I’ve seen so many things,
I ain’t never seen before,
Someone turn out the lights,
I don’t want to see anymore.
–Three Dog Night
There are tons of colorful stories about the ultimate showman and circus owner P.T. Barnum, some of them apocryphal. One I’ve heard quite often involves a circus he ran out of a home in New York. The circus and related sideshow got to be far too popular for the size of the venue. Making matters worse, attendees who had paid their dime to get in wanted to see everything. Well, the building became so packed nobody could move to see the exhibits and no more people, dime ready between their sweaty fingers, could be admitted.
That was an anathema to a promoter like Barnum, intent on having every dime in the world. As the story is told, Barnum marked an ornate door at the rear of the house “egress”. He and his barkers and hustlers would extort the crowd they just had to see the incredible and exotic “egress.” (Some versions of the story say “exeunt” but let’s not muddy the waters.) “Egress,” of course, means “exit” or “to leave.” Patrons who opened the door to see the “egress” had that door slam shut behind them, thus helping relieve the overcrowding and allowing more patrons to fork over their dimes at the front door. How famous was P.T. Barnum for this sort of stunt? How many 19th century circus performers do you know who earned a mention in a Grateful Dead song? And make no mistake about it, the Dead were able promoters as well. (We’re not the best at what we do. We’re the only ones who do what we do.”)
Well, if nothing else, the 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season has been interesting. You know, “Interesting” being in the same form as it’s used in the ancient Arab (apocryphal) Arab phrase, “May you always live in interesting times.” With everything going on right now and just one points-paying race left to wrap this collapsing, smoking calliope (which is, in fact, sneezing and wheezing) of a year up I am more than ready to head for the egress.
Here’s a dime. Call someone who cares.
The storyline after the Texas Cup race was that Kevin Harvick had flat whipped the field. He was guaranteed a slot in the Championship 4, as it should be for one of those drivers anointed the Big Three this year. (To many folks’ chagrin.) Yep, after an often tedious and drama free nine-month Cup season the pieces were all falling into place. The Big Three would all be in competition for the title at Homestead, Joey Logano signed in as the mystery guest in the quartet with his win at Martinsville and that, too, was a good thing. A lot of folks don’t like Logano and some of his fellow drivers are mad as hell at him. You can’t have a Tom Terrific and Penelope Pit Stop without a Dick Dastardly.
But “STOP THE PRESSES!” (And is there any would-be journalist who never hoped to be able to holler that out in a room full of his or her ink-stained wretched co-workers? Frickin’ A Skippy, Jimmy Olsen, I think not.)
Three days and a couple thousand miles outside of Texas, NASCAR announced the rear spoiler on Harvick’s car was illegal. To put it more bluntly, that mother Fusion was all bitched up. To the tune of three-tenths of an inch. By the way, I don’t know why everyone reported it as 300-1000th of an inch. If I am remembering those Least Common Denominator lessons, that’s .3 inches. Maybe calling it 300 thousandth makes it sound bigger?
NASCAR doesn’t cucumber race wins anymore because that was dreadfully silly and they were mocked mercilessly when they did so. But the effect is the same. Harvick will be listed as the winner of the race presumably up until the point in the not too distant future when nobody keeps NASCAR statistics at all due to a lack of interest. But he lost 40 points. And most importantly, that Texas victory did not grant him a Gold Ticket to the playoffs at Homestead.
Yes, that same car had been inspected umpteen times, given NASCAR’s blessing and it seems impossible the car could have been altered again after post-race inspection and prior to the car being confiscated for a ride to the official NASCAR inspection building back in North Carolina. It sort of makes you wonder how accurate this high-fallooting laser measure system they use at the track is. Earlier this year, that same system flagged measurements that were off by what we in the industry call a “pubie.”
.3 inches isn’t much. But if I took a pin-striper’s brush and painted two lines .3 of an inch apart, few of you would see just one line at a glance. Remember, this sanctioning body is the same one that suspended a driver (for 12 races and effectively permanently when he couldn’t pay a $200,000 fine) for having an engine .17 cubic inches oversize. How big is .17 cubic inches? You couldn’t bathe a flea in a vessel that size.
Anytime NASCAR penalizes someone after a race, there will be those (and I am sometimes in their number) that say they are taking all the fun out of racing by micromanaging the sport with their seldom-seen but oft-discussed rule book. After all, guys like Smokey Yunick and Junior Johnson got famous (and a ton of race wins) with less-than-legal cars. (I’d argue that both car builders are best known for finding a gray area that the rule book didn’t prohibit so they went ahead and did it until NASCAR figured out what they were up to and made it illegal.)
