NASCAR Entering The Firecracker 400

NASCAR ended the first half of the 2016 season with a surprising result at Sears Point and now it enters the second half across the country back at Daytona. 





Tony Stewart's win was unexpected given he hadn't won in three years and frankly looked like a driver with one foot out the racecar for good.   But like Jeff Gordon in 2015 he goes out with at least one win.  

Stewart's win will be the headline story entering the Firecracker 400 weekend and the sport as usual has a number of issues to look at for this race as well as some bottom lines established in a season considered pivotal in some circles with the rule changes made to bolster sagging popularity.

A look at the varied angles entering Daytona -

Will the rain actually stay away this time? - the Firecracker weekend has been plagued with rain two straight seasons now.


Stewart-Haas gathers momentum against Hendrick, JGR, and Penske - Since Martin Truex exterminated the competition at Charlotte, SHR has won two of the last three races, a surprising development with the switchover to Ford for 2017.   Speaking of Ford, SHR's future nameplate allies Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano have combined for three wins to go with two Hendrick wins, both by Jimmie Johnson.

This leaves JGR's Toyotas with seven wins and the Barney Vissar #78 with the Charlotte win, though the rule changes at Charlotte curiously have seen a bit of a slip for JGR ensue. 

And with those four, it's left nothing for anyone else.  Kyle Larson turned heads with three top-fives and 103 laps led in Ganassi's #42 Chevrolet, but is 20th in points despite finishing in the top-15 more frequently in recent races.    That's been it as far as any kind of darkhorse.  RCR, Roush, and Petty are going nowhere and the season shows no evidence any darkhorse will emerge. 



The Five Best races this year prove NASCAR's low downforce package can't be called a success - The five best races this year in chronological order - The Nextera Truck 250 at Daytona, the ARCA General Tire 200 at Talladega, the Toyota Truck 250 at Kansas, the Indianapolis 500, the Rattlesnake Truck 400k at Texas.   In all the battle for the lead was huge, at times unusually physical.  Daytona's Truck 250 saw its most competitive running (26 official lead changes) since 2002.  The ARCA Talladega 200-miler was almost a continuous sidedraft war for the lead.  The Indianapolis 500 exploded to 54 lead changes, the fifth straight 500 to hit 34 and above and the second in four years to break 50.  The Trucks at Kansas and Texas were side-by-side for the lead for prolonged stretches, and Kansas in particular was a physical race where the leaders crashed on the final lap. 

For good measure Indy Lights at the Brickyard saw a spirited fight for the lead in the Freedom 100 and ended in a photo finish, this for racecars running at speeds much closer to what NASCAR runs there than what Indycars hit.   And ARCA's Daytona 200 was a calm race but also saw a surprising and spirited 13-lap sidedraft fight for first.

And the common denominator to all of these races - the racecars are secure to the racetrack; they do not have more power than what the track can handle relative to how much grip the cars have; they have enough tire to race hard on without having to "catch" the car. 

NASCAR has promoted the hell out of its low downforce package and in the last month has worked on the undersides of the racecars to attack chassis "skew" and reduce downforce more.   And it hasn't worked.   Driver praise of the feel of the racecars tries to obscure the obvious - the racing just isn't there.   The one memorable Cup race so far was Dover, thanks to a surprisingly forgiving tire, one that evoked memory of the bias-ply days when the drivers had more tire footprint and teams didn't need "skew" or excessive camber and all the other tricks for grip necessitated by a radial tire that refuses to be forgiving. 

The upshot is also that since the finish of the 2015 Daytona 500 the racing at the plate tracks hasn't been as good as it should be, either.   The 500 this year was lethargic until Kevin Harvick blasted Denny Hamlin into the lead on the final lap.   The Winston 500 was better, but it was too hard to pass and too hard to push-draft there as well.   The Xfinity series at both tracks likewise was less than competitive by Daytona-Talladega standards.

It all shows NASCAR - yet again - has it wrong.


With 200 MPH the cars are not staying on the ground - Talladega saw three cars get off the ground and a lot of gnashing ensued about it, with seemingly no one noticing this is happening with the speeds over 200 MPH again.   People are still spooked over Austin Dillon's crash at the Firecracker - at about 3 in the morning - and they should be; so why is NASCAR letting the cars reach 200 again?  Haven't we seen that 190 is enough?


The most competitive NASCAR series is the Truck Series - And the Truck Series is seeing the emergence of a new star in William Byron.  Driving for Kyle Busch, Byron started slowly with mediocre or worse efforts at Daytona and Atlanta, then exploded after a third at Martinsville to seize the Toyota Truck 250 at Kansas - 

NASCAR's newest rising star - William Byron

Following Kansas Byron stormed to wins at Texas and Iowa and has led 299 laps so far.  


