size of the Jr. Nation. You can bet he’ll get some hate mail from the more extreme elements, but he does raise a good point. To me, true fans stick with a driver through thick and thin. Yeah, the wins are great but your driver can’t win every race. That would make things boring. Take a look at Jimmy Johnson and Jeff Gordon. When they were winning on a regular basis, folks thought the racing was boring because it was the same guy winning all the time. Of course, these folks weren’t Jimmy Johnson or Jeff Gordon fans either. Me on the other hand, I picked me someone who didn’t have a snowballs chance of winning. Dick Trickle never got a single Cup win. But that’s not why I’m a Dick Trickle fan. I like the guy because of who he is, not because of his track record. I like Kevin Lepage for the same reason. I’m not going to be like some folks out there who only support a driver because he’s winning right now. What happens when he isn’t winning? Well, that’s what’s happening right now within the Jr. Nation. The Fad Fans who went with Jr. because of the hype and marketing finally decided it’s time to find the next “big thing”. Whether it’s tiddly winks with manhole covers or watching paint dry, if it’s “in”, that’s where they’re going. Fans can be a fickle bunch, especially when their driver isn’t winning. And the Fad Fans and Short Attention Span Crowd are even more so.
Several folks are applauding NA$CAR’s latest effort at going green. I’m all for it. Nothing wrong with planting some more trees. I plant a few things around the old homestead to help out the bees, hummingbirds, and to put a little food on the table. I also do some recycling too. The official PR reason from NA$CAR is to help off-set the carbon emissions being produced by the racing. A certain politician who goes on about glo-bull warming and how evil the automobile is and yet consumes enough electricity for at least 3 average households could learn a thing or two from NA$CAR on this instead of buying carbon off-sets as he currently does while driving his SUV’s and his family mines pollute the local landscape.
On the face of it, it sounds like NA$CAR is trying to be a concerned eco-citizen. But as we all know, NA$CAR never does anything unless there’s some money to be made, they’re trying to avoid criticism from outside groups, or there’s another angle to it. NA$CAR has and is being criticized as not being very eco-friendly by some Green groups. So their planting trees should help muffle the roar some. There’s also some legislation in the works about carbon emissions, off-sets, etc that could, to some degree, affect NA$CAR. So why not do a pre-emptive strike and start planting trees. Not to mention that lately, the Emperor of All Things NA$CAR hasn’t been getting much positive press because of the Mo Grant, Jeremy Mayfield, and Carl Long incidents. Plus the kick in the crotch with the Staten Island track being cancelled because the peasants didn‘t want a NA$CAR track there. How dare they, the insolent peasants. In this case, there is yet another angle and that is yet another distraction from what’s really wrong with NA$CAR. Will planting trees fix what’s wrong with NA$CAR? No. Will planting trees produce better tires for the teams to use? No. Will planting trees fix the ails of the Uni-Car? No. Will planting trees provide NA$CAR with some real leadership? No. It’s just another distraction like the double file restart. That won’t improve NA$CAR’s woes either.
How about that singing fireman at Kentucky doing the National Anthem? He did a great job. I can’t say the same for that soggy saxophone player who tried “making it his own”. Which leads me into wondering about something; Joe Gibbs spent many a year as a football coach and the National Anthem was played before each and every football game. He had to take his hat off and pay respects to the flag. His players, for the most part, did also. So why is it his racing teams can’t give the flag and National Anthem the respects they’re due? Shrubby with his alien bug-eye looking sunglasses with his arm around his girlfriend is a prime example. I noticed the Game Stop uniformed pit crew not rendering the proper respects before the start of the Busch race. And why isn’t Faux King Brian, who talks a good game about tradition (and that‘s about all it is, talk), doing anything about it since respecting the flag and the National Anthem is a tradition?
Yates is talking about lowering horsepower by using restrictor plates. Give me a break. Do we really want to have 38 restrictor plate races a year? The cars have no throttle response as it is with the restrictor plate. And what would actually be accomplished? 38 IROC races? 38 races where each and every one has the potential for “The Big One”? And if you think the cookie cutter tracks and Fontana are boring now with the Uni-Car, just think of how boring they’d be with restrictor plates. Stock sheet metal is still the way to go but the only way that will happen is if somebody other than the teams picks up the tab for it and His Royal Highness signs off on it with one of his half-eaten crayons.
I keep reading about the changes coming to the Crusty Old Toilet that will make it sportier. I can only think of one phrase that seems appropriate. You can’t polish a turd. None of the rumors address any specific changes. They’re all extremely vague. Just how, exactly, do you make the BOW WOW sporty? Add a bigger wing to it like the old Chevy Chapparal? Make some wild fender flares for it like some of the rally and sports cars? Make it rounder so that it resembles the Rolex cars which basically all look the same and which the BOW WOW is based on? And just how much money is this latest change going to "save" the teams? This vehicle, which hasn't delivered on a single promise except for safety, was supposed to save the teams vast sums of money and eliminate the aero problems of the old template racer. I’ve seen more money saved with $600 hammers in the Defense Department.
