The Earnhardt yardstick really isn't a fair measure

Look, you don't have to be a genius to figure out that if you write about Dale Earnhardt Jr. race fans are going to get fired up, especially when you're talking about drawing conclusions about his performance or his standing in NASCAR.

The reason I wrote a blog Friday about what Jimmy Spencer said on last week's prerace show is that I felt people would be interested in hearing what Spencer said when we asked him to expand on his remarks when he was on "The Morning Drive" on Sirius NASCAR Radio.

I love it when people accuse reporters or people who write on the internet of "just trying to get hits" or merely writing something so people will read it. Well, duh. What are we supposed to do? Look for obscure things to report about people nobody gives a dang about?

But anyway, back to Earnhardt Jr.

If you're a Dale Jr. fan and you believe that "the media" has put unreasonable expectations on him as a driver, I would point out to you that the reason he said he was going to Hendrick Motorsports was to win races and contend for championships.

The media didn't say that, he did.

He made the Chase this year, but was never, ever a factor in it. He won just one points race and, more to the point, his team did not seem to get better as the season went along. Indeed, he was much stronger earlier in the season than later. Was that because his team fell off or because other teams got better at a faster rate than his did? I don't know, but it doesn't matter.

When the championship is on the line during the Chase your team has to not only be at its best, it has to be better than everybody else.

I will guarantee you that Earnhardt Jr. was disappointed that his team didn't wind up beating any other team that made the Chase.

On the other hand, I will also guarantee you that if you're one of the Dale Jr. haters who thinks you're insulting him by saying he'll never be as good as his father, you're never going to hear Earnhardt Jr. himself argue with that. While he has said he wants to be a champion, he has never said he wants to be his father. In fact, he's gone out of his way to say he knows he'll never be that.

And this just in, nobody else will be, either.

Dale Earnhardt will be in the first class to enter NASCAR's Hall of Fame. There's absolutely no question or argument about that. He, Richard Petty, David Pearson and Bill France Sr. are slam dunks for the inaugural class. Earnhardt changed the sport and he was one of the great figures in all of American sport.

If you're trying to hold Dale Jr. - or any other current driver - up to the Earnhardt standard, he's absolutely going to fall short. But there's nothing wrong with measuring Earnhardt Jr. to the standards he set for himself, which are by the way the same standards any top-tier driver should be reaching toward.

Was Dale Jr. a failure at Hendrick?

Jimmy Spencer is never at a loss for an opinion, which is a good thing because Speed pays him to give his opinions on television.

Before last week’s final Sprint Cup race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Spencer’s opinion was that Dale Earnhardt Jr. had been “a failure” in his first season at Hendrick Motorsports. We had him on “The Morning Drive” on Sirius NASCAR Radio Friday morning and he talked about why he felt that way.

“I had really high expectations for Junior this year,” Spencer said. “But I don’t think his performance this year was a whole lot better than it was when he was in the 8 car. He did make the Chase this year, but that was because he didn’t blow up a lot of engines.”

Earnhardt Jr. did win one points race, at Michigan, and the Bud Shootout at Daytona. But he finished 12th in the Chase standings.

“I think it’s a lack of focus,” Spencer said. “He’d be running in the top five and then he’d start arguing with his crew.”

Spencer said he speaks from experience from his own years as a driver.

“I lacked focus,” he said. “We were leading a race at Bristol and I made a pit stop and had to come back in and get a loose lug nut fixed. I was mad at the crew and I lost focus on doing my job and got into a wreck.

“Focus means you have to keep your head on. If you make a mistake or if the team makes a mistake you have to deal with it. It’s like in golf. If you hit a 7-iron you can’t be thinking about what went wrong the last time you hit it. Boris Said told me that on a road course if you miss a turn you can’t go back and do it again, you have to keep going.

“When your car is off a little bit and the team makes a chance and it doesn’t react the way you wanted it to, you can’t blow up. You have to stay clam and feed information back to the team and you have to let them do their jobs and keep doing your job.”

Earnhardt Jr.’s crew chief, Tony Eury Jr., is the driver’s cousin and sometimes they fight like brothers. If they were winning races and contending for the championship, people would be talking about how honest they are with each other in their communication. But when things aren’t great, their relationship is often construed as a detriment to the team.

Earnhardt Jr. has steadfastly stood by Eury Jr. He said he doesn’t want to race against him and get beat by him, he’d rather race with him and win together.

Until they start winning at the same kind of level that Jimmie Johnson, Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch won at this year, though, the No. 88 team isn’t going to get where it wants to be.

Is it fair to say that team was a “failure” this year?

Well, I don’t think anyone would say that Earnhardt Jr. and his team attained “success” in 2008. And in this context, isn’t “failure” the opposite of that?

How three drivers dominated

When you look at this season's final results for the Sprint Cup Series, it's hard not to be a little puzzled.

You can say that three teams dominated the season, but you have to be careful how you use the word "team." Roush Fenway Racing won 11 races this year. Joe Gibbs Racing won 10 and Hendrick Motorsports won eight. That's 29 of 36 races.

But if you look at it, Carl Edwards won nine of the 11 at Roush. Kyle Busch won eight of the 10 at Gibbs. Jimmie Johnson won seven of the eight at Hendrick. So those three drivers won 24 of those 29 that their teams won. It wasn't that multicar teams dominated as much as it was that particular drivers and their teams did.

I actually have a theory about why that is.

I believe that the new car that Sprint Cup teams used this year is a big part of that. Specifically, I believe that teams haven't figured out nearly as many ways to adjust on the car and make it both comfortable for a driver and fast enough to be competitive as they had with the old car.

What that means is that a team gets the car as good as it can get it. From that point, it's up to the driver to adapt to the car. It's no longer - or at least not right now - a matter of conitnuing to work on the car to give the driver the feel he's looking for. The successful teams are the ones where the driver has been able to adapt to how the car feels when the team finds a way to make it go fast. The driver becomes the variable, not the car.

That doesn't necessarily mean that Johnson, Edwards and Busch are the best drivers. This year, though, they were able to adapt their styles better to this car. Either that, or what is best for this car is also what is best (or significantly better) for them. Maybe both.

I don't think that Hendrick, Roush or Gibbs would set things up where one team is far and away better than all of its others. I think those teams share information freely, so it's not a matter of the 48, the 99 or the 18 having big secrets.

What I believe is that the three guys who dominated this year reached a point where they decided that the new car is what it is. To make it go fast, you can't drive it the way you drove the old car and you can't keep searching for that old car's feel. You have to learn what "right" is in this car.

To me, that's another reason Johnson's third straight title is so impressive. Clearly at the start of the season Johnson was not getting along very well with the new car. He and his team tested extensively and I think Johnson learned as much about how to change himself as the team did about changing the car.

Just my theory.

NASCAR driver of the year? I vote for ...

On the way home from Homestead the other day, I started thinking about two votes I had to cast this week.

One was for the Driver of the Year Award, which is picked by a panel of media members that I am on. The other was for the Richard Petty Driver of the Year Award, which is chosen by the members of the National Motorsports Press Association.

The first award includes all forms of motorsports that compete in North America. The second is basically the NASCAR driver of the year honor.

My problem was this. I knew that the top candidate for the overall award from the National Hot Rod Association was record-setting Top Fuel driver Tony Schumacher. Scott Dixon, the Indy Racing League champion, was the clear choice from open wheel.

But then came NASCAR and the vote for the NMPA award. I couldn't compare NASCAR's top driver with Schumacher and Dixon until I decided who to vote for in the award named after Richard Petty.

Jimmie Johnson won his third championship and seven races this year. Say what you will about the system, but Johnson won the title with the one that's in place. He also beat Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch, the other two candidates, for top honors in the sport's premiere series.

Edwards won 16 times in the Cup and Nationwide Series and finished with more top fives (19) and top 10s (27) in Cup than anyone else. He also finished second in the Cup and Nationwide standings and was closing fast at the end in both series.

Then there was Busch. In 84 total races in Cup, Nationwide and Trucks this year he won a remarkable 21 times. His bid to win the Cup title fizzled when he got off to a slow start in the Chase, but he tied Sam Ard's record with 10 Nationwide wins and had 57 top-10 finishes all year -- 36 in 48 starts in Nationwide and Cup.

You can't flip a three-sided coin, as far as I know, so what I decided to do was to ask listeners to the Sirius NASCAR Radio show, "The Morning Drive," that I co-host each weekday.

Between the calls and e-mails, we probably had 50 or 60 votes. It was pretty close, but the pick was Busch because of his overall excellence this year. It's the same rationale that made sense to me in 2001 when Kevin Harvick won the Busch Series title and did so well after being called on to replace the late Dale Earnhardt in Cup.

Harvick got the award in 2001 and Busch got my vote in the NMPA balloting this year. We'll see in January how the rest of the NMPA voted and who gets the award.

As for the broader Driver of the Year contest, I went with Schumacher. Nobody dominated his sport like Schumacher did this year. The driver of the Top Fuel car owned by his father, Don, won 15 NHRA races and had 76 round wins. He became the No. 1 Top Fuel winner of all-time in the process and, unlike Busch, he did win his championship.

Max Siegel on a difficult week at DEI

HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Normally, the final week of a NASCAR season feels like the last day of school.

After nine months of seeing the same people just about every weekend, it’s time to go back and finally unpack the suitcase and reintroduce yourself to the family and the neighbors.

Somebody always figures out how many days it is until the new year starts in Daytona, and everybody gives a good-natured groan when they hear that number. It’s usually a lot of “Happy Holidays!” and see-you-soon hugs and handshakes.

Not this time.

Homestead-Miami Speedway is not a bad place. We’re not that far from Key West and even closer to South Beach. The weather is absolutely glorious.

But it’s a depressing place to be this weekend. Instead of a sense of accomplishment for those who’ve had a good year and a sense of hope for those looking for better luck next year, there’s a sense of dread. Instead of being relieved to be at the end of a long season, too many people are fearful over what next week will bring.

Nobody really knows how many people in NASCAR will lose their jobs at the end of this season. With Dale Earnhardt Inc. cutting 116 positions this week on the heels of several other, smaller layoffs by other teams, the number is already well north of 200. Some believe that number could be 1,000 – or more – before the bloodletting is done.

It doesn’t really matter, at least not in any human terms, what the actual numbers are. It’s easy to get caught up in the numbers when things are this bad and forget that each person losing a job is a person – somebody with a family and a mortgage and a car payment. Not to mention a passion that has driven them to come into the racing industry in the first place, a passion they may have to abandon as teams all across the NASCAR spectrum trim their payrolls.

