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Livin' large in Las Vegas
Posted: Monday March 06, 2000 12:42 PM Sports Illustrated motorsports writer Mark Bechtel will answer your questions every Friday. Click here to send a question. This week Bechtel is in Las Vegas to cover the Carsdirect.com 400 at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Ah, Vegas. Never been here before, but I'm mesmerized by it. Seems like every casino is based on a city: New York, Paris, New Orleans, just to name a few. It's like heaven for really lazy would-be globetrotters. My personal favorite so far is the Venetian, which has canals and gondolas and everything else one associates with that lovely Renaissance city, Venice -- plus it also has a lot of flashing lights and scantily clad waitresses. The tables there treated me O.K., and I received one of those little cards they give you so you can get food comped. It says "Venetian Player's Club" on it, and on at least three separate occasions I made some crack about how I'm pretty sure the original "Venetian Player" was Titian. Each time I was met with looks of derision. Apparently nobody at a blackjack table wants to hear me crack wise about painters who may or may not be from Venice. (I think he was.) Speaking of derision, for the second week in a row I've been dissed in my own Mailbag. Last week's was a gentle gibe from an old friend, but this week things got a little nastier, as Frank Rovello of Danbury, Conn., took me to task for writing that Bill Elliott had a bad showing at the Daytona 500. "BAD SHOWING???," he wrote. "Third place is a bad showing? What planet do you come from? You obviously know not of what you write." Normally if heckled I'd fire off a witty retort -- O.K., maybe it wouldn't be so witty -- but this time I've got to admit that Frank's right. What I meant, and should have explained, was that Elliott had to be disappointed he fell so far off the pace so early, which I think hurt him. That was the disappointing aspect I was referring to, not his finish. I certainly meant no offense to Bill, or fans of the 94 car. (By the way, the answer to Frank's other question is "earth.") Why is Darrell Waltrip struggling so hard with the same equipment as Spencer
and Yates motors? With all of his experience, he should be doing at least as
well as Earnhardt or Elliot. Dave Marcis did better on his own. How many
provisionals can he use besides "past champion"
provisionals? Dottie, first of all, it's great to finally get some questions from the fairer sex here in the Mailbag. Things can get a little too testosterone-y if we don't watch it. Good to hear from you. Having said that, the difference between a great Winston Cup driver and an average one is incredibly minuscule, and I think what's setting Darrell back is the fact that as he's getting up there in years, he seems to have lost that tiny edge. The provisional system is incredibly complex. Drivers get eight (so long as they aren't in the top 25 in owner's points, but that's a discussion for another day), and since DW used 20 past champion provisionals in `98, NASCAR changed the rules so that the past champ provisionals count against a driver's eight. Why does NASCAR allow caution laps to count with 10 or fewer laps
left?
Good question, and you weren't the only one to ask. Personally, I think it's O.K. for a race to end under caution. The Daytona 500 should be 500 miles long. Everyone knows it going in, and if the last lap is run under yellow, so be it. It's certainly not an exciting way to end a race, but it just doesn't seem right to change the dynamics of a race on the fly. Plus, what if you have a situation where one guy is running away from the field, and then there's a late wreck? Why take that lead away from him and force him to work overtime in a five- or 10-lap shootout? No one should lose a 500-mile race on the 502nd mile. Do you think others are using Target Ganassi, the latest addition to the 500,
to "test the waters" this year? Or do they not have the money to field
a car there? I think Bobby Rahal's sponsor put the skids to his commitment. Are
there a lot of sponsors who don't want the teams to go there and
race? Tough question. It's not easy to read the minds of the CART folks, but it seems like if they really didn't want anyone crossing over to race at Indy, they wouldn't have left a two-week window around Memorial Day in their schedule. As for other roadblocks, it's largely the engine suppliers (Ford and Mercedes) who don't want their teams using other equipment to race in the 500. Ganassi gets his CART engines from Toyota and says they told him to go ahead and race at the Brickyard. Let's just hope there comes a day soon when we can talk about the Indy 500 and not have to worry about things like this. Did you see all the empty seats at Rockingham? When will NASCAR realize it is
pricing the average fan out of the
loop?
Yeah, NASCAR's not exactly giving it away, are they? But there's a tradeoff that comes with a sport gaining popularity. They can charge an arm and leg, and in most cases get it. It's the price NASCAR fans pay, literally, for being as loyal and rabid as they are. What engine will be used in the Dodge cars next year when they start racing?
Will it be a Chrysler product? Or some other make of
engine?
Grant, under the hood of each and every sporty Intrepid will be a Dodge V-8 racing engine. I was watching the race at Rockingham, and I enjoyed that race more than the
Daytona 500, when the Fords dominated the Chevys and Pontiacs. I think if the
Chevys and Pontiacs stayed on the track they could have had a chance to be
competitive with the Fords. Do you think maybe the wind-tunnel test will help
solve the problem? Perhaps the drivers and tire wear are the problem?
Thanks.
Who knows? Daytona is something of an aberration, with the restrictor plates and all. On the shorter tracks, different characteristics come into play. You mentioned two big ones: tire strategy and flat-out driving ability, and that makes for more exciting racing. Once we get a couple of races under our belts, I'm guessing all the wind-tunnel talk will die down. It's just incredibly significant at Daytona, because if one model has just the tiniest edge, it gets magnified a ton. Click here to send a question to Mark Bechtel.
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