Well, Daytona Speedweeks have concluded, and from the sound of the grumbling I'm hearing on everything from the Anthem to the entertainment, to the race itself, I am led to wonder if I watched the same race that everyone else did. I readily confess to giving a miss to most of the upfront "entertainment." Apparently, I missed "Fitty Cent." Well, that's OK, as he and I have an agreement. I don't listen to him and he doesn't read me. It's worked well so far. If I want to see a show, I'll go to the theater; at a race track, I came to see a race. Frankly, if truth be known, I don't much care for the FOX presentation of the races, but that is only personal preference and not germane to our conversations here.
I have to wonder if the fans I am hearing from sat through the same long winter that I did, waiting for Daytona to finally arrive and show me the new cars on the track. The "Sprint Unlimited" ran a week ago Saturday, after practice sessions both for it and Sunday's Qualifying. In either one, very few of the new cars ran together. Qualifiers preferred single-car runs of course, and there just weren't many cars even in the Unlimited thing. (Marketers take note: Something really has to be done about that name. It sounds more like a train than a race)
One week ago Sunday, I watched a new page written in motorsports history when Danica Patrick became the first female ever to sit on a Cup Series pole. I make that distinction, because on March 12, 1994, Shawna Robinson sat on the pole in Atlanta for the Busch Series race. Fortunately, Danica would fare much better than did Shawna.
It did not upset or disappoint me in any way to see Ms. Patrick on the pole. I thought, and still do, that it was wonderful. Yet, I've heard all manner of disrespectful jokes and just nasty comments about her, which I fail to understand, and no thank you, I don't care for you to explain them to me. It was not rigged. She did not run without a restrictor plate, as I've heard proffered several times, and NASCAR had absolutely nothing to do with it. All three Stewart-Haas cars set times in the top five. She was the fastest, a credit perhaps to crew chief Tony Gibson, therefore, she was on the pole. Get over it!
Once qualifying was done, I enjoyed a couple evenings of short track racing at the "Little track out back", created... or perhaps carved is a better word, from the infield adjacent to and utilizing part of the Daytona backstretch. As much fun as these were to watch, in the end they produced more controversy and more fan complaints. Why? Because they didn't like who won or the way he won. After the Late Model Sportsman and Modified divisions, the winners were Kyle Larson and Steve Park (Yes, that Steve Park) respectively. Neither was leading at the end of the penultimate lap, and apparently it is not considered courteous to pass for the win on the final lap. This complaint comes all too often from the same fans that found reason to complain about the 500 because it didn't contain enough of this condemned behavior. Read my lips; you cannot have it both ways.
**Note to Mr. Helton: These races were better for both fans and drivers when raced on the track at Irwindale CA, where the banking is graduated, not non-existent. That promotes safer and easier passing, usually without the need to "move" someone over. Of course, that too will bring complaints...
Wednesday, there was Cup practice for the Dual Duels, or Twin 150s if you prefer... and I do. Again, as would be the case in all practices leading up to the 500, there were no really large packs of cars on track at the same time, with the largest number being in the Twin 150s themselves. Still, they managed through the week to have a few wrecks, with the most memorable thing to me being that Carl Edwards seemed to be involved in all of them... not through fault, just proximity... but that has to get expensive after a while.
Friday night brought the Camping World Truck race, always a crowd favorite, which makes me wonder why there was no crowd. That one saw Johnny Sauter hold off Kyle Busch and Ron Hornaday Jr. to take the checkers and the check. Saturday... what can one say about the Nationwide race? It was ugly. It made us all wish it had been the Drive4COPD 299, as a last-lap wreck sent young Kyle Larson's car up and into the catch fence, with large and dangerous parts managing their way through the fence and into the crowd in the grandstand. When that #32 Chevy came to rest, the entire front half was either in the fence or in the crowd.
