ThatsRacin.com: Commentary

GM exec knows how vital racing is to Chevy’s legacy

Thu, 08 May 2008 06:53 EDT

If you are one of the 1,200 second-shift production workers who, as members of UAW Local 276, are dealing with another week of layoffs at the General Motors assembly plant in Arlington, Texas, you have real-world priorities.

That said, you probably are not overly concerned that NASCAR superstars and Chevrolet drivers Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. remain winless through 10 Sprint Cup Series starts apiece this season.

That puzzling dilemma, and related racing issues, fall into the laptop of Brent Dewar, GM North America's vice president of field sales, service and parts. Dewar will shed that long-winded title for another effective June 1, when he assumes duties as GM Europe vice president, sales, marketing and after sales.

As such, Dewar's fingerprints are all over GM Racing, which, like the new car market, has gone global.

"Racing's part of our DNA here, so I'm going to have a great team to continue the efforts at Chevrolet," Dewar said in a recent interview. "We race Corvettes at Le Mans. That'll be my home ground ... which is a pretty good gig."

GM's reason for racing the Chevrolet Impala SS in NASCAR is obvious - the brand/marketing exposure afforded by the most popular form of motorsports in North America is undeniable. Similarly, GM's factory-backed American Le Mans Series program, highlighted by the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France, is about validating the 'Vette as a world-class sports car.

Decisions on what series GM should compete in, Dewar said, are made by the company's racing council.

Consider, for example, the idea that GM needs to compete against Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Honda and Toyota in Formula One.

"We evaluate all sports on three things," Dewar said. "If you're going to race, you've got to race to win. That's the fun part. We think we have the technology to win in any of the race (series) around the world.

"The second thing, you only go racing if it matters to somebody - that there's a fan base that matters.

"And the third thing is ROI (return on investment). All three have to be balanced. Some series have a good fan base, but the ROI doesn't make sense. This is a business. It has to meet those criteria to race."

With those guidelines, here are some motorsports topics The General is dealing with in these not-so-kind domestic economic times:

The return of Tony Stewart to the GM family: This rumor took on legs last month after Stewart began looking for a way out of Joe Gibbs Racing and its Toyota Camry lineup before his contract expires at the end of the 2009 season.

"We love Tony," Dewar said. "Tony is our partner on (World of Outlaws) Sprint Cars and Tony Stewart Racing. In the (USAC National) Midget class and Sprints, we’re with him as a team owner. We stay in touch with Tony ... you never know what the future brings."

GM's plans for the reunited IndyCar Series: Chevrolet last supplied engines/tech support to the Indy Racing League in 2005. "That was a tough decision to leave it," Dewar said. "At this point we don't have any current plans, but we will be in Indianapolis for the Indy 500, and I'm sure there'll be opportunities to continue talks with them."

Alternative fuels in big-time racing: Dewar said most forms of major motorsports could make the switch from unleaded to alternative fuels in "less than two or three years."

"We're pushing hard," Dewar said. "We believe in green racing. Our C6.Rs (Corvette in the ALMS) is racing on cellulosic ethanol made from biodegradable waste products. We're going to have Emerson Fittipaldi pace the Indy 500 in a Concept Corvette E85 vehicle. The next few years, we're going to build 50 percent of GM vehicles to be Flex Fuel - to run on either biofuel or unleaded gas.

"We have to reduce our dependency on petroleum products. Economically, we have to do it. And we're willing to do it."

OK, but didn't you just say racing needed more of that?

Thu, 08 May 2008 15:30 EDT

Some midweek thoughts on the motorsports beat from the Charlotte Observer's David Poole:

MY TWO CENTS

Allow me to try to summarize the circular logic I've been getting this week from a lot of NASCAR fans.

Kyle Busch is a nothing but a young punk who has a big mouth and one day he is going to get "what's coming to him."

Not only does he need to show more respect for the sport and his fellow drivers off the track, he needs to stop driving "over his head" and trying to push a car to and maybe beyond its limit.

He needs to be humble and apologetic after being involved in any incident if another person is aggrieved, even if that incident took place in the course of battling for a top position in the final laps of a race at stock-car racing's highest level.

He needs to back off the throttle or not go into a turn so hard if there's the slightest chance he's going to make contact with another driver - especially anybody who’s more popular than he is.

In other words, Busch needs to be more mature and be more like other drivers who're in Sprint Cup racing.

You know, he needs to be more like all of those guys in NASCAR these days who are so dull and so lacking in personality that they've ruined what once was a grand sport.

Apparently, Busch is not enough like the guys who've become sated with all the money they're making and who're more concerned about having a good points day and thanking sponsors than about winning.

What NASCAR sorely needs right now is more colorful characters who don't mind talking a little trash or mixing things up when they feel like they need to - or even when they want to.

Until, that is, someone like that actually comes along.

OBSERVATIONS

• It's too bad Joey Logano's birthday isn't a few days earlier than May 24. It would have been nice to see Logano turn 18 in time to compete in the Nationwide Series race at Lowe's Motor Speedway instead of having to wait to debut at Dover. When you see him do what he did at Sunday's Automobile Racing Club of America race at Rockingham, you have to work to keep expectations within reason. The question that looms is how good, how fast can this kid be?

• The Observer has learned that Dale Earnhardt Jr. is on the cover of the newest issue of ESPN the Magazine. Apparently, Lebron James needed a week off.

• It's bad enough that Fox Sports keeps hammering viewers with a cartoon gopher when it shows shots from a camera in the track. That Fox goes way out of its way to hawk T-shirts featuring the varmint is even more galling. Surely the money being made off that is going to some charity and not into somebody's pocket, right?

