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On NASCAR: Cathy's Corner
NASCAR columnist Cathy Elliott <<>> Courtesy of NASCAR
For seven years Cathy Elliott as media director for Darlington Raceway, the track "Too Tough to Tame", used her skills to overcome many logistical elements, but in the shadow of those dreaded walls she also honed the ability to tame the right words.
Refreshing column words from Elliott are a cut away from mainstream and available to media from NASCAR. Enjoy an experienced and respected edge from one who has been ever so close to speed.
Cathy Elliott is the official columnist for NASCAR and she currently lives in Florence, SC.
Cathy Elliott [NASCAR Columnist] August 2010
Crew Chief Balances Changing Drivers, Challenging Accents
If stock car racing had its own version of the old Ed Sullivan variety show, NASCAR Nationwide Series crew chief Trent Owens would be the plate spinner.
Remember the plate spinner? He was the guy who set numerous plates, bowls and other flat objects simultaneously twirling on poles without falling off. It was a feat requiring a combination of timing, balance, reflexes and a good understanding of the laws of physics.
One plate, one pole and one guy can be tricky to maintain. Multiple plates and poles present an entirely different challenge.
This is a principle Owens understands extremely well; he’s living it. This year, he has served as crew chief for Reed Sorensen, and Jacques Villeneuve, and, before health concerns sidelined him for the remainder of the 2010 season, Brian Vickers.
Teams change crew chiefs fairly frequently. The difference in Owens’ case is that this parade of drivers has been sharing seat time in a single car, Braun Racing’s No. 32 Dollar General Toyota. Considering the comprehensive job description of a crew chief, that’s a lot of plates. You might even say it’s a full set of dishes.
This racing salad bar presents some challenges for the guy who has to make all the ingredients work together. It runs against the grain of the standard stock car recipe of one driver, one crew chief, and one car. Substitutions do occur on this menu, as teams will sometimes bring in “specialist” drivers, particularly for road course races, but for Owens, the revolving driver door is all just part of the normal work routine.
Engines are built for the tracks on which they will race, but there are some modifications that have to be made according to the individual driver, obvious things like the seats and other interior stuff. The unknowns, according to Owens, are the things on the set-up side of the racetrack.
“Every driver is different. Every driver’s personality is different. Every driver has a different way of telling you what the car is doing. Mentally I have to be open-minded as to what the driver is going to need, because he is our best source of information,” he says.
“I just have to listen.”
‘Just listening’ sounds pretty easy, as long as everyone involved is speaking the same language. One quirky little twist to this tale has come from Villeneuve, who is French Canadian, and has the accent to prove it.
Owens is a native of Darlington, S.C., where the French Canadian accent is rarely --OK, never – heard … and yes, he has the accent to prove it. He laughs and admits, “With my Southern drawl, I’m probably not the easiest guy to understand on the radio, but it went pretty well at The Brickyard.”
The No. 32 Dollar General Toyota maintained a high profile in Indianapolis this season. Sorensen finished fifth in the Kroger 200 Nationwide Series race at O’Reilly Raceway Park; he currently sits 11th in the NNS driver standings.
Then, in a stock car racing reversal of the double-secret probation famously featured in the movie “Animal House,” Owens did some double-public NASCAR duty. Villeneuve successfully qualified the No. 32 for The Brickyard 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race, and finished inside the top 30, joining Juan Pablo Montoya as the only two drivers in history to compete in all three of the speedway’s premier races -- the Indianapolis 500, the U.S. Grand Prix, and The Brickyard 400. Villeneuve won the Indy 500 in 1995.
"As a crew chief or a driver or whatever, you want to be part of the biggest shows," he says. "Obviously the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, with all the history there, it’s something you work a long time just to be a part of. I got to work with a driver who is world known, he’s a world champion, and all those cool things that some people never get to do. It was pretty special."
It can take a crew chief many years to make it to the Cup Series, working with different teams and drivers along the way. Owens has basically embarked on a crash course, honing his skills with various levels of personnel and equipment in a short period of time. While some might balk at what could be perceived as a job in a continual state of flux, he has embraced it.
"It’s been a faster learning curve than you can get anywhere else. I’m not going to say it’s been easy, because it hasn’t. It would be a lot easier if I had just one driver," he says. "But I was open to it because I wanted to learn quicker and try to move up through the ranks a lot quicker. If you were a closed-minded guy, it probably wouldn't work out too well, but I think all that combination has made it work out great so far."
For Owens, directing a Cup Series effort -- at The Brickyard, of all places -- was a major step toward achieving his ultimate goal.
"I’m definitely working in the Nationwide Series to progress and get to the Cup level. That’s where I want to be in a full time role," he says. "This is the road I need to take to at least have a chance at it."
As you follow Trent Owens' path down that ambitious road, if you happen to spot a number of plates spinning on the shoulder along the way, don't panic.
He hasn't dropped one yet.
Cathy Elliott [NASCAR Columnist] July 2010
Dale Sr.’s grandson putting the ‘earn’ in Earnhardt
Bobby Dale has a heart for racing.
He also has the genes for it. Bobby, who is 22 years old, lives in Rockingham, N.C., in the shadow of a speedway that once hosted NASCAR Sprint Cup Series weekends, and where large crowds still show up for ARCA and street stock races and driving schools.
Like so many other aspiring race car drivers, he spends his days working at a "normal" job -- he is a cook at the local KFC -- and his weekends at the track.
The name at the top of his Facebook page simply says Bobby Dale, but there is more to this young man than initially meets the eye. Take one look at his photo and you'll see it for yourself; the family resemblance is unmistakable. You realize that Bobby's surname is missing from Facebook.
Bobby is an Earnhardt.
The oldest son of Kerry, and Dale Earnhardt's first grandchild, Bobby Dale Earnhardt grew up between Mooresville and Kannapolis, N.C., deep in the heart of racing country.
From fifth through eighth grade he, along with his brother and step-sister, were home-schooled, and the family hit the road with dad while he competed in the NASCAR Busch (now Nationwide) Series. Bobby raced go-karts for a while, and did pretty well, although he says he didn't exactly burn up the track. All in all, it was a normal childhood, in racing family terms.
Bobby isn't a guy who is prone to a lot of chitchat -- a familiar Earnhardt trait -- but equally typical of the family is that animated sparkle in his voice when the talk turns to racing.
He says racing has been on his mind all his life -- how could it not be? -- but his real involvement started when his younger brother Jeffrey began traveling up to Virginia to compete on the dirt tracks. Bobby was right there, behind the scenes and under the hood, helping with the car.
When Jeffrey -- who has raced in the Nationwide Series and most recently finished 30th in the CampingWorld 200.com NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Gateway International Raceway on July 17 -- moved up to the Late Model Series, big brother Bobby decided it was time to get behind the wheel.
