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.

2016 IndyCar Firestone 600k

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

Weekend Sees Kyle Larson-y

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2016 Rattlesnake Truck 400 - Texas Thriller

The Truck Series squared off at Texas Motor Speedway and witnessed one of the best battles for the lead of the year.

NASCAR Discussions Entering Texas

NASCAR's 2016 season now enters Bruton Smith's speed palace in the Dallas-Forth Worth area. Curiously overlooked is this marks the 20th season of Texas Motor Speedway, and the flying of time has made one forget the near-disasterous debut seasons for the track to where rumor of NASCAR quitting after 1998 seriously circulated. Texas hits with several issues jostling for attention - which seems par for the course of any NASCAR season.


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The Virginia 500 didn't see the on-air lobbying for NASCAR's low downforce package that previous races had seen, but Randy hallman at the Richmond Times-Dispatch and Tom Jensen at Fox Sports' NASCAR page authored pieces on the Martinsville race that basically lobbied for it anyway. Jensen in particular noted the varied battles outside the top five, presenting it as evidence of better racing. while Hallman made a thoughtful argument that NASCAR's short tracks have the best racing.

The argument about battles outside the top five is an old one and I remember it used to drive the late David Poole nuts; it drives me even more bonkers. The lead is the spot that matters; those battles outside the top five or top ten aren't supposed to be an end in themselves, they are supposed to part of the battle for the lead.

On the issue of short tracks, they are what NASCAR started on, but from the beginning the signature races for the Grand National series were the beach race at Daytona and the Southern 500 at Darlington; the building of Daytona International Speedway set off the big-track boom and the sport quickly evolved into a superspeedway league. Short tracks are great for local racing and the smaller tours like the Modifieds and the K&N Tours, but even in the Modifieds the signature races were long at the 1.5 mile Trenton Speedway, at Pocono on the 2.5-miler in the 1970s, and since 1990 at New Hampshire International/Motor Speedway. In the 1970s the Winston West tour's big races were at Ontario Motor Speedway and for awhile in recent years at Fontana.

Historically some 78 Winston Cup-Grand National races have broken 40 official lead changes, and just one - the 1991 Southeastern 500 at Bristol - was a short track. Talladega has broken that competitive barrier a whopping FORTY times (and for good measure the Busch/Xfinity Series broke that barrier there twice). Daytona broke the barrier thirteen times; Charlotte nine times, Pocono seven times, Michigan six times. Atlanta and Darlington broke that barrier once apiece, both times in 1982. And all these tracks plus Ontario Motor Speedway and the Fontana track have flirted with forty lead changes plenty of other times.

This isn't to say the short tracks haven't seen highly competitive races. Indeed the bullrings have quite often held their own competitively in their own way with the superovals. Martinsville broke 20 official lead changes for the first time in the 1980 Old Dominion 500 won by Dale Earnhardt. Geoff Bodine's 1992 Old Dominion 500 win was one of the nastiest races of the celebrated 1992 season. The Virginia 500 in 1998 and 1999 saw memorable nose-to-nose battles for the lead, both times involving John Andretti. Martinsville then broke 30 official lead changes for the first time in 2010's Virginia 500 won by Denny Hamlin when a late restart exploded into a three-abreast fight, while the 2014 (won by Kurt Busch) and 2015 (won by Hamlin) Virginia 500s put up some eye-popping numbers - a combined sixty-four lead changes.

Bristol began to establish itself as a must-see race first in the 1968 Southeastern 500 and a memorable duel between Richard Petty, Cale Yarborough, David Pearson, and Leeroy Yarbough where at times they were three wide for entire laps - such was that race that it was prominently featured on the Car & Track television series that season. The 1974 Volunteer 500, coming five years after the track was banked much higher for faster speeds, turned into a memorable event as Cale Yarborough led over 350 laps but Buddy Baker stormed to an upset bid; on the final lap Cale forearmed under Baker and swerved him to the Turn Four fencing for the win, which delighted Cale and Junior Johnson and left Baker and Bud Moore stewing.

Bristol turned the competitiveness up another notch in 1988's Southeastern 500 with Bill Elliott's comeback from getting spun out by Geoff Bodine; a year later the lead changed 34 times in the Southeastern 500 as Greg sacks led 119 laps but despite numerous saves couldn't sustain the lead and Rusty Wallace grabbed it; two years later came the 1991 race that broke 40 lead changes, again won by Wallace. The track's conversion to concrete took a lot of passing away, but work on the turns by 2010 brought back old-school battling for the lead there, as Jimmie Johnson won the Southeastern 500 in 2010 in a race that hit 29 official lead changes and numerous additional ones.

