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.