He raced at the New River Valley Speedway (now Motor Mile Speedway) in Radford, Va., in the UCAR Series. UCAR is best known as a starting platform for drivers looking to jump from go-karts into full-sized cars, or for people who have never raced to get their start. Bobby describes it as "old school, run-what-you-brought" racing.
These days, he races the No. 3 lawn mower at the Ellerbe Lions Club track, one-tenth of a mile of banked dirt in Ellerbe, N.C.
Yes, you did read 'lawn mower' correctly, but set the notion of 15 or 20 John Deeres tooling around the yard aside; these mowers are souped up and ready to race. Bobby's has been cut and lowered. His team -- Forever 3 Racing, owned by Earl Chapel -- built its own spindles and has basically created something he describes as similar to a go-kart inside a mower body. These lawn mower engines can run at speeds of about 80 mph.
Bobby's description of lawn mower competition sounds eerily familiar to anyone who has ever talked with a race car driver. "You have to get the feel of the track. You have to judge how deep you drive into the corners, know when to get in and when not to," he says. "A lot of times, you have to know how to drive by the seat of your pants."
Bobby spent a number of years working for his uncle, Dale Earnhardt Jr., first on his farm and then in the shop, where he was a tire specialist, a mechanic and the catch can guy on the Hooters Pro Cup car Dale Jr. owned.
He doesn’t try to hide the fact that he is an Earnhardt; far from it. The name is his family legacy, and he is proud of it. So the obvious question must be asked: Why wouldn't you just go and ask your uncle, who owns teams on several levels of racing and is the most popular driver in NASCAR, to help you out?
For starters, he feels it isn't fair play. "Say I walk into a shop with another guy, who has a different last name. Most people are going to talk to me first. I hate to say it, but it does give me some opportunities," he says. "I want to work my way up, just like everybody else. I want to prove you can do it without having people hand everything to you, by actually working for it."
Bobby says that's the way his grandfather went about the business of racing in the early days of his career. "He worked his way up, from working on his dad's car when he was a kid, to working on his own car when he raced on the dirt tracks. From what I've heard, he didn't just come out of the gate being great, being the best. He had to work hard, and build that name up."
A tinkerer by nature, Bobby is the guy friends and family members call when they're having trouble with their computers, scanners and other electronic gadgetry. He likes working under the hood of a car and getting his hands dirty, helping to set up the car for competition. He wants the opportunity to do that on a car with his name on it. That is his goal.
"I'm trying to find the right people, the right team; I want to do it on my own talent," he says. "I want people to come out and see me race and say, 'He's good; we want to talk to him.'
“I want to earn it."
People do come out to watch him race. The lawn mower races, which will resume in August after the track is re-graded, draw big crowds, and fans often track Bobby down at KFC, asking for his autograph.
The desire is there, and the work ethic, and the lineage. But what about the talent? Does Bobby Dale Earnhardt have what it takes to be a successful race car driver?
"I honestly think if I had a chance to run, and got with the right team, I'd be good," he says. "I've had a lot of people tell me I've got the talent. They've told me I have determination like my grandfather, that I drive like him.
"It makes me feel really good when people tell me that. It gives me the inspiration to keep going, and not give up. I intend to make him proud of me.”
By Cathy Elliott June 2010
A longer wish list
Do you know what I'd really like to see?
I'd really like to see Jeff Gordon win a race. Soon.
This is the time to state for the record that although Jeff Gordon is not the driver I routinely root for on Sunday afternoon, I am definitely one of his most loyal fans. Every week now I find myself hoping that at the end of the day, I'll see him in Victory Lane.
I got interested in stock car racing at about the same time Jeff Gordon began competing in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. It wasn't Gordon himself that piqued my interest as much as it was the reaction he elicited from long-time fans of the sport. Now a beloved NASCAR icon, in the early days Gordon was the recipient of enough boos and hisses to make Kyle Busch run for cover.
Gordon's crime? Not the fact that he was winning, but who he was beating -- the legendary Dale Earnhardt, Sr. The two drivers were friendly with one another, and Gordon has said "The Intimidator" gave him a lot of good advice during his rookie days, but fans wanted to stir up a rivalry nevertheless.
Attend a pre-race drivers' meeting, close your eyes and point your finger, and the guy on the other end of it will look poised and ready for a GQ cover shoot. It doesn’t matter which driver it is. The NASCAR superstars of today are well coiffed and cosmopolitan. They own wineries. They not only wear cologne, but actually have their names on the bottles. They're slick.
That isn't a bad thing, but it is kind of new thing. A couple of decades ago, drivers were more likely to kick back with a beer than a Beaujolais, and to smell more like motor oil than patchouli oil.
This young and handsome, poised and polished Gordon guy wasn't just threatening to excel at a sport. He was threatening to change it. Although he hasn't won a championship in a while, in my humble opinion, Jeff Gordon is the face of contemporary NASCAR, and has played a huge role in helping elevate the sport to its current level of popularity.
Gordon's resume is pretty well known by now, although space prohibits doing proper justice to it here. Four-time Cup Series champion. Three-time Daytona 500 winner. Four-time winner at The Brickyard. Named one of NASCAR's 50 greatest drivers. Cup Series Rookie of the Year. Sixth overall in Cup Series career wins.
The list goes on ... or it might be more appropriate to say the LISTS go on. Jeff Gordon is on an awful lot of lists.
But what's been nagging at me recently is not the many lists Gordon is on, but the one he isn't: the list of 2010 race winners.
Lists are as much a part of sports as hot dogs. Fans love stats and numbers. We like to watch them rise and fall and change. When someone makes it to the top – the most hits, the most points, the most race wins – our attention shifts to the bottom. Can someone down there hit or score or drive their way to the top? We watch and wonder, make our predictions and chew our nails. It’s fun.
Some say the only good list is a short list, and when referring to things like chores to be done or bills to be paid, that's true. But one current list is far too short for my personal taste. The list of 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race winners, following the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway, has just seven names on it -- Jimmie Johnson, Denny Hamlin, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, Jamie McMurray, Kevin Harvick and Ryan Newman.
If you're a fan of one of these guys, you're most likely OK with this list. But if you're a fan of Tony Stewart, or Kasey Kahne, or Carl Edwards, or Dale Earnhardt, Jr. ... not so much.
Sports dominance and the building of athletic dynasties is a fun process to watch -- Jimmie Johnson and the No. 48 team have offered a pitch perfect example of that over the past few years -- but enough is enough. Just because you enjoy watching "Kelly's Heroes" over and over doesn't mean you never again want to see "Field of Dreams" or "The Great Escape." Action on the track has been particularly unpredictable this year. It would be great to be able to say the same about the outcomes.
What keeps us coming back every week is the lone item on a list of its own -- the close competition that NASCAR regularly provides, the tense, hard-fought kind of spectator experience that makes you holler to an empty room and break into a sweat.