But NASCAR was started by a bunch of outlaws, the bootleggers, right? Let me tell you something about the trade in white lightning. It was a deadly serious business. It wasn’t a couple photogenic if generally pleasant long-haired guys in an orange Charger (or Junior Johnson running through the woods of Caroline or even Burt Reynolds in that black Trans Am getting chased by criminally inept cops and revenuers). People got shot for straying into a competitors’ turf. Competitors got their stills dynamited. People wandered off to the corner store and never came back, the money they’d made delivering shine gone when the body was found. Those were desperate economic times when there were few ways for a common man to make a living in the rural south (or Chicago and New York, for that matter.) The hard times gave many men a taste for some hard liquor to ease the pain at the same time the government imposed a law that the manufacturer and sale of alcoholic beverages was prohibited. It wasn’t Bo and Luke. It was the desperate and the dead, pretty young widows standing out on the front porch late at night for a Tripper that wasn’t coming home in his hopped-up Flathead Ford.
Moonshine aside (and I’ve never developed a taste for the stuff), back when Junior and Smokey ruled the roost, stock car racing was a very different sport. The best drivers would be lucky to be competing for four or five hundred bucks at most races. The reason NASCAR prospered is because after the races, the winner actually got paid as opposed to some shyster promoters who grabbed the ticket proceeds and ran off with their strumpet receptionists after the event only to show up a month later in the next county over promoting another big race.
Nowadays, for better or worse, NASCAR is a multi-million dollar business. It makes drivers with even moderate success fairly wealthy young men fully capable of leaving the sport on their own terms and their own two feet, unlike many competitors before them.
Having Harvick found “illegal” this late in the year is a disaster. Yes, he has had a career year with eight wins. (Two of which would have been called encumbered last year but we don’t do that anymore. Remember Las Vegas?) And at times, Harvick has put a real whipping on the field, seemingly able to drive off and leave them in the dust at his leisure.
But now, one has to ask (though I am sure Stewart-Haas Racing would prefer you not): was Harvick’s dream season the result of a great driver driving great cars, prepared by a great team who hit upon a great setup that weekend? Or were they cheating all year? No, there’s no concrete evidence that’s the case. But prior to Wednesday morning, there was no evidence to show that the No. 4 car was illegal at Texas either, despite it being examined carefully by numerous NASCAR employees whose job it is to ascertain such things which they simply failed to do.
Recall prior to Texas Johnson was told he lost his starting position for failing pre-race inspection three times. Only thing was Johnson’s Chevy had only failed twice. I think almost all of us who outgrew toddlerhood can tell the difference between two and three. If not, you need to remove that one finger from your nose where you’re mining your sinuses for booger boulders. And if that isn’t merriment enough, the cars of the drivers who finished second and fourth were also found to be cheated up. What about the third-place finisher? We don’t know. That car wasn’t taken for R&D inspection. It leaves me wondering if there was a single car at Texas that could have survived the same level of scrutiny the No. 4 was subject to. And if everyone cheated then, who won? Pass me the cucumbers, Martha.
“But everybody is doing it” is an excuse that rarely passes paternal muster for a three-year-old. (Or the hellion of a teenager I was in my time.) Mom would respond, “If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it, too?” As it turned out, Hell, yes. I recall diving off the bridge at the reservoir on hot summer afternoons until nearly sundown and having a great time doing it. But on those blissful afternoons I knew if I got sloppy and failed to see a cop car cruising by and he saw me jumping off the bridge I was going to get an expensive citation. Telling the cops “everyone else was doing it too before you showed up to ruin everything” wasn’t going to change things or make up for earning 75 dollars at three dollars an hour busing tables at a Howard Johnson’s that always smelled like cat sick. Fortunately or unfortunately, you can’t jump off that bridge anymore. If you’re wondering where Trump’s border wall is, the Newtown Square 5-0 and Penndot built it along the reservoir bridge on Gradyville Road before Billie Joe Gentry could go ahead and drown himself jumping off it…like a dangling participle.
There are rules both in life and racing. And if you don’t abide by them, there are consequences. Don’t like the rules? Work to get them changed. Rules are like school kids. Both the good ones and the stupid ones have to be taught.
In an NFL game that’s been a bit dull of late in the contest, if a quarterback throws a high and wobbly pass but a receiver makes an athletic leap to catch the ball on his fingertips, comes down, evades two defensemen, sprints 30 yards and dives into the end zone for the winning score as time expires, that’s a good thing. It will make all the highlight reels, sell a lot of tickets and boost ratings. But if the replay shows that receiver’s foot landed out of bounds and the refs simply missed, that’s a horrible thing. It calls into question the legitimacy of the game and it deprives a deserving team of a win. Everyone is in an uproar.
