark Speedweeks. Veteran driver Neil Bonnett was killed during a practice run on February 11. Then three days later, rookie driver and Dash Series graduate Rodney Orr died in a practice crash.

Bonnett was Earnhardt's best friend. After Bonnett's crash, Chip Williams said in a public statement that "driver error" caused the fatal wreck. That statement was perceived as insensitive and premature given two points: Bonnett was an experienced driver, and Bonnett was racing on Hoosier tires. Later that week, Hoosier, engaging in the first Cup series tire war since 1988, withdrew from competition because of safety concerns over tire wear.

Complicating the issue was that Bonnett was continuing his comeback, which began a year earlier, from his serious head injury at the spring event at Darlington in 1990. Williams's assessment of "driver error" seemed like an assault on Bonnett's courage and character.

Earnhardt took great exception to Williams's comment, and lashed back at him. Williams softened his stance, but Earnhardt was coming off his 6th Cup championship, and third in four years. He was powerful. When he spoke, people listened. Big E's criticism of Williams was heard by many.

Williams resigned his position at NASCAR less than three weeks later, on March 1, 1994. Coincidence? Doubtful.

Dover Speedway

In my Denny Hamlin post, I mentioned that I attended the Dover 200 Busch Series race in September at Dover Speedway.

I really liked the "Monster Mile." I had a general admission ticket, and picked a seat in Turn One. The views were generally tremendous, although with the banked "self-cleaning" straightaways, I didn't have a clear view of some of the heavy impacts of the two early backstretch pileups.

The one-mile track is a nice size, and the speeds are over 30 MPH faster than another mile track, my "local" big-time track, the "Magic Mile" of NHIS in Loudon, NH. The speed and action were excellent at Dover.

I also liked the fact that the speedway is smack in the middle of a regular town. It's about two minutes north of the center of downtown Dover, the capital of Delaware. Malls, homes, and businesses surround the speedway, which began business as a horse racetrack. The facility still operates the horse track and a casino.

For some reason, I love visiting these older tracks that are right in town. New speedways, like Las Vegas Motor Speedway, are pre-planned facilities built miles from town, with their own exit ramps off the Interstate. But tracks like Dover and Daytona and Lowe's are part of the fabric of their towns.

Dover Speedway is a nice enough facility, and hosts the biggest of big-time U.S. auto racing, the NEXTEL Cup Series, but Dover has a pleasant small-time feel, and I like that. I'd love to return there.

Here are two photos, taken from my seat for the race. Click to enlarge.

Retro Ads: Beer Print Ads of 1987

Along with analysis of the current news stories and hubbub in NASCAR, another area I'd like to pursue with this blog is "retrospection" with an emphasis on the late 1980's. Here's the first installment, the beer company print ads of 1987. Click on any picture to enlarge:

Miller Brewing. One of NASCAR's all-time greats, Bobby Allison remained very competitive in 1987, four years after his only Winston Cup title. Bobby finished 9th in points in 1987 in a season highlighted by a wild win at the Firecracker 400 in Daytona. (I'll post on that race at some point in the future.) A fine ad by Miller.







Budweiser. I loved this car. I didn't necessarily root for Junior Johnson & Associates as a team (not like I cheer for Yates and Gibbs these days), but Terry Labonte has always been a low-key, clean, winning race car driver. And he drove this classic #11 Budweiser Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS to a third-place championship finish in 1987.







Coors. Check out Bill Elliott in this ad! Bill will always be "Awesome Bill from Dawsonville." The Melling Engineering #9 Ford Thunderbird pictured in this ad is actually the 1986 model T-Bird. Elliott had a wonderful year in 1987, capturing six victories including the Daytona 500 and the July race at Talladega, on his way to runner-up finish in the final series points. A great comeback year for Bill, after his relatively disappointing 1986 season.





Busch Beer. Busch didn't sponsor a car in 1987, and as far as I'm aware, has not sponsored a car in at least 25 years, or since they opted to become title sponsor of NASCAR's Busch Series. But for years, Busch was the "Official Beer of NASCAR." They supported their sponsorship through the Busch Pole Awards at every Winston Cup Race, and through general marketing campaigns including this ad featuring cars from the old Daytona beach course.

My NASCAR Ride-Along!

Back in December of 1997, I was vacationing in Las Vegas and decided to head up to Las Vegas Motor Speedway, because the Richard Petty Driving Experience was holding classes at LVMS that week.

The Richard Petty Driving Experience offers many courses. The rookie experience is a 3-hour course, you drive the car yourself, and the price starts at $399. I didn't want to take that much time and money out of my vacation in December.

So I opted for the "Riding Experience" which at the time cost $89.00, and believe me, was worth every penny. Basically, they mount a passenger seat into the stock car, and you ride along for a few laps with a professional instructor, at full speed.

It was an absolute thrill, I can hardly describe it in words. Just in the three laps in which we were at speed, I learned a ton about the cars, the tires, and the handling (and G-forces). I always talk to friends about the speeds, the skill of the drivers, the G-forces, and so forth, but this ride was unbelievable! Knowing what the drivers really do inside the car, and what it actually FEELS like at speed, especially in the turns, is something I wish every race fan could know.