Meanwhile another Kyle Busch Toyota broke through at Gateway in Christopher Bell, who started the year bending over backwards at Daytona and has been curiously erratic between one win and four other top-tens amid two wrecks and one engine failure.

Christopher Bell's star-crossed season started with a bang at Daytona.


The series has also seen old pros Johnny Sauter in Maury Gallagher's Chevrolet and Matt Crafton in the Duke Thorson/Curb Motorsports Toyota grab victories; for Crafton the season has been doubly bittersweet after the fire that gutted the primary Thorsport race shop in mid-season.


The Xfinity Series trudges on - Bled dry by nearly two decades of Cup driver pillaging of its purses, the former Busch Series nonetheless this year saw two surprises - Daniel Suarez's shocking upset of Kyle Busch at the Michigan 250 and Sam Hornish's win at Iowa.  Returning to JGR on an emergency basis, Hornish cleaned house at Iowa for his first Xfinity win since 2014 at this same track.  

Hornish's win was one of a surprising five by non-Cup drivers in the Xfinity series this year.  Erik Jones has two wins so far while Elliott Sadler in the mess of Talladega in April has the win Brennan Poole was supposed to have.   Other than that it's more Cup more of the time.

And for Funny Comedy Gags, consider John Wes Townley and Spencer Gallagher's imitation of a hockey game at Gateway. 


So it goes entering the Firecracker 400 weekend.

No, NASCAR's 2016 5&5 Rule Won't Work

As the 2016 Winston Cup media tour proceeds we've had several pieces lauding the low downforce package for the Cup cars to be used this coming season, from the likes of USA Today (here from latter October of 2015) and from Carl Edwards during the 2016 Media Tour as he laid out three reasons why the low downforce package will be better. Tony Stewart also touched on this in a Dave Moody interview critical of Brian France's aloofness from garage areas - at Pocono in 2015 Stewart says Brian France "gave me a hard time" for lobbying for lower downforce as Gene Stefanyshyn lobbied for higher downforce.

What is always missed in these discussions is that history has already proven low downforce doesn't work, a fact Stewart seemed oblivious to in his shots at Stefanyshyn's racing credentials during his interview, illustrating that credentials doesn't always mean command of the facts.  The first version of the 5&5 Rule debuted in 1998.   It was designed to lower downforce and thus reduce corner speeds - the rationale cited was the same then as it is now - and increase passing, it accomplished neither, to where late that season Terry Labonte publicly stated the package had made the racing boring, and NASCAR dropped it in November.  

Downforce increased.   In August-September 1999 Goodyear made a tire change to a compound designed to battle Hoosier in Winston West racing; it had more stagger and debuted at Michigan.

Late in that 1999 Yankee 400 the battle for the lead swelled into a spirited nose to nose fight reminiscent of Michigan of old - i.e. of the bias-ply tire era.


Another heated battle for the lead developed at the Delaware 400 at Dover that September.  But by 2001-3 Goodyear was running a much harder tire compound.  In 2004, after heavy lobbying from Rusty Wallace and after John Darby took over the garage area, NASCAR tried the 5&5 Rule again and doggedly kept it, via multiple spoiler reductions to go with some three Darby-mandated swaybar changes and resultant changes by Goodyear to tires - and it all accomplished nothing.   The COT then debuted in 2007 as a low downforce concept - and failed.  

Drivers lauded NASCAR after the races at Kentucky and Darlington because they ran low downforce - yet passing didn't improve.  Neither race stood out for anything - Kentucky didn't approach any kind of record for lead changes in 2015 - it had thirteen official and nine unofficial; in 2011 it had twenty official.   Darlington saw 24 lead changes in 2015, not exactly a significant upgrade over the 21 lead changes of 2011's running with high downforce or even 2014's running that saw 22.  

And criticism of the high downforce package used at Indianapolis and Michigan in the summer of 2015 ignored the real problems with passing - the cars still have too much horsepower (by well over 300) and the tire used simply isn't sufficient for grip; the fact the cars never stalled out in traffic as opposed to with low downforce ought to be recognized as a manifest positive.   Contrast this with the Truck series and the epic Kasey Kahne-Erik Jones sidedraft battle in 2015 with a tire that gripped well enough that they could lean hard and fight thusly - it raced more like old bias-plies than radials, notorious for needing to catch the car instead of race it.   The Trucks are also high downforce vehicles.  

