Hurricane Haley Hits Daytona

NASCAR's change of its 2020 schedule has moved the Firecracker 400 weekend from July to early September, making 2019 the last Independence Day weekend for the time being at Daytona.   We suspect the date will return to its tradition sooner instead of later a la the Southern 500.    But amid all that an unwelcome semi-tradition returned - rain.   It affected the Chicago 400 last week and plagued the Firecracker 400 weekend as well.


The weekend began with an interview with NASCAR President Steve Phelps where "he doubled down on his support of the 2019 (Winston) Cup rules package" and stated "We are looking for the most entertaining racing we can put out there."

It has led to the usual griping about the racing not being "racing," with a Clint Bowyer quote about how at Michigan he passed a car then four others passed him back.   Ryan Preece then added, "It's not what we grew up doing.....(we were) throwing a car into a corner harder, not driving in as hard, using the brake, letting it roll and pick up the throttle sooner.....(where now)...We're wide open....it's not easy because you still have to find the balance of your car but that's what it is."

It's impossible to take Clint Bowyer's opinion seriously because he's objecting that rival drivers are passing him. This is what competition entails. As for Preece, he won twenty two times (for team owners Jan Boehler, Eric Sanderson, and Eddie Partridge) on the NASCAR Modified Tour, where the cars are far more secure to the track and thus open throttle able than regular fendered racecars - though an interesting caveat is in twenty three starts at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, the tour's Daytona, he has seven top fives, five other top tens, 244 laps led - but is winless. 

It brings to mind a scathing review of F1 and Indy 500 champion Jimmy Clark in Chris Economaki's bio LET 'EM ALL GO!

"....of every Formula One race that Clark competed in, you would find that he never passed anyone. He started on the pole in a Lotus and he left.

"When he was forced to battle wheel to wheel with someone, he invariably lost. I saw that at Riverside. Dan Gurney was driving Rollo Vollstedt's car and he beat Clark who was at the wheel of a superior machine.***  In 1963 (at the Indianapolis 500) Clark should have blown Parnelli Jones off and won the 500, but he didn't.

"Clark in my view was never comfortable with someone alongside him....to me he could not handle racing face to face with someone on the racetrack."

This has been manifestly true of a great many road racing drivers and also more than a few oval trackers -  I've never been all that impressed for one with Bill Elliott, who certainly is a Hall of Fame champion but who always seemed to have a lower limit of combativeness on the racetrack.   It bears repeating that not only did the 1998-2018 period of NASCAR showcase that the tracks with more horsepower and throttle response produced far lower incidence of passing than the plate races, but that a high number of quality drivers such as Rusty Wallace, Alan Kulwicki, Ricky Rudd, Carl Edwards, Kasey Kahne, Juan Montoya, Marcus Ambrose, and more recently Kyle Larson never won a "plate" race, where talent is ostensibly smothered. 

The reality remains talent isn't being smothered, it's being exposed for what it is and what it is not.



That real talent comes from passing and repassing was showcased in the rain-plagued Firecracker 400 weekend.

It began when Brad Keselowski cheap shot William Byron - during practice - then afterward gave a confusing response stating he was angry at blocking and at crashing in a bevy of races the last few seasons.  "I'm not going to lift," Keselowski stated.   

Payback proved to be a Dani Beck when Kevin Harvick - famously benched for a race after a cheap shot in a Truck race in 2002 - after getting tagged off Two by Keselowski later let Keselowski have it - and the fans cheered.   

But the big mess came when Austin Dillon stormed into the lead, threw a massive block on Clint Bowyer, and Bowyer hooked him a la the Sterling Marlin-Bobby Allison crash at the similarly-flaky 1986 Talladega 500.

The end result was Justin Haley, who'd stayed out when everyone else pitted, got a win nobody - least of all him - thought conceivable, especially as he'd been pretty much MIA all race.   He is the first first-timer since Chase Elliott last season and the biggest upset winner maybe since Keselowski himself at the 2009 Winston 500.

The biggest upshot of the whole thing is the bizarre win is payback to NASCAR for its indefensible yellow line rule that cost Haley the 2018 Firecracker 250.  

And controversy was still circulating the day later over his team, Spire Motorsports, owned by the sport's largest driver agency and which put Haley in its #77 basically because Haley is one of their clients.  The term "cash grab" has been used to describe Spire's tactics because the team was purchased from the remains of Barney Visser's former title winning team, and yet Spire didn't field an actual team, instead getting Premium Motorsports to do so.  The company's co-founder Jeff Dickerson purchased the franchise because no one else tried to buy it.

Is there conflict of interest here?  Frankly it seems no one knows with certainty, a point shown as Dave Moody recounts how Big Bill France raced in his sanctioning body's events and series sponsor RJR also sponsored Travis Carter's car in the 1990s - and it crosses over to Indycars where Marlboro sponsored races and the series as well as individual racecars, most famously Emerson Fittipaldi.


And suddenly the 2019 Winston Cup season, already by far more competitive and interesting than seasons of the last fifteen-plus seasons, gets more interesting.

*** 1967 Rex Mays 300, Riverside International Raceway. Gurney won after leading 68 laps; Clark fell out after 25 laps with a burned valve.