Aug. 26, 2008 - Hold The Phone

The folks I’m talking about in today’s blog will probably never read this. They don’t have computers. What they do have is telephones and they are not afraid to use them.

“Hello. National Speed Sport News.”

“Yeah, I have a question. Can you tell me how many cars raced at Florence, Ky., in the North-South 100 a few weeks ago.”

“Just a minute sir, let me look that up for you.”

“Hey, hurry up. I’m calling long distance.”

“Sir, if you have a computer, you could look this up for yourself.”

“I don’t need no computer and when I goes to the library and ask them to look it up, they are angry about it.”

“Sir, 95 cars.”

“How many?”

“95. Nine-five.”

“95. You say?”

“Yes. 95.”

“I don’t believe that. There’s no way there was 95 cars.”

CLICK!

“Hello. National Speed Sport News.”

“Yeah. Where’s Kraig Kinser in points.”

“Sir, I don’t know that information off the top of my head, I’ll have to look it up.”

“OK, but I’m on long distance.”

“14th. He’s 14th.”

“Well, that’s pretty good. Do you think he’ll get fired from that ride?”

“No. Probably not this year.”

“Thanks.”

CLICK!

“Hello. National Speed Sport News.”

“Can you tell me what time the race is on Sunday?”

“Which race sir?”

“The race?”

“Sir, the NASCAR race is on at 3 p.m. on ESPN.”

“Let’s see, I’m in Missouri, so 3 p.m. your time, is 2 p.m. my time, right?”

“That would be right.”

“How about the Indy race?”

“1 p.m. on ABC.”

“ABC?”

“Yes.”

“So that would be noon for me, right?”

“Right!”

“And how ’bout those straight lines?”

“The NHRA?”

“Yeah.”

“7 p.m. on ESPN2”

“ESPN.”

“No, ESPN2.”

“ESPN 2, at 7 p.m.”

“Yes. That’s 6 p.m. your time.”

“Thank you.”

CLICK!

Aug. 19, 2008 - Winner's Circle Elusive

Tony Schumacher, Donny Schatz, Scott Dixon and Kyle Busch are winning races by the basket full this season. But some drivers are having a much more difficult time finding victory lane.

Here’s a six-pack of drivers who won’t have to add on to their trophy rooms this winter.

Jeff Gordon hasn’t won a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race this season. And while he’s been a consistent top-10 performer, he really hasn’t come close to a victory. It would be the first time since his rookie season in 1993.

Helio Castroneves has seven runner-up finishes in IndyCar Series competition, but hasn’t won a single race. He has only three more chances.

Mike Skinner was the leading winner in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series last season, but while his teammate Johnny Benson is leading the series in victories, Skinner is still looking for his first triumph of the year.

Kraig Kinser made a much-publicized return to sprint-car racing to drive for Tony Stewart Racing this season and by most accounts has been out to lunch all season. His best finish of third came just this week, but he is racing as a teammate to Donny Schatz, who has won 12 WoO events and four other sprint-car races including the Knoxville Nationals.

Marco Andretti has two things down — talking bad about other drivers, including his teammates, and crashing race cars. However, winning is another story. The third-generation Nazareth, Pa., hotshoe is winless in 14 starts and has six DNFs this season.

Brandon Bernstein won five NHRA Top Fuel events last season. This season, he has yet to visit the winner’s circle and based on the domination of Shumacher, who has won 10 of 17 races, his prospects aren’t looking good. Bernstein has made the final round four times this season.

Aug. 12, 2008 - Memorable Racing

In recent years, a lot of people have said that they were not attending the Knoxville Nationals anymore because the racing wasn’t “as good as it used to be.”

Well, attendance was down noticeably this year, though we would attribute that as much to the economy as anything else, but the racing was fabulous.

It’s probably been 10 years since the racing was as good as this year. There’s little question the weather had a lot to do with it. It was dry in the low 80s every day. The track was consistent from one night to the next and drivers could race easily in the top, middle and low grooves. There was plenty of passing and plenty of storylines.