Stock car racing rarely gets mentioned on the local news in Pennsylvania. But this week, one station (fortunately, not the one everyone watches) did make a late mention of how Harvick’s car was found to be illegal but he got to keep the win despite being caught cheating. The wide-eyed sportscaster and the wizened old anchor looked at each other stunned as if to ask how such a thing could happen.
In this case, it’s not just Harvick’s season that is now open to question. All four SHR cars have won races this year and all four made the cut into the final eight. It defies belief that if the No. 4 team knew that mounting the rear spoiler illegally gave a speed advantage they didn’t share the news with their compatriots. And all the Ford teams have been running very well this year. Is it a matter of good teams preparing good cars for good drivers or are they all cheating? Does it matter?
Hell, yes. Look at Daniel Suarez. He ran OK a lot of the time but never won. As such, Joe Gibbs Racing released him. If all the other cars (and presumably his) were legal all year, might he have scored a win or two and saved his career at JGR? I don’t know. Is the reason Denny Hamlin and Jimmie Johnson haven’t won this year for the first time in their careers that their cars were legal and too slow or at least not cheated up enough to keep up with the fleet Fords? Again, we are talking about careers and huge amounts of money here.
It’s said the reason NASCAR won’t take a win away after a race is at the insistence of the sport’s founder Big Bill France. Most of you reading this column never saw Senior in action, but he was about the most despicable, loathsome, unkind and unprincipled dictator to ever drag his knuckles through the garage area trying to hustle any dimes P.T. Barnum hadn’t snagged yet. (Not that his successors have made cameos on My Little Pony, of course.)
But France said he wanted fans leaving the race to know who won. Fair enough back then. Back then if you wanted to know the football scores, you had to wait for the next day’s newspaper. If you wanted to send a letter, you mailed it and four or five days later, it arrived. Or, you paid extra for Air Mail to knock a day or two off of that. But in today’s era of the internet information (and misinformation) travels at the speed of lightning, Those fans leaving the track France was so concerned about will probably be on their cell phones as they sit in hopelessly gridlocked post-race traffic. If a winner is disqualified, they’ll know it long before they reach the highway. And my guess is the general reaction would be “ain’t that some shi….stuff.”
Oh, and for the record, in 1995 Dale Jarrett took the checkered flag in the Michigan Busch Series race but got disqualified for cheating (illegal modifications to the intake manifold) later. The win was taken away and given to Mark Martin. You need to go way back here, but in one NASCAR modified race, future Cup star LeeRoy Yarbrough won but NASCAR had thrown a questionable late caution (they’ve done that for years, too) to make a race of it. LeeRoy was so incensed he used his winner’s interview on the track PA system to curse them a blue streak for being such duplicitous scoundrels. NASCAR promptly stripped him of the win and his car owner fired Yarbrough at their insistence.
In the NASCAR Daytona Beach and Road Course race (the granddaddy of the Daytona 500) NASCAR’s biggest star at the time, Tim Flock, took the checkers but was then disqualified for having an illegal carburetor though there was nothing in the rulebook that said it was illegal. Oh, and in the very first NASCAR Cup race ever (the very first fricking one, I remind you) Glen Dunaway took the checkers but was disqualified, handing the win to Jim Roper, The rules said that cars had to be “strictly” stock and Dunaways team had driven wooden wedges into the rear springs to stiffen them so his win was Dunaway with. It’s not that NASCAR doesn’t do it, it’s just they only do it when they feel like it and they didn’t feel like it at Texas.
Imagine if NASCAR not only told an apparent race-winning driver of his win but that since it was an L1 level penalty they were going to be kind enough to give him the following weekend off. Oh, they’d still be holding a race the following week, he just wouldn’t be eligible to compete in it.
“Oh, no. You can’t do that,” some will say. “It would be highly embarrassing to that driver’s sponsor and we all know how costly Cup racing is these days.” Exactly. If a sense of sportsmanship and fair play and a lack of true confidence in their driver’s abilities won’t force a team to bring a legal car to the track, fear of losing a high buck and hard-to-get sponsor just might. And while we’re at it, are you proposing a two-tier set of rules, one for teams with big buck sponsors and another for teams trying to get by while looking for sponsorship?
Oh and it gets better, Campers. It’s been quite the busy news week in NASCAR. Some of you may have heard that NASCAR wants to buy all the outstanding shares of the International Speedway Corporation (from here on out, the ISC). Some definitions here for the casual fan. NASCAR is a privately held company owned by the France family and coconspirators. They make the rules and enforce them. They run the races. They sign the contracts with the TV folks. Perhaps most crucially, they make up the schedule for each year.
Now, ISC is a totally different entity. (The sarcasm isn’t weeping here, it’s gushing.) ISC is a publicly-held company that trades on Wall Street. If you were stupid enough to want to do so, you could buy a share in the company. (Well, in defense of your stupidity, NASCAR is offering 42 dollars a share for ISC stock which last traded at $39.70 a share.)
