Showing posts with label Pocono Raceway. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pocono Raceway. Show all posts
Friday, May 31, 2019
Tuesday, July 31, 2018
NA18D And Another Busch Bash At Pocono
Thoughts following the Gander 400 at Pocono -
Bubba Wallace was one of thirteen drivers busted in post-qualifying tech and thus had to start in the bottom ten - he was listed 39th but after about six cars went the back before the green he actually started 33rd - of the Gander 400. In a season of struggle and poor finishes he clawed toward the top-20 before his brakes exploded and this mess erupted.
There was chatter about so many cars flunking post-qualifying tech and the effectiveness of punishments, but it may not be so simple to deal with.
The Wallace wreck also led to some chatter about altering the hairpin-esque Turn One, though realistically catastrophic brake failure is something no configuration of corner can deal with.
Pocono's Summer 400 illustrated the mixed bag of NASCAR's transition period of late - while the TV ratings for the sport remain subpar, attendances overall have been solid, and fan enthusiasm isn't gone. A recent Forbes piece indicates the much-sought "millenial" audience in fact is taking to NASCAR, which seems to illustrate sociological assumptions about millenials aren't always accurate.
It also illustrated the strength of Kyle Busch (the winner), Kevin Harvick (fourth), and Martin Truex (a disappointing 15th). Busch and Harvick started in the bottom dozen while Truex started eighth. Harvick led 30 laps and Busch 52, while default polesitter Daniel Suarez led an impressive 29 laps - compared to just six led all season - and finished a spirited second.
The big story outside of the post-qualifying controversy and Bubba Wallace's ugly melee was the continued improvement of the Hendrick Motorsports fleet, as Alex Bowman, William Byron, and Chase Elliott all finished in the top seven, this as JGR put three Toyotas in the top five. The recent surge by Hendrick comes amid Andy Petree's radio interview where he noted the Chevrolets have not worked together, and this lack of cooperation will now just get worse because now Hendrick Motorsports can believe it doesn't need to work with any other Chevy team - and one wonders if, a la the old Childress-Petree-Earnhardt engineering alliance of 1998 onward or the Pontiac inter-team alliance of 1994 onward, there will be even closer interaction between RCR, Petty, and the JTG-Daugherty team that put AJ Allmendinger to a decent 14th.
---------------
There is the old debate - is domination as seen from Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, and Martin Truex good for the sport? It's a debate that can never truly be decided, for while one does see surges of attention when someone starts dominating, attention surges more when someone else takes down the dominator(s). One certainly can admire three superstars at the top of their game, yet other teams surging and toppling the dominators and growing competitive depth is something always good for sports.
---------------
What Pocono (and almost every other track) can use most is making the draft effective again a la last week's Eastern Propane Modified 100 at New Hampshire. And a Lee Spencer report published the night before the Pocono race indicates NASCAR in 2019 will implement what is called the NA18D package, a modified form of its draft duct package at Vegas, Fontana, Texas, Kansas, Charlotte, Michigan, Chicagoland, Kentucky, and Indianapolis. The intriguing tidbit is that NASCAR apparently wants to use a smaller engine spacer rather than a restrictor plate and have two unrestricted engine packages - the open motor and the "NA18D" engine set at 550 hp.
The curious aspect is the set of tracks apparently overlooked for this NA18D package - Pocono, Atlanta, New Hampshire, and Homestead. New Hampshire has certainly demonstrated in its 29 seasons of Whelen Modified Tour competition that the draft can kick in, and the other three are more than large enough for the draft to make a huge difference. And even more curious is why Daytona and Talladega are not yet targeted for draft ducts, which certainly can only help the effectiveness of the draft at those places as they have elsewhere they've been used.
One can certainly hope such a package improves the racing as the present version unquestionably already has. For now the series surges to Watkins Glen - which has seen plenty of melees that make Bubba Wallace's wild ride look tame.
Bubba Wallace was one of thirteen drivers busted in post-qualifying tech and thus had to start in the bottom ten - he was listed 39th but after about six cars went the back before the green he actually started 33rd - of the Gander 400. In a season of struggle and poor finishes he clawed toward the top-20 before his brakes exploded and this mess erupted.
There was chatter about so many cars flunking post-qualifying tech and the effectiveness of punishments, but it may not be so simple to deal with.
The Wallace wreck also led to some chatter about altering the hairpin-esque Turn One, though realistically catastrophic brake failure is something no configuration of corner can deal with.
Pocono's Summer 400 illustrated the mixed bag of NASCAR's transition period of late - while the TV ratings for the sport remain subpar, attendances overall have been solid, and fan enthusiasm isn't gone. A recent Forbes piece indicates the much-sought "millenial" audience in fact is taking to NASCAR, which seems to illustrate sociological assumptions about millenials aren't always accurate.
It also illustrated the strength of Kyle Busch (the winner), Kevin Harvick (fourth), and Martin Truex (a disappointing 15th). Busch and Harvick started in the bottom dozen while Truex started eighth. Harvick led 30 laps and Busch 52, while default polesitter Daniel Suarez led an impressive 29 laps - compared to just six led all season - and finished a spirited second.
The big story outside of the post-qualifying controversy and Bubba Wallace's ugly melee was the continued improvement of the Hendrick Motorsports fleet, as Alex Bowman, William Byron, and Chase Elliott all finished in the top seven, this as JGR put three Toyotas in the top five. The recent surge by Hendrick comes amid Andy Petree's radio interview where he noted the Chevrolets have not worked together, and this lack of cooperation will now just get worse because now Hendrick Motorsports can believe it doesn't need to work with any other Chevy team - and one wonders if, a la the old Childress-Petree-Earnhardt engineering alliance of 1998 onward or the Pontiac inter-team alliance of 1994 onward, there will be even closer interaction between RCR, Petty, and the JTG-Daugherty team that put AJ Allmendinger to a decent 14th.
---------------
There is the old debate - is domination as seen from Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, and Martin Truex good for the sport? It's a debate that can never truly be decided, for while one does see surges of attention when someone starts dominating, attention surges more when someone else takes down the dominator(s). One certainly can admire three superstars at the top of their game, yet other teams surging and toppling the dominators and growing competitive depth is something always good for sports.
---------------
What Pocono (and almost every other track) can use most is making the draft effective again a la last week's Eastern Propane Modified 100 at New Hampshire. And a Lee Spencer report published the night before the Pocono race indicates NASCAR in 2019 will implement what is called the NA18D package, a modified form of its draft duct package at Vegas, Fontana, Texas, Kansas, Charlotte, Michigan, Chicagoland, Kentucky, and Indianapolis. The intriguing tidbit is that NASCAR apparently wants to use a smaller engine spacer rather than a restrictor plate and have two unrestricted engine packages - the open motor and the "NA18D" engine set at 550 hp.
The curious aspect is the set of tracks apparently overlooked for this NA18D package - Pocono, Atlanta, New Hampshire, and Homestead. New Hampshire has certainly demonstrated in its 29 seasons of Whelen Modified Tour competition that the draft can kick in, and the other three are more than large enough for the draft to make a huge difference. And even more curious is why Daytona and Talladega are not yet targeted for draft ducts, which certainly can only help the effectiveness of the draft at those places as they have elsewhere they've been used.
One can certainly hope such a package improves the racing as the present version unquestionably already has. For now the series surges to Watkins Glen - which has seen plenty of melees that make Bubba Wallace's wild ride look tame.
Monday, June 04, 2018
Pocono And NASCAR's New Rule Sagacity Debate
Here's what you need to know about race drivers as frauds and hypocrites - Kyle Busch griped about the restrictor plate-draft duct package being phased into NASCAR "It's boring as (hell)." Then in the Pocono 400 he screamed "Can't f---king pass," this with aeroclean bodies and unrestricted power - and resultant superior throttle response.
It is all part of what is becoming the raging rule sagacity debate in the sport - the restrictor plate-draft duct package first used in the 2017 Lillys Xfinity 250 at Indianapolis, then used in the All-Star Race and open at Charlotte, and now debuting at Pocono and later Michigan for the Xfinity series. The racing with this package has seen a palpable increase in passing with Ontario-style passing and repassing at The Brickyard and at Charlotte there was passing and drafting reminiscent of 1970s-era Charlotte racing as well as reminiscent of circa-1993 Daytona racing. In its debut at Pocono, the package took a distant back seat to Kyle Busch's annihilation of the field; he routed the field in Stage 1, got a penalty so he had to pass the field while Paul Menard got into an eye-popping two-by-two push-draft slugfest to win Stage 2, then stormed to the lead on the outside of the Tunnel Turn on the ensuing restart and ran off. He then flunked postrace inspection.
