With NASCAR entering the summer portion of the 2017 schedule there has been plenty of talk on numerous subjects.
Austin Dillon's surprise World 600 win stirred a surprising controversy involving Adam Graves of Toyota and others regarding Kyle Busch's reaction, but that isn't even the most interesting issue going into Dover Downs' first NASCAR weekend of the season. The big issue has been Kevin Harvick's interview on Dave Moody's radio show where he criticized the Truck Series schedule and advocated putting the races on more short tracks and also make them stand-alone events instead of Cup support races.
A little history lesson is in order - the Truck Series began in 1995 as a Winston Cup team testing program - RCR, Hendrick, Roush, and DEI (then a Busch Series team with Winston Cup aspirations) plunged full-tilt into the series and in effect monopolized it. The series began as a short track series, but when it ran at Homestead in 1995 - the track then a 1.5-mile clone of Ontario Motor Speedway - the racing was superior to anything the short tracks produced, then or now. The writing was on the wall and as with the Grand National Series and the Late Model Sportsman division, the Trucks quickly and steadily outgrew the short tracks and grew onto the superspeedways. In other words the Trucks began on the short tracks but they could not stay there.
The Goody's Dash race at Homestead took a surprising backseat when the Craftsman Trucks - 2:16:00 into this video - debuted on a big track with a short exhibition race - and set the path where the Truck Series would inevitably go.
The first points race for the Trucks at Homestead saw one of the series' wildest finishes
The issue of reconnecting with grassroots racing is certainly a legitimate one, but putting Truck races onto more short tracks didn't do that then and its short track events haven't done it now. It is worth noting what short tracks' regular divisions run - I know of no short track anywhere that runs radial tires; only bias-plies. I'm puzzled why Harvick and others like Todd Bodine, interviewed on Moody's show about this topic a few days later, aren't asked about the disconnect between grassroots racing on bias-plies and the bigger leagues continuing on radials. It would seem the majors conceivably can switch back to bias-plies, though present-supplier Goodyear doesn't build them. It would certainly seem the case that switching to bias-plies would help the Trucks et al be able to attract more grassroots racers whose skill set is far better suited to bias-shod racecars than to radials, and also allow them to sustain careers at the next level better.
Bodine mentioned costs in the Truck Series, noting the level of carbon fiber pieces used instead of aluminum - this issue, though, seems more a spending issue. He mentioned in the Moody interview something along the line that both NASCAR and teams need to make concessions to help the struggling Truck Series - this applies also the Xfinity Series, the Modified Tour, and the K&N touring series, which has suffered very badly with poor car counts. For NASCAR, a needed concession is twofold - take a strong percentage of TV money out of Cup and spend it instead on the other touring series, and also take a third or more of the money in the touring series out of the points funds and switch it into the race purses (I believe it was Dave Marcis who made a recommendation along this line many years ago).
For teams, the concession needed is teams and NASCAR need to work together for a spending cap; it would certainly seem the Race Team Alliance can facilitate team owners policing each other, and it gets back to the issue of bias-plies vs. radials as bias-plies seem substantially less expensive long term than radials. There is overall certainly that the sport's economics would be far more competitively sustainable if team spending was restricted where $1.5 million Truck sponsorships would be more than enough compared to the present $3.5 million and above, and so forth through all of NASCAR's touring series. It is also a certainty that the sport and the teams are in no serious position to object to such course of action, they, NASCAR, etc. are in this together.
Further illustrating all of this is Brad Keselowski's take on the Trucks, saying Truck budgets are over $4 million per year and also that his team lost $1 million in 2014. Keselowski advocates more short tracks by claiming aero would be less important and there would be less development in engines. "You can't cut your way to prosperity" in racing, according to Keselowski, though smarter decision making would certainly work.
Keselowski, though, is foolish if he thinks more short tracks would lessen aero and engine development - there is no such thing as a team that ever got better by regressing on those fronts. His comments illustrate how the only way to make teams curb spending is to police against spending, by both NASCAR and the teams policing each other.
And there is one overlooked economic issue - it is time to eliminate sponsor exclusivity deals, which do nothing but limit revenue the sport and the teams need. Let rivals to Monster Energy Drinks sponsor racecars and races - a la Coca-Cola Mercury vs Pepsi Plymouth, Gatorade #88 vs. Mountain Dew #11, the STP Dodge winning the Purolator 500, etc.
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The mania in fan circles for more short tracks at the major league level is of course a venting of frustration over lack of passing on the bigger ovals - yet it is curious how fans have overlooked what short tracks run for their regular series. As noted I know of no short track that runs radial tires - bias-plies are the universal norm. Also the norm for the Late Models, Modifieds, etc. is racecars with downforce bodies - the rake put into Late Model bodies compared to Cup bodies requires no elaboration - and large spoilers, made of clear-view material as well. Horsepower is substantially less than with Cup or Xfinity Series cars.
In other words, perhaps it is the racecars as opposed to the track type that is the issue.
This was originally published on April 27, 2007. It has been updated -
In the NFL well-regarded draft picks who don't pan out as well as expected are considered busts, and with the 2017 NFL Draft coming after this coming season, looking back on draft picks who worked out and those who didn't has become a cottage industry. NASCAR doesn't have a driver draft, but it has also seen plenty of drivers who were felt to have great potential but who never produced as well as that potential. A look at some of NASCAR's drafting busts..........
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Kenny Irwin Jr. - He was a veteran of USAC short track open wheelers, and he was from Indianapolis. He was considered the next Jeff Gordon because of this background, and he joined Brad Daugherty's #98 Ford in the Craftsman Trucks Series for 1997. He battled Ron Hornaday and Mike Skinner and others in a hard-fought Homestead 300 at Miami and won the race, and followed it up with a win at Texas in June of that year.
Ford then helped slot him with Robert Yates for 1998, but first he needed a few races in a satellite Yates car for latter 1997. David Blair Motorsports provided the car, Yates provided the hardware for the car, and at the Capital City 400 at Richmond, Irwin timed in the top five, led 12 laps, and finished eighth. His finishes in three other races that season were uninspiring, but the potential was seen to be there.
But in his first outing in Yates' #28, he took out Todd Bodine in a wreck in his Daytona 125 and in the 500 ran mediocre all day. Mediocrity permeated his rides until he stormed to the front and led over 100 laps in the Atlanta 500, ultimately finishing fifth. But his driving didn't improve as the season went on other than a June spurt of top-15 finishes - he failed to make the field at Charlotte; at the Brickyard he ran strong all day but crashed; at Martinsville he needed a relief driver, earning a rebuke from Yates about partying too much instead of working on his racing. In all he managed only six lead-lap finishes in 1998.
The 1999 Daytona 500 promised to be a launching pad for improvement; instead it effectively ended his car owner's confidence in him. He hooked teammate Dale Jarrett into a massive wreck in Turn Three past halfway; Irwin rallied from mid-pack and finished third, but he crashed twice in the next four races and was generally uncompetitive anywhere he ran. He finished on the lead lap only nine times and was released from the Yates ride.
He joined Felix Sabates' Chevrolet team for 2000 and the pattern of mediocre racing continued; only a fourth place at Talladega broke the ice. At New Hampshire before qualifying he was killed in a horrendous hit in Turn Three. It was a tragic ending to a young driver's career.