ISC owns racetracks that host 19 of 36 points races a year in the Cup Series. Most of the rest of the tracks that host Cup races are owned by Speedway Motorsports, Inc., a company formed by O. Bruton Smith. SMI owns tracks like Charlotte, Atlanta, Las Vegas and others. Perhaps you’re sensing a bit of awkwardness here. Since NASCAR makes the schedule, they decide what tracks to run at when. And once NASCAR owns ISC, they also own those 19 tracks.
Might one fear that they will award the good dates and more of them to their own tracks, leading to charges of conflict of interest by SMI ownership? (At the time of publication for this article, SMI still hasn’t weighed in.) They have in the past. Back when SMI was trying to get a second date for the Texas track (stating they’d already been given the first when they announced they were building the track) NASCAR said “No.” So SMI, in the person of one Ferdinand Ferko (a lawyer, not a cartoon mule in this instance), screamed “conflict of interest!” Eventually, NASCAR let Bruton Smith buy half of North Wilkesboro and move one of its two dates to Texas. (the other half of North Wilkes was sold to Bob Bahre, who moved the other date to his track in New Hampshire. Ironically enough, Smith went on to buy NHIS from Bahre and moved one of that track’s dates to his track in Las Vegas with NASCAR cheering and clapping as he did so. Left out in the cold were NASCAR’s stockholders, if not financially, historically, and emotionally, the fans. For the most part, fans would rather see races at North Wilkesboro rather than Texas… or NHIS… or Las Vegas, for that matter. Yet another conflict of interest.
Meanwhile, even at their own tracks (or perhaps most especially at their own tracks), the new NASCAR/ISC confab (both companies were already housed in the same building and controlled by the same family, so it won’t be a big transition outside the courtrooms) NASCAR can enforce and make the rules, throw caution flags at their whim, suspend drivers or teams, lengthen or shorten races and assign penalties in any way they feel might spice up the action, draw more attention to the sport and thus sell more tickets to their races and increase TV ratings to maximize the price they can demand from the networks to broadcast races from their tracks. (A number that, given the current ratings since all askew from reality unless NBC and FOX have started putting LSD in their corporate water coolers.)
When the topic of a major revamp of the schedule has come up (or shortening the races or the season) NASCAR has been adamant in saying they have deals with all the tracks currently on the schedule through 2020 while rather disingenuously leaving out the fact the France family is the majority owner of the ISC, which owns most of those tracks where Cup races are run. As Pogo once said, “We have met the enemy and they is us.”
If following NASCAR all these decades have convinced me of nothing else, it’s convinced me and a majority of you that NASCAR has long since strayed over the line between a real sport and the entertainment business. It’s a thin line though perhaps wider than that 3/10th of an inch the No 4 car’s spoiler was over. It’s the difference between professional wrestling and the made-up stuff in the alphabet soup of “wrestling” organizations that have followed. Watching that scripted nonsense, even a dullard can figure out “if this was a real sport, they’d probably have rules against hitting competitors with folding chairs, using a staple gun on your opponent’s scrotum or having busty corner women in bikinis leaping into the fray leave clouds of hair spray and peroxide fumes in their wake.”
But for a long, long time that sort of wrestling drew huge ratings, even for Pay-Per-View events NASCAR apparently aspires to. Back when NASCAR was first hitting its stride in popularity and the internet was in its infancy, WWE wrestling used to beat the tar out of stock car racing both in TV ratings and internet hits. It’s not a pretty truth but it’s the truth. And NASCAR has shown time and time again when it’s in their fiscal interest to interpret the rules to add drama to the goings on they will do so without pangs of conscience or even a slight smirk.
Just show me the money!
Hey, maybe they’re right and things are so far gone right now sporting entertainment (as opposed to entertaining sports) is the only road to the future for stock car racing. As P.T. Barnum once said (also apocryphal), “Nobody has ever gone broke underestimating the intelligence of Americans.” Follow along, Campers. The end of the 2018 NASCAR season is nigh. Shall we all go see where that fancy door marked “egress” leads to?
About the author
Matt joined Frontstretch in 2007 after a decade of race-writing, paired with the first generation of racing internet sites like RaceComm and Racing One. Now semi-retired, he submits occasional special features while his retrospectives on drivers like Alan Kulwicki, Davey Allison, and other fallen NASCAR legends pop up every summer on Frontstretch. A motorcycle nut, look for the closest open road near you and you can catch him on the Harley during those bright, summer days in his beloved Pennsylvania.