So there's certainly something to like in the short track portion of the Cup season. Ultimately the short tracks may not measure up to the best of the big tracks, but there is something competitively to them for the big leagues.


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It matters because as the Sports Media Watch site showed, NASCAR's TV ratings have been poor all season and not getting any better. The lobbying by NASCAR media for this low downforce rules package seemingly every race has gotten ridiculous and it's also not being honest with anyone. While there has been spots of decent racing, overall 2016 is proving anew why low downforce packages and high horsepower simply don't see better racing. Getting NASCAR's popularity back won't come overnight; it will take years. But NASCAR and its media first need to start being honest about things. Give us back the 40-plus lead change races the sport was built on; eliminate the Chase concept and give us back a points race that incentivizes winning and most laps led.


*****


The puzzling story that isn't going away is the story about whether Kevin Harvick is staying at Stewart-Haas Racing when it switches to Ford. Ford Motorsports chief Dave Pericak, who took the job at the start of 2015, stated flatly Harvick will be racing Fords in 2017. One would have thought this a done deal, yet the story that Chevrolet intends to grab Harvick and place him with Hendrick Motorsports in 2017 simply isn't going away, and it leaves me wondering if something indeed is going on behind the scenes.

A star driver suddenly switching teams or car makes isn't a new thing; controversy surrounding the switch isn't new, either, yet remains unusual, given the memory of the rancor that followed first the grabbing of Jeff Gordon by Chevrolet (what stood out most was Ford boss Michael Kranefuss' public anger at that) and the similar rancor when Rusty Wallace and Ricky Rudd switched to Fords for 1994 and made a point of ripping General Motors as basically crooks for their handling of racing, which led to a memorably sharp exchange of press releases before the 1994 season.


So that's how it is right now as Texas Motor Speedway beckons.

Monday Knights Logano At Texas

It's become a running joke in Winston Cup - if you're suffering a drought, then bring NASCAR to your region and the drought will end.   Rain has hit the majority of the first seven NASCAR weekends of the season and it was appropriate for Texas given the Duck Commander sponsorship.   The race nonetheless got in on Monday and Joey Logano swam to the win, his second with Penske Racing and where he led the most laps (108) of any of his four Winston Cup wins.   He had to sweat out an ill-timed late yellow that set up a green-white-checker finish, but on fresh tires he easily disposed of Jeff Gordon and also a wildcard bid by Brian Vickers.

So what to take out of this Texas 500?   Some observations -


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Not a banner weekend for Hendrick Motorsports or its Stewart-Haas satellite -  Gordon finished second and Tony Stewart finished tenth - other than that it wasn't much to feel good about for Hendrick Motorsports and Stewart-Haas.  Stewart led 74 laps but never seemed up to challenging again once he lost the lead.   Kevin Harvick's season has gotten worse since winning at Phoenix, Kurt Busch's season has never really gotten going even with the Martinsville win and third at Fontana, and Danica Patrick is getting worse, not better.   On the hendrick side, Dale Junior's Daytona win keeps fading in the rearview mirror of a 12th at Fontana, third at Martinsville, and finishes 24th or worse in two of his last four races.   Gordon and Johnson have run good, but not great, and Johnson suddenly isn't dodging the bullets he seemed to dodge in his title heyday, while Kasey Kahne has almost fallen off the map.



So when does the series get a repeat winner? - So far seven drivers have won the first seven races, and there are suddenly more than expected in terms of potential winners.  The Hendrick fleet is what they are, so keep an eye there.    Brad Keselowski has curiously faltered in terms of finishes since Vegas but showed real hustle at Texas despite hood damage from one of the jet dryers (insert your own Juan Montoya joke here).   There remains the JGR Toyotas, which showed some return to competitive form at Texas.   There is also the Ganassi/SABCO pair, as Kyle Larson is running away with top rookie honors and contending for even more.

Among the darker horses, more and more Richard Petty's team is making a case for itself as it starts developing its own adjustments to its racecars and Trent Owens steadily proves himself a star of the future among crew chiefs. 