Max Siegel knows that all too well.

As president of global operations for DEI, Siegel spent his week letting those 116 people know they weren’t going to have jobs once DEI completed its merger with Chip Ganassi Racing. DEI had four Cup cars and Ganassi had two, but those six teams will be streamlined back to four in 2009.

“It was a very tough week,” Siegel said Saturday at Homestead. “It’s gut-wrenching to try to go through and make those decisions. You’re balancing the best interests of the business and the impact you’re having on somebody’s life. It’s very emotional. It’s a very difficult thing to do.”

Nobody likes firing people. But without a merger, DEI might have ceased to exist and nobody would have had a job.

“You go and try to stabilize your business and you’re trying to save jobs,” Siegel said. “On the one hand you feel relieved you’re able to keep people employed that you’re passionate about. On the other side, it never leaves you the impact you’re having on other people.”

What makes it harder, Siegel said, is that the people you’re letting go are losing jobs they really, really want to keep.

“Everyone who works in this sport does it because they love it,” Siegel said. “They make tremendous personal sacrifices. The season is long and you make a commitment and give it everything you have every single week. It’s extremely difficult.”

Siegel said he’s going to stay on at the merged company for at least as long as it takes to get the new arrangements in place. Beyond that, he’s not sure. In this economy, nobody is.

DEI gave severance packages and out-placement counseling to the people it let go. Siegel said everyone in the motorsports industry is trying to help each other out as much as possible.

“We just tried to make sure people were in the best place they could be,” Siegel said.

Still, things were a long way from being easy. “There’s shock, anger, a high level of anxiety, confusion – a wide range of emotions,” Siegel said. “People deal with those in different ways. …It’s sobering what’s going on.”

Questionable reporting? That's when the ask exceeds any real grasp

HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Thank goodness this weekend is the end of the NASCAR season. I think some of my fellow media members need some time off.

Or maybe some counseling.

It’s Friday afternoon at Homestead-Miami Speedway and Sprint Cup qualifying just wrapped up. David Reutimann and Scott Speed make up an unlikely front row for Sunday’s Ford 400.

The big story, of course, is Jimmie Johnson’s bid to win a third straight Cup championship. He leads Carl Edwards by 141 points coming into this race, and despite the fact that Edwards will start fourth Sunday and Johnson only qualified 30th fastest, Johnson is in good shape to do just that.

But beginning at Thursday’s contenders press conference up in Coral Gables, reporters have been asking about and writing about how upset they are that Johnson and Edwards don’t appear to despise each other.

Question after question on Thursday picked at that topic.

Darrell Waltrip said it bothered him for Johnson and Edwards to be saying nice things about each other instead of trying to pick at one another or play mind games. Waltrip couldn’t operate that way.

And that’s fine. DW was, and is, a different kind of cat. But if Johnson tried to act like Waltrip, it would come off as phony.

Fans complain about drivers being “vanilla.” That topic is constantly overdone, and I quickly grow weary of hearing fans tell me they want drivers to be more colorful.

No, they don’t. Let a driver show a little bit of temper or a little bit of anger and the fans jump on him like bees on a bucket of honey. Ask Kyle Busch how that’s worked out for him this year.

I don’t think all drivers should be vanilla. But I think a driver should be whatever flavor he truly is.

It would have been a spectacularly bad idea for NASCAR to try to muzzle Waltrip back in his day. Waltrip’s personality added a lot to this sport and he would have been wrong to have tried to be somebody he’s not.

By the same token, it would be just as big of a mistake for Johnson to try to be something he’s not. He’s not a loudmouth. He’s not the kind of guy who likes to make snide remarks about his fellow competitors. He just doesn’t work that way and nobody should expect him to just for cheap entertainment thrills for a few race fans.

On Thursday, former champion Ned Jarrett was at the NASCAR press conference and people started asking him if it’s “good for the sport” that the two championship contenders seem to actually be able to tolerate one another.

One reporter asked Ned and his son, Dale, another former champion, if they didn’t feel that a driver has to be a jerk, or at least act like one at times, to be a good competitor.

The Jarretts both blinked and just looked at the questioner. It was like the guy was speaking a language the Jarretts, two of the classiest men in all of sports, didn’t understand.

The topper came Friday, though, when somebody in the media decided he’d work on a story about why Edwards’ teammates at Roush Fenway Racing don’t openly and intentionally start Sunday’s race with the plan to wreck Johnson to try to help Edwards win the title.

The same guy also asked Rick Hendrick, Johnson’s car owner, why he wouldn’t order his drivers to wreck Edwards to secure the title for Johnson’s team.

Every time the question was asked, the driver being asked reacted as though he thought somebody might be trying to pull his leg.

Matt Kenseth gave a couple of pretty good answers. Why would he not intentionally wreck Johnson? “Common sense?” Kenseth said. “Being a grown-up?”

Good grief.

Bumped broadcast symptom of a bigger ill

In the grand scheme of things, ABC's decision to dump the final 34 minutes of Sunday's Sprint Cup race at Phoenix over to ESPN2 might not matter all that much.

We do have bigger things to worry about, not only in NASCAR but in this great big world of ours. Race teams are fighting for survival and NASCAR management either doesn't care or doesn't have any good ideas on how to help them. Some teams have lost or will lose sponsors and even those who have contracts with sponsors don't know if those sponsors will be in business long enough to honor them. Dozens, if not hundreds, of people who'll be at the track for this weekend's season-ending Truck, Nationwide and Cup races can't be sure if they'll have jobs on Monday.

Compared to all that, switching Sunday's broadcast from one station to another doesn't seem that important.

But it is.

One major newspaper columnist wrote afterward that ABC's decision ends the argument as to whether NASCAR is a major sport once and for all. The end of an NFL game doesn't get handed off from network television to second-tier cable. Networks, broadcast or cable, usually don't bail out on playoff games -- especially if the option is a piffle of a program like "America's Funniest Home Videos."

A lot of us who work around NASCAR have known for a long time that the sport's leadership has basically handed control of the sport over to television. TV sets the starting times. NASCAR will let it's television "partners" push around the timing of the green flag if a baseball game leading in goes to extra innings or if a football game goes to overtime. Qualifying and practice coverage is shuffled off to other cable outlets, shown on bizarre tape delay schedules or omitted entirely.

All of these things could be written into NASCAR's television contract. The TV deal could stipulate that no race can be moved to another network unless the start is delayed more than, say, two hours. The TV contract could force networks to commit to support programming. All of that could happen if NASCAR had the power to set those conditions and the will to stand by them even if it meant taking less money from partners willing to make the commitments they'd have to make to comply.

In the final half-hour of its telecast from Phoenix, ABC got a 4.6 rating. The 30-minutes it aired "America's Funniest Home Videos" got a 3.8. So ABC lost viewers. What it didn't lose, however, was revenue. ABC had aired the commercials it had sold for the race coverage. It had picked up all the money it was going to get there. By switching to its regular prime-time schedule, it also collected the money it was owed for commercials sold on that programming.

Were viewers served? Were race fans served? Not those who didn't hear or otherwise notice the announcement of the switch. Not those who were taping the race hoping to view it later. Not those who don't have ESPN2 on their cable.

What happens this week, if there's a South Florida rain shower and a race that won't start until about 4 p.m. Eastern is shoved back past the scheduled 8 p.m. close of ABC's broadcast window for NASCAR? Will Jimmie Johnson's championship celebration be shown as part of a special on ESPN Classic at midnight? If so, the sad truth is that NASCAR apparently couldn't do anything about it.

Economy may require more than a debris caution

AVONDALE, Ariz. – Things are getting so tough in the economy these days that even people in stock car racing are beginning to notice it.

“I learned a very valuable lesson,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. said Friday at Phoenix International Raceway. “I think that when things are going really, really well ... you want to hire this guy because he’s a buddy of yours and you want to bring this guy in because you’re related to him and this guy in because you heard he’s great. You’ve got to be careful.

“ ... You need to just take what you can afford and when it comes to assets, people, parts, pieces, everything. We were all on the upswing for so long I think a lot of people kept it under control and some people got a little ahead of themselves a little bit.”

That may not sound like piercing business analysis, but the Sprint Cup garage can be an insulated place. The real world doesn’t always get through the gate.

This situation, though, is different. When General Motors announced Friday that it lost $2.5 billion in the third quarter and could run out of money by next year without government help, people had to notice.

“We certainly worry about it," Jimmie Johnson said. "I think everyone in the world is worried about their financial future."

A GM official told scenedaily.com that the company would be able to honor its contractural obligations to NASCAR teams in 2009. But GM has already made cuts in its marketing plans and teams clearly can’t expect the manufacturer to add a lot of things to what it is absolutely committed to provide.

GM has called off any talks of merging with Chrysler and its racing officials have nixed any NASCAR mergers that would involve associations with teams running another manufacturer’s product.

The effect of that for NASCAR is that some teams have fewer options as they try to stay alive and competitive than they would otherwise have had.

There’s talk of layoffs – hundreds of them – once the current NASCAR season ends. Hendrick Motorsports and Earnhardt Jr.’s team, JR Motorsports, have already cut staff. Depending on how you count it, as many as 15 current full-time Cup teams face questions about their sponsorship for 2009. You can multiply that number by two or three if you include the Nationwide and Truck series.

Earnhardt Jr. was probably right Friday when he said GM is too big for the government to allow to fail outright. But if you think NASCAR is going to come through the next 18 months or so with things just like they are right now, you’re nuts.

Everybody seems to understand this. Everybody, perhaps, but NASCAR itself.

Actually, to be fair, NASCAR seems to be aware that things aren’t lovely. Plans to allow Cup teams to test 24 days next year seem to be on hold.

What NASCAR needs to do is make that number zero. Some teams will still go to tracks not on the circuit to test, but if NASCAR allows 12 days of testing on tracks where Cup cars race then every team that wants to be competitive will have to test 12 days.

NASCAR also is right not to make rules changes to the new car. New rules make teams spend more money, and that’s not smart right now. The racing might be better if cars were allowed to raise the splitter and travel more as they go into the turns, but now it not the time to introduce those variables to the sport.

What NASCAR isn’t doing, though, is providing enough of the kind of leadership this sport needs. I know NASCAR wants to treat teams like independent contractors because that makes their business lives a lot less complicated. But I don’t know if that model works anymore.

Can NASCAR just sit around and afford to let six, eight or 10 race teams just go away, figuring someone else will come eventually to replace them?

