covered everything on the track, and some real race coverage. We were to be sorely disappointed. First was the hope that we would get side by side coverage during the commercials like is done for the IRL races since we were all sick and tired of how Fox, TNT, and NBC did there commercials during the races. Our hopes were dashed when King Brian, who knows what’s best for the sport, said that there would be no side by side coverage because of the sponsors and product branding. Then we got to the actual races and while it looked like a somewhat respectable commentary team before it started, we found out that it wasn’t and that ESPN brought in a lot of “dead wood” which knew little to nothing about the sport just so they could fill certain diversity slots.
ESPN’s coverage left a lot to be desired with the missing of restarts, poor commentary, no follow-ups on important things that happened on the track, no follow-ups on injuries, and the invention of the “draft tracker”, which should be called the daft tracker instead. The majority of their season, they didn’t bother showing the cars finish on the track and did little to no post-race coverage. The results of the poor coverage showed with the TV ratings continuing downward. NBC can’t be blamed for this.
Don: Mikie and I are in full agreement here. Suzy Kobler really seems out of place along with Brent MushBurger. Rusty is a waste and I sure miss Benny.
JoAnn: It’s funny, long time fans for years HAD to listen to the races on the radio if they wanted to catch the race. We would hang out in Dano’s garage or Puddin’s house, drink beer, grill out and listen to the race. Then NASCAR became the in thing and BAM the races are on TV most of the time. Of course if there was a rain delay the networks went ahead with the scheduled broadcast…(I remember once we were hanging out at a bar I worked out having a race party for a Talladega race which was rain delayed. It never came on and of course we got very drunk. Well in walks King Richard and tells us that Earnhardt won. Everyone wanted to bet him because they KNEW that the race was rained out since the TV never had it on, they showed a golf match. Everyone but me because I KNEW there was no way King Richard was betting people 50 bucks a pop that Earnhardt won if he didn’t. Anyway the CBS affiliate was over run with irate fan’s calling…never happened again.)
Sorry I got off track… Anyway, then came the day when all the races were televised. And year by year the coverage got worse and worse. A few years ago I went back to “watching” the races on MRN/PRN. I suggest all fans do the same to really catch what is going on. Here is a link to radio stations that carry the races:
Cheating or Creative Use of the Grey Areas
MM: It started off early with the Daytona 500. Mikey Waltrip got nailed early on for having an illegal substance in his fuel system. Not the best way to launch of his career as a team owner. We never did find out what the additive was. Some speculated it was Sterno and others jet fuel. Several crew chiefs were suspended after the Daytona 500 was run. But they returned or ran things from a suite, hotel room, or RV in the camping areas. And this would also happen later on in the year too with some folks from Hendrick and DEI.
The Car of Tedium, which was supposed to eliminate this sort of thing fell victim when it was found that both Jeff Gordon’s and Jimmie Johnson’s car did not meet the “intent” of the rules when it was found that the cars front ends had been modified outside of what was supposed to be the cars’ specs set down by NA$CAR. This may have contributed to earlier wins in the year by the Hendrick teams in the COT, but NA$CAR never did a follow-up investigation on the other cars to see if they to violated the “intent” rules.
Don: Cheating has always been part of the sport. I still laugh at Smokey Yunick’s 7/8 Chevelle that NASCAR stripped all the fuel components from and he got in and drove the thing away. Having said that, the rules bending on the old cars is one of the reasons for the COT.
Joann: AMEN Don! To hear some people whining and complaining about it you would think the Hendricks group wrote the book on working the gray area. Since the beginning of NASCAR racing, the sanctioning body has made rules and creative minds like Junior Johnson, Gary Nelson, Smokey Yunick, Ray Evernham and Chad Knaus has been finding a way to work around those rules. And it is not cheating…it is creative engineering! The whole point of racing is to get to the finish line first and if there is a way for them to do it that is NOT in black and white in the rule book it is their job to do it!
MM: I think the 7/8’s scale Chevelle was run by Curtis Turner in which he had such a bad wreck at Atlanta that Smokey refused to build any more cars for Curtis because he didn’t want to be the guy who built the car that killed Curtis Turner. I still get a kick out of Smokey’s oversized fuel lines and his aluminum bumpers.
The Car of Tomorrow
MM: The car didn’t live up to the hype. A car which was supposed to be safer started out by catching fire because of the side impact safety foam that was installed. Several drivers had complained about the fumes and headaches, but nothing was done until the foam actually caught fire. By designing the car the way they did, it was supposed to eliminate the need for restrictor plates. Well, that didn’t happen. They still ran the car with restrictor plates at Talladega. So that was a flop. The car was supposed to increase side by side racing and return some excitement to the races. It gave us some side by side racing but only because drivers couldn’t pass or complete a pass. The overall performance of the car wasn’t given high marks by the drivers or the fans. The resulting races in the Car of Tedium proved to be pretty boring overall, with the exception of Darlington. Bristol, which normally has exciting races, was turned into a shadow of its former self in part because of the COT/POS and its’ poor performance. No passing, single file racing is not what racing is about. The cost of going to the COT/POS hasn’t exactly been announced by the teams, but considering they’re selling off the old template racers for about 10% of their value, plus the $160,000 per car cost of the COT/POS, and the inspection and sanctioning fees for the COT/POS, the teams definitely aren’t saving any money as was announced that the COT/POS would do.