His Royal Highness is talking to other manufacturers. Big Whoopty Doo! Saturn turned him down. Honda got their Truck templates 3 years ago and outside of building a prototype, they haven’t done anything that anyone’s heard of. Fiat already has cars on the track. Nissan was snooping around the garage area the same time as Honda and Toy-odor but they don’t seem to be interested. So that leaves Hyundai, KIA (Killed In Action), Mercedes with their SUV’s (they already had a dose of NA$CAR), and BMW with their SUV’s. That doesn’t leave many left to talk to here in the USA. Based on past history, I think BMW and Mercedes experiences with spec car racing series will take them out of the running. Maybe if NA$CAR finally broke down and went to fuel injection, they could pull in the likes of VW, Audi, Citroen, Peugeot, Maserati, Opel, Vauxhall, Holden, Mazda, Subaru, and a few other oddball companies from overseas. Which foreign manufacturer is willing to top the $93 million that already has been paid for "favors to be named later" by one of the manufacturers already racing? As much as I like the old big bore 850 cfm carburetor powered V-8’s, they’re not representative of what’s coming off of the production line anywhere. I’m one for tradition but that tradition is based in part on what comes out of Detroit. I'm not fond of running a 4 door sedan as a two door Clone Car. I'm not fond of every car on the track looking the same either. But fuel injection is a reality in today's day and age. It’s time to step up into the 21st century Your Highness.
As the boys down in the Ivory Tower are putting on the front of “going green“, maybe they should allow diesel engines into NA$CAR. Providing they do away with the carbs and go with fuel injection. Audi makes a really wicked diesel racing engine. And it’s a lot “greener” than the unleaded gasoline engines that are currently being used. I’m not saying that they need to mandate the diesel engine, but they should put the option on the books. It might be an incentive needed to get some other manufacturers into the sport.
The rumor that won’t die continues on, this time with NA$CAR honchos trying to bait the hook to get Danica. Obviously they didn’t learn that money isn’t everything. Staten Island proved that. And an old line from a Star Trek movie comes to mine. “Each to their own abilities”. Does Danica really have the abilities to become a “taxi cab driver”? Several big name IRL drivers tried NA$CAR and failed. Sarah Fisher tried the Winston West Series and decided to return to the IRL. So let’s see if Mafia Mike and company have the testicular fortitude to bankroll any team willing to sign her up because it’s going to take a lot of green and cutting back the schedule to the same length as the IRL to get her into a “taxi cab”.
Rumors about this coming weekend and a second car for the Robby Gordon team are floating around. Kvapil, PJ Jones, and possibly Robby’s fellow driver from the Dakar rally, BJ Baldwin, are being mentioned as drivers for it. Something that the lamestream media missed was that fact that Robby wasn’t the only one dinged for points during the Baja 500. One bike rider went from 8th to DNF after his penalty points were added in because he exceeded the time limit. All but 2 of the trucks were penalized. How come the lamestream media didn’t bother mentioning this? They made it look like Robby was the only one who got penalized.
I don’t hold much hope for Carl Long’s second
appeal with the rubber stamp commission. I
doubt the fan reaction and negative press will
have any affect on the penalty or the kangaroo
court that issued it. However, maybe saner
minds will prevail and they’ll at least reduce the
financial penalty down to where it was when the
King got nailed for an oversized engine. The King
got nailed for $35,000 for running an oversized
engine during a race and Long gets nailed for
$200,000 for an engine that blew up during
practice for a non-points event. What’s wrong
with this picture? Not to mention I said earlier I
had some problems with the engines and cars
being taken to the secret R&D facility for
teardown inspections because prying eyes wouldn’t be around to keep things legit or ask the right questions.
Once again, the EOD (Bomb Squad) community lost one of their own. Army SSgt Edmund Lo was in the process of neutralizing an improvised explosive device when it detonated. Details haven’t been released on the conditions of where he was working but you can speculate that he was either trying to disarm it to help keep his fellow soldiers from being killed or to keep the local civilian populace safe. Either way, it’s sad because he lost his life. Still, it does show just what all the military will do to keep both the troops and the civilians safe. Hopefully the guys at the big Nitro Club in the sky will buy Edmund’s first round.
Motherhood, Apple Pie, and John Wayne
Mad Mikie, Curmudgeon at Large
Gotta comment, question or want to say hey there...email Mike here
Want to chat with other race fans about this article and other NASCAR stuff?
Go visit our home page, called appropriately The Pits & check out our photos & pages. Our most popular page; Race Recon is where you get all the info you need to go to the races including local camping, hotels, bars, restaurants, tracks, golf & other important race weekend information. We also have attending a NASCAR Race tips, tailgating tips & recipes, stories, trivia, quotes & more! While you are surfing see if you are a REAL RACE FAN. Be sure to read the Fan Fables, LAIDBACK RACING’S adventures with the tailgating race fan at NASCAR tracks.