Whether we take our seats on the front straightaway or in front of the TV, that feeling is what we're after. The feeling of not knowing what will happen, knowing that all the way to the final lap, anything and everything can change in the mere blink of an eyelash. The knowledge that yes, Johnson or Hamlin or the Busch of your choice could very well win the race, but so could Stewart, Edwards or Kahne.
Or Jeff Gordon. Because that's what I'd really like to see.
By Cathy Elliott June 2010
Let freedom roar
It seems a dichotomy of sorts that one of the professional sporting events most closely associated with the Fourth of July -- Independence Day -- is the Coke Zero 400 Powered by Coca Cola NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Daytona International Speedway. On the day set aside to celebrate independence, the sport of NASCAR seems to celebrate anything but.
Or does it?
It has been a hot summer so far, and I'm not talking about the thermometer. Between the Stanley Cup and the World Cup, temperatures and passions have run high.
Being a Southerner, I'm still not completely sure where all these hockey and soccer fans suddenly came from, but being an American, my only comment on the subject is "go, team!"
One sport I do follow pretty closely is tennis. What a thrill it was to watch what will surely go down in history as the greatest match ever played, when American John Isner beat France's Nicholas Mahut in a contest at Wimbledon lasting 11 hours, 5 minutes with a final score of 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (9-7), 7-6 (7-3), 70-68, played on June 22. And June 23. And June 24.
Tennis. Now, that’s a solitary sport consisting of one player and one racquet on either side of one net, with one ball between the two of them. That’s it.
If a guy misses a shot or seems a half step slower than his opponent, there is no team poised to spring into action and correct the problem. The coach can’t even sit on the sidelines. The player’s only solution is to play better, to run faster. Literally, it is an “every man for himself” kind of game.
I have never watched a soccer match in my life, and as far as tennis goes, most folks had probably never heard of John Isner before June 22. And June 23. And June 24.
Still, it’s safe to say that most of us felt some sense of outrage at the poor officiating we have seen in the World Cup, then that swell of patriotism when the U.S. team came back and won anyway, and when a tennis match that broke every imaginable record was won by a guy from Greensboro, N.C.
And just to add a little more icing to an already tasty cake, Lord Stanley’s Cup is currently living in Chicago rather than somewhere in Canada.
Still, when you think of all-American sports, it’s hard to find a better example than NASCAR.
Former President of the United States Lyndon Johnson once described the state of the union as “free and restless, growing and full of hope.”
When you think about it, it isn’t too much of a stretch to apply these same phrases to race teams. There is a certain degree of restlessness inherent in any NASCAR garage, where the search for that extra thousandth of a second, that additional quarter inch of distance, never ceases. The sport is constantly growing, geographically and technologically, as well as in popularity.
That perpetual restlessness and growth, combined with the freedom to experiment (within certain limits, of course!) and LBJ's final ingredient -- hope -- paints a pretty representative picture of a NASCAR team.
Like the place of its birth, NASCAR is an upstart, a rough-and-tumble contest made up of equal parts determination, talent and pure grit. Mechanics, sponsors, crew members, equipment and a lone driver are melded together into a large group that somehow functions efficiently, and sometimes even brilliantly, as a single unit.
Oh, they’ll fight and bicker and publicly snipe at one another, but let Jeff Gordon need help -- real help -- and all those guys he basically ran over at Infineon Raceway on June 20 will queue up right along with everybody else to offer their assistance. NASCAR’s individual states may have their little border skirmishes from time to time, but don’t even think for a second they aren’t united, because they are.
Where this is unity, there is always victory, and in the sports arena, stock car racing continues to be a proven winner, in every category you can think of.
In NASCAR’s case, freedom not only rings -- it roars.
By Cathy Elliott June 2010
Time after time
To be a successful NASCAR driver, you have to be more than simply fast. Winning involves good vision and reflexes, physical strength and endurance, and patience. A driver needs to have a certain amount of fearlessness and yes, a little bit of luck now and again.
There’s another thing, too. You have to be able to remain alert, even when things get dull.
Sometimes valuable lessons can sneak up on you unexpectedly. While driving through Georgia on the way to Florida recently on a beautiful, sunny day, my car’s windshield wipers came on – of their own volition – and they stayed that way. I soldiered on for a while, pretending I was washing my windshield, until the fluid well ran dry. Then it got embarrassing; people were staring.
It’s bad enough having to drive through Georgia – the “Road Construction State” – in June, but to do it with those rubber wipers repeatedly dragging themselves across a dry windshield is excruciating. The sound they produce is kind of a cross between a Yoko Ono concert and a cat fight. With real cats.
I tried everything I could think of to make them stop. I fiddled with the controls. I pulled my car off the Interstate and shut the motor off. I talked to them in the threatening mom voice – “You windshield wipers stop that RIGHT NOW, or else.”
Nothing worked. Back and forth, back and forth they went. It was inexorable, a sort of metronome effect. Then the car next to me decided very suddenly to make a lane change, and I snapped out of it. It was a relatively close call. The windshield wipers, doing the same thing over and over for almost 200 miles, had lulled me into a zombie-like trance, and frankly, I simply wasn’t paying attention.
When my heart rate got back to normal, I had a thought. I had let my mind wander after a relatively brief stretch of repetition. What must it be like inside a stock car during a race?
At any given moment during a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race, hundreds or even thousands of things are going on at once. To fans watching from the grandstands or the infield or on television, it seems to be an unceasing flurry of activity, and it is.
Crew chiefs and spotters are communicating with their drivers. Teams are getting ready for the next pit stop. The ebb and flow of a race is like the tide; it is constantly in motion. Back and forth; back and forth. Cars are jockeying for position or strategizing on how to get more speed, or avoid the trouble spots. It starts out busy, and it stays that way.
Inside the cockpit of the car, things are a little different. Obviously I’m not too well-versed on the intricacies of cars – I can’t even turn off my own windshield wipers, after all – but it seems to me to be a “boy in the bubble” type of situation. The driver is strapped in and, barring any on-track incidents, he stays there. His only contact with the outside world comes via an earpiece, literally a voice inside his own head.
NASCAR is never boring, but there are stretches of caution-free green flag racing where it can be somewhat uneventful. The driver grabs the wheel. The race begins. For hundreds of miles, the landscape never changes. Turn 2 is exactly the same on Lap 305 as it was on Lap 5. It can resemble a stuck windshield wiper experience, for up to 500 miles.
Who knows when, in the midst of all that back and forth, back and forth, a golden opportunity will present itself? There’s no place for metronomic zombies here. The things that seem so small can sometimes present the biggest obstacles. What a testament to the skill of the drivers in the Cup Series, that ability to maintain such focus not only where the action is, but where it isn’t.
Until I get back to South Carolina and find someone who can figure this thing out and fix it for me (i.e., change a fuse or something), I’m employing a strategy rarely used in racing.