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Greg Sacks' last NASCAR win was a wild one in the Busch Series at Talladega
Greg Sacks - Talk about doing it the hard way, Greg Sacks lived that saying. Managing to run the full Winston Cup schedule only twice, he jumped from team to team to an inordiante extent after a successful Modified Series career with Ernie Wilsberg. His first run in a Winston Cup car was a Daytona test with Richard Childress in which he flew bottom-first into an earthen embankment and flipped to the trioval, his helmet falling out of the car; he suffered a broken collarbone. He drove his own car until DiGard Racing signed him to drive an experimental Chevrolet for the 1985 Firecracker 400. He shocked the sport by whipping Bill Elliott for the win.
It was his only Winston Cup win, but he kept plugging, joining whatever team would hire him. Hendrick Motorsports hired him for racecar film work in latter 1989 and early 1990, and Hendrick entered a fourth car for selected races in 1990; he fought Dale Earnhardt to the end and finished second in the 1990 Winston 500. He fought for the lead at both Pocono races, finishing seventh in June and getting into a seven-car melee in July, before the effort dried up at the end of the year.
In July 1996 Gary Bechtel hired him for his team, and in BGN's Talladega 500k he fought for the lead - and early on caught Phil Parsons in the right rear in a wreck that swept up seven others - and bested the field in a torrid race.
He nearly won at Talladega again, this time in the 1997 Die Hard 500 when he jumped into Felix Sabates' #40, but when Jeff Gordon swerved into John Andretti the ensuing melee wiped out 20 cars; Sacks and Sterling Marlin wound up wedged into each other.
Sacks was seriously injured at Texas in 1998, and while he returned to race again the magic was gone. The shame of it is he showed he had the talent to be a serious contender; he really should not have been a bust.
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Rob Moroso's career was defined by this wreck
Rob Moroso - He entered BGN in 1987, and in 1988 won at Charlotte, then won the championship in 1989. He then moved up to Winston Cup and went nowhere. In late September of that year he was killed in a highway accident following a race at North Wilkesboro. He was awarded Rookie Of The Year honors anyway.
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Always close, never in contention - such was Mike Skinner
Mike Skinner - The first graduate of the Craftsman Truck Series, Skinner won poles in his rookie season, driving RCR's #31 Chevy, but was uncompetitive in race trim, until in mid-1998 crew chiefs were swapped and Larry McReynolds, a bust as Dale Earnhardt's crew chief, took over, and Skinner suddenly began to find some form. He mixed it up quite a bit in 1999 and 2000, blowing in the final 25 laps of the 2000 Atlanta 500 after leading over 180 laps. He came within two laps of a win at the 2000 Die Hard 500.
When McReynolds left after 2000 Skinner's racing collapsed. He was released from RCR in October 2001 and fired from Morgan-McClure in June 2003 after managing just one top-ten finish in over one season with the team. He returned to the Trucks, found some of the magic he once had, but finally quit for good after just two starts in 2011 and 2012.
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This was Ken Schrader's highlight - yet one can't help but say Tim Richmond watching this clip
Ken Schrader - He managed four Winston Cup wins, but it says a lot about his career that none of them are widely remembered. He won the 1988 Die Hard 500 in Harry Hyde's final win as a crew chief, then won at Charlotte in 1989. He slogged through a winless 1990 and somehow won twice in 1991, but since June at Dover that year he's failed to scratch. Curiously, Schrader's endless short track endeavors have never become an issue to his team owners even though they have long served as a distraction, a sign of a lack of seriousness to his Winston Cup commitment.
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Michael Waltrip's last Winston Cup win
Michael Waltrip - His mouth has helped him keep rides and made him a fortune in sponsorship endorsements, but his racing has been less than stellar throughout his long career. He spent 15 seasons without a Winston Cup win and without a single top-ten points finish, yet some still believed he had that potential. Dale Earnhardt apparantly thought that, as Ron Hornaday was released from his NAPA-sponsored team and replaced with Waltrip for the 2001 season. Waltrip then somehow won the Daytona 500 of 2001, and was nearly run out of town that October. He pulled off wins at Daytona in 2002 and in 2003, then won at Talladega. He hasn't scratched since and has tried to field a Toyota team with three cars.
Amazingly, in eight full-time seasons as a car owner Michael Waltrip has won seven races, yet his team was torn asunder in the 2013 Richmond fake-caution scam and after Robert Kaufmann left the organization it fell apart.
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One of NASCAR's craziest races produced its most unlikely one-shot wonder
Bobby Hillin Jr. - It was one of the most exciting racing upsets ever; Bobby Hillin Jr. raced past Tim Richmond and won the 1986 Die Hard 500. After that his career spiralled downward. He struggled everywhere, blew a possible win in 1990 at Daytona by a spin, then appeared done, limited to substitute rides with SABCO in 1991 and a lowly satellite RCR ride owned by Martin Birrane, until in 1992 Davey Allison's injury put him in Robert Yates' #28 for a relief role at Talladega, and he rocketed to the lead and finished third. Yates helped Junie Donlavey get his team stronger and Hillin drove the car. He fought for the lead at the 1993 Daytona 500 but got swept up when Dale Earnhardt cheapshot Al Unser Jr. off Four late in the going; despite losing his brakes Hillin foolishly tried to keep his car running and plowed backward into a surprised and furious Kyle Petty. Hillin then earned the helmet-throwing wrath of Dale Jarrett at Bristol and failed to record a top-ten in less than 40 starts with Donlavey. Hillin drifted from ride to ride after that and was done in racing by the end of 2000.
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Joe Millikan - He was highest placed of the Rookie Class of 1979 in that year's championship points, managing five top five and fifteen other top-ten finishes. When L.G. DeWitt Racing folded in May 1980 Millikan was drifting, until Richard Petty's bad Pocono wreck put him in a relief role that he handled well. He ran for rahmoc in 1981 but was released and wound up the season with Cliff Stewart, but that deal was ended early in 1982 and Millikan ran only sporadically afterward. His career ended barely four years after it had begun.
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Robert "Bootie" Barker - Not all busts are drivers. His extensive TV work has made Robert Barker a well-known crew chief in the sport, but one strains to find where he ever won anything in this capacity. Not that he's a bad crew chief, but his lack of success on the track doesn't speak highly of his true ability.
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The highlight of Jason Leffler's career was taking out Michael Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt Jr - Junior in Turn Four, the ultimate irony - at Daytona
Jason Leffler - He was a 2001 rookie with Chip Ganassi, and he went nowhere. He raced Jim Smith's Dodge Truck, and at New Hampshire had a sure win, but threw it away trying to lap a Truck and wrecked. He did manage a win in the Smith #2 in 2003, but was gone from the Truck after that, jumping into Gene Haas' BGN car. He won at Nashville in 2004 and at Daytona slammed Michael Waltrip and Dale Junior into the wall on the last lap, finishing second to Mike Wallace in the decade's wildest finish to that point. He thus got a second Winston Cup chance, this time with Joe Gibbs and a third JGR Chevy, and as before it went nowhere, his tenture not reaching the end of the year.
In roughly 430 combined stock car starts Leffler managed just three wins, none of them memorable.
He was killed in June 2013 in a sprint car race at Bridgeport, NJ, days after racing in the Pocono 400.
