Rowdy People

Keselowski Needs to Be a Giver

Here are some of the most recent quotes from Brad Keselowski in the aftermath of his Atlanta tussle with Carl Edwards:

“To be honest, that’s probably the best revenge there is—to not let it get to me one bit, to not change”

“[W]hatever I'm doing is working, and it's gotten me to where I'm at.”

“I wish I could sit down one day and just show somebody an in-car camera tape of how I drive a race and you would see that I give as much, if not more, than any other race-car driver out there.”

Here’s the problem with all that: It’s not what almost every other driver in the garage thinks.

It’s not that Keselowski sets out to wreck people. It’s just that most drivers in the garage think he’s a taker, from the green to the checkered and on every lap in between. And when you find yourself upside down at 190 miles-per-hour, perception has very clearly become a painful reality.

Jeff Burton, a driver Keselowski says pointedly he respects, describes it like this: “He's made the decision that he's not going to cut anybody any slack. He's made the decision that he's going to race aggressively all the time. Those are the decisions he's made, and he's going to have to live with the consequences of that.”

But why should a driver give his competitors a break at all? Quite simply, it’s just good strategy. If giving another driver a position, or backing off when he makes a mistake doesn’t hurt you, doesn’t cost you anything at the finish, you should do it. Make a friend and not an enemy. And if you find yourself in a faster car or a vulnerable position down the line, you ought to get a break too.

If you don’t do it enough, well, we’ve seen what can happen.

A lot of times fighting a faster car for position actually hurts your cause, because while you race side by side, both cars lose time to the leader or to pursuers. If it’s early, and a faster car overtakes you, it might be more beneficial to let him go, fall back in line, and work on your car during the next pit stop. You may lose one position but actually save a few more and some time on the racetrack as well.

Veteran drivers understand this intuitively because they manage the race with the end in mind. They plot their way to the final mile of the race, as opposed to looking at every lap as a race in and of itself.

Hanging madly on to 14th place on lap 82 of 267 has no real benefit in points. Mercilessly running a driver who makes a mistake into the wall as opposed to letting him in line doesn’t actually move you up in the standings if you’re only on lap 15.

But both of those things create enemies, additional obstacles preventing you from getting where you want to go. Racing is hard enough without an added degree of difficulty.

Bristol is a perfect time to take a good look at give and take. Early in the race drivers in the back will be fighting like hell. On lap 10 everyone will still believe if he can just make it to the last 100 laps on the lead lap he’ll have a chance to win. There won’t be much giving at the tail end of the field, and that will lead to some wrecks.

As the race progresses, however, drivers will get a pretty clear idea of how their car is working that day. The drivers that are clearly slower will give. Lots of guys will go a lap down, and they’ll have to try to manage their way to the best finish they can. We may even see a nice long green flag run. Then in the final 50-100 laps, the taking will pick up again as drivers fight each other for the positions that really do matter: those at the finish.

For Brad Keselowski, Bristol becomes even trickier. At 33rd in owners points, the last thing he can afford to do is end up in another wreck, or he may find himself forced to race his way in to the field at Martinsville. Then again, he doesn’t want to become the guy everyone thinks he can take advantage of.

But for this week at least, and maybe for the next few, he needs to focus on the joy of giving. When in doubt, let up just a little. No matter what he says to the press, he needs his fellow drivers to believe he’s learned a lesson and that he’s willing to pay his dues to earn the benefit of the doubt. Right now, he certainly doesn’t have it.

Some 2010 Pluses and Minuses

Four races do not a Sprint Cup season make, but one-ninth of the way through 2010, there have been some pretty clear pluses and some pretty clear minuses as we hit the first off-weekend of the year.

Plus: Kevin Harvick
Here’s a driver who ended 2009 with one foot out the door of Richard Childress Racing, saying sometimes you have to close one book and open another. In the first 4 races of 2010, however, he’s driven the fastest, most-consistent car in three events and salvaged a heroic top 10 with a poor car in the fourth. The three great races said a lot about how far Kevin and his RCR team have come after a lost 2009, but the comeback in Atlanta may have even said more about a special chemistry he’s developed with crew chief Gil Martin.