I’m praying for rain, because in life, as in NASCAR, timing is everything.
Brotherly love
By Cathy Elliott June 2010
"Brother acts" are hardly a new phenomenon in NASCAR. There are many notable examples: Bobby and Donnie Allison. Terry and Bobby Labonte. The Waltrips. The Wallaces. The Burtons. The Flocks.
But as the sport continues to diversify, attracting drivers from all over the nation and even the world, that time-honored tradition is becoming diluted just a little bit. Looking around the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series garage these days, there really aren’t too many active competitors who are actual relatives – or blood kin, as we call them in this neck of the woods.
There are two guys who share the same last name, although they don’t hail from a town exactly known for producing legendary racing families. Las Vegas, Nevada natives Kurt and Kyle Busch are neither small-town nor Southern, but both have proven to be NASCAR to the bone.
If you take an informal -- and truly impartial -- survey, most people will have to admit that when it comes to raw racing talent, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone with a bigger supply than Kyle Busch. Years ago, before Kyle had even run his first race in the Cup Series, Kurt went on record as saying his kid brother was the more talented driver in the family.
Since his first full-time Cup season, Kyle has gone on to put his money where his brother’s mouth is, winning 18 races and, according to who you ask, roughly the same number of fans. He has also tacked a NASCAR Nationwide Series championship onto his increasingly long resume, winning the title last year.
Along the way, Kyle’s aggressive racing style and public displays of pique have alienated an awful lot of people including, most recently, his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin. Hamlin isn’t always a day at the beach, either, but there’s still something to be said for presenting a united front.
When Kyle fails to win a race, he will often stalk off disgustedly rather than sticking around to chat it up in front of the TV cameras. He is often roundly criticized for this, although I sometimes wonder why.
NASCAR’s policy is to hold the second through fifth place finishers on pit road for post-event interviews. On more than one occasion, when Kyle has failed to place in the top five, I have seen the media chasing him back to the hauler in an attempt to get a comment. You don’t see much of that with any of the other so-called “losers.” The guy doesn’t like to be beaten. But then again, who does?
Kurt Busch looks relatively tame these days compared with his younger brother, but he had his own share of controversy early in his career. In interviews, he often came across as sounding either condescending or sarcastic, because frankly, he’s a whole lot smarter than the average bear.
He has been involved in a couple of fairly famous feuds, most notably with Jimmy Spencer and Kevin Harvick, coming out on the short end of both, at least in terms of public opinion. After enjoying a great deal of success at Roush Fenway Racing, he left under, shall we say, less than amicable circumstances, and was in fact taken out of the car for the last two races of his contract.
Just to make things harder on himself, Kurt has developed that annoying -- to some -- habit of winning. A lot. He has 21 Cup Series victories, and in 2004 was the first-ever champion under the new Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup format.
Headed into the race weekend at Pocono, there is an impressive statistic that has been frequently quoted. Of the last six races run in NASCAR’s top three series, including the non-points-paying Sprint All-Star Race, the Busch brothers have combined to win all six of them.
Of course it couldn't last -- Denny Hamlin made that point at Pocono -- but a six-for-six record is nothing to sneeze at. It is also nothing to ignore. Both Kyle and Kurt currently sit in the top 12 in the Cup driver standings, and their names regularly come up in conversations about potential championship prospects.
Our siblings are the people we practice on before we have to deal with the folks that aren’t related to us and aren’t obligated to spend money on us at Christmas. It is an ongoing process. Kurt and Kyle don’t always get along with their fellow drivers; shoot, they don’t always get along with one another.
But you can’t argue the fact that they seem to be getting along just fine with their mechanics, crew chiefs, engine builders and, by extension, with their race cars. It may not be what we’re used to, but it’s nice to see a racing family doing so well.
So in the case of Kurt and Kyle Busch, we can all just sit back, enjoy the show and let brotherly love continue. Until one of them comes in second, of course. Then, all bets are off.
Double duty made possible by tours of duty
By Cathy Elliott May 2010
The Memorial Day weekend is a pivotal point in racing for far more than one reason.
The first and most obvious reason is the same one that explains why buffet restaurants continue to do a booming business, even in a tough economic climate: quantity. There's so much good stuff to consume, and so little time in which to do it, that we run the risk of surfeiting ourselves, worried that we'll miss something really tasty.
It is a risk race fans are willing to take, and have been taking since 1974, the first year the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway competed head to head on the same day - Sunday of Memorial Day weekend.
The day really is an embarrassment of racing riches. The Indianapolis 500 is celebrating its 94th birthday in 2010, and for probably as long as any of us can remember has been considered the gold standard of motorsports.
Personally, my family was focused on baseball and college basketball, and as a kid in the 1970s, my racing vocabulary consisted of exactly eight words - Richard Petty, Daytona 500, Indianapolis 500 and Mario Andretti.
(On a side note, Andretti provided one of the best bridges between series, becoming one of only two drivers -- A.J. Foyt is the other one -- ever to have won both the Indianapolis 500 and the Daytona 500. Plus, to a kid growing up on the sand dunes of North Carolina, "Mario Andretti" is just fun to say.)
The point is that we didn't really follow racing, but we were certainly aware of the significance of the Indianapolis 500.
Beginning in 1994, staggered start times made it possible for NASCAR drivers to compete in both races on the same day, the motorsports version of an Iron Man competition. Dog, meet pork chop.
While John Andretti was the first to attempt the Indy-Charlotte double in 1994, Tony Stewart became the first driver to complete the full 1,100 miles, in 2001. He did pretty well that year, finishing sixth at Indy and third at Charlotte. Robby Gordon has also competed in both races on the same day.
Any chef worth his salt will tell you a pot can always be sweetened. That happened just recently, when Bruton Smith, owner of Charlotte Motor Speedway, publicly announced his company is working on a plan to offer a nice little bonus for winning both races.
Some tweaking would need to be done in order to make the accomplishment feasible, but the paycheck is a nice incentive -- $20 million to the guy who wins both the Coca-Cola 600 and Indianapolis 500.
Yes, I said $20 million. Dog, meet entire pig.
Don't roll your eyes. Given the proper circumstances, there are a couple of guys - on the NASCAR side at least -- with a legitimate shot at it, namely Stewart and Juan Pablo Montoya.
And getting away from the word "guy" for a second, Indy racing superstar Danica Patrick's inroads into NASCAR have not only been respectable from a competitive standpoint, but surprisingly well received. Can you imagine if she became the first driver to win both races in a single day? Talk about historic.
All this rhetoric does my work for me, clearly illustrating the second reason why Memorial Day weekend is such a banner date for racing: quality. The Indianapolis 500 is simply the benchmark in its class, and the Coca-Cola 600 is considered one of the top five annual NASCAR races. The weekend is like having your cake and eating it, too; who knew that was even possible?
