Europe And Antisemitism

" As the memory of the Holocaust fades, traditional antisemitism that turns into anti-Israel attitudes is no longer politically incorrect."

NA18D And Another Busch Bash At Pocono

Thoughts following the Gander 400 at Pocono -

Bubba Wallace was one of thirteen drivers busted in post-qualifying tech and thus had to start in the bottom ten - he was listed 39th but after about six cars went the back before the green he actually started 33rd - of the Gander 400.   In a season of struggle and poor finishes he clawed toward the top-20 before his brakes exploded and this mess erupted.

There was chatter about so many cars flunking post-qualifying tech and the effectiveness of punishments, but it may not be so simple to deal with.

The Wallace wreck also led to some chatter about altering the hairpin-esque Turn One, though realistically catastrophic brake failure is something no configuration of corner can deal with.   


Pocono's Summer 400 illustrated the mixed bag of NASCAR's transition period of late - while the TV ratings for the sport remain subpar, attendances overall have been solid, and fan enthusiasm isn't gone. A recent Forbes piece indicates the much-sought "millenial" audience in fact is taking to NASCAR, which seems to illustrate sociological assumptions about millenials aren't always accurate.

It also illustrated the strength of Kyle Busch (the winner), Kevin Harvick (fourth), and Martin Truex (a disappointing 15th). Busch and Harvick started in the bottom dozen while Truex started eighth. Harvick led 30 laps and Busch 52, while default polesitter Daniel Suarez led an impressive 29 laps - compared to just six led all season - and finished a spirited second.

The big story outside of the post-qualifying controversy and Bubba Wallace's ugly melee was the continued improvement of the Hendrick Motorsports fleet, as Alex Bowman, William Byron, and  Chase Elliott all finished in the top seven, this as JGR put three Toyotas in the top five.   The recent surge by Hendrick comes amid Andy Petree's radio interview where he noted the Chevrolets have not worked together, and this lack of cooperation will now just get worse because now Hendrick Motorsports can believe it doesn't need to work with any other Chevy team - and one wonders if, a la the old Childress-Petree-Earnhardt engineering alliance of 1998 onward or the Pontiac inter-team alliance of 1994 onward, there will be even closer interaction between RCR, Petty, and the JTG-Daugherty team that put AJ Allmendinger to a decent 14th.


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There is the old debate - is domination as seen from Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, and Martin Truex good for the sport?   It's a debate that can never truly be decided, for while one does see surges of attention when someone starts dominating, attention surges more when someone else takes down the dominator(s).   One certainly can admire three superstars at the top of their game, yet other teams surging and toppling the dominators and growing competitive depth is something always good for sports.


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What Pocono (and almost every other track) can use most is making the draft effective again a la last week's Eastern Propane Modified 100 at New Hampshire. And a Lee Spencer report published the night before the Pocono race indicates NASCAR in 2019 will implement what is called the NA18D package, a modified form of its draft duct package at Vegas, Fontana, Texas, Kansas, Charlotte, Michigan, Chicagoland, Kentucky, and Indianapolis.   The intriguing tidbit is that NASCAR apparently wants to use a smaller engine spacer rather than a restrictor plate and have two unrestricted engine packages - the open motor and the "NA18D" engine set at 550 hp.  

The curious aspect is the set of tracks apparently overlooked for this NA18D package - Pocono, Atlanta, New Hampshire, and Homestead.   New Hampshire has certainly demonstrated in its 29 seasons of Whelen Modified Tour competition that the draft can kick in, and the other three are more than large enough for the draft to make a huge difference.   And even more curious is why Daytona and Talladega are not yet targeted for draft ducts, which certainly can only help the effectiveness of the draft at those places as they have elsewhere they've been used.  


One can certainly hope such a package improves the racing as the present version unquestionably already has.   For now the series surges to Watkins Glen - which has seen plenty of melees that make Bubba Wallace's wild ride look tame.