BY THE NUMBERS

155 – Actual count, with some undoubtedly missed, of laptop computers being used during Monday's afternoon session of the Sprint Cup test at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

12 – Laps Jeff Gordon has run outside the top 15 in the past three Cup races at Darlington.

| ARCA racing brings a new day to Rockingham

Sun, 04 May 2008 01:27 EDT

Here's hoping nobody gets confused about what's happening this weekend at Rockingham Speedway.

Sunday's Carolina 500, a race for the Automobile Racing Club of America series, will mark a new beginning for the track formerly know as North Carolina Speedway. It's the first race there since Andy Hillenburg bought the track from Speedway Motorsports Inc. last year.

It will be hard not to get caught up in nostalgia at Rockingham, where NASCAR's top series last raced in 2004. This was a great place to watch stock-car racing's top stars compete, but not enough people did that to keep it on the Cup schedule.

I have no idea what kind of crowd to expect for Sunday's race. I hope, for the sake of Hillenburg and the people who have worked to make this day possible and for the people in Richmond County that the place is packed.

But even if it is, that doesn't mean Rockingham's rebirth is about returning to past glories. That ship has sailed.

What Sunday is about is what Rockingham might be. It's a small miracle cars will compete there again. It's far more typical for a track that falls off the NASCAR map to get swallowed up than it is for one to start trying to make new memories.

If the new Rockingham is to continue to be a place where cars compete, it's going to be in the kind of new reality Hillenburg is trying to forge. Sunday's race is one of the biggest on this year's ARCA schedule. On Nov. 1, Rockingham is to host the final race on this year's USAR Hooters Pro Cup schedule.

Is it impossible to believe that, if everything goes wonderfully, a NASCAR Truck Series race might someday be part of Rockingham's schedule? No, but one almost hesitates to say that could happen for fear of setting it up as a false goal.

Sunday's race shouldn't be about what Rockingham used to be. It should be about what it could be.

That would be fitting with those who will be competing Sunday. Some of the most promising drivers in the sport will be in the field.

They'll be led to the green flag by the man many believe to be "The Next." Joey Logano won the pole Saturday with a lap at 146.645 mph, putting him alongside Ricky Stenhouse.

Logano will turn 18 on May 24 and after that will embark on a Nationwide Series schedule for Joe Gibbs Racing. There are people who believe the Gibbs team might not lose too much sleep should it lose Tony Stewart after this season or the next because it has Logano, preparing to step in. Logano is that highly regarded.

Stenhouse is no slouch, either. He's driving a Roush Fenway Racing car and is in that NASCAR team's developmental program.

Michael Annett, who will start fourth alongside Justin Lofton on Row 2, won the ARCA race at Daytona this year and is in the Bill Davis Racing developmental pipeline.

Matt Carter, who will start sixth, is leading the ARCA points standings and is the son of former NASCAR team owner Travis Carter. Austin Dillon, the grandson of Cup team owner Richard Childress, will start 10th. Former Formula One driver Scott Speed, who won the race at Kansas last week, will start 25th.

Stewart is in position to call the tune, maybe set tempo, too

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 20:24 EDT

TALLADEGA, Ala. – All of a sudden Tony Stewart is the hot “free agent” on the NASCAR market. And, quite frankly, he is enjoying the attention.

“We’re going to look at all the options,” Stewart said at Talladega Superspeedway. “It’s pretty exciting as a driver to be in this position and when you see the offers that have been presented to us. ...It gives me a perspective of where I fit in this series and what the car owners think of me.

“It’s just a matter of trying to figure out what we want to do and just being smart. We’re just going to look at everything that’s out there. A wise person told me that it never costs a dime to listen, so right now we’re all ears.”

Sound familiar? It should.

A year ago another driver was singing a similar song.

“We’re going to listen to everybody. I’m going to want to hear what everybody has to say,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. said last May. “…I’ll just have to see what’s out there for us. We’ve got to sit down and decide what we want to. So we’re going to listen, and it doesn’t cost anything to listen.”

Their situations aren’t exactly the same.

Earnhardt Jr. was coming to the end of his contract at Dale Earnhardt Inc. after the 2007 season. Stewart’s current deal with Joe Gibbs Racing runs through the end of 2009, and team president J.D. Gibbs said he expects Stewart to be around at least that long.

While it took Earnhardt Jr. until early May to confirm he would not re-sign with DEI, there was very little doubt all along that’s what would happen. With confirmation this week that Stewart is at least window shopping for a new deal, it’s easy to assume that he’s already as good as gone, too.

That may not be so. The last time Stewart re-upped with the Gibbs team he weighed other offers. His talent and resume gave Stewart considerable leverage then, and he used it to get a good deal. Stewart certainly appears to have more options this time around, but again he could find what he’s looking for right where he is.

Earnhardt Jr. is in a unique position to appreciate where Stewart is.

“Tony has several options, and staying is a great one,” Earnhardt Jr. said Friday at Talladega Superspeedway, where Aaron’s 499 qualifying is set for Saturday.

“Joe Gibbs is going to be around and be competitive for a long time. But Tony could become his own Joe Gibbs if he wants to. Tony has networked his entire career and he has a lot of relationships that would suit him well. It’s really up to Tony what he wants to do.”

Stewart said the prospect of owning a Cup team has appeal, but also said he has no interest in starting his own.

