No, Separating The Cars Is Not Safer

This was initially published July 7, 2015, and has been periodically updated as of August 2018:

The Austin Dillon crash at the 2015 Firecracker 400 and the last-lap tumble at the MAV-TV California Indy 500 at Fontana a week earlier have renewed criticism of "pack racing" and "restrictor plate racing" and how the cars should not be as bunched up as they are. This criticism was renewed in 2017 after two-thirds of the field at the Rainguard Indy 600k at Texas crashed and Sebatstain Bourdais exploded in anger at "b******t racing...we can't race like this." The argument has always been "We have to separate the cars, because it's safer."

No, it isn't......

.....and Sebastian Bourdais' own crash proves him an idiot and hypocrite.


We've seen it at Atlanta on the old oval layout with the Steve Grissom crash tearing open the concrete, while the new layout hasn't lacked big crashes as seen in March 2015 and the most infamous one of all, when Carl Edwards turned into an assassin on Brad Keselowski, not only at Atlanta, but then in even more savage form at Gateway. The most celebrated Atlanta race of all - the 1992 Dixie 500 - also tore up a bunch of cars.

We've also seen it at Charlotte in this compilation of recent wrecks and also in these two wrecks from the 1994 All Star race and also the Ricky Craven melee in 1996 and also the even more vicious Ernie Irvan melee that same year. Charlotte melees never seemed to stop.

And the beginning at Texas Motor Speedway became infamous for its wrecks, lowlighted by October 2000's O'Reilly 400 for the Trucks that included Derrike Cope's enormous melee. Texas also saw the famous 2008 Michael McDowell tumble.

And it isn't limited to places like that, as Bristol is famous for crashes, as seen in this cheesy compilation,  in Mike Bliss's crash that sliced open the fencing on the frontstretch, and David Green's melee.  Bristol's history with big wrecks has been pretty long as evidenced by this 1998 disaster and the track's most celebrated finish.

Most people remember Austin Dillon plowing into the fencing at Daytona in July 2015 - forgotten is Ben Kennedy trying to slice out fencing at Kentucky a week later.  

Some have suggested running the Daytona road course instead of the oval - except it isn't a good idea. Heck, running road courses isn't a good idea as shown here and also with yet another self-important Ryan Newman soliloquy after 2014's melee.

Fans go gaga over the kind of road course melees they whine about on superspeedways - and with far lower incidence of passing than on superspeedways


NASCAR isn't the only one with this myopia about the dangers of pack racing versus non-pack racing. Indycar at Toronto for one sees melees that are really vicious with the Jeff Krosnoff melee the most infamous. The 1995 running saw a lot of nasty melees and RC Enerson recently saw a vicious melee there as well.

Toronto isn't the only such venue where bad crashes have happened - one of the worst was Dario Franchitti's career-ending melee. Franchitti also got into the air in a big way in Kentucky's non-pack race in 2007.

Serious driver injuries hit again in late August 2015 at Indycar's ABC Supply 500 at Pocono, a disaster that claimed the life of Justin Wilson in a crash he otherwise wasn't even involved in - the Sage Karam crash.

This cheesy compilation shows multiple bad Indycar wrecks, only one of which shown here can be called a "pack" crash.

The dark days of 2000-2001 saw the deaths of Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin (both at New Hampshire), Tony Roper, Dale Earnhardt Sr., and Blaise Alexander.   2002 was slightly better, except for a near-fatal crash for Sterling Marlin and a huge crash for Tony Stewart at Darlington.

And in April 2017 at Doington Park in England, F4 racer Billy Monger lost both legs in a savage crash.



By now I think the message is clear - There is zero correlation between size of wrecks and actual risk to drivers.

What these and other melees all showcase is this - the cars are separated as they ostensibly are not in "pack" races - yet the enormity of the crashes is not in the least reduced by being separated; if anything it has only given cars a running start before impact.   The reality is separating the cars is just dumbing down the racing.

That Will Power and Ryan Newman speak out against these races reflects poorly on them.   Racing needs to increase competition while improving safety; it should not dumb down a sport that has foolishly been dumbed down with inferior competition at too many venues.   NASCAR should let its drivers push-draft again to increase passing, while Indycar found the right formula at Fontana and needs to expand on it - 80 lead changes is a lot better than the 22 Daytona saw - a 22 that needs to be 44 and above.

Robert Wickens' crash at Pocono in 2018.



So no Will Power, and no Ryan Newman et al - separating the cars is not safer, it's dumbing down. 


Addendum May 17 2016: The biggest wreck of 2016 so far was at Dover.    While the wildest open wheel crash was this Formula 3 melee at - ironic track name - Spielberg.

More road race nastiness at Road America 2018. 



Worth noting are successful drivers in NASCAR who've never won a Winston Cup draft-pack/restrictor plate race as of October 2018 -


Rusty Wallace
Ricky Rudd
Geoff Bodine
Martin Truex
Kyle Larson
Carl Edwards
Kasey Kahne
Alan Kulwicki
Juan Montoya
Marcus Ambrose
Kyle Petty
Ricky Craven
Steve Park
Jerry Nadeau
Johnny Benson
Jeremy Mayfield
Joe Nemechek
AJ Allmenidnger
Lake Speed
Elliott Sadler

What's Wrong With NASCAR Driver Opposition To Draft Duct Racecar Package

Note: originally published June 2, it has been updated on June 4:

Jeff Gluck spoke to Bubba Wallace, Alex Bowman, Ryan Blaney, and Christopher Bell about NASCAR's restrictor plate-draft duct package used at the All Star Race and All Star Open and they expressed "concerns" about greater use of this package.  Their concerns can be summarized thusly - the cars were "easy to drive" and "you want them to be more difficult to drive."

It's an old argument against this kind of racing and it's deeply flawed.   Kaz Grala offered a great perspective -  "We're all just biased because we like to have more control in our hands."   It's an insight into the narrowness of focus by so many drivers. The larger issue - define "more control in our hands."   It is simple fact that the races with the most horsepower and highest level of throttle response, braking, and acceleration have seen the lowest incidence of passing.

The argument made here brings to mind how Carl Edwards forever pushed for lower downforce, and as Gluck notes, his opinion has now been discredited by the racing at Charlotte and Indianapolis.


Matt Weaver of Autoweek expanded the argument before Pocono in a silly missive claiming the sport's identity is "on the line" with expanded use of the plate-draft duct package. He rehashes driver quotes while ignoring the gross hypocrisy showcased in Kyle Busch's post-Pocono "Can't f--king pass!" radio rant during the Pocono 400.

