Rowdy People

The Right Stuff

To Moe Joe and all those others who doubt the level of admiration I have for Jimmie Johnson and his devilish crew chief Chad Knauss, read on.

Am I jealous?

Who ISN'T jealous of Chad Knauss? LOL! I want him to coach the Miami Dolphins at this point, dammit!

I am literally sitting here laughing about it. It really is absurd, the level of completeness that the #48 has. Preparation, luck, everything. I've said it before, it's nothing new: The #48 Lowes team is the best race team in the world. Not just NASCAR, but the WORLD.

Understand the scope of what I am saying? Better than Mercedes, Ferrari, T8 or any factory operation worldwide.

I have no doubt that if Hendrick decided he wanted to tackle the Indy 500, or the 24 Hours of Le Mans that he could put Chad Knauss in charge of that project and they would come home with the winner's trophy for either event within 3 years. At the most. Wouldn't surprise me if they did it in their first try. And this is the sick part the really depicts the level of admiration I have for the entire operation: they could do this WITH Jimmie at the wheel.

I'd even go to THIS outrageous level of hyperbole: If so challenged, there is little doubt in my mind that Chad Knauss could literally deliver Jimmie Johnson to the moon and return him safely to the Earth. And make a profit while doing it.

It's sick. It's disgusting. It re-writes everything we have come to know about American stock car racing and more. Is that enough gushing for ya? Is that a sufficient display of unfettered admiration?

Cool..

Cuz I hate them. I so want them to go away... LOL!

It's Bad Enough He'sThe Best....

...but do I also have to deal with him being the luckiest sonuva bitch on the race track, too? LOL!

Danica, Kimi - It's All the Same...

Being the well-rounded race-geek I am, I spent some time this weekend catching up on the World Rally Championship from Sweden. For those who don't follow it, the WRC is rally racing's Formula 1; the best of the best. It's an altogether different form of racing than NASCAR or IRL or most things we watch in the States. It's off road, it's pretty much a race against the clock with a driver and navigator in each car. Anyway, in the WRC this year, 2007 Formula 1 Champion Kimi Raikkonen has entered, having retired from F1. The cars are entirely different, the lexicon between driver, crew and navigator are entirely different, the courses, the fans, the manufacturers all present a new challenge to Raikkonen.

And he is struggling. Badly.

My point here is that Danica is facing the same kind of challenges here and from where I sit given the limitations on testing and everything else, she is doing just fine. Seat time is everything. But most importantly from what I can tell she has a clear, managed approach to it. Her personal expectations are measured and incrementally, small steps of progress are being made. Yeah, she almost ran my guy out to the wall while getting lapped, but that happens. Hell, it happened last year in a very similar fashion if you remember with Kyle and rookie Chase Austin. It's the price of doing business in the Nationwide series...

Anyway, I digress. the point here is racing is so specialized nowadays, no matter the form, that this Danica thing is going to take time. Personally, I hope fans are patient enough to wait and see how she truly develops without making rash judgments (either way) based on single race performances ....

Me & Dale Earnhardt

(Regrettably, I totally missed the date today. Imagine that. Didn't notice it at all. Didn't write a check or date anything. What do you want from me? But thankfully, Riley7 reminded me with his blog. Initially this started as a response, but it kinda morphed and I figured it should get it's own space. Thanks Riles...)

Dale Earnhardt was my sports hero. Even that doesn't come close to describing the effect the man had on my life.

Many people who connect with Dale are kinda like him or can identify with him because there is a blue collar, working class connection there. That's not me or my background. My folks are New Englanders, liberals, academics. I was raised to be a long-haired tree-hugging artisan (which I remain, sans the long hair). But at the age of 12, when I fell absolutely in love with NASCAR racing, I saw this guy handle a car in a way I had never seen before.

