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.