"In a true sporting environment the best teams win.......I think that advocating for the 'All Star package' threatens the very idea of motorsports as a concept."

No, Matt Weaver, it doesn't.   Contrary to Christopher Bell, racing is not about pushing the limit of the tire, it's about pushing your car into the lead and retaking the lead when challenged for it.   Making this package more common to the sport doesn't sacrifice "sporting integrity" - which Weaver doesn't credibly define or seem to understand.   "Does it really want to make over half its races just short of a random number generator?  These are supposed to be the best stock car drivers in the world, not the luckiest or most fortunate."   Yet Weaver cannot cite examples to buttress this argument.

The reality that making the cars underpowered and overgripped relative to everything else and making the draft more important is what increases passing now seems to be sinking into the sport more and more; reading the scuttlebutt the consensus seems clear this package will be integrated into the sport more and more, perhaps beginning at Indianapolis in September with the Xfinity series already running it there and elsewhere.

That some drivers still oppose the concept stems from their own myopia about "having control."   Cars difficult to drive is not the same as difficult to race, and in the two races to date run with the restrictor plate-draft duct package - 2017 Lillys Xfinity 250 at Indianapolis and now the All Star Race B and A-mains - the racing saw prolific passing and drafting, which by any objective competition measure is more, not less, difficult.

The further argument made is that restrictor plate draft/pack racing produces "random results," as though a driver against his will is thrown into the lead by the draft.   Such a scenario of course does not exist, which makes the argument foolish.

In the finish of the decade David Ragan won the 2013 Winston 500 - some think this somehow illegitimate because he hasn't followed up with another win, but that's irrelevant.   The reality as shown here is HE made the moves to win, HE earned the win, there is nothing remotely "random" about it.   That loudmouthed Carl Edwards got outdrafted by Ragan makes it all the more delicious


The bottom line remains the argument against this restrictor plate-draft duct package doesn't work - NASCAR wasted some twenty years fighting against downforce and nowhere did the concept ever succeed - not in 1998, not in  the John Darby era running the garage, not with the ill-advised car Of Tomorrow concept.   What NASCAR would have seen if it had figured out the restrictor plate-draft duct package in 1997 is easy to imagine - far more lead changes and far better racing.

And the argument seems to betray a myopia of history, for what transpired in the two plate-draft duct races run to date was as old-school as one can find -

The racing with the plate-draft duct package brings back the true old-school of NASCAR - the power within what the track and cars can handle and the draft being more important.   This is what built racing in general and NASCAR in particular - and bringing the draft to the other superspeedways is a necessity and thus an opportunity.

UPDATE:  The Pocono Green 250 debuted the package at Pocono and it turned into the most graphic runaway win in a while.   Kyle Busch annihilated the field, breaking the draft with little difficulty, though he had to execute a highside pass into the lead in the Tunnel Turn.   A penalty at the end of Stage One put Busch in the back and the battle for Stage Two was a close chase until on the final lap Paul Menard challenged for the lead and the battle became an eye-popping two-abreast sidedraft war all the way around, including all the way through the Tunnel Turn, something we haven't seen since Mike Wallace and Tim Steele raced all the way through the Tunnel on some three separate laps in the 1995 ARCA Syracuse 150.   

Busch's runaway was curiously seen in some circles as a failure of the package when in reality it showed how well engineered his car was - one also recalls Busch dominating the Pocono Truck 150 (the closest approximation of this package) in 2017 before crashing out at the start of the third stage.  Things got curiouser and curiouser when Busch's #18 flunked postrace - reportedly with an illegally raked left front fender.

A key angle is mentioned in Chase Elliott's postrace comment that the package works better as the cars get wide open, which they struggled to get at Pocono but which we expect the teams to iron out the more they work on the cars with this package.  

Pocono International Raceway At Fifty

The inaugural Schaefer 500, the debut race at Pocono's 2.5-mile triangle, July 3, 1971

Pocono International Raceway is, by both design and circumstance, the most unusual major racing facility in the country. It is virtually a 1,025-acre gravestone to the frenzied superspeedway-building craze of the 1960s.........

So wrote Richard Benyo in SUPERSPEEDWAY: The Story Of NASCAR Grand National Racing in 1977.  2018 marks the 50th season of racing at Pocono International Raceway and the speedway's history has been curiously overlooked in racing history.    It began with the rapid development of the Pocono Mountains region in the 1950s with the expansion of the Interstate Highway system.   Read a 1970 historical outline for the track...........

In the mid-1950s the concept for Pocono International Raceway was born as the product of informal discussions between Pocono Mountain business people.  Each agreed that as racefans they would like to see a major championship racing facility on the East Coast.  Their initial interest led to the formation of Racing Incorporated in 1957 and the resulting plans for Pocono International Raceway

Doctor Joseph Mattoili, a Philadelphia-area dentist, and his wife Rose, a foot doctor, were the prime movers behind Racing Incorporated, but when a 1,025-acre site near Long Pond, a famous duck-hunting stream, was purchased - at $100,000, a strikingly affordable land deal - the company was run by fellow fan David Montgomery, but he faced that he had no one to run the track. He hired short track veterans to help run the company.

The track was built as five tracks in one - a 3/4-mile oval within the main superoval; a 1.8-mile road course and a 3-mile road course, a revolutionary 2.5 mile triangle, and the mammoth frontstretch would serve as a drag-racing strip.   With just three turns, each turn was banked differently, each turn representing another speedway - Trenton for the 14-degree banked Turn One, Indianapolis for the eight-degree second turn, named The Tunnel Turn because it bridges the tunnel entrance to the infield, and Milwaukee for the relatively sweeping 6-degree Turn Three.

The 1975 Schaefer 500

By 1969, however, only the small oval and the mammoth frontstretch was finished, when the very first race was run on May 4.   It was a supermodified race and tragedy struck right away with the death of Troy Ruttman Jr. in the ensuing race.   The track ran week after week as it struggled to finish the superoval.   By 1970 Montgomery was fired and Mattioli was in command with USAC veteran Bill Marvel hired as GM.   Pocono got a five-year agreement for a 500-mile Indycar race for 1971, but to get the 500 Pocono also had to run a 500-miler for USAC's stock car division, something other USAC tracks weren't required to do.