The Paul Menard car-cam view of the Pocono Green 250 - the fight for the lead swelled into an epic in the final lap of Stage 2
The plate package was easily the talk of Saturday and also in prerace for Sunday. Word has now circulated that NASCAR will run the plate package at more Winston Cup Monster Energy series races in 2018, with scuttlebutt identifying potential sites as Kentucky, New Hampshire, and Indianapolis; also supposedly considered are Pocono's Summer 400 and Michigan's Yankee 400 weekend with both tracks seeing the package used in the Busch/Xfinity series.
NASCAR's Director of Aerodynamics Simulation and Design, Eric Jacuzzi, issued an apology for the perceived failure of the plate package at Pocono (curiously deleted) -
"Disappointing day today (Saturday June 2). Not enough cornering ability to make the package work through One and Three. Was worth a shot. We'll make it up to you at Michigan next week."
Eric Jacuzzi need not be hard on himself, for objectively the plate package did indeed work at Pocono. The four-car draft battle where all four raced side-by-side all the way around the track - including all the way through the Tunnel Turn, something considered impossible even when in 1995 Tim Steele and Mike Wallace did so for the lead on some three separate laps in the ARCA Syracuse 150 at Pocono - indicated it in fact does work well. And the more teams work on this package the better they will make it.
Some historical perspective is needed. In 1990 Dale Earnhardt was in essence unpassable on the plate tracks - indeed the common theme among rival drivers was the draft no longer worked, especially when Earnhardt was out front. Teams worked on their cars and engines, especially in the November-March open-season on testing allowed by NASCAR back then, while NASCAR made a spoiler enlargement to boost the power of the draft, and in 1991 the plate races erupted in memorable competition in all four races, especially that July's Diehard 500.
Elsewhere commentary on the plate package has been animated and after Pocono came the usual nonsensical criticisms that NASCAR needs to drop these big tracks for "more short tracks," never mind Pocono and other superspeedways are superior venues in competition, market strength, etc. The gripe has come in some circles that "short tracks don't need aero packages to make good racing," a claim belied by the fact fendered short track racecar classes run downforce-style bodies with big clear-vu spoilers, some form of engine restriction, and bias-ply tires - and even the Modifieds on the Tour as well as local Mods also run some form of engine restriction and bias-ply tires. In other words short tracks need "special packages" because the model of low-downforce aeroclean bodies with unrestricted power and radial tires simply doesn't work.
Kyle Busch's runaway in the Pocono Green 250 brings to mind his dominance of the 2017 Overtons Truck 150 at Pocono - a racing vehicle package that is a good approximation of the plate package used in 2018's 250 - until his wreck on a mid-race restart. It is an indication he's figured out how to engineer his racecars for this track like few others have, though his postrace penalty in 2018 casts some shadow.
There is also the angle of the 400 - what if that race had run the plate-draft duct package? As it was, Martin Truex's semi-upset win showed Kyle Busch and erstwhile race dominator Kevin Harvick weren't the duopoly this race seemed to have for so long. One thus suspects the Menard-Custer-Allgaier-Cindric epic in the 250 would have been replicated and then some by the Cup guys in the 400 if that race had run the plate package.
So it's become that for now every race will be some kind of forum on this plate package given its success at opening up passing. It also is a raging discussion amid a noticeable surge in enthusiasm for the sport in recent races, with widespread fan enthusiam for Martin Truex at Pocono in clear evidence as he surged to the win.
NASCAR thus can see something it has lacked for so long - a positive outlook for the future.
Friday, June 01, 2018
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.
Wednesday, November 01, 2017
NASCAR Phasing In Plate-Drag Duct Package For Wider Use
First the original post from November 1, 2017:
UPDATE, April 12, 2018: NASCAR will run the restrictor plate-drag duct package in the 2018 Winston All-Star Race at Charlotte.
Special thanks to Douglas Ivey.
NASCAR has announced the restrictor plate-drag duct package used at Indianapolis in the Xfinity series Diabetes 250 will be expanded for Pocono and Michigan in 2018. It is easily a positive move as the combination made the draft more effective and increased passing.
What the racing with this package will look like was shown in huge battles for the win at both tracks in the Truck Series in 2017 -
John Hunter Nemechek squared off against Christopher Bell in the final ten laps at Pocono
Bubba Wallace returned to victory with this spectacular ten-lap shootout at Michigan
This is a great decision by NASCAR and one hopes it begins the process of phasing it into all of NASCAR's other series, for this package works.
UPDATE, April 12, 2018: NASCAR will run the restrictor plate-drag duct package in the 2018 Winston All-Star Race at Charlotte.
Sunday, July 30, 2017
Pocono Erupts For Kyle Busch
The Overtons 400 weekend kicked off yet another NASCAR weekend filled with off-track concern and continued a recent surge of on-track racing that has intensified in competitive ferocity.
The big off-track story is the word that Target stores is quitting its racing commitments; the rumored subplot behind this is a divorce of team owner Chip Ganassi and his wife and that she was the one who actually controlled that sponsorship. Whatever the particulars, the loss of Target sponsorship is a major blow to racing in general given the company gained superb attention from its racing endeavors between over one hundred Indycar wins (four of them Indianapolis 500s) and victories in NASCAR including two wins so far in 2017 for Kyle Larson.
If there is reason for optimism, the recent arrival of Overton's sponsorship of several races gives some reason to believe they will also sponsor a car for a few races, with cobbling together of other sponsors by now the longstanding method of filling in the sponsor gaps. Certainly Kyle Larson's surge of success provides a sponsor a platform from which both benefit.
The Truck Series opened the NASCAR portion of the Pennsylvania 400 weekend and the sport now seems to be seeing a surge of great racing that began at Indianapolis. After Kyle Busch crashed out the fight for the lead swelled into a spirited fight between John Hunter Nemechek and Christopher Bell, a battle that threatened to rival the ferocity of the Xfinity Series Brickyard 250 last week. Bell finally got past Nemecheck and was gone for his fourth win of the season.
The Overtons 400 turned out to be a surprisingly tranquil affair, except it started with a bang when Matt Kenseth broke loose and it stacked up some eight cars behind him. Jimmie Johnson's crash and Kyle Larson's busted driveshaft (a fitting upshot to his weekend) were the only other incidents as pit sequencing dominated the race; Kyle Busch seemed to sequence himself out of contention when he took four tires on his last stop and fell over six seconds behind. Busch, however, stormed forward and punted his longtime enemy Kevin Harvick just enough to surge to the win.
The win was the 100th in some 340 starts for Toyota dating to its merger with Joe Gibbs Racing. JGR accounts for eighty-four of these wins while Barney Visser has won seven times fielding Toyotas, the now-defunct Michael Waltrip outfit won seven races with Toyotas, and the Dietrich Mateschitz team sporting Red Bull colors won at Michigan in 2009 with Brian Vickers and 2011 at Phoenix with Kasey Kahne.
Given this level of success and how much Toyota has meant to teams - and also speedways; the scuttlebutt has long been that the Fontana speedway is kept going in substantial part to some level of Toyota sponsorship - it remains perplexing that some fans still insist on denouncing the brand's participation in NASCAR. The sport certainly shouldn't be saying no to participants like Toyota.
BTW the Firestone sign on the Tunnel Turn scoreboard is still there....for the NASCAR weekend, just as was the case in June.
So the long national nightmare for Kyle Busch is over and the NASCAR tour hits Watkins Glen next week - and given Watkins Glen's history we mean hits.
The big off-track story is the word that Target stores is quitting its racing commitments; the rumored subplot behind this is a divorce of team owner Chip Ganassi and his wife and that she was the one who actually controlled that sponsorship. Whatever the particulars, the loss of Target sponsorship is a major blow to racing in general given the company gained superb attention from its racing endeavors between over one hundred Indycar wins (four of them Indianapolis 500s) and victories in NASCAR including two wins so far in 2017 for Kyle Larson.
If there is reason for optimism, the recent arrival of Overton's sponsorship of several races gives some reason to believe they will also sponsor a car for a few races, with cobbling together of other sponsors by now the longstanding method of filling in the sponsor gaps. Certainly Kyle Larson's surge of success provides a sponsor a platform from which both benefit.
The Truck Series opened the NASCAR portion of the Pennsylvania 400 weekend and the sport now seems to be seeing a surge of great racing that began at Indianapolis. After Kyle Busch crashed out the fight for the lead swelled into a spirited fight between John Hunter Nemechek and Christopher Bell, a battle that threatened to rival the ferocity of the Xfinity Series Brickyard 250 last week. Bell finally got past Nemecheck and was gone for his fourth win of the season.