Minus: Denny and Kyle
Kyle Busch is considered by many to be the most talented driver on the circuit, and his teammate Denny Hamlin seemed to show at the end of 2009 he was ready to battle Jimmie Johnson for a championship. Wha’ happa’? Kyle, who used to be a feast or famine driver, has looked positively mediocre in 2010 with finishes of 14, 14, 15, and 25. Denny weighs in with an equally discouraging 17, 29, 19, 21. The short tracks coming up give both guys a chance to get back on track, but they don’t have much time. In six Chase seasons so far, and amazing average of around 70% of the Chase field has been set after Atlanta. Neither guy is in there now.

Plus: Menard and Speed
Two drivers who are in Chase position after four races are Paul Menard, who sits 9th, and Scott Speed, who holds down the 12th spot. There are unexpected breakthroughs every year, but these two drivers have made considerable, and almost identical, leaps in their performance: Menard’s average finish jumped 13.7 places from 2009 to a 13.2 and Speed’s went up 13.5 spots to a 15.5. It’s still hard to see one of them in the Chase at the end of the day, but it’s not fair to call their position fluky either. Clearly both drivers have taken a great leap forward.

Minus: Cryin’ Ryan
A stellar first season at Stewart-Haas Racing put Ryan Newman in the Chase and had him looking like the Newman of old. This season started with a bonanza of bad luck and two finishes in the 30s. Vegas and Atlanta were better, but Ryan still hasn’t cracked the top 15 in 2010. Ugh.

Plus: Jimmie Johnson
Two win in four races. Um, yeah, he and the 48 team are just as good as ever.

A Swing and a Miss by NASCAR

There’s no doubt that the Carl Edwards-Brad Keselowski incident at Atlanta last Sunday left NASCAR in a very tough position. In a very early test of their new “hands off,” “boys, have at it” policy the sanctioning body faced a devil’s choice.

Mete out further punishment for Edwards blatant intentional wreck of Keselowski, and many would say they were backtracking on their vow to let the drivers police the sport. Do nothing, or administer a meaningless “slap on the wrist,” and others would say they failed in their duty to hold drivers accountable for rough driving and to keep competitors and fans safe.

Well, score one for the slap on the wrist, and count me as thinking NASCAR failed.

My reason is simple: despite its policy, with which I agree, NASCAR is still responsible for holding drivers accountable for not only their intent, which in Edwards case was clearly to wreck Keselowski, but also for their actions, doing it at an extremely high rate of speed, and further for the consequences of those actions, putting Keselowski on his roof and in harm’s way.

For those who want to compare the incident to Denny Hamlin’s “payback moment” with Keselowski last year, remember that although the intent may have been the same, the actions and their consequences were vastly different.

In putting Edwards on “probation” for three weeks, after parking him for the rest of the race, NASCAR is able to say they “punished” Edwards while inflicting no real consequence upon him.

Equally frustrating is the notion that there had actually been a penalty administered. NASCAR President Mike Helton said, “We made it very clear . . . that these actions were not acceptable,” when in fact a three-race probation sends the exact opposite message: these actions are very acceptable indeed. It’s the kind of “black is white” double-talk that leaves fans shaking their heads.

Allowing drivers to police the sport isn’t the same as giving them carte blanche to do whatever they want. NASCAR said as much when they announced the policy. The consequences of Edwards’ pre-meditated choice were close enough to catastrophic that they deserved a real consequence, not so much to condemn Edwards in some moral sense as to make it clear that if your attempt to police the sport puts people in danger it is not acceptable—really not acceptable.

There is some middle ground between a police state, where the government controls everything, and vigilante justice where there is no government at all. In this case, NASCAR postponed its day of reckoning, and it can only hope that a more severe case ad a more fateful such day never comes.

Carl “Has at It,” Now It’s NASCAR’s Turn

When NASCAR made it’s pre-season “have at it, boys” declaration, they had to know this day was coming. Carl Edwards, paying back Brad Keselowski for various transgressions (Talladega last year, Memphis last year, and an incident earlier in the race), turned the 12 car backwards and flipped it over.

It was a disturbing sight, a scary sight, eerily reminiscent, as it turns out, of Carl’s wild ride last April at Talladega. In that case, the roles were reversed, with Keselowski staying in the gas and Edwards getting up in the air. Of course at Talladega, the cars were racing each other for the win, whereas yesterday there’s not much doubt that Edwards was administering some street justice over 150 laps down—and over 150 miles per hour.

For his part, Keselowski has earned the enmity of several drivers, not the least of whom is Denny Hamlin, who administered his own payback in last year’s Nationwide finale at Homestead. And Edwards was among the aggrieved in Memphis last season when several drivers said that what Keselowski sent around would come back around to bite him.