The Schaefer 500 took off in 1971 and despite period rain over the years Pocono drew well.   The USAC stock car race, under ACME Super Saver supermarket sponsorship, first ran in September 1971 but rain interruption led the race after 1971 to run in late July, an off-week for NASCAR's Winston Cup Grand National tour.   Richard Petty and Bobby Allison thus entered the ASS 500 with Petty winning it in 1973.

USAC withdrew its stock car division after a late-April 1975 500 won by Ron Keselowski - he of the now-famous Keselowski NASCAR clan - and NASCAR arrived in August 1974 with Purolator sponsorship.

It was 1975 that NASCAR at Pocono first established itself as compelling competition with controversy over David Pearson's win and a highly competitive affair.    1976 was even more exciting as the lead changed 47 times and Pearson's blown tire with two to go sent Richard Petty to a popular win.

Petty's 1980 crash, which broke his neck, was a fateful turning point for his career.


The decline in Indycar racing hurt Pocono as it continued with the race until 1990; driver complaints about the physical plant were addressed with money freed up from the cancellation of the Indycar race.   NASCAR's rising popularity benefitted Pocono as it did other speedways, with highly competitive racing year after year.

The 1982 Mountain Dew may have been Pocono's greatest race.

Tim Richmond, of Ashland, Ohio, was brought to stock cars in the 1980 Coca Cola 500 and he won four times in the 1982-84 period, but it was hooking up with third-year team owner Rick Hendrick that erupted Richmond's career to legendary heights, with the 1986 Summer 500 Richmond's greatest win.

The track also ran the Modifieds, in the 1970s running them on the 2.5-miler.  By 1980 they'd switched back to the infield short track.

The track saw spirited competition as well in 1990 in an exciting Geoff Bodine win.

Hard crashes have been a reality in Pocono's history.........

.........and when Darrell Waltrip took out rising superstar Davey Allison it became one of the worst.

Davey's death before the 1993 Summer 500 rocked all of racing and his memory permeated postrace reaction.

With the sport's technology arms race the racing was affected, but in the mid-1990s Pocono saw a renaissance of passing.

NASCAR's new Truck Series arrived and in 2010 saw a spirited affair

And in 2017 an even more exciting affair broke out.

Indycars returned in 2015 and the most competitive running ever broke out in 2017.


Happy 50 years, Pocono - keep at it for fifty more, and beyond.

2018 Freedom 100 Indianapolis

Is it possible to have forty lead changes in a forty-lap race? Colton Herta and a pack of hungry drafters say Yes.

Indianapolis, Charlotte, And A Racing Renaissance

The 2018 Indianapolis 500 and World 600 capped a month of May that brought out a genuine sense that racing, a sport struggling for years, has begun a turnaround.

Indianapolis has seen a renaissance of the 500 the last several seasons, most notably in 2016 with the 100th running.   The explosion in lead changes in the 500 in the 2012-17 period - the period of the Wheldon-12 racecar - began the renaissance, and the surge of darkhorse winners added immeasurably to the race's renaissance.    It thus has truly reclaimed the title as Greatest Spectacle In Racing.

Indycar debuted a lower downforce body in 2018, and the loss of 300 pounds of downforce has been credited in some circles to an increase in passing - but in the 500 the loss of downforce was a manifest mistake with a weak drafting effect, cars running poorly in dirty air, and numerous spinouts.   There was some very tense racing nonetheless, but clearly the 2012-17 package is far more raceable for superspeedways, and Indycar would be well advised to add downforce and thus drafting effect for the bigger ovals.

The 500 was the story of three teams - Ed Carpenter's self-owned #20, AJ Foyt's team with former 500 winner Antoine "Tony" Kanaan and rookie Matheus Leist, and of course Penske Racing.    Carpenter stole Penske's thunder by grabbing the pole, but in the end it was Will Power grabbing the win after the upset bids of Oriol Servia and Stefan Wilson - adding a poignancy to the race is that Wilson is brother of Justin Wilson, killed at Pocono in 2015 - ran dry in the final five laps.   Power led 59 laps to Carpenter's 65 but in the end Power had too much of a lead for Carpenter's bid.   Kanaan was the big wildcard bidder, posting the fastest practice at least once and leading nineteen laps, but his bid was first frustrated by a cut tire near halfway, then as he'd clawed back into some contention the car spun out and hit the wall with thirteen to go.   His rookie teammate Leist soldiered home 13th.

Those were the dominant angles of the 102nd 500, but of course there are others - Schmidt Peterson Motorsports had a solid if mind-boggling week as James Hinchcliffe somehow missed the 500, due in part to a forlorn qualifying effort by Pippa Mann, who also didn't make the race; the botched qualifying effort is the most bizarre since Jigger Sirois blew his chance to make the 1969 500.   

Carpenter entered two cars, and Danica Patrick ran his second car - why anyone thought she warranted any ride remains perplexing, especially as she ended her racing career the same way she personified it - she wrecked.    

Other notable contenders were Alexander Rossi - fourth in this 500 - Ryan Hunter-Reay - fifth - top race rookie Robert Wickens in another Schmidt Peterson car, Graham Rahal after leading twelve laps from 30th and finishing tenth, and Marco Andretti, finishing a respectable 12th in the Curb #98, still looking for his first win since 2011 and first since losing his ride with his dad's team.

With the 500's drama wrapped up, the racing focus switched to Charlotte and the Coca-Cola 600, and there seems a palpable sense of renewed love of racing in the sport, shown in a consensus of positive fan reaction on the postrace shows on satellite radio.   While the 600 was hardly all that competitive -  the 600 saw fewer lead changes (23, official and otherwise) than the All-Star Race and All-Star Open (38, official and otherwise) - and Kyle Busch, among the most hated drivers in recent NASCAR history, led 377 laps - there was surprising attention paid to intense racing outside the top five.

There seems to be several reasons for this positivity -


- the biggest angle may be that people's perspective changed when Kevin Harvick crashed, for the expected blitz to yet another Harvick win disintegrated and suddenly the race became radically different.

- the All-Star Race's competitiveness may have provided drivers an unconscious motivation to race harder.

- having seen such exciting racing in the All-Star Race, fans may have come into this 600 with a generally more sated attitude and greater sense of gratitude for the effort by drivers.

- Dave Moody noted on Sirius Radio a subtle shift by the FOX telecast in its broadcast focus; long has been the complaint that TV ignores racing in the back and doesn't scan the field to better promote all the racers, and the focus on the leader certainly seemed noticeably lower this time around.