(Photo note: Nellis AFB is behind LVMS's backstretch.)

My first taste of what the ride might be like was when I was watching the three race cars that were giving rides. They were out on the track running laps, warming up the tires. Also on the track (on the opposite end) were some of the driving school cars. They were running probably well over 120 mph for an average speed, but they looked so slow compared to the ride cars! The three ride cars were booking it. That was a hint of what was to come.

Several people were waiting in line for a ride. The three ride cars were being driven by Busch Series rookies Mike Cope and Matt Hutter, and an instructor with the school. Earlier, I had seen Matt Hutter standing around, before he got into the race car, and I thought I knew his face. I couldn't place it right away, but after ten or fifteen minutes, I finally realized that it was Hutter (although I wasn't completely sure it was him). I surprised myself that I recognized him. I must have remembered the face from Winston Cup Scene or an ARCA race or something. (Cope was also standing around the pit area earlier, but I didn't realize it was him. And he was in a Slim Jim driver's suit! Matt was in a plain gray driver's suit.)

I asked one of the employees for the school if the guy I thought was Matt Hutter actually was him, and he said yes, and seemed surprised that anyone recognized him. He said Matt would be surprised to know that someone recognized him. It turns out Matt Hutter and Mike Cope, teammates at the time for Cicci-Welliver Racing, were at the speedway preparing for the Sam's Town 300 to be held there a couple of months later (and attended by me, in fact!)

So when it came to be my turn to do the ride, that guy with the school said, "Do you want to ride with your hero?" I thought that was pretty funny. Matt had just finished his warmup laps and was coming down pit road. So I got to ride with a real driver, not an instructor! I walked out onto pit road, and after Matt stopped the car, I climbed in. The guy with the school told Matt, "Guess what, this guy recognized you earlier." I couldn't really tell what Matt's reaction was, because he was wearing a helmet, but he was friendly about it. I think he was low-key, down-to-earth, just wanting to race.

As I got all strapped in and buckled up, Matt and I had a couple of minutes to talk while we were waiting for the other two ride cars to have their passengers buckled in. The engine was off, so we could hear each other fine, even though we both had helmets on. (By the way, I didn't have to wear a driving suit, which I thought was kind of odd.) Anyway, I told Matt that I couldn't believe I was going to be riding with someone who had driven at Talladega (in the ARCA race that October) and had done so well there. The guy with the school who was buckling me in said, "If you think this is exciting, you just wait till you get out on the track!" Matt said Talladega was fun to drive, and I said I had watched that race on TV, so he then quipped, "Let's hope this ride doesn't end up like Talladega." Of course, he crashed near the end at Talladega after running all day with the leaders. I laughed at his comment, and told him I wasn't worried about it, which oddly enough was the truth.

So finally he fired up the engine, which was thrilling on its own. We starting rolling down pit road, and the ride cars were not following a speed limit on pit road. We were flying off of pit road, and we just drove right up onto the banking and quickly got up to speed down the backstretch. The three ride cars were all running together, so it was almost like simulated racing. Before I got to the track, I was expecting the ride car would be running by itself. But having three ride cars together on the track, at full speed, was awesome! Matt actually took a little longer to get up to speed, so we were maybe ten or 15 car lengths behind the car in front of us (we were last in line of the three cars).

The first thing I really noticed was how hard they approach the turns. I always thought that at the end of the straightaways, the drivers paused after they got off the gas and before applying the brake. But we had the gas to the floor until the last possible moment entering the turn, then it was immediate hard braking, and back on the gas almost immediately thereafter. We FLEW through those turns. I also never realized how much the tires really MAKE the car stick to the track in the turns. I always thought that a track's banking played most of the role in supporting speed in the turns, with the car leaning against the bank and using that to keep the speeds up. But Vegas isn't a really high-banked track, and the tires got us through those turns. There was no skidding sound, but the grip was incredible. I now understand why tire wear and tire management is so critical in NASCAR racing. Without the grip we had, we would have just spun right into the wall.

Matt did a great job driving, and after two laps, he had driven hard and closed to within two car lengths of the car in front of us. To me, it looked like we were just a couple of feet behind the car in front, and I thought Matt was going to pass him, but actually it was at least a car length. I'd say we were averaging over 160 mph a lap, and top speed at least 180 at the end of the straights. It was just awesome. I highly recommend a Ride-Along to any NASCAR fan!

People have asked me how loud it was. It really wasn't that bad. Either I wasn't keyed into it, or the helmet muffled the sound.

My biggest surprise was how fast the ride cars ran. I was expecting a more leisurely pace, for safety reasons, but we couldn't have been that far off of top speed. At certain tracks (like Daytona), the rides aren't close to full speed, because full speed is "too fast." But at Vegas, "full speed" isn't as fast, so the ride offered a realistic sensation of the true racing speeds.

The ride was probably the most thrilling thing I've ever done in my life. I've never done a skydive or bungee jump, and I think those would be along the same lines, although perhaps less safe, because I felt pretty secure inside that race car.