***

It was 1979 and they were replaying the Sportsman 300 from Daytona [edit: Nationwide] , the race where Don Williams was so critically injured in a back stretch accident. In the race were a few Cup ringers, Bobby and Donnie Allison, Darrell Waltrip and some rookie in a blue and yellow Nova. There he was tucked tight in behind Bobby heading into the short chute between the tri-oval and turn 1 when Allison's motor totally blows. Like Ryan Newman at Michigan blows - BIG time. Earnhardt, a rookie, never flinches in the shower of smoke, fluid and parts, calmly wheels his car inside and handles the situation like a seasoned veteran.

You know, in the years that followed I was honored to see that man do a lot of things with a race car, the so-called "Pass In The Grass", winning with no power steering at Bristol, driving through multi-car wrecks as if guided by the hand of God himself, but that moment in Allison's slipstream remains a moment imprinted upon my memory with indelible ink.

I saw this potential early, EARLY on. I have been wrong about a lot of things in this life, but there are two things I knew the moment I saw them: The redhead in the corner would someday be my wife, and that Dale Earnhardt was going to be the best pure racer the motorsports world would ever see.

***

On the day he died, in retrospect, we all had to know something was cosmically amiss. I remember the whole Speedweeks clearly. There was the whole deal where he didn't want to show up for January practice so he made up this whole story about getting a piece of iron removed from his head. Remember that? Then there was Dale Junior talking about his "dream" about winning the Daytona 500. A reporter asked about his dad and where was he in this "dream" and Dale Jr. replied distantly, "He wasn't there." There was the 24 hour race with the incredible sunrise and the in-car, passenger seat camera footage of him piloting the Corvette for a full lap without any commentary, just him in his office with his open faced helmet working the wheel and gearbox. Like watching Hendrix. The whole of Speedweeks where for the first time in forever he didn't win anything. No 125, no Shootout, not even the IROC race. I was there that day with Jeremy, my son. Dale had blown a late restart the day before in the 125s and we stuck around another day for the trucks and the IROC race. He pulls a move going into turn 1 where he gets shoved down to the apron, into the grass and saves it by turning into the slide. Amazing.

In many ways, I think that the fact that he successfully pulled off that move on Friday gave him the false confidence to try it again at the other end of the track the Sunday of the 500.

On race day, he makes this stoic stroll down pit lane. He kisses her, and then pauses and returns for a second kiss. it is goodbye....

I was at home, not having tickets for the big race. The words from Mike Joy are "And it's the final lap...."

He doesn't realize the prophetic nature of his words...

Fox missed something vital on that final lap. They cut away just as Sr. gets a run off of turn 2 onto the backstretch and closes on Jr.s bumper. You don't see the bump draft, the final send off to his son. If I were ever to meet Dale Jr. in an intimate setting where I could ask such a thing, I would ask about that bump. Like a father patting his son on the bottom as he heads off to school. Ultimately, this bump leads to Sr's demise, as his car's momentum is slowed as a result and his opponents split him left and right heading into turn three.

The "opponents". They read like a who's who of drivers Dale has done wrong on the track over the years. Marlin. Schrrader. Wallace. The latter was the problem as his moving into the middle took the final bit of air off of Earnhardt's spoiler and send him into the fatal crash. Not that it was deliberate or anything; just cosmic. In the final analysis, if Earnhardt had just spun the car out to the left instead of trying to save it, he may very well still be with us today. But that wasn't Dale. He trusted in his abilities all the way to the end.

I remember the interview with Schrader afterward. That didn't sound good. But remarkably the sign I knew something was wrong with the universe was victory lane. There's an overjoyed Michael Waltrip living his pure, short-lived moment of glory. During the interview, a piece of confetti lands smack dab in the middle of his forehead. It's almost comical if not for the warnings pounding in my head about the urgency of the rescue workers I saw before they cut away. It was as if Dale Sr, in is parting, had decided to plant one last practical joke on his buddy.

That piece of confetti, to me, will always be Dale waving goodbye.