- the racing outside the top five - and some of the racing within it - featured a plethora of darkhorses and productive finishes as a result.   Alex Bowman in particular showed a very respectable effort a week - finishing a solid ninth - after criticism of his racing during All-Star weekend.   Ricky Stenhouse - tenth at the end - also showed noticeable improvement with veteran Matt Kenseth replacing Trevor Bayne as a Roush teammate.    Veterans Jamie McMurray - the target of some running social media abuse of late - and Kurt Busch, both largely lost in the shuffle of the season, salvaged top-ten finishes.   Bubba Wallace clawed from the back of the field - result of a post-qualifying change and resultant penalty - and ran in the top-15 for awhile, then passed several cars late to salvage 16th.   Michael McDowell had a respectable night as well salvaging 18th.

- Chevrolet has taken it on the chin all season, but this time around put four cars in the top nine, including Jimmie Johnson, who reached his fifth top-ten finish of a season where he and the entire Hendrick fleet have been outclassed by the SHR Fords and the Toyotas.   Certainly this 600 was a race of progress for the Chevrolets after so poor a beginning of the season.


Hovering over the 600 of course is the success of the All-Star Race restrictor plate-draft duct package, and monitoring the scuttlebutt the consensus seems to be the package will be used at Indianapolis in September, with one curious sub-rumor being that New Hampshire will also use this package come July.   Certainly there is no credible reason not to begin integrating this package into NASCAR's varied fendered classes at the most propitious possible moment.

It all added up to a racing weekend where a genuine sense of renewed love of the sport can be felt, in a sport where positivity isn't so easy to detect.

The Pocono-Texas Double Whammy

The shocker that has been the 2017 motorsports season just got more bizarre - and more amazing - with early June's double whammy at Texas Motor Speedway and Pocono Raceway.

For the 99th time in their history Wood Brothers Racing won - for the first time since the 2011 Daytona 500 and for the first time at Pocono since Neil Bonnett fought off a last-lap challenge from Buddy Baker and Cale Yarborough.

Blaney's win brought back memories of both the 1980 race and also the Wood Brothers' first Pocono win, at the 1975 Purolator 500.

The day before the Busch/Xfinity Series squared off at Pocono and the old NASCAR vinegar there resurfaced when Elliott Sadler swerved Brad Keselowski out of the lead, Kyle Larson seized the lead himself, then Keselowski stormed back to the last-lap pass.  

On Friday Night the Trucks squared off at Texas in the WinStar 400k and a huge crash by Timothy Peters - driving Matthew Miller's #99 after Tom DeLoach had to shut down the Red Horse #17 - flew viciously across the quad-oval grass amid a huge battle for the win that caused controversy after Christopher Bell (driving Kyle Busch's quasi-throwback Toyota #4 - the numerical script honoring Morgan-McClure Motorsports)  was declared winner over Chase Briscoe (driving Brad Keselowski's #29 Ford) based on scoring loops and the timing of the race-ending yellow.

At Pocono Jimmie Johnson's crash came with brake failure, not unlike the cause of the crash that injured Aric Almirola.  Combined with the Texas Indycar race the issue of the speeds of these cars becomes pertinent to motorsports; noted repeatedly at Pocono was the trap speed of 208 and higher achieved - it ought to cause concern whether racing really needs 200 MPH speed, which is threatening to neutralize the effectiveness of safety equipment, something such speeds have done before.

Speeds for Indycars at Texas have been an issue before and may be becoming one again with so many crashes this time around.   The racing itself remains awesome, supremely competitive, exactly what Indycars and NASCAR should be.

The show-stealer of the Rainguard Indy 600k at Texas was Tristian Vautier, out of an Indycar since 2015, signed to drive Dale Coyne's #18 and whipping into the lead almost right away

NASCAR and Indycar crashes in the weekend

One of the stories entering the weekend was Darrell Wallace Jr's Winston Cup debut, driving Richard Petty's #43, a driver change from Regan Smith after Smith showed good form at Dover.   The change came with the shuttering of Roush Racing's Xfinity #6, the Roush organization aligned into Petty's team via supply of their racecars and engines.    After an eye-opening qualifying effort, back-to-back pit penalties in the first thirty laps killed Wallace's day; with nothing to race for all he could do was pass whoever he could, and he actually made up a lap on race leader Brad Keselowski.   

With rumor now circulating of a merger of Petty's #43 with another team to form a multi-car team again, one hopes Almirola, Wallace, and Regan Smith can make Petty's organization great again the way Ryan Blaney has made arch-rival the Wood Brothers #21 great again.


While Wallace showed accountability in his post-race presser, Danica Patrick - who ran surprisingly well - continues melting into Ryan Leaf level of petulant immaturity when a fan was turned away from her on pit road and fans booed; she whined in response "I'm a f***ing person" - except she's not, she's a fraud.



There was one other item that appears to have gone overlooked - the Firestone sign prominently displayed on the Tunnel Turn scoreboard, signage that would be displayed for Indycar's 500 in August - that it is being displayed during one of NASCAR's weekends seems odd.

Boffo Brickyard And Bizarre Charlotte

Memorial Weekend 2017 is racing's late-spring Mecca and Indianapolis and Charlotte stunned the racing observer in both.

For the seventh straight running the Indianapolis 500 exploded past 34 official lead changes and pre-race favorites took a back seat to defending champ Alexander Rossi, rookie Fernando Alonso (who was one week old when Ron Bouchard won the 1981 Talladega 500),  Briton Max Chilton, three-time champ Helio Castroneves, and on the 40th anniversary of AJ Foyt's record-setting fourth 500 win his former driver Takuma Sato stormed to the win (while AJ's team salvaged tenth with Carlos Munoz, this after Conor Daly fell out and rookie Zach Veach had a miserable 500, this after running earlier this season in an Ed Carpenter car).  

The first big subplot of the race going in involved Alonso, driving a Michael Andretti car backed by McLaren; he is the first active F1 guy to run the 500 since Teo Fabi in 1984.  Alonso has a strikingly lengthy rap sheet accusing him of brake-checking rivals and also of blocking.   This may explain F1 ace Lewis Hamilton's tirade about the quality of drivers in the 500 after Alonso timed fifth for the 500 - though the obvious self-serving quality of Hamilton's gripe becomes all the more laughable given Hamilton's "racing" never sees him challenged to actually pass, let alone repass, anyone - something Alonso handled with a respectable level of aplomb. 

The other story of the 500 was when Jay Howard smacked the wall and slid into pole-sitter Scott Dixon's path, and the result was the nastiest melee Indycars have seen in some time.   