The Overtons 400 turned out to be a surprisingly tranquil affair, except it started with a bang when Matt Kenseth broke loose and it stacked up some eight cars behind him. Jimmie Johnson's crash and Kyle Larson's busted driveshaft (a fitting upshot to his weekend) were the only other incidents as pit sequencing dominated the race; Kyle Busch seemed to sequence himself out of contention when he took four tires on his last stop and fell over six seconds behind. Busch, however, stormed forward and punted his longtime enemy Kevin Harvick just enough to surge to the win.
The win was the 100th in some 340 starts for Toyota dating to its merger with Joe Gibbs Racing. JGR accounts for eighty-four of these wins while Barney Visser has won seven times fielding Toyotas, the now-defunct Michael Waltrip outfit won seven races with Toyotas, and the Dietrich Mateschitz team sporting Red Bull colors won at Michigan in 2009 with Brian Vickers and 2011 at Phoenix with Kasey Kahne.
Given this level of success and how much Toyota has meant to teams - and also speedways; the scuttlebutt has long been that the Fontana speedway is kept going in substantial part to some level of Toyota sponsorship - it remains perplexing that some fans still insist on denouncing the brand's participation in NASCAR. The sport certainly shouldn't be saying no to participants like Toyota.
BTW the Firestone sign on the Tunnel Turn scoreboard is still there....for the NASCAR weekend, just as was the case in June.
So the long national nightmare for Kyle Busch is over and the NASCAR tour hits Watkins Glen next week - and given Watkins Glen's history we mean hits.
Monday, June 12, 2017
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
Are Restrictor Plates Returning To NASCAR Tracks?
According to NBC Sports NASCAR will run restrictor plates on the Xfinity cars at Indianapolis, this following an encouraging test session at the Brickyard in 2016. The report became fact as NASCAR made the announcement on March 23. Drivers Ryan Reed and Blake Koch expand on the package here. The most intriguing angle is the use of drag ducts, where air blasts into the nose and out the front wheelwells; the IMS test indicated they work.
As one who has studied the history of racing may expect the restrictor plate controversy has raged from 1988 onward with drivers predictably speaking against the restrictor plate, yet in the nearly thirty years since the restrictor plate was re-introduced to NASCAR the case against it has been thoroughly discredited by three decades of actual racing. And alternatives are always presented - Dale Jarrett claiming "open the aerodynamics some....let them have the horsepower trying to do it."
Yet in the history of racing those is search of examples where having more horsepower or adding horsepower opened up passing will fail to find any.
MRN call of the 1971 Yankee 400, a restrictor plate race.
NASCAR first mandated restrictor plates in August 1970 until late-September 1971 when it went to carburetor sleeves - in July 1973 NASCAR returned to running restrictor plates and in March 1974 the Southeastern 500 at Bristol was the last race to run them until 1988. Michigan in 1971 saw two competitive races with the plate, such as the Yankee 400. NASCAR nearly mandated the plate for 1979 when several tracks were repaved and speeds shot up markedly as a result - analyst Greg Maness adds that the Chevrolet Laguna S-3 was hit with the plate for 1978 and this is part of why that successful marque was dropped after 1977.
"Some people were saying they would not be able to pass...." So noted Ned Jarrett two laps into the 1988 Daytona 500, the first to run restrictor plates since 1974.
While not as competitive as the Daytona 500, that year's Firecracker 400 and Diehard 500 saw eye-popping finishes.
Ned Jarrett repeatedly mocked the opinion that the restrictor plate impeded ability to pass in his racecasts at Daytona and Talladega - because the racing itself disproved the view against it.
People who cite the 2000 New Hampshire 300 as a case against restrictor plates ignore how in the radial tire era stock cars have long struggled to pass there and everywhere - when the Modifieds race at New Hampshire they have run restrictor plates since the track opened - with no impediment to passing at all.
It also ignores how the longer the drivers ran with this plate package the more used to it they became and the more aggressive they started to get in the racing. Restrictor plate usage far beyond just this one race would certainly have seen drivers figure out passing in such a horsepower box.
The notion - advanced by many, not just Dale Jarrett - that adding horsepower will increase passing not only is not supported by any realworld evidence, it is further discredited by Indycar's absurd push-to-pass button, which adds short bursts of extra horsepower akin to nitrous oxide usage - it has been in Indycars for several years with zero discernable increase in incidence of passing. It was bulkier racecar bodies, air-displacement wings - and the combination present in the modern-day Wheldon-12 racecar - with no particular increase in horsepower that opened up passing (the use of air-displacement by Indycars also brings to mind NASCAR's successful roof blade package, curiously never used in race conditions on smaller tracks despite several test sessions with this package at Charlotte).
The blunt reality is Dale Jarrett is wrong. NASCAR has needed to expand restrictor plate usage for two decades. The New Hampshire experiment should not have ended in that one race and the pending use of restrictor plates at Indianapolis should not be limited to that one race - or that one weekend - either. The fact is NASCAR has too much horsepower by over 250 and has had such for one and a half generations.
The Camping World Trucks have run small engine spacers - which serve the same effect as the restrictor plate - for a number of years and they have seen excellent racing.
Balancing the horsepower, tire, downforce, and drafting effect is how Indycar has exploded the last quarter-century in competitive racing and how NASCAR can reach that same end. Restrictor plates have worked - period - so NASCAR should mandate them not just for Indianapolis, but beyond.
NASCAR is shooting for racing like this (from Indy Lights in 2016 and 2013) for the Brickyard and elsewhere - with racecars that are underpowered.
As one who has studied the history of racing may expect the restrictor plate controversy has raged from 1988 onward with drivers predictably speaking against the restrictor plate, yet in the nearly thirty years since the restrictor plate was re-introduced to NASCAR the case against it has been thoroughly discredited by three decades of actual racing. And alternatives are always presented - Dale Jarrett claiming "open the aerodynamics some....let them have the horsepower trying to do it."
Yet in the history of racing those is search of examples where having more horsepower or adding horsepower opened up passing will fail to find any.
MRN call of the 1971 Yankee 400, a restrictor plate race.
NASCAR first mandated restrictor plates in August 1970 until late-September 1971 when it went to carburetor sleeves - in July 1973 NASCAR returned to running restrictor plates and in March 1974 the Southeastern 500 at Bristol was the last race to run them until 1988. Michigan in 1971 saw two competitive races with the plate, such as the Yankee 400. NASCAR nearly mandated the plate for 1979 when several tracks were repaved and speeds shot up markedly as a result - analyst Greg Maness adds that the Chevrolet Laguna S-3 was hit with the plate for 1978 and this is part of why that successful marque was dropped after 1977.
"Some people were saying they would not be able to pass...." So noted Ned Jarrett two laps into the 1988 Daytona 500, the first to run restrictor plates since 1974.
While not as competitive as the Daytona 500, that year's Firecracker 400 and Diehard 500 saw eye-popping finishes.
Ned Jarrett repeatedly mocked the opinion that the restrictor plate impeded ability to pass in his racecasts at Daytona and Talladega - because the racing itself disproved the view against it.
People who cite the 2000 New Hampshire 300 as a case against restrictor plates ignore how in the radial tire era stock cars have long struggled to pass there and everywhere - when the Modifieds race at New Hampshire they have run restrictor plates since the track opened - with no impediment to passing at all.
It also ignores how the longer the drivers ran with this plate package the more used to it they became and the more aggressive they started to get in the racing. Restrictor plate usage far beyond just this one race would certainly have seen drivers figure out passing in such a horsepower box.
The notion - advanced by many, not just Dale Jarrett - that adding horsepower will increase passing not only is not supported by any realworld evidence, it is further discredited by Indycar's absurd push-to-pass button, which adds short bursts of extra horsepower akin to nitrous oxide usage - it has been in Indycars for several years with zero discernable increase in incidence of passing. It was bulkier racecar bodies, air-displacement wings - and the combination present in the modern-day Wheldon-12 racecar - with no particular increase in horsepower that opened up passing (the use of air-displacement by Indycars also brings to mind NASCAR's successful roof blade package, curiously never used in race conditions on smaller tracks despite several test sessions with this package at Charlotte).
The blunt reality is Dale Jarrett is wrong. NASCAR has needed to expand restrictor plate usage for two decades. The New Hampshire experiment should not have ended in that one race and the pending use of restrictor plates at Indianapolis should not be limited to that one race - or that one weekend - either. The fact is NASCAR has too much horsepower by over 250 and has had such for one and a half generations.
The Camping World Trucks have run small engine spacers - which serve the same effect as the restrictor plate - for a number of years and they have seen excellent racing.