He indicated Friday that the impetus for all of this is Chevrolet’s desire to have him back in its cars in NASCAR, but Stewart also said the more he listens the more his options open to include other manufacturers.

Chevrolet supports Stewart’s open-wheel operations, and it would be easier if all of his business was on one side of that street. But he used to field Mopar cars for Dodge in the U.S. Auto Club, too, and Chrysler’s new major domo is Bob Nardelli, who once ran The Home Depot and built a friendship with Stewart in that job. He’s tight with Kevin Harvick, and Richard Childress has a car coming open next year, a Chevrolet at that.

In other words, Stewart’s in a pretty good spot.

“There are items that have been brought up that I never even thought would be options, let alone what an ideal situation would be,” Stewart said.

“We’re in a position now where we’re trying to figure out what is that perfect scenario.”

To test or not to test - Oh, wait, cars or racers?

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 14:25 EDT

Some thoughts from the Charlotte Observer's David Poole, in the the middle of an off week for the NASCAR Sprint Cup teams, on testing and more:

OBSERVATIONS

• There's a simple answer for those Sprint Cup teams who say they don't feel that the open test added for May 5-6 at Lowe's Motor Speedway will do them any good.

Don't show up.

If you have the new car figured out and know everything there is to know about it, that's great.

Not only can they skip the test, but there won't be any need to test anywhere else, either, since there's no more to learn.

Good luck with all of that free time.

• Speaking of testing, forget about Kentucky Speedway as an immediate option. The track has canceled testing for two weeks because it has been wet there and water is seeping from under the track. Nine Cup teams scheduled to test there Wednesday had to come home.

• The Nationwide Series will make its fourth trip to Mexico City this weekend, and as best as I can tell the only people who really like going there work for NASCAR. It's a logistical migraine and no team makes any money on the trip. But you can bet your bottom NASCAR gets a nice check out of the deal.

MY 2 CENTS

Brian France said something last weekend that made my eyes bulge.

"We have the most aggressive (substance-abuse) policy in sports," France told NASCAR Scene’s Bob Pockrass in the garage at Phoenix.

"We can test anytime, any place. It's better than random testing because we can do it on a more frequent basis."

"Then the punishments, should anything happen, are more severe than anything in sports. It's a game-changer for somebody's career."

France is right in that when NASCAR does punish somebody for a substance-abuse violation, the punishment is swift and sure.

That reminds me of those parents you see at the Wal-Mart who let their kids run up and down the aisles for 20 minutes and then decide to administer a spanking after one knocks over a display.

It's a matter of benign neglect followed immediately by aggressive punishment. It addresses only half the issue, and it's the wrong half.

France also said NASCAR's current policy is "clear." He's right about that, too.

It's clear NASCAR doesn't want the responsibility for establishing and enforcing a fair testing policy.

It also is clear NASCAR officials really don't want to know some of the answers a real drug-testing policy might give them.

Rockingham's IHRA event keeps boss busy

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 23:35 EDT

This week, Steve Earwood met with people from a restaurant chain about a promotion for the International Hot Rod Association’s Spring Nationals next weekend at his track.

He also set up publicity tours for the coming week in Raleigh, Greensboro and Charlotte. He met with his lawyers, his insurance company, his accountant and people with North Carolina’s Department of Transportation.

“There’s no sign on the new Highway 220 bypass that shows the way to our track,” Earwood said.

He’s already got people camping at his track for next weekend, so he’s got to worry about them as well as the 12 full-time and 50 part-time employees who’re working as hard as he is to get ready for next weekend.

“I was talking to Andy Hillenburg not long ago,” Earwood said, speaking of the new owner of the oval track located right across the road from the dragway. “He said, ‘You know, there’s a lot about being a track owner that I didn’t know about.’ I told him, ‘You know, I say that just about every week.”

Earwood has been running the drag strip in Rockingham, N.C., for 17 years and he’s been in the drag racing business for twice that long.

He’s got two IHRA national events each year, including the season-ending event.

“A lot of times the phone rings here and it’s somebody asking, ‘When do the big boys come?’” Earwood says. “They’re talking about the nitro cars, funny cars and top fuel.”

But there are dozens of other events at the track each year, with everything from street rods to motorcycles going down the quarter-mile. Something goes on just about every weekend, nine to 10 months a year, at Rockingham Dragway.

The IHRA events, though, are big. They bring in big crowds and help increase awareness of Earwood’s facility. But Earwood tries not to get himself all balled up in a knot worrying about what might go wrong.

A few years ago, when an IHRA weekend got washed out by rain and had to be moved to another date, Earwood sent me an e-mail informing me of the cancellation. Its title was “Here is my obit.”

He was kidding.

“The first race I promoted, I was 22 years old,” Earwood says. “It was in Gainesville, Fla., and we had eight funny cars and eight top fuel cars. I was riding down the road listening to myself in an interview I’d taped with an AM radio station. I thought I was the hottest thing going.

“And then, a drop of rain hit the windshield. I said, ‘Wait, it might rain.’ It did rain, for three straight days. The night before the race I was awake all night worrying about it, and it still rained anyway. You just learn that you have to deal with it.”

Earwood also is chairman of the board for North Carolina Motorsports Association, a statewide group dedicated to furthering the industry’s interests in the state. He’s learning in that job, too.

“I knew it was big industry in the state, but I didn’t know it was as big as it is,” Earwood said. “It has let me peek in the back door of these places owned by guys like Rick Hendrick, Jack Roush and Richard Childress. But I’ve also found out about places that make things like roll-bar padding. It’s amazing.” IHRA Spring Nationals

WHEN: Friday-Sunday.