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John Wes Townley's sole highlight as a racer to date is winning the ARCA 200 at Daytona
John Wes Townley - While expectations here haven't been high, Townley has stood out as an example of a driver who's able to bring sponsorship to a team yet go nowhere with it - and has even been called out on his abysmal showings. In his career, such as it's been, Townley has raced a plethora of stock car events and has two wins (the Daytona ARCA 200 in 2013 and again in 2016), five additional top-fives, and eighteen additional top-tens - fourteen of them in ARCA. He has the Zaxby's restaurant chain as his primary sponsor - his dad Tony Townley is the chain's co-founder.
One would think this guy would have shown some kind of talent by now.
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Paul Menard - The scary part for the RCR team in 2016 - right now Paul Menard is their on-track leader. Richard Childress' team has struggled since Kevin Harvick left, and the idea of Paul Menard - another driver able to bring sponsorship yet do little to nothing with it for his racing - being a leader of a contending Cup team is laughable. He's managed 109 top-tens in some 460 combined stock car starts - 76 of them in the Busch Series; notably he managed only one career win driving DEI Busch Series cars Dale Junior and Martin Truex won 36 times with.
His one Cup win was a fuel mileage win at Indianapolis - with the requisite irony that Indianapolis is the home base of the Menards store chain. His top-tens have averaged to roughly four per year in his Cup career.
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Danica Patrick - She has raced well over 300 times between stockers and Indycars - where she first made herself known in racing - with quality equipment throughout her career, and has just one win and sixteen top tens and little in the way of laps led to show for it. When FOX Sports did a puff piece claiming improvement in her racing, it ran counter to the stats and the hard analysis of her racing. Because her gender is her entitlement to race and the wall of immunity against objective criticism of her.
They aren't the only drafting busts, and they won't be the last.
NASCAR's Generation Six racecar after just two races seems already to have set a new standard for controversy as NASCAR fined Denny Hamlin some $25,000 for public criticism of the car's lack of passing at Phoenix, this after the disappointing Daytona 500 (and the spectacle of Brian France's bullying dinner date with Brad Keselowski after Keselowski's USA Today interview critical of the sanctioning body). The fine has led drivers to refrain from criticism of the car, and racecaster Dave Moody comments taking both NASCAR and Hamlin to task. Moody takes hamlin to task for saying passing was harder now than before, noting Hamlin started 43rd and finished second at Phoenix. Moody has been a strong defender of the Gen-6 racecar and made valid points noting the car's hurried deployment and lack of parts at Daytona as contributory issues to the car's lack of passing.
But while there were such factors involved, the defenses of the Gen-6 racecar do not overall come across as valid, because the car's promises are familiar from the days of the unmourned Car Of Tomorrow, a vehicle that (much like the Gen-6) was advertised as a design that would reduce or even eliminate aeropush - and failed entirely.
NASCAR's inability to deal with the sport's chronic lack of passing has been a running issue from the 2000 season onward. In the John Darby era, which spans the bulk of the last ten to twelve seasons, the sport has mandated multiple changes to tires, swar bars, the cutting of downforce, and now the COT and the Gen-6 - and outside of Daytona and Talladega the racing has been subpar - only in spots at races such as Pocono in 2009-10, at Charlotte's 600-miler in 2011 (also noteworthy were Charlotte's 2005 races with an epidemic of yellows), at Fontana on a hot September night in 2007, and at Dover in 2006 has the sport seen battles up front that live up to the sport's competitive promise.
The recent catchphrase used is "give it time." While the point on its own is valid, the history of the sport's consistent Darby-era failures in improving the ability to race weighs against everything revolving around this Gen-6 racecar. And NASCAR's draconian reaction to driver criticisms adds more credibility issues because all it is doing is making more graphic that seemingly no one knows what they are doing.
And that is the greatest shame of all - it certainly is true that not every race can see 60 lead changes or anything close to that, but it's also true that 60 lead changes can - and absolutely should - not be the exception for the sport, whether it be the restrictor plate tracks, or the unfairly maligned "cookie cutter" intermediates, or the sport's low-banked superovals like Pocono and Indianapolis.
The former North Carolina Motor Speedway hosted NASCAR's Truck Series on April 15, 2012, eight years after the track closed upon being sold to Speedway Motorsports, Inc. Kasey Kahne won after taking the lead with 46 laps to go, aided when F1-reject Nelson Piquet Jr. was blackflagged for speeding down pit road. He finished seventh after leading 107 laps.
Kahne's win came eight years after he came up inches short in the track's last Winston Cup race, the 2004 Carolina 400 won by Matt Kenseth. The debut of NASCAR's Truck Series marked the return of a major touring series of NASCAR to the track, and it immediatelty unleashed a wave of commentary about how good it was for NASCAR to return to the track.
The problem, though, is that the nostalgia for the speedway willfully ignores why the track lost its Winston Cup dates to begin with. The Truck 200 there played before a speedway where some 50,000 seats had been torn down and the seating capacity was thus 32,000. The track's recorded attendance was 27,000. Lack of attendance was a factor in why the track lost its Cup dates. But several myths have been perpetrated by fans trying to explain why Rockingham didn't draw well - chief among the myths is that the track's dates were not condusive to quality weather - that it would have sold out its dates had they been moved to warmer times such as April through August instead of February/March and October/November.
That myth got exposed when the track reopened amid heavy hype and promotion of SPEED TV coverage of its inaugural race in May 2009 for ARCA stock cars - amid excellent weather, maybe 10,000 people showed up. The hype for this Truck race was of course even higher, and yet the track still could not sell out even with reduced seating capacity.
There remain fans who praise the quality of Rockingham's racing, despite all evidence to the contrary. The Truck 200 saw seven lead changes, dismal for a 200-lap race and indication the track is not terribly raceable. Making it worse is the track's notorious surface, which throughout its existence has devolved into a surface that wore out tires to where fresh tires were usually four seconds per lap faster. The racing suffered as a result, with cars strung out, over half the field getting lapped by halfway, and crashes occurring with varying frequency.
At its best Rockingham was a pale carbon of Charlotte Motor Speedway. Rockingham had some good races, most notably the 1984 American 500, but it simply is too small a track and too narrow for the racing to be all that good.
Ultimately Rockingham cannot be more than it now is - a 1-mile track with some room to race but not as much as what major league racing needs, a track that is good for local racing but useless for major league racing like Winston Cup, and a track whose demographic simply is not strong enough for more than it now has for racing. There remains fans who want the track to bring back Cup racing, but such fans need to evolve here.
In July 2007 NASCAR became rather defensive about its competitive product, shown here and in various other forums. Below is a post initiated in November 2006 in response to this recent surge of defensiveness; it has been updated where needed -
That Winston Cup "no longer has any competitive sizzle" and is thus suffering from a decline in TV ratings and attendance is universally understood in the sport, but the reason for this lack of sizzle is subject of disagreement and some misleading analysis. Some blame the length of races and the length of the schedule, but such complaints are for people with Attention Deficit Disorder; the races and the schedule are not too long. The Chase format has certainly taken away some competitive sizzle with its arbitrary lockout of most of the field from any top-ten points position, but the real core issue has largely gone unnoticed.
Pro Football had its Dead-Ball Era of 1966-77, when scoring was low and rule changes were needed to open up scoring. NASCAR for the last 25 seasons has been in a Dead-Lane Era, an era of mediocre racing highlighted by lack of lead changes. It began in 1985 when the Winston Cup season failed to produce a race with at least 40 lead changes for the first time since 1970. The decade that began with 20 such races 1980-4 saw just three more by the end of 1989 - at Talladega twice (1986 and 1989) and Charlotte in 1988. In April 1991 Bristol broke the 40-lead-change barrier (the only short track racing in NASCAR history to do so) thanks to a bizarre pitstop and double-file restart package that was discontinued after that race; the 40-lead-change barrier was not broken again until October 2000 at Charlotte.
