auto racing

By MIKE MULHERN
Winston-Salem Journal
Monday, May 07, 2007

So, how to judge NASCAR's car of tomorrow after its first four runs on the Nextel Cup tour?

Well, first, it's certainly not opening up the sport for the smaller, newer teams.

And second, Chevy teams clearly have an edge, particularly car owner Rick Hendrick, who has won all four, with Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Kyle Busch.

The Hendrick teams are dominating car-of-tomorrow races, and they're also dominating everywhere else. Hendrick has now been to Victory Lane seven times in the season's first 10 races.

"Our team is in full stride," Chad Knaus, Johnson's winning crew chief, said here Sunday after his own team's fourth win of the year, in the Crown Royal 400.

"But this is a very circular sport. You get your time at the top, but then you'll fall to some degree. So you have to be careful when you do get your time at the top that you don't get too full of yourself, so when it comes your turn to fall that it doesn't tear you apart ... I'm not saying we're prepared for failure, but we know it's right there, and we know the day is coming when we'll be running back 10th."

Nevertheless, Hendrick Motorsports this spring has become dominant, with Hendrick's three best driver all but head-and-shoulders above the rest of the competition. And in this sport, it is very difficult, once a team falls behind, to catch back up.

If the Hendrick guys continue like this, many rivals better start looking ahead to next season.

Ford's lone winner so far, Matt Kenseth, was never a factor here but managed to finish 10th. However, he was not happy afterward: "We've got 20th-place cars, and we're just getting good pit stops and calling the race good and not getting in accidents and finishing 10th with them.

"We've got a long ways to go with these cars. We just can't keep up."

Dodge teammates Kurt Busch and Ryan Newman were two surprises, though.

The kicker, perhaps: Five of the year's final 10 races, in the championship chase, will be car-of-tomorrow races.

"I'm excited we've got five car-of-tomorrow races in the 10-race chase. But who knows how the technology will change between now and then?" Johnson said.

"But we've been putting on good races, and we've been racing hard for these victories _ even among our own teams. It's not like Formula One, where you've got 'team orders.' This sport is cyclical, so enjoy it while you've got it. But we know somebody is going to figure something else out ...''

Something could change even this next weekend at Darlington, typically a wild-card race, now a car-of-tomorrow race, too.

"The level of competition is very, very close," Knaus insisted. "And Darlington will throw a lot of new things at all of us _ we've got a new tire for that track, and of course a new car we've never run there."

The key point in Sunday's race, Knaus said, came at the 280-lap mark, because that was the fuel-window opening for teams to be able to finish the race without another stop for gas.

"I was real nervous," Knaus said of that strategic point. "Once we got past that window, everyone running from first to 15th was committed, and nobody up front would pit again and risk losing that track position."

Gordon, who led the most laps, 114 of the 400, but faded to fourth at the finish said: "A top-five, that's a huge improvement from what we've had the last four races here. This has been one of our worst tracks.

"We had it one time, and I thought we're looking good. But something happened there at the end, and we just didn't have it. I was trying hard to get that one-two-three Hendrick finish but just couldn't pull it off."

Gordon called Hendrick's four-for-four run with the new car of tomorrow "pretty incredible.

"I was a little surprised today, because I didn't think we had the best cars, when I saw Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin up there.

"And I was really surprised Jimmie was able to get back by Kyle at the end. We've been on some good rolls over the years. It's been a long time, and as competitive as the series is, it does surprise me when anybody gets on this type of a roll. But when things are going your way and you're putting quality race cars out there, it's possible, and we're proving that right now."

Particularly with the car of tomorrow. "A lot of people thought I was complaining about it because I wasn't going to run good in it, and that wasn't the case at all, it was quite the opposite," Gordon said. "We were running really strong with it right from the beginning. But my concerns are the 11/2-mile tracks.

"And you're never going to sell me on the way it looks. The aerodynamic philosophy and package is not bad. But the high roll-center this car has, I'm not crazy about.

"And the way it looks, I'm not crazy about. That might seem silly, but you want to look cool. There's got to be a way to get the same aerodynamics characteristics and still have it look sleek."