Balancing the horsepower, tire, downforce, and drafting effect is how Indycar has exploded the last quarter-century in competitive racing and how NASCAR can reach that same end. Restrictor plates have worked - period - so NASCAR should mandate them not just for Indianapolis, but beyond.
NASCAR is shooting for racing like this (from Indy Lights in 2016 and 2013) for the Brickyard and elsewhere - with racecars that are underpowered.
Monday, August 01, 2016
From Odd To Bizarre At Pocono Summer 500
The Pocono Summer 400 of 2016 became easily the strangest race of the season so far between frustrating rain, postponement to Monday, and then the cycle of staggered pitstops that has become characteristic of Pocono racing the last number of years; it also saw some of the old Pocono vinegar as the lead became a spirited fight; the Austin Dillon-Kyle Larson showdown at halfway where the two diced side-by-side for two laps and nearly wrecked was the highlight, but the weirdness exploded when fog put Chris Buescher - such a darkhorse that he only had two career finishes higher than 20th and nothing higher than 14th - into Pocono's victory, the first first-time winner for Winston Cup since Aric Almirola - wrecked out well before halfway - in 2014 at Daytona.
Buescher managed to prove wrong the proclamation of yours truly that a darkhorse or first-time winner looks out of reach. Whether the rest of the season will see any additional darkhorses emerge remains to be seen. The race certainly became a battle of the youth brigade as Kyle Larson and Austin Dillon emerged near halfway up front and started fighting it out, this coming a week after as one-sided a race as seen in years to where a lot of fans and some media were questioning the wisdom of keeping Indianapolis Motor Speedway on NASCAR's schedule.
Other surprises were Greg Biffle, who led sixteen laps and was perhaps the only leader to take the lead on the bottom on a restart. It seems to me too many tracks no longer have any low-line grip, especially with those tracks that went to progressive or semi-progressive banking; it's a gripe I've heard about Bristol and it applies even more to places like Loudon and Pocono, and was in evidence at Kentucky. But as with everything else that phenomenon gets back to the general technology arms race that remains a major competitive issue for the sport.
When their set-to got settled Kyle Larson and Austin Dillon had strikingly different finishes as Larson, who led 37 laps, by far his most since Dover, finished sixth while Dillon wound up thirteenth. For Dillon this race was a step, given a career with just five top-five finishes and 56 laps led, doubly pedestrian compared to Larson's fourteen top-fives and 309 laps led. For Larson it was another solid run, though the wait for those breakthrough wins is still gathering some cobwebs.
If lack of wins for Larson is a disappointment given how touted he is, the collapse of Chase Elliott the last six races is downright disturbing as he is starting to look not like the next NASCAR star but the next Bobby Hillin Jr.
It certainly is wrong to blame Chase Elliott for this wreck - the classic racing accident - but his downfall since finishing second at the Michigan 400 with a high incidence of crashing cannot be anything but disturbing. It also continues the fall of Hendrick Motorsports, as it failed to get one car in the top-ten at Pocono and has only two wins between four cars and five drivers.
It surprisingly wasn't that hot for JGR even though he got three cars to finish 7-8-9. Bettering him there was Stewart-Haas Racing at 4th, 5th, and 10th. It can only leave Ford execs rubbing their hands for 2017; Ford's 1-2 at Pocono was the highlight, yet the Blue Oval brigade had nothing else to celebrate outside of yet another one-team rampage by Penske.
So wrapped up one of the weirdest races in awhile, and the NASCAR guys head a short ways north to Watkins Glen.
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
NASCAR Questions Entering Pocono
Forty years ago Pocono International Raceway hosted one of the most exciting races in NASCAR's pivotal 1976 season. Barney Hall, Marvin Panch, Chris Economaki, Jack Arute, Tom Kecke, and Bill Connell are the announcers. Richard Petty, David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, Bobby Allison, Buddy Baker, Benny Parsons, Lennie Pond, and Darrell Waltrip are the primary competitors in this race.
NASCAR enters Pocono amid one of the most discouraging weekends in recent memory, as Kyle Busch's annihilation of the Brickyard 400 weekend - involving both the 250 and 400, for a combined four-race sweep spanning 2015 and 2016 - was as one-sided as the World 600 slaughter by Martin Truex, and it served as starting point of widespread musings about the mediocre crowd, the poor quality of the racing, and the state of NASCAR in general. It's worth asking some questions -
The universal loss of confidence in NASCAR at Indianapolis stems from NASCAR's inability to see fighting for the lead as seen in the very first Brickyard 400
Is the Brickyard 400 no longer worth having? - No, it absolutely is worth having. NASCAR is a superspeedway league; even in its earliest years NASCAR's premier events were its big track races and the superspeedways have been the most competitive races in stock car annals. That the crowds have plummeted is undeniable; that this loss of popularity is sport-wide is also undeniable. NASCAR has the problem of making the entire sport worth watching again.
Has NASCAR's downforce experiment failed? - Yes, an unqualified yes. And it's a result those who remember the 1998 5&5 Rule, its resuscitation under John Darby after the 2003 season, and the Car Of Tomorrow could all see coming. Inability to pass doesn't stem from downforce, it stems from lack of downforce, too much horsepower, and too little tire.
So what is the real problem with inability to pass? - It is the combination of too much horsepower, no generation of drafting effect (an issue that can solve itself by improving downforce), and too little grip - by this it is the mixture of downforce and tire. NASCAR increased downforce for two races in 2015 - really the first time they've ever embraced high downforce - but did nothing to horsepower or the tire. On this score Larry McReynolds, who has claimed "We've tried every combination of cars and aero packages under the stars" for the Brickyard and elsewhere, is quite mistaken, less on downforce than the combination involved.
NASCAR has attacked the downforce issue piecemeal, and from the completely wrong angle; it has consistently tried to quash downforce and has never addressed tire or horsepower, except in perfunctory manner via a minor reduction via tapered spacer from 850 to 725 in 2015 - and by now I'd be surprised if the teams hadn't long ago regained what little horsepower they lost.
A true cut in horsepower via narrower spacer would involve restricting power to 500 or slightly above; in such a true reduction one can see allowing elimination of NASCAR's gear rule (something McReynolds had advocated). Cutting horsepower has never been a popular idea, yet the myth is still pushed that the cars should have more, not less. We hear advocacy of eliminating the gear rule, with no one seeming to notice that horsepower has only been increasing for twenty-odd years, the cars have ample throttle response - the main argument against restrictor plate racing is that the cars lack throttle response - and yet no one can pass.
The tire remains an issue on which Goodyear never seems to be held accountable. At Dover's Mason-Dixon 400 this season, and it seems quite by accident, Goodyear had a tire the leaders could fight for the lead on. The Truck Series - high downforce and noticeably lower horsepower compared to the cars - has had a competitive renaissance the last five-plus years and it would seem they have tires that are more forgiving and thus raceable. Having ample tire on the surface has been a staple of Indycars and the NASCAR Modifieds seemingly forever.
So it begs the question - why can't Goodyear engineer a tire that's truly forgiving like bias-plies are for local racing and were for the big leagues?
Occassionally Goodyear has made a change on the tire; the 1999 Yankee 400 at Michigan, with a higher stagger tire, is one of the most famous examples
Does advocacy of abandoning Indianapolis for NASCAR a sign the sport as a group has run out of answers? - Yes and no. It's a sign a lot of cherished conceits about the rules packages have been permanently disproven, and it's also a sign of the lack of imagination in the sport's leadership and media to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again. It's also a disturbing sign that a lot of people seem to want to give up on dealing with the technology arms race, which is the ultimate mistake. The notion of leaving racing at the mercy of technology is absurd. There manifestly is need for different approaches to dealing with these issues.
Are there other angles besides the technology arms race that are the problem? - Yes - the sport's overemphasis on points racing. The drivers long ago stopped treating race wins as anything except something counterproductive to winning, and they've done so because the points system refuses to reward winning and leading. The Chase concept was a reaction to Matt Kenseth's 2003 title with just one race win, and it was the wrong reaction - the solution was to simply increase the bonus for each race win to over 100 points above second and to increase the bonus for most laps led to 100, to ensure the leader of most laps would outpoint almost everyone else but the race winner. By putting all the emphasis on winning and leading - incentivizing going for the win - the sport would see a significant upsurge in the fight for the lead race after race.
So what is the balance sheet going into Pocono? - Pocono is a track with a genuine history of quality racing that like all the others has suffered from poor application of the technology arms race. Pocono in August is usually different from June. Dale Junior's 2014 sweep was the first there since Jimmie Johnson in 2004 and those two plus Denny Hamlin spanning 2009-10 are the only drivers with a two-race win streak there since Tim Richmond's three-race rampage of 1986-87.