Obama Aids And Abets Al-Qaeda Affiliate

The Obama Administration funded an Al-Qaeda affiliate that had been known as such for over a decade.

2018 New Hampshire Postmotems

The in-car view of Kevin Harvick's run to victory at New Hampshire



LOUDON, NH - 2018's New England 300 weekend arrived and the end result was the first true one-on-one showdown between the Cup series' Big Three - Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, and Martin Truex.  The showdown came with a bump-and-run attack by Kevin Harvick on Busch, and the result was the sixth win of the season for Harvick and eighth for Stewart-Haas Racing, this atop a superb effort by Aric Almirola and good effort from Kurt Busch (who led the most laps in the race).  It all added up to a huge week for team co-owner Tony Stewart after the Eldora Truck 150 at his dirt track in Rossburg, OH got a lot of hype before and afterward.


There were as always notable postmortems -



For almost the first time this year, Chevrolet actually showed some improvement -

The often-graphic lack of muscle or competitive depth by Chevrolet in 2018 has been one of the big stories of the year, but here at New Hampshire three Chevrolets finished in the top ten and five in the top twelve.   Chase Elliott led 23 laps, this after leading just nineteen all season, and his fifth-place finish was only the sixth top-ten this season and first since Sears Point.   But it was the way he ran down race leader Martin Truex and challenged using lapped cars as a pick that was eye-opening; Elliott has run up front a lot in his two-and-a-half Cup seasons but always was missing something as far as learning how to finish off such runs.

Jimmie Johnson's tenth was his seventh top-ten of the season.

Ryan Newman finished a surprising sixth, his second top-ten in three races.    

It was a curiously quiet day for Kyle Larson, anointed in some of the satellite radio chatter during the week as the most talented driver in the garage.

Chevy's improvement didn't translate to their other two teams - the Daugherty-Geschtecker Chevrolets struggled as Chris Buescher finished 20th and AJ Allmendinger was taken out by Kasey Kahne early in the race.   Bubba Wallace and the Petty 43 finished a dismal 24th and added to that embarrassment by being the pick on Kevin Harvick's decisive pass on Kyle Busch.



Almirola now making some competitive noise - 

Aric Almirola has been competitive in the SHR 10 this season, but since being taken out by Austin Dillon at Daytona he'd been the quiet member of the team most of the season.   That's been changing with 70 laps led at Chicagoland and 42 at New Hampshire, as well as a whale of a fight for fourth toward the end of the race with Chase Elliott where they swapped the spot several times over several laps.   

Christopher Bell opens eyes in Lakes Region 200 -JGR Busch-Xfinity driver Christopher Bell surprised people in the Lakes Region 200, a race where Brad Keselowski was expected to dominate - indeed, that Bell bested Keselowski led to "David Beats Goliath" on the telecast.   It was Bell's first Loudon win and the ninth in the last ten New Hampshire Xfinity races (Brad Keselowski spoiled the streak in 2012).   Bell's win comes after his Kentucky win the previous week and his popularity going forward is only burgeoning.

While Eldora gets the hype, the Modifieds deliver the best racing of the week -

Ryan Newman has run the NASCAR Modified race at New Hampshire as part of now twenty-six Mod Tour races, all at either Loudon or Bristol.   Here he drove a Curb Motorsports car and got into a race-long battle with Chase Dowling and Justin Bonsignore; Doug Coby led ten laps but was eliminated in a pit shunt with Newman and Jon McKennedy, Woody Pitkat, and Joe Degracia led briefly before Bonsignore, Newman, and Dowling took over; in all the lead officially changed hands twenty times among seven drivers.   Eric Goodale quietly crept into the fray, but it was Bobby Santos who stole the show - literally, clawing into the fray in the final 21 laps and then striking in the final six laps.   The fight for the lead turned into a multicar epic and Santos won by a rollbar with the leaders four abreast.