***

I pounded Jayski, CNN and MSNBC over the following 2 and a half hours. Refresh. F5. Reload. Finally, the "breaking News" title on MSNBC's page fills in with the simple phrase "Earnhardt Dies at Daytona".

I'll never forget that.

We all cried that night. Me, my wife, my son. I couldn't go into work the next day. For weeks I kept looking for his car instinctively, on pit road, on restarts, I think that went on for months.

***

You know, my racing friends today think they can "get" me by pulling my chain about Kyle Busch. That's cool. Because no matter what happens this season, no matter what the M&M's #18 does on the track and no matter what Kyle does off of it, it really is like a coda to me. It matters, but it really doesn't. My real passion as a fan of a driver left the track in an ambulance 9 years ago today, never to return. In comparison, Kyle is just something to fill part of the space. Kinda.

The man was confident bordering on cocky. At age 12, that wasn't me. He rocked the establishment. At age 12, that wasn't me. He was brave. At age 12, that wasn't me. But ultimately, I became a person who is confident, courageous when called upon and trusting of my instincts. To a large extent it is because of Dale Earnhardt.

Goodbye and Good Riddance...

One of the continuing gripes I hear about last weekend's Daytona 500 is this refrain about what the "casual fan" thought of the pothole debacle. I got one answer for ya:

Who cares?

Casual fans and NASCAR's blind catering to their impression of motorsports delivered us to the point where racing was corporate, bland and uninteresting. Can't sit through a 2 hour delay? Chances are you aren't going to make it through a rain delay, or a catchfence repair job either. You'll be gone when the next big trend, be it MMA or chess boxing or whatever catches your fancy comes along.

It may be what some sponsors desire, but chasing the casual sports fan is not in the best interest of NASCAR. This sport was built upon the loyalty of RACE fans who understood that this sport inherently is unlike any other. It can be inconvenient. It is subject to chaotic, uncontrollable elements like rain, physics and human error. Barriers and sometimes people get broken. Can't accept that, Mr. and Mrs. Casual Sports Fan? Go watch basketball or football.

Racing in all of its forms, albeit in cars or on a sled,is about the glorious pursuit of speed and greatness, dancing along chaos' sharp edge. It takes courage, nerve and sometimes patience. It is NOT the NFL. I think the powers in Daytona Beach finally, FINALLY realized this point over the past 6 months and instead of trying to manage the message in order to appeal to the casual fan, they are getting back to racing basics. They've given us double-wide restarts. They're getting rid of the spoilers. They've told the drivers they can have their personalities back. They've given horsepower back to drivers at the restrictor plate tracks along with bump-drafting. Most importantly to me, when facing a huge technical problem on the track last Sunday, they fixed it and ran a full race of 500 miles instead of cutting and running in time for the local news. This all tells me that NASCAR is finally back on board and on the side of racers and race fans. Racing stands to gain for it.

And what about the mamby-pamby casual race fan and his talking head sports hole buddies?

Again, who cares. Go watch basketball, we don't need you. We really never did. Goodbye and good riddance...

Just a Reminder..

Watching Tony Stewart lambaste a female reporter this afternoon after she intimated that part of NASCAR's ratings fall could be tied to the sport being "too safe", I am reminded that Tony Stewart was the holdout that wanted NOTHING to do with the HANS device because it was "too restrictive".

Love ya Tony...

Weathercocking and the Shark Fin

If you have ever taxied a plane in a high cross wind or flown model rockets in high winds, you have dealt with weathercocking (weathervaning). Essentially, what you have is a phenomenon caused by the large rear surface area of the tail or fin unit getting pushed off axis by the wind, and pointing the nose into the wind. Here's a diagram of a model rocket being affected by the weather vane phenomenon.

Now, what does all this have to do with NASCAR racing? With the new aero package at restrictor plate tracks now including a "shark fin", we have a race car whose profile is laterally very similar to a rocket or an aircraft. It is my opinion that much of the instability that we have seen has been caused by the weathervane effect jumping the car around in high winds. Essentially, if you have a high wind from the left of you, it will push the rear and steer the nose of your car to the left. But on the opposite end of the track, with the wind now coming from the right, your car will do the opposite. It becomes something very hard to pin down.