I guess it can, but I don’t think it should.

Shorter fields would short some teams

FORT WORTH, Texas - Can I ask something? Because I am confused.

What good would it do for NASCAR to officially shorten its fields for Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Truck Series? Why does that make any sense, even if the economy completely tanks?

There was a report a couple of weeks ago that NASCAR was thinking about making 36 races the number in a full field for Cup races, instead of 43. NASCAR has denied it, but that hasn't kept people from still writing and talking about the idea.

The only problem with that is that it doesn't make the slighest bit of sense.

Let's suppose things get as bad as they possibly could and three for four races into the 2009 season only 34 or 35 cars show up for a Cup race.

Would that be the end of the world? It would absolutely be treated as such, of course, but the truth is there would still be the same number of cars capable of winning the race - 15 or so - in a 34-car field as there are in a 43-car field.

Chances are also good that if you had 34 full-time teams show up, there would be five or six one-and-off teams show up, too. Call them "start and parks" if you want to, but someone running five or six races as a start-and-park team might figure out that they could make a go of this and one day in the future there would be a new team formed out of that.

But let's say the sport goes eight or 10 weeks with fewer than 43 cars showing up and NASCAR reacts. It cuts the 43-car fields to 36 and cuts the qualifying-exempt number from 35 to 30.

So right off the top, you've taken something away from five race teams they've done nothing to deserve losing.

Anyway, you've decided that 36 is the maximum. So what if 39 teams show up? You're telling me it's a good idea to send three of them home because you've decided that it looks better for you to say your maximum is 36 and not 43?

Of course it isn't. If you can run 43 cars, and you have been for years, you've got no business lowering that maximum if it means you're going to be sending teams who're trying to hang on for dear life home for no good reason.

It just doesn't make any sense. At least not to me.

Changing the Chase format would change nothing that matters

FORT WORTH, Texas – This is me. About to SCREAM!

I thought I was weary of election talk. And I am. But I would rather be forced to watch campaign ads on a continuous loop for the next three days that listen to one more Sprint Cup driver be asked how the Chase for the Sprint Cup ought to be changed.

Actually, I would rather have somebody poke me in the eye with a sharp stick than listen to more Chase questions.

OK, I am going to try this one more time. Because I am a patient man, I guess.

There is nothing you can to do ANY championship format that will change the fact that Jimmie Johnson and his team have been money in the championship bank the past three years.

In 2006 Johnson rallied from a big deficit with a streak of five races in which he finished second four times and first once. Last year, he won four in a row. This year, he has seven top-10 finishes in seven tries while everybody else in the Chase has had at least one stumble.

Johnson has 23 straight Chase race finishes of 14th or better, with 21 of those being top-10 finishes. If you can run like that, you SHOULD be the champion.

The 12-11-10-9-8 system? It doesn’t change anything. The idea of throwing out your worst finish? Changes nothing. The idea of a shorter Chase – five races instead of 10 – would make it closer after two races but if it was a five-race Chase people would gripe about that not being a fair representation of how to pick a champion. Somebody would STILL want to put a road-course race in the Chase, which is a spectacularly bad idea.

Greg Biffle said Friday he’d like to see Talladega pulled out of the Chase because it’s too much of a wild card. Let me ask this. Does everybody in the Chase have to race Talladega? I thought so.
Sports Illustrated’s Lars Anderson wrote this week that the 12-11-10-9-8 system would have Carl Edwards 19 points behind Johnson right now, meaning Edwards would “still be in the hunt.”

Well, 19 points certainly sounds closer than 183 points, which is Edwards’ current deficit. But, for the 90th time, it’s an illusion. In that system, if Edwards won here Sunday and Johnson finished 43rd, he would still be eight points behind Johnson. In that system, that’s eight positions with two races to go.

But as it now stands, if Edwards wins and Johnson finishes last year then Johnson is only 22 points back. That’s no more than five positions, and that’s counting everybody in the race. To make up ground in the 12-11-10-9-8 system, Edwards would have to beat Johnson and seven other Chase drivers to catch Johnson at Phoenix.

The way it is now Edwards could catch up by beating Johnson and just four other drivers – anybody. Or he could win and have Johnson finish as high as THIRD at Phoenix.

As would be the case in the “mulligan” system, Edwards is closer to Johnson in the current format than he would be in the 12-11-10-9-8 system.

When is an idea a bad idea? When it makes the situation you think is bad even worse than it currently is. And there’s no way to fix a bad idea by talking about – no matter how much you talk about it.

Here's an idea:Quit worrying about the points format and get back to work

HAMPTON, Ga. - So maybe you've heard that Jack Roush proposed his own variation on how to Jimmie-proof the Chase for the Sprint Cup after Sunday's Pep Boys Auto 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

After one of his drivers, Carl Edwards, won the race, Roush said he thinks NASCAR should allow each driver in the Chase to throw out his worst finish in the 10-race playoff and count only the other nine. The thinking would be that would not penalize a driver too much for having one bad race.

OK, first, if a driver can go 10 straight races without having a finish worse than about 10th, why shouldn't he get credit for doing that over a guy who doesn't? Why shouldn't everything count?

But even if you don't buy that, this is yet another example of somebody not understanding that no system you can think of is going to help you beat a team that's beating you as bad as Johnson and his team are beating his Chase rivals.

Let's do the math.

If we had a one-race forgiveness system, Johnson would now throw out a 143-point race.

Edwards would throw out his 64-point race at Charlotte. Greg Biffle would lose 96 points. Jeff Burton would throw out a 109-point race.

OK, that would leave Johnson 104 points up on Edwards right now. He'd be 138 ahead of Biffle and 184 up on Burton. And that would be closer than it is now (Johnson leads Edwards by 183, Biffle by 185 and Burton by 218).

As always, though, where these things fall through is in how fast you can make up points.

Let's say next week Jimmie Johnson finishes 43rd at Texas and Edwards wins the race and leads the most laps. Under the current format, he'd gain 161 points and be 22 points behind.

But under the system Roush advocated, Johnson would throw out the 34 points he'd get at Texas and get back the 143-point race that's now his lowest. So Edwards would get 195 points and Johnson, in effect, would get 143 from Texas.

So Edwards would pick up 52 points and would be 52 back.

In other words, he'd be 30 points further back Roush's way than he would be the way things are now.

Look, what teams in the Cup series ought to do instead of worrying about how to change the Chase system is to figure out a way to beat the 48 team more often.

Johnson and his team come to the track and do their job. They got a lap down Sunday and fought all the way back to second place. A bunch of teams could have come in for tires with eight laps left in Sunday's race and tried to pick up positions. Johnson's team did, and Johnson moved from 11th to second in those eight laps.

The Chase system didn't give them those points. Johnson and his team earned them. Every last one of them. And every last one of them should count, too.

Cale Yaborough and the coach

One good thing about the fact that Jimmie Johnson has a chance to match Cale Yarborough’s record with a third straight Cup championship is that it provides a good opportunity to tell Cale Yarborough stories.

Yarborough was a car owner by the time I started covering the sport full time, but I certainly remember watching him race. In my mind, Cale was leading every lap I ever saw him race. He just wanted to be up front more than he wanted to breathe, it seemed.

When I was sports editor of the newspaper in Gastonia, N.C., my hometown, we had a lady who worked in the business office named Charity Tignor who was without question the biggest Cale Yarborough fan I knew. Charity would have walked barefoot across a mile of broken glass to see Cale race. She might have walked half of a mile through a blizzard just to see him read a newspaper or clip his fingernails.

Anyway, NASCAR had Yarborough on a conference call the other day and he started telling the story about how he chose racing over football. Clemson fans will get a kick out of the story.

"I had a scholarship to Clemson, a football scholarship, playing under Frank Howard,” Yarborough said, speaking about the legendary coach as the South Carolina university. “I was racing during the summer. I was just about to win the track championship.

"I went to Coach Howard and told him I needed to go home to race one more race and then I'd be through with it. He said, ‘If you go back, pack your clothes, don't come back. You either go and race or play football.’ ”

So Yarborough packed his clothes and left Clemson.

“Of course, he kept calling,” Yarborough said. “I told him, ‘You told me to pack my clothes, and that's what I did. I'm going to make racing my career.’

“He says, ‘Son, you'll starve to death.’

“I said, ‘Well, I may.’ ”

Yarborough did all right, of course. He won 83 Cup races and three championships and had career earnings of over $5.6 million dollars.

He also had legion of fans – fans like Charity Tignor ... and like Frank Howard.

“In the end, Frank Howard is one of my biggest fans,” Yarborough said. “He used to love to go to races and stand in my pits.

“I'll never forget that he was at Talladega when I won a race there. He was in the winner's circle. He walked up to me and put his hands on my shoulder. He always called me boy. He said, ‘Boy, I ain't never been wrong many times in my life, but I want you to know I was wrong this time.’ ”

Helping doesn't always have to be about marketing

How could NASCAR set up a driver development program that would work?

Easily, provided the people who run stock-car racing get over two major phobias.

The first hurdle is the willingness to spend its own money. NASCAR likes to cash checks, not write them. But to do driver development the right way, that won’t work.

The second fear is about having NASCAR itself pick out and support some drivers whereas others are told they have to make it on their own. There are legitimate concerns there, and any program operated and supported in a real way by NASCAR will have to be run properly. But before we start worrying about how to make such a program fair, we first have to overcome the resistance to having one in the first place.

I would take what’s now known as the Drive for Diversity program and expand it greatly.

Every January, drivers from around the country would apply for spots in the developmental program. The same kind of people who now pick candidates for the D4D program would select 50 candidates from these applications. All drivers, not just women and minorities, could apply, but at least some of the 50 candidates would represent all facets of the applicant pool in terms of race and gender.

Those 50 drivers would be brought to Irwindale Speedway in California in January for a two-week evaluation session in the weeks leading up to the annual Toyota Showdown at that track. The candidates would drive individually and in groups, in qualifying and racing scenarios, so their talents could be evaluated as fully as possible.

From that group of 50, the top-30 candidates would be selected to participate in the upcoming season. They would be teamed with current or future team owners who agree to participate in the new program, with each getting the same amount from NASCAR to support the team for a season of competition.

The selected drivers would be divided into three groups of 10. One group would run tracks primarily in the Southeastern United States at tracks like Hickory and Concord that have long supported NASCAR-sanctioned racing at the grassroots level. Another group would focus on tracks in the Northeast and Ohio Valley. The third group would race in the western portion of the country.