The Modifieds have always delivered high-quality competition at New Hampshire and showed anew how superspeedway draft-pack racing with overgripped racecars opens up passing where having more power does not, this coming after the much-hyped Eldora Dirt Debry and the exciting finish it saw.   One dislikes pitting tracks against each other and it is in no way any damnation of Eldora or other short tracks, but no short track has lived up to the sheer ferocity of superspeedway draft-pack slicing and dicing as the Modifieds deliver at New Hampshire.

The surprise remains the event does not get live media broadcasting - contrast with the days of the old Nashville Network that aired the race live; one is also struck radio coverage is not offered.

Apart from Newman, the star of the Mod Tour race was Mod veteran Ryan Preece, eliminated from contention by an early suspension failure.  

It all added up to another memorable weekend for the sport.

Carolina Cobras vs Massachusetts Pirates Week 14 2018

The National Arena League season closes in on the playoffs and a huge game for both the Cobras and Pirates erupted into a last-second stunner, with both teams in a four-way logjam with the Columbus Lions and Jacksonville Sharks for playoff seeding.

NASCAR Gets Dirty At Eldora

Compilation of wrecks in the 2018 Eldora Dirt Derby

Chase Briscoe surprised everyone with a fender-length win


NASCAR's annual Eldora Dirt Derby 150 for the Truck Series saw a spirited finish and a lot of chatter instigated by promoter Tony Stewart when he called on NASCAR fans to demand NASCAR give him a Winston Cup date.   The idea will of course get pushed by a lot of people, but a more objective look is needed here amid what was admittedly an impressive finish.

I say admittedly because for most of the race it was a pretty typical dirt race - the Trucks fighting for the cushion, the bottom lanes never really getting hooked up, passing never developing as much as drivers want, the vehicles involved looking like Triceratops on roller skates more than racing vehicles.

Dirt racing is what it is - but it's also grossly overhyped and overrated.   For local racing it's fine, for major league motorsports it may be fun but it's not that good.   And being overhyped and overrated some myths have been pushed about dirt racing -


Myth - the cars don't need aero or big-time engineering for dirt races 

Aero matters - a lot - on dirt.   Fendered dirt cars make superspeedway stockers look like the old "taxicab" cliche used against NASCAR in the 1960s - they even make modern Late Models look like old-school superspeedway cars.

The wings of outlaw sprint cars likewise put the myth to claims aero doesn't matter on dirt


There is also the reality that NASCAR teams are now beating NASCAR's new Optical Scanner, and also Truck teams have started to build special dirt vehicles for Eldora.  Local racers without the budgets or technology of Winston Cup teams may not have figured it out, but the longer NASCAR runs major-league series on dirt the more money they will spend, between the Optical Scanner, shaker machines, and the like, on engineering better dirt cars - and do not ever believe they won't succeed, having long ago made regular short tracks as much an engineering exercise as superspeedways.



Myth - dirt makes the racing more a driver skill exercise

The 150 was monopolized by Kyle Busch Motorsports and ThorSport.   Between polesitter Ben Rhodes and rookie Logan Seavey, like so many modern NASCAR guys a California native and also Toyota Development driver who has competed in the World of Outlaws - ironically driving for race winner Chase Briscoe - KBM led 97 laps while Briscoe led 54.   So the big teams of the Truck Series as usual took over.

No one else led.   Much was made of longtime veteran Norm Benning racing his way into the feature - and Noah Gragson got some heat after the race because Benning passed him - and largely lost is Benning never really got anything going and crashed out of the race.   The biggest surprise of the night wasn't even Briscoe's win - it was the fact Austin Wayne Self, perennial nobody, ran as high as third for a lengthy stretch of the race - and a bigger indictment of Self is rookie Max McLaughin (his dad is Northeast racing hall of famer Mike McLaughin) out-finished him in a second Al Niece Chevrolet. 

The blunt reality is dirt is not the equalizer it's being hyped as being.