I like open wheel racing, but NASCAR is my thing, so my primary focus on Memorial Day weekend is always the 600. With the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup now being so top of mind - even before the green flag drops on the Daytona 500 each season - what I have actually found most compelling this year is the fact that the Coca- Cola 600 is race number 13 on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule. That's halfway next time by to the Chase.
It's on now. If you think of it like a road trip, where you measure your progress according to what Interstate exit you're passing, we've traveled a fair distance, almost without even realizing it. And as great as the competition has been so far, I have the distinct feeling that the best is yet to come.
But perhaps the most noteworthy thing about racing on Memorial Day weekend is how it reminds us of the things that make America, and all of its all-American sports, so great, things like God, and country, and family. And hot dogs.
Kim Wilson is a race fan - and the wife of a soldier serving in Baghdad - who told her story of watching last year's Coca-Cola 600 with her young son Dakota in the book "Chicken Soup for the Soul: NASCAR."
Marathon race days, midway points and millions of dollars are cool incentives. But after this story, there's really nothing left to say.
That race, as you may recall, was run on Monday - Memorial Day - due to weather issues on Sunday. Mid-afternoon, and mid-race, the event was halted. The race was red (white and blue) flagged in order to observe Memorial Day's National Moment of Silence.
Kim looked over to see Dakota, who was 8 years old at the time, standing quietly with his small hand resting on his heart. When the race resumed, he said, "Mommy, NASCAR loves the troops."
"Yes they do, honey," Kim replied.
"And that's why I love NASCAR."
Pit Crew Members Are 'Roll' Models
By Cathy Elliott May 2010
Last year, the top story that came out of the NASCAR Sprint Pit Crew Challenge presented by Craftsman, one of the most popular events leading up to the annual Sprint All Star Race, was written by Marty Smith of ESPN.
Smith’s account of Jack Kerr, who won $10,000 in the individual jack man category of competition, then donated his winnings to the family of a critically injured 4-year-old boy, reignited the spirit of selflessness and compassion in its readers, inspiring similar acts of generosity from many of them.
By comparison, this year’s most visible story seems to be the fact that Denny Hamlin’s girlfriend piloted his No. 11 Toyota to the Pit Crew Challenge in his stead, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan, “All We Do Is Win.”
Not quite as heart-warming, perhaps, but that’s OK. It was inspirational enough for the crew, and ultimately proved prophetic, as well, as the No. 11 team earned the victory and the $70,000 cash prize that comes with it.
The Pit Crew Challenge is a fun event, and an important one, serving as a great way to drive home a point we sometimes seem to forget, no matter how many races we watch – truly, NASCAR is a team sport. Every team member has a specific task to perform, and they all work together to create a community that is functional, efficient and, ideally, very fast-moving.
I had a great time serving as one of the guest speakers for Career Day at a local elementary school last week.
The gist of the event was this: business people from the community went to the school and talked about their jobs to seven fourth-grade classes, then answered questions from the kids.
The assortment of jobs represented was pretty diverse, ranging from cosmetology to fire-fighting, although those two really might not be all that different, when you think about it. In the event of a perm gone bad, for example, a certain level of fire-fighting expertise could come in handy.
There were also policemen and bankers, and then there was me. Nobody, and I include myself in that group, is quite sure how to define my job, but I gave it a valiant effort, complete with various NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver stand-ups and a chunk of original Darlington Raceway asphalt, squirreled away from the repaving project a few years back.
The day went surprisingly well. NASCAR was still top-of-mind in town, as the race weekend was only a couple of weeks in the rear view mirror, and the props really helped. Remember this the next time you're invited to do some public speaking -- bring along a few cardboard representations of superstar athletes and a big chunk of old rock, and hide behind all of them as much as you can. You’ll be golden.
The most surreal moment of the day came when I opened it up for questions by asking the kids if anyone had discovered a potential career that day. Great news for the town – there is plenty of police protection and lots of great hair days in its future.
Then, one young man in the back of the room raised his hand and said, “I want to be one of those guys who change the tires on Jeff Gordon’s car.” Jeff, I was pleasantly surprised to learn, is still the driver of choice among the younger crowd.
When I asked the young man how in the world he had settled on that job, he said, “It’s like, you know, totally cool. And you only have to work a few seconds at a time.”
Wow. We are so accustomed to watching those guys hop over the wall, gas up a stock car, slap four tires on it and send it on its way that we have almost become desensitized to how impressive that actually is.
Think about it this way. If you were to take a nice bite of your burger just as that car was pulling into its pit stall, and if you were to chew it 20 times like you’re supposed to, the car would be long gone before you even swallowed that first bite. That’s how fast they are.
That’s also how well-conditioned they are. Those spectacular 13 seconds are the result of many hours of grueling physical training and absolute dedication to being the best. A pit crew becomes a winner in exactly the same way a musician gets to Carnegie Hall. Practice, practice, practice.
It’s great to see these hard-working team members get the recognition – and for some, the nice financial bonus – they so richly deserve. Your favorite driver, whoever he may be, wouldn’t be so visible or successful, and probably wouldn’t have sold you all those hats and T-shirts bearing his car number and his likeness, without a solid pit crew protecting his back.
It is important to note that these fourth-graders recognized Jimmie Johnson and Joey Logano from various commercials and things on TV, but they’ve also been watching the races, and they’ve been noticing the guys who are not behind the wheel, but behind the wall.
When you’re so good at your job that you make it look easy, you also make it look fun. Kids admire you, and want to emulate you. So that aspiring rear tire changer was right about one thing. To serve as a positive role model is like, you know, totally cool.
Racing history comes alive
By Cathy Elliott May 2010
It is race week in Darlington, and I am sitting in my office, which is also in Darlington. I am surrounded by flyers and posters and cardboard stand-ups of various drivers smiling hopeful smiles, most of which will be replaced by scowls and a few choice words once the green flag drops at the cantankerous old track.
I’m thinking about what happened last year, and 10 years ago, and what might happen this week, when that familiar wave of nostalgia hits me. For those who are fans of NASCAR’s grand and slightly checkered past as well as its glamorous present, there is simply no better time of year than the month of May.
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series events run in May offer some of the best racing of the season at three of the sport’s finest – and oldest – tracks.
These include, in addition to Darlington Raceway, Richmond International Raceway, whose furious short track action generally fans a few flames and whips up some sort of a grudge match headed into Darlington, and Charlotte Motor Speedway, home of both the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race and the annual NASCAR marathon also known as the Coca-Cola 600.
These places can only be described as legacy tracks. Darlington’s first race was held in 1950, and Richmond was hot on its heels, opening the gates in 1953. Charlotte is the baby of this family; they didn’t start superspeedway racing until 1960.
Just to add a little icing on the cake, the NASCAR Hall of Fame will officially celebrate its grand opening this month, as well.