Yesterday it most certainly did. But it was in such stark contrast to the “all in good fun” incident at Homestead, when Hamlin simply spun Keselowski harmlessly, that it has to make you think. It’s not hard to believe Edwards when he says he was surprised that Keselowski flipped over. It’s not hard to believe it was not his intent to do that. It’s not hard to believe he was sorry.

But it still happened.

So should NASCAR treat Edwards and differently than they treated Hamlin that day in Miami? Should NASCAR punish Carl for “marking his territory” when, for all intents and purposes, they encouraged it with Robin Pemberton’s quotable “have at it” statement? Or should they rethink the entire idea.

Yes, yes, and no.

Yes, they should treat Edwards more harshly than they did Hamlin (and in a way they did parking him instead of holding him for a penalty, though the effect was pretty much nil given his position in the race at the time.) Yes, he should be held accountable for the results of his actions. And no, they should not backtrack on their vow to put things back in the drivers’ hands.

Maybe I’m trying to have it both ways, but I think NASCAR was right to give drivers the power to police each other. NASCAR’s role, to my way of thinking, is still to step in after the fact if somebody goes to far, as opposed to micro-managing driver interactions from start to finish.

To give drivers the responsibility to police the sport on the track isn’t the same as giving them the power to do anything they want. Just as giving a police officer a gun isn’t the same as telling him, or her, to use it any damn way he or she pleases.

In fact, putting it in the drivers’ hands ought to mean just the opposite: You are responsible for your actions. You are responsible for the chain of events you set off by your actions. The fact that you weren’t trying to flip him, or that you had a reason, or that the wing helped pull the car upside down, or that you’re sorry doesn’t matter.

The drivers wanted the power. NASCAR gave them the power. Carl Edwards used the power—and the result was frightening.

Now NASCAR owes it to the other drivers and the fans in the stands to punish Carl Edwards in a meaningful way, to make him take some level of responsibility for his actions due to the severity and danger of the wreck he caused.

Then maybe next time he, and every other driver, will use his power more wisely. Maybe next time when they “have at it” it won’t go too far.

The Old Junior

When Dale Earnhardt Jr. made his way to Hendrick Motorsports, success seemed inevitable. He was coming to NASCAR’s best team with 17 career Cup wins, a number that figured only to go up. Perhaps most importantly Hendrick was strong, and getting stronger, on the kind of track that was always the toughest for Dale Junior, the staple of every NASCAR season, the intermediate or “downforce” track.

You could be forgiven for thinking Junior would continue to shine on the short-tracks and plate tracks, and that Hendrick equipment would help him to prosper everywhere else. What could possibly go wrong?

But after starting his career like gangbusters for HMS, Junior has kind of fizzled. Only one points paying win has come in the 88 car—that was on a fuel mileage deal at Michigan—and not only has he not joined his teammates at the front for downforce races, Junior’s not winning at the short stuff or the plate tracks like he did before either.

It was out with the old and in with the new when the crew chief he brought with him from DEI to Hendrick, his cousin Tony Eury Jr., was replaced by Lance McGrew last season. But despite some small signs things might be changing, the new Junior, at least so far, looks a lot like they guy who struggled to a 25th place finish in the points last year, a full 22 spots behind the worst of his Hendrick teammates.

We’re only three races in to the 2010 season, but fans of NASCAR’s most popular driver, and there are a lot of them, aren’t really looking for a new Dale Earnhardt Jr. They want the old guy back. They want the DEI Junior. That was a guy who didn’t have to spend a lot of time engaged in public introspection. That was a guy who seemed humble but relatively carefree for somebody so famous. And that was also a guy who, despite struggling at a lot of downforce tracks, knew damn well how to run Atlanta.

Atlanta has always been Dale Jr.’s best downforce track. He won this race in 2004 and carded 9 top 10s and 7 top 5s in the 11 races between fall 2001 and fall 2006. He carded a 3rd place finish during those early Hendrick days, the “Hendrick honeymoon era,” but since has finished 11th, 11th, and 17th.

And here we are again.

If the old Junior is going to show up again this season, like he did in the closing laps at Daytona, Atlanta would be one place for him to do it. He loves the track because it’s rough and slick and you can rim ride up around the top, like Junior loves to do.