Tony Stewart's call for Winston Cup at Eldora is yet another example in the ridiculous debate that has pitted speedways against each other, an exercise in fratricide that has never benefitted anyone.   To illustrate the rank hypocrisy involved, consider this idea -

We hear fans call for tracks like Charlotte, Texas, Pocono, Michigan, and Kansas to give up their second dates to allow more short tracks in Cup - so how about instead Bristol, Richmond, and Martinsville give up their second dates for other short tracks?

No doubt we will get pushback from fans to the idea that Bristol, Richmond, and Martinsville be forced to give up dates for other tracks - and of course the justifications for keeping two dates at those places will further display fan hypocrisy on the issue.   We've already seen plenty of speedway fratricide over the last twenty-two seasons - when, fans, does enough become enough?


The big draw Tony has in mind is simple - Cup is where some ninty percent the TV money goes; he gets little to no TV money from the Truck race.   The solution there should be clear - take perhaps twenty-five to thirty percent of Cup TV money and switch it into the Xfinity, Truck, Modified, K&N, and Weekly Racing Series; work to get a third and fourth TV network - CBS immediately comes to mind - to invest in NASCAR, perhaps even start allowing individual tracks to negotiate separate TV deals.   Make it worth Iowa Speedway's while, for one, to settle for the Xfinity and Truck series instead of Winston Cup. 

NASCAR needs to stop pitting speedways against each other and Tony Stewart needs to work better with NASCAR and everyone else for the betterment of his track and of racing.

The Eldora Dirt Derby got a lot of praise and it has shown itself - it is what it is, the sport needs to leave it at that.

NASCAR And When Solutions Are Part Of The Problem

NASCAR's Kentucky weekend began with two surprising winners in Ben Rhodes in the Kentucky Truck 225 and Christopher Bell in the Alsco 300 Xfinity race.    For Bell, it was his third win in twenty-five Xfinity races to date, atop seven wins in the Trucks.   For Rhodes the win was only the second in his Truck career, both in Thorsport vehicles.


The Quaker State 400, in contrast, was the same script seen throughout 2018 - the fourth win of the season for Martin Truex and yet another near-monopoly by Truex, Kevin Harvick (with five wins), and Kyle Busch (also five). Not only that, the racing wasn't competitive and the rest of the field has gotten perceptibly weaker compared to the new Big Three - or as Dave Moody put it, "Hope is a lousy business plan."


It led yet again to pathetic social media condemnation of the track (best shown in hostile reaction to a Darrell Waltrip tweet about the track which he helped build), of 1.5-milers in general, of NASCAR, and advocacy of dragging the sport away from big tracks to the podunk bullrings - "get the sport back to its roots" is the catchphrase, always ignoring the reality that the short track model doesn't work for major league racing. Added to this was a ridiculous commentary during the Honda Indy Toronto weekend where NASCAR's Canadian tour ran, and where Andrew Ranger jumped when race-leader Alex Tagliani bobbled on a GWC restart for the only pass of the race. Some were advocating NASCAR add a street race to the major league tours - this even with a race as typically pathetic in competition as this was.


The sport's issues by now are universally known, yet credible solutions have been resisted and the entire debate has become ever-more absurd.

"Fans have long complained about a lack of competition.....And yet, after discovering a promising potential remedy for those complaints at the All Star Race, NASCAR waved it off under pressure from its athletes.

The hypocrisy of fans and drivers has long been a laughable reality of racing.   As more than one observer has noted, fans who decried the crashes at Daytona were celebrating crashes at Chicagoland.   Add to this that fans long raved for "the old Bristol" - the Bristol with just one groove where no one could race and tearing up over half the field was the norm.

"Fans have spoken. They want fewer "rubber stamp" 1.5-milers and more short tracks, more road courses, more new, more exciting."

Moody advocates adding four short track races to the Winston Cup schedule, such as Hickory, Nashville, Oxford Plains, Berlin Raceway, Myrtle Beach.    But he notes NASCAR would have to basically throw away making any money off such weaker markets and venues and teams would have to accept seriously lower purses.   And one has to ask - for what?  