Seriously, May is so richly grounded in racing tradition it’s like one of those chocolate truffles that are so sweet they actually hurt your teeth. It almost makes you want to give the other months a hug, just to make them feel better about themselves.
Cruising through the garage on race weekend at some of these older tracks makes you feel like an extra in the movie Back to the Future. On any given day you might see David Pearson eating a sandwich while explaining the vagaries of Darlington’s Turn 2 to a rookie driver, Bud Moore leaning up against a stack of Goodyears in Charlotte, or Richard Petty pretty much anywhere, ambling around and just being nice to people, because that’s how he rolls.
Not too many years ago, you stood a pretty decent chance of bumping into another guy, checking things out with a sharp eye while chomping on a hot dog, which was his favorite food. Media-friendly drivers aside, the late Bill France, Jr. is probably stock car racing’s most recognizable face.
The new book titled Bill France Jr.: The Man Who Made NASCAR, couldn’t have been released at a more appropriate time. As the races this month chronicle the expansion of NASCAR’s early years, the book chronicles the hand that primarily guided its growth for more than three decades.
As author H.A. Branham has structured the story, France’s life and career mirrors the evolution of the sport with which his family’s name is synonymous.
For example, France spent his early days selling snow cones at the track and yanking people off fences who were trying to watch the races for free.
Later, he brokered the groundbreaking sponsorship deal with RJR that would brand the entire Cup Series with the company’s top product name. Back then, the sheer scope of such an idea was basically untried and unheard of. Branham describes it as “a match between an outlaw sport and an outlaw product.”
During those first couple of decades of racing at these tracks we now consider the cornerstones of the sport, NASCAR really was a snow cone-eating, fence-yanking kind of animal – a renegade. But thanks in large part to that outlandish sponsorship idea, a trail was blazed for companies like current series sponsor Sprint to move in with innovative technology that provides the perfect vehicle for the contemporary face of stock car racing. Sadly, France is gone, but his son Brian stepped into those ambitious shoes, and kept right on walking.
And the beat goes on. Sponsors will inevitably come and go, and NASCAR will continue to identify its boundaries, and then expand them.
The cool thing is that while moving ahead just as far and fast as it can go, the heart of NASCAR will still find a way to remain grounded in its past. If history came alive in the classroom like it does at Darlington, Richmond and Charlotte, we would all have been much better students way back when.
Thank goodness – and thank NASCAR – these old teachers are still on the job. Just ask the drivers still pursuing those elusive A+ trophy grades – they still have something left to teach us.
History Is Beautiful This Time Of Year
By Cathy Elliott Apr. 2010
It’s race week in Darlington, and I am sitting in my office -- also in Darlington. I am surrounded by flyers and posters and cardboard stand-ups of various drivers smiling hopeful smiles, most of which will be replaced by scowls and a few choice words once the green flag drops at the cantankerous old track.
I’m thinking about what happened last year and 10 years ago, and what might happen next week, when that familiar wave of nostalgia hits me. For those who are fans of NASCAR’s grand and slightly checkered past as well as its glamorous present, there is simply no better time of year than the month of May.
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series events run in May offer some of the best racing of the season at three of the sport’s finest – and oldest – tracks.
These include, in addition to Darlington Raceway, Richmond International Raceway, whose furious short track action generally fans a few flames and whips up some sort of a grudge match headed into Darlington, and Charlotte Motor Speedway, home of both the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race and the annual NASCAR marathon also known as the Coca-Cola 600.
These places can only be described as legacy tracks. Darlington’s first race was held in 1950, and Richmond was hot on its heels, opening the gates in 1953. Charlotte is the baby of this family; they didn’t start superspeedway racing until 1960.
Just to add a little icing on the cake, the NASCAR Hall of Fame will officially celebrate its grand opening this month, as well.
Seriously, May is so richly grounded in racing tradition it’s like one of those chocolate truffles that are so sweet they actually hurt your teeth. It almost makes you want to give the other months a hug, just to make them feel better about themselves.
Cruising through the garage on race weekend at some of these older tracks makes you feel like an extra in the movie Back to the Future. On any given day you might see David Pearson eating a sandwich while explaining the vagaries of Darlington’s Turn 2 to a rookie driver, Bud Moore leaning up against a stack of Goodyears in Charlotte, or Richard Petty pretty much anywhere, ambling around and just being nice to people, because that’s how he rolls.
Not too many years ago, you stood a pretty decent chance of bumping into another guy, checking things out with a sharp eye while chomping on a hot dog, which was his favorite food. Media-friendly drivers aside, the late Bill France, Jr. is probably stock car racing’s most recognizable face.
The new book titled Bill France Jr.: The Man Who Made NASCAR, couldn’t have been released at a more appropriate time. As the races this month chronicle the expansion of NASCAR’s early years, the book chronicles the hand that primarily guided its growth for more than three decades.
As author H.A. Branham has structured the story, France’s life and career mirrors the evolution of the sport with which his family’s name is synonymous.
For example, France spent his early days selling snow cones at the track and yanking people off fences who were trying to watch the races for free.
Later, he brokered the groundbreaking sponsorship deal with RJR that would brand the entire Cup Series with the company’s top product name. Back then, the sheer scope of such an idea was basically untried and unheard of. Branham describes it as “a match between an outlaw sport and an outlaw product.”
During those first couple of decades of racing at these tracks we now consider the cornerstones of the sport, NASCAR really was a snow cone-eating, fence-yanking kind of animal – a renegade. But thanks in large part to that outlandish sponsorship idea, a trail was blazed for companies like current series sponsor Sprint to move in with innovative technology that provides the perfect vehicle for the contemporary face of stock car racing. Sadly, France is gone, but his son Brian stepped into those ambitious shoes, and kept right on walking.
And the beat goes on. Sponsors will inevitably come and go, and NASCAR will continue to identify its boundaries, and then expand them.
The cool thing is that while moving ahead just as far and fast as it can go, the heart of NASCAR will still find a way to remain grounded in its past. If history came alive in the classroom like it does at Darlington, Richmond and Charlotte, we would all have been much better students way back when.
Thank goodness – and thank NASCAR – these old teachers are still on the job. Just ask the drivers still pursuing those elusive A+ trophy grades – they still have something left to teach us.
Why Silly Season Isn't Silly At All
By Cathy Elliott Apr. 2010
In keeping with the global climate changes we’ve been experiencing of late, Silly Season has come early this year.
For as long as I've been a fan of NASCAR, I have believed the term "Silly Season" was actually coined by our sport.
The name has typically been used to describe roughly the second half of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season, when teams and sponsors and even auto manufacturers begin the process of realigning themselves for the following year. In years past, it was the time when Hendrick Motorsports would announce the addition of Dale Earnhardt, Jr. to its driver lineup, for example, or Tony Stewart would officially reveal the creation of Stewart-Haas Racing.