WHERE: Rockingham Dragway.

SCHEDULE: Friday and Saturday – 8 a.m.: Gates open; 9 a.m.: Sportsman qualifying; 2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. for professional qualifying. Sunday – 8 a.m.: Gates open; 9 a.m.: Sportsman eliminations; 11 a.m.: Pro eliminations (subsequent rounds at noon, 2 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.)

TICKETS: Daily adult tickets $35 for Friday, $40 for Saturday and $35 Sunday ($5 less if purchased in advance). Three-day pass $85. Juniors ages 6 to 12 – $5 each day. Children under 6 admitted free. (Reserved seating an additional $5 Friday and Sunday at $10 Saturday). $15 discount tickets for Sunday’s finals available at Bojangles locations. General admission tickets $20 for military.

All we are saying, is give racers, and racing, a chance

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 12:33 EDT

NASCAR's commitment to safety and drivers was demonstrated Friday at Texas Motor Speedway when Michael McDowell walked away from a colossal Sprint Cup Series crash during qualifying.

Along with the SAFER barrier, head and neck restraints, improved seat technology and God's own grace, the car was part of an equation that did not produce tragic results. NASCAR deserves a full measure of credit for that.

Now, it's time for NASCAR to demonstrate a further commitment by letting teams test the car, in use at all tracks for the first time this year, over the coming weeks at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

Cup teams don't know how to make this car act like they want it to on intermediate tracks of 1.5 miles or so.

Carl Edwards and his team have found something, for sure, but the sport needs proficiency beyond a team or two.

Facing a tough economy, NASCAR can't afford for the racing to be as non-compelling as it was Sunday at Texas over the long haul.

But NASCAR doesn't need to start changing rules, either. Teams have spent money and time working on the package as it exists. The teams that have some things figured out shouldn't be asked to give that up, and teams that can't solve this puzzle don't need to be handed a completely new one to work on.

NASCAR says it is confident teams eventually will know this car as well as the one abandoned after last season.

These are the best people who have ever worked on stock cars, and given time they will develop an expertise. But time is money. The sport can't afford to stumble through a season or more while teams work out the car's kinks.

Teams are working hard. Computer simulations and all kinds of engineering expertise are being brought to bear. That produces setups that work in theory, but those must be verified in real life. So teams burn up the highways to Kentucky and Nashville, Tenn., and other tracks outside the jurisdiction of NASCAR's testing limits.

Why?

The next track where the car will be used for the first time is Lowe's Motor Speedway for two races during May.

In the five weekends between now and then, the Concord track should be open as often as possible for Cup teams to test as they please.

Virtually all teams are based in this area, so they could without great expense use the speedway as a laboratory to develop their base of knowledge about the car.

NASCAR should open every track where the car has not been raced a day early to allow testing, but that's a bigger step than just allowing testing here. If teams get six, eight or 10 days at Lowe's Motor Speedway, they'd certainly know more about the car than they do.

Maybe the races here still wouldn't be great, but at least NASCAR would be giving teams the opportunity to provide good racing.

It at least has to be worth a try.

Who could ask for more than humbled, happy?

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 09:30 EDT

FORT WORTH, Texas – Of course Dale Earnhardt Jr. remembers the day.

“I remember how cold it was,” Earnhardt Jr. says. “And I remember when he grabbed me, knocked my hat crooked and that was how I had my hat on that day in front of a national television audience, crooked.”

It was April 2, 2000, and Earnhardt Jr. had just won his first Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway. The “he” Earnhardt Jr. is talking about is his late father, Dale Earnhardt, who had come to victory lane to congratulate his son.

“That win just shocked me,” Earnhardt Jr. recalls. “I could hardly hold the gas pedal down the last 30 laps. My legs and my whole body were just shaking. I don’t know if I could top that.”

Jeff Burton finished second that day. He remembers it, too.

“I got in the helicopter leaving and his dad was in there,” Burton says. “I said, ‘What the hell are you doing? You ought to be in Victory Lane.’ And I remember him saying. ‘Man this is his day, not mine.’ I thought that was cool.”

Earnhardt Jr. hasn’t won at Texas since, and he hasn’t won anywhere since Richmond in May 2006. That’s 68 races without a win, nearly two full seasons, and the wait is getting tiresome for Earnhardt Jr. and for his legion of fans.

“I think the majority of the (fans) are as hungry as I am to get a win,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I want to go out there and get a win and I want to get that out of the way and tack it onto my stats and all that good stuff.

“But the thing I’m trying not to look past is how much better I’m doing in my career ... and how much of a better situation I’m in and how much happier I am as a person and just what all good has come from this change that I made.”

One year ago Sunday, the official story was that Earnhardt Jr. was still trying to decide if he would return to Dale Earnhardt Inc. once his contract ended at the end of the 2007 season. In reality, that die has pretty much been cast.

When Kyle Busch fell out late, he thought his car was done and wasn’t around when his team at Hendrick Motorsports got it repaired. The team looked around for someone to substitute for Busch and wound up putting Earnhardt Jr. in the No. 5 Chevrolet.

It was not, despite what some would have you believe, an audition. It might have given Earnhardt Jr. a peek at what he’d been racing against all along, but that, too, may be revisionist history.

It turned out to be, at the very least, a heck of a coincidence since Earnhardt Jr. eventually moved to the Hendrick team, effectively supplanting Busch from that roster.