As best I can tell, the injured numbered 28, with half treated at the infield care center and the other half transported to local hospitals. Twelve of the fourteen were taken to Halifax Medical Center, a level 2 Trauma Center. Of that twelve, five were there for heat exhaustion or something similar. Seven were there for trauma related injuries. Of those, two remain in critical condition at this writing, one of those being a child. Somewhere, we seem to have lost two people, who were said to have been transported elsewhere. If anyone has news of those folks, don't hesitate to tell us. Oh yes... and Tony Stewart won the race.
At this point, Mr. Helton Sir, I'd like to express my thanks, and I am sure that of many of the fans as well, for the excellent job performed by everyone involved with the care and transport of the injured. Please extend my thanks also to the dedicated crew that worked until what I understand was two in the morning, repairing the wall, fence and gate, in order to have it in operational condition for the Daytona 500.
And that brings us to the Daytona 500. Race fans, what, exactly did you not like about that race? What, exactly did you expect? I have been careful to point out here, that up to the point when the green flag waved and those stupid words came through our televisions once again, those cars... those brand new and virtually untested cars... had never been on a track in full race conditions. Now, add to that the horror of seeing, just the day before, large parts of a car literally mow down fans in the grandstand. I fully expected that every driver on that track would bide his or her time, feeling out the new car and how it behaved with cars to the left, cars to the right, up near the wall or any other configuration that comes to mind. I wasn't disappointed at all, as they did exactly that.
Harkening back to the Twin 150s, there was much talk about which race generally has the big wreck, the first or second. Almost without question, it is the first race. The drivers in the second race start with cooler heads after seeing the mayhem in the first race. Please, give our drivers credit for having and exhibiting that same common sense after having seen that frightening wreck on Saturday. I have to ask another time... what did you expect? Were you looking for a rerun?
Try as I might, I just do not understand. That race was not boring. It even obliged with a couple of good-sized wrecks, one of which involved Carl Edwards... again; the other involved half of my Fantasy Racing team. The other half would come later. Over and over, I've heard the words "Parade" and "Train" used in description of the race. Please... all of you that claim to have loved racing on the big tracks "Back in the day", go watch some of it. Those men did not race from green to checkers. That would have been crazy, especially considering that the tires of that time were not capable of handling the speed of the cars, let alone put 500 miles of that sort of pressure on them. We'd have had no drivers left if they had raced full-out as so many seem to want.
I received an email from one of you as I was writing this, telling me how boring the race was. Forgive me for repeating what I told you. Ernie Elliott had a few helpful words for brother Bill, which I've heard more than once. Speaking in his thickest Georgia Mountain drawl, Ernie would key the mic on the radio and say, "Biyull, it's not tiyum to rice yayut!"
"To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven." When it was time to race, race is what they did on Sunday. Like it or not, there was racing, and unlike on Saturday, on Sunday they kept it on the track. If you come to every single race, all year long, and expect a barn burner every week, you will be disappointed many times over. That doesn't happen; that has never happened. There is no fairy tale world where one finds a constant state of excitement. I understand there are drugs for that, but they are not recommended, nor are they legal. Take your fun where you find it. Other times, just relax and enjoy being alive. Frowns create wrinkles.
Next week, we'll see the Gen-6 cars on a one-mile flat track. I'm betting that won't be too exciting either. The 1.5-mile track in Las Vegas should better show what improvement, if any, has come with the pretty new packages. Until then, as my youngest granddaughter would advise, "Don't have a cow." It's just not worth it.
All right gentle readers, it's your turn now. You may toss slings and arrows if you wish, but in your heart and head, you know I'm right on this one and my reasoning is sound. We will discuss it, as that is the purpose of having this column. Please remember to check your bad attitude at the door, as we wish to be taken seriously by whoever reads this.
Oh, and you might have noticed something just a tad different in the column today. My comments within have been addressed to Mr. Helton rather than Mr. France. Think back... all the way to the Hall of Fame Induction Ceremonies. Mr. France was not in attendance, and no mention made of him or his whereabouts. We have just wrapped up Speedweeks in Daytona, including a wreck of major proportion involving over two dozen fans, yet to my knowledge, there has not been a single sighting of Brian Z. France. If I were Lewis Carroll, I would say "Things just get curiouser and curiouser."
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