The best way I can demonstrate this is for you to load up Microsoft Flight Simulator if you have it. Put a Cessna on the runway and set the weather so the wind is perpendicular to you and start your takeoff run. You'll find your plane wants to point into the direction from which the wind is coming.

NASCAR may think they are keeping the cars on firmer ground with this "shark fin" especially when they are sideways. the problem is that the fin itself may in fact put these cars in that position all by itself...

A Merry "X"mas from Racer X!

Here's hoping each of you have a great, happy, healthy and Merry Christmas. Hopefully, like me, you found your a die-cast of your favorite driver's car under the tree or something similar :) Be well and enjoy!

And for the heck of it, here's my crazy version of "The Little Drummer Boy" to brighten your holiday. I hope you like it hard :)

~X

JJ meets Taylor Swift

I am fairly certain that I am not alone. I am fairly certain I am not the first to express my displeasure with the current state of NASCAR racing, Jimmie Johnson as Champion, again. I am fairly certain I am not the first to complain about the prolonged reign of Rick Hendrick and his championship teams.

Hell, it's Saturday and maybe, just maybe Mark Martin will pull a rabbit out of his hat.

I should really appreciate this more, I think to myself. This is a great thing, Johnson as champion, again. He is displaying every attribute we purport to admire in racing. His skill is there for all to see. I am not being sarcastic in the least. No team so dominant can do what it does on autopilot. I've seen enough racing, and enough of Johnson, to understand that this isn't happening just because of Rick Hendricks’s money and Chad Knauss' cunning nature.

This is greatness. I should enjoy simply being in the presence of it.

But, I expect that I am like many. I feel as if there is something sterile in the air. Robotic lubricant. Something artificial. Taylor Swift. That's what it is.

I have often thought of racing in musical terms. Really, I mean this seriously. Formula 1 has always played out like a piece of classical music to me. The precision. The rote nature of it, so dependent on the learned process. Cold, critical. Like a pilot on ILS approach, or a violin player executing a Baroque piece just so. Any variation from the script is frowned upon.

Rally racing is more like jazz to my mind. Improvisational. The player had better be ready for anything. The course you are on is subject to change. The bandleader may drive you over a cliff.

And NASCAR? Rock and Roll. Brutish. From the loins with attitude. A fist pumping good time. Cutting the rug down at a place called the Jug with a girl named Linda Lu. And lemme tell you something.

Jimmie Johnson would get his ass kicked down at The Jug.

LOL! I love that line!

Anyway.

I think this is the thing that is rubbing the NASCAR faithful the wrong way. This is why NASCAR and their hired hands in the press have made sure to post no less than 10 different articles in the past week trying to assure us that this Championship is good for the sport. If there were no question, they wouldn't have to reassure us. Somehow, in our bones, we feel this sense of incompleteness. We feel.... We feel...

Nothing.

It's like some formulamatic pop song, with the perfect structure, the perfect microphone, the perfect room with the perfect reverb. The exact right drum loop at the right BPM and the made for prime time singer. Sonically, it is perfect. We should admire the way the engineer EQed the track perfectly to meet the needs of my speakers. We should admire the way in which the producer made use of the latest techniques in sound design. Scientifically, it is perfect. It represents the best that the industry has to offer.

But it doesn't move me.

Jimmie Johnson, Chad Knauss and Rick Hendrick have put together the best racing team in the world with the Lowes #48. I mean that seriously. The best racing team in the world is American, races on the NASCAR circuit and calls Concord, North Carolina their home. We should all be proud of that.

But Taylor Swift still sucks. She sells a lot of freakin' albums. But she still sucks.

Distant Interest

It's been so long I think I may have forgotten how to do this.