The groups would travel to several tracks within their own area and compete against the drivers who race at those tracks each weekend. This would give short tracks events where drivers who’re identified as potential future stars could be marketed, boosting the short-track industry.

At various times throughout the season, all 30 drivers would come together to compete in a race that would be paired with a Sprint Cup race at a nearby track. During Charlotte’s May race week, they would compete at Concord. During Daytona’s July race week, they’d be a Volusia County. They could run at Oxford, Maine, along with a race at New Hampshire or back at Irwindale when the Cup guys are at California.

The season would conclude in September, the week after the 26th race of Sprint Cup season. This would be an open date on the Cup schedule and the season-ending race for the developmental series would be held on Sunday afternoon and broadcast as part of the NASCAR network television package as a showcase event.

The driver who scores the most points during the season – with all of the races where all 30 compete counting double – is the developmental series champion. What that driver wins is a two-year driving contract with a NASCAR Truck or Nationwide series team, with NASCAR guaranteeing that team with the financial backing it needs to compete.

The idea of NASCAR directly sponsoring drivers and teams might sound radical to some, but if done right the process of determining who gets that backing would be based on ability and performance on the track. Instead of hearing about things like marketability we’d be hearing about lap times and victory totals. It could be more about driving cars and less about driving products off the shelves.

And it could work.

It matters who the messenger is and who pays the messenger

CONCORD, N.C. - So now photographic proof of Thursday's scuffle between Kevin Harvick and Carl Edwards is out there for everyone to see.

It's not that there was ever any doubt that what was reported actually happened. Too many people saw the two drivers pushing and shoving for that. They also saw photographers standing there, taking pictures of the whole thing, too.

Why weren't those photos immediately available on news wires and Internet sites?

Well, the sad truth is that most of the people shooting pictures in the NASCAR garage these days aren't there working - at least primarily - for news organizations.

Yes, they've got press credentials. But most of them are working in one form or another for NASCAR, for the race track, for one of the manufacturers or for one of the teams or their sponsors. That means they've got conflicts of interest.

As soon as word spread of the Edwards-Harvick incident, the rumors also started spreading that representatives from the teams those drivers represent were exerting influence to have the pictures withheld from distribution to the media.

I know for a fact that at least one person working for Lowe's Motor Speedway had images of the scuffle, and I also know that there was a discussion about whether or not those images should be supplied to The Associated Press so that newspapers and web sites everywhere might have access to them.

As I said in Saturday morning's paper, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that if Humpy Wheeler had still be president and general manager of this track there would not have even been a question about them being released. Wheeler would have taken the pictures down to the closest Walgreen's himself to have them process had that been necesary.

But Wheeler is gone and there's a new regime in charge. I don't know for a fact that the man who replaced Wheeler, Marcus Smith, was called in personally on the decision whether to sit on the photos or not. But if Wheeler still worked here I promise you he would have made sure anybody who hadn't heard about scuffle did so as quickly as possible.

Look, if you run the race track you might decide not to let the photos get out because you want to make sure your relationships with the Cup teams are good. If you decide that it's more important to make nice with a race team than to try to stir up controversy surrounding your race, that's a question of philosophy.

But as a fan, it ought to worry you that the rest of the photographers who got pictures of the scuffle didn't race each other back to their computers to get them sent out over the wires. That's the way things used to be, when you had professional photojournalists who were here to see and document the news and not primarily to shoot promotional pictures than can be billed to some corporate client.

The media can be a popular whipping boy these days, and we don't always get it right. But we are here so that the whole story - and not just what NASCAR and the tracks and the teams want you to hear - gets told and gets shown.

When it isn't, and when business decisions start trumping good journalism, that is when the media will let you down.

Good is probably better than perfection anyway

CONCORD, N.C. - I can’t go into my e-mail box without somebody telling me how many fans NASCAR is losing these days.

But then, I go places and I see fans like the ones I saw Friday morning at Joe Gibbs Racing and I have to wonder what they’re talking about.

The first people in line at the annual fan fest to get wristbands for autographs had been there since 10:45 Wednesday night. They wanted Tony Stewart’s autograph, and even Stewart himself told me he can’t understand why anybody would be that loyal.

I got there at 6:30 a.m. and there were already hundreds of people there. I left about 11 and a lot of them were still there, and had been joined by hundreds more.

There were open houses and things like that at several places around the Charlotte area Thursday and Friday, and I assume the stories were similar at each one.

Maybe the fans I’m seeing are the ones who have a little bit more passion and a little bit more dedication to the sport. I know that at the test at Lowe’s Motor Speedway a couple of weeks ago there were people who drove from Florida just to see testing. I know that there are people who send e-mails three or four times a week asking me about a driver who you might think has only a handful of fans - wanting to know why I don’t do more on a particular driver or asking me about whether some driver who has been crowded out of the sport has a chance to get back in.

Sometimes your first reaction is “Why do you care?”

But the answer is that they’re fans.

One guy wears me out about how Steve Letarte is ruining Jeff Gordon’s life.

One guy used to call my voice mail at work about four times a week and tell me what an idiot I am. For the longest time I kept a copy of one of his messages saved and would call up on my cell phone and play it for friends. In a two-minute message, the guy probably used 500 words you can’t say on television. Not 500 different words, mind you, a lot of it was the same word over-and-over again.

If “fat” were a swear word, the count would have been closer to 1,000.

I read the comments posted when I write one of these blogs and wonder what would happen if I ever did something that really had a real impact on these people’s lives.

That’s OK.

For all the little annoyances that crop up during a race weekend in Charlotte I also get to write at least a little bit about things like Jeff Gordon’s Foundation helping to raise $310,000 in one day for bone marrow research, or Brienne Davis’ friends getting $100,000 in one evening for the scholarship fund that honors Davis, a NASCAR official who was killed in an automobile crash earlier this year.

Fans paid to get autographs at Joe Gibbs Racing Friday, but that money will go to the Mooresville Soup Kitchen, which provides more than 20,000 meals each year to people who otherwise might not have anything to eat. That’s a very good thing.

More than 1,000 motorcycle riders are expected to ride to the Victory Junction Gang Camp to raise money and honor their friend, Click Baldwin, who was killed in a motorcycle wreck in Montana a few months ago. They’ll leave from the Harley-Davidson dealership Baldwin ran in Gastonia.

They’ll tell stories, laugh a lot and maybe cry just a little bit, and then they’ll go help make the magic that the camp founded by the Petty family manufactures here in North Carolina and, soon, in Kansas at a second camp that will be built there.

Things might not be perfect, either in racing or in the world we live in. But they surely aren’t as bad as we sometimes let ourselves believe they are.

I am going to try to work harder remembering that.

Intermittent rain goofing up track schedule

CONCORD - The early news from Sprint Cup qualifying day at Lowe's Motor Speedway is that rain is bedeviling efforts to get things going.

It hasn't rained much here since about lunchtime, but it has rained just enough to keep Nationwide Series cars off the track for most of their practice that was supposed to begin at 1:15 and run until 2:50. As of 2:30, cars had only been on the track for about 10-15 minutes, but the cars are going back out as I write this.

The news of the day so far wasn't really news, just confirmation that Ryan Newman's No. 39 Chevrolets at Stewart-Haas Racing will be sponsored by the U.S. Army next year. The Army sponsorship moves over from Dale Earnhardt Inc. The Army will be on Newman's car for 22 points races plus the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Challenge.

Stewart said the team is working on sponsorship for the other 14 races and is narrowing the list of candidates to serve as Newman's crew chief.

On a side note, the photo opportunity following that announcement featured Newman's car in front of a vehicle from which shoulders can launch missiles. I have to admit the idea of Stewart having access to a missile launcher is disconcerting.

Stewart said to me - in jest, just to make sure everybody gets that I am joking - that he'd much rather have access to a tank because he'd like to use it to clear some property he has in Indiana.

In the time it took me to write those last three paragraphs, the red flag came out again because of more raindrops.

This could be a long day.

Racing photographer-craftsman Thomas Taylor Warren dies at 83

Two eyes who helped shape and record the history of racing in America are now closed.

Thomas Taylor Warren, a photographer who captured thousands of enduring images during his brilliant career, passed away Wednesday night. The man known throughout the NASCAR garage as T. Taylor was 83.

Warren’s most famous image was taken at the inaugural Daytona 500 in 1959. Earlier this year, Warren shot photos at the 50th running of that race. He never missed one in between.

In 1959 he was positioned on pit road to shoot the winner’s car as it came to the finish of the first Daytona 500. But three cars wound up in his viewfinder. Lee Petty and Johnny Beauchamp were battling side-by-side on the final lap. Petty had Beauchamp to his inside and the lapped car of Joe Weatherly to the outside.

Petty and Beauchamp both thought they’d won, but NASCAR called Beauchamp to victory lane. Petty immediately lodged a protest.

Warren took his cameras and film to NASCAR’s offices on South Peninsula Street in Daytona Beach and went into the darkroom.

“I started looking through my negatives for some reason, I don’t know why,” Warren recalled in an interview in February. “I saw a frame from the finish and made a print. I ran it through the chemicals real quick and looked at it.”

Uh-oh, Warren thought. The image showed Petty’s No. 42 car a hood ahead of Beauchamp’s No. 73 just a few yards short of the finish line. Warren took the still-wet print upstairs to the office and found Pat Purcell, NASCAR’s executive director and Bill France’s right-hand man.

“I said, ‘Pat, we’ve got a problem,’ ” Warren said.

Three days later, NASCAR reversed the ruling and named Petty the race winner.

Warren was born July 4, 1925, in Wyoming, Delaware. He lived in Florence, S.C., at the time of his death.

Warren started shooting photos as a boy and studied the craft at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. His brother bought a Midget race car and Warren went with him to the track. Once he started taking motorsports photographs, Warren never stopped.

He worked in Milwaukee and Kansas City before getting a job with a Kodak lab in High Point. There, he made friends in the stock-car world and was hired part time to shoot photos at a race on the old Daytona beach and road course in 1952. He eventually got fired from his regular job because he spent so much time at race tracks, but it worked out just fine for him.

Warren, who almost always had on a fisherman’s-style hat with a Goody’s logo and a khaki photo vest, was in 2006 given the Henry T. McLemore Award for achievement in journalism from the International Racing Hall of Fame in Talladega, Ala. He was the first photojournalist to receive that honor.

A memorial service will be held this Sunday at 4:00 p.m. at the Trinity United Methodist Church, 126 Pearl Street in Darlington, S.C. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the National Motorsports Press Association, P.O. Box 500, Darlington, S.C. 29540. Kistler Funeral Home will be directing the service.