It has, however, been the restrictor plate races, which were consistently the most competitive races during the 1990s (plate races set the season record for lead changes in 1990, 1993-4, and 1996-7), that broke the 40-lead-change barrier the most. Talladega in its last 22 runnings entering 2011 has broken that barrier sixteen times - October 2000, four straight races 2003-4, and a whopping eleven straight October 2005 through 2010, reaching 63 lead changes in October 2006, the most competitive race in 22 years, and then topping that mark at 64 lead changes among a motorsports-record 28 leaders in October 2008 - only to obliterate the record in 2010 with 88 lead changes among 30 drivers in April 2010, followed by 87 lead chanegs among 26 drivers on Halloween.
Outside of Talladega, however, the competitiveness of the racing has been subpar. Making it worse has been a shrinkage of winning organizations in the sport. The 1980s saw a phenomenal increase in winners, both in drivers and teams - in 1986 13 drivers for 11 teams won races; in 1988 14 drivers for 12 teams won; in 1990 14 drivers for 14 teams won, while a year later there were 14 winning drivers again.
Comparison is interesting to make in number of winning teams. The bulk of the 1970s was said to be dominated by a few teams. While this is true, the number of winning teams was greater than is generally given credit for -
WINNING TEAMS 1971-8 -
FRED ELDER #96 HOLMAN-MOODY #17/12 COTTON OWENS #6 PETTY ENTERPRISES #43 AND #11 WOOD BROTHERS #21 NORD KRAUSKOPF #71 RICHARD HOWARD/JUNIOR JOHNSON #3/12/11 AND #52 L.G.DeWITT #72 PENSKE RACING #12/16 HYLTON ENGINEERING #48 BOBBY ALLISON RACING #12 CRAWFORD ENTERPRISES #22 BUD MOORE ENGINEERING #15 DARRELL WALTRIP #17 DIGARD RACING #88 HOSS ELLINGTON #1 J.D.STACY #5 RANIER RACING #54
The 1979-80 period was when NASCAR first began to get major live television exposure after two decades mostly consigned to weekend sports anthology broadcasts -
1979-80 WINNING TEAMS -
DIGARD RACING #88 PETTY ENTERPRISES #43 JUNIOR JOHNSON #11 BUD MOORE ENGINEERING #15 RANIER RACING #28 ROD OSTERLUND #2 WOOD BROTHERS #21 M.C. ANDERSON #27 HOSS ELLINGTON #1 HAGAN RACING #44
The switchover to 110-inch wheelbases in 1981 coincided with a steady influx of new teams and new sponsorships, and the sport began reaching new highs in winning teams -
1981-4 WINNING TEAMS -
RANIER RACING #28 PETTY ENTERPRISES #43 JUNIOR JOHNSON #11 M.C. ANDERSON/BLUE MAX RACING #27 (team purchased from Anderson by Raymond Beadle after 1982) CLIFF STEWART #50 BUD MOORE ENGINEERING #15 JUNIE DONLAVEY #90 JACK BEEBE #47 WOOD BROTHERS #21 DIGARD RACING #88/22 MARCIS AUTO RACING #71 MACH ONE MOTORSPORTS #33 J.D. STACY #2 RAHMOC RACING #75 RCR ENTERPRISES #3 HAGAN RACING #44 MELLING RACING #9 JACKSON BROTHERS #55 HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS #5 CURB MOTORSPORTS #43 ("replaced" Petty Enterprises 1984-5)
The Dead-Lane Era began in 1985, a season almost monopolized by Bill Elliott and the Melling #9. From 1986 onward, though, the number of winning teams remained strong -
1986 WINNING TEAMS -
RCR ENTERPRISES #3 HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS #5, #25 JUNIOR JOHNSON & ASSOCIATES #11, #12 BLUE MAX RACING #27 STAVOLA BROTHERS RACING #22, #8 MELLING RACING #9 WOOD BROTHERS RACING #7 RACE HILL FARMS RACING #47 BILLY HAGAN RACING #44 BUD MOORE ENGINEERING #15
1988 set the post-1971 record with fourteen winners -
WINNING TEAMS -
RCR ENTERPRISES #3 HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS #5, #17, #25 LAKE SPEED RACING #83 RAHMOC RACING #75 STAVOLA BROTHERS RACING #12 BLUE MAX RACING #27 MELLING RACING #9 JUNIOR JOHNSON & ASSOCIATES #11 JACKSON BROTHERS RACING #55 KING RACING #26 RANIER-LUNDY RACING #28 KULWICKI RACING #7
As the 1990s began the competitive depth of the sport remained -
1990-1 WINNING TEAMS -
RCR ENTERPRISES #3 HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS #5, #25 WALTRIP RACING #17 (team purchased off of Hendrick Motorsports) JUNIOR JOHNSON & ASSOCIATES #11 MORGAN-MCCLURE MOTORSPORTS #4 BLUE MAX RACING #27 PENSKE RACING #2 (Team formed from equipment and shop of Blue Max Racing) SABCO RACING #42 LEO JACKSON MOTORSPORTS #33 KING RACING #26 ROUSH PERFORMANCE #6 MELLING RACING #9 ROBERT YATES RACING #28 KULWICKI RACING #7 BUD MOORE ENGINEERING #15 BOB WHITCOMB RACING #10
But as the multicar era surged the number of winning organizations began to shrink.