So Sunday, as Earnhardt Jr. looks to break his long winless streak and give the Hendrick team its first win of the 2008 season, he’ll do it from the pole with Busch, now driving a Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing, lined up behind him in the No. 3 starting spot.

Busch already has a win this year and has turned heads with his performance in the Cup, Nationwide and Truck series. But Earnhardt Jr. has five top-10 finishes in six races – the most of anybody in the Cup series – and he’s fourth in points. A year ago he was 11th coming into this weekend and 18th after finishing 36th here.

“I knew that Rick’s program and his company were awesome and that they continue to do things that are impressive,” Earnhardt Jr. says.

“But just how much better everything is for me right now is overwhelming.

“I’m proud of being able to go out and get five top 10s in six races and things like that. I’ve never had those statistics. I felt like I was that type of guy, but I wasn’t able to make it happen. I’m enjoying that so much and I’m humbled by it.

“So you might not think that I’m as hungry for the win in how I talk and act. It’s in there. But I’m just so humbled by everything and how things have been going that right now I’m just trying to see the picture clearly and trying to make sure continue to do my job and do it well.”

If Earnhardt Jr. doesn’t win Sunday, the next three races are at Phoenix, Talladega and Richmond – all places where he’s won before. When that next victory comes, Earnhardt Jr. knows he’ll have some people he’ll want to congratulate the way his father congratulated him here eight years ago.

“There will be a lot of appreciation for the company that I drive for now, the team that I work with now for getting me there, for giving me that opportunity and giving me that chance,” he said.

“The first thing I’ll want to do is shake my guys’ hands and make sure they’re satisfied and happy and that everything is going (how) they want it to go.”

Losing stinks and it's pretty tough getting used to it

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 10:47 EDT

When Denny Hamlin won at Martinsville last weekend, crew chief Mike Ford talked afterward about how his driver is an "extreme competitor" and Hamlin admitted that he's had trouble dealing with the fact that even the most successful Sprint Cup driver will lose far more often than he wins.

Hamlin is not the only driver who has had to learn that tough lesson.

"It has been really hard for me," Kasey Kahne said.

"I've had an attitude that I think I can win all the time. I think that's the only thing. If I don't win, I'm mad, there's something wrong.

"When you get to the level we're at now, it's so easy to not win races because there's so many great teams and great drivers and crew chiefs and owners and sponsors. …The reason that each driver is racing in the Sprint Cup Series is because they've won tons of races in other series."

Kahne hasn't won in his past 47 starts, and he's trying to be patient as his team is off to a better start this season.

"It is difficult," Kahne said. "I know that we're just out there going for top 15s right now and trying to stay as close to the Chase as possible until we get our cars where we know we can win races. I think we're getting closer, but we're still not there."

MY TWO CENTS

Say what you will about the racing in Formula One, but when those lads have a scandal they don't mess around.

If you remember back to late last year, the McLaren team got fined $100 million for using secret data someone leaked to it from its rival team at Ferrari. That's 100 million dang dollars! You would think it'd take a heck of a story to make that an afterthought.

And you'd be right.

Now comes the news that Max Mosley, the president of the F1 sanctioning body known as FIA, spent some time (and a good sum of money) over the weekend getting into some heavy-duty naughtiness with five prostitutes. Their romp in an apartment near Mosley's home in London included role-playing in Nazi-style uniforms, and we know this because there is videotape!

Mosley's parents, by the way, were married in a ceremony held at the home Third Reich propagandist Joseph Goebbels with Adolf Hitler - yes, THE Adolf Hitler - in attendance.

It also just so happens that Bernie Ecclestone, Mosley's boss at F1, is Jewish. And so far, at least, Mosley still has his job!

Wow. Just wow. That's pretty much all I've got to say.

THEY SAID IT

“North Carolina has looked like they are unbeatable so far in the tournament. My thinking is that they sooner or later have to have one off game. I think it'll be when they meet Memphis in the final.”

- Driver Kurt Busch, who correctly picked all four of the Final Four before the NCAA tournament began.

Observations | Not that anyone's really counting

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:24 EDT

Some midweek observations from David Poole of The Charlotte Observer:

• One question I get a lot is where fans can get a map of where all the NASCAR teams have their shops in this area. The Cabarrus County Convention & Bureau now has an updated version of just such a map in its annual free Visitors Guide.

It includes shops in Cabarrus and surrounding counties as well as a description of each shop and the hours they are open to visitors. It also included descriptions of stops on the self-guided tour of “The Dale Trail” in and around Dale Earnhardt’s hometown of Kannapolis. To get a copy of more information, call (800) 848-3740 or visit www.visitcabarrus.com.

• Cottonelle bath tissue will give out thousands of seat cushions at Texas and also wants fans to stand on Lap 100 to create racing’s version of the seventh-inning stretch.

The campaign is called “Be Kind to Your Behind.” OK, two things. One, is it a good plan to give race fans something they can throw an appreciable distance? Two, if fans want to stand on Lap 100 they should realize that it comes when the scoreboard shows 99 laps complete.

All during 2001, fans stood on Lap 4 to honor Dale Earnhardt’s No. 3.

• Right now the forecast calls for sun and temperatures in the mid-70s all weekend at Texas Motor Speedway. Talk about something that’s long overdue.

Pegging the sarcasm chip, Gordon laughs off 'troubles'

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 15:51 EDT

MARTINSVILLE, Va. - Jeff Gordon has been in a goofy mood this weekend at Martinsville Speedway.

He openly mocked Jack Roush’s indignation over the “intellectual espionage” behind a missing sway bar. Then, after winning the pole for Sunday’s Goody’s 500, he acted as his own emcee for the media center interviews until a NASCAR functionary arrived to assume that role.