What remains the truth is that underpowered and overgripped racecars have produced the most lead changes, be it Indycar or Indy Lights on the superovals, the NASCAR Modifieds at New Hampshire, the Trucks on big tracks, and in restrictor plate racing - the 80 lead changes at the Cal Indy 500 at Fontana would not have been possible with lower downforce; neither would the Erik Jones-Kasey Kahne shootout last May.

Making the same mistakes made in 1998, 2004, and beyond won't make the racing better, and NASCAR needs to know better - still.  Racing is about lead changes, not throttle control.  It's about not having to catch a racecar, not about struggling to handle. 


A superb insight is provided in a question asked by veteran NASCAR writer Mike Mulhern - what is the over-under on the first rule change for 2016?

NASCAR's Wrongheaded Ethic Strikes Again

NASCAR now has a new rule - or a renewed emphasis on an existing one - whereby it requires drivers to stay in their racecars after an accident. It typifies NASCAR's ethic of "there ought to be a rule" against something, much like the absurdly common refrain "there ought to be a law." But as is so often the case with NASCAR, the new rule is based on a fundamentally flawed premise.

As Road And Track shows, these stay-in-your-car rules simply don't work. The scenario of a new rule solving nothing and instead creating more problems is a scenario we've usually seen from NASCAR over the years, notably with its preposterous "safety" rules for pit road stemming from a problem NASCAR itself created - closing pit road beginning in March 1989 that created more pit crashes, a result never made better by subsequent pit speed limit rules.   We also saw this with NASCAR's ridiculous out-of-bounds rule and freezing the field, neither of which has made anything safer (see the Ryan Newman crash at Watkins Glen for the continued worthlessness of freezing the field).

The new rule comes from the Tony Stewart disaster with Kevin Ward, and the approach of adding a new rule shows a bigger problem - the refusal of racing to hold someone accountable.   The solution to this particular issue is not - and never will be - adding a new rule.   The solution is to hold the responsible driver accountable, and it is Tony Stewart.  

NASCAR needs to be taking away rules, not adding new ones.   Pit road needs to revert to the rule package of 1988 and before - pit road stays open at all times, drivers enter and exit when they want, at what speed they want, and they must pay attention to where pit crewmen are; this was fundamentally a safer environment than the one that has been prevalent the last 25 years.   Take away out-of-bounds lines and let the racers race back to the line when the caution comes out; freezing the field has not prevented one crash.   Don't legislate when drivers can exit their racecars; if something like what Tony Stewart did happens again, then hold the specific driver accountable. 

NASCAR's Eye-Popping Year, And It Isn't Over Yet

NASCAR has struggled in the last decade and plus as its popularity has declined and the costs and absurdity of its economics have taken a toll on raceteams and speedways.   2014 was promised to be something different with yet another wrinkle to Brian France's absurd Chase format.  

Yet as the NASCAR tour heads to Michigan International Speedway for the Yankee 400, the stunning win by AJ Allmendinger over Marcos Ambrose and the ferocity of the racing at Watkins Glen - not to mention the ferocity of the numerous crashes - have made one reflect that this season has turned into one that has genuine reason to be remembered.  

The sport's most popular driver is Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Junior has finally found the groove in his racing career that's been missing.  He's raced to win, and has won three times, from the Daytona 500 through his sweep of Pocono, the first driver to do the Tim Richmond sweep since Denny Hamlin.  And once again the Hendrick Motorsports juggernaut has won a lot, highlighted also by Jeff Gordon's resurgance to reach 90 wins - though chronic back issues have plagued Gordon recently.

And Gordon's back hasn't been the biggest story at the Hendrick shop - Jimmie Johnson's campaign for the seventh series title has been bombed like the PLO by crashes and mechanical failures, and suddenly the #48 team that looked a Cup title lock no longer is. 

While Hendrick has run up more wins, the resurgance the sport has seen - and needed - has been from Richard Petty's organization.   Aric Almirola's surge to competitive legitimacy has been striking and the return of the #43 to the Firecracker 400 victory 30 years after the STP Pontiac's historic triumph has only been liberating.   A NASCAR season where Earnhardt Junior is winning has certainly benefitted the sport; that same season seeing Richard Petty's team winning again is the ultimate fusion of the old guard and the new - a fusion that is only right.

Watkins Glen brought these trains of thought on a curious collision course as multiple melees affected the field and put a damper on a stunning slugfest of a finish between Petty's #9 car of Marcos Ambrose and the Brad Daugherty #47 driven by Petty's former driver in AJ Allmendinger.   Coming after Ambrose drove a Petty car to win the Busch Series 200 the day before, the weekend was a Petty-themed weekend the sport hasn't seen to this level in many, many years.  