In addition to being one of the most respected people in the NASCAR garage, Warren was also one of the most likeable. It is not enough to say that he will be missed. T. Taylor is a man who can never be replaced.

NASCAR got the call right at Talladega

It's hard to come to NASCAR's defense when it makes the right call on something because it's like somebody throwing darts at a board. Eventually some of them have to wind up sticking.

NASCAR got the call right Sunday at Talladega by penalizing Regan Smith for passing under the yellow line. It might not be popular to say that, but that's how I see it.

Here's why. If you're going to have a rule that says you cannot improve your position by going under the yellow line, then a battle between the first- and second-place cars on the final lap of a race should be the time when that rule in MOST in effect, not when it's suspended. A pass for the lead on the final lap would be the single most important pass of a race. If there's a rule, why would that NOT be covered by the rule? That doesn't make any sense.

Now this is where NASCAR shoots itself in the foot -- and the ankle, the shin, the knee and the thigh.

In February 2007 you had Ramsey Poston saying that when a driver can see the checkered flag he can "get all he can get. Sunday night, Jim Hunter said that's not the rule. Later Sunday night, Robin Pemberton apparently told an Associated Press reporter that you CAN pass under the line on the last lap but only if you can see the flagstand -- not the flag.

Now Poston, Hunter and Pemberton all work for and, when they are dealing with the meida, speak for NASCAR.

Wow, glad they cleared that up.

It's ridiculous to have a rule that's the same except for the lap it matters most. But with all the confusion I can't tell you what the proper call, by rule, would have been.

(UPDATE -- NASCAR president Mike Helton issued at statement Monday saying that, going forward, passing under the yellow line will not be allowed at any point during races at Talladega and Daytona -- even on the last lap. It's a day late, but at least NASCAR's on the record about what the rule actually IS now.)

But I can say it's my opinion that Smith gained an advantage by going out of bounds to make his pass Sunday at Tallaadega, so NASCAR did the right thing by penalizing.

I don't blame Smith for trying -- in fact, I applaud him for it. He could have setteled for second, which would have bettered his best career Cup finish by 12 spots. He made NASCAR make a call and the sacntioning body has been known to swallow its whistle in cases like this one before.

But I don't want to hear that Smith didn't "improve his posistion" until after he'd come back above the yellow line. Some are saying that Smith was still in second place when the got back above the line, but that's nuts. He was behind Stewart's car when he went out of bounds and beside it when he came back up. He'd improved his position and his chance to pass Stewart by going out of bounds.

Was Smith forced below the line? I don't think so. Stewart blocked him, absolutely. But some fans are saying Smith had only two choices -- go below the line or wreck Stewart and maybe himself. Well, there was a third choice and that was to do neither. He had to know that Stewart would make a counter-move to the low side trying to protect his line. So if he makes a move where his only "out" is to go below the line, that was his mistake.

Did you expect Stewart to simply give way, to not go back to the inside and try to use the line to his advantage? Of course not. That's not how it's done in today's restrictor plate racing. If Smith had been beside Stewart when Stewart moved left, that would be one thing. At best -- at best -- Smith had the first few inches of the nose of his car beside the Stewart's rear bumper. But Stewart closed the door, doing exactly what the leader has to do in plate races these days.

NASCAR needs to get its story straight and -- for the 97,458,457th time -- it needs to apply its rules the same way everytime the same issue comes up. But, as hard as it is for the people who don't like how things turned out Sunday, this is how the call SHOULD be made every time.

Fans of racing at Talladega? Count me out

TALLADEGA, Ala. - It's not that I don't get why people love to watch races at Talladega Superspeedway.

That's obvious. It's absolutely heart-stopping to watch drivers run at over 190 mph a foot or two from a car in front of them, one on either side of them and another one behind him.

I've never been one who believes that NASCAR fans want to see drivers get hurt. There are fans who don't want to see wrecks, even, and the ones who do consider wrecks a part of the game want to see a driver cheat danger, not fall victim to it.

I have also heard it argued that a race car driver knows the risk he's taking when he straps in, and if you're going to race in the Sprint Cup Series you know that you have to come here twice each year. The way that line of thinking goes, it's part of the bargain.

I suppose you have to concede that point, but still I have to tell you that I am never going to be a big fan of this race track. Not as long as the racing here looks like it does.

It's entirely possible that nobody will be injured in a crash in today's Amp Energy 500. It's even theoretically possible there won't be any wrecks. I've actually seen a caution-free race here, as a matter of fact.

But that doesn't mean my stomach won't be in knots when the green flag flies, and the longer the race goes without a big wreck happening the tighter that knot will be twisted.

It's a fact that no Cup driver has died in a race here since the beginning of the restrictor-plate era. Larry Smith died in a crash here in 1973 and Tiny Lund was killed in 1975.

But even though it has been 33 years since a driver died in a Cup race here, I don't want to wait until after another one is lost in a wreck here to express my concerns about what goes on here.

I hope it never happens again, not here or anywhere else. And if people want to flame me for having concerns the way they will no doubt do in the comments that are on this blog, I can take that, too.

But I am not going to pretend that I don't think racing at Talladega is over the line, that I would much prefer the racing here be less entertaining and more sane.

I am also not going to tell you that if when it's all over and everybody walks out of here unscathed, I won't most likely be shaking my head in wonder at what happens here today.

It's more likely that today's race will have a memorably thrilling finish that people will be talking about for weeks than it is for there to be the kind of problem that I dread so much. I concede that point.

And I deeply hope that's exactly what happens.

Street cars and NASCAR stars have a big night out

Boys with toys. (Yeah, there were girls there, too, but that doesn’t rhyme.)

Wednesday night was NASCAR Night at zMax Dragway @ Concord, an evening for guys from the stock-car world to bring their hot rods out of the closet.

The only rules were the cars had to be street legal, and some guys were pushing that. For example, I doubt very seriously Greg Biffle puts ice bags on the engine and rides around on racing slicks when he’s got his black Mustang Shelby on the streets.

Marcus Smith, the president and general manager of Lowe’s Motor Speedway who, along with his father, Bruton, built the joint made several passes in his Ford GT and beat most comers. But Biffle’s 10.146-second elapsed time on one run was about as fast as anything I saw. Later, he ran a top-end speed of 136.50 mph on a run that had a 10.225 elapsed time.

Matt Kenseth made a bunch of runs in his red Mustang with several passengers going along for the ride. Kyle Busch was there in his girlfriend’s yellow Corvette.

Several hundred fans came out to watch the action, and their favorite seemed to be the Rat Ride, a pick-up truck body that acted as camouflage for a Winston Cup chassis with a monster motor under the spackle-painted hood. I was told the driver, who works for a Cup team, has a laptop computer on board with him to help it go down the track in great haste.

Ray Evernham was there in a Viper that Rick Hendrick gave him for winning the Cup championship in 1995. Hendrick actually told Evernham that it was a good-looking car before Evernham reminded his former boss where it came from.

Speaking of Hendrick, he made some runs in his red Ferrari and also had a yellow Corvette on the grounds. Somehow that ‘Vette ended up in the sand trap at the end of the runoff area when it’s driver – in this case, not Hendrick – just kept getting it well past the finish line and sort of forgot about the slowing down part.

There was another pickup truck, one that Doug Rice joked looked like it was being held together by rust, that would get on down the road, too.

It was all a lot of fun, but if they keep on doing this somebody’s going to make a lot of money selling performance parts and racing slicks. It stunned me, in fact, that Doug Herbert wasn’t here with a truck full of parts and a credit card machine from his high-performance shop in Lincolnton. He could have made a mint.

Biffle probably ran 10 miles, a quarter of a mile at a time, before he finally packed it in for the night. I was sitting in the media center toward the end of the evening when somebody came in and asked if some track prep could be done – they wanted somebody to put down some TrackBite to make it easier to go faster.

I can’t swear that Biffle put them up to it. But I wouldn’t bet against it.

Rain and mud? No problem for Paul Newman, 'Humpy' Wheeler recalls

When it came to Paul Newman’s passion for racing, Humpy Wheeler was an unapologetic enabler.

Wheeler, the longtime president and general manager of Lowe’s Motor Speedway who now runs his own motorsports consulting company, said Newman was one of the most fascinating people he has met.

“I first met him in 1966 on the set of ‘Winning.’” Wheeler said, referring to the movie that fired Newman’s love for racing. “When he met you he looked you right in the eye like you were the most important person in the world and he heard you out.”

Wheeler said that when Newman, who died Friday evening, was at the race track he was a racer above all else.

“Paul was a humble, nice guy who loved his racing friends,” Wheeler said. “He really didn't like all the Hollywood stuff, but he did regard his profession as an art form to be taken very seriously.”

Newman certainly took his racing seriously.

The actor and philanthropist had a Legends car that Wheeler kept for him at the Charlotte track in 1995.

“He called me one day and said he had a break from the movie he was making and wanted to fly down and run his car,” Wheeler said. “I told him the weather looked awful but he came anyway.”

Wheeler took Newman to a small one-fifth mile paved oval located outside the backstretch side of the 1.5-mile oval.

“I forgot he was here and two hours later with rain pouring I heard this Legends car running full-blast,” Wheeler said. “I whipped over to the track and there he was sliding around the wet oval running pretty fast. …He pulled in, soaked and smiling.”

Wheeler said he noticed that Newman’s lap times in the rain were only about two seconds off the dry track record at the time.

“That is when I decided to run Legends Summer Shootout series rain or shine,” Wheeler said. “It became the first series in oval racing history to run rain or shine and still does.”

Newman and Wheeler both had voice parts in the animated film “Cars” that had its premiere at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in 2006. Newman voiced the character of Doc Hudson, based on the fabulous Hudson Hornets that ran in NASCAR’s early years.

When it came time to stage the premiere at the Charlotte track, Disney brought in a car with a Hudson body built around a racing truck.

“Paul grabbed me and said he wanted to run it around the big track,” Wheeler said. “It had a half-mile track gear in it. Disney didn't want anyone driving it because they wanted it for the premiere, but Paul kept bugging me to do something.”

Wheeler tried to convince Newman that the gearing was wrong. But Newman knew that Wheeler could get the right gear from one of the driving schools at the track.

“So I borrowed a gear from the driving school and he took off at the tender age of 81, wide-open around the big track sliding all over the place,” Wheeler said.

Wheeler turned to diversionary tactics.