Fans are angry at 1.5-mile tracks yet are advocating going to tracks that are even less competitive?   Bristol's per-race average of lead changes is a paltry thirteen, compared to 22-plus for Pocono, Michigan, etc (fans also still lament the passing of North Wilkesboro Speedway - which only averaged seven lead changes in 93 career Winston Cup races).    The objective illogic should be readily apparent yet seems not to be for a lot of people - especially given the three short tracks on the Winston Cup tour have been hurt more in declining attendances (some recent Bristol races especially look like ghost towns) than the superspeedways.  To further illustrate fan hypocrisy - would fans support dropping Richmond or Bristol or Martinsville for Iowa?


The sport's problems have solutions - those solutions just need to be implemented and all involved need to give up something worth giving up.............



Run the plate package with larger spoiler and perhaps also larger draft ducts -
Drivers need to give up complaining the cars are "too slow" or "too easy to drive" - what is needed is making the cars more secure to the track and making the draft stronger and thus more important, and thus opening up greater combat up front.



Add downforce, stop fighting against it -
If the cars have more downforce to where they are "slowish" at 190 at Michigan et al they can get back more power; basically find the draft-horsepower-downforce balance Indycar nailed with the DW12 car that exploded in lead changes 2012-17.   Racing has to give up the myth that downforce is bad.



Eliminate the playoff format and adjust the point structure to make wins and most laps led paramount -
NASCAR has to give up the myth of "Game Seven Moments" because they don't exist in racing; also give up the myth of the 1992 Hooters 500; it was a once-in-lifetime moment, stop trying to replicate it.  Instead put all incentive into going for the lead, going for the win.   This is a championship format everyone can recognize without much complication and it makes the races themselves more important again.



Take more TV money out of Winston Cup and put it into NASCAR's supporting series -Instead of moving Cup dates to smaller markets, make those smaller markets worth their while to hold stand-alone races in Xfinity, Trucks, the Mod Tour, the Canadian tour, and the K&N/ARCA tours.   This is part of the motivation for the Truck Series when it started - the goal was to make it strong enough that smaller tracks like presumably Rockingham and North Wilkesboro could replace their Cup dates with Truck dates and thus free up those dates for better tracks and markets.   Iowa, Nashville, and Gateway for instance would benefit from more TV money and the lobbying for Cup dates at those places would be made unnecessary.  TV networks shouldn't object, as such a change doesn't hurt them at all; Cup tracks, which make enough money, also should not object to a slightly smaller TV money slice.



Put some races back to 500 mile distances and earlier start times -
TV networks and the marketing hacks who work for them have to give up the myth that longer races are not what fans want - when challenged to lengthen their attention spans fans respond to the challenge well.   Later start times have made it too inconvenient for fans to go to a lot of races.   500 miles is a better test of racecars and drivers than 400 milers.


No midweek races -This idea has gotten tossed about of late due to the Eldora Truck race, always run on a Wednesday.   There has never been any evidence that running on a Wednesday has created any benefit for anyone.   One wonders who thought this is a good idea and why this idea is being pushed.



Solutions are there to be had - everyone involved in racing needs to be more objective about these issues to find them.

Court Case To Make Diversity Defend Itself

Harvard's "diversity" discrimination against Asians threatens to outlaw the concept of "affirmative action."

NASCAR: Saunders Remark Controversy Oversold

Just before the Firecracker 400 weekend a controversy was stirred up by the Race-Stream Media over a remark by John Saunders, president of International Speedway Corporation, Daytona's parent company.   Saunders noted a mild regression in ISC track attendances the last six race weekends; the controversy stemmed from this -

"We still have an issue with star power.   Hopefully this stable of young drivers coming along will start to win and build their brands."

