Teamwork vs. Sportsmanship

I am still hearing fans gripe about the other Hendrick teams helping Jimmie Johnson fix his car at the Texas crash. The race is over, the championship won and the season is over.

Some NASCAR fans are still bringing it up on the radio or in blogs. I was thinking about a comment I heard on the radio about why the other Hendrick teams helped Jimmie out. The host said it was sportsmanship. Something sounded wrong and it did not hit me until this morning in the shower. The other Hendrick teams helping Jimmie fix his car was not sportsmanship, it was teamwork. There is a major difference between sportsmanship and teamwork.

Back in 1973 Benny Parsons was in a tight battle with Richard Petty for the NASCAR championship. At the last race of the season at Rockingham, Benny was involved in a crash on lap 13. His car was heavily damaged. Benny needed to finish the race for a chance at the championship. As his crew worked on his car, other teams from the NASCAR garage started helping his crew get the car back on the track. That was sportsmanship. Benny was not part of a multi-car team and was not as financed as the Petty organization. Today it would be like Robby Gordon vs Jimmie Johnson. Benny got back on the track and finished high enough to win the 1973 Winston Cup championship. The crew members from the other teams may have wanted to see the underdog win over Richard Petty or they were just helping out another racer. Whatever the reason, the act of the other teams, and there were many, helping Benny out was true sportsmanship.

The other Hendrick teams helped out Jimmie Johnson's crew get his car back on the track was not sportsmanship, it was teamwork. If you are a fan that thinks that was wrong, you are not aware of how Mr. Hendrick runs his organization. Unlike most multi-car teams, the Hendrick teams operate more like one large team with four drivers rather than four teams under the Hendrick banner. The Hendrick organization does not bring four separate teams to the track, they bring one team with 4 drivers, 4 over-the-wall crews, 4 crew chiefs, etc. Most of the crew from the other Hendrick teams working on Jimmie Johnson's car most likely work on all four team's cars during the week. During the week they wear plain Hendrick uniforms. At the track, they get divided up and wear the different sponsor crew uniforms. In reality, that Texas day, there was one team working on a damaged Hendrick race car. They were just wearing different sponsor uniforms. A perfect example of teamwork.

Drivers and Their Sunglasses

I do not know what it is with race car drivers and their sunglasses. I was looking through some old slides of racing in the 1970's and found this picture of Tom Reffner and his cool sunglasses. Even back then, drivers had to have the cool shades.

Now days, just about every time a driver is interviewed on television, they have to put their sunglasses on. I know they must get some endorsement monies. But it is hard to tell who’s sunglasses they have on most of the time.

I do not know about you, but I like to see someone's eyes when they are talking to me or being interviewed on television. It is just polite or good manners. A few drivers do take off their sunglasses when being interviewed, but very few.

I am just not sure how far this endorsement fad will go. It started out by stating the manufacture of your race car. Then the drivers started getting their major sponsor into every interview. Small patches started appearing on the upper half of their driver's uniforms so they would show up on the head shots. Then the drivers had to take a drink of their drink sponsor's beverage before they could answer any question. Then the sunglasses started getting in on the act.

When will this all end? Will drivers strip down to their boxers to make sure we know Jockey is giving them underwear?

Back to Comments

ARCA racing is done. Summer is winding down. So I will now have more time to write about racing. There is still time left in the NASCAR season. The Chase is rolling along. The NASCAR Hall of Fame just announced the first class. There is plenty to write about just in NASCAR. Check back often for new articles about racing.

Is The Testing Ban Saving Teams Money?

On the surface the NASCAR ban on testing at tracks NASCAR visits looks like it will save money for all teams. I think the key phrase here is the ban on testing AT TRACKS NASCAR VISITS. They did not ban testing altogether. They just banned testing at tracks any of the top NASCAR divisions race at. But does this ban really save teams money?

Last year, for example, several teams would go together and rent Dover for a day. There would be a cost to send the test team to Dover for the day. The driver would have to fly in for the testing. There would be hotel rooms, fuel, tires and the maybe some damage to a car to repair. The cost of the track rental would be shared among a few teams. The day of testing would be costly for sure.