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i can’t help but think all those anti-na$car comments and how he didn’t play nice with na$car over the years as a driver have come back to haunt stewart.
not like the 4 team hasn’t won other times during the year. did they run the same spoiler manufactured by the non-preferred vendor all year long?
just another thing to try to create some interest in an otherwise vanilla fight for the championship.
now you’ve got logano, kyle busch and harvick, the black cowboy hat wearers going against the good guy truex in the white cowboy hat.
RIP David Pearson.
*********
“NASCAR doesn’t cucumber race wins anymore because that was dreadfully silly and they were mocked mercilessly when they did so.”
They were in a pickle then…
Since “Joey Logano signed in as the mystery guest”, does that mean John Charles Daly will be on the broadcast team at Homestead, or instead, since Dick Dastardly is in the race, should we expect to hear the voice of Dave Willock?
P.T. Barnum was right, so many truly believe Truex has finally learned to win in these last 3 years. Amazing. There’s a real good reason the 78 crew chief is going along for the ride. No way Gibbs doesn’t want to learn the secret he has up his sleeve.
My bet, Harvicks car has been tricked out a lot this year and only by luck did a sharp NASCAR official catch it. Most NASCAR officials have proven they aren’t very sharp.
I agree completely, I say with all the sarcasm in the world ALL THE TIME!!!!. “What 10/12 years in Cup, sucking hugely, he suddenly learns how to drive” the last 3?????? I don’t buy this miracle for one minute. Not one minute.
Hey Matt. Love your stuff. Yes, Three Dog Night had the hit you quoted from, “Mama Told Me Not to Come,” but the tune was written by Randy Newman, a true National Treasure, who deserves the credit.
You’re preaching to the choir, Hall. I’ve told my sisters I want He Gives Us All His Love, the criminally underappreciated main song from the also unappreciated movie Cold Turkey. If you’re having a tough Tuesday Google the official video for Newman’s I Love LA and it will make you grin. Riding down Ventura with a big nasty redhead at my side………
As far as I’m concerned, either Nascar has to simplify the rules, allowing for innovation, or figure out how to come up with a ‘final’ inspection at the track. The 4 car went thru numerous inspections at the track as was passed as legal. Nascar should be SOL.
Wow, a lot of ground covered in this article. Every time NASCAR makes a decision that benefits entertainment and not competition they take a step closer to wrestling. Nothing points this out more than the chase/playoffs.
Policing the garage is like trying to stop illegal drugs from coming into the country. It’s impossible because there are just too many places to police but they have to do what they can to deter such activities. I think suspensions will become the norm in the future. That will be the only true deterrent. If a driver would miss one race because of a self-inflicted penalty then they wouldn’t be eligible for the championship. And be clear, we should only be only talking about purposefully doctored parts designed to gain an advantage.
As for the championship my first choice is Truex because he seems to be the cleanest/least controversial driver of the four. Next is Logano because he’s never won a championship. Third is Havick because, even though he’s a punk, he’s at the end of his career and probably won’t have many more chances. Busch is last just because, while also being a punk, he should have many more years ahead of him in which to compete for another championship.
Next season, regular season champion will have the title, “Intercontinental Champion.”
Time to manufacture Joey a championship. That’s my prediction. That way everyone gets their participation championship.
i think kurt busch already received his participating trophy at the “end of the regular season” he was presented with a trophy for being points leader at end of regular season at the end of the 26th race. i though that was participating trophy. wonder if they’re going to hand out most stage winner trophys as well.
I think it was Kyle, not Kurt, but silly none the less.
And I was sure it was going to be the love child. Chase.
All the Ford teams are running strong? Some one needs to tell Jack.
RIP Silver Fox
Matt your column had me snickering out loud from start to finish. And the Springsteen reference was pretty sweet even though it probably went right past many of the Boss’s casual fans.
What happens after the final race at homestead are the top three cars going to be takem back to the nascar inspection place to determine if the winner or any car is legal. No way. Nascar dont want to lnow. Do you think nascar is going to take away the big trophy and all the pr that happens after the race to then tell the winner woops your car was illegal and we are going to give the championship to the next legal car. That aint going to happen i would cheat big time at the final race bc nascar will not take away your championship. To much bad pr.
I feel the same way. Ain’t no way in hell they are going to place an asterisk on their blessed playoff based championship. They may turn the car upside down for prerace inspections but I’d bet the post race inspection is cursory.
My guess is that the France family is buying up the all the outstanding ISC shares it can so it can sell NASCAR and ISC as a package deal. I can’t imagine NASCAR itself is worth billions, but add in the real estate and TV shares of the ISC tracks and you have an attractive package.
That’s a good point.
“Is the reason Denny Hamlin and Jimmie Johnson haven’t won this year for the first time in their careers that their cars were legal and too slow or at least not cheated up enough to keep up with the fleet Fords?”
