Oct. 31, 2007 - No Fanfare For Herman

It won’t make a note in the transactions section of the newspaper, and it won’t be on the scroll on CNN or ESPN.

But Mike Herman, Jr. is leaving the USAR Hooter’s Pro Cup Series after 10 years. This weekend’s race in Florida will be his 90th-career and final scheduled start.

I did a story on Herman a few months ago about his second career as a spotter for Joe Gibbs Racing and up-and-coming driver Marc Davis. The story was about the ins and outs of spotting, but I quickly found out that there’s a lot more to Herman than his new job.

Here’s a guy who loves to race, but wasn’t getting calls from Nextel Cup or even the Busch Series owners as he entered his 30s, so he started looking around at Plan B. He had to be involved in racing somehow, and if he couldn’t get to the top, maybe he could help someone else get there. He’s a great communicator, so spotting seemed a natural fit.

It’s a shame that Nextel Cup has come to this, really — that no one over the age of 30 can be trusted to drive a race car. But that’s the way it is — and that’s not so different from other sports. Despite being well-spoken - great for sponsors - and a passion for and knowledge of the sport, Herman knew he wasn't going to get a shot at the next level.

Long ago, I interviewed a former New York Yankees farmhand who said Joe DiMaggio told him that if he wasn’t knocking on the door of the big leagues by the time he turned 30, then go find a job.

I guess DiMaggio’s advice applies here, too.

Herman says he’ll still be racing when he can, probably in NASCAR’s Modified Southern Tour for 2008. It’s very regional and easier for Herman to schedule around the job at JGR.

He’s got one more race in the Hooter’s Cup — one more chance to pull off the victory that has eluded him and his often under-funded Fireside Hearth & Home race team for a decade.

I’ll be pulling for him.

Oct. 24, 2007 - Peace, Love & Understanding At Roush Fenway

So, let me get this straight: Carl Edwards strikes up a friendship with professional wrestler John Cena and he’s ready to body slam Matt Kenseth on national television.

After the Martinsville race on Sunday, Edwards interrupted a television interview involving Kenseth and the two exchanged words. It ended with Edwards drawing back as if to throw a punch, Kenseth flinching and Edwards smiling as he walked away.

While Edwards said Tuesday that he regretted making those threatening gestures toward his Roush Fenway Racing teammate, he also intimated a level of frustration with Kenseth that, perhaps, made them overdue.

A lot of the other things Edwards said during Tuesday’s conference call spoke to the current evolution of NASCAR and its mega-team mentality. Essentially, Edwards said that Roush Fenway is not the big, happy family that Hendrick Motorsports appears to be. Edwards and Kenseth don’t really speak to one another. Biffle is BFFs with Kenseth, so he obviously can’t be too involved with Edwards. Jamie McMurray is affable enough and kind of goes along-gets along with everyone.

If this sounds a little too much like, “Mean Girls,” I’m sorry, but this is what the sport has come to.

With four-car teams the norm these days, something like this was bound to happen. Not everyone is Rick Hendrick, who chose chemistry (with Casey Mears) over a top talent (Kyle Busch) when someone had to go to make room for Dale Earnhardt, Jr.

Jack Roush is obviously not as concerned about chemistry – or maybe, just maybe, he thinks the drivers he hires will act like the professionals they’re supposed to be instead of like a bunch of clique-ish teenagers.

Edwards put it out there Tuesday – if the drivers at Roush Fenway don’t start acting like teammates, they will continue to get beaten by those who do.

He says communication is the answer.

Maybe he’s right. But if not, maybe Cena could be a special-guest referee. I’ll sell tickets.

Oct. 17, 2007 - Getting Real With Junior

Someone woke up one recent morning and thought, “We need more Dale, Jr. everywhere.”

Unfortunately, that person was apparently a producer at ESPN, which over the past 10 years or so has not found a dead horse it would not stop and beat mercilessly.

The pitch is a reported reality mini-series that will follow Dale, Jr. during his transition to Hendrick Motorsports.

This is not a shot at Dale, Jr. He’s doing fine. He’s grown into himself lately. He’s certainly not a dead horse, but he is already everywhere as NASCAR’s most popular driver and overtaking Jeff Gordon as its top pitchman.