“I flagged him in and told him I had a Thunder Roadster for him to drive all afternoon on the dirt track, which he loved,” Wheeler said. “He left the big track and drove for three hours on the dirt on ended up looking like Hondo with all that red clay on him. The evening ended with frosty beers in my office.”

Wheeler said he will miss Newman greatly.

“I actually believe he could have been a pretty good (Sprint) Cup driver had he taken it up in his 20s,” Wheeler said. “But, then, where would the Oscars be?”

A car that fails inspection should not be in the race

KANSAS CITY, Kansas - A few quick thoughts on a warm but otherwise beautiful day at Kansas Speedway:

* * *

Sorry if you're a Juan Pablo Montoya fan (and he comes on our Sirius NASCAR Radio show every week), but the No. 42 Dodge shouldn't be racing here on Sunday.

NASCAR found the rear shocks had too much nitrogen gas pressure in the rear shocks on that car after Montoya apparently won the pole for the Camping World RV 400. Montoya's time was disallowed and he was pushed back to the No. 42 starting spot for Sunday's race.

That doesn't do Michael McDowell any good, though. McDowell's Toyota missed making the race by one spot, but there's every indication that his car was legal. Montoya's was not.

It doesn't matter - or at least it shouldn't - how Montoya's car came to be outside the rules or what the too-high pressure in the shock might have been intended to do in the car. I know fans are going to get all hung up on that kind of stuff because they always do when something like this comes up.

What ought to matter is Montoya's car was outside the rules. So he shouldn't be racing.

I know I am a broken record on this, but I promise you that if I don't actually type these words and have them posted some fans will rear up and accuse me of playing favorites because I've done it before in simialr situations. So here it is.

If your car doesn't make it through post-qualifying inspection, you should go home. Period. No matter who you are.

* * *

Saw Scott Riggs in the garage today and asked him about where he might be driving next year. He said he's confident he'll be in a Cup car but doesn't know where yet.

Riggs is driving for Haas CNC Racing in the No. 66 Chevrolets this year. But that team will be Stewart Haas Racing next year and Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman will be driving its cars.

The other news on Riggs is that he has a bad case of poison oak.

"I was cleaning out some stuff along the driveway on this property I've got," said Riggs, who had a wrap on one arm covering a big patch of the itchy malady and had another large splotch on his abdomen.

Riggs will be fine to race on Sunday.

* * *

Jeff Gordon qualified 13th fastest on Friday. He also practiced his car, but that was about the only thing the four-time champion did. He was under the weather and canceled all of his media sessions to conserve his energy for driving.

* * *

Denny Hamlin had the fastest time in Friday afternoon's final practice for today's Kansas Lottery 300 race in the Nationwide Series. Kevin Harvick, Mark Martin, Greg Biffle and Kyle Busch rounded out the top five in the final session.

Kansas track a NASCAR success story

Off Thursday morning from the radio show on Sirius NASCAR Radio because I am doing the Delta shuffle through Atlanta to get to Kansas City for this week's race.
I always look forward to getting to Kansas each year because I can't wait to see how many more things they've built around the race track there.
When we first started going to the speedway over in Wyandotte County, Kansas, there were a couple of big stores within sight of the track and that was pretty much it. Now there's stuff everywhere out that way and more -- much more -- is coming.
Within the next couple of years a Hard Rock Hotel & Casino will go up just outside Turn 2. International Speedway Corp. is building it in conjunction with a major developer, and I think it's interesting to see ISC get into the casino business. Guess that means there won't be any big anti-gambling policy for NASCAR drivers and officials coming any time soon.
The upshot of that project from the racing standpoint is that Kansas, by 2010, will ask for and undoubtedly get a second date from another ISC track. I don't know which track they'll take a race from, and any speculation you've seen so far is just that -- speculation. A lot of things could shake out in racing over the next two years.
The ecomony is not exactly purring like Greg Biffle's engine these days, but for all of the people who keep talking about the gloom and doom in NASCAR's world all I need to do is look at what has happened and continues to happen in Kansas. If ISC and its partners feel confident enough to tackle a project as big as this Hard Rock Hotel deal. they must feel that racing at least has some future in the nation's heartland.

Absolute control is absolutely the NASCAR way

DOVER, Del. – There are two guiding principles one must always keep in mind when dealing with NASCAR on any significant issue.

Rule No. 1 is that whenever possible NASCAR finds a way for somebody else to pick up the tab.

Any program or initiative where a team, a manufacturer or a sponsor can be cornered into paying the bills has an infinitely better chance of being implemented than one where NASCAR has to write a check.

Rule No. 2 is that NASCAR loves and maniacally defends its control over the sport. It is only slightly less likely to spend its own money than it is to let anything – even a black-and-white rule in its own rulebook – dictate how it handles a given situation.

NASCAR always likes to leave itself wiggle room.

The latter rule is clearly in play in regard to changes to NASCAR’s substance abuse policy announced here Saturday morning.

The new policy goes into effect for the 2009 season. All drivers in the Cup, Nationwide and Truck Series as well as all NASCAR officials will be drug tested before the start of next season. Additionally, team owners must verify that they’ve had all licensed crew members tested by a certified lab before the new season begins.

Drivers, over-the-wall crew members and officials will thereafter be subjected to random testing. At least two drivers, two over-the-wall crew members and two officials will be tested per series per race weekend. So if all three series are running on a given weekend, a minimum of 18 tests will be administered.

The NASCAR policy is that the misuse or abuse of any drug is prohibited. NASCAR’s press release Saturday said, “This means that a violation of the policy can be triggered with the use of any drug or medication if NASCAR believes it has been abused or misused.”

Of course, that also means that NASCAR has the discretion to decide that a positive test for any drug doesn’t necessarily constitute that abuse or misuse.

That’s where the control principle kicks in.

Take the case involving Ron Hornaday that surfaced last week. If Hornaday had tested positive for use of the testosterone cream he obtained, he would have had to tell NASCAR why he was using it. If the medication were on a black-and-white banned list, the circumstances wouldn’t have mattered. But with the discretion allowed, NASCAR would have been able to weigh the situation before ruling.

But shouldn’t there be at least some kind of list of substances that are absolutely banned, no matter the circumstances? There’s no circumstance under which a positive for cocaine or heroin, for instance, should leave any room for discretion. Why not just simply ban them as part of an official policy?

The answer is that NASCAR would rather not face any absolutes, even ones that would appear to be mindlessly obvious. It’s just not how NASCAR likes to operate.

The same thing can be said for the penalty phase. A first offense calls for immediate suspension with “detailed criteria” for consideration of reinstatement. Those criteria, however, are not delineated publicly.

NASCAR can handle each penalty phase on an individual basis. Is that just being smart, or does it give NASCAR the room to play favorites? That’s the kind of skepticism NASCAR is perfectly willing to deal with rather than cede any more control.

The one absolute is that a third offense results in an automatic lifetime ban, and it’s hard for anybody to argue that in a sport as dangerous as this one a “three-strikes” rule is a bad idea.

There is s a lot of good in the new plan. NASCAR will pay for all of the testing except for the preseason crew tests and the testing will be done through an outside agency. Random testing is a lot better than the old “with cause” standard, as long as the randomness of who gets picked for testing is fairly administered.

Comfort level should be a secondary consideration

A couple of things, only tangentially related.

Can we all just agree to stop listening to car owners who tell us they’re “close” to signing a new sponsor for their NASCAR teams?

Look around you, folks. The companies that might be candidates to come into the Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Truck series and bringing millions of dollars with them are far more likely these days to be looking to the government for “sponsorship” to keep them from going belly-up.

These are harrowing times, economically speaking. Unless the criminals in the oil industry decide to come up off some of the billions they’re socking away, it’s hard to imagine anybody writing a $20 million check if that company has not already been of a mind to.

What does that mean for racing?

Teams that want to add cars to their fleets might have to spend more time trying to shore up the deals they’ve already got. Tracks may have to slow down ambitious improvement hopes. It might even mean that a team can’t buy the latest and greatest testing or research and development gizmo just because the team down the street has one.

The truth, though, is that there’s room in the sport for more financially responsible business practices. Maybe teams won’t go somewhere every week to test a car and maybe they’ll discover that they never really had to. Maybe rather than lay people off or cut back on what’s spent to make a car actually go fast, some teams might ask a crew chief or – God forbid – a driver make do in a hotel room and not a $750,000 motor home.

The scary thing for the sport, as a whole, is how all of this is going to impact the people who really pay the bills. Fans have already started having to make tough decisions that are showing up in the form of empty seats in the grandstands. That puts even more pressure than there already was on NASCAR to get the racing right and make its sport something that’s hard for fans not to come see.

That’s sort of where my second point for the day comes in.

There’s been a lot of talk in the past few weeks stemming from what drivers and crew chiefs and car owners have said over their radios. Clips of spirited conversations are played over and over again and talked about on television and radio shows until the topic gets completely worn out.

You can say that race teams should know that people are listening to everything they say. That’s true, but if the driver and crew chief have to start “editing” themselves because they’re worried about what somebody might think of them and their relationship doesn’t that change they way they do their jobs?

It’s gotten to the point that, all things being equal, if I owned a race team I would be thinking about scrambling my team’s communications so people can’t listen in. The problem with that, though, is that NASCAR has packaged the access to those communications as part of the fan experience. The sport can’t afford, literally and figuratively, to allow that to be taken away from the fans.

Imagine how much controversy there would be after a Duke-North Carolina basketball game if fans had access to everything being said in the respective teams’ huddles. If you heard an NFL defensive coach talking to his players when they were down 21-0 in the second quarter, do you think what you hear would be suitable for mixed company?

But NASCAR fans hear all of that and would howl if you took it away. NASCAR and companies it does business with get significant revenue from that access – things like DirecTV’s Hot Pass and Sirius radio’s Driver 2 Crew channels as well as Sprint’s FanView and all of the scanners that are bought or rented at the track.

I think race teams are just going to have to learn to deal with the blowback that sometimes comes with having people listening in as they do their work, the same way that everyone is going to have to learn to do business in the new reality that exists in this economy. It might not be comfortable to do either, but it sure looks necessary.

John Force should be in the show on Sunday

CONCORD - John Force said he's sorry.

"I would like to just say I am sorry," Force said Saturday after failing to qualify for eliminations at the inaugural National Hot Rod Association Carolina Nationals at zMax Dragway @ Concord.

"I apologize to Bruton Smith and to the NHRA fans, because when they give you an arena like this - the greatest facility in the history of our sport - that brings in all these people and I don't get to be a part of it."

