The View From the NASCAR pits

    I had the honor, privilege and fun of attending last weekend’s NASCAR race at the Kansas Speedway as a journalist. I was going to file a story for my radio station if a.) our local boy (Clint Bowyer of Emporia, KS) made good, or b.) something dramatic happened, like 12 cars pinwheeling into the spectators. Neither did. Kind of a bad news/good news situation. But I was able to meander through the paddock, stand in the pits during the race, take a ton of photos (to be posted on Facebook later this week), watch the victory lane celebrations and sit in on press conferences.

    Here are a few random observations from behind pit wall.

    It was going to be that kind of day for Tony (“Smoke”) Stewart… combative, sarcastic and, like so many, successful. It started early Sunday, when he was late to the mandatory drivers’ meeting. The meeting venue was crowded with sightseers and hangers-on, to the point where Stewart couldn’t get it. He said, loud enough for all to hear, “Boy, we must have a lot of drivers in here.” Soon after, someone put a camera right in his face and snapped a picture. “Do these people need to be in here?” he bellowed.

    That’s just Smoke being Smoke: fiery, focused and talented.

    And then he found the chair.

    During the press conference after his victory, one of the traveling press corps asked what Smoke thought was a stupid question.
“Jeff Gordon mentioned that under the old points system, you’d be well on your way to ….”
The questioner wasn’t given time to finish his sentence. You can guess where this is going from here.

    At first slightly combative, Smoke smoked, “We’re not under the old points system. We haven’t been for 5 years. Why are we even talking about this?”

    Trying to regain control of his question, the writer continued, “When Jeff Gordon was here….”

    This is when Stewart started channeling his inner Rodney Dangerfield.

    “Jeff Gordon was here? I’ll bet that was special.”

    “He was sitting in that very chair,” said the reporter, maybe hoping that playing along with the sarcasm would mercifully end this question/sarcasm/explanation/sarcasm cycle.

   “In this chair? Oh man, I can still feel the vibe. I think I’m gonna keep this chair.” He was just getting started. “Maybe get it autographed. That outta be worth something.” He was on a roll. “I should bring it back to the hauler. Can I have this chair?”

     He was looking for a member of the Kansas Speedway staff for confirmation or validation or for another straight line.
Stewart finally got around to answering the question, something about “we all know the point system is reset, we all know the rules at the beginning of the season, we all know the points before the Chase starts are irrelevant for the last 10 races” but no one was really paying attention anymore. They were all working out how to fit “Chair-gate” into the leads of their stories.

    The press conference ended after another – safer, generic – question. When Tony Stewart was last seen at the Kansas Speedway, he was wheeling his new chair back to the team’s HQ on wheels. It probably means more to him than the trophy.
          

    On Saturday afternoon, I wandered into the interview room right before a session with George Gillett Jr. I’d never heard of him either. I should have. He co-owns the Richard Petty Racing team. He used to own the Montreal Canadiens hockey team. He co-owns the Liverpool Football Club (the kick the ball into the net kind of football, not the Chiefs really suck kind) with Tom Hicks (owner of the Texas Rangers and former Texas Gov. George Bush).

    Mr. Gillett was having a press conference to rebut, challenge, shoot down, set straight, dissemble and generally retort some rumors that “the King’s” racing team – an icon of American motorsports – was being sold to a Middle Eastern concern.

    George has talked to Prince Faisal of Saudi Arabia. And, yes, Faisal has expressed some interest in purchasing a small share of the team. And, yes, they’ve signed some confidentiality agreements with the Prince, and, yes, they’ve talked about establishing some oval tracks in the Middle East, and, yes, they’ve talked about establishing a feeder series running in the Middle East.

    But George was here to strongly refute the notion Gulf oil barons were taking over the team.The press – the always maniacal and incorrect press – had been throwing around terms like “chaos” when describing Gillett’s team recently. So George wanted to set the record straight. Just because your main driver (Kasey Kahne) says he doesn’t know what’s going on with the team or who he reports to doesn’t mean the team is in chaos. In fact, quoth George, it’s just restructuring.

    The team will be switching to Fords next year because their current car company went bankrupt. Never a good sign.

    But he was direct and honest and insistent and unapologetic about what he wants to do with his racing team. And everyone should know the it will always be Richard Petty Racing, not the Prince Faisal Ford Motor Company Racing But America Will Always Need Middle East Oil Because You Don’t Conserve And Haven’t Invested In Solar race team.
 

    In the junior varsity race Saturday, the Nationwide Series, a 19-year-old driver named Parker Kligerman won the pole. Nineteen years young, you say. Yes, and it is also is his first race in that car. An auspicious debut, though he’s not old enough to drink the victory champagne. He drives for the Penske team, which has produced about 20 Indianapolis 500 winners and a handful of NASCAR race winners.   

    And then the race started, and he fell back and fell back … and fell back. He finished 16th. But, hey, first race, 19 years old, not bad. When I was 19, I was working a dead-end job, drinking myself into a stupor every weekend. So kudos to the kid.    