And the finish at Watkins Glen brought out some of the vinegar seen in other races, such as the two Daytona races, Talladega, and the NASCAR Modifieds at New Hampshire, races where passing and repassing were the focal point and the winner got the win by outfighting the field.



*****

Yet hanging over everything was the ugliness of an upstate dirt track set-to between Tony Stewart and local racer Kevin Ward where Stewart ran over Ward and thus took his life.   It brought out the uglier side of recent NASCAR history and the surge to success of drivers displaying the kind of irresponsible deportment that leads to situations like what happened the night before the Watkins Glen NASCAR GP.   Drivers getting out of their cars to call out those who raced them dirty is universal to racing, and cars calmly drive by even when helmets are thrown at windshields - or even when we see situations such as at Stafford Speedway years back where a driver hammered by another car jumped onto the hood of the offending car trying to get the ignition wires.   That Stewart did not calmly drive by with enough opportunity to do so is the gravely disturbing reality of this situation - one simply cannot concoct a scenario exonerating Stewart here, though it hasn't stopped multiple forums from being filled with nonsensical condemnation of Ward for walking toward Stewart's car.

Even if running over the other driver was indeed accidental, Stewart is still guilty of gross stupidity in not paying enough attention to see Ward walking onto the racetrack - as other cars did in calmly driving by him without any harm.  And it bears remembering it began with a hard sideswipe by Stewart that took out Ward's racecar.   Slide job crashes are not uncommon in dirt racing - or even asphalt oval track racing for that matter - but most are not malicious.   Stewart's history, though, carries a malicious quality to wrecks in which he's been involved.    And NASCAR's recent generation of racers has seen numerous others who display a similar level of psychotic quality to their racing - Carl Edwards and his numerous crashes, notably his savagery in encounters with Brad Keselowski; Joey Logano and the 2009 Irwindale melee that has carried over at times to his Cup career (notably the Fontana crash with Denny Hamlin); the Busch brothers, widely hated by fans for derangement spanning years; even Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson have displayed heavy rap sheets of tearing up someone else's sheetmetal.

And there is the overlooked fact his Winston Cup raceteam issued a statement early Sunday morning that Stewart would race and it was "business as usual," a statement that raised eyebrows on such non-racing forums as WEEI Radio in Boston.   It was around noon that Stewart announced he would withdraw from the race and Regan Smith would take over the #14 that Sunday.   That timeline looks suspicious, like Stewart was going to race as though nothing had happened and had to be persuaded at the last hour not to go through with it.

In the past the likes of Ernie Irvan and Ricky Rudd were drivers under the microscope following brutal on-track set-tos; the upshot is Irvan wound up paying the price as his own injuries ultimately ended his career.   One now wonders if Tony Stewart pays some price, not in injury but in the cloud that will hang over him now.  


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With the Yankee 400 at Michigan the sport returns to the big tracks still grappling with the technology arms race and its harmful effect on passing - ironically shown in a recent K&N series race at Iowa Speedway (won by Brandon Jones, who looks all of thirteen years of age even though he's older) where the cars, running on bias ply tires instead of radials, were four abreast for the lead in a wild ten-lap battle to the finish.   Should Michigan see racing like this the sport will take another step forward in making itself better.  

And it will showcase how a season already shocking isn't over yet.

Tony Stewart In Big Trouble

Tony Stewart is in huge trouble after this crash and follow-up encounter at a New York dirt track the night before the Watkins Glen demolition derby.   Having followed Stewart since his USAC days, I've always sensed a psychotic streak in him and his wrecks, explosions of anger, and occasional fits of buck-passing in postrace interviews always gave me the sense of someone who didn't like accountability.  

What matters the most is remembering Kevin Ward, the sprint car racer killed in this ugly brouhaha.   His family has now come out against Stewart, this amid absurd alibis offered on multiple forums.   NASCAR beat writer Tom Sorenson acknowledges the open secret of Stewart's temper, where I would go further - Stewart is psychotic.

MRN racecaster Dave Moody authors this defense of Stewart where he proclaims, "nothing in his background......rises to the level of intentionally striking a fellow racer" who is on foot with his racecar. "Tony Stewart is no killer."  Perhaps this is what Stewart defenders are truly afraid of - that one of NASCAR's greatest racers really is no better than OJ Simpson.   The idea that Stewart would stoop that low clearly is too much for many to believe.   But the reality of the incident and Stewart's overall background leaves it impossible to credibly absolve him, and the absurdity of the attempts in numerous quarters to somehow palm off blame onto Kevin Ward is truly repellant.  

Perhaps people need to change their opinion and face that one of NASCAR's greatest racers really isn't any better than OJ Simpson.