The controversy that ensued was summarized by Brendan Marks of The Charlotte Observer in a piece where he claimed that Saunders was laying all blame on NASCAR decline on lack of star power.   Marks was not the only writer to make a controversy out of Saunders' remark, but oversells it (as did other writers judging from remarks from such drivers as Ryan Blaney) and thus uses driver comments in response to attack Saunders by saying "NASCAR's attendance issues predate any of these young drivers' time (in Winston Cup)........it's a faulty argument attributing all of NASCAR's decline to the departure of a few drivers."

The problem with Brendan Marks' analysis is the old cliché - hearing is a sense, listening is a skill.   Re-read what Saunders actually states.   The sport still has an issue with star power, and he expresses hope that the generation of young drivers coming into the sport will win and thus begin building star power.    Marks reaches enormously in trying to make Saunders' remark out to be just an excuse by ISC.


Marks notes the retirement of drivers Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. - both now TV analysts, widely praised as such, Junior in particular earning much attention for his "Slide job, slide job!" call on the Kyle Larson-Kyle Busch set-to at Chicagoland, a call humorously reminiscent of "BERGERON! BERGERON!", the call of a game-winning overtime goal by Patrice Bergeron of the Boston Bruins in 2011 by the Bruins' then-play-by-play announcer Dave Goucher, now the TV play-by-play man for the Vegas Golden Knights.  

Other drivers who have retired in recent years are Tony Stewart - still an active car owner with Gene Haas and the owner of Eldora Speedway - Carl Edwards, and Brendan Marks also cites Danica Patrick.    This is where his argument gets weaker - NASCAR's attendance declines where happening during elements of their peak as drivers, and also Marks oversells their star power.   There has never been any evidence Danica Patrick brought anyone to racing that otherwise would have ignored the sport, while the unlikeability of Stewart and Edwards weakens their star power.   If anything the sport has gotten a certain freshness now that the abrasive and periodically dangerous Edwards is no longer participating.

Carl Edwards authored two of the most malicious melees in recent NASCAR memory - to imply his star power is something the sport misses is nonsensical.



In short, Marks exaggerates the star power of those drivers he lists who have retired.   He also is ignoring the obvious when it comes to the young guns.   He quotes Ryan Blaney's argument -

"We're trying. We're trying our hardest. It's not like I go out there and I'm happy for fifth every single week. Any other guys under the age of twenty-five I'll just say is the same way."

The issue is less whether the young guns are trying hard enough - it's always open to debate just how hard drivers are trying; one certainly wants to believe they truly are fighting as hard as possible, yet given how much importance is put into points as opposed to going for the lead, doubts become inevitable.    The issue is - is this class of young guns really that good?

Chase Elliott by default is the "leader" of the young guns and with his third Winston Cup season droning forward his inability to finish the mission is becoming more and more of an issue.   He's posted 26 top-five finishes in Cup so far, yet has shown no evidence of learning how to win.   Running up front has never been an issue; actually doing what it takes to win is the issue.  

Ryan Blaney, meanwhile, stunned the sport by winning at Pocono in the Wood Brothers #21, and thus were expectations raised with the switch to a third Penske Ford in 2018.  And running up front hasn't been a problem.   If anything it's surprising that Blaney hasn't won to date in Penske's Ford.  

Erik Jones' Firecracker win adds to the issue, as one now awaits how he follows up the win.   He's been the quiet member of the young guns with the win and just six other top-fives in his two seasons in Winston Cup.  


Overall, Brendan Marks gets it wrong - the young guns are not being given an undue burden because of Saunders' remark.    The sport instead is seeing a generation of young drivers who were promoted as something they really are not.   The old racing saw is a driver needs five years to see if he's truly that good, yet this has been forgotten given the immediate success of rookies like Davey Allison (1987), Jeff Gordon (1993), Tony Stewart (1999), Dale Junior and Matt Kenseth (2000), Kevin Harvick (2001), Jimmie Johnson and Ryan Newman (2002), and Kyle Busch (2005).   So rookies are supposed to win right out of the chute, that's no longer any kind of unfair expectation.