So you’re saying 7 Time Champion crew chief Chad Knaus, Mr. “If we win this race, you have to crack the back end of the car”, can’t cheat as good as Rodney Childers? Or that he recently had an epiphany and is now walking the straight and narrow on the NASCAR rulebook? I guess that might explain their year, but I’m not sure I buy it.
Even if you go back to the year Johnson won his last championship it was apparent that his stats were trending down. Not just wins but top 10s, 5s and regular season points. My only point is that it just isn’t “this year” and we might be seeing the future right now (i.e., retirement sooner than later). I doubt Knauss has forgotten how to cheat and I don’t believe in epiphanies.
Maybe J-Jo is not that young any more!
More NASCAR nonsense. Had enough yet? Take your segments and “playoffs” and……….
RIP David Pearson, by far my all time favorite driver.
I’ve never written in before Matt. I find some pretty good humor in your articles, and some great insight, but it makes me ask 1 question, and I’ll get to that in a moment. I love racing!! I even love NASCAR sometimes. I find it interesting how you love to bash (and for good reason most times) Brian France. Yet you seem completely enamored with the way Sr & Jr ran NASCAR over the decades. In today’s article you actually slammed them too. So the best I can tell, NASCAR has always been “My way or the highway” kind of operation. So really nothing has really changed since 1949, right? I’ve been in, around, and involved in racing since the early 70’s,and I still love racing. Yes, NASCAR is feeling more and more like WWE, and that’s not a good thing. All sports, not just NASCAR or your favorite local track, is fighting hard to gain ANY fans. Unfortunately most people have no ability to stay focused more than a few minutes, let alone 3+ hours for a race. Just look at the #1 sport in the US, the NFL. Forget the self inflicted (yes it happens to them as well) damage that the kneeling players have caused. Still almost all rule changes that have happened in the last 5 years not associated to safety have come from trying to shorten games, to try and fit them into a 3 hour window. It’s not like there is any shortage of sponsors wanting to advertise on NFL games. It’s very easy to say that NASCAR has many warts, because they do. If NASCAR fails, then what? Because if they fail, how long before those weekly tracks fail? Again, then what? Will the true fans of racing have to start watching Formula 1 racing? I sure hope not, because that is MUCH worse than NASCAR on so many levels. So here’s the question for you that I alluded to earlier. If you despise NASCAR so much in it’s current form, why do you still write about it so much? It’s obvious they aren’t listening to you, me or anybody, correct? Which has always been the France family’s standard operation procedure best I can tell. I could never have a job that I completely disagree with, to the extent you seem to disagree with, anything NASCAR. Writing articles every week that literally never has anything positive to say about what I’m writing about, would seem like self inflicted torture. I’ve read many of your articles, and still love the series from the 1988 season (50 years of NASCAR). You seemed to enjoy those times in NASCAR history, warts and all. I don’t get it..
Well Ron, thanks for finally writing. I genuinely appreciate it and the fact you’ve been reading my stuff all these years. You have worded it a bit differently but I’ve been asked this basic question (if you dislike it so much why do you watch NASCAR racing?)
Well that’s a bit complex. I’ve been a fan since I was 5 years old in 1964. Obviously Petty was my favorite driver but I admired Pearson as well esp. as a Ford/Mustang fanatic. My uncle who was in the military back then and stationed in NC used to cut the articles about that weekends races in the Observer and mail them to me every week. It’s part of how I learned to read and more importantly learned to love reading. Some kids dreamed of Siam and the Arabian peninsula. Me I dreamed of Darlington and Rockingham….exotic far away places I dreamed of visiting someday and since then have gone many times.
I’ve written about my journiies on some articles. Also those articles taught me about great writing, using the written word to paint vivid pictures of the on-track action clear enough you could smell the burning rubber. Back then there was little to no racing on TV. When ESPN signed on to start covering races I was flat out thrilled. I finally had to get cable TV for something other than MTV. I still feel a degree of bitterness that NASCAR kicked ESPN to the curb after all their years of being our TV home. Chase the almighty dollar rather than leaving the dance with the one that brought you. And ESPN did some very good coverage even if the graphics were a bit primitive in that era. Benny, Ned, and Bob were like close friends you invited into your living room every Sunday afternoon (at 1 PM ET as God intended racing to be run. Out of bed, run to church, family breakfast, crack a brew and turn on NASCAR. It’s one of my pet peeves. It doesn’t cost that much more to do TV coverage of races well rather than poorly. Darrell Waltrip is like an estranged relative you never did like who comes hammering at the front door mid-afternoon and makes an ass of himself just to hear himself talk.