Don: This is one area where Mikie and I will have to agree to disagree. I think it’s way too early to give the COT thumbs up or down. They couldn’t drive the down sized cars when that switch was made. From DW’s article of Nov. 27 “The cars then were nothing like they are today either. Our car then was the Buick Regal, and we chose the Regal because we went to all the showrooms — the Monte Carlo, Pontiac Grand Prix, everything you can imagine Junior looked at — because that was our first year we went to the downsized version of a NASCAR stock car. We'd gone from the big 115-inch wheelbase cars down to the 110-inch wheelbase cars with less aerodynamics and you're talking about difficult to drive, you want to make a car difficult to drive? Just take all those slanted back glasses and rear wings off them, that's what these cars were like to drive at the time. So you just chose your best piece in your mind, and we didn't go to the wind tunnel and do a bunch of testing, we just used our trained eye and our experience to choose what looked good and what we thought would work to choose our car and that's how we chose the Buick Regal. And all through winter of testing that year heading into the Daytona 500, we all knew we were in trouble because "man you couldn't drive those things, there's no way you could race them."
Bottom line, changing platforms takes time to develop so let’s give them a full season to work out the kinks.
Jo Ann: I am torn on this one. I agree with Mike partly and with Don partly.
Mike said “The COT was supposed to increase side by side racing and return some excitement to the races. It gave us some side by side racing but only because drivers couldn’t pass or complete a pass.” And he is 100% absolutely correct. LAST year Greg Biffle and Jeff Gordon commented that you could run side by side with a guy but could not complete the pass…so why didn’t NASCAR listen to these 2 drivers and work on it before they rolled it out? At the Bristol night race the leader couldn’t even pass lap cars…they could run next to them but not pass. Now some wanted to blame this on the new pavement but there is no way that was the case with the FANTASTIC racing we saw in the truck and Busch races.
Now on the part of what Don said that I absolutely agree with…“I think it’s way too early to give the COT thumbs up or down. They couldn’t drive the down sized cars when that switch was made… Bottom line, changing platforms takes time to develop so let’s give them a full season to work out the kinks.” The majority of fans complained with the old car about the racing and NASCAR is trying to do something to help that so we need to cut them a break here…
MM: Well, the whole thing with the Can of Tuna for me goes right back to when it changed from being a safer car to little more than a spec series car, the behind the scenes deals with Toyota to change the COT into the Camry of Tomorrow, and a whole lot more. The behind the scenes stuff aside, the car plain and simply didn’t live up to what it was touted to be. Remember, King Brian promised us that this would be a great leap forward and we‘d have a return of exciting racing. Sorry Don, but the Car of Tedium just hasn’t delivered and I don’t see it improving between now and Daytona. Besides, we’ve still got the engine downsizing to go through which will drop the speed down and who knows how the slower speeds will affect the handling and performance. If they can’t pass each other now, what’s going to happen with a smaller engine?
The Chase for the Chumps
MM: With NA$CAR’s directives in place which doesn’t allow non-contenders to actually race against the Top 12 contenders, plus the COT added in to the play-off mix, the play-offs for the Chase for the Chumps proved to be some of the most boring racing of a boring season. Racing is supposed to be about racing, not putting on a 3.5 hour snooze fest. The fall Bristol race, which is normally an exciting race, was turned into a joke. Even some of the mainstream media folks were calling it boring. And that’s from media types that normally are quick to kiss the Royal Backside. When they call it boring, you know something is wrong.
The resetting of the points cost Jeff Gordon yet another championship and leaving his teammate to win two championships in a row. Even with the “tweaking” that was done to make this artificially exciting soap opera on wheels even more exciting, it failed yet again. TV ratings were down double digits for the bulk of the play-off races and track attendance at most of the play-off race tracks were off.
Don: Nothing to add here.
Jo Ann: While I didn’t see a need for the chase, I remained in the middle of the road about it at first. Now I just do not like it and here is the list of reason’s why in no particular order.
1) Sooner or later a driver who starts the chase dead last will win the championship and that is a joke or a driver who hasn’t won a race all year will win and that is a bigger joke!
2) It has done NOTHING to keep fans interested after the NFL begins…which they were hoping for.
3) It makes the first 26 races unimportant
4) It ruined racing at the Bristol night race and the fall RIR race.
It's time for it to go to the curb with yesterday's trash.
Consistent Inconsistency
MM: Another thing that made this season one to forget was NA$CAR’s Consistent Inconsistency with the rules. We saw some drivers not getting penalized for things that other drivers were getting penalized for. We saw crew chiefs receiving two week suspensions and fines for things other crew chiefs got 6 week suspensions for. We saw caution flags being thrown for spins that weren’t being thrown for other spins. We heard NA$CAR say that anyone bump drafting would be penalized and yet we saw several drivers bump drafting. If there was any credibility left at the start of the season, there definitely wasn’t any left by the season‘s end.
Don: This was one of my biggest gripes.
Robby at Montreal and Baffled at Kansas
along with cautions for single car, non
track blocking spins especially when
Junior was about to get lapped.
JoAnn: While I do not like the
inconsistency let’s face it…this too has
been around since the beginning. And it
will be around forever. It is one of the
ways the “powers that be” try to keep
the drivers in line….It is also how they
make sure popular drivers stay in
contention. Back in the day, Curtis Turner
and Joe Weatherly, who were 2 fan
favorites of the time, were awarded points for a race they didn't even show up to for.
Come back in a few days to hear more about our take on Race Season 2007.
Gotta comment, question or want to say hey there...email Mike here
Gotta comment, question or want to say hey there...email Racemama
Gotta comment, question or want to say hey there... email Don Hamm
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