|
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE |  |
Adam Petty will be missed
Posted: Friday May 19, 2000 03:56 PM
Sports Illustrated motor sports writer Mark Bechtel will answer your questions every Friday. Click here to send him a question. Well, it's the end of a pretty bad week for race fans everywhere. I only spoke with Adam Petty a couple of times, but it was obvious he was about as close to a normal 19-year-old kid as you could find. He didn't try to come off as mature beyond his years, and he didn't take himself too seriously. He did take his racing seriously, though, and if you throw all those traits into a pot and let them simmer, in a couple of years you would have had the typical Petty male: heck of a race car driver, heck of a person. He will be missed. (If anyone would like to send his or her condolences to the Petty family, an address has been set up: adamcondolences@cybertrack.com) On to the mailbag, which opens with the longest letter we've received to date. And there's a lesson to be learned: shower me with praise (or at least say something nice about me), and the chances we answer your letter are excellent. (Sarcasm is also a plus.) Here we go:
Surprise, surprise: two more races have been added to the Winston Cup schedule. What are these guys complaining about? They have to work 43 weeks a year? Thirty-six race days, seven test dates (sponsor commitments not included-- and most tests are done mid-week). Last I checked there were 52 weeks on the calendar -- and the average fan works 50 of those with a few long weekends thrown in. Tell a guy making $50,000 a year working six days a week that 43 weeks is overkill. Boo hoo! I feel for the crew guys and "the guys back at the shop." "Race-team member" is not one of the jobs you take because you could not find anything else to support your family. I feel more for my girlfriend, who has to endure two more weeks of me sitting on the couch all Sunday afternoon. [There's your "kick me here" sentence Bechtel! I enjoy your CNNSI.com column. Keep up the smart work.] Dan, thanks for the letter, and special thanks for including the "kick me here" sentence. It makes things a whole lot easier for me, not having to figure out the best place to do my booting. I agree with you, for the most part. The schedule is definitely a drain on drivers, but they are very well compensated (for the most part). One thing to remember, though. Even if you've got a cushy job, the natural reaction when someone tells you that you're going to have to work longer hours is to go, "Oh, man." And driving a race car isn't something I'd want to do if I was feeling a little strung out. As for the guys in the shop, most owners figure that they are going to have to hire a couple more guys to keep churning cars out each week, so there should be some relief for those guys. And now my question for you: Where'd you find a girl in New York City who lets you sit around and watch races all day? Does she have a sister?
One thing that bothers me about most oval-track racing is the number of yellow flags. They bunch up the field, so any time there is someone significantly faster than the rest of the field, a yellow flag ensures that the driver will never get out of reach. Maybe that makes for an exciting spectacle for the fan, but it feels artificial. Can you think of any way to alleviate the problem? It's too bad when the guy with clearly the best car gets caught because the caution comes out. Just ask Matt Kenseth, who had the California race in the bag until the yellow came out late. His car was great on long runs, but didn't handle well enough on the short runs for him to get his first win. There's really no way around it, but you can find some good in it. When the yellow comes out late, it sets up some exciting shootout finishes. And it also forces teams to perform well in the pits, and allows them gamble with fuel and tire strategies.
Why don't they do away with the restrictor plates at the big tracks and mandate a really high rear-end ratio instead? It seems like that would put the slingshot back into the sport. Very good point, Mickey. A lot of people out there (like Jack Roush) wish that they could use aero techniques to slow the cars down instead of having to use restrictor plates. In addition to keeping speeds down, the plates take throttle response away from cars, making it almost impossible to pass. Geoffrey Bodine's horrible wreck notwithstanding, the best race at Daytona was easily the truck race. The reason is that because the trucks are so boxy, they don't need plates to slow them down. As a result, we saw plenty of passing and a really entertaining race. After the race at Talladega a month ago, Roush and Richard Childress stayed at Talladega an extra day to, in Roush's words, "do some dumb things" to Cup cars to slow them down. They drilled holes, they raised the roof -- anything to put more drag in the cars. Alas, the idea met with some resistance, because they would look less like real cars if they were made more boxy. The consensus is that restrictor plates are here to stay.
Whatever happened to two-time Busch Grand National champion Larry Pearson? Scott, Larry won the BGN title in 1986 and '87, then tried to jump to Winston Cup racing in '89. His best finish was sixth, and the team folded after four races the next season. Then Larry bummed around for a few years. He golfed, did some some professional carp fishing and played the stock market for a few years before returning to the Busch circuit full time in 1995. He didn't have a really good ride until last year, when Buckshot Jones decided to make a run at a full Winston Cup season and tapped Pearson to drive his Busch series car. (Pearson's brother, Ricky, was Buckshot's crew chief for a time.) But with Buckshot abandoning that ride before the end of the season to return to full-time Busch racing, Pearson's ride went away. Click here to send Mark Bechtel a question.
| ||||||||||||||||||||