This year teams cannot test at any NASCAR tracks. Does this stop testing? No it does not. It just stops testing at the tracks NASCAR races at. The top teams are still testing, just at tracks NASCAR does not race at. There is still the cost of rooms, fuel, tires, etc. Teams might not share the cost of renting a track, so that cost might be more. The smaller teams will not be able to test at Non-NASCAR tracks like the larger teams, so they will be at a disadvantage.

The larger teams are also spending more money on in-house testing equipment to shake down the car before it gets to the track. Again, smaller teams cannot afford the same equipment and are at a disadvantage. So the net result might not be much in savings because the money will still be spent on testing, just either at non-NASCAR tracks or in-house equipment.

I think a better solution would be opening the track for testing a day before you would normally have to be at the track for the race weekend. Teams have to travel to the track for the race, so there would not be any extra fuel costs. There would be extra tire costs, maybe an extra motor rebuild and one extra day of hotels, food, etc. Then ban ALL testing, at any track, for all teams. This would be easy to control. If I can read about teams testing at non-NASCAR tracks at Jayski’s Web site or a number of other Web sites, so can NASCAR. Let the teams still use all their electronic testing equipment to give the teams the information they are looking for.

The only downside, and I am not really sure this is a downside, is the teams would not have time to go back to the shop and digest the testing information. They could only use it for the upcoming race weekend. I am not sure the day-before-race weekend testing would be a downside. I think this would be good for the sport. This would save teams more money than the current ban on testing at NASCAR tracks.

How Young Is Too Young?

When NASCAR made 18 the entry age into their Top Divisions, I thought the entry age should have been at least 21, if not 25. I have nothing against the talented younger kids. Some can race against the more experienced drivers. Some could if they had a little more experience.

Joey Logano just could be the next Richard Petty or Mark Martin. Or will Joey join the list of young drivers thrown into the NASCAR Cup pressure cooker and then discarded because they did not perform fast enough. Now where are these former young drivers? If they are lucky, they are still racing somewhere. If not, they are flipping burgers.

Dale Earnhardt made his first NASCAR Cup start when he was 24 and did not run full time until he was 27. He still had time in his career to earn 7 NASCAR Cup championships. He started racing in the Cup series when you first had to prove yourself in one of NASCAR lesser divisions before getting a chance in the elite Cup division.

The last few years NASCAR has been following the other sports, mainly the “ball” sports, by bringing in younger and younger kids into their premier series. In football, basketball or baseball, many of these young kids cannot handle the pressure and turn to drugs or alcohol before burning out. But there is always a deep pool of talent to draw from for replacements. I think NASCAR is following the same path and that is not good for the sport in the long run.

Many of the new NASCAR owners are also “ball” sports owners too. Is that why there is a shift from talented and experienced drivers to just younger, and hopefully talented drivers? There is almost a race between team owners to find that young kid that will be the next star. And they get younger and younger. Owners are now signing drivers to development contracts before they even graduate from high school.

Does a driver that is 18 really have more talent than a driver that is 30? Not necessarily. What they lack in experience, they make up in aggression. They will drive into a hole that a more experienced driver will wait until the next lap to make the pass. The younger drivers will destroy more cars, but get their sponsors more exposure. Owners used to value a driver that would finish a race with a car that was in one piece.

The Gibbs organization has a lot of resources and deep pockets. Joey Logano has a better chance of making a success in racing with Joe Gibbs Racing than with a smaller, less financed team. I am not saying Joey Logano is not talented or will not make it in the NASCAR Cup series. But why put him into that position? Why not let him mature and gain more experience in the truck or Nationwide series before moving him into Cup? He might just end up as another Richard Petty or Mark Martin and race for decades, instead of being a possible flash in the pan driver.

Daytona 500 – Local Boy Wins!

OK, lets get this out first. I am a fan of Matt Kenseth. I watched Matt “The Brat” Kenseth race at the local tracks around Wisconsin before he moved south. His win last Sunday in “The Great America Race” or the Daytona 500 or whatever they call it from year to year, was just plain great. He finally was in the right place at the right time.

Very few race fans from Wisconsin were not overjoyed that Matt won one of the biggest races on the NASCAR Cup schedule. Hell, from what I have been reading, very few drivers or crew in the NASCAR Cup garage were not happy to see Matt win. Well maybe Elliott Sadler was not too happy to see Matt win, but that is racing luck.