Well at least the old Junior did. It would be nice to see that guy back on Sunday.

Psyched Out

Well, that didn’t work. The call at the end of Sunday’s Shelby American was the wrong one for Jeff Gordon.

That’s the bottom line for Gordon, Steve Letarte and the rest of the 24 team. They led 219 of 267 laps in Las Vegas (all but 48, I might point out) and lose. Sure they can be proud of the speed they showed, but when you’re in position to win, with the best car in the field, and you don’t, believe me you don’t just wake up the next morning and say “oh well.” Especially when the guy you’ve been trying to catch for four years is the guy who takes it from you.

It wasn’t a crazy call, but it didn’t work. There were just under 40 laps to go and you put 2 tires on the most dominant car in the field. You keep track position, but you give your teammate, the four-time defending champ no less, a big advantage because he decided to take 4 fresh tires.

The question Monday morning is a simple one: Did the 24 team make the call they would have made regardless of who was running second? Or did they make a different call trying to out-think and out-run Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus?

Typically a dominant racecar takes four tires. Not every time and on every track, of course, but all things being equal, you just don’t want to risk losing an advantage you’ve had all day long. It’s a conservative call, but with the best car in the field, crew chiefs usually don’t want to take risks.

But the right call isn’t made in a vacuum. Had 5-6 other cars put on 2 tires, instead of just one, and had they managed to get out in front of Jimmie Johnson, Las Vegas would likely have had a different ending. Even with 4 fresh tires, it took Jimmie just about half the final run to get past Jeff. If he’d had to work over 4-5 cars instead of just the 24 and 29 (Clint Bowyer stayed out, but he was no match for Jimmie), he might not have made it.

And we can’t forget the ending to last year’s race either. Two tires was the call by race-winner Kyle Busch in 2009—and most of the other leaders—in similar circumstances.

But I can’t help but think Jimmie Johnson had something to do with the call too. Gordon and Letarte had to wonder if Chad Knaus, ever the gambler, might try to steal some track position at the end of the day. And we’ve already seen what Jimmie can do with the lead a couple of times this year.

The wisdom at Daytona after the Bud Shootout was that the track called for four tires in almost every situation, yet Jimmie stayed out on old tires and won his qualifying race.

In California, Jimmie had about the 4th or 5th fastest car until a fortuitously timed pit stop got him the lead. And even with faster cars behind, track position was enough to give him the win.

Jimmie is just that good out front, and the 24 team didn’t want to see a great opportunity slip away. They wanted to do anything they could to stay in front of Johnson.

But in the end they outsmarted themselves. They rolled the dice, and lost (yes, ladies and gentlemen, the only gambling reference in this entire blog!) Because they tried too hard to beat Jimmie, they ended up losing to him anyway.

RCR Suddenly a Challenger

You can’t win much only two races into a 36-race NASCAR season. And so far, Richard Childress Racing hasn’t even won a race. But if you’re looking for the best story early in NASCAR’s new decade, look no further than cars 29, 31, and 33 for drivers Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton, and Clint Bowyer.

Despite not winning either event, Kevin Harvick has been the best car in each of the first two races of the season. He fell to Jimmie Johnson in Sunday’s Auto Club 500 in California only because Johnson got—and naturally took advantage off—a fortunate break during the final round of pit stops. Harvick was reeling Johnson back in when he hit the wall and had to settle for second.

At least Kevin can take comfort from the fact that he’s atop the early season points standings. Teammate Clint Bowyer sits in second in the standings, with two top 10 runs to start his season. Jeff Burton followed an 11th at Daytona with a 3rd at the Auto Club Speedway and he’s fifth in the points.

Most impressive, however, was how the team looked on a relatively flat, fast, 2-mile track. Even when all three drivers were making the Chase back in 2007 and 2008, RCR was just not that good on downforce racetracks. They’d be fast enough to card decent finishes, and they were consistent enough to avoid trouble, but they rarely had enough speed to contend for the win. It was on the short-tracks that they really shined.

It was a formula for making the playoffs but not really contending for championship. And then last year they started finding trouble, and their cars slowed down a little bit. With no margin for error, all three cars, plus teammate Casey Mears, missed the Chase entirely. The fiery Harvick was clearly “un-Happy” and talked openly about leaving the team when his contract expired at the end of 2010. Jeff Burton said that the team had taken some wrong turns and was behind.