While eventual winner Donny Schatz had a minor hiccup on his qualifying night when he failed to transfer through his heat race, what caught my eye about him and his chances to win were the lines that he could run his Armor All No. 15.

While he didn’t win the A Scramble on Friday night he drove his car through all three grooves to pass cars. His competitors seemed to be anchored to just one groove. Jason Meyers, who led the first 24 laps of Saturday’s feature was a high-groove man, as was Steve Kinser. And, as is tradition, there was no way Danny Lasoski was coming off the bottom.

Well, Schatz, basically drove his car where the others weren’t en route to his third-straight victory in the $150,000-to-win event. And if the action at the front as Meyers and Schatz navigated lapped traffic wasn’t enough, Terry McCarl put on a show romping from 22nd to finish eighth.

When it comes time to plan for next year’s Nationals, it will be the racing we remember we booking our reservations.

Aug. 8, 2008 - Mixed Bag At Knoxville

With two nights of action in the books at the 48th annual SuperClean Knoxville Nationals, the action has been interesting to say the least.

With Joey Saldana and Wayne Johnson winning the features and Danny Lasoski and Jason Meyers, posting the high point totals on their respective qualifying night, Saturday’s program appears wide open.

Two-time defending winner Donny Schatz was lightning quick on his qualifying night, but failing to transfer through his heat, left him with a lot of work to do on Saturday night as he finished the first two nights ranked only sixth in points.

The top 10 drivers locked into the A Scramble on Friday night that will help determine Saturday’s starting lineup are in order Jason Meyers, Danny Lasoski, Joey Saldana, Craig Dollansky, Justin Henderson, Donny Schatz, Steve Kinser, Sammy Swindell, Dusty Zomer and Paul McMahan.

Most interesting happening of the two nights was the performance of Wayne Johnson and Gary Wright utilizing ancient equipment. Johnson won on Wednesday night with a five-year-old engine in his car, and Gary Wright romped from 11th to finish third using an eight-year-old powerplant on Thursday.

The worst moment of the two nights was the half hour we all spent worrying about Jeff Shepard, who took a wild ride in a crash on the first lap of Thursday’s B main. Because of his history of injuries, Shepard was carefully cut from his car and flown to a Des Moines hospital for tests with symptoms of a concussion. He was alert and responsive when removed from the car.

On the downside, the crowd has been noticeably down after two nights and there are fewer exhibitors on the midway and in the trade show than in recent years. And even more importantly, the always popular Rotary Club pie tent is no longer part of the Nationals experience.

Aug. 5, 2008 - Just Buggin'

Sometimes you are the windshield. Sometimes you are the bug.

Today, I feel like the bug. I just learned two weeks after the fact that Kenny Jacobs, one of sprint-car racing’s all-time greats was injured in a crash on the night of the reopening of Millstream Speedway in Findlay, Ohio.

KJ broke his back for the third time, the second time in the same place. The Holmesville, Ohio, native retired several years ago, but quickly returned to driving and was running limited schedule this season.

Luckily, Jacobs is recovering, but he will not race again. This time, his career is over. While he won’t be the threat to win the Nationals that I labeled him in this week’s NSSN — without knowledge of his crash and injuries — he is planning to attend and will crew chief the No. 59 car he was scheduled to drive. His son, Lee, will be behind the wheel.

I was greatly saddened that I hadn’t heard about it and tremendously embarrassed that NSSN hasn’t reported on Kenny’s accident. Sadly, we were not informed by anyone including officials of the track and sanctioning body that put on the race.

I apologize to NSSN readers for having missed this. Hopefully, we can hook up with Kenny at Knoxville and provide a report on his recovery in a coming issue of NSSN.

That said, we are off to the Nationals in hopes of providing you all with accurate and up-to-date coverage of sprint-car racing’s ultimate event.