regarded the lack of the marble build up at the top of the track. The tire was so hard it didn’t wear and it didn’t put rubber in the reportedly abrasive track.
Many fans, BadYear reps and, I’m sure, NA$CAR suits can’t be pleased by Tony StewPot’s outspoken reaction to the tires and lack of real racing Sunday. Love or hate him, he had every reason to be upset and thank God, the gonads to speak out. Nothing makes me angrier than all the PC speak emanating from our spineless drivers mouths. I am left to wonder what ole Ironhead would have said under the same circumstances. Like Tony, his car control was without equal and I know he’d have spoken his piece were he still with us. Jeff Gordon stated that, while he agreed the tires were bad, Tony went over the line by making it personal. How could it be otherwise? If he’d had the only ill handling car, blame the team. The driver consensus was the tires were BAD. Are the drivers just supposed to grin and bear it? I wouldn’t. If I’ve got a mouth full of fecal matter I ain’t gonna spit it out and say, “Man, that’s some rotten peanut butter.” Tony, as with me, calls 'em like he sees 'em. Good on ya Smoke.
What I saw was a ton of normally good cars and drivers in virtual out of control runs. Even when the leaders put seconds of a lead over second place and had no traffic to contend with they virtually spun out on every lap. The new car was supposed to put the driver back in control instead of the old, dreaded aero body crap. Obviously, the drivers did the best they could with what they had but what they couldn’t do was go fast and turn left. We, as fans, expected better racing but we were given 500 miles of drivers doing their best to keep off the wall and avoid spinning out. Side by side racing, which we expected, simply didn’t and couldn’t exist.
Here’s my suggestion. NA$CAR’s R&D people need to go to Hoosier Tire and buy numerous sets of their various tire compounds currently in use by the ARCA Series. Take a Ford, Chevy, Dodge and Toy to Atlanta and Texas to see what works for the new car and the drivers. Since BadYear errs, maybe too much, on the side of safety it’s about time to see if there is a better approach. Simply put, there are far too many complaints about the tires currently being provided to not look for a different solution that BadYear’s approach is providing. If BadYear remains the sole supplier of the racing tires why don’t they consider bringing two compounds to the track? The softer of the two compounds would only be issued with a disclaimer of liability and the requirement to sign a waiver. Sticking the teams with one choice simply doesn’t seem logical to me. Having track specific tires is as senseless as when they built distinct cars for each track.
As regards the new car let’s get rid of the bump stops as was done in the past. Raise the car two inches and go back to springs and shocks that we used to implement to suck the car down to the track. While I can’t find proof of this, I also understand the weight distribution on the new cars is heavily right side weighted. Adding more left side weight would bring back some of the old car feel and drivability. Since the car, by design, is top heavy then logic says that be offset by left side weighting. We already have the driver and the oil tank on the left side. All it would take is the moving of some lead weight from right to left. Seems simple to me.
Knock the new car all you want but we are stuck with it. Knocking it isn’t the solution but solving its problems is the highest priority. Perhaps getting rid of the splitter and going back to valances might help. Not having inside knowledge of the design of the car I can only talk about what I can see and what the crew chiefs admit to us. While many blamed the tires because of the car design I say let’s take a wait and see attitude and hope the NA$CAR suits are truthful in their promise to take appropriate measures to attend to any design flaws inherent in the current version. It is supposed to be a work in progress and it’s time to make some progress. One thing I do know, there is no excuse for an approved chassis to ever drag any part on the track. That’s where the raising of the chassis up by two inches would give the teams more flexibility in their setups. The bottom line is the old car is gone and we can’t revert back to it now due to exorbitant costs. The right thing to do is to make the current car work. I’m not for reactive rules changes but it is time to react now, not next year.
On a totally different topic, it appears E$PN actually listened to us. They have drastically improved their coverage over the sorry mess we were stuck with last year. The on air personalities are vastly improved over the clueless bunch of the past season. Us old timers were left wondering what happened to the ESPN of old. While not quite up to their past greatness of the days of yore, the current state of their coverage is approaching it. Thanks for hearing us up in Bristol, CT. Now all you need to do is move your studios and a full time staff to Charlotte, the center of our racing universe.
I finally broke down and watched This Week In
NASCAR. I wasn’t impressed. Without Ken
Schrader the show is flat. Chad Knaus has a lot
to offer but he seems too stiff and reserved.
Mikey is Mikey but a little of him goes a long way
without Schrader to balance him out. On their
Truck coverage Mikey is too overbearing and
needs to back off or get out of the boot. Randy
Lajoie would be a better fit. SPEED’s Tradin'
Paint is quickly losing me. The Pigtail’s know it
all attitude just doesn’t sit with me. Hey Kyle,
when you consistently run in the top ten I may
be inclined to believe you have a clue. This ain’t
your Daddy’s NA$CAR and your performance is
too reminiscent of the Kings fading years as a driver. Starting fortieth and finishing fortieth, ten laps down, doesn’t impress me and to have you say your car is improving week to week is an insult to my intelligence. Moving from forty third to fortieth due to other cars exiting the race isn’t an improvement, it’s a disgrace.
This, as always, my opinion based on my observations. You have the right to disagree but never to be disagreeable.
Never forget that we were viciously attacked without provocation on 911. We lost 3,000 of our own on that day and nearly that many of our troops in routing out the terrorists who wish you and I dead.
May a loving God bestow his generous blessings upon you and yours, our great nation, all who serve to protect and defend and all victims of terrorism. Please be extra attentive to your duty to look after those defenseless little ones.
Never forget: We Are the Land of The FREE Because of The BRAVE.
Mom, Apple Pie, John Wayne and NASCAR Racing, now that’s America.
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