Kurt Busch's win in June was the eighth for Chevrolet in the last eleven Pocono races, but Chevrolet overall this year has been outclassed by Toyota, winners of 24 of the last 51 races. The decline of the Hendrick fleet has been the surprise of the last two seasons, but a competitive correction has long been overdue there.
Curiously quiet has been Denny Hamlin, who at Indy rebounded from two mediocre finishes and ninth at NHMS to finish fourth and has led only 78 laps since winning the Daytona 500.
The JGR Toyotas have been the cars of the series all year. The recent surge of the Fords has been the underrated story of the last month apart from the usual Penske muscle. The Roush fleet began storming close to the front again for three races before hitting a wall (literally in Greg Biffle's case) at Indianapolis.
The surge of Stewart-Haas Racing is the only other constant to feel confident about entering Pocono as they - outside of Danica Patrick, as usual - continue to surge, a good sign for Ford for 2017. The only other Chevrolet outfit is RCR, which has begun to string together some good finishes the last five or so races but still looks hopelessly outpowered.
I don't expect a repeat winner at Pocono, but a first-time winner or any kind of darkhorse winner looks out of reach. The sport's competitive decline has been long and ongoing and won't be corrected without radical changes.
The universal loss of confidence in NASCAR at Indianapolis stems from NASCAR's inability to see fighting for the lead as seen in the very first Brickyard 400
Is the Brickyard 400 no longer worth having? - No, it absolutely is worth having. NASCAR is a superspeedway league; even in its earliest years NASCAR's premier events were its big track races and the superspeedways have been the most competitive races in stock car annals. That the crowds have plummeted is undeniable; that this loss of popularity is sport-wide is also undeniable. NASCAR has the problem of making the entire sport worth watching again.
Has NASCAR's downforce experiment failed? - Yes, an unqualified yes. And it's a result those who remember the 1998 5&5 Rule, its resuscitation under John Darby after the 2003 season, and the Car Of Tomorrow could all see coming. Inability to pass doesn't stem from downforce, it stems from lack of downforce, too much horsepower, and too little tire.
So what is the real problem with inability to pass? - It is the combination of too much horsepower, no generation of drafting effect (an issue that can solve itself by improving downforce), and too little grip - by this it is the mixture of downforce and tire. NASCAR increased downforce for two races in 2015 - really the first time they've ever embraced high downforce - but did nothing to horsepower or the tire. On this score Larry McReynolds, who has claimed "We've tried every combination of cars and aero packages under the stars" for the Brickyard and elsewhere, is quite mistaken, less on downforce than the combination involved.
NASCAR has attacked the downforce issue piecemeal, and from the completely wrong angle; it has consistently tried to quash downforce and has never addressed tire or horsepower, except in perfunctory manner via a minor reduction via tapered spacer from 850 to 725 in 2015 - and by now I'd be surprised if the teams hadn't long ago regained what little horsepower they lost.
A true cut in horsepower via narrower spacer would involve restricting power to 500 or slightly above; in such a true reduction one can see allowing elimination of NASCAR's gear rule (something McReynolds had advocated). Cutting horsepower has never been a popular idea, yet the myth is still pushed that the cars should have more, not less. We hear advocacy of eliminating the gear rule, with no one seeming to notice that horsepower has only been increasing for twenty-odd years, the cars have ample throttle response - the main argument against restrictor plate racing is that the cars lack throttle response - and yet no one can pass.
The tire remains an issue on which Goodyear never seems to be held accountable. At Dover's Mason-Dixon 400 this season, and it seems quite by accident, Goodyear had a tire the leaders could fight for the lead on. The Truck Series - high downforce and noticeably lower horsepower compared to the cars - has had a competitive renaissance the last five-plus years and it would seem they have tires that are more forgiving and thus raceable. Having ample tire on the surface has been a staple of Indycars and the NASCAR Modifieds seemingly forever.
So it begs the question - why can't Goodyear engineer a tire that's truly forgiving like bias-plies are for local racing and were for the big leagues?
Occassionally Goodyear has made a change on the tire; the 1999 Yankee 400 at Michigan, with a higher stagger tire, is one of the most famous examples
Does advocacy of abandoning Indianapolis for NASCAR a sign the sport as a group has run out of answers? - Yes and no. It's a sign a lot of cherished conceits about the rules packages have been permanently disproven, and it's also a sign of the lack of imagination in the sport's leadership and media to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again. It's also a disturbing sign that a lot of people seem to want to give up on dealing with the technology arms race, which is the ultimate mistake. The notion of leaving racing at the mercy of technology is absurd. There manifestly is need for different approaches to dealing with these issues.
Are there other angles besides the technology arms race that are the problem? - Yes - the sport's overemphasis on points racing. The drivers long ago stopped treating race wins as anything except something counterproductive to winning, and they've done so because the points system refuses to reward winning and leading. The Chase concept was a reaction to Matt Kenseth's 2003 title with just one race win, and it was the wrong reaction - the solution was to simply increase the bonus for each race win to over 100 points above second and to increase the bonus for most laps led to 100, to ensure the leader of most laps would outpoint almost everyone else but the race winner. By putting all the emphasis on winning and leading - incentivizing going for the win - the sport would see a significant upsurge in the fight for the lead race after race.
So what is the balance sheet going into Pocono? - Pocono is a track with a genuine history of quality racing that like all the others has suffered from poor application of the technology arms race. Pocono in August is usually different from June. Dale Junior's 2014 sweep was the first there since Jimmie Johnson in 2004 and those two plus Denny Hamlin spanning 2009-10 are the only drivers with a two-race win streak there since Tim Richmond's three-race rampage of 1986-87.
Kurt Busch's win in June was the eighth for Chevrolet in the last eleven Pocono races, but Chevrolet overall this year has been outclassed by Toyota, winners of 24 of the last 51 races. The decline of the Hendrick fleet has been the surprise of the last two seasons, but a competitive correction has long been overdue there.
Curiously quiet has been Denny Hamlin, who at Indy rebounded from two mediocre finishes and ninth at NHMS to finish fourth and has led only 78 laps since winning the Daytona 500.
The JGR Toyotas have been the cars of the series all year. The recent surge of the Fords has been the underrated story of the last month apart from the usual Penske muscle. The Roush fleet began storming close to the front again for three races before hitting a wall (literally in Greg Biffle's case) at Indianapolis.
The surge of Stewart-Haas Racing is the only other constant to feel confident about entering Pocono as they - outside of Danica Patrick, as usual - continue to surge, a good sign for Ford for 2017. The only other Chevrolet outfit is RCR, which has begun to string together some good finishes the last five or so races but still looks hopelessly outpowered.
I don't expect a repeat winner at Pocono, but a first-time winner or any kind of darkhorse winner looks out of reach. The sport's competitive decline has been long and ongoing and won't be corrected without radical changes.
Monday, May 16, 2016
Stockcar!
The rare documentary feature on the NASCAR Winston Cup Grand National series as of the 1976 season, the season whose stunning competition ignited national interest in the Grand National series.
Sunday, August 02, 2015
Gas Pains Galore At Pocono
The first weekend of August produced three surprising finishes among NASCAR's major touring series, a ridiculous stat illustrating NASCAR's continuing blind spot about how its champion should be determined, and also saw the breaking of a bizarre story regarding one of the sport's co-owners. The weekend began with two strikingly similar finishes - the Truck 150 at Pocono and the Iowa 250 for the Xfinity Series were dominated, but late restarts led to chaos - none whackier than Erik Jones, Austin Dillon, and Timothy Peters trying to force it four-abreast through Turn One at Pocono (like the old Wizard Of Id cartoon put it, one of these days that's going to work), for which Erik Jones emerged for the worse. Brendan Gaughn then tried to force it past Ryan Blaney in Iowa and also didn't quite make it, to the consternation of Daniel Suarez and others.
Late restarts salvaged what had been one-sided affairs on Saturday, while Sunday's Windows 10 400 at Pocono showcased what isn't all that appealing about modern racing - the emphasis was on pitstops and pit plotting backwards instead of going for the lead; the constant cycling of pitstops has at times in Pocono's recent history been a poor substitute for racing, though for this 2015 race the cycling came after a flurry of early and then mid-race crashes, including two of the uglier wrecks the place has seen since the infamous Elliott Sadler blast in 2010, first when Kasey Kahne's day got creamed in the most bizarre pit crash since Mark Martin's vicious set-to at Michigan a few years back, then when Sam Hornish got the worst of it off One after a restart. There were so many yellows that at one point Pocono flirted with exceeding ten cautions.