Every week, there has to be a Dale, Jr. story for TV. First, it was will he or won’t he stay at DEI? Then, it was where will he go? Then, it was will he or won’t he make The Chase? Now, it’s will he finish 13th? Or will he perform a miracle mass healing at Martinsville (hosted, of course, by Jerry Punch)?

Nobody does overkill like ESPN, so this proposed project is certainly in its wheelhouse.

The network did this type of thing before with Barry Bonds and called it “Bonds On Bonds.” Bonds had editorial control and final say on all final cuts.

And no one likes him any better.

It’s almost certain that, while universally more loved than Bonds (like just about everyone else), Earnhardt would require the same sort of control.

With so much on the line at Hendrick and with current and new sponsors, there’s no way his camp would allow his image to take a hit because the show’s TV cameras caught something unflattering.

So, the fans hoping to get to know Dale, Jr. even better than they think they do already will get a sanitized version of life with “Little E.”

Given that, what’s the point?

As reality TV goes, I think I’ll just watch Helio Castroneves on “Dancing With the Stars.”

Oct. 10, 2007 — Noise About Noise

One of the late Sam Kinison’s politically incorrect observations was that when a large number of people in the middle of the desert were starving, it was mainly because they were in the middle of the desert where there could possibly be no food.

“Go to where the food is,” he said. “Oh. Oh. Ohhhhhhhhhhhh!”

I was reminded of this little snippet of Kinison’s comic genius this past week when a group of residents near Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C. protested LMS CEO Bruton Smith’s plan to build a dragstrip to go along with LMS and The Dirt Track @ Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

Their protest? Noise.

Remember, LMS has been up and running since 1960. Sometime after that, these people came to the heart of Racing Dadgum Central, bought a house sandwiched between a speedway and bustling I-85 and stayed.

And now they’re concerned about noise.

Smith — this is the guy who paid $100 million for North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham just to shut it down — was a bit miffed. He huffed, puffed and threatened to lock the door on Lowe’s and move the whole thing, including two Nextel Cup races a year and the millions they bring to the local economy, right out of town.

All of a sudden, a bunch of local business owners whose livelihood is based in no small part on motorsports and those invading hoards of fans two times a year, found their voice. The Concord City Council reversed course and wanted to give Bruton a hug. Some of them might have actually grabbed a shovel and headed out to the site of the proposed dragway and started moving dirt for him, but I can’t prove that.

All seems better now, but there is a Kinison-esque moral to this story.

If you want peace and quiet 24/7, don’t move to where the noise is.

Oh. Oh. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Oct. 3, 2007 - ARCA Is Intriguing

In more ways than ARCA could ever have counted on, the ARCA RE/MAX Series 250 at Talladega Superspeedway on Friday has emerged as the most interesting race at this weekend’s Restrictor-palooza.

Sure, the Nextel Cup guys have the drama of “The Chase,” but that’s been going on for weeks and will go on for five more after everyone throws chicken or Amp energy drinks or whatever at Jeff Gordon on Sunday.

With it’s point race all but settled (Frank Kimmel holds a 140-point lead over rookie Michael McDowell with two races to go), the Talladega race has intrigue and — get this — star power.

Reigning Indy 500 and IndyCar Series champion Dario Franchitti, who was introduced as Chip Ganassi’s newest open-wheeler-turned-stock-car racer on Wednesday, will attempt to qualify Ganassi’s No. 42 Dodge on Friday and then make his stock-car debut in the race, which starts at 5 p.m. (Eastern) and will be carried live on Speed.

Also in the ARCA field is 1995 Indy 500 winner and former Formula One World Champion Jacques Villeneuve, who will also attempt to make his Nextel Cup debut for Bill Davis Racing later in the weekend, and Scott Speed, who was unceremoniously dismissed from his F-1 Toro Rosso ride a couple of months ago.

Suddenly, that race just got a lot more intriguing with those three names alone, even for Franchitti.

Who would have thought, after all, that Franchitti would be making his stock-car debut with those two on the track? It sounds more like Indy than Talladega.

“It’s just amazing, the way things have turned out,” Franchitti said. “I’m going to be really interested to watch J.V. in the Cup race this weekend this well and see how he gets on.”

Most people come to ARCA to get their credentials, but those three drivers already have them. Throw in the ARCA veteran Kimmel and the rookie McDowell, who has driven in CART and in the Rolex Grand Am Series as well as in Daytona Prototypes, and you’ve got more than a passing reason to watch.