So what happened? I credit three factors with helping Childress to turn things around—at least so far—to rival Hendrick Motorsports in the early part of the season.

Reorganization: The first thing owner Richard Childress did was simply to recognize he had a problem—that the team was, in fact, behind. But instead of exhorting everyone to work harder, RC broke up some previously successful driver-crew chief combinations. In the end, Gil Martin went from Clint Bowyer to Kevin Harvick, with Shane Wilson taking Bowyer, and Harvick’s longtime partner Todd Berrier moving to Burton’s team.

A bigger key make have been the naming Burton’s old crew chief Scott Miller as Director of Competition. The combination of Miller and VP of Competition Mike Dillon may now be filling the hole left when longtime RCR man Bobby Hutchens (now with Stewart-Haas Racing) left the team in August of 2008.

After Sunday’s race Burton repeated what he’s consistently said in the off-season: “We felt good about what happened in the fall, over the winter. Until you start racing, you don't know where you are honestly. You feel good about it. I had quite a bit of confidence coming in. But until everybody gets out here and they're going to give somebody a trophy, you don't really know where you stand. I expected to run well.”

Three Teams: It’s a truism these days in NASCAR racing that bigger is better. More cars in an organization yield more data. More people working together can produce speed more efficiently. But RCR’s Jeff Burton, ever the philosopher, has always added a cautionary note: adding a car has to be done in the right way.

The “more is bigger” philosophy assumes that everyone will be able to work together effectively. There has to be chemistry within each race team and in the organization as a whole. Otherwise bigger isn’t better, it’s just more complicated. Losing a car is never great for business, but getting back to their three core Cup machines in 2010, after growing to 4 in 2009, may actually have helped recreate the chemistry RCR was missing last year.

Wheel Men: There’s no substitute for a good driver in NASCAR racing, and there’s no way to overcome deficiencies behind the wheel with engineering. Harvick, Burton, and Bowyer may be three of the more underrated drivers in NASCAR, but now that the equipment is starting to catch up to their talent, you’re seeing all three of them at the front. The turnaround wouldn’t have happened nearly this quickly without a stable of three top drivers.

Of course in the end, we’re only talking about two races here. It’s very very early. Roush-Fenway Racing won the first two races of 2009 only to slip noticeably after that. Plus a major change is coming. When asked what the team needed to work on to improve, Burton said unhesitatingly, “Spoilers. We got to start working on spoilers. That’s going to be a big change . . . When the spoiler comes you better be ready. Like Kevin said, if we get behind, you won’t catch up any time soon.”

But for now, with consistent speed from all three cars on two totally different styles of track, RCR is looking like they finally have caught up—and like they may be a force in 2010.

California Heat Beats Down on Roush

One race in to the 2010 NASCAR season and Jack Roush is already making a crew chief change.

Drew Blickensderfer is out, and veteran Todd Parrott climbs atop the pit box for 2003 champion Matt Kenseth. You could be forgiven for wondering, “Why now?” What happened at Daytona that we didn’t know about in, say, December? After all, the 17 didn’t win the Daytona 500 again, but Kenseth did finish in the top 10.

Blickensderfer’s demise speaks to a sense of urgency—not to say panic—the Roush-Fenway organization is feeling right about now, the desire to avoid another “lost season.” The Kenseth-Blickensderfer chemistry wasn’t there at Daytona. The good finish was more about fortune than consistent speed, so a change had to be made. Immediately.

At this point, it’s hard to remember that exactly one year ago, 12 measly months, Jack Roush was probably feeling pretty good about his race team.

In February 2009, Matt Kenseth was coming to California off a win in the Daytona 500. Carl Edwards was coming off a nine-win season in 2008. Greg Biffle was coming off a two-win Chase. David Ragan was coming off a stellar sophomore campaign, narrowly missing out on the playoffs. Even Jamie McMurray showed signs of life at the end of 2008, wrapping up his season with three straight top 10s.

Best of all, the entire Roush contingent was coming to a race track in Auto Club Speedway that was just their cup of tea, a place where they had won every single February race.

In the event, the party rolled on for another weekend last February, with Kenseth winning in California for the third time in his career, Biffle finishing in the top 5, and Edwards running in the top 10. Then, suddenly, the music stopped, and the Roush-Fenway Fords were left without a chair.