But then the fuel duel kicked in, and it led to the jaw-dropping upset of the year - Joey Logano ran out of gas, then Kyle Busch ran out of gas, and the forgotten man of Joe Gibbs Racing got the win at a track he's never done all that hot at. Matt Kenseth now has a grand total of four top-five finishes at Pocono in 32 starts, thus denying Kyle Busch the fourth-straight win he was seeking.
Busch's four wins, all in a five-race span, come after he missed the first eleven races of the season; NASCAR said he would be eligible for the Chase if he gets into the top-30 in points - and with four wins in the last five races he isn't there yet. NASCAR likes to pretend that the present Chase format emphasizes winning, but the fact Busch has four wins yet is not in the Chase indicates yet again that winning is not important for NASCAR.
Of course the Chase concept is a complete fraud - the points system is supposed to cover the entire season, not artificially lock out 3/4ths of the field with ten races to go, and the emphasis in the points system is supposed to be wins and most laps led per race - the fact of winning and of most laps led is supposed to pay far more than those performance levels presently do, pay so much higher a percentage to where Busch's four wins and leading the most laps in one of them automatically put him well ahead of drivers presently ahead of him in points. Instead of actually rewarding real performance - winning races and most laps led - NASCAR once again insists that drivers travel more miles with fewer results.
*****
The other story to break from the weekend is that Rob Kauffman, presently a majority owner of Michael Waltrip's race team, will purchase a piece of the Ganassi-SABCO outfit. The story is Clint Bowyer's #15 team will be taken from the MWR team to Chip Ganassi's outfit. The story, though, has been confusing to a number of people. It would appear Kauffman cannot hold ownership stakes in two separate teams, especially with different manufacturers, and right now it would seem the development is Kauffman is outright leaving Michael Waltrip and taking the Clint Bowyer #15 with him - which begs the question of whether a Kauffman-Ganassi-Sabates combo will run Toyotas given Kauffman's present ties with Toyota.
Kauffman has been the guy who made Waltrip's team work. That a source said Kauffman is why Waltrip's team didn't shut down already is indicative both that the former banker is very good at what he does and also that Michael Waltrip really didn't deserve such a high-quality business partner. Waltrip's career is now at thirty seasons as a full-time participant at some level in Cup, yet the sub-mediocrity of his career was first defined by driving for the Dick Bahre-Lowrance Harry-Chuck Rider team as a 1986 rookie, and losing the rookie race to a self-styled loner from Wisconsin with an engineering degree who drove for a team with next to no racecars - BTW his name was Alan Kulwicki, and we all remember how that worked out. It thus added a bitter punch line that for two seasons Waltrip drove the former Kulwicki #7 and outside of a couple of races did nothing with it. That he finally broke through to actually win some races was a double-shock, before the form chart finally reemerged and Michael slunk back to irrelevance.
And the form chart reemerged again after Kauffman made winners out of Waltrip's team - when MWR literally threw a race to manipulate the Chase, NASCAR's resulting penalty angered at least one sponsor (NAPA - which was never supposed to be Waltrip's sponsor, it was supposed to be Ron Hornaday's) into quitting, and MWR hasn't been the same since September 2013. And so the garage area continues on but with one of its better-known participants involved in a soap opera it doesn't need.
Late restarts salvaged what had been one-sided affairs on Saturday, while Sunday's Windows 10 400 at Pocono showcased what isn't all that appealing about modern racing - the emphasis was on pitstops and pit plotting backwards instead of going for the lead; the constant cycling of pitstops has at times in Pocono's recent history been a poor substitute for racing, though for this 2015 race the cycling came after a flurry of early and then mid-race crashes, including two of the uglier wrecks the place has seen since the infamous Elliott Sadler blast in 2010, first when Kasey Kahne's day got creamed in the most bizarre pit crash since Mark Martin's vicious set-to at Michigan a few years back, then when Sam Hornish got the worst of it off One after a restart. There were so many yellows that at one point Pocono flirted with exceeding ten cautions.
But then the fuel duel kicked in, and it led to the jaw-dropping upset of the year - Joey Logano ran out of gas, then Kyle Busch ran out of gas, and the forgotten man of Joe Gibbs Racing got the win at a track he's never done all that hot at. Matt Kenseth now has a grand total of four top-five finishes at Pocono in 32 starts, thus denying Kyle Busch the fourth-straight win he was seeking.
Busch's four wins, all in a five-race span, come after he missed the first eleven races of the season; NASCAR said he would be eligible for the Chase if he gets into the top-30 in points - and with four wins in the last five races he isn't there yet. NASCAR likes to pretend that the present Chase format emphasizes winning, but the fact Busch has four wins yet is not in the Chase indicates yet again that winning is not important for NASCAR.
Of course the Chase concept is a complete fraud - the points system is supposed to cover the entire season, not artificially lock out 3/4ths of the field with ten races to go, and the emphasis in the points system is supposed to be wins and most laps led per race - the fact of winning and of most laps led is supposed to pay far more than those performance levels presently do, pay so much higher a percentage to where Busch's four wins and leading the most laps in one of them automatically put him well ahead of drivers presently ahead of him in points. Instead of actually rewarding real performance - winning races and most laps led - NASCAR once again insists that drivers travel more miles with fewer results.
*****
The other story to break from the weekend is that Rob Kauffman, presently a majority owner of Michael Waltrip's race team, will purchase a piece of the Ganassi-SABCO outfit. The story is Clint Bowyer's #15 team will be taken from the MWR team to Chip Ganassi's outfit. The story, though, has been confusing to a number of people. It would appear Kauffman cannot hold ownership stakes in two separate teams, especially with different manufacturers, and right now it would seem the development is Kauffman is outright leaving Michael Waltrip and taking the Clint Bowyer #15 with him - which begs the question of whether a Kauffman-Ganassi-Sabates combo will run Toyotas given Kauffman's present ties with Toyota.
Kauffman has been the guy who made Waltrip's team work. That a source said Kauffman is why Waltrip's team didn't shut down already is indicative both that the former banker is very good at what he does and also that Michael Waltrip really didn't deserve such a high-quality business partner. Waltrip's career is now at thirty seasons as a full-time participant at some level in Cup, yet the sub-mediocrity of his career was first defined by driving for the Dick Bahre-Lowrance Harry-Chuck Rider team as a 1986 rookie, and losing the rookie race to a self-styled loner from Wisconsin with an engineering degree who drove for a team with next to no racecars - BTW his name was Alan Kulwicki, and we all remember how that worked out. It thus added a bitter punch line that for two seasons Waltrip drove the former Kulwicki #7 and outside of a couple of races did nothing with it. That he finally broke through to actually win some races was a double-shock, before the form chart finally reemerged and Michael slunk back to irrelevance.
And the form chart reemerged again after Kauffman made winners out of Waltrip's team - when MWR literally threw a race to manipulate the Chase, NASCAR's resulting penalty angered at least one sponsor (NAPA - which was never supposed to be Waltrip's sponsor, it was supposed to be Ron Hornaday's) into quitting, and MWR hasn't been the same since September 2013. And so the garage area continues on but with one of its better-known participants involved in a soap opera it doesn't need.
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Then And Now - 1995 Summer 500 Pocono
Twenty years ago Pocono Raceway witnessed one of its most competitive races in the Summer 500 - aka the Miller Draft 500 - and seeing it in the aftermath of the frustrating 2015 Brickyard 400 is illustrative of NASCAR's search for rules packages that will open up passing. This Pocono race illustrates what NASCAR hoped to see at the Brickyard and beyond, and it's worth breaking down what went right for NASCAR in 1995 because they shouldn't give up on getting what we see in this Pocono race -
* As is obvious from the beginning, the draft is very effective here. Historically Pocono produced drafting and it made for a lot of passing; the 1982 Summer 500, famous for Dale Earnhardt's Turn One tumble with Tim Richmond, remains the benchmark for excellent racing on 2.5-milers with low-banked corners. This was in the period when NASCAR had begun windtunnel testing the cars - this after Billy France felt the manufacturers had lied to him about their racecars in lobbying for rule changes - and they were sporting large spoilers but no aeropush effect.
* Goodyear was a year removed from the 1994 tire war with Hoosier and was using leftover tire war tires to a considerable extent; at the time Chris Economaki and Dick Berggren noted in their written forums that some of these tires seemed to race more like bias ply tires. It is clear in this 1995 race that the tires are being leaned on pretty hard and are allowing the drivers to race hard.
* The draft is so effective and the tires so raceable that shifting is not hurting ability to pass, this after the beginning of shifting in 1991-2 indeed affected ability to pass, to where some drivers lobbied against it - "Shifting is a pain in the ass," Terry Labonte said in 1992.
