 |
| |
|
 |
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
West coast offense Tradition to suffer as shakeup shifts race to CaliforniaPosted: Monday June 16, 2003 6:09 PMUpdated: Tuesday June 17, 2003 11:44 AM
Realignment is upon us! After months of speculation and hemming and hawing, Rockingham is losing a race and Darlington is losing Labor Day to California. The California race will be televised in prime time. You know, what would have been cooler than showing the Southern 500 on Labor Day weekend live in prime time? (I know, Darlington doesn't have lights. But if we can put a man on the moon, we can put light towers up in the Piedmont Delta. Probably.) We'd be able to show the whole country the rich tradition of the sport, a great race at a quaint old track. Instead, it's going to be a ho-hum race in California. GM's marketing manager said this about the move: "We're excited about picking up a second event at California, which is a huge automotive market for General Motors. Locally, it gives our Western Region and our local dealers another opportunity to leverage one of the premier motorsports events on the West Coast, and our track affiliation provides the opportunity to leverage both at-track and in-market with promotional activity." I understand the need for progress and growth, but throwing away 50 years of tradition for "leverage" opportunities is a bit extreme.
We've got a couple this week. Stephen from Alameda asks a simple question: "Why does NASCAR insist on having 42 [actually 43] cars in every field? With the 6 'provisionals,' it seems to leave at most only 1 or 2 cars that don't make the field. If you are not quick enough to qualify in the first 36 spots, you shouldn't be in the field. Also, how in the world does NASCAR award prize money for the race? When I review the race results in the Monday papers, the relative amounts of money awarded don't seem to make much sense." Stephen, it's all quite simple. It's 43 cars because more cars in the field means more teams getting paid, which means more teams are happy. Why 43? Got me. I'm sure someone will tell me, though. As for the provisionals, you can't have someone like Matt Kenseth missing the field. Though that would make things interesting. As for the payout -- my understanding is that drivers fall into different categories based on where they finished in the points standings the previous year. So, for instance, two weeks ago when Dale Jarrett finished 42nd at Pocono, but he still made $87,000, while Larry Foyt, who is a rookie, made less than half that for finishing one spot ahead of DJ. Why? Jarrett was ninth in the points last year, while Foyt is a rookie. Hope that helps. Meanwhile, Michelle from Terre Haute is wondering "Why all the uproar about Toyota, a foreign carmaker entering the NASCAR fray? Isn't Dodge a part of DaimlerChrysler, a German-held company?" Well, I went to DaimlerChrysler's website, and the company's info was readily accessible if you clicked on the link that reads "Unternehmensinformationen." Seriously. I always thought that was German for "Why is that man wearing those lederhosen on the bus?" Guess not. Anyhoo, the company has headquarters in Auburn Hills, where Dodge's racing operation is based, but their registered office headquarters are, in fact, Stuttgart. The difference is, of course, that Dodge has always been an American brand. Chrysler and Daimler merged in '98. So Dodge can point to its place in American automotive history (not to mention racing history), while Toyota has only recently been building cars entirely in the States. Still, I'm a little curious what would have happened if Dodge had re-entered NASCAR without any history -- i.e., if its first NASCAR program had been undertaken after they were acquired by Daimler. Then it would have been a more similar situation. And finally, Jenks from Queens (and Tungsten 74, whose CD review inspired one very mean-spirited e-mail from some guy named Justin with nothing better to do than complain about Tungsten 74 CD reviews-wait til next week, when State 4's latest offering gets reviewed; I'm doing it primarily to make Justin mad) poses a question to you: Who's your favorite underdog? T74's is Tony Raines, who Jenks asserts is every bit as good a driver as Mike Skinner, who, at least for now, has a sponsor. Mine is Ricky Craven, which you should know if you are one of my seven regular readers. So who is it?
Sonoma, which means the road course specialists are out in full-force. Boris Said, P.J. Jones and Ron Fellows will be in the house. The smart money is going to be on Jeff Gordon, who had a streak of six straight road course wins snapped by Steve Park, of all people, in 2000. Robby Gordon also has the road-course rep, and Tony Stewart has been good for one win on a course with right hand turns the past couple of years. I'd love a Boris Said win, but I think I'm backing Jeff Gordon.
Mark Bechtel covers NASCAR for Sports Illustrated and SI.com.
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
