NASCAR’s Distrubing Trends

I was just reading about the Atlanta race in NSSN. What really caught my eye was the statement, “nearly half the seats were empty (of the 124,000 seats available).
Strangle-hold rules, inconsistent rule enforcement and, oh, yes, the CoT. No wonder the race tracks have so many empty seats.
CoT — a very stupid idea. Take away the individual car appearance, and the fans have nothing to relate to. It handles like a pig, and it has several safety problems such as no rear vision because of the window, and the splitter cuts valve stems on a car that are close (on short tracks).
Speaking of splitters, I hear some of the smaller cities up north will be buying the discarded splitters to use as snow plows. The drivers hate the CoT and so do the fans. If you continue to run the CoT maybe all the seats at Daytona will be empty. Who is going to pay good money to see a clone IROC race?
Wake up, NASCAR — before you and the drivers are the only ones at the track.

Reamer’s Recollections

Excellent article by Stew Reamer on announcers, and they all hit home, too. One of my pet peeves is when you see an announcer on TV interviewing a driver or someone, the announcer never ends the interview. He just turns away and starts talking to the camera, leaving the person hanging there, picking his nose.
A simple, “thank you” or “good luck out there” or something to end it should be said.

IRL Has Gone Wrong

Well, Roger Penske and the boys (Ganassi, Andretti, etc.) have finally whipped the IRL into shape — much the way they whipped CART into shape some years ago.
USAC was clearly incompetent to run big-time racing, and CART filled the void. The small owners were quickly forced out. To race, you bought a franchise from one of the big teams with new rules benefitting the big teams — more road races, less oval racing, you know, Formula One stuff with a CEO who was a Brit living in Switzerland.
Forget prize money that created incentives for drivers and were the means for single-car owners to compete. Who needs the locals when foreign drivers come to the table with cash and sponsorships? Where’s CART today? They’re trying desperately to fill 18-car fields with foreign drivers most racing fans couldn’t care less about.
Now, here we are with the IRL — oval racing at an affordable price for primarily American racers, with prize money that could sustain drivers and owners with minimal sponsorship. Remember $200,000 cars and $80,000 engines? Enter Penske and the boys solely because of the Indy 500, the IRL’s shining jewel. It didn’t take long for cars to cost $400,000-plus, and you rent engines for $1.5 million a year.
Forget the little guys, the local racers who made their bones across America, encouraging those racers at home to follow. The IRL has become just another Formula One wannabe with contract drivers, payoffs for the big teams and no prize money except for the Indy 500. There goes the original IRL concept. Tony G., what happened?
Now, we come to the Indy 500. The big teams will provide three-to-four cars each, add in a few privateers and car rentals and you may have 20 cars. The rest of the field will be made up of left-over backup cars from the Penske, Ganassi, Andretti teams rented out to likely drivers. Maybe they will fill the 33-car field. Some of you may remember, like me, when there were more than 60, 70 or 80 cars competing to be in the Indy 500, the most famous race in the world.
Well, Roger and the boys are in charge again, and it’s a private club again. Tony G., what happened to your original plan?

All-American Memories

Ron Lemasters, Jr.’s column on the All-American 400 brought back all kinds of memories. After 12 years, I left ASA the year before he joined them, but like Ron, I also miss the Rex Robbins version of that sanctioning body.
And the All-American 400? As Ron said, it was an event more than a race — an end-of-the-year gathering of the clans.
I also miss Bob Harmon. One of my favorite Harmon stories is one he told about his experience at Nashville. He said they had trouble getting their sportsman feature to the backstretch without a big crash in the second turn.
His remedy was to make it a 20-and-a-half-lap race. He put a flagman on the backstretch and gave them the green back there.
I asked if that kept them from crashing, and he said, “No, but now they do it in front of the people.”

F-1 And America

The reason by Formula One isn’t popular in the U.S. has a much longer history than Dan Knutson mentions (in a recent column). I can remember Phil Hill appearing on “To Tell the Truth” (an ancient game show) after he was world champion, and not one contestant chose him. When Mario Andretti won the world championship, he got invited to visit the White House, just like the National President of the Junior Chambers of Commerce.
When Alain Prost won the world championship, he got a full military parade in Paris with the French prime minister riding with him, and the French equivalent of the Thunderbirds making a pass overhead. It was more-or-less a national holiday. He was endorsing more than two-dozen non-racing related products. He was a national hero — has there ever been an American race-car driver who could truly claim that title?
Guys like Jarno Trulli, even without a championship behind him, are bigger and better-known stars in their home countries than Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart put together are in the U.S. — especially in Europe. There, your relative fame isn’t attached to championships. You can make a really good living and live the life of a real star without being a champion.
If a really top American talent wanted to go to Europe and do what was needed, I have no doubt that we could have yet another homegrown American champion. But remember, whenever the European magazines do articles on which drivers over history are most respected, the consistently highest-rated American isn’t Hill or Andretti — both world champions — it’s Dan Gurney.

Anthem Was Great

I haven’t written for quite a while, but I just wanted to comment on the rendition of our National Anthem on Oct. 28.
They ought to keep him on staff. He’s one of the very few who can sing and doesn’t ad-lib and can do it like it should be.
I still look forward to getting the paper after all these years.

The Next American F-1 Driver

Charlie Kimball is the next likely American to make in into Formula One and he’s a keeper! I have observed Charlie in British Formula Ford, British Formula Three, the Formula Three Euroseries and the World Series by Renault. Charlie is currently the rookie (Friday) test driver for the A1 Grand Prix Team USA! Charlie has won races and achieved top ten finishes in each of the aforementioned series and has done it without any fanfare or deep pocket financial backing!
Put him in a GP2 car and stand back! Sign him as an F1 test driver! He is a winner!
Now, to the list of Americans in Formula One. Leaving Mark Donahue and Richie Ginther off the list does a disservice to their achievements. However not including Harry Schell, Masten Gregory and Carroll Shelby was even worse.