tool name
closeHow much is too much - and is it ever really enough?
THATSRACIN.COM OPINION
Wednesday, Jul. 02, 2008
A look at NASCAR, other racing and related topics as the teams head to Daytona International Speedway for the holiday weekend's racing:
OBSERVATIONS
• NASCAR could actually probably use a dose of financial reality. Is it necessary for a driver to have a $2 million motor home when one costing a third that much is pretty darn spiffy? Does every shop have to have a seven-post shaker when chances are in two or three years there will be some new level of technology that makes such a rig retrotech? The problem with that, of course, is that the teams that financial reality hits first and hits hardest are the ones who can least afford to absorb it.
• People often assume that people who cover racing are "fans" of the sport. Some were ardent fans before they got into the job of covering it, and some weren't. But if you are getting paid to go to races and talk to drivers and watch the competition, "fan" is a title that you are not earning. Fans spend their own money and make the effort to fight the traffic and the weather to see a race. When I battle those things, I'm doing my job and I get paid for it. If the only compensation you get is seeing the race and being at the event, that's how you earn the right to be called a "fan."
MY TWO CENTS
About this change in testing policy ...
It's curious that NASCAR offered the option of unlimited testing to Sprint Cup teams at the meeting Saturday with crew chiefs.
If I wanted to be completely cynical, I could come up with two explanations why that option would appeal to NASCAR.
First, it might just be that NASCAR is tired of trying to police testing limits when teams - at least the big ones - are already doing virtually what they please when they please by going all over the place right now.
Second, it could be that NASCAR knows the teams need to build their data bases and their experience bases in dealing with the new car. If the teams are going to get better at racing the car, letting the teams pay to go testing hither and yon keeps NASCAR from having to spend its money on car development.
The other side of it, though, is that NASCAR is right to see that teams are going to Kentucky and Iowa and Virginia International Raceway all of the time now. The top-tier teams can use that kind of testing and translate it over to make tangible differences on the tracks where Cup cars race. But that kind of expertise comes at a price.
It might be less expensive, all things considered, for smaller teams to test more at tracks where they actually run than to go to fewer tests at tracks they don't and then have to spend all it takes to make those fewer tests translate into real benfits.
I doubt the 2009 testing policy won't wind up being "open" testing - any place, any where, any time. But if your teams are going to spend the money to go test anyway, why shouldn't they spend it renting the tracks the Cup Series already does business with and putting money for hotel rooms and meals into the economy of places that already support the series?
PIT STOPS
'Track position' takes on a different meaning
Track position has been critical recently in Sprint Cup racing, with drivers maximizing their chances at a good finish by staying at or near the front of the pack.
But Jamie McMurray, who won the July race at Daytona a year ago by a whisker over Kyle Busch, said that it's important how you position yourself across the track in a restrictor-plate race.
"You're just doing your thing and you can't get too excited," the driver of the No. 26 Fords said. "You have to stay very calm and you race out of the back more than you do the front, especially when you're on the front row and you're leading.
"You're trying not to let the guy behind you make it three-wide or get to the inside or the outside of you, wherever you are."
McMurray said he was so focused in last year's race that he didn't realize he was on the final lap until he asked how many laps were left as he went down the backstretch.
McMurray edged Busch at the finish line after they battled door-to-door off the final turn.
"We came off of Turn 4 and I saw Kyle come up and try to side-draft me and it seemed a little quick for him to do that," McMurray said. "So I went back and you side-draft back on him. It was really close, but, fortunately, I was able to win."
Kurt Busch keeps 'collecting' baseball parks
Kurt Busch was sitting in the grandstands at a Tampa Bay Rays baseball game Tuesday night as he was doing a radio interview about his victory Sunday in New Hampshire, part of the driver's goal to see a game in every major league park.
The driver of the No. 2 Dodges went to Miami Monday night to see the Florida Marlins host the Washington Nationals, then saw the Rays and Boston Red Sox on Tuesday.
"We've had this trip scheduled for some time now and to come off the big win at Loudon and head to Florida was cool," Busch said. "Knocking out these two stadiums this week means we're down to only a handful, like Seattle's new stadium and a couple of others."
Briefly
• Johnny Sauter will drive the No. 08 Dodge in Sprint Cup races at Chicagoland Speedway and Indianapolis Motor Speedway, EM Motorsports announced. Sauter is entered this weekend at Daytona in the No. 70 Chevrolet owned by Haas CNC Racing.
• Bob Gilbertson is suspending his drag racing activities temporarily to devote attention to his Charlotte-based business, Truck Equipment Manufacturing Co. "This is one of the toughest decisions I've ever had to make," Gilbertson said. He said his company is "at a critical turning point" and he feels that he can't afford to jeopardize that "to fuel my passion" for driving his Fnny Car. Gilbertson hopes he can return in time for the inaugural Carolina Nationals at the new zMAX Dragway @ Concord in September.
THIS WEEK
Coke Zero 400
8 p.m. Saturday at Daytona International Speedway, Daytona Beach. Fla.