Here is the 1994 list of winning teams in the Second Hoosier Tire War:
1994 WINNING TEAMS -
RCR ENTERPRISES #3 PENSKE RACING #2 MORGAN-McCLURE MOTORSPORTS #4 ROBERT YATES RACING #28 HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS #5, #24 JUNIOR JOHNSON & ASSOCIATES #27, #11 RUDD PERFORMANCE #10 GEOFF BODINE RACING #7 ROUSH PERFORMANCE #6 JOE GIBBS RACING #18
With the end of that tire war and further restriction on testing, the surge of multicar teams became clear -
1995-6 WINNING TEAMS -
RCR ENTERPRISES #3 MORGAN-McCLURE MOTORSPORTS #4 HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS #5, #24 (also fielded #25) JOE GIBBS RACING #18 PENSKE RACING #2 ROUSH PERFORMANCE #6 SABCO RACING #42 ROBERT YATES RACING #28, #88 BILL DAVIS RACING #22 RUDD PERFORMANCE #10 GEOFF BODINE RACING #7 PETTY ENTERPRISES #43
The multicar boom continued as the decade of the 1990s ended, resulting in a net shrinkage of winning organizations -
WINSTON CUP WINNING TEAMS, 1997-99 -
HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS #5, #24 (also fielded #25) PENSKE RACING #2, #12 ROBERT YATES RACING #28, #88 ROUSH PERFORMANCE #6, #99 (also fielded #16, #26, #97) RUDD PERFORMANCE #10 CALE YARBOROUGH MOTORSPORTS #98 PETTY ENTERPRISES #43 (also fielded #44) JOE GIBBS RACING #18, #20 RCR ENTERPRISES #3 (also fielded #31) MORGAN-McCLURE MOTORSPORTS #4 SABCO RACING #42 (also fielded #40, #46)
In 2001 a switch to a harder tire compound helped the sport reach a stunning high in number of winners at 19, and 13 different teams accounted for those wins. 2002 was less dramatic but of near-equal competitive depth as the two seasons combined for 26 winning drivers among 14 teams -
WINSTON CUP WINNING TEAMS IN 2001-2 SEASONS - HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS #24, #48 (also fielded #5 and #25> RCR ENTERPRISES #29, #31 (also fielded #30) EARNHARDT, INC. #1, #8, #15 ANDY PETREE RACING #33, #55 JOE GIBBS RACING #18, #20 PENSKE RACING #2, #12 ROUSH PERFORMANCE #6, #17, #97, #99 ROBERT YATES RACING #28, #88 WOOD BROTHERS RACING #21 CAL WELLS #32 GANASSI/SABCO RACING #40 (won with two drivers) BILL DAVIS RACING #22 RAY EVERNHAM MOTORSPORTS #9 MORTON-BOWERS #10
But from 2003 onward the number of winning organizations has shrunk, to where only the following teams have won in the period of 2003-6 -
WINSTON CUP WINNING TEAMS, 2003 THROUGH 2006 -
HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS #5, #24, #25, #48 RCR ENTERPRISES #29, #31 (also fielded #30/#07) EARNHARDT, INC. #8, #15 JOE GIBBS RACING #18, #20, #11 MORTON-BOWERS RACING #01 (also fielded #10) ROBERT YATES RACING #38, #88 ROUSH PERFORMANCE #6, #16, #17, #97, #99 CAL WELLS #32 RAY EVERNHAM MOTORSPORTS #9, #19 PENSKE RACING #2, #12
The 2007-8 period saw the disbanding of Ray Evernham Motorsports, Petty Enterprises, the Cal Wells team, Robert Yates Racing, and the former Morton-Bowers team; it also saw the merger of Ganassi Racing and Earnhardt, Inc. Johnny Benson's breakthrough for Morton-Bowers in 2002 was the last new winning organization to hit Cup until a flukish surge in 2009 saw victories for teams owned by James Finch, Michael Waltrip, and Dietrich Mateschitz. 2010 saw the merger of Ganassi Racing and DEI into a truncated two-car Chevrolet team using RCR engines - a team that shocked the sport by bursting to four victories that season, the first comeback by an organization since the Wood Brothers' 2001 victory at Bristol. The Woods themselves spent the decade in essence just surviving, until Ford began increasing engineering help to where rookie Trevor Bayne pulled off the stunning 2011 Daytona 500 upset.
Even with this the number of teams competitive enough to win has shrunk to where only four teams control the engines and chassis of virtually the entire field and the number of teams merely running laps and then parking - widely derided as "start and park cars" - became noticeable and also significant.
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There are numerous reasons for this and the multicar monster is a major one, perhaps the key one; also contributing has been the repeated versions of the infamous and ineffectual 5&5 Rule, trademarked by a higher airdam and smaller spoiler compared to 2003; making it worse was the decision by NASCAR's John Darby to change swaybar diameter and mounting location rules and also the implemetation of aero-matching - aka Common Templates. "In three years," noted blogger MD80891, "teams had to suffer through half a dozen tire changes, two spoiler reductions, two or three swaybar changes, and aero-matching. Then they wonder what happened to the ontrack product?"
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NASCAR pinned considerable hope to the Car Of Tomorrow, but the COT proved an unadjustable failure. A car/Truck hybrid, the COT has been based in large part on a myth - that the Craftsman Truck Series has the best racing. The attempt to apply Truck-themed aerodynamics to make "The Quick Brick" from the beginning did not work; the COT did next to nothing beyond make the Dead-Lane Era even worse because of its abysmal design and inability to race well. The only tracks where the COT did put on excellent races were the plate tracks. Its poor design was criticized almost right away by drivers.
The simple fact is that the sport needs racing like it has at Talladega to reclaim its competitive sizzle - 40 or more lead changes needs to be the sport's norm, as it was in the 1970s and early 1980s, and not the exception is has been in the Dead-Lane Era. I hear a lot from fans who say they got interested in the sport because of the strategies from crew chiefs and so forth. The problem is none of that matters without on-track action, meaning passing and repassing, drafting and sidedrafting.
The sport also needs a points system without a playoff format and which requires winning the most races and leading the most often, either most net laps or most laps led in the highest number of races. And it needs to break up the multicar monopolies and get more teams on the winning track.
The sport also needs tire competition. There's a mixed bag here because one recalls the hard-tire package of 2001-3 that saw the above-mentioned upsurge in winners. The hard tire gave teams pitting options they did not have before, and as MD80891 pointed out, problems attributed to the hard tire in terms of adjustment were more a factor of two seasons of bizarre weather changes, with temperature swings periodically hitting ten to fifteen degrees day to day, which left most teams scrambling for answers; mismatching of tires was also a factor.
There is, though, something to be said for tire competition. Those who cringe at the idea of a tire war should note that number of winners has generally increased whenever there was tire competition, notably in 1988 when the sport reached 14 winners for the first time since the 1960s, and 1994, when the sport ended a two-year drought of first-time winners and jumped from ten winning drivers in 1993 to 12 and saw two owner-driver teams take victory - one was Ricky Rudd in his #10 Tide Ford, while the other, the ex-Kulwicki team of Geoff Bodine, won three times and led over 1,500 laps as Hoosier Tire's main works car. Why allowing some teams to use Firestones and some to use Hoosiers can really be that bad for the sport is puzzling.
The wildcard angle to the issue is the forgiving nature of the tire; short track series such as NASCAR's K&N Series and weekly racing use bias-plies, which are more forgiving than radials; it is noteworthy that in 1995-6 Goodyear used leftover tire-war tires and as Chris Economaki and Dick Berggren noted in their racing forums at the time those tires raced far more like bias-plies, and it was reflected in very spirited racing pretty much the entirety of those two seasons. In the second half of 1999 Goodyear increased stagger on its tires and passing up front increased noticeably, with Michigan, Dover, and especially Atlanta seeing some of their most competitive racing in years.
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The sport needs the racecars to be underpowered and overgripped, overall and/or relative to what the tracks can handle (see for example the difference between Indycars, the Modifieds, the Trucks, etc. in races such as 2016 at Daytona, Kansas, Indianapolis, and Texas) the draft needs to punch open, and the tire needs to be forgiving. The points structure needs to revert to the Latford Point System with 100-plus point bonuses for each race win and most laps led per race.
The sport also needs some procedural changes - or more accurately reversion to some older procedural changes. The Chase has to go. Also needing to go is the field freeze and lucky dog rule, a procedure introduced in panic after September 2003 at New Hampshire and having nothing in NASCAR history to serve as justification. Racing to the caution was never as dangerous as the field freeze rule makes it out to be, and that races are more and more being determined not at the stripe but at scoring loops often a mile from the stripe strikes at the integrity of the sport. This is the officiating tower wielding too much control of the racing and it needs to be ended.
The decade beginning in 2010 has had some good moments but overall hasn't ended the Dead-Lane Era. That has to change.