Gordon also brushed aside questions about the relatively slow start to the 2008 Sprint Cup season of he and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson. Last year they combined for 16 victories and 1-2 championship finish, with Johnson winning a second straight title.

But this year neither has won. Johnson has only one top-10 finish and is 13th in points after five races. Gordon is 14th and has two top 10s but also has failed to finish two races.

“Yeah, it has been terrible,” Gordon said. “It’s awful to be 14th in the points five races in. I can’t believe how rough it is over at Hendrick Motorsports.”

Gordon was pegging the sarcasm chip, of course, and it is a little ridiculous to go around screaming like your hair’s on fire over how Gordon and Johnson have done so far.

“I don’t mind people saying hey, you are 14th in points, you aren’t having the type of year you had last year,” Gordon said. “But it bothers me when somebody says we aren’t running well, because we have been running great.”

Gordon was battling for second place at Las Vegas when he and Matt Kenseth crashed, leading to a 35th-place finish. He also had a problem in the suspension system at Daytona and wound up 39th.

“Put those things aside, we have been running strong, we have been leading laps and running up front,” Gordon said.

“But, the competition has stepped up and we have to step up along with it as well. We certainly need to be better.”

Martinsville is a good place for Gordon and Johnson to get well. Between them, the teammates have won eight of the past 10 races here and neither has finished worse than ninth in any of those.

“We’ll just try to get into a rhythm and get that consistency going and get ourselves where we need to be solidly in the Chase,” Gordon said.

“Last year we started off the season strong and ran strong all the way through but didn’t win the championship.”

Gordon said he was on vacation during the off weekend between Bristol and Martinsville. Team owner Rick Hendrick went fishing. But Johnson and his team spent much of their interim testing, trying to get a better handle on why, aside from a second-place finish at California, they’ve been nothing more than mediocre.

“Well, we’re certainly learning,” said Johnson, who starts 10th Sunday.

“I think that we all get sucked into things that we think are predictable and we forget that this is racing and nothing is predictable. It’s so easy to lose whatever you have. It’s just a tenth or two-tenths of a second that can take you from a hero to a zero.

“We certainly have gotten off to a slower start than we wanted to. We’re not trying to distract anyone and, to be honest, we don’t like where we are either. We’ve been doing this long enough and we’re trying not to overreact.

"But we still are reacting and we’re trying to get back to our winning ways and the high expectations we have for ourselves outside of the expectations anyone else has for us.”

Johnson and Gordon went through last year’s Chase battling each other for a championship. By halfway through the 10-race playoff, those teammates and Clint Bowyer had separated from the pack and the rest of the top tier of teams, whether they admit it or not, started getting their programs lined up for 2008. Johnson and Gordon didn’t have that luxury.

Maybe that’s why they’ve sputtered a bit early this year, or maybe it’s the fact that the sun doesn’t shine on the same dog every day.

Hendrick warned everybody after his team’s almost magical 2007 that you can’t count on having that many things go right at one time very often.

Gordon and Johnson have been so good for so long at Martinsville that it will be a surprise if they’re both not in the mix Sunday. If they are, does that mean the “problems” are solved? Of course not.

In the same manner, if one or both has trouble Sunday and doesn’t finish well, it might not mean they’re in big trouble as the season moves on.

But it certainly won’t be a laughing matter, either.

Roush vs. Toyota still rages, but where are the specifics?

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 19:01 EDT

Some observations and twp cents' worth from The Charlotte Observer's David Poole:

• A reporter for a national magazine quotes Jack Roush as saying that a “proprietary” part from Roush Fenway Racing that went missing was recovered from a Toyota team that Roush declined to name.

Roush supposedly said it two weeks ago at Atlanta and added he was considering legal action or getting NASCAR involved.

He’s had two weeks. If there’s a specific allegation, make it so it can be checked out and whoever is being accused can answer it. If not, can we move on?

• I hate to jump on the “What’s wrong with Hendrick Motorsports?” bandwagon, but Martinsville is important for Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon.

In the past five years, neither Gordon nor Johnson has finished worse than ninth. They’ve won eight of those 10 races and each has eight top-fives in those events.

You might say one or both is overdue for some bad luck at Martinsville, but they need to “hold serve.”

• You want to know why you hear about the hot dogs every time NASCAR goes to Martinsville? It’s simple. The hot dogs are unique.

They cost $2 and every time you unwrap one you know what you’re getting. They got it right and continue to do it right.

How many businesses would be better off if they applied the hot dog principle?

MY TWO CENTS

Every time there’s a week off in the Sprint Cup Series, somebody writes about how nice it was for there not to be a race and turns that into a jumping off point to suggest a shorter schedule for NASCAR’s premiere division.

What a waste of words.

The Sprint Cup season will get shorter only if the demand for dates ever outstrips the supply. Does anybody see that day coming anytime soon?

When a track gets sold these days, something like 90 percent of the price is based on the value of the race dates the track has. That shows there’s a scarcity of dates, not a surplus.

You could make a quick list of a half-dozen tracks that would snatch up any kind of open date without batting an eye – Las Vegas, Kentucky, Nashville, Iowa, Gateway and Montreal for starters. Whatever pressure there is on the schedule is to add dates, as impossible as that might seem, rather than subtract them.

It’s hard to know exactly why television ratings are up a bit for Cup races, but one factor could that the season began with races on five straight weekends with no break.