Falling into the trap of thinking the world revolves around one's own particular interests can prove you wrong in a hurry. Silly Season, as it turns out, is a phrase that has been in use since the 1800s. It is a media-based term that refers to the period of time starting in mid to late summer when "frivolous" news stories start popping up.
In the media business, summer is the slowest time of year for hard news. School is out, the legislature is not in session and, in our hemisphere at least, everyone is on vacation.
You really have to scramble around to find things to write about, which is great for folks like the guy up the street who grew a giant squash, because suddenly, he's front-page news.
Over the years, maybe NASCAR has been a little bit like that. SpeedWeeks and the jockeying-for-position frenzy of the early months of the season consume everyone, but then things kind of shake out, settle down, and we start looking around to see what else is going on, both now and in the months to come.
The Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup has expedited this process somewhat. The 10-race format has created kind of a “season within a season,” and although they can still win races, effectively the year is over for all but 12 Sprint Cup Series drivers. Since they have no hope of winning a championship in the current season, they become even more eager to find a way to come back and win one next year.
Let the games begin.
This year, however, we had barely recovered from the Daytona 500 before the fur started flying. Kasey Kahne fired the first significant shot across the bow, with the announcement that he had signed a contract with Hendrick Motorsports and would be leaving Richard Petty Motorsports at the end of the 2010 season.
While still digesting that piece of news, NASCAR Nation learned of some upcoming changes at Penske Racing. Shell/Pennzoil will leave its longtime partnership with Richard Childress Racing at the end of 2010 and move to Penske, sponsoring the new No. 22 Dodge to be driven by Kurt Busch next year. Brad Keselowski will fill the seat of the No. 2 Miller Lite car.
“The key words are solidifying our future and giving some validity to our program. Obviously when you have rotating sponsors every week, there's some confusion that goes with that, not just with the fans but also with the team itself,” Keselowski said on the day of the announcement.
“So to be able to look the guys in the eye and tell them that's what we are going to do next year and see their faces and see how excited they were about it, to know that there's ... a solid future ahead, for not just me but for everyone on my team, that's so very important.”
Over at RCR, the future of Kevin Harvick, current driver of the No. 29 Shell/Pennzoil Chevy, is not quite so settled in. Harvick is left with a contract that expires at the end of this season and an abdicating sponsor.
The changes leave a couple of major sponsors hanging, namely Budweiser, the current sponsor of Kahne’s No. 9 Ford, and Mobil 1, sponsor of Penske Racing’s third car, the No. 77. That car is currently driven by Sam Hornish, Jr., whose contract is -- you guessed it -- up for renewal at the end of this year.
Confused yet? Just wait. The summer still lies before us, and with all these big names bouncing around, we still may not know the identity of the guy who will ultimately be responsible for NASCAR’s biggest squash of the season.
Obviously, with millions of dollars and some of NASCAR’s premier talent, teams and sponsors at stake, Silly Season is anything but.
Kasey Kahne – He’s dreamy
By Cathy Elliott Apr. 2010
Each January, the National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) holds its annual convention and awards banquet in Charlotte. It’s a fun event, and it’s always nice to see the sometimes underappreciated motorsports media corps rewarded for its hard work.
The portion of the program attendees either look forward to most or absolutely dread, depending on how photogenic they are, is a slide show of media members going about their business during the previous season, punctuated by pithy comments from a current NMPA executive board member.
On one particularly memorable evening a few years back, the slide show included several totally random shots of Kasey Kahne, to which Mike Hembree, current NASCAR editor for SPEEDTV.com and that year’s purveyor of pith, would simply deadpan: “Kasey Kahne. He’s dreamy.”
About the third time this happened, the audience joined in with the refrain, and I have to confess I haven’t seen a photo of Kahne since without “He’s dreamy,” providing the background music in my head.
Silly, yes, but it now seems that others share this opinion with the NMPA.
There’s a slight chance you missed this snippet of recent NASCAR news, because I have it on pretty good authority that some people actually do live in caves, hide under rocks and vacation on the moon. So for all two or three of you, here’s the deal.
Hendrick Motorsports announced on April 14 that Richard Petty Motorsports driver Kasey “He’s Dreamy” Kahne would be taking over the No. 5 Chevy, currently piloted by Mark Martin, beginning with the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season.
The contract was described as being “long-term,” which after further investigation turns out to mean something like “five years and then we’ll see.”
Drivers change teams all the time, for a lot of different reasons, but this is an unusual case. Speculation has run rampant since the announcement, as even the most mathematically challenged among us figured out fairly quickly, that something significant lies between the current NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season and the 2010 season; namely, that would be the year 2011. There are so many theories flying around that all we seem to be missing is a grassy knoll.
What will KK do next year? Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. both have contracts extending to and through the end of 2011, and call me crazy, but I’m guessing that Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson’s deals with HMS extend into the afterlife. So why, fans are wondering, would Hendrick Motorsports sign a contract with such a talented and popular driver without having a car for him to drive?
Just think of it like shoe shopping. Man, woman, child or horse, there are certain styles of footwear that fit us better than others. So naturally, whether it is Cole Haan or Converse, Ferragamo or a farrier’s iron, we naturally gravitate toward those same choices over and over again. They suit us.
Hendrick Motorsports is like that. Their drivers are unique individuals with their own personalities and driving styles, but they have some similarities, too. They look, dress, speak and conduct themselves in an appropriate way. They are not only role models; they are NASCAR poster boys. They convey a positive image for the sport.
Kasey Kahne – who is dreamy, in case you didn’t know -- is a brand that fits well in this closet. He definitely looks the part; still young with a long racing future ahead of him, his good looks have been the subject of many an amusing TV commercial. Anyone who has watched the annual NASCAR Sprint Cup Awards Banquet has probably noticed he isn’t all that comfortable with formal speech-making, but he’s a generally cordial person with a calm manner of speaking and a low-key personality not much given to controversy.
And lest we forget, he’s a good driver. He was the Cup Series' Raybestos Rookie of the Year in 2005, and made the Chase for the Sprint Cup field in 2006 -- when he won six races -- and in 2009.
No one can say with any degree of certainly at this point exactly what car Kahne will be driving in 2011, but why get so worked up about it? There are plenty of options, with Stewart-Haas Racing being the most commonly mentioned for now. What we do know is that Rick Hendrick has said he will be competing in the Cup Series full time in 2011. And we know the car will be a fast, competitive one.
How can we be so sure? That’s easy; the legendary Rick Hendrick agrees that Kasey Kahne is, in fact, dreamy, and if you want to second-guess THAT guy, you’re entirely on your own.
Because Mr. Hendrick understands full well this time honored purchasing principle: If the shoe fits, buy it. Or at least sign it to a long-term contract.