2016 POSTSCRIPT - In the years since this piece first aired, the Truck Series has seen some striking improvement in its racing; as horsepower was restricted more the series saw memorable battles up front on several intermediate tracks, notably Atlanta, Kansas in 2013 and 2014, and Charlotte in 2015's epic Erik Jones-Kasey Kahne shootout; it also saw some spirited competition in the series' 2010 debut at Pocono. Daytona and Talladega as usual provided the wildest racing, especially in 2008-09, 2013, and 2016, while Kansas and Texas in 2016 saw stunningly physical battles up front.
A rumored 2011 wider tire didn't happen, but the idea certainly is not a bad one and engineering a more forgiving tire remains necessary. The COT is gone, but top-heavy sedan bodies are still the body of choice for NASCAR.
The 5&5 Rule was revived for the Kentucky race in 2015 and saw substantial driver praise though the racing was okay yet not great. That low-downforce package was then used at Darlington's throwback Southern 500, a race that set a new record for yellows for that track and didn't see much in the way of passing - the final 70-plus laps in particular were woefully uncompetitive. Yet NASCAR in 2016 began running the low downforce package on the non-plate tracks, this despite its history of competitive failure - a history proven anew as 2016 soldiered on.
And with additional downforce changes at Charlotte in May 2016, NASCAR's rules search goes on.
MRN's call of the sport's turning point in its history. Jack Arute and Barney Hall are in the main booth while the turns are handled by Mike Joy, Gary Gerould, and Eli Gold.
Mike Mulhern is the best writer in the NASCAR world right now, and provides a solid postscript to the 2008 Daytona 500. To add to what the sport has learned from this race -
*** Dodge is deeper competitively than they get credit for, or than Stuttgart has generally realized. We talk about Kyle Busch's brilliant drives; Bobby Labonte, despite never having much drafting help, made some superb moves as well and finished 11th. The bitterly disappointing quality of his finish is illustrated by how hard he raced and yet finished dead last among the Dodges. George Gillett's teams were quiet all week and superb at the end. Reed Sorenson had no help from his Ganassi teammates yet had a terrific week. That Dodge got all its teams into the top-11 at Daytona is a circumstance Stuttgart managed to screw up when they took away Lou Patane's authority in 2001 and let their teams devolve away from the One Team concept into little fiefdoms not working together as they should have been from Jump Street. Stuttgart needs to get its teams working together because they have an opportunity from this Daytona finish.
*** For all the attention paid to Toyota, their effort was almost a one-team show. Bill Davis Racing had some good effort from Dave Blaney but that disintegrated at the end. Dieter Mateschitz got just one of his cars into the 500 and Brian Vickers overcame a lot to finish 12th. Michael Waltrip is clueless and it showed with another mediocre effort by his cars. Only Joe Gibbs among Toyota cars (as opposed to Trucks where Toyota had no real competition all week) did anything all week.
*** The high number of lead changes (42 among 16 drivers), due mostly to a flurry of late yellows, helped mask that the COT did poorly in competition, with suspension failures, tire failures, mediocre drafting ability, and a total lack of enthusiasm among drivers or anyone else. Now the grossly worn quality of Daytona's pavement has something to do with it as well, but that the Sportsman Series, running the "old" bodystyle with roof wicker and big rear spoiler, had virtually the same quality of racing with a bolt-on aero package as the Winston Cup cars shows the folly of the whole COT concept.
*** Hendrick Motorsports' poor 500 effort was not a good sign for their experiment with Dale Earnhardt Jr. Junior's performance level and that of the Hendrick fleet fell off dramatically after the 150s and the plate tracks remain Junior's best tracks. One has to wonder if Junior truly will be as good a fit in the Hendrick fleet as advertised.
*** His former team, DEI, gave plenty of ammo to critics of Teresa Earnhardt's commitment to winning and/or basic competence as a team owner with their mediocre week.
*** Ford looks doomed to a poor season in 2008.
So the grind of the season begins for real at Fontana, and it will be interesting to see how NASCAR spins the expected mediocre fan turnout as well as how the COT performs here, with no confidence to be had in the machine's abilities for the racing.
The buy out of Robert Ginn Racing by DEI continues the trend toward a monopoly of eleven that NASCAR has made no serious effort to stop. That it happened to a team that made a big splash early in this season is rather surprising, but also continues a streak in the sport of attracting wealthy types as car owners who turned out to have foundations of clay.
Ginn bought out Reed Morton and Nelson Bowers, and his businesses were supposed to provide seed money for the organization to expand its strength and become a first-rate, winning effort. The Morton-Bowers effort had debuted in 1997 with Derrike Cope and began running strong with Ernie Irvan before Irvan's injuries ended his career. Ken Schrader took over for 2000, then the organization bought out Tim Beverly's ex-Darrell Waltrip Pontiacs when a promised sponsorship for the season never happened. Valvoline came in as a part-owner and won at Rockingham in 2002 with Johnny Benson; the effort thus joined DEI, Andy Petree Racing, PPI, and Ray Evernham Motorsports as new teams to win at the Winston Cup level in this decade.
Joe Nemechek won in their primary car, the #01, in 2004, but from there the effort never got going, and then came Robert Ginn and with his infusion of money came a new part-time driver in Mark Martin and his spectacular runner-up in the Daytona 500. But as the season went on the money problems beneath the surface began to creep into view, and now we have the expansion of DEI.
The trend of mergers, of team owners quitting and selling their teams to other organizations already in the sport, has steadily raised the possibility that the sport will become an F1-style monopoly of eleven, where Hendrick, RCR, DEI, Joe Gibbs, Roush, Penske, Ganassi, Petty, Evernham, Bill Davis, and Dieter Mateschitz, or some variation of this list, would be the only teams fielding racecars at the Winston Cup level, with Robert Yates, Michael Waltrip, and other existing teams disbanding into one or more of these outfits.
Given the closed loop that is F1, such a scenario - periodically floated as part of a rumored NASCAR franchising deal - has no appeal for racing fans or for many others involved in the sport. The idea of smaller teams priced out of the sport has never been good for the sport, as the sport was built not on a monopoly of eleven but on a decentralized "chaos" of myriad team owners battling week after week.
That NASCAR has shown no effort at stopping this centralization of competitive power remains puzzling as such a centralization leaves the sport less competitive and thus less attractive. There is the four-car limit belatedly imposed last year but so far it's shown no teeth, and teeth is exactly what the sport needs at this point.
To paraphrase Bob Ryan, on behalf of a strong constituency, let's hope the monopoly of eleven doesn't happen.
The Firecracker 400 weekend boiled up several big subplots in Winston Cup amid the mayhem of wrecks and the shocker of Jamie McMurray's photo-finish win in the most amazing finish in decades. Given how much more attention soap-opera angles of the sport usually get lately, it is fitting that some of these subplots boil up amid hard-nosed racing.
The true giant subplot coming out of the Firecracker is what looks like a burgeoniong feud between Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin. While running 1-2, Hamlin was drilled by Stewart and both crashed, taking a bunch of others with them. Stewart huffily blamed it on Hamlin and publically questioned Hamlin's commitment to being a teammate.
Now the last time a feud boiled into the public like this was when the Bodine brothers' meltdown went public at Indianapolis in 1994. That feud wound up carrying over into both Geoff and Brett Bodine's careers and one can say neither man ever recovered from it, as a slow but steady collapse of their racing careers began in that fateful Saturday in 1994.
Of course Stewart's mouth and abrasiveness have been an issue for years, but they've never left him harmed career-wise. One wonders if this will be different.