The irony is, of course, that many of the very people who write about how much sense a shorter season would supposedly make are the very ones who’d pounce on any cutback in the schedule as a sign of weakness for the sport.

Herbert hopes to reach young drivers in time

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 09:33 EDT

There's nothing Doug Herbert can do to change what happened Jan. 26.

But nothing is one thing Herbert can't bring himself to do when it comes to trying to keep other parents from going through the pain he felt when he lost his two sons.

"I have to try to get that message out," Herbert said. "If I didn't do that, nothing good would have come out this at all."

Herbert was in Phoenix preparing his Top Fuel dragster for the National Hot Rod Association season. Early on a Saturday morning, he got a call from home. His sons, 17-year-old Jon and 12-year-old James, had been killed in an automobile crash near their home in Cornelius.

"I still have moments," Herbert said last week. "There have been a few times when I've just been driving down the road and something will just hit me. I will pull over and stop.

"I have to drive down Jetton Road every time I leave home. I can still see the skid marks and there is still some debris from the wreck lying around. That's tough to see."

The NHRA season has started. Herbert hasn't done anything special during the first three events, but he said his team is getting better. They tested a new car after last weekend's race in Gainesville, Fla., and Herbert has high hopes for it.

Off the drag strip, Herbert has begun a program aimed at educating young drivers and their parents about just how dangerous it can be to drive while distracted, particularly when the driver is young and inexperienced.

The name for the program, devised by the students at SouthLake Christian Academy where James and Jon went to school, is BRAKES - Be Responsible and Keep Everything Safe.

There's a Web site - putonthebrakes.com - being built. Herbert has spoken to a group of kids at Michael Waltrip Racing's headquarters and another large group of about 1,000 at the NHRA event in Gainesville.

"Talking to those kids almost made me feel selfish because it made me feel better," Herbert said.

"I think it's best thing for me and for them."

Jon Herbert was driving that Saturday morning, and he pulled into oncoming traffic lanes to make a pass. His small car was hit head-on, and he and his younger brother were killed.

Doug Herbert said he remembers making some bad decisions when he was a young driver on the street.

"But back then you had a car that weighed like 6,000 pounds and now it's more like 2,000," he said. "We also didn't have cell phones and text messaging and stuff like that, either."

Herbert is learning, too. He now knows, for instance, that teenage drivers are four times more likely to die in an auto crash than drivers between ages 25 and 34. And he knows the typical teen driver has an 89.2 percent probability of having at least one crash during his first three years behind the wheel.

Herbert said the kids from SouthLake Christian Academy who've helped with the program miss his boys, too. They knew his sons as friends and classmates, and that's part of the point of Herbert's message.

"This kind of thing doesn't just happen to people you don't know," he said. "I know I never would have expected it to happen to me."

Herbert hasn't changed much at his house or office in Lincolnton since the wreck, so he still sees photos there with him and his sons doing all the things they did together.

"Those are the happy times," he said. "The only thing that makes you sad about those is you'll never be able to do those things again."

Are freedom of speech's lessons lost in NASCAR?

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 17:31 EDT

BRISTOL, Tenn. – NASCAR fans love it when a driver tells it like it is. Until, of course, one actually does it.

"If you don't say what somebody else likes, they're going to chew you up for it," Dale Jarrett says. "You have to decide how much of that you're ready to bite off. ...You hear all the time everybody likes it when everybody speaks their minds, but when they do they're damned for it. I just don't understand."

That's not Tony Stewart saying that, not one of the Busch brothers or Kevin Harvick or any one of the drivers race fans are too quick to label a "whiner" when he speaks out on a topic he feels strongly about.

That's Jarrett, the well-respected, second-generation veteran who makes his final career Sprint Cup points race start in Sunday's Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Jeff Gordon is a four-time champion in the sport who will start second alongside teammate Jimmie Johnson on Sunday's front row. Gordon also knows what a public relations minefield a driver starts through when he decided to take a stand.

"In my experience, it's better off to stay non-confrontational and stay away from the controversy," Gordon said. "There is so much focus and attention when there is controversy, is it worth it?

" ... Life is tough enough as it is. ... I'm just trying to do my job and do everything I can.

"Trust me, I want more of my personality to come out, but I can't help the fact that when that time comes, in the back of my mind I'm thinking what are the repercussions of that. What am I going to go through?"

It was Stewart's postrace criticism of the tire combination at Atlanta that set off a weeklong discussion, not only about tires and the way Goodyear develops them but also about what role the sport's competitors should rightly play in helping set the sport's policies and influence how NASCAR governs it.

In such discussions, the idea of a drivers' union inevitably comes up. In a culture that has for generations treated "union" an expletive, the point that matters can be lost.

If drivers did have a union, eventually it would wind up fighting for a bigger share of the total revenue in the sport (and rightly so, but that's an argument for another day). There would be a lot of focus, and fans would quickly grow weary of that.

But there should be a more formal, structured way for drivers to have input in the key decisions in NASCAR's top series.

"I would like to see NASCAR have like a quarterly meeting where they bring all the drivers into a room and bring up hot topics," Gordon said. "Talk about things and allow us to vent, or allow us to share our opinions and just listen to us.

"This going up into the trailer one at a time and one guy says the exact opposite of what the next guy comes in, I think all it does is confuse them. I would love to work with them further on that, but I'm out of breath doing it individually. It doesn’t go anywhere."

Dale Earnhardt Jr. sat beside Stewart for much of the postrace discussion at Atlanta. He, too, said the tires should have been better, but never went as far as Stewart did.