I could spin my wheels going into all kinds of explanations as to why I haven't been posting. It really comes down to inspiration coupled with new day to day circumstances. I used to spend the majority of my days in a cramped, hot office without much diversion or opportunities for creative productivity. Now since we've sold the shop, I am home working from my studio. This means I have LOTS of creative outlets at my fingertips, television, Pro Tools and whatnot. And it would-be no big deal if this wasn't also coupled with one of the least interesting stretches of NASCAR racing I have seen in 30 years.

I understand domination and motorsports. Jimmie Johnson didn't invent it nor did Hendrick. But something in the manner in which they have scientifically sterilized the entire process, systematically conquered the tracks and competition they face that has plummeted my interest to new lows. The cars are all the same, the winning teams are all the same. The drivers are all the same. The tracks are all the same. The races are all the same. Homogeny. No danger. The prospects of seeing something I haven't seen before happening are diminishing lap by lap.

But I am still a race fan. I still crave the excitement, the competition, the colors and screams. I still crave the idea of seeing something I have never seen before. So in the middle of this past summer when it was readily apparent that team Hendrick and most likely Jimmie Johnson were on their way to another title, I let my gaze drift overseas and started watching the Aussie V8 Supercars with great interest.

The V8s are most famous in this country for bringing us Marcos Ambrose. They are full bodied, rear wheel drive, V8-powered 3,300 pound touring (i.e. "stock" looking) cars. While there some things the V8s and NASCAR share, there is really no head to head comparison one can make. For one, the V8s run on road and street courses exclusively. The competition and passing can't come close to NASCAR's action. But there are some really interesting things going on Down Under which may serve as lessons for NASCAR, its governing body and us fans.

To be frank, I am looking forward to spending my late nights this weekend watching the race from Barbagallo in Perth more than I am Homestead. This has been the case for much of the past 5 months. I also realize that this may also best be explained by a Trent Reznor line: "There's nothing quite like the feel of something new." That said, here are some observations.

MANUFACTURERS RULE - Last season when Marcos Ambrose went from driving Fords to driving Toyotas it cause hardly a ripple here in the States. But man, back in Australia it was a real, real big deal. Ambrose was a lifelong Ford man and his defection was greeted with a chorus of boos from the blue oval faithful. In the V8s, I came to realize, the manufacturer alliance trumps everything else in terms of fan loyalty. The two manufacturers, Ford and GM's Holden brand, are represented in the stands more so than individual drivers. Don't get me wrong, Garth Tander and Jamie Whincup sell their fair share of swag, but the red Holden flags waving in the stands and the blue Ford shirts and jackets are dominant.

To put it in perspective, I heard a commentator comment on the crowd for a race in Townsville, offhandedly explaining the sea of red Holden flags as what could be expected in "a Holden town like this." Wow. Regional affiliation for manufacturers. Interesting.

The other thing that this translates to is brand identity in the cars themselves. There is no mistaking that these are much more production-based designs. Considering how bland the NASCAR CoT is in terms of identity, is it any wonder that there are actually Ford and GM-backed factory teams in the Aussie V8s but not here?

TIRES & FUEL - The Aussie V8s carry a lot of speed and a lot of weight. On some straights, these guys top out over 200 MPH. Some turns, like "The Chase" at Bathurst, are incredibly fast and demand a lot of the tires. And aside from a soft "option" tire that is mandatory at some races, the series uses the same tire at all events. Let me say that again: They use the SAME tire spec at every event. Oh, and they race in the rain, at incredible speeds. Not oval loads, I know, but still impressive.

Fuel is also pretty interesting. The series runs an E85 blend. That's right, E85 in a race car. The only real hitch here that has shown itself on the track is that drivers have to be careful of stalling out when leaving the pits. There are also pretty darn sophisticated fueling systems which can measure the fuel going in to the 100th of a litre. What this allows the series to do is mandate fuel loads. There are no races won on fuel mileage in the V8s. This is not to say that tire and fuel management isn't important. Those decisions make the difference there as it does in NASCAR. It's just different.