Saturday was a big day for drag racing. The capacity of Smith's new $60 million facility is listed at 30,000 and it was a sellout. Smith had workers cut openings in a fence in front of the east grandstand so he could sell more standing room tickets, and there were - conservatively - 35,000 on the property.

Sunday will be a big day, too. And Force said he'll still be part of it.

Three other cars owned by his team did make the Funny Car field. Ashley Force, Robert Hight and Mike Neff will race. Force will be here, too. He'll ride his scooter hither and yon and stop to sign as many autographs as he can. But he won't be in his 8,000-horsepower car, and that hurts him.

It also hurts the sport.

Force made no excuses. He said he has been struggling this year and the facts bear that out. He's now failed to make four races, more than he's ever missed before. He's missed two straight. He hadn't missed two straight in one season since 1979 and last missed two in a row overall in the final race of 1981 and the first race of 1982. He's only failed to qualify 16 times in 513 tries.

"We got off on our tune-up," Force said. "But I believe in our people."

Force is 59. He's won a record 126 races and a record 14 championships. The west grandstand at this new track is named in his honor. He's done nearly as much for drag racing as the sport has done for him, and that's saying a lot.

I think that should mean something. I think he should be racing Sunday. NASCAR takes grief for exempting the top 35 in points and setting up provisionals for former champioins, but those rules put stock car racing's stars in the show every week. Fans know when they buy tickets that Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart are going to compete.

Sunday's show will be a good one, but it should have Force in it.

"I don't make the rules," he said. "They're fair for everybody. I am too old to cry. I will go home and closet cry. But I am the one who's out here and I need to put it in the show. ...The show will be better next week when I am in it."

Force said he feels bad because racing here in the heart of NASCAR country is big for the NHRA.

"In my life I've handled everything," Force said. "But this hurts. ...I've fought my life to catch up to the NASCAR boys and I sure ain't helping. I'm not doing my part of the job.

"But we'll fix it. ...We'll take our whipping. It's real easy to be a champion when you're winning.

Ron Capps saw Force at the end of the track when Force was officially out of the show.

"It's hard to feel sorry for a guy who has won that many championships," Capps said. "But I feel bad for him."

Don't, Force said.

"This will only make me stronger," he said. "When Dale Earnhardt wasn't winning, he worked harder. And that's what we will do."

John Force has a hill to climb again

CONCORD – John Force is down to his last chance at the Carolina Nationals at zMax Dragway @ Concord.

Force ran 4.153 seconds in Saturday’s third qualifying run, but he got bumped out of the top 16 when Bob Tasca III ran 4.119 seconds during the Funny Car round.

Tony Pedergon is actually on the bump spot at No. 16 with an elapsed time of 4.134 seconds. Force will at least have to go faster than that to make the show in the final round later today.
Pedregon is second in the Countdown to 1 championship playoff, so he’ll be trying to hold on to his spot as the afternoon progresses.

It’s hot and humid at the new track, making conditions difficult. It’s only going to get hotter, too, but there are some puffy white clouds in the sky and depending on how they come over the sun things could still shake up.

Nothing changed atop the qualifying order in Funny Car, with Jack Beckman easily holding onto the top spot.

Tony Schumacher, meanwhile, will race on Sunday. There never was really much drama about that since there are only 17 Top Fuel cars trying for the 16 spots in eliminations, but Schumacher made a pass at 3.879 seconds in Saturday’s third qualifying run he didn't officially have a spot.

Even though Schumacher got down the track just before noon on Saturday, it wasn't without adventure. As he crossed the finish line Schumacher ejected smoke, fluid and perhaps parts from the engine in his dragster. That led to a lengthy track clean-up just as the nitro session got under way.

There's other drama shaping up for this afternoon's final session in other classes.

Angelle Sampey, a three-time champion in Pro Stock Motorcycle, ran 7.826 seconds on her first run Saturday and that has here 17th. If she can't improve on that, she'll fail to qualify for a National Hot Rod Association event for the first time in her career. She's made eliminations in all 178 of the races she's entered so far.

Matt Smith stayed No. 1 in Pro Stock Motorcycle after Round 3. Joe Desantis, Angie McBride, Shawn Gann and Valerie Thompson got slots 13 through 16 with their first runs Saturday.

In Pro Stock, Richie Stevens blasted from outside the top 12 all the way up to No. 3 with his run at 6.685 seconds in Round 3. Allen Johnson ran 6.696 seconds to move up to No. 5 and Rob Mansfield moved in at No. 6. Kurt Johnson and Jeg Coughlin remain 1-2 off runs they made Friday evening.

Qualifying order after three rounds

Pro Stock Motorcycle

1. Matt Smith, 6.952 seconds (192.08 mph); 2. Chris Rivas, 6.968 seconds (191.19 mph); 3. Eddie Krawiec, 6.981 seconds (192.30 mph); 4. Andrew Hines, 7.007 seconds (191.24); 5. Steve Johnson, 7.029 seconds (192.22 mph); 6. Chip Ellis, 7.036 seconds (191.19 mph); 7. Karen Stoffer, 7.037 seconds (189.71 mph); 8. Craig Treble, 7.044 seconds (191.02 mph); 9. Hector Arana, 7.044 seconds (188.89 mph); 10. Wes Wells, 7.072 seconds (189.68 mph); 11. Junior Pippin, 7.098 seconds (184.47 mph); 12. Matt Guidera, 7.102 seconds (184.42 mph); 13. Joe Desantis, 7.114 seconds (190.19 mph); 14. Angie McBride, 7.166 seconds (183.89 mph); 15. Shawn Gann, 7.197 seconds (181.86 mph); 16. Valerie Thompson, 7.291 seconds (178.80 mph).

Pro Stock

1. Kurt Johnson, 6.680 seconds (206.42 mph); 2. Jeg Coughlin, 6.684 seconds (206.26 mph); 3. Richie Stevens, 6.685 seconds (206.54 mph); 4. Warren Johnson, 6.694 seconds (208.01 mph); 5. Allen Johnson, 6.896 seconds (206.29 mph); 6. Rob Mansfield, 6.697 seconds (207.50 mph); 7. Greg Anderson, 6.697 seconds (207.11 mph); 8. Dave Connolly, 6.697 seconds (207.02 mph); 9. Mike Edwards, 6.700 seconds (205.63 mph); 10. Justin Humphreys, 6.703 seconds (206.57 mph); 11. Jason Line, 6.706 seconds (206.89 mph); 12. Steve Spiess, 6.710 seconds (205.85); 13.. V Gaines, 6.711 seconds (205.82 mph); 14. Jim Yates, 6.712 seconds (205.16 mph); 15. Greg Stanfield, 6.714 seconds (205.51 mph); 16. Vinnie Deceglie, 6.715 seconds (205.69 mph).

Top Fuel

1. Larry Dixon, 3.846 seconds (310.20 mph); 2. Cory McClenathan, 3.863 seconds (312.13 seconds); 3. Antron Brown, 3.865 seconds (311.20 mph); 4. Hillary Will, 3.869 seconds (315.12 mph); 5. Doug Herbert, 3.870 seconds (311.49 mph); 6. Doug Kalitta, 3.872 seconds (309.77 mph); 7. Brandon Bernstein, 3.875 seconds (309.49 mph); 8. David Grubnic, 3.876 seconds (311.92 mph); 9. Tony Schumacher, 3.879 seconds (306.19 mph); 10. J.R. Todd, 3.883 seconds (312.93 mph); 11. Rod Fuller, 3,889 seconds (304.60 mph); 12. Bob Vandergriff Jr., 3.898 seconds (306.95 mph); 13. Troy Buff, 3.923 seconds (303.50 mph); 14. Clay Millican, 3.931 seconds (305.77 mph); 15. Doug Foley, 3.975 seconds (302.55 mph); 16. Morgan Lucas, 4.022 seconds (299.53 mph).

Funny Car

1. Frank Hawley, 4.072 seconds (307.16 mph); 2. Robert Hight, 4.072 seconds (300.33 mph); 3. Del Worsham 4.074 seconds (304.12 mph); 4. Ashley Force, 4.075 seconds (307.02); 5. Cruz Pedrgeon, 4.087 seconds (303.43 mph); 6. Jim Head, 4.087 seconds (303.43 mph); 7. Melanie Troxel, 4.100 seconds (303.57 mph); 8. Mike Neff, 4.104 seconds (304.46 mph); 9. Gary Densham 4.108 seconds (296.18 mph); 10. Ron Capps, 4.117 seconds (299.73 mph); 11. Jack Beckman, 4.118 (300.86 mph); 12. Bob Tasca III, 4.119 (299.66 mph); 13. Tim Wilkerson, 4.121 seconds (300.60 mph); 14. Gary Scelzi, 4.123 seconds (301.67 mph); 15. Jeff Arend, 4.131 (304.19); 16. Tony Pedregon, 4.134 seconds (299.40).

Brandon Bernstein atop the NHRA chart so far

Brandon Bernstein is the fastest man in North Carolina after one round of qualifying at the Carolinas Nationals.

Bernstein ran 3.880 seconds at 313.80 mph in the opening run in Top Fuel to take the provisional No. 1 spot. Another round of qualifying is scheduled to begin around 6 p.m.

Tony Schumacher, who has won a record 11 Top Fuel events this year and comes into the National Hot Rod Association’s Countdown to 1 playoff as the top seed, is seventh fastest after one round.

Mike Neff was the first man to go 300 mph at the new track, but he is not be the answer to the trivia question as to who was the first to top that mark. That’s because the first person to top 300 mph was a woman.

Melanie Troxel ran 300.46 mph at the top end of her first Funny Car pass in Friday’s first round of qualifying for the Carolinas Nationals.

Troxel’s elapsed time of 4.162 seconds stood up as the third best in Funny Car, behind only the daughter-father pair of Ashley Force and John Force.

Ashley ran 4.116 seconds to bump her dad, the 14-time Funny Car champion, who ran 4.147 seconds.

First-round qualifying results

Top Fuel

Brandon Bernstein, 3.880.
Cory McClenethan, 3.903.
Larry Dixon, 3.910.
Hillary Will, 3.927.
Rod Fuller, 3.933.
Doug Kalitta, 3.936.
Tony Schumacher, 3.937.
Troy Buff, 3.937.
Doug Foley, 3.954
Clay Millican, 3.980
Morgan Lucas, 3.984
Bob Vandergriff, 4.008
Doug Herbert, 4.088.
J.R. Todd, 4.089
David Grubnic, 4.169
Antron Brown, 4.835.