    The young man who finished 6th, Justin Allgaier, doesn’t look old enough to be my paperboy, let alone be a race car driver. He’ll likely be the series Rookie of the Year … before he starts shaving regularly.
 

    He is a quick rundown of the field: in the race this year are 2 former F1 drivers (Montoya and Speed), 4 alliterative initial drivers (Mark Martin, Kasey Kahne, Scott Speed, Jimmie Johnson), 3 Juniors (Earnhardt, Truex, Hornish), 2 Indy 500 winners (Montoya, Hornish), 1 Kansan (Bowyer), 2 Missourians (Edwards and McMurray) 1 Colombian (Montoya), 1 Australian (Ambrose), 1 Italian (Papis), 3 rookies (Speed, Logano, Papis), 2 brothers (Kurt and Kyle Busch), 2 Gordons (Jeff and Robby)  and 15 Chevys, 12 Toyotas, 8 Dodges, 8 Fords and a Marcos in a Little Debbie (Ambrose in a Toyota sponsored by the snack cakes).

 
    Oh, the toils, troubles and travails of Dale Jr. fans.

    First, his evil stepmother kicks him off daddy’s team, then he loses his cherished #8, then his fans need to refresh their tattoos with a new number and color (green #88 instead of red #8). He didn’t qualify for the Chase, his best finish this year was 2nd at Talladega (the 9th race of the year), and then, well, he sucks. OK, maybe he doesn’t suck. But he is overrated.

    But this weekend at the Kansas Speedway, he qualified second fastest, the outside of Row 1. Is this the beginning of the redemption?

    He ran strong early on, pulling out a lead after restart. Then things returned to normal. During the first round of pit stops one of the lug nuts on a rear wheel was left off during a tire change. Race officials called him back into the pits. That moved him from first to 32nd. From there, the day didn’t get any better. He finished 36th.  

 

    There was a lot of talk earlier in the year about Indy Car’s PR sensation and occasionally good driver Danica Patrick flirting with joining NASCAR in 2010. I don’t believe there’s ever been a female driver in NASCAR. There were three women in the Indy 500 this year. The last female who raced in F1 scored points at the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix. Why the glass garage door in NASCAR?

    Where are the black drivers? F1 has a black world champion. The Hispanics (other than Indy car and F1 transplant Montoya)? The Asians? Hell, the Yankees have a pitcher named Chein-Ming Wang.

    The NASCAR fan base has expanded exponentially during the past 10 years. But it’s still a profoundly overwhelmingly white, working class audience. So much so that 5 years ago, Sen. John Kerry, in a bid to win “NASCAR Dads” as a voting bloc, issued the painfully embarrassing statement, “Who among us does not enjoy NASCAR.”

    That is the whitest thing anyone has ever said. It could have only been worse if he “y’all” with his Boston Brahmin.

 

   In addition to not having to shift, brake or turn right, NASCAR drivers don’t have to even use their mirrors. They have “spotters,” a crew member high above the race track telling them who is coming up behind them, on which side and what to do about it. Seems like cheating to me. Make these guys figure it out for themselves.

   They also allow a “lucky dog pass,” the ability to go around the pack and stay on the lead lap if they pitted under green and then a caution period ensues. That’s rewarding a driver for guessing wrong, or to put it in “short bus” terms, everybody deserves a trophy.
 

   How can you tell it’s race day? The Hooters restaurant is open early for breakfast.

 
    How much do NASCAR fans love souvenirs? Walking back to my car I saw a man carrying scraps of body parts from the Nationwide race and a woman wearing a stray lug nut as a ring.

    No matter how talented, aggressive, reckless or overzealous a driver he is, I don’t think anyone will ever be intimidated by a driver named A.J. Allmendinger. Allmendinger conjures up visions of, I don’t know, a Bavarian vicar or an Austrian porn star.

   And, finally, we come to the stat geek portion of the program. Here’s a quick review of NASCAR’s ridiculous points system. The Kansas race was the 29th out of 36 races. Here is NASCAR’s driver points tally:

1          Mark Martin                   5551                                                                 
2          Jimmie Johnson          5533                                                                 
3          Juan Pablo Montoya  5500                                                                 
4          Tony Stewart                 5484                                                                 
5          Kurt Busch                      5460                                                                 
6          Denny Hamlin               5452                                                                 
7          Jeff Gordon                    5448                                                                 
8          Greg Biffle                       5437                                                                 
9          Ryan Newman              5387                                                                 
10        Carl Edwards                5386                                                                                         

If they’d keep score the way F1 does (the way God intended), the points would look like this:
1          Tony Stewart              109
2          Jeff Gordon                 100
3          Mark Martin                99
4          Jimmie Johnson        89
5          Denny Hamlin             81
6          Kyle Busch                   64
7          Kurt Busch                  58
8          Greg Biffle                    50
9          Kasey Kahne               47
10        Carl Edwards             44

    I guess NASCAR feels that American like really big numbers, like the federal deficit, the number of kids Jon and Kate have, or the number of lobbyists trying to defeat health care reform. None of those small, wimpy European numbers here.

 

Thanks for reading. Let me know what you  think.