Sato was four months old when AJ Foyt won the 500 for the fourth time, and in 2013 he stunned Indycar by winning the Long Beach GP in AJ's #14 during his four-season stint with Super Tex.   He also led 31 laps in 2015's mind-blowing MAVTV Cal Indy 500 at Fontana, so as far as being able to race other cars Sato long ago proved his mettle.  

Lost amid everything was a superb third-place by Dubai-born British rookie Ed Jones in the Dale Coyne racecar, this a year after Jones got blipped by Dean Stoneman in a photo finish in the Freedom 100.

Max Chilton meanwhile became the loudest darkhorse in years after leading 50 laps - the most laps in the race.   Added to teammate Tony Kanaan's twenty-two laps led and Chip Ganassi's team had a boffo day, while Penske had the runner-up and a quiet sixth by the normally-loud Juan Montoya, but otherwise didn't have much to write home about Simon Pagenaud and Josef Newgarden weren't up front...............

...........and Will Power ended up with yet another wrecked racecar.

From Indianapolis we got the most bizarre World 600 in years - first the most bizarre wreck in years as Chase Elliott, who is disturbingly building a reputation that doesn't seem compatible with winning, and Brad Keselowski hammered each other out of the race.   Next we got a lengthy rain delay - doubly ironic as NASCAR's Sirius radio channel replayed the rain-plagued 1980 World 600 the night before.  

In the race itself Martin Truex picked up pretty much where he left off after annihilating the 600 field the year before, while his Visser Racing teammate Erik Jones had a running issue with Jimmie Johnson during the race.    Danica Patrick crashed twice, by now something to expect of her.  

But then came the most preposterous upset in racing in years - Martin Truex pitted with 34 to go and Johnson stayed out - so did Austin Dillon, who had posted some thirteen top-tens in 2016 but had only one so far in 2017 and who was coming under fire in fan circles, especially after his crew chief Richard Labbe left after the Kansas race.   Dillon closed on Johnson and Johnson shockingly ran out of gas with two to go, and Austin Dillon - his team mocked as RCR aka Rich Children Racing - had the win.  

Coming after Ryan Newman's win after the fast cars pitted and he didn't at Phoenix, RCR now has two wins, their first since Kevin Harvick won four times in 2013.    Even more astonishing is RCR presently has as many wins as Rick Hendrick - and JGR is still winless.   It stands as an interesting commentary on what more and more is becoming the most eye-popping NASCAR season in years.

The subplot of the finish was Kyle Busch's surly reaction in the postrace presser - while it shows his sanctimony yet again, I suspect it goes beyond just that, that it reflects real contempt for Austin Dillon in the garage area; it certainly reflects the curious inability of JGR to finish the job.  

One subplot that was overlooked was Regan Smith's debut in Richard Petty's #43 with Aric Almirola out presumably for the year; Smith ran decently but fell back late to finish a lap down in 22nd, a discouraging start for his time in the #43.  


Thus does Indycar head for Detroit and NASCAR to Dover next week.

2016 IndyCar Firestone 600k

Indycar's delayed Firestone Texas 600k turned into a thriller at the end.

Weekend Sees Kyle Larson-y

Before Kyle Larson won the Yankee 400 Brett Moffitt broke through to HIS first NASCAR win in the Michigan Truck 200

Kyle Larson made it look easy in the Yankee 400 at Michigan International Speedway, this in his 95th start with Chip Ganassi's team and 99th overall after four 2013 races with the Harry Scott Chevrolet.   His career has shown a  plethora of good finishes but the longer it went without a win the more one had to wonder if he truly had it in him to win at the Cup level.   Even changing crew chiefs from Chris Heroy to Chad Johnston (with a one-race fill-in role by Phil Surgen at - ironically - the Michigan 400) wasn't seeming to help with some downright radical swings of fortune almost race to race.   The Michigan win comes off back-to-back bottom-half finishes.

The breakthrough has now come as far as a Cup win goes.   Now he needs to start sustaining it, especially as he did something astonishing becoming the first non-Hendrick Chevrolet outside of Stewart-Haas Racing to win since DEI was an independent outfit.    Larson also continues a curious renaissance for Chevrolet (four of the last six races) at Michigan International Speedway, once almost exclusively a Ford track.

That weekend also saw Indycar finish the rain-delayed Firestone Texas 600k and the final eight laps exploded into a fantastic drafting fight (won by Graham Rahal, a veteran of such shootouts after 2015's immortal MAVTV 500 at Fontana) the likes of which NASCAR doesn't see yet should be seeing

NASCAR tested another reduction of downforce for the Michigan race and the result was the same as with low downforce everywhere else - and in continuing contrast to the high-downforce lower horsepower package of the Michigan Truck 200 and the much higher downforce of the Indycars at Texas - higher to where those cars are underpowered relative to how much grip they generate. NASCAR thus continues not getting it about repeating the same mistake hoping for a different outcome.

The finish of the Michigan Truck 200 showed anew the competitive renaissance underway for the Truck Series, with amazing competition at Daytona, Kansas, Texas, and now Michigan with some memorable moments at Kentucky as well.  Brett Moffitt, a Grimes, Iowa native and  former ASA and K&N East racer (driving in the East series for veteran Busch North racer Andy Santerre), has driven for a strikingly high number of teams (JGR, Michael Waltrip, now Jeff Hammond and Tom DeLoach's Truck Series #11); he won nine times in the K&N East series for JGR, Waltrip, and twice for ex-Indy racer Shigeaki Hattori.  He then ran most of 2015 for the now-defunct Michael Waltrip Cup team and has one race in the Xfinity series, a 9th at Iowa in the Robby Benton Toyota.   The Michigan win comes in only his sixth Truck race. 

Another young gun in NASCAR is Christopher Bell, but his career is taking a disturbing turn with yet another crash, this one when he blasted into the lead then the Truck got out from under him

It was a whale of a weekend leading to NASCAR's Throwback weekend at Darlington.

2016 Freedom 100 Indianapolis

Indianapolis has hosted Indy Lights for several seasons now as the Friday preliminary to the 500, and in its short history the Freedom 100 has become a must-see race.   2016's running became another eye-popper of a race with the lead a heated fight all day and a photo finish.

Frustration At The Firecracker 400

Daytona racing has a history of enormous competition, but when it goes wrong it becomes incredibly maddening and at time scary. The 2015 Firecracker 400, coming a week after the amazing MAVTV 500 Indycar race at Fontana, showcased some of the same issues as Fontana but also other issues specific to NASCAR.