Kenseth failed to win another race and missed the Chase entirely in 2009. Edwards and Biffle limped into the post-season with neither a win nor a realistic chance at a title. Ragan slumped from 13th in the points to a disappointing 27th, saying farewell to crew chief Jimmie Fennig and hello to McMurray’s old comrade Donnie Wingo in the off-season. And as for McMurray himself, he said goodbye to the entire team, finally landing at Earnhardt Ganassi, where he ended up as this year’s Daytona 500 Champion.

And here we are, one year later, back at Auto Club Speedway.

Although it’s only one of 26 “regular-season” races, Sunday’s Auto Club 500 is big for Jack Roush and company. Daytona, after all, is unique, and results there, good or bad, can be dismissed as having little to do with the other tracks on the circuit.

But if Matt Kenseth is going to be Mr. Consistency again, if Carl Edwards is going to be a big winner again, if Greg Biffle is going to threaten to be the first driver to win a title in Cup, Nationwide, and Trucks again, it ought to show up at California. And it ought to reappear at Las Vegas, and Atlanta, two more of the downforce tracks that Roush typically thrives on.

There’s not much doubt Kenseth agreed with the move to a 4th crew chief in the last 4 seasons, which means he feels a sense of urgency too. Roush said in January that the team spent a lot of 2009 looking for a big breakthrough, and ended up getting beat because they fell behind on a lot of little things.

But changing a crew chief after only one race is a big thing, something that tells us just how big California is for Roush-Fenway Racing. If you need more proof, just ask Drew Blickensderfer.

Pothole Has Its Own Ideas About the 500

And everything was going so well.

The Daytona 500 was rolling along under sunny skies thanks to NASCAR’s new 1:00 PM start time—and finally cooperative weather. The racing was great. And an incredible finish loomed in the Great American Race.

Suddenly, another American phenomenon intervened: the pothole. And we had ourselves a couple of detours on our way to a signature triumph for Jamie McMurray in his new ride.

Yes the pothole, anxious for 15 minutes of fame (as we learned today in today's exclusive "Rowdy Minute" interview) blew a 2-hour hole in “NASCAR’s Super Bowl.” But other than trying our patience, was there any real damage to the race or the sport? Or did the crafty cavity, which resisted the first few attempts to shut it up, simply give this Daytona 500 a more memorable moniker: “The Pothole Race?”

For die-hard race fans, the pothole will be overwhelmed, finally, by the sum of what we saw during Speedweeks. We had action on the track: scintillating finishes, daring moves, spectacular wrecks (with, thankfully, no major injuries) and drivers genuinely thrilled with the quality of the racing.

We had great stories, from Jamie’s emotional win in double-overtime, to Junior’s late race charge, serious speed from unexpected sources, like AJ Allmendinger, and of course Danica Patrick’s “Drafting 101” course of study.

And it’s not as if we haven’t seen this before, as the short track in Martinsville once decided to jump up and take a bite out of Jeff Gordon’s bumper, preferring to see Rusty Wallace win his last NASCAR race. After what was mostly great racing with a great finish, race fans should be just as excited to stop in or tune in to the race in California next weekend.

It’s the non-NASCAR fan who probably won’t quite understand. It’s the football fan who tuned in to see what all the fuss was about, and got to watch a couple of hours of roadwork and assorted interviews, that I’m worried about.

Never mind, I suppose, that other sports have had similar problems from time to time (my personal favorite being game 4 of the 1988 Stanley Cup Finals at the old Boston Garden, finally postponed after fog and a power outage.) Non-NASCAR fans will probably be less forgiving and it may take some of them a while to give the sport a second chance.

That kinda stinks for NASCAR, which didn’t really deserve it after a summer of doing pretty much everything right. But in the end, I suppose, you just can’t fight Mother Nature.

Track president Robin Braig was right when he took blame not so much for the problem itself, but for the initial failure to find a solution: “Our first batch of repair material didn't hold. That was a mistake on our part. We used the wrong type of material. It didn't hold it at all . . . We know how to do it right. I apologize for it. This is hallowed ground. We understand that. We accept the responsibility.”

As for the pothole, it’s now part of Daytona 500 lore, not just another of the many irritations found on the highway.

9:30 AM

Tomorrow. Meet me. Behind the Bill France statue at the Daytona Experience outside the turn 4 tunnel. 9:30 AM. Jeff Gluck will be there and probably a driver or two. Some other folks as well. Love to say hi to the Rowdy Nation.

My. Shortest. Blog. Ever.