It's a bird, it's a plane ... no, it's The Biff
By Cathy Elliott Apr. 2010
The first time I heard a driver -- it was Kurt Busch -- refer to Greg Biffle as “The Biff,” I laughed out loud. It sounded so much like a superhero’s name.
But what kind of superhero might he be? Their names should be indicative of their powers, right? They are men to be respected, by virtue of their physical prowess. The Hulk is bigger than we are, The Flash is faster, and Superman, obviously, is simply super.
So what is the deal with The Biff?
The only Biffs I’ve ever known, or known of, are Biff Tannen, the antagonist in the “Back to the Future” movies, and a couple of guys in college who were perpetually dressed in plaid.
I have never seen Greg Biffle in a pair of pink and green patterned pants, nor do I want to. I have also never heard him utter the phrase, “Why don’t you make like a tree and get outta here, McFly?”
But I have seen him drive, and that tells me all I need to know.
Biffle is not what you’d call a regular water cooler topic. When controversies and on-track issues arise, his is not generally the first name that pops into your head. He’s been known to get a little hot under the collar now and again, but as we all know, that comes with the territory for NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers.
For the most part, Biffle is what you’d call an even-keeled type of guy. He likes to fish. He has a pilot’s license and enjoys flying.
He and his wife Nicole have a love and concern for animals and their foundation makes major contributions to local humane societies, no-kill animal shelters, spay and neuter clinics, and the Animal Adoption League.
Add a pair of big black spectacles and it’s Clark Kent, eat your heart out ... until a situation occurs. For our purposes here, we’ll call it a race.
Biffle springs into action. Whatever non-plaid clothes he is wearing are replaced by a firesuit. He straps in. He buckles up.
And he wins. Biffle was the 1998 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Rookie of the Year, and the 2000 series champion. He was the 2001 NASCAR Nationwide Series Rookie of the Year, and the 2002 series champion. He has made the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup three times, in 2005, 2008 and 2009.
Currently, he is sitting in third place in the driver standings, 92 points behind four-time series champion Jimmie Johnson. Rounding out the top five are Biffle’s Roush Fenway Racing teammate Matt Kenseth; Kevin Harvick; and Jeff Gordon. The current top 12 includes former champion Tony Stewart; Carl Edwards; and Kyle Busch. It is, just to keep this movie reference thing current, a real clash of the titans.
In true superhero fashion, Biffle knows what he needs to do, and is prepared to follow through. He finished in the top 10 in all six Sprint Cup Series races leading up to Phoenix. In a teleconference on April 6, he said of course he knew the team would have finishes worse than 10th place over the course of the long season, but “we've been good so far. That's not good enough. We're going to have to be better than that … but we have the makings of a championship caliber team. We certainly do.”
So Johnson or any other possible future points leader had best take note of what they might see suddenly taking up a considerable amount of space in their rearview mirror. That isn’t a bird, and it isn’t a plane.
It’s The Biff, and he’s definitely flying.
Small things can get a person's attention in a big way
By Cathy Elliott Apr. 2010
This point was driven home to me while watching pre-race coverage from the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Martinsville in last month. Denny Hamlin was being interviewed, and at the bottom of the TV screen was a simple graphic that read, "Denny Hamlin, 29."
Obviously, this was not a reference to Hamlin's car number. At that moment, I realized that Denny Hamlin is 29 years old. This year marks his fifth season of full-time competition in the Cup Series. He is an experienced race car driver, with nine Cup wins to his credit. If those Gillette “Young Guns” ads have a cutoff age, he’s probably getting close to it.
So why do I always think of him as a kid?
Maybe it’s his appearance. Fresh-faced and clean-cut, if you take him out of a firesuit and deck him out in khakis and an oxford shirt, he could easily pass for a college student.
Maybe it’s the fact that in the past, Hamlin has been quick to visibly lose his temper, with both his on-track rivals and in-the-pits crew members.
Maybe it’s because he brashly announced last year that the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship trophy was basically his to lose. (That remark raised a few eyebrows, but Jimmie Johnson didn’t seem to pay it much attention.)
Maybe it’s because he says things like “I’d like to thank my hot date” when giving speeches at high profile events like the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup awards ceremony.
Or maybe it’s just because I’ve fallen victim to something parents have experienced for centuries -- namely, a steadfast refusal to accept the fact that their kids have grown up.
A great example of this is Jeff Gordon. Legions of former Dale Earnhardt, Sr. fans still scowl when they see that No. 24 Chevy blazing down a long straightaway at any racetrack in America. To them, he will always be the “Wonderboy,” the upstart kid who took The Intimidator to task so many times on the track, earning his fair share of victories along the way.
Just to put things into perspective, that “kid” is fast approaching his twentieth season of Cup competition and will celebrate his 39th birthday this year.
Or how about Earnhardt’s own son and namesake, who grew up before our very eyes? “Little E” is now a Daytona 500 champion with well over 300 career Cup starts, and his 36th birthday is coming up in October. That isn’t quite middle age, but it’s getting uncomfortably close.
Before I completely alienate myself by pointing out any more of the most popular drivers in NASCAR who are “maturing,” let’s get back to Denny Hamlin.
After moving up through the racing ranks by competing in go-karts, Grand Stocks, Late Model Stocks, the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and the NASCAR Nationwide Series, Hamlin made a strong showing in his first full season of Cup Series racing in 2006, winning two races and Raybestos Rookie of the Year honors. He finished third in the driver standings that year. In fact, since the day he climbed into a Cup car full-time, Hamlin has made the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup each year.
Aggressive and not given to much holding back on the track, he has forced the other drivers to take him seriously. And this year, he has demonstrated that force of will in another way, by running the first six races with a torn ACL in his knee. Those hurt -- just ask any professional basketball or football player if you don’t believe it -- and a driver’s knees take a pretty good beating during a Cup race.
But Hamlin toughed it out, and then made a strong statement by winning the race at Martinsville on Monday before having arthroscopic surgery to repair the knee on Wednesday.
He has also stated he plans to be ready for the next race, in Phoenix on April 10.
Perhaps the key to success in racing, as in life, is to embrace all those experiences, the bad along with the good, that teach us how to improve our position a few points at a time while never letting go of the youthful energy and enthusiasm that got us where we are in the first place.
The time has come to stop taking these talented young drivers we have watched for years now -- including Kasey Kahne, Kyle Busch and Brian Vickers along with Hamlin -- literally at their unlined face value, and thinking of them as boys.
Because they definitely drive like men.
That's the Rub
By Cathy Elliott Mar. 2010
For fans of Penske Racing, the March 7 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway was, in the words of Charles Dickens, the best of times, and the worst of times.
Kurt Busch was first across the start/finish line to win the race, mere moments after his teammate, Brad Keselowski, went airborne and hit the retaining wall after receiving a "nudge" from Carl Edwards. The tap came in retaliation