"A lot of times you pick the battle," Earnhardt Jr. said. "I felt as bad as Tony did about the tires, but I just couldn't bring myself to be as vocal as he was about it. Maybe because I know what the backlash is going to be."

But Earnhardt Jr. says drivers absolutely do need to have a voice.

"The main situation is that you as a driver, you have a hard time listening and believing someone that has never been behind the wheel trying to tell you what needs to happen out on the race track or how things need to be," Earnhardt Jr. said. " ... Atlanta is just a reminder of that really, that the driver's opinions matter.

"We are paid a lot of money to do what we do and we all do sound off and go push buttons a little too hard sometimes, but for the most part, we don't want to ruin the racing for the sport. We don't want to make it worse for the fans. We want to make it as big as we can make it. We have the same thing at stake."

When a driver with a history of saying critical things about NASCAR or Goodyear speaks up, sometimes his message is overshadowed by the messenger. But for Gordon, Earnhardt Jr. and Jarrett to agree that the drivers' opinions aren't valued as much as they should be, perhaps that's a clearer indication that things need to change.

"So many decisions are being made by people who don't really have the understanding of what it's like to drive these cars," Jarrett said. "They're sitting there expecting you, regardless of the situation, to put on a great show because that's what our sport was built on. Unfortunately, that doesn't always happen.

"I think that the drivers need to be represented and NASCAR needs to understand that it's not that we're telling them how to go about their business, but helping them to understand how we can have better races.

"When we speak out about it, we're speaking not for a personal gain, we're speaking for what's going to make the sport better. Do we always know? No, we don't always know. Some things that we say aren't the very best things, but we have to be able to say those things, too, because a lot of the things we say are, and we are the ones who know."

Questions and answers from NASCAR and the auto racing world at large

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 20:14 EDT

MILWAUKEE – A dozen questions (and answers) following Tony Stewart’s post-Atlanta tire tirade Sunday:

How come it’s always “My crew gave me a great car,” but “Boy, those tires were awful"? (A winning quarterback thanks his linemen and receivers, not the groundskeeper, too; that’s the nature of team sports.)

Didn’t actual Sprint Cup Series teams test for Goodyear with the new-generation car at Atlanta Motor Speedway? (Yes.)

Were excessive wear or failures a problem? (No.)

Wasn’t the race reasonably competitive? (Yes.)

Aren’t Cup cars supposed to be challenging to drive? (Yes.)

Didn’t all 43 drivers have to deal with the same issues? (Presumably.)

So doesn’t that make for a level playing field, and isn’t that what everyone wants? (Yes and yes, but it’s not all everyone wants.)

Isn’t safety the No. 1 priority for NASCAR and a critical reason for having one official tire manufacturer? (Of course.)

Is there such a thing as too safe? (Apparently. Drivers – everyone, not just Stewart – wanted more grip, even at the expense of worrying about blown right-front tires.)

What will drivers, crews, fans in the stands or television viewers find to complain about next? (Check back Sunday night.)

Did Stewart go overboard? (Absolutely.)

Can’t everyone be as clear and true to their convictions as Stewart? (Sadly, no. His point was made.)

Lewis Hamilton entered Formula One a year ago, promising but unproven, and emerged with four victories and within two points of winning the title as a rookie. This year the 23-year old Brit will instantly be viewed as a championship contender.

Pressure? What pressure? There’s less, Hamilton said, this time around.

“Last year there was a huge build-up and just a lot of weight hanging on my shoulders, really, because no one really knew if I was going to do well or what,” Hamilton said Thursday. “And neither did I.

“I know even more now knowing what a season feels like. I am even hungrier, and I feel even more determined and just more excited about racing. It just seems forever since we raced last.”

The wait ends Saturday night (3:30 p.m. Sunday there) with the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.

The American Le Mans Series also takes the green flag this weekend with its most important race, the 12 Hours of Sebring.

Among the newcomers is IndyCar Series driver Marco Andretti, whose grandfather Mario Andretti won the sports-car event three times. Marco will team with Bryan Herta and Christian Fittipaldi in the Andretti Green entry that won the LMP2 class last year.

"The car has been really quick, fun to drive and has been incredibly durable,” Andretti said. “I think I’ll be able to contribute and, hopefully, run up front.”

Derrick Walker’s partnership with Australian businessman Craig Gore is over, and Gore has taken the Team Australia name, his Aussie Vineyards sponsorship and driver Will Power to the IndyCar Series with KV Racing Technology. Power will team with Oriol Servia in the IndyCar Series.

Walker tends to resurface; don’t expect him to be away for long.

Meanwhile, HVM Racing, most recently known as Team Minardi USA, plans to field at least one IndyCar entry. No driver was named.

After 667 starts – including 32 victories and a championship – Dale Jarrett is set to start his final regular-season race in NASCAR’s top division.

“It is starting to hit home, probably even a little more so after watching Brett Favre talk about his retirement on television last week,” Jarrett said, referring to the Green Bay Packer’ quarterback who was once his business partner.

“When Brett talked about how you know you can still do it but he was just tired, I understood that exactly.” Jarrett, who is moving to the ESPN booth, is scheduled to drive in the All-Star Race in May at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

Travis Kvapil’s Yates Racing Ford will carry the phrase “11 Million” on its hood this weekend in Bristol, Tenn., pointing out to potential sponsors the size of the audience they would reach during a Sprint Cup broadcast.

Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone has threatened to pull the Australian Grand Prix after 2009 if organizers don’t make it a night race for the convenience of television viewers in Europe.