Curiously quiet have been Richard Childress and Roush Fenway - since Carl Edwards' Bristol win the Roush fleet has managed just one top ten finish, while RCR looks lost as an organization - that Austin Dillon's crew chief acknowledged during the race to running conservative setups, right or not, isn't the ringing endorsement of Dillon that he needs, and you cannot be a credible team with the worthless Paul Menard leading the way in top ten finishes for your organization. 



Tires an issue - or not - Tires were a controversy before the race and there were several tire issues during it, but overall it was a quiet day for Goodyear.   Given Goodyear's history, though, at some point later this year tires will become an issue again.



There was a Trevor Bayne sighting - Trevor put the Wood Brothers #21 in the top-seven in qualifying and ran okay for awhile.   It remains curious nothing more consistent has been assembled for Trevor and the Woods.



So it goes with Texas now a wrap and the Southern 500 beckoning this Saturday before the Eastern bye week.

From Martinsville To Texas

Something is going on here.

The Virginia 500 at Martinsville saw several eye-opening angles - the sixth straight winner in Winston Cup, a redemption win for Kurt Busch - his first in Winston Cup since the 2011 Delaware 400 and first in any race since the 2012 Firecracker 250 in the Busch Series - memorable efforts by AJ Allmendinger and Kyle Larson, and heartwarming efforts by Richard Petty's team in the wake of the passing of matriarch Lynda Petty.  

With all that we head next to Texas Motor Speedway, and there are several angles worth touching on entering the 2014 Alamo 500 -



** To begin with we have the issue of tires at Fontana and criticism by Jeff Gordon after Fontana and entering Texas.    The Fontana fiasco had numerous angles and Goodyear indeed warrants criticism - something too many in the sport go out of their way to avoid.   We also nonetheless saw some very good racing at Fontana and if Goodyear can fix some of the issues incurred at Fontana that can blunt some of the criticism.


** We also have seen a surprising upsurge in lead changes lately - Fontana and Martinsville combined for 68 lead changes - 33 is unheard-of for Martinsville - and it is exactly the kind of racing the sport needs to have; if anything the more lead changes the better, and one can actually believe more races will now break 40.   NASCAR gets and deserves a lot of criticism, but right now the competition package is working.


**A team that isn't getting much going right now is Joe Gibbs Racing.   Despite the win at Fontana, JGR has been decidedly mediocre to date in 2014.   Matt Kenseth has been the lead dog, posting top tens in the last two races.  

JGR's mediocre season is reflective of Toyota's increasingly-discouraging lack of competitive depth.   None of the other Toyotas are performing and the brand more and more needs to acquire more teams.


** Despite a poor finish, Kyle Larson is routing Austin Dillon in the rookie race, posting the runner-up at Fontana contrasting with one measely top-ten for Dillon; Dillon is living up to a reputation as the anti-intimidator, as his racing is passive and indifferent compared to the fight Larson shows.   The downside is it's not doing anything for Ganassi/SABCO teammate Jamie McMurray, who's looked a little lost this season.


** As Austin Dillon stumbles forward, the scariest part for RCR is Paul Menard, a guy with more sponsorship than talent, is leading the team in performance.   Suddenly this isn't looking like a promising year for the team.


** Richard Petty Motorsports usually pulls something decent out of Martinsville and here got both cars running strongly.   Though still subpar on the intermediates where they need to be good, the Petty team nonetheless is showing substantial improvement with new crew chief Trent Owens.   The pain of losing the matriarch won't go away; the determination to win looks like it won't, either.


** Suddenly Penske Racing doesn't look that good.   Joey Logano posted a solid finish and his status as the real top dog at Penske looks more and more solid; Brad Keselowski meanwhile crashed on pit road and was livid at Kurt Busch about it as he has plummeted from leading the points to seventh and has just one top-20 finish since winning at Vegas. 


** FOX Sports did a puff piece defending Danica Patrick by citing "baby steps" in improving finishes.   Martinsville was one of her better tracks last year, and she qualified tenth - then was never heard from again.   Whatever these numbers the piece cited are, they're not an accurate barometer of her success.


** Largely lost in the shuffle has been a very encouraging year for AJ Allmendinger, posting back-to-back top-11 finishes for Brad Daugherty's team.  


** Finally, Dale Junior leads the points standings.   Imagine the outcry if he loses the championship because of the Chase's repeated points reracks - actually it's easy to imagine that scenario since it's how the Chase concept has gone the whole time.



So it's off to Texas.