Funny Car

Ashley Force, 4.116
John Force, 4.147.
Melanie Troxel, 4.162
Mike Neff, 4.165
Ron Capps, 4.170
Jim Head, 4.176
Jeff Arend, 4.177
Tony Pedregon, 4.180
Del Worsham, 4.188
Jack Beckman, 4.206
Robert Hight, 4.212
Tim Wilkerson, 4.125.
Cruz Pedregon, 4.216
Gary Scelzi, 4.219
Bob Tasca III, 4.243
Gary Densham, 4.250
Tommy Johnson Jr., 4.261
Matt Hagan, 4.410
Bob Gilbertson, 5.137
Jerry Tolliver, 6.313
Tony Bartone, 7.012
Frank Hawley, 7.589

Pro stock

Greg Anderson, 6.697
Dave Connolly 6.698.
Kurt Johnson, 6.700
Justin Humphreys, 6.703.
Jason Line, 6.709
Jeg Coughlin Jr., 6.711
V. Gaines, 6.711
Greg Stanfield, 6.716.
Rob Mansfield, 6.723
Vinnie Deceglie, 6.723
Tom Hammonds, 6.724
Rickie Jones, 6.725
Warren Johnson, 6.732.
Jim Yates, 6.732
Johnny Gray, 6.732
Mike Edwards, 6.734.
Steve Spiess, 6.744
Richie Stevens, 6.747
John Nobile, 6.755
Max Naylor, 6.765
Larry Morgan, 6.769
Bob Danza, 6.858
Jim Cunningham, 6.902
John Gaydock, 6.945
Allen Johnson, 7.070
Ron Krisher, did not start

Pro stock motorcycle

Matt Smith, 6.952
Chris Rivas, 6.968
Eddie Krawiec, 6.981
Andrew Hines, 7.007
Steve Johnson, 7.032
Chip Ellis, 7.036
Craig Treble, 7.044
Karen Stoffer, 7.077
Matt Guidera, 7.102.
Junior Pippin, 7.114
Angelle Sampey, 7.123.
Hector Arana, 7.157.
Wes Wells, 7.182.
Valerie Thompson, 7.220
Joe Desantis, 7.246
Shawn Gann, 7.322.
Darin McCurdy, 7.397
Angie McBride, 9.201.

Carolinas cars and drivers doing well so far

So far so good for the local guys in qualifying for the Carolinas Nationals at zMax Dragway @ Concord.

Matt Smith, who is from King, N.C., topped the first round qualifying in Pro Stock Motorcycle while Greg Anderson, whose team is based in Mooresville, was quickest in Pro Stock.

Smith ran 6.952 seconds to top Chris Rivas, Eddie Krawiec, Andrew Hines and Steve Johnson in the top five.

Anderson, in the final pair of Pro Stock qualifying, ran 6.697 seconds to bump Dave Connolly off the pole. Connolly ran 6.698 seconds. Kurt Johnson, Justin Humphreys and Jason Line rounded out the top five.

Speedway Motorsports Inc. chairman Bruton Smith spoke to the crowd gathered for the first day of professional qualifying just after the top 10 drivers in Funny Car and Top Fuel were introduced to the crowd before their first run.

“Look at all these fans in the John Force Grandstand!” Smith said. “John, is it OK for these fans to sit in your grandstand?”

The West Grandstand at the new track are named for Force, the 14-time Funny Car champion.

“I hope I don’t have to make the payments on it,” Force said. “When we look at this stadium, we’re like little kids. Stadiums like this are the future of drag racing.”

Here are the first-round qualifying results for Pro Stock Motorcycle and Pro Stock.
at the Carolinas Nationals at zMax Dragway @ Concord

Pro stock motorcycle

Matt Smith, 6.952
Chris Rivas, 6.968
Eddie Krawiec, 6.981
Andrew Hines, 7.007
Steve Johnson, 7.032
Chip Ellis, 7.036
Craig Treble, 7.044
Karen Stoffer, 7.077
Matt Guidera, 7.102.
Junior Pippin, 7.114
Angelle Sampey, 7.123.
Hector Arana, 7.157.
Wes Wells, 7.182.
Valerie Thompson, 7.220
Joe Desantis, 7.246
Shawn Gann, 7.322.
Darin McCurdy, 7.397
Angie McBride, 9.201.

Pro stock
Greg Anderson, 6.697
Dave Connolly 6.698.
Kurt Johnson, 6.700
Justin Humphreys, 6.703.
Jason Line, 6.709
Jeg Coughlin Jr., 6.711
V. Gaines, 6.711
Greg Stanfield, 6.716.
Rob Mansfield, 6.723
Vinnie Deceglie, 6.723
Tom Hammonds, 6.724
Rickie Jones, 6.725
Warren Johnson, 6.732.
Jim Yates, 6.732
Johnny Gray, 6.732
Mike Edwards, 6.734.
Steve Spiess, 6.744
Richie Stevens, 6.747
John Nobile, 6.755
Max Naylor, 6.765
Larry Morgan, 6.769
Bob Danza, 6.858
Jim Cunningham, 6.902
John Gaydock, 6.945
Allen Johnson, 7.070
Ron Krisher, did not start.

NASCAR drug policy and NHRA drag racing

Sorry, I know I haven’t blogged in a week. Been kind of busy.

* * *

I don’t want to just completely blow off this thing with Truck Series driver Ron Hornaday and steroids, first reported by ESPN the Magazine this week.

NASCAR said Friday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway that Hornaday will not face any sanctions because Hornaday’s use of testosterone cream is considered a “personal medical issue.”

Hornaday was having some issues and trying to figure out what was wrong. At the urging of Kevin and DeLana Harvick he visited another doctor, who diagnosed him with having Grave’s disease. Since he’s been getting treatment for that his health has improved.

NASCAR’s Jim Hunter said “Our substance abuse experts have told us the prescription Ron Hornaday used did not enhance his performance or impair his judgment.”

The only troubling thing about this is that the reason it came up in the first place is that Hornaday got this cream from a clinic in Florida whose owners have pleaded guilty to criminal charges stemming from online sales of prescription drugs.

According to the ESPN the Magazine story, Hornaday gave a blood sample to a nurse who came to his home and never saw the doctor before getting a prescription for the testosterone cream. He did not, apparently, go to a doctor who NASCAR or the Harivcks knew about and deal with his medical issues through what would seem to be proper channels.

When you’re not well and not sure what’s going on, it’s easy to get frustrated and it’s easy to be talked into trying anything that might work. That is why NASCAR needs to have a better policy about how it supervises its competitors in terms of medical conditions and the use of drugs, prescription or otherwise.

* * *

Thursday night was a remarkable night at the Speedway Club.

Doug Herbert, the Top Fuel dragster driver whose team is based in Lincolnton, had the first big fund-raising event for his BRAKES (Be Responsible and Keep Everyone Safe) organization that promotes safe driving by younger drivers.

Herbert started BRAKES after his sons, James and Jon, died in an auto crash in January. James was driving too fast and swerving through traffic when he caused that crash, and his father has never ducked that fact. He has, in fact, used it to steel his determination to try to keep it from happening to other teens and leave other grieving parents, like Doug, behind.

After dinner, Barry Dodson talked about the loss of his two kids, Trey and Tia, and the bond he’s formed with Herbert over their shared tragedies.

After that, some of Herbert’s buddies came to the stage to tell stories. About two hours later, while everybody’s ribs were still hurting from laughter, they held an auction.

Here’s who came to help Herbert – Kenny Bernstein, David Grubnic, Tony Schumacher, Gary Scelzi, Cory McClenathan, Del Worsham, Steve Johnson and – put your hands together for your headliner, folks! – John Force.

The whole program was touching, moving and poignant. Herbert had to go home feeling like he had more friends that he could possibly count. But Force was just off the charts. He did 20-25 minutes off the cuff and it was like watching Robin Williams at the height of his stand-up prowess.

Force was here, then he was there. He was on this topic, then on this tangent. He would interrupt himself in the middle of a story, stop, start another story, interrupt that one, start a third story, stop, finish the second story, go back, finish the third story and then jump right back and finish the first story.

And it was all funny.

A lot of money was raised for BRAKES. If you’d like to help, go to putonthebrakes.com and find out how.

* * *

The first round of pro qualifying for the Carolinas Nationals is about to start at the new zMax Dragway @ Concord. It’s hot and it’s only going to get hotter as the weekend goes along. It will be interesting to see how these guys adapt to this new track. Drag racing fans in this area have been waiting a long time to see what’s about to happen. I will try to get back later for a quick update between the day’s two scheduled pro sessions.

Postponing and then running a pair of races on the same day is not the easy way out

RICHMOND - It's just before noon on Saturday as I write this, and yes, it's pouring rain.

At least here, though, that's pretty much all Tropical Storm Hanna is - rain. But I do believe NASCAR made the right call Friday in pushing both the Sprint Cup and Nationwide series races here back to Sunday.

It could stop raining sometime this afternoon, and if it does somebody will say NASCAR over-reacted in pulling the plug so early. But that will be 20-20 hindsight.

Even if there are no downed power lines or is no major flooding in the area, there might have been. At 5 p.m. Friday when this call was made, nobody could be sure how bad the storm was going to be here. This is one of those times where if you're going to miss, you have to miss on the side of being to cautious.

NASCAR doesn't want to run on Sunday this weekend, not with the NFL season kicking off. The Cup race was supposed to be on ABC network television Saturday night, but ABC has the IndyCar Series finale scheduled for Sunday afternoon and couldn't just swap it to cable without a whole lot of contractural hassle. So the Cup race will be on ESPN opposite the 1 p.m. NFL games on Fox and CBS. That's going to cause some issues with companies who bought ads at Saturday night, prime-time network rates.

So this was not a decision NASCAR jumped at. Even though it has run two series on the same day before, including at Auto Club Speedway in California earlier this year, that's not the easiest thing in the world to do. But in this case it's the right thing.

If the rain stopped by 2 or 3 o'clock today, the track certainly could be dry in time for an 8 p.m. Cup start. But Virginia state and Henrico county officials have been busy all night and all day making sure the people who live in this state and this county are getting what they need to deal with a potentially dangerous storm. Asking them to do that and to do what they need to do to make a NASCAR race come off at the track Saturday night was just too much.

The Truck Series race from St. Louis comes on this afternoon, so race fans can get their fix. We'll just sit here watching it rain and go to the track for a rare Richmond day race tomorrow.

Everybody might not be happy, but at least we're all above water. So far, at least.