By MIKE MULHERN
Winston-Salem Journal
Friday, May 04, 2007

If anybody can handle last Sunday's Talladega mess, it's Grant Lynch, who has been one of the France family's go-to men since he left R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. to join its International Speedway Corp.

Lynch, whose primary job is running Talladega Superspeedway for the Frances, is the man who helped put together ISC's highly successful Kansas City and Chicago tracks.

But he was less successful in the Pacific Northwest, where things haven't gone as well. The ISC's Seattle project, a planned 84,000-seat track in sight of downtown, across Puget Sound, has been put on hold.

"The governor (Christine Gregoire) said some nice things about our project, and she said some nice things about the numbers, and our numbers were solid _ the office of financial management for the state said our numbers were based on sound reasoning," Lynch said. "But she wouldn't get behind it.

"So we've told them we will have to have solid support from the bottom up, from local politicians, and from the top down, before we come back."

The problems the France family have run into recently in gaining political support for new tracks could be tied to Reynolds' withdrawal from the sport three years ago and the failure of NASCAR to put together a solid grass-roots racing program nationally to succeed the Winston Racing Series. That provided the sport's major-league division with dynamic and productive support in communities throughout the country.

That missing piece to the sport's puzzle is a major marketing failure for NASCAR and for series sponsor Nextel, which still sometimes seems lost when trying to market it.

RJR marketers understood, right from the start that NASCAR needs to work from the bottom up, maybe even more than from the top down.

Perhaps stronger grass-roots efforts in Southern California might help save struggling California Speedway.

Earlier this year, NASCAR sent Richard Petty, Darrell Waltrip and Washington native Greg Biffle to that state to promote its Seattle venture, only to be curtly dismissed by area politicians.

Lynch did a yeoman's job of stumping through the Pacific Northwest.

"We worked to get a bill passed (in Washington state), and we had nine local (Kitsap County) legislators _ the important thing for people to understand is they invited us to this county, and we built a tremendous broad base of support, across all spectrums of society," Lynch said. "All the unions were behind us, and all the chambers of commerce, and 53 different organizations representing over three-quarters of a million people.... But we couldn't turn one of those legislators to get them behind the project. And it became apparent that the leadership in both houses wasn't going to stuff it down their throat.

"So we decided we'd tried hard enough. We told them when we left that we're still very interested in the Pacific Northwest, but they're going to have to get serious about wanting us there. We laid out a very good financial plan for them, we showed them what the benefits were to the state and the region. And we said we'll come back if they get serious."

One major snag was ISC's proposal to have the state provide about half the $400 million for the track. Area politicians, after getting heat for similar public money backing sports stadiums, were cool to the idea, to put it mildly.

Lynch said that track owner Bruton Smith might have a point when he said that he built Texas Motor Speedway with his own money and suggested that the Frances might have been more successful if they had also taken that approach in the Seattle area.

"That is legitimate ... but then he also said that may be because he hasn't been successful in getting public funds," Lynch said with a grin. "Now we've done it successfully (most notably in Kansas), and unsuccessfully. But that doesn't mean we're going to give up.

"When you are moving a race date to a new facility, you only get the incremental gain over what you sell above what you would have earned somewhere else. So if you're talking about a $400 million facility, and you have stockholders you have to provide value to, if you can get the public side to participate in half of the put-in, then you can finance your side.

"And the race fans in Washington were going to pay off the public side, so we thought that was a real win-win."

The ISC estimates that its Kansas City track has pumped about $150 million into the area.

Now, if the Pacific Northwest also includes British Columbia, where Vancouver has been the site of major races for years, perhaps it's time for the Frances to consider that side of the border, particularly with NASCAR taking one of this summer's races to Montreal. NASCAR has also studied Calgary for a possible Trucks race.

"I haven't been up there, but the issue has been raised, and that would be in our demographic and geographic market, so we could definitely go up there," Lynch said. "And I think people would cross the border both ways."