Maybe because Matt is from the Midwest and not from the south, he does not get the press or respect others do. Or maybe because Matt is not in your face type of driver others are, that he does not get the press or respect others do. Whatever the reason, maybe with a Championship and a Daytona 500 win, he will start to get more press and respect.

It might take some time to change. I say this because the big story from this year’s Daytona 500 was not so much Matt Kenseth winning the race as Dale Earnhardt Jr. screwing up again. Even in our local Wisconsin State Journal newspaper, that story almost received as much space as Matt’s win. And Matt is a local boy!

If I were Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s handler, friend, boss or whoever he is close to, I would sit him down and have a talk. I would talk and he would have to listen. Somebody needs to explain to him that he is not the center of the NASCAR universe. His fans and he might think that. And sometimes I think NASCAR thinks that, but he is not. He screwed up royally in this year’s Daytona 500. The “Big One” was not Brian Vickers fault. It was Dale Earnhardt Jr’s fault.

Junior has been racing long enough to know that you do not turn somebody around in front of the field at Daytona. Somebody could have been hurt. He screwed up and he should be man enough to say so. He lost a lot of respect from drivers, crew and fans last Sunday. If he would have said after the race that he screwed up and apologized to the other drivers and crew, he would have gained respect instead of losing it.

NASCAR is also at fault here too. They should have sat Junior in the pits for at least 5 laps. They did that in the Nationwide race the day before for actions that were not as blatant as Junior’s. Maybe they were afraid of a Junior Nation riot. Whatever they were thinking, they screwed up too.

NASCAR, it is called “tough love”. Just because Junior is NASCAR’s favorite son, does not mean he cannot be punished for his actions. If he is not punished for his actions, how will he ever learn? He will keep on making mistakes until he learns the right way.

NASCAR just needs to play fair. If they punish one driver for his actions on the race track, then they have to punish another driver for the same actions, even if his name is Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Is The NASCAR Schedule Too Grueling?

Is the NASCAR Cup schedule too grueling? A simple and loud NO is the answer. I have been a NASCAR fan since 1964. I have seen a few changes over the years. The NASCAR schedule had more races in the 1950's. NASCAR would sometimes be racing three or four times a week. Now only at Daytona do they race more than once a week. The current schedule is really too short. There should be between 40 and 50 races a year.

 

I have been an auto racing crew member on short tracks and the ARCA series. In Wisconsin during the summer months in the 1960's and into the 1980's the short track racers competed up to 7 times a week racing from April until October. Then some would head south and race the rest of October and into November. Others would start down south and race for a month or two before coming back to Wisconsin. All for a lot less money than the big boys were getting in NASCAR.

 

A person is not forced into racing. He or she chooses it as a career. At the top of your profession if a driver cannot practice, qualify and then race 40 or 50 times a year, they should look for another way to make money. Yes they have sponsor commitments, but they still have more time off than the people paying their wage, the race fans. And they make a ton of money more than most race fans.

 

Maybe the NASCAR championship has caused some of the problems. In the early years of NASCAR racing the emphasis was on winning and not the championship, some drivers and/or teams would only race the races they wanted to race, not the full schedule. As the emphasis switched from winning races to winning the championship, only than has the schedule been an issue.

 

The schedule is probably more grueling for the crew members than the drivers. The schedule can be more grueling for the smaller teams. The larger teams have crew members for the shop and another set for race weekend. Some even have another set for testing (now laid off due to the no testing rule). Again, few are forced into racing. They choose it because they like racing. Along with racing comes long hours, many days away from family and hard work. All of that is known up front.

 

More of a problem than the grueling schedule is the economy. Will the current economy support the current schedule or will lack of sponsorship force a cutback in the schedule? That is going to be a far larger issue in the next few years.

 

I do know one thing. If any driver thinks their schedule is too grueling, step aside. There are plenty of drivers out there that would gladly take their place. I would even jump at the chance to take their place. They just need to suck it up and race or find another way to make a living.

ARCA Racing

I have been semi-involved in an ARCA racing team for the last several years. In case you have not heard of ARCA, they are a stepping stone to NASCAR. They are also a racing series that uses the same cars as NASCAR Cup series used up until 2008. The car pictured with this post is my friend Tom Berte's race car. He has raced in ARCA over the last several years. Being on a race team at the ARCA level has given me insight on how a race team operates and what it takes to put a car on a track in race ready condition. It takes just the same amount of work to get an ARCA car ready as it does in any of the three NASCAR series. 