The discouraging result from the 2015 Brickyard 400 should not mean the end of a high-drag aero package, because we know it can work, and work spectacularly.
Sunday, June 07, 2015
Pocono And The Seesaw Of Martin Truex Jr
He's not a first-time winner, but Martin Truex Jr's win at Pocono carries the flavor of being a debut win. A career that has been going for over ten years is an odd way to become something of an overnight sensation, but racing has a way of working out that way.
That NASCAR has finally seen a small team break through, and do so by leading the most laps for four straight races, is a head-shaking development that for now leaves one wondering if it becomes a trend the sport has not seen for over ten years. Certainly the reality of teams winning where their engines are controlled by another team instead of being built in-house was on display yet again, a striking change from years past when customer cars that won would see their engine supply cut or cut off by their supplier, as happened to Bob Whitcomb and Joe Gibbs when they ran Hendrick Motorsports engines in the 1990s and began outwinning Hendrick's own cars.
Where the New Jersey native first began establishing something was in the old Busch North tour, where he ran for three and change seasons, 2000-3. He won five races in his family-owned #56 Chevrolet and had some good dicing with Busch North ace Brad Leighton in a few races. After four seasons he moved south. He established a friendship with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and was signed to drive one of Junior's Busch Series cars, winning two titles and graduating to DEI's Winston Cup effort, where he won the Mason-Dixon 400 at Dover. Though he placed in the top ten with some frequency he wasn't following up the Dover win, and four seasons with Michael Waltrip's Toyota effort saw a surprising Sears Point win, but overall Truex was getting lost in the Winston Cup shuffle.
When Waltrip in effect disbanded the #56, Truex was able to sign with the #78 Furniture Row team and bring his pit crew with him for 2014, a car that had been driven to competitive respect by Kurt Busch as he strove to reestablish a NASCAR career amid running off-track and on-track controversy. Mediocre results for the #78 under Truex seemed to confirm there was nothing he could offer competitively to the small outfit, but that has changed.
The rumor has a second team being established here, and suddenly it's not a reach to say this team is on to something.
Truex's Pocono win climaxed a curious weekend there as complaints about a serious issue of buckling asphalt in the Tunnel Turn opened the weekend, yet a plethora of late crashes all occurred in Turn One. Some of the restarts saw some three-abreast action, and it proved a curiously unfulfilling weekend for Hendrick Motorsports as well as Stewart-Haas Racing; Kevin Harvick was hyped as the overwhelming favorite going in, and never had anything for Truex once things got going.
The weekend was also a continuation of a curious meeting at Dover between Brian France and several drivers over numerous issues, which got addressed by Jimmie Johnson and also by France. So far nothing of substance has come out of such meetings, but it is certainly interesting to see such back-and-forth.
So it goes with the Michigan 400 coming up.
That NASCAR has finally seen a small team break through, and do so by leading the most laps for four straight races, is a head-shaking development that for now leaves one wondering if it becomes a trend the sport has not seen for over ten years. Certainly the reality of teams winning where their engines are controlled by another team instead of being built in-house was on display yet again, a striking change from years past when customer cars that won would see their engine supply cut or cut off by their supplier, as happened to Bob Whitcomb and Joe Gibbs when they ran Hendrick Motorsports engines in the 1990s and began outwinning Hendrick's own cars.
Where the New Jersey native first began establishing something was in the old Busch North tour, where he ran for three and change seasons, 2000-3. He won five races in his family-owned #56 Chevrolet and had some good dicing with Busch North ace Brad Leighton in a few races. After four seasons he moved south. He established a friendship with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and was signed to drive one of Junior's Busch Series cars, winning two titles and graduating to DEI's Winston Cup effort, where he won the Mason-Dixon 400 at Dover. Though he placed in the top ten with some frequency he wasn't following up the Dover win, and four seasons with Michael Waltrip's Toyota effort saw a surprising Sears Point win, but overall Truex was getting lost in the Winston Cup shuffle.
When Waltrip in effect disbanded the #56, Truex was able to sign with the #78 Furniture Row team and bring his pit crew with him for 2014, a car that had been driven to competitive respect by Kurt Busch as he strove to reestablish a NASCAR career amid running off-track and on-track controversy. Mediocre results for the #78 under Truex seemed to confirm there was nothing he could offer competitively to the small outfit, but that has changed.
The rumor has a second team being established here, and suddenly it's not a reach to say this team is on to something.
Truex's Pocono win climaxed a curious weekend there as complaints about a serious issue of buckling asphalt in the Tunnel Turn opened the weekend, yet a plethora of late crashes all occurred in Turn One. Some of the restarts saw some three-abreast action, and it proved a curiously unfulfilling weekend for Hendrick Motorsports as well as Stewart-Haas Racing; Kevin Harvick was hyped as the overwhelming favorite going in, and never had anything for Truex once things got going.
The weekend was also a continuation of a curious meeting at Dover between Brian France and several drivers over numerous issues, which got addressed by Jimmie Johnson and also by France. So far nothing of substance has come out of such meetings, but it is certainly interesting to see such back-and-forth.
So it goes with the Michigan 400 coming up.
Saturday, July 05, 2014
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.
Monday, June 03, 2013
Off To Pocono
The Winston Cup cars head north from Dover to Pocono, and do so with a season that is turning more bizarre. The Mason-Dixon 400 turned out to be the strangest finish in awhile after Jimmie Johnson was blackflagged for jumping the restart and Tony Stewart got the win after passing Juan Montoya - that Montoya was anywhere near the lead at all by itself is bizarre given the collapse of his Winston Cup career.
The win for Stewart was a shocker because of the reality his team isn't very good now; that he tried to bite a reporter's head off at Dover for asking about rumors of personnel changes in his team comes across as petulant and lacking credibility - something is going on for the rumors to be circulating at all.
Something is also going on with Toyota. Once again the Camry fleet has the opportunity to wrest control of the series from Chevrolet and the Toyotas continue blowing it. Toyota teams need to start questioning whether the company over-centralized the engine program because the issue of engine failures is disturbingly frequent across the fleet.
Martin Truex's engine failure illustrates this, though his run also showed the lack of killer instinct that has permeated his entire career.
Denny Hamlin meanwhile is on a pole binge of late, though he sounded pessimistic for Pocono because the place was repaved recently and "it's a whole new track" now - "We're not the best anymore at that track," he said. That he ran as well as he did at Dover so soon after coming back was certainly encouraging.
Then there is the Penske Racing saga. Brad Keselowski's postrace problems at Dover continue a trend where a fundamental shift in power within the organization appears to have occurred. Keselowski now looks like yesterday's news and Joey Logano appears to be the #1 there.
The larger issue of Ford is also a story, as the Ford fleet looks much weaker than usual now. Within the Roush organization has come the story that Matt Kenseth's departure has left a leadership void, and it looks to be getting worse.
They all will resume the season at Pocono, and while one shouldn't hold much optimism for the Generation Six racecar, the season has had enough nutty stuff happen that a track that has seen a good share of surprises may produce another.
The win for Stewart was a shocker because of the reality his team isn't very good now; that he tried to bite a reporter's head off at Dover for asking about rumors of personnel changes in his team comes across as petulant and lacking credibility - something is going on for the rumors to be circulating at all.
Something is also going on with Toyota. Once again the Camry fleet has the opportunity to wrest control of the series from Chevrolet and the Toyotas continue blowing it. Toyota teams need to start questioning whether the company over-centralized the engine program because the issue of engine failures is disturbingly frequent across the fleet.
Martin Truex's engine failure illustrates this, though his run also showed the lack of killer instinct that has permeated his entire career.
Denny Hamlin meanwhile is on a pole binge of late, though he sounded pessimistic for Pocono because the place was repaved recently and "it's a whole new track" now - "We're not the best anymore at that track," he said. That he ran as well as he did at Dover so soon after coming back was certainly encouraging.
Then there is the Penske Racing saga. Brad Keselowski's postrace problems at Dover continue a trend where a fundamental shift in power within the organization appears to have occurred. Keselowski now looks like yesterday's news and Joey Logano appears to be the #1 there.
The larger issue of Ford is also a story, as the Ford fleet looks much weaker than usual now. Within the Roush organization has come the story that Matt Kenseth's departure has left a leadership void, and it looks to be getting worse.
They all will resume the season at Pocono, and while one shouldn't hold much optimism for the Generation Six racecar, the season has had enough nutty stuff happen that a track that has seen a good share of surprises may produce another.