I still consider that period from the mid 80s to the early 2000s the golden age of stock car racing. Tim Richmond, the Intimidator, the Atlanta season finale 1992 when Kwiicki edged Davey Allison and Elliott for that title. It was magic. Until Feb 17 2001. During that period I watched as a NASCAR went from a regional sport you didn’t admit you followed in polite company to a huge deal nearly everyone knew something about. You were no longer a hillbilly racist just because you liked stock car racing. But the powers that be blew it and blew it badly. The sport has been losing popularity for the last decade and that’s not because of anything I wrote. I don’t have that kind of power. It ju st so happens that a lot of people agreed with what I was saying. My first real blast of negativity concerned SAFER barriers (which NASCAR’s Mike Helton called “a cure worse than the disease) and the HANS device which NASCAR was saying was unproven technology even as F1 and CART started using them and saving lives. More than once I was told that it was just too expensive to install SAFER barriers at race tracks. That was prior to Feb 17 2001 so you understand why I hit my all time most read (and most negative ever) column Blood on Their Hands” later retitled to “At What Price Entertainment” by my bosses over my strong and vocal objections. I was flat out furious to the point I’d broken several fingers punching a wall and I was about halfway to drunk when i wrote that one. I was just so angry. Nowadays all drivers wear HANS devices and just about every inch of oval track is lined with SAFER barriers because people like me and many other writers just wouldn’t let it go. That is what I am most proud of in my career.
After that column wasn’t removed Bill France Jr ordered I be fired. When I wasn’t the ISC (OK Americrown which is the race track catering division of the ISC bought the site where I worked just to be rid of me. Bastards. I still have a copy of my final check signed by Lesa Kennedy France. Plus I was told in a very threatening tone, I could get no more at track credentials nor would my phone calls requesting comment be returned. They wanted to make it so I couldn’t cover racing for another site basically making me unemployable. And I was told if I was caught at a race I’d be escorted off the property and none too gently. I did get thrown out of Dover even though me and my buddies had tickets we purchased with our own money not freebies and I was sitting in the grandstands at the time.
But I decided to keep writing just to piss them off and being Irish I can be one ornery SOB.
But I still watch the races every Sunday (or Saturday night or Monday afternoon…..whenever) because there’s still a classic among the clinkers occasionally. It’s just habit. You seem to agree me with on the WWE thing. Everytime they make a move in that direction I do a palm to forehead slap and think to myself. “no way, even Brian France can’t be that stupid.” And time after time I am shocked to realize “oh crap, he really is!” His grandfather was a thug, his dad was a dictator but he’s just an imbecile. It is said of all family owned businesses The first generation created, the second generation perfects and the third generation destroys. I’d like to think someone along the lines of a Humpy Wheeler or Roger Penske could salvage the wreckage of the sport and start a new full fendered racing organization more like the NASCAR of my youth I loved.
So to sum up, I still follow NASCAR because I am an ornery SOB and I’ve met a lot of really good people through the sport. Trust me it’s now to pay the salaries of my crew to bring my motor-yacht to the Islands for the winter. Sorry if that’s not the greatest or most eloquent explanation but it’s what I’ve got.
You were almost all rid of me last August. I had to have heart surgery and if I had the old open chest style it likely would have killed me as sick as I was back then. But I had a brilliant doctor do the surgery roboticaly and now feel better than I have in many years. But I won’t be around forever, I promise, and I don’t expect too many people to care (or even notice) when I do finally check out.
matt,
2/17/01? that’s the day before. 2/18/01 is the day.
you wrote how many of us felt that day. we had already lost too many lives to basial skull fractures. and it wasn’t til october that year when blaise alexander was killed that na$car finally mandated head and neck restraints.
they have saved many lives since then.
If I’m still around when you’re not I will most certainly miss you. I remember when I first started following you, back in nineteen-ninety-something (Speedworld?). After reading your column for the first time, I responded, and you responded to me at length and with great humor. I felt special, and somewhere I still have that correspondence. I’m a month and two days shy of the big 6-0, and like you, I’ve had a major health scare in the past couple of years, only mine was a stroke, which I’ve almost fully recovered from (I still have balance issues and have to lean on something to put on my underwear. If that’s the price of recovery, I’m a damned lucky guy.) A lifetime race fan, I grew up in SC about a mile from the historic Columbia Speedway, and dad took me to a few races when I was a tyke, probably at the insistence of my mom who needed a moment’s peace. I grew up a Yarborough-Pearson fan because they were from my home state, but my secret favorite in those days was Bobby Isaac. There was just something about that red #71 Charger that I really took to. We won’t talk about what killed him, but I’m sure you know. My point, which I remember even after all this rambling, is that you’re not alone in how you feel about the sport of stock car racing, and I call it that, not Nascar, because that’s really what it’s supposed to be… what it started out to be… and what it ain’t anymore. When Humpy or Roger or whoever finally does rebuild the next Nascar, I hope it gets back to its true roots… stock cars racing to win. Not spec cars, not playoff points and stage points, not wave-arounds and lucky dogs and multi-million dollar drivers hiding from fans in their million dollar motorhomes. We may not be around to see it then, but by-God we saw it when it was something to see, and nobody can take that from us, not even the Imbecile. And when you’re gone, I suspect more people than you will ever know about will miss you and your weekly observations on the state of stock car racing. Checkered flag; I’m done.