ARCA racing is very competitive racing. It is by far more relaxed than NASCAR. They have fewer races and travel less, but it is still intense racing. Take a look on Speed TV sometime as most of the races are broadcast. Or better yet, show up at an ARCA event. It will cost far less than NASCAR and you may see some of the future stars of NASCAR before they get a really big head.

About Me

My interest in racing began a very long time ago, not in a Galaxy far, far away, but right here in the good old USA. I have been a race fan since I moved off the Wisconsin farm, almost 50 years ago. My first stock car race I saw was at a local quarter mile dirt track in 1961, that is now paved, but still running every Saturday night during the summer in Wisconsin. I was hooked on the sounds, the close racing, the fans in the stands and V-8 rumble. Shortly after that great experience, I saw my first professional race, a USAC Indy car race at the legendary Milwaukee Mile. I wanted to see every race, but since I did not drive and my parents worked weekends, I had to depend on friends of my parents to take me to the races.

It was the summer of 1964 that I found a copy of Stock Car Racing in a hobby store and could not put it down. I purchased it and took it home to read cover to cover. I thought Fireball Roberts was the most fascinating man I had ever read about in my few years on this earth. I was hooked on NASCAR. My little HO slot car track road course was turned into an oval with 100, 200 and 400 lap races with one of the neighborhood kids. I have been a fan ever since.

Living in Wisconsin and being a race fan, you could not ignore Road America at Elkart Lake. When I finally could drive, I had to journey to the other Wisconsin legendary race track. Watching the early TransAM cars thunder down the hill into turn five was just plain spine chilling. I am not that old to have been to Road America in the early fifties to watch NASCAR race there, but I wish I could have been.

Being able to drive allowed me to travel to some of the most famous Wisconsin short tracks and others in the Midwest. There was; Wisconsin Dells, Columbus, La Crosse, Madison International, Slinger, Plover, Kaukuna, Angle Park, Rockford Speedway, just to name a few. In the Seventies and into the early eighties, you could find a stock car race 5-7 nights a week at a paved oval track someplace in Wisconsin. Drivers like Dick Trickle, Tom Reffner, Larry Detjens, and others were making a name for themselves not only in Wisconsin, but around the Midwest. The best drivers in the nation would travel to Wisconsin to race. Bobby Allison, Mark Martin, Ed Howel, and many others would make the trek to Wisconsin to race against our best. It was the golden era of short track racing.

My first NASCAR race was at Michigan International Speedway. I still can hear and feel the first time they took the green flag and 43 cars thundered down the back straight into turn three. It sill gives me goose bumps just thinking about it. Bobby Allison and Larry Peterson were my favorite drivers. The first year we did not camp and stayed at a Holiday Inn, the Wood Brothers crew (and maybe Larry Peterson too) were staying there too.

I have seen all types of racing, but over the years, stock car racing has been my favorite. I do still enjoy Road America and it's beautiful rolling hills, the great track and great track food. I still try to get to local tracks although not as often as the seventies when gas was far cheaper.

I am not just a fan that sits in front of the television. I have worked on local short track cars besides sitting in the stands. I have worked on my friend's ARCA car and have been over the wall a few times pitting his ARCA car. I have attended three stock car driving schools on the Milwaukee Mile and the FastTrack three day school at Charlotte. It took months to wipe the smile off my face after the Charlotte school.

I am not telling you all of this to brag or show off, just to give you my background to my blog and writing. I am not a resent race fan who may move on to something else when that becomes popular. I have been and will be a race fan until they close the lid on the casket.

I do have other interests other than racing. Maybe too many, but that is another story. I am married to Ann and live with two cats. I am a photographer and sell some of my prints. After the farm, I grew up in a restaurant that my parents owned, so do enjoy cooking.

Welcome To The Racing Curmudgeon

Welcome to the Racing Curmudgeon blog. I have been a racing fan for over 45 years and have just a few opinions on all types of racing. I will be posting as I have time, mostly at least weekly. I also write travel articles and am a photographer. You can see some of my photographs on my Photography Web Site: www.markbuehl.com

Thanks for stopping by and reading my racing blog.