Saturday, August 04, 2012
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Pocono 400 Winners And Losers
Pocono's first race of 2012 and its winners and losers -
WINNERS:
JOEY LOGANO - winning the race in and of itself is a huge development for a driver who has run poorly throughout his Cup career. The way he won, though, is also noteworthy, because he screwed up on the last restart where Mark Martin got the lead and appeared cemented to the win; Logano was able to run him down and take the lead late in the race.
MARK MARTIN - Finishing second after contending for the win is nothing to be ashamed of.
TONY STEWART - A superb finish after a very spotty portion of the season.
PAUL MENARD - A driver who frankly doesn't belong gave a decent effort.
JAMIE MCMURRAY - Solid outing after a rough run the last year-plus.
POCONO RACEWAY'S PAVEMENT - there were concerns aplenty going in; the pavement proved not to be any kind of issue. Though there were numerous yellows and several wrecks, the race if anything was noticeably less aggressive than some recent Pocono races (notably 2009 and 2010) had been.
**********
There were plenty of losers to sort through in this race.
LOSERS
DALE EARNHARDT JR. - His efforts have gotten gushing coverage, and he is solid in the points race. At Pocono he led, but as the race went on he seemed to get somewhat weaker. Finishing eighth is a solid effort but also a letdown given how he ran to the front, and it raises anew the question of why he's never able to go for a win even with consistent finishes.
NASCAR's PREPOSTEROUS CONTROL OVER PIT ROAD - NASCAR's rule closing pit road when the yellow comes out has always been a problem since debuting in late March 1989; it led to numerous pit crashes and eventually to the present system of pit speed limits. Those rules haven't prevented pit crashes since they debuted in 1991, and the epidemic of pit penalties in this race was worse than usual. Why NASCAR won't consider dropping the pit closure rule et al - basically going back to pit rules pre-1989, an era when pit road was safer than it's been since March 1989 - remains baffling and indefensible.
GREG BIFFLE AND KYLE BUSCH - both had engine issues.
PETTY MOTORSPORTS - Marcus Ambrose ran respectably but got a mediocre finish out of it. Aric Almirola clawed into top-ten contention, then seemed to throw it away on a restart where he fell out of the top-20, then crashed out. Richard Petty deserves much better than this.
SHORTENED DISTANCES - Mark Martin likely wanted another 50 to 100 miles for the race distance so he could get back at Logano. This first 400 miler for Pocono added nothing competitively to the racing, just as 400-mile distances have never added anything that 500 miles ostensibly do not have. 400 wasn't enough; 500 remains the better race.
So Pocono is a wrap and Michigan awaits.
WINNERS:
JOEY LOGANO - winning the race in and of itself is a huge development for a driver who has run poorly throughout his Cup career. The way he won, though, is also noteworthy, because he screwed up on the last restart where Mark Martin got the lead and appeared cemented to the win; Logano was able to run him down and take the lead late in the race.
MARK MARTIN - Finishing second after contending for the win is nothing to be ashamed of.
TONY STEWART - A superb finish after a very spotty portion of the season.
PAUL MENARD - A driver who frankly doesn't belong gave a decent effort.
JAMIE MCMURRAY - Solid outing after a rough run the last year-plus.
POCONO RACEWAY'S PAVEMENT - there were concerns aplenty going in; the pavement proved not to be any kind of issue. Though there were numerous yellows and several wrecks, the race if anything was noticeably less aggressive than some recent Pocono races (notably 2009 and 2010) had been.
**********
There were plenty of losers to sort through in this race.
LOSERS
DALE EARNHARDT JR. - His efforts have gotten gushing coverage, and he is solid in the points race. At Pocono he led, but as the race went on he seemed to get somewhat weaker. Finishing eighth is a solid effort but also a letdown given how he ran to the front, and it raises anew the question of why he's never able to go for a win even with consistent finishes.
NASCAR's PREPOSTEROUS CONTROL OVER PIT ROAD - NASCAR's rule closing pit road when the yellow comes out has always been a problem since debuting in late March 1989; it led to numerous pit crashes and eventually to the present system of pit speed limits. Those rules haven't prevented pit crashes since they debuted in 1991, and the epidemic of pit penalties in this race was worse than usual. Why NASCAR won't consider dropping the pit closure rule et al - basically going back to pit rules pre-1989, an era when pit road was safer than it's been since March 1989 - remains baffling and indefensible.
GREG BIFFLE AND KYLE BUSCH - both had engine issues.
PETTY MOTORSPORTS - Marcus Ambrose ran respectably but got a mediocre finish out of it. Aric Almirola clawed into top-ten contention, then seemed to throw it away on a restart where he fell out of the top-20, then crashed out. Richard Petty deserves much better than this.
SHORTENED DISTANCES - Mark Martin likely wanted another 50 to 100 miles for the race distance so he could get back at Logano. This first 400 miler for Pocono added nothing competitively to the racing, just as 400-mile distances have never added anything that 500 miles ostensibly do not have. 400 wasn't enough; 500 remains the better race.
So Pocono is a wrap and Michigan awaits.
Pocono Pavement Proves A Mixed Blessing
Pocono debuted its new pavement for Cup cars and it held up well. The Igdalskys never sweated over the repaved speedway and their faith was rewarded with a 400-mile race that produced a surprising winner and, despite the mini-epidemic of cautions that most tracks have not had in 2012, was fairly smooth.
If anything the action was noticeably less aggressive than one might have expected, especially after the opening lap melee and Dale Junior's risky three-wide pass on a mid-race restart. Pocono in 2009 and 2010 saw some of the most aggressive racing in NASCAR with numerous bouts of five-abreast racing up front (highlighted by a spirited Jeff Gordon-Juan Montoya-Denny Hamlin slugfest in 2010) and numerous wild crashes. That this Pocono 400 didn't quite reach that level of aggression was something of a letdown.
It helped illustrate that shorter races aren't better races. Pocono's 500s were among the sport's most competitive non-plate races; shortening the race didn't lead to harder racing; if anything one will find some views that an extra 50 to 100 miles would have made for a more exciting finish by alloweing Mark Martin (astonishingly winless at Pocono) some more opportunity to grab that win.
In all the new pavement was a success, and one hopes come August drivers start fighting harder up front.
If anything the action was noticeably less aggressive than one might have expected, especially after the opening lap melee and Dale Junior's risky three-wide pass on a mid-race restart. Pocono in 2009 and 2010 saw some of the most aggressive racing in NASCAR with numerous bouts of five-abreast racing up front (highlighted by a spirited Jeff Gordon-Juan Montoya-Denny Hamlin slugfest in 2010) and numerous wild crashes. That this Pocono 400 didn't quite reach that level of aggression was something of a letdown.
It helped illustrate that shorter races aren't better races. Pocono's 500s were among the sport's most competitive non-plate races; shortening the race didn't lead to harder racing; if anything one will find some views that an extra 50 to 100 miles would have made for a more exciting finish by alloweing Mark Martin (astonishingly winless at Pocono) some more opportunity to grab that win.
In all the new pavement was a success, and one hopes come August drivers start fighting harder up front.
Saturday, June 09, 2012
Pocono 400 Preview
Mike Mulhern previews the Pocono 400 with new pavement.
My Take: - Hitting 215 MPH as the Cup cars are now doing on the straights is never a good idea for racing. Grip levels are by all accounts good, and the Goodyear tires appear to be holding up. The ARCA cars will race on Saturday and they run Hoosiers, which have reacted differently with Goodyear rubber now laid down. Some drivers like Dale Junior and Greg Biffle are predicting five-abreast passes given the need to basically dive-bomb other cars with passing almost impossible in the sport in general and with this new pavement in particular; given that the 1996 Pocono 500 saw a large number of laps where the lead changed up to three times in one lap, there's some hope for a repeat of such in this 400-miler.
It's also Pocono's first 400 mile race after forty years running 500 milers. 400 is not enough; 500 remains a better race, a better test of racecar and racer and allows more passing. We hope Pocono reverts to 500 milers soon.
My Take: - Hitting 215 MPH as the Cup cars are now doing on the straights is never a good idea for racing. Grip levels are by all accounts good, and the Goodyear tires appear to be holding up. The ARCA cars will race on Saturday and they run Hoosiers, which have reacted differently with Goodyear rubber now laid down. Some drivers like Dale Junior and Greg Biffle are predicting five-abreast passes given the need to basically dive-bomb other cars with passing almost impossible in the sport in general and with this new pavement in particular; given that the 1996 Pocono 500 saw a large number of laps where the lead changed up to three times in one lap, there's some hope for a repeat of such in this 400-miler.
It's also Pocono's first 400 mile race after forty years running 500 milers. 400 is not enough; 500 remains a better race, a better test of racecar and racer and allows more passing. We hope Pocono reverts to 500 milers soon.
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