Well Matt, I am personally glad to ticker didn’t end you yet, as you are a great writer. For as many things Brian France has done to hurt NASCAR, I still have ONE good thing that I know him from. I was still in the Air Force in 1992, and I just got stationed in Tucson, AZ. NASCAR was trying an experiment there. They were terrified of the pending retirement of several drivers, and didn’t think they had a good, vast driver pool tropical them. So they took over the lease of a dirt track at the Pima County Fairgrounds. I heard they spent several million dollars there to pave and refurbish the track. Tucson Raceway Park was beautiful, and during the mid-late 90’s ESPN showed the Winter Heat Series from there. As far as I know it’s the first intentional progressive track in the US. When the group that built Irwindale Speedway in the LA area started planning that build, they contracted Bob Molder (not positive on the last name spelling), who owned Wide World of Maps, to ariel map TRP. So Irwindale became the 1/2 mile version of TRP’s 3/8 mile track. The funny thing about the TRP build was that Brian France was the track operator that made it happen. Also, the local racing community said asphalt racing would never make it in Tucson. On opening night of the asphalt track, over 6000 fans showed up. It was some what a disaster. The ticket booth was overwhelmed, there were not enough seats or bathrooms either. Brian France took a mic down onto the front straight to address the fans that stayed. He promised that what happened that night would never happen again. One week later there was a huge ticket booth built. There were 60 port-o-potties brought in. Two brand new aluminum bleacher sections were installed, and more were added later too. Two new complete bathroom facilities were built within a month. The way he built up TRP was amazing. NASCAR held the lease until about 2000 if I remember correctly. They sold the lease to the Deery Family. They own several successful racing series’ throughout the US. Unfortunately we got the bad Deery in David. He proceeded to destroy TRP. I raced a modified there for several seasons. We went from 20-30 modified down to 6-14 modifieds in about 5 seasons after Deery took over. The super late models faired a little better, going from 20-30 cars, down to 10-15 cars over the same time.
I grew up in Cincinnati, going to Tri-County Speedway, later named Queen City Speedway. Another incredible track that got run into the ground. One season I was lucky enough to work on the pit crew for the ARCA/USAC stock car great Jack Bowsher, when his son Gary started racing. Then Off to the AF.
As I said earlier though, I still love racing so much it hurts. I wonder what will happen at the local level if NASCAR fails.
In 2001, after Dale’s death, there was a mental struggle within stock car racing with the mandating of safety equipment. I argued with the Competition Director at TRP. NASCAR had come out with a mandate for all NASCAR touring series, requiring either the HANS or Hutchins devices be worn at all times while on the track. We were “encouraged” to have one. I wanted them mandated for all Supers & Modifieds. He said that they couldn’t mandate that. So I asked a simple question. If I drive onto the track without a fire suit what would happen? He said I’ll black flag you. So you can mandate safety equipment then. He was not amused. Not long after we had a super late model driver crash there that had very serious head injuries. He made it, but was never able to even drive a car again. My friend John Baker was killed at Irwindale Speedway. He had on the mandated HANS device. John however didn’t like the constraints that it caused. So he wore it, but never tightened the tethers. Died of a Basil skull fracture. Sound familiar? Yeah, NASCAR was very late to the safety game, but the drivers also participated too. Brett Bodine wore a full faced helmet and HANS a year or two before Dale’s death. Everyone, including Dale made fun of him. They weren’t laughing in Feb. 2001. I don’t know where this goes from here. Maybe Penske, or someone as smart and dedicated like hime can fix it. But with NASCAR buying back stock like they currently are, something is about to happen. One can only hope.
Brett’s daughter Heidi was dating Kenny Irwin when he died at NHIS
thanks for sharing the rest of this info.
I’d miss your stories Matt. Brian France was able to get at least 3 huge TV rights deals done, that really moved NASCAR’s needle. It made a lot of millionaires too. But I still can’t figure out was all that money good for the sport. My favorite era for NASCAR is the late 60’s through the early 1990’s. Racing seemed to be about racing, not all the BS that started in the mid 90’s to current. I really miss that the most.
God Bless