The point here is that anyone saying that we have to live with the tires and fuel that we have in NASCAR because of this, that or the other is talking shit. The answers are already there for all to see.

FRANCHISING - Watching lifelong racers like Bill Davis and Morgan McClure close shop is a real bummer in NASCAR. How many times have we watched as everything an owner has invested in NASCAR is reduced to what is sold at auction? It's heartbreaking and frankly unfair. While NASCAR has their ideological position on this issue, consider what happened this week to long-time Aussie V8 team Super Gas Racing (Tasman Motorsports). SGR found themselves in the position many race teams do, on the outside looking in as the technology curve passed them by. Their bottom-line wasn't working out financially. So instead of sticking it out until they were in jeopardy of going bankrupt, they decided to cash in their chips. Their "chips" being their franchise license, which they were able to sell for a considerable sum to a new start-up team. Considering that SGR has been in the Aussie series for nearly 20 years, the value of this license had appreciated nicely and helped to cushion the financial blow. They of course were also able to sell off their haulers and chassis to other teams as well.

The downside of franchising is also worth mentioning. In two weeks, the V8s run the final event of their season in Sydney and a group wanted to bring Marcos Ambrose in for a one-off run. But since the team didn't have a franchise and Marcos has no current V8 certification, he can't. They call this kind of entry a "wildcard" entry, and currently under V8 rules it isn't allowed.

TEAMS & SPONSORS - In the V8s, there are a couple of dominant teams. They, like many in NASCAR, supply chassis and engines to customer cars they compete against. But there is a limit to two cars per team, no bullshit. Team Vodafone (Triple 8 Racing) supplies a couple of other cars with engines and chassis, but their race day concern is only their two cars.

Their two cars are both sponsored by Vodafone. Like F1, teams can't mix and match their sponsors. I guess the one way of looking at this from a sponsor’s standpoint is that on any given weekend their company stands a pretty good chance of getting coverage. Even if one car runs badly, chances are the other one will be up towards the front. It's a strategy that must make sense to someone, because while Jack Daniels and Jim Beam have both decided to leave NASCAR, both alcohol sponsors have re-upped to sponsor their respective teams in the Aussie V8s.

SCHEDULE - I can probably go on for another 2000 words, but I will leave with this bit. There are only 28 races on the V8 Supercars schedule. They are paired up into two events per track, per weekend. While this idea doesn't work for NASCAR, the number of total races does. The sense of longing, the "absence makes the heart grow fonder" philosophy here is refreshing. You are NOT over-saturated with the product like we are with NASCAR. This is the biggest problem NASCAR faces; thanks to the incestual relationship it has with its sister company ISC. If only NASCAR would cut out about 6 races it would do the series a load of good.

What this also does is bring the emphasis back to the races, which in my opinion is the most important thing. A convoluted Championship-driven series ends up putting more emphasis on a 300 mile race at Louden than the Daytona 500. This is just wrong. The Bathurst 1000, which has to be one of the top 5 or 6 racing events in the world, is STILL the Aussie crown jewel. Until you win that, you mean nothing. It used to be that way with the Daytona 500, but I don't know if that's the case anymore.

I know, I know. If I like it all so much, why am I here writing to my NASCAR friends about it? Because there are many things that can be taken from the Aussie V8 Supercars that could improve the racing we love here in the States. None of it is perfect, this racing we love. But right now, in spite of the protestations of Brian France and everyone else in the garage, Jimmie Johnson winning a 4th consecutive NASCAR Championship is NOT good for the sport in any way. Hendrick domination is NOT good for the sport. Homogeny is killing it. There is no risk, there are no consequences and the thrill is becoming the occasional companion on race day.

Best wishes to everyone. I miss you guys. I will do my best to be around more....

X

PS - Qualifying is tonight from Perth. Check it out here: http://www.v8supercars.com.au/