Observations from the ugliest Firecracker 400 in years -


* - The cars regularly broke 202 MPH, and once again nothing good can really come from 200 MPH, though Indycars are far safer at 200 than stockers.   The idea that Indycars somehow lose something when the power is restricted to 200 MPH or that NASCAR loses something with restriction to 190 is baffling, especially when in 2001 the entire sport openly acknowledged - Rusty Wallace gave it specific utterance at that time and has repeated it since - that 194 MPH is the cut-off point for keeping the cars on the ground.  

The complaint about restrictor plate racing will come up again, as usual ignoring vicious melees at non-plate tracks, such as the Watkins Glen series of melees including last year's Ryan Newman-Michael McDowell melee, bad crashes at Charlotte over the years, and so forth (Indycar has this same myopia about the lethality of crashes in its "plate" races as opposed to melees on its street circuits, crashes that usually out-do superspeedway wrecks as we saw with Dario Franchitti and more recently with RC Erenson in the Indy Lights race at Toronto).

Worth nothing for context is that this past Friday at Stafford Speedway, CT there was a huge crash in the SK Modified race that took out the leaders (notably Ryan Preece)  and there have been numerous such incidents in a Stafford season where the racing has been unusually competitive.

As relatively uncompetitive as this Firecracker was, it was still superior racing to most non-plate races, and as with the California Indy 500 at Fontana it showcased that the sport needs pack racing - albiet to a point.  The real issue for NASCAR is Brian France's ridiculous opposition to push-drafting - it stopped the blocking that has become more of a problem in racing of late, and it created more outright passing than anything else can; push-drafting would have opened up far more in the way of passing and thus opened up the competition level above what it was here, and this was even more true with the Firecracker 250 for the Xfinity Series, where uncompetitive racing and resultant frustration led to melees that left the finishers all with weak racecars.   

80 lead changes, seen at Fontana, is a lot better than the 22 seen in this Firecracker.




* - The real cause of the Dillon crash was Kevin Harvick, and he's done this before, notably last year's above-mentioned Newman-McDowell crash at the Glen.   Harvick has led over 1,200 laps but hasn't cashed in that much on winning.


* - The Hendrick cars have the season pretty much to themselves.   There is no non-Hendrick challenge anywhere outside of Stewart-Haas Racing, and the only challenger there is Harvick.  Kurt Busch has surged since coming back so he can still offer some challenge.   Outside of him, the rest of the field is racing for fifth at best - only seven of seventeen races have been won by someone other than a Hendrick or Harvick/Kurt Busch Chevrolet.

The upshot of the Austin Dillon crash is it is an illustration of his career - racing for nothing and hitting the wall.


* - Aggravation at Chevrolet's dominance has been a long-standing gripe within NASCAR dating to the 1960s and surging with the 1970s comeback of the Bowtie Brigade, and it appears Chevy's success is driving away other brands in other series, with Indycar potentially losing Honda after Chevrolet returned to the series only a few short seasons ago.   Sanctioning bodies need to rethink whether Chevrolet is as good for their series as they might think - certainly racing needs a lot more success from non-Chevrolets such as Honda and Toyota and (call this a subtle lobby all you want) any comeback Dodge might contemplate.


* - The worst of the non-Chevrolet lot is Ford.   When Penske Racing is off - and it's been curiously off outside of two wins this season - then the brand has nothing.   Roush Fenway Racing is worse than an also-ran, it is a cancer now, between failures at engineering and a driver roster inferior to some of Roush's customer cars.   It is no accident that once again Richard Petty's #43 looked stronger than the Roush cars, and it may be Petty needs to switch manufacturers and thus not be dragged down further by the Roush alliance.


* - With all this, the potential for a first-time winner this year looks strikingly weak.   Nobody with Roush or RCR looks like they know which way is up, and even with some respectable darkhorse runs at Daytona nothing developed to indicate anyone can seize a first-time win.   If anything, some of the drivers tagged for future potential are only getting worse, notably Danica Patrick.   Kyle Larson curiously does not seem to be taking any next step, and that's it as far as drivers who might get a first win.


*- Interesting off-the-track point is made by longtime NASCAR writer Mike Mulhern.   The talk of a franchise system in NASCAR comes after a $1 billion deal by Nike for the NBA, and it leads him to ask a question worth pondering - "Could NASCAR do a deal like that without franchising?"   Stay tuned there.




So what's next? Kentucky for NASCAR, Milwaukee for Indycar, and the sport has to plug on and try to get something better.

2015 MAVTV California Indy 500

Indycar's greatest race.

California Indy 500 - The Classic Nobody Saw Yet Nobody Can Forget

Indycar returned to California Speedway and the result was history for this form of racing.   The most competitive race in Indycar history exploded, as the lead changed hands 80 times among 14 drivers, beating the previous record set in the California 500 in 2001 when there were 73 lead changes.  

Yet the aftermath illustrated the stupidity that has reduced Indycar racing to irrelevance, as driver Will Power and Penske Racing honcho Tim Cindric griped about the enormity of passing and the frequent four-abreast battles by invoking the death of Dan Wheldon to argue against pack racing - and once again ignoring non-pack melees of greater violence such as what transpired at Toronto earlier this year in the Indy Lights race as well as Dario Franchitti's disaster on a street course that ended his career.   Dan Wheldon's death had nothing to do with pack racing and Cindric and Will Power should know better.   Running over 200 MPH instead of 190 is more relevant to safety than pack racing - and for whatever it is worth the cars seemed curiously slow in this race.

Racing is about lead changes, and nothing else - you go for the lead, you take the lead, and if you lose the lead you take it back.   That's been the reality of racing forever.   And 80 lead changes - only the fourth race in history after three Talladega thrillers in the 2010-11 to reach that number - is racing as it SHOULD be.   So what the California Indy 500 showed is a racecar package that worked to perfection - a package Indycar needs to use for Pocono in late August; the stronger the draft, the better.

It also illustrated the need to incentivize going for the lead - most laps led should always pay more to the driver since that is a huge performance gauge.

If there is a safety concern here, it's in the abysmal state of the surface at Fontana.   The cars clearly weren't as comfortable as they should have been the whole race and it appeared some of the crashes might have been prevented by a better surface.   Fontana needs to be repaved even more now than before, and the "character" argument about racetracks doesn't mean anything.  