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The lesser subplot to come out of that wreck was the continuing subplot of Ganassi Racing versus Bobby Labonte. This was the second straight week that the two sides crashed together, and while blame to anyone isn't to be found, there nonetheless seems to be something going on here. Juan Montoya was all over the place in Daytona and made the highlight reels by plowing into Labonte, wiping out a promising rally from the earlier melee with Reed Sorenson.
It reflects the lack of interteam cooperation among the Dodge teams, a lack of cooperation that pushes the Dodge effort back more and more. It also reflects Montoya's steep learning curve on superspeedways, as he's shown so little moxie on them from the beginning.
If this subplot or anything like it contineus at Chicago, then we've got a siutuation here.
Juan Montoya stretched his fuel amid the short-pitting and fuel mileage strategies common to road racing, and won the Sears Point 350 of 2007. He becomes the third non-American racer to win a Winston Cup race - Italian-born Mario Andretti and Canadian Earl Ross are the others - and his win is the first for Ganassi/SABCO Racing since October 2002 with Jamie McMurray - and for supreme irony we have the fact that McMurray, in his present run with Jack Roush, is the one who ran out of gas out of second place dueling Montoya. The return of Ganassi-SABCO to victory ends a nearly-five year run where just ten teams monopolized Winston Cup wins - between the 2002 and 2007 wins by Ganassi/SABCO, only Hendrick, RCR, DEI, Joe Gibbs, Morton-Bowers (now Robert Ginn Racing), Roush/Roush-Fenway, Robert Yates, Ray Evernham, Penske South, and the now-defunct Cal Wells team broke through to victory. In a further irony, it is also the first Winston Cup win for sponsor Texaco-Havoline since the 2002 Sears Point 350, won by Ricky Rudd in Robert Yates' #28.
Montoya has now won in CART, IRL, F1, and two touring divisions of NASCAR, and the question is begged ---- now what?
When Montoya won in BGN in Mexico, some felt it would ignite momentum for Montoya to improve his rookie Winston Cup season. Instead, Montoya, who'd been Mr. Irrelevent most of the time before that win, slipped back to irrelevency but added to his baggage with several on-track bullying incidents - it is telling that Montoya tried to swerve Jimmie Johnson aside in the Sears Point race and Johnson pushed back. His runs on ovals have for the most part been awful, with little passing and a seeming lack of understanding at times on how to attack ovals.
His next road race is at Watkins Glen in mid-August, and until then Montoya has the daunting task not only of adapting to ovals on a consistent basis, but also winning the hearts of a fanbase not wrongly feeling cast aside for notional marketing bucks for Brian France. He hits New Hampshire for the first time at the end of June and then returns to Daytona.
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The big story early in the Sears Point weekend was the cheating scandal involving Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson's cars. Brian France - future Los Angeles Raiders owner? - made a point of stating that NASCAR will crack down hard on alterations to the COT. But there isn't much reason to believe him given how far ahead of NASCAR are its top race teams in the technology curve and also given NASCAR's notoriously lax punishments against big teams for cheating.
It leaves one wondering if something will turn up at NHIS this weekend.
One sometimes has to wonder how seriously one should take rumors in NASCAR. Silly Season has been a longtime staple of the sport, but some of the rumors of recent have been downright bizarre, though they also have some plausbility. This compedium of recent rumors runs that gamut. There's the story that Joe Gibbs Racing is switching from Chevrolet to Toyota for 2008 - one has to wonder how plausible this one is given JGR's closeness to GM over the years, but there's something about it that makes it hard to dismiss.
Then there is the rumored arrival of a Winston Cup date at Kentucky Speedway and a second date at Las Vegas. There's plausibility here because NASCAR is in a no-win situation with Kentucky's lawsuit and also because the self-imposed limit of 36 races for the Winston Cup season is no longer enough; there is also the fact that the dream of NASCAR in New York City and the Pacific Northwest is a pipe dream. A Kentucky date may also explain NASCAR's apparant consideration of moving the Mason-Dixon 400 to April.
My favorite of the new rumors is that Brian "Chuck Sullivan" France will buy out Al Davis and move the Oakland Raiders back to LA. Let's face it, Brian France is not qualified to run NASCAR and should remove himself from the sanctioning body and go somewhere else, like the NFL; the NFL also needs Al Davis to just go away.
Speaking of just going away - don't give Jacques Villeneuve a Winston Cup ride. We don't need him or Paul Tracy or anyone else like them.
More disturbing is the rumor that NASCAR will go to spec engines; a test at Martinsville is scheduled of a spec engine. I know of no series where spec engines improved anything and I know of no support anywhere in the sport for the concept of spec engines.
The Mason-Dixon 400 was rained out for Sunday, with Monday the rescheduled day. With the wait before the green flag flies, some miscelleneous observations:
**** Why is it always a shock when a bad rules package proves its weakness year after year? NASCAR testing is suddenly considered "out of control," but the fact is it's been a problem for years, and is the inevitable spawn of the biggest mistake NASCAR has ever made. NASCAR first began limiting testing in 1990 and one year into this policy teams were protesting, with Harry Hyde providing the best argument against limits on testing - "What kind of plays would Broadway put on without rehersals?"
The more NASCAR tries to restrict testing, the worse it makes the problem, and the new angle of rival tire companies getting involved in testing looms in the sport, with a potential removal of exclusivity clauses in sponsorship contracts in the offing in the wake of the AT&T brouhaha.
One needs to ask why it's any of NASCAR's business to police testing at all. A key failing of the sanctioning body is that more and more of what it tries to police it has no business getting involved in.
**** With Dover at 400 miles we got a few comments about how much better is supposedly is that this race is 400 miles, and how some other rtacks should shorten their races. This is the ADD brigade talking again; the reality is that longer-distance races like 500 milers and Charlotte's 600-miler are a better test of machinery and racers and are more competitive than 400 milers.
**** It's another SpecCar/COT race, and given waht we've seen in the first five, the notion that we'll get better racing with this car still gets pushed by acolytes of the COT despite the reality that they remain wrong.
The 2007 Winston Cup season has now run events at Daytona, Fontana, Vegas, Atlanta, Bristol, Texas, Martinsville, Phoenix, Talladega, Richmond, and Darlington, and only three of these eleven events have been won by cars other than Hendrick Motorsports. It is a near-monopoly not seen since Carl Kiekhafer all but annihilated the 1955-6 seasons with his Chrysler 300s; it also brings to mind a more recent episode of Hendrick dcomination, which began in ironic fashion.
The 1997 NASCAR season had been a transitional year, with the debut of Texas and California Speedways, a second date at New Hampshire, and the reconfiguration of Atlanta International Raceway. For 1998 there were numerous changes in the garage area - Ford teams were debuting the Taurus, an egg-shaped racecar replacing the long-nosed MN12 Ford Thunderbird. Among Ford teams, Roush Performance was expanding to five cars with the debut of Johnny Benson's #26 and the purchase of Mark Rypian's #97 Pontiac with driver Chad Little. Robert Yates racing also had a new face - USAC racer Kenny Irwin, who'd won twice in NASCAR's Craftsman Truck series in 1997 and had run a dramatic eighth in a satellite Yates Ford at Richmond the previous September. Rusty Wallace and Penske Racing, meanwhile, welcomed a teammate, as Michael Kranefuss, former Ford Motorsports honcho and now a team owner, merged his #37 Ford with Jeremy Mayfield into the Penske organization, renumbering the car #12.
