Michigan is for Fords

Wow! 5 Roush Fords and 1 Yates Ford finished in the top ten at Michigan this week. Looks like Jack Roush and Robert Yates finally got their stuff figgered out.

Right turn, Clyde

I have said it once, and I'll say it again. NASCAR needs more road courses.

[NASCAR] Jeff Gordon will force a rule change

For the last few weeks, we have heard about the controversy some folks are calling Bottlegate. Jimmie Johnson was fined last week for blocking the big, blue, Powerade bottle placed on the top of the car in Victory Lane. This following a warning from Mike Helton to the drivers not to mess around with promotional displays.

Jeff gordon upped the ante this week at Indianapolis when he didn't even go to Victory Lane. He did his interview at the start/finish line and didn't give the marketing slugs the opportunity to get the Powerade bottle on his car. Powerade is owned by Coca-Cola. One of Jeff Gordon's and Jimmie Johnson's primary sponsors is, coincidentally, Pepsi.

I fully expect NASCAR to institute a rule this week that the winner proceed directly to Victory Lane at the finish of the race. Meanwhile, a good race team with Jeff Burton is still looking for a sponsor thanks to NASCAR's selectively capitalistic and unjustifiably puritan policies. It's pathetic that it has come to this. NASCAR should be making rules concerning competition, not marketing.

UPDATE: Jayski is reporting that the likelyhood of Jeff Gordon getting a fine or penalty for his misbehavior is pretty slim. More selective enforcement from the boys down in Daytona. (10:00 CST, 8/9/04)

[NASCAR] Even a blind hog …

As a brief follow-up to my previous rant. As the old saying goes, "Even a blind hog can find an acorn every now and then". I'm not sure if it's appropriate to pat John Andretti on the back or not for his substitution of Dale Junior at Pocono. Just looking at the final statistics, Junior was in 33rd position when he was relieved. Andretti brought the #8 home in 25th position. Of course, the route to 25th place was via putting the 8 into the wall for the second week in a row, and a few laps in the garage. So, on one hand, Adretti's stewardship only lost Dale Junior an additional 102 points to point leader Jimmie Johnson (as opposed to 121 pts w/ Junior in 33rd place). On the other hand, just about anybody with a pulse and a car that was still running should have been able to finish 7 laps down! At this point, I think I'll hold off on giving Andretti a kudos.

If I'm Rick Hendrick/Jeff Gordon (the owner not the driver) right now, I'm a bit sick knowing that the slate will be essentially wiped clean after race 26. Johnson is having a pretty awesome year, and is approaching the point of having an untouchable lead (based on the old points system). Finally, I've not been a big fan of the Chase for the Championship, since, I personally like the idea of rewarding year long consistency. I must admit that it's terribly exciting to see Mark Martin only 89 points from "making the show". 89 points in 6 races is a much easier route to the cup then 709 points in 16 races. Perhaps the new points system will inject some "championship excitement" for more than the top two or three.

Like it or not, open-wheel racing needs Tony George

This week I came across a story that confirmed the IRL was adding two (and as many as four) road courses to its touring circuit for 2005. My first comment was, "It's about damn time!" Maybe open-wheel racing folks can get past their squabble and get back to providing a good racing product and hopefully good racers.

This doldrum goes back a few decades. Back in the late-1970's Dan Gurney wrote a White Paper on the state of affairs and a new vision for open-wheel racing in America. Gurney's issue centered around USAC's lack of vision and non-existant input allowed from the team owners. He proposed a new sanctioning body where the team owners contributed to decision making, and a commissioner who, interestingly enough, worked on commission. Basically, the owners owned the series and provided the product while the commissioner acted on their behalf to organize and promote the sport. This idea was the beginning of Championship Auto Racing Teams or CART. CART was a publicly traded company, and the racing team owners had controlling interest.

It is hard to tell where CART went wrong, but something did. Despite having legendary racers like AJ Foyt, Al Unser, Mario Andretti, and Emerson Fittipaldi, CART never really expanded. I suspect it's because the owners who provided the product tried to maximize their earnings. In other words, they got greedy, but that should not have been a surprise. After all, Gurney's main inspiration for writing his white paper was the low profitbalitity of owning a race team. With CART, the foxen guarded the proverbial henhouse.

In the mid-1990's, Tony George, owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway decided he had enough of these primadonna owners, and formed the Indy Racing League. Without question, the Indy 500 is the 5,000-lb gorilla of open wheel racing. The IRL emphasized a lower-cost spec and exclusive oval racing to keep cost down. To drive the point home, he stripped sanctioning of the Indy 500 from CART and turned it over to the IRL. All qualifiers for the Indy 500 would now have to have competed in a minimum number of IRL-sanctioned events before they could enter the Indy 500. The fury over this announcement was indescribable. George's move essentially castrated CART. CART's answer to the Memorial Day classic was the U.S. 500 held at Michigan.

The damage was done, however. CART had the product, but the IRL had leadership. Over time, CART's attendance and ratings dwindled, they stopped racing on ovals, and their key drivers and teams migrated to the IRL. SNAFU's like the TMS cancellation emphasized the lack of leadership. Even Gurney himself had to pull out in 1999.

As much as I dislike the smug prick, Tony George is to open-wheel racing what Bill France was to stock car racing, a not-always benevolent dictator with a keen sense for expanding a business. Sure he will profit from it, but guys like Rick Hendrick, Jack Roush, and Richard Childress have found ways to make a living from NASCAR too. Bill France and Tony George, while they may be profiteers, have made it possible for all the dogs to get a bigger bite of a bigger steak instead of a bunch of hungry dogs fighting over a bare bone. Moreover, maybe American open-wheel racing can finally be good enough to supply a driver or two to Formula 1.

Now, if we could just figure out how to get more road courses on the NASCAR circuit and how to replace Bud Selig with someone like Bill France...