The sad part is it was a classic race that no one actually saw - the crowd at Fontana was almost nonexistent, an interesting comment with the NFL trying to secure a temporary home for a team for 2016 on the myth that there are actual fans in the LA area.    Indycar's decline in popularity has been long term and it needs racing this exciting to regain popularity.  


Some other takes on this amazing 500 -


* It was a superb day for AJ Foyt's team as Takuma Sato led 31 laps and sliced into the fight for the win, rallying when he got squeezed to the apron and lost his momentum, before getting into the Lap 241 crash.  Jack Hawksworth's tenth salvaged something that should have been more for Supertex.

* What does Ed Carpenter have to do to win?   Once again Carpenter was in the thick of things and once again it led to nothing.

* Rahal Letterman's win broke the duopoly that's developed between Penske and Ganassi, a duopoly that appears to be leaving Michael Andretti's outfit behind.   It was also the eighth different winner in Indycar this year.

* Eight cars got tires under yellow after the Power-Sato crash, but the way the draft was working it might not have mattered.



So ended the classic that nobody saw but nobody should forget.

Pocono And Racing Attendance Problems

Pocono may not run Indycars after 2014 and the issue of declining attendances at racing (and other sports) remains a sharp one.

Indianapolis/Charlotte Post-Mortems

And so Memorial Day motorsports blast off and leave plenty of subplots to contemplate as the Indianapolis 500 exploded to one of its most exciting finishes while the World 600 saw a late challenge for Jimmie Johnson but in the end it was a challenge Johnson wasn't going to lose.

Ryan Hunter-Reay is one of those drivers who has been largely overlooked as far as Mainstream Media attention - such as it is nowadays - toward Indycar racing goes.   He nonetheless has been around for over ten years and has put together quite a number of wins from his days in the old CART series, winning with Stefan Johansson in Australia and also with the old Herdez team leading wire to wire at Milwaukee.   Signing on with Rahal-Letterman's team, he won at Watkins Glen before that team dissolved.  Michael Andretti's Indycar team now sought his services and Hunter-Reay has assembled a nice collection of victory trophies -  Milwaukee and the Birmingham road course have been almost his personal playground in Indycars.

Hunter-Reay's Indianapolis win will stand out, not only for being Indianapolis but for how hard he had to fight.  The last 43 laps were a drafting slugfest and the lead changed ten times in that span; the lead changed twice on Lap 199 alone, and nothing was going to stop him.


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Amid Hunter-Reay's spectacular day there were many subplots - none bigger than Ed Carpenter's spectacular run and then coming to near-blows with James Hinchcliffe on a Lap 175 restart where Carpenter got sandwiched and an unplanned attempt to race three abreast through Turn One went south quickly.   Though he's won twice and led 207 laps in Indycar racing, Carpenter has never really established himself as something other than Tony George's stepson, this even though he's continued showing he's for real as a racer.  

The big challenger to Hunter-Reay late was Helio Castroneves, now on a quest to win Indianapolis four times; he damn near pulled it off in Penske's retro-Johnny Rutherford Pennzoil paint scheme.   Between them Penske and Michael Andretti swept the top six finishing spots, while Ed Carpenter's team salvaged a tenth place by J.R. Hildebrand.

Curiously having an abysmal day was Ganassi Racing, who entered three cars and lost two of them to wrecks while lameduck 500 champ Tony Kanaan was nowhere other than 26th at the end.

The other big subplot was that Indycar's third-year racecar for some reason has been at its raciest at the 500.   For three straight 500s the draft has been the dominant characteristic of the racing and of this racecar, and the ferocity of the passing showed it.   It is odd that this car hasn't quite had the same effect at Pocono and other high-speed tracks where the draft should be everything - for Indycars as well as NASCAR.

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Disappointing was the lack of pre-race buzz, even with the connection between the 500 and the World 600.   Kurt Busch had entered the 500 in one of Michael Andretti's cars hoping to make the 500-600 double, the first such attempt by anyone in years.   Busch finished a quiet but nonetheless impressive sixth in the 500 before flying to Charlotte for the 600, and ran better than I suspect a lot of railbirds would have expected - yet in the end he lost power and finished 40th, and raised the question of whether the double was truly worth it.

Busch's effort took a back seat to teammate Kevin Harvick, who led 100 laps and tried to run down Jimmie Johnson at the end.   This is starting to become a pattern, as Harvick was the strongest yet a Hendrick car beat him at Kansas.  The rest of Stewart-Haas' effort was more mixed; Tony finished 13th - his first finish higher than 20th in a month - while 39th and 40th were the domain of Kurt Busch and Danica Patrick.  Little Miss Danica again earned media coverage beyond her talent level after a surprisingly good qualifying effort - but again once the race started she began to lose grip and then got waylaid in a crash.  

While Chip Ganassi didn't have anything to be proud of at The Brickyard he salvaged something in Bruton's Backyard via Jamie McMurray's fifth, coming after his All-Star Race win.   McMurray continues to be one of those guys who gets lost in the media shuffle yet will not go away on the track. 

Speaking of guys who won't go away, Brian Vickers continues to get into solid finishes, and lately has looked better than teammate Clint Bowyer, while another who won't go away even though he hasn't done much lately is Trevor Bayne, 20th in the 600 in the Wood Brothers #21 and now proud recipient of a full-time Roush Ford ride for 2015; an angle to watch is whether this is a fourth Roush car or a replacement for one of his established drivers, this amid burgeoning rumors of a split with Carl Edwards and also scuttlebutt that Ricky Stenhouse may not last the season - certainly he's making no case for himself on the racetrack.

A Ford that IS making a case for itself on the racetrack yet again is Richard Petty's #43, as Aric Almirola refuses to go away and continues to become a contender under Trent Owens.   11th is actually disappointing given Almirola clawed into contention and had to overcome stalling the car on a late stop.  


So with that, Indycar continues on while NASCAR heads to Dover for a date with Bristol on steroids.

Racing's Bang-Up Mother's Day Weekend

It was a bang-up Mother's Day weekend in racing and thus is accelerated the motorsports Mecca that is the month of May.    Some takes on the varied racing efforts seen this weekend -


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Maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all - The first Grand Prix of Indianapolis added a new wrinkle to Indianapolis Motor Speedway but also showed some nastiness as Sebastian Saavedra won the pole, then gagged entirely on the start and got creamed by Carlos Munoz, driving one of Michael Andretti's cars,  and Mikhail Aleshin in Sam Schmidt's car.   

