Where were the fans
General
I saw some empty seats but there were still alot of people in the stands .....Cookie Cutter cars, I agree
Forum Activity for @richard-guido
General
I saw some empty seats but there were still alot of people in the stands .....Cookie Cutter cars, I agree
Mark Martin is going WHERE???
General
Big change for Mark comparing this year to last. It is almost like he isn;t even on the track. He probably would have won a couple by now if they did not run that awful paint scheme.The whole Kahne/Martin/Jr deal is stale
The NASCAR Hall of Fame
General
There is always going to be someone that deserves to be in that gets passed over. It is probably simillar to other HOF's. There have been many deserving individuals that waited for years to get in.
It is a numbers game and those with big numbers are going to carry alot of weight.
Certainly Richie Evans will get the nod at some point as few dominated they way Richie did.
DW is not very popular but 3 championships will not be overlooked. Pkl questioned Dale Inman's nomination but 8 championships as a crew chief puts him in the running. He will get in at some point.
Is the selection process fair ? Probably not and there is little that we can do about it.
The NASCAR Hall of Fame
General
They lost me by putting in both France's last year. I thought that Herb Thomas and Pearson shouyld have went in last year but what do I know ?
Petty Buick
Current NASCAR
First thing you want to find out is if it's a Mike Laughlin car. PE bought their chassis from him at that time.
Engine builder Tommy Turner
Stock Car Racing History
Tommy did the qualifying engines for the Wood Brothers, someone else did th race stuff. That is all I have.
Pictures of Junior Johnson's race shop.
General
Junior was very smart and had as much to do with Nascar's sucess as Richard did. Just do not see these kind of characters anymore.He put Leroy Yarbrough into the International Morotsports Hall of Fame, brought the Winston brand into racing, won the Daytona 500 and invented many inovations retaling to the cars. I saw him rip the rear bumper off of Cale's car at Dover in the 70's and then watched a fan walk out of the track with it on his shoulders.And oh yeah ......He could drive like hell
Pictures of Junior Johnson's race shop.
General
It was a set of cylinder heads Eric Kincaid said:
I grew up in Lenoir which is 32 miles from N. Wilkesboro Speedway. I had heard rumors that sometimes they would actually run the race cars to test a motor out the road by Junior's shop. This rumor was confirmed by Jeff Hammond in an interview that Jeff Gilder did with J. Hammond. Hammond said that they did alot with a whole lot less than most teams. He said they actually shook down the cars on the road out by the shop, I think it is a dead end road. Now wouldn't that get the attention of the neighbors. I all so read a story somewhere a few months ago where Junior explained why he switched to Fords after D.W left. He said that he had sent a carborator to GM and that it didn't come back on time, so he called them and they said they would check on it, he said a few days later it arrived and had been shipped to him from Hendrick Motor Sports, so he figured he couldn't trust GM and switched to Fords because of the carborator ending up at Hendrick. The article says that D.W. was stunned to find out what had actually happended. Pretty neat. Yea, I wish I could find a video or something. I remember in the early 90's that during a race, Neil Bonnett took some ESPN guys into the shop to show where they used to build the cars and what not. A friend of mine visited the shop quite often and he walked all round the woods and stuff and said all kinds of all race cars were sitting around in the woods, mostly wrecked.
Why would you come so far and do so good only to come to this
Current NASCAR
They made money doing that but Nascar has finally had enough of it. What should we expect with the way things are in general. It is an embarassment to the sport but how can you force a team to run or try to run a full race ?I know. You have to have a full time sponsor to enter a Cup race. Heck lets go to the Nationwide Series and run, we might even win a race if half of the Cup drivers do not enter the event.
Low attendance at California... again.
General
A big part of what we see is how the cars are set up and what Nascar has done to the schedule. Losing the Labor Day Darlington event was a bad move period. Does anyone recall seeing a "Bad" race at Wilkesboro ? Rockingham was not known for close finishes but the drivers loved that track.What has been done with the cars in recent years does have an effect on the racing. It is all about AERO. The cars are restricted with aero tricks, gear rules, engine compression limits, restrictor plates and so on..Nascar had to do something when Bobby Allison ripped down the fence at Talladega in 1987 but they did the wrong thing. When questioned about using smaller engines they responded by saying that the engine builders would eventually find the power bringing them right back to well over 200mph at the big tracks. This was a bad move by the boys in Daytona Beach. The should have went with a smaller motor and or a smaller carb. Since then they have been working on the bodies to keep them on the ground. That has worked really well has it not ?Another key is the weight of these cars. The minimum weight used to be 3,600 or 3,700 lbs. Nascar dropped 200 lbs off the cars. Do you think that 200lbs might slow them down abit and just maybe keep them on the ground ? Add restrictor plates with the AERO treatment and you have 30 car freight trains where someone is eventually going to make a mistake.Before the COT Nascar gave the teams what they wanted resulting in a car that for all intent was a modified. The word "Push" became very popular because if a car was not in front it would not turn. Now Nascar is doing it there way and it's even worse. AERO now outweighs mechanical grip and it affects the competition in a negative way. Nascar's regulations limit the choices the drivers and mechanics have concerning car set up based on the track or track conditions.What does this rant have to do with Cali ? Nothing and everything. The people in So Cal never have been into big time stock car racing, maybe it reminds them of being on the LA Freeway. To be sure the short track scene in Cali on the other hand is real hot. The verything part of it ? Nascar has homogonised the sport to the point of being boring. Funny that the Cali race was actaully pretty good and so was Daytona. Will we see some good racing ? Hope so ....