Now some of the young guns of this season may indeed blossom into legitimate powers and thus "build their brands" as Saunders put it.   But they have to actually do it first.   The young guns have to win, they have to prove they're not doing less with more.  

Winston Cup Enters 2018's Second Half

NASCAR's 2018 season blasts into its second half and the old cliché about the more things changing the more staying the same got some confirmation in a demolition derby of a Firecracker 400 weekend, and it also may have offered answers on where the season is going.     

NASCAR's ridiculous yellow-line rule cost Justin Haley the victory in the Firecracker 250 and led to an interesting question on social media by Brad Keselowski, whose question about having two or four tires below the yellow line illustrated the EIRI clause that has forever dominated the NASCAR rulebook and also illustrated that no matter how Steve O'Donnell calls it, he can't justify this rule.    This helps explain why so many question the sanctioning body's credibility, because the rules put in place too often are there only to justify more control, not to address actual problems.   The blunt reality remains there never should have been a yellow-line rule.

Why has Ricky Stenhouse only won twice in Winston Cup?   His Gurney Ernie Irvan antics in the Firecracker 400 showed why, right down to drivers openly calling him out a la calling out Ernie Irvan back in his day.    That the uncompetitive Roush Fords led as much as they did in the Firecracker was something of a surprise, and we doubt it will carry over to greater muscle down the road this season.

So what to make of this going forward?   Some takes -



---   It's now manifestly clear to everyone, including the Race Stream Media that treated Chevrolet as though it were on the brink of winning again, that Chevrolet's program is fundamentally flawed.   For all the hype about Hendrick Motorsports putting three cars in the top four in qualifying, the Chevrolet class was still clearly behind the Fords and Toyotas.    For Hendrick Motorsports in particular - especially Jimmie Johnson - the failure in the Firecracker, despite showing some legitimate power, indicates whatever progress is being made with this racecar is weak at best, and the Chevrolet program is simply screwed up.    We frankly doubt Chevrolet will win again in 2018; there simply is no reason right now to think Chevy can get this thing turned around.

Which begs the question - what exactly has gone wrong?   Part of it is this Chevrolet more and more looks like a terrible racecar.   The bigger part is the engineering effort clearly has no answers, and one should start questioning the competence of the engineering leadership in Chevrolet's racing program.   Tied into the engineering is inter-team cooperation - Chevy teams claim their is genuine cooperation between them, but MRN's Dave Moody has noted either information isn't being properly used by Chevy teams, or someone in the Chevy camp is not giving everyone everything needed to make these cars better.  I suspect the latter is the case; if it weren't the Chevy effort would be much farther along by now.

---  The young guns of NASCAR were hyped by the sanctioning body despite having little evidence of potential accomplishment, and even with Erik Jones' surprising Firecracker win the young guns overall have simply not shown much firepower.    Jones' effort the last three races has gotten notably better with top-tens at Sears Point and Chicagoland before the Firecracker win; the same cannot be said for Chase Elliott, with just six top-tens overall, just three in the last nine races, and only nineteen laps led overall (compared to 64 by Erik Jones just at Texas earlier this season).    It holds my view that Elliott is not a budding superstar but the next Mike Skinner - an overhyped hack with the greater issue that he's been shoved down the sport's throat.

There needs to be a lot more out of the young guns to justify the hype from the start of the season.

---  The Firecracker was one of those rare good paydays for the smaller teams with top-tens by Brad Daugherty's two cars, Archie St. Hilaire's Ford, and Ron Leavine's Chevrolet.   Jay Robinson, Mark Beard, and the Gaunt Brothers also had respectable days.   The funniest irony is the "independents" accounted for most of the nine Chevrolets that finished in the top-ten.

So it went with the Firecracker 400 weekend.

The Immigration Debate Fraud

Immigration policy is always lied about to protect what has become "a political interest" that violates reality, a reality shown in antisemitism in France, forced marriage of children in Sweden, etc.