And that was just the first wreck - later on Scott Dixon and Will Power renewed Penske vs. Ganassi acquaintances in Turn Three, then in Turn Seven Michael Andretti and A.J. Foyt's teams said a rude Hello between Franck Montagny's #26 and Mike Plowman's #41, and finally Juan Montoya, unable to find a jet dryer to destroy, instead encountered Graham Rahal.

With nine road course cars (out of a 25-car field) thus dispatched, an interesting subplot involving rivalries may have been added to the 500 in two weeks.   Certainly Sam Schmidt and company got something big out of the GP - Simon Pagenaud won it, completing a nice sweep as Sam's Indy Lights driver Luiz Razia led wire-to-wire in the Indy Lights portion of the day.



The contrast of Trucks and Cup at Kansas continued - Last season the Truck 250 at Kansas proved to be a very exciting affair and 2014's running also had very memorable racing.   Kyle Busch won the Truck 250 after battling Brad Keselowski's two Ford trucks most of the night and battle is the operative word here - Busch and Joey Logano got into several nice sidedrafting bouts for first, illustrating again the striking and downright baffling contrast of the Trucks and the Cup cars here and elsewhere - the ability of the Trucks to have the draft mean something where it still hasn't for the Cup cars.  




Some Truck shout-outs - Jeb Burton's season hasn't been much, but he got a solid sixth with Duke Thorson, his second top-ten in three starts and his season now looking optimistic after all.   Also looking great was Taylor Malsam, making his season debut in Steve Turner's Chevrolet and finishing fifth.

While she doesn't get the publicity of Danica Patrick, Jennifer Jo Cobb has posted some decent efforts in anonymity, including a respectable 13th at Kansas.




Chevrolet bounces back - and so does Hendrick - Jeff Gordon got a huge pitstop late and got an ugly handling issue for Kevin Harvick at the end to grab his first win of the season.   Harvick nonetheless led 119 laps and showed anew he's for real for the whole season.   It was point for a huge bounce back for Chevrolet as the bowties took six of the top nine spots while Ford grabbed three top tens and Toyota was largely MIA - only Matt Kenseth in 10th wound up with anything.   It was also another big night for Hendrick as all four Hendrick cars were in the top nine.  

Given he's the focus every week, it should be noted Dale Junior's fifth was an especially solid bounce back after a dismal effort at Talladega, and it's his fourth top-seven finish in his last six outings.  

It was a more mixed bag for Stewart-Haas as Tony and Kurt Busch had another forgettable night while the shocker of the night was Danica Patrick's seventh.     

Continuing to fall back are the RCR Chevrolets, with Ryan Newman salvaging 11th as his season continues to be unimpressive while Paul Menard had a Menard-esque night a lap down and Austin Dillon keeps losing the rookie race to Kyle Larson.




Richard Petty's team on the rise - Though he lost seventh at the end to Danica Patrick, Aric Almirola was very solid all night en route to eighth in Petty's #43.   His third top-ten of the year, it also gave Petty's organization its fifth top-ten (three of them top-fives) between Almirola and Marcos Ambrose.   The nit to pick is the Petty cars need to go for the lead harder, especially in the restrictor plate races; overall, though, it's no longer implausible to expect a win for The King.




Pal Joey - If you thought there might be a chance Joey Logano could slide a bit down the Penske totem pole, it's getting more and more obvious that won't happen after leading 63 laps at Kansas on top of his great sidedraft fight with Kyle Busch in the Truck 250 the night before, and steadily showing he's for real after all - and I doubt anyone had that in the office pool the previous five seasons watching him.    One has to see if Brad Keselowski can get anything going again with a mediocre 13th at Kansas and the wound still raw from his Ernie Irvan imitation at Talladega.



Speaking of which.......... - Keselowski was asked about that Talladega gaffe before the Kansas race and he answered, "I wasn't ready to give up."   One has mixed feelings here - racing insane when six laps down is not smart and we all saw what resulted.   Yet Keselowski's go-for-the-win approach is fundamentally the right one - especially in contrast to Junior quitting on the win in that same Talladega race.



And so the month of May marches toward Ten Days Of Bruton Smith at Charlotte as well as an Indianapolis 500 where the competitive expectations have now hit 68 lead changes based on 2013's running.

The Stupidity Of Danica Mania

During NASCAR's awards banquet weekend in New York, Bobby Rahal defended Danica Patrick, this despite a near-total void of criticism of her. "Patrick won three poles and had two top fives.....Her fourth-place finish at the Indianapolis 500......vaulted her to the cover of Sports Illustrated."

The story neglects to mention that she never finished in the top five again in the 2005 IRL season and fell out of the top ten in points from Indy on, this despite having one of the strongest cars in the field week after week.

And here we see the nonsense of Bobby Rahal's assertion that "Women face every negative that there is out there." It is difficult to square this assertion with reality, where press coverage of female racers is consistently fawning and criticism is all but nowhere to be found.

NASCAR Sportsman Series team owner Tad Geschtickter chimes in by saying, "She (Patrick) can't be a novelty, she can't be a gimmick." Trouble is she can be a gimmick - she was irrelevent to the IRL season once the field figured her out, and Rahal misses the point when he says, "there will be the complete expectation that she is going to win," because in 2005 she was able to sneak up on the field; now she can't.

Danica Mania helped get Erin Crocker into NASCAR and she responded by wrecking in all her BGN and Truck starts in 2005. Rahal claims female racers are held to a higher standard to define success, but the utter lack of criticism of Patrick shows otherwise, and Geschtickter's defense of Erin Crocker shows the real standard held to female racers - "if you looked at them closely, I'll bet you 80 percent of them were because people were driving over their heads around her. They were saying, 'I've gotta pass her, I've gotta pass her.'"

This is fraudulence, because in her wrecks she lost control, not other cars. At Richmond she spun out in practice and again in the race. At Memphis she tried to force the issue entering a corner even though Steve Grissom had the corner, and the result was another wreck.

Far from being held to a higher standard, female racers are not held to any serious standard of success. Any kind of criticism is met with scorn and defensiveness, utterly lacking any kind of objectivity. It showed very graphically in Deborah Renshaw's excuse for a career and it shows again with Erin Crocker and Danica Patrick.

Racing is supposed to be about tough guys - guys like Tomas Scheckter, the Foyts, the Andrettis, Sam Hornish, Tony Stewart, the Pettys, the Woods, the Earnhardts, etc. Danica Patrick is making motorsports LESS appealing instead of more.