A bigger change for all the teams also came for 1998. With speeds at the reconfigured Atlanta layout over 195, NASCAR tested a restrictor plate there, a plate larger than the one used at Daytona and Talladega - the Atlanta plate was reportedly 1.25 inches versus the roughly 7/8-inch used at the superpseedways. It was a virtual repeat of the experience of late-summer/autumn 1993 when NASCAR tested a 1.25-inch plate at Charlotte and the test car (Ken Schrader's Chevy in 1993) ran wide open all the way around with no discernable reduction in speed. Persuaded by driver and crew chief input, NASCAR shaved spoiler and airdam clearence from the cars for Charlotte in October 1993 to reduce corner speeds by forcing drivers to lift for the corners. Spoiler was shaved to five inches in heigth and airdam clearence increased to five inches. This 5&5 rule collapsed in its first race when no one could race hard and Ernie Irvan led all but 33 laps en route to an embarassingly easy win.
For 1998, however, NASCAR threw away what it had learned five years earlier and went with the 5&5 rule again, apparantly believing that the cars, now generating more downforce than 1993 models, could now handle a reduction in downforce.
The first order of business, however, was the Daytona 500, and despite early challenges from Sterling Marlin and Bobby Labonte, the 500 became a showdown between Dale Earnhardt and the Penske Fords. Earnhardt had long been NASCAR's most controversial driver, popular with a strong percentage of the fanbase but hated by a greater percentage and holder of the dubious distinction of having a fan club dedicated to opposing him in Fans Against Dale Earnhardt.
In 1996, however, he was seriously injured at Talladega, and despite recovering 1997 turned into a poor season. New crew chief Larry McReynolds had come over from Robert Yates' team in what had been considered a blockbuster trade, but the 1997 season had failed to scratch the win column. The lowlight of 1997 came in the Southern 500 when Earnhardt passed out on the opening lap and had to be taken to the hospital during the race. A battery of tests failed to determine why Earnhardt had passed out, and the mysterious incident was not repeated.
Now in the Daytona 500 he held a strong lead for over half the race, and as Bobby Labonte clawed to second, a spin erupted down the backstretch with some three to go and Earnhardt easily won the race to the flag. A scene unthinkable barely two years earlier then occurred - not only was the crowd cheering loudly, but rival crewmen lined up to shake Earnhardt's hand as he went down pit road to victory lane.
It was RCR's first win in the Daytona 500 - and Earnhardt's only win that season.
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Jeff Gordon then won the Carolina 400, a surprisingly competitive race that some felt was a vindication of the 5&5 rule. Las Vegas Motor Speedway then debuted on the Winston Cup tour and Mark Martin dominated to the first win of the season. The Atlanta 500 then saw several hard crashes, injuring Mike Skinner and Derrike Cope. John Andretti, driving the Petty #43 Pontiac, won the pole and led early before an admitted mistake by crew chief Robbie Loomis dropped him to 20th at the end. His future teammate Bobby Labonte, meanwhile, overhauled Kenny Irwin for the win.
By the Virginia 500 the 5&5 rule had become a source of controversy and five drivers had won the season's first seven races; Hendrick and Roush were rapidly becoming the season's dominators, but were being chased closely by Penske Racing even though they hadn't broken through yet. Bobby Hamilton, driving the Morgan-McClure #4 Chevrolet, won the pole, and the ensuing race turned into a rare break from the dominance of the Hendrick, Roush, and Penske cars. He domianted the race but past halfway got into a sensational shootout with John Andretti, an old adversary now driving the #43 Hamilton had won with the previous three seasons. The two of them raced nose to nose for the lead for nearly ten laps and got into a close duel in the final 100 laps before Hamilton rode off to the win. In victory lane Hamilton pointedly noted how the cars pushed worse in traffic than the previous year, an opinion that would slowly find greater outlet as the season went on.
In an exciting World 600 Jeff Gordon took on tires under a late yellow and rocketed to the win, and from there on he began beating down the rest of the field. He won at Sears Point in a surprisingly ferocious duel with Hamilton, then erupted to wins at Pocono, Indianapolis, Watkins Glen, and Michigan; the Michigan win was especially disheartening to others because Ernie Irvan led 120 laps from the pole and then Mark Martin held a late lead, but Gordon skipped a late tire change and rocketed through the field for an easy win, pulling away from cars that had outrun him all day and had taken on tires under the late yellow.
Mark Martin finished second in that race days after his father, Julian Martin, died in a plane crash. Martin managed to win at Bristol and dedicated the win to his dad, but at New Hampshire a week later fell in behind Gordon after late pitstops; Gordon did not take on tires and Martin did, yet in the run to the finish Gordon pulled away from the cars that took on tires, a win that set off the ever-irritable Jack Roush on a campaign to expose crew chief Ray Evernham as a cheater. Lost in the hullabaloo was the age-old Goodyear practice of playing favorites on tire deals - a favoritism touched on by team owner Andy Petree a year later in noting how he was being stiffarmed on tires for test sessions. Whether this played a role in Gordon's surprising wins remains a mystery, but that Gordon couldnot take tires and outpull cars that did take on tires remains implausible.
It also meant the effective end of the 1998 season's competitive phase, as Gordon ultimately racked up 13 wins and clinched the title with three races to go. Hendrick Motorsports wound up with 14 wins total that year - Terry Labonte's Richmond win was the only other Hendrick win - against Roush's nine. Yates won three times while Joe Gibbs and Penske each won twice. RCR, Morgan-McClure, and Ricky Rudd each won once.
That October the death-knell for the 5&5 rule was sounded when Terry Labonte publically noted that the racing had become "boring," and the rule was dropped for the season-ending Dixie 500 and a postseason exhibition race at Motegi, a strikingly competitive affair in which Dale Earnhardt Jr., fresh off his first BGN title, fought nose to nose for the lead with Jeff Gordon and Mike Skinner held off Gordon for the win.
What began with a Daytona 500 win for RCR became a monopoly for Hendrick Motorsports. Such was 1998.
It's become the most intensely-monitored contract squabble in racing since Darrell Waltrip's prolonged divorce from DiGard Racing in 1980. Dale Earnhardt Jr. may be on the verge of quitting the organization owned by his mother-in-law Teresa Earnhardt over his demands to own 51% of the organization, and Hendrick Motorsports may have an inside edge toward hiring him because of their engine program.
That anything involving Junior could receive as much attention as it does is remarkable, but then seemingly anything involving Junior has become a #1 story in NASCAR, from the enraged crowd reaction after Brian Vickers took out Junior at Talladega to the often-absurd level of adulation he receives at any moment. I'm not sure Junior for his part isn't a little embarassed by it all; after seeing him at NHIS a few years back he seemed a little overwhelmed to be as popular as he is when discussing matters in a postrace press conference.
If Junior does leave DEI for Hendrick, it seems a certainty that Casey Mears, the latest sacrificial lamb to the #25, will be fired. What happens to DEI after that remains a mystery, since virtually everything about the organization has revolved around Junior's racecars. Given the organization's uneven performances this year, losing Junior is a potential blow from which they may not properly recover.
The way this soap opera has gone, about the only thing missing are Anthony Geary and Genie Francis facing down evil John Colicos. Rest assured, whatever the next step involving Junior is, the racing world will know about it whether it wants to or not.