By BILL WHITEHEAD
Scripps Howard News Service
Friday, May 04, 2007

At Daytona this past Speedweeks, I asked an older gentleman a simple question. He calmly turned, then answered my inquiry with a small number that held a much bigger meaning: "14."

Fourteen laps. That's how many circuits around Darlington Raceway that Ned Jarrett, the gray-haired gentleman in question (who just happens to be known as "Gentleman Ned"), won by in the 1965 Southern 500, which at the time was the most prestigious race in NASCAR.

The margin of victory (MOV) stat for each race can be miniscule, such as 0.45 seconds when Jimmie Johnson edged Matt Kenseth at Las Vegas last year. Or it can be a blowout-like 12.422 seconds, like when Tony Stewart routed the field at Kansas Speedway last October.

But 14 laps? That's not a margin of victory in a race, it's a unit of measurement on a map. In fact, Jarrett's 14-lap MOV _ Darlington measured 1.375 miles at the time _ is equal to more than 19 miles of that shell-filled, craggy, ultra-abrasive racing surface that has had generations of drivers clamoring for new tires after just a lap or two of racing.

Which leads to an observation: The racing these days is much, much better than what the old days had to offer. And that's something to admit coming from an "old-schooler" whose golden days began in the late 1970s and extended into the early 90s.

But before that period _ before Dale Earnhardt's first title in 1980 and before Bill Elliott burst onto the scene as "Awesome Bill from Dawsonville" _ the racing just wasn't as exciting. Sure, a handful of legendary names turned in historic performances, but only a few had a realistic chance of winning each week.

Nowadays, though the winner usually comes from a list of five or six drivers, another 10 to 15 conceivably could win and not send the NASCAR Nation into a frenzied state. Upon request, anyone could create a list of five drivers who haven't tasted victory yet but whose names would answer the question, "Who do you think the next new winner will be?"

On the SPEED cable channel's fantastic show "Back in the Day," which shows clips of old races from the late 60s and early 70s, perspective has to be put into place. The viewer basically is watching a highlight show hosted by Dale Earnhardt Jr., himself an astute lover of NASCAR history.

The footage, though, is of the top moments from just a few races during a particular season, and the reality is that most of the remaining races weren't nearly as close as the few highlights would suggest. Very few finishes from three to four decades ago would rival the ones from the past couple of seasons, like numerous restrictor-plate races and a wild race at Darlington four years ago.

But "Back in the Day" fills a big void for racing fans. The vintage cars jog the memory to no end, the fashions are both hysterical and garish at times, and reliving races at renowned tracks in Rockingham and North Wilkesboro is a lesson in NASCAR knowledge to the newer fan.

However, I'll choose to stay right here in the present and relish the exciting finishes we have.

(Bill Whtiehead covers NASCAR for Scripps Treasure Coast (Fla.) Newspapers, The Stuart News, Fort Pierce Tribune and Vero Beach Press Journal. E-mail him at wwhitehe@ircc.net.)

By MIKE MULHERN
Winston-Salem Journal
Thursday, May 03, 2007

Humpy Wheeler, as the NASCAR promoter who once _ long, long ago, fortunately _ had to handle a near riot at Lowe's Motor Speedway when a pre-race Waylon Jennings concert went south on him. He has learned how to deal with massive, sometimes volatile crowds.

So Wheeler, who manages Lowe's Motor Speedway and Bruton Smith's Speedway Motorsports, can commiserate with Talladega Speedway's Grant Lynch.

But Wheeler considers Sunday's ugly beer can-throwing reaction to Jeff Gordon's victory at Talladega an aberration.

Lynch said he's determined to keep it an aberration.

"I'm going to send the names and addresses to all the track presidents across the country of the 12 individuals (caught throwing beer cans) _ six were from Alabama and six were from out of state _ and ask them to ban them from purchasing tickets at their tracks as well as ours," Lynch said. "Certainly we should get good participation, because everyone understands the seriousness of the situation. Plus, these aren't fans you'd want in your stadium anyway.

"Second, I'm looking into the legal issues of banning them from even walking on our property, period. Plus, I've got our legal team researching this issue to see if we can up the crime (of throwing debris on the track) from misdemeanor to something of a felony nature. I want to put something out there with a little more teeth _ so the punishment fits the crime."

Lynch said it's about more than Talladega, Ala., or his track.

"It's just bad for the sport," Lynch said. "And I wish there were an answer like, 'Wow!' and it just stops.

"There has been talk about putting up bigger nets, like foul-ball nets at baseball parks. But that would just be a challenge, an enticement to see who has a better arm. Still, what we saw Sunday pales in comparison to what we saw three years ago, when there were just buckets thrown. Maybe the statements we made and Dale Jr. made up-front before the race helped.

"And I'm going through our video files to find races where Dale Sr. got beat to the line and nothing happened. So why should this (ugly behavior) be acceptable to some fans now? But I can't put all this on the Junior Nation. Hey, these (12) guys may not even have a favorite driver."

For Doug Fritz, who runs Richmond International Raceway, the issue is more immediate. The Nextel Cup tour is at his place this weekend.

"That was unfortunate that a few unruly fans ruined it for a lot of fans," Fritz said. "We have Henrico police officers, and we'll have adequate security on hand, so if anything happens we can react immediately.

"We're no different than any other professional sport, the NFL, the NBA, Major League Baseball: It's illegal to throw substances on the playing field. It's a crime, and we'll prosecute to the fullest extent of the law."

Dealing with unruly crowds is nothing new for racing promoters, be it short-track Saturday nights or big-league Sunday afternoons.

"There are several answers to it ... and we've got our races coming here at Lowe's, and the one that concerns us more than any is the All-Star race, because it can be pretty wild and woolly," Wheeler said.

"But what we've done here to stop it is we've put a security person every 200 feet facing the grandstand and looking up in the crowd, looking for unruly behavior. And since we started doing that, I can't recall an incident we've had.

"Second, in North Carolina the General Assembly enacted legislation back in the 1970s that makes it a misdemeanor to throw anything on a track.

"We also have a high-response security team that, if we get a report of somebody throwing stuff and we can identify the people, we can go right to them and remove them. These guys are all tactically trained, either policemen or former policemen or military trained in SWAT-type, high-response operations.

"Obviously, this is a problem which if it continues could lead to some long-term ramifications. Hopefully it won't."

One way that tracks have moderated the problem of unruly fans, particularly in the infield, is simple _ raise the price of admission. Another has been to limit the number of beverage cans any fan can bring into the track.

"We've had this (bad behavior) before, in the '60s and '70s," Wheeler said. "But once you make people understand there will be really, really serious recriminations, the race fans usually do a good job of policing it themselves. Race fans are really good about telling on people when they're not acting right. That's a good thing. And people know that, and that keeps them calmed down.

"The worst thing that can happen to a race fan is to be thrown out of a track. When they get unruly and you remove them, they go berserk, because they want to see the rest of the race. However, most of this stuff happens at the end of the race, so you don't have that deterrent.

"But the deterrent is that where there are laws passed, you can haul them off to jail. Handcuff them and take them out."

Wheeler said again that it has been a long time since LMS has had any fan-related incidents, but ...

"I remember that concert....and that was the last real incident like that. And that was a mistake I made _ mixing good ol' Southern boys and outlaw bikers. That was like water and oil. I couldn't have thrown dynamite in a fire and got a more volatile mixture. And I don't intend to make that mistake again."

Wheeler said he has installed television monitors.

"We have them in the control tower, and we're watching people all the time," Wheeler said. "We don't have them in every single place, but we have them where if someone is throwing cans we'll see them.

"But I'm not only concerned about here, but about Atlanta and Bristol, too, and those other tracks, too. Bristol and Richmond and Martinsville are almost made for bottle-throwing, because the fans are so close to the track. But I don't recall anything lately at Bristol _ though Richmond has had some pretty wild things happen. But those fans are pretty well behaved.

"Different places have different fans. The situation at Talladega just isn't repeated anywhere else. It's the legacy of Senior (Dale Earnhardt Sr.) and the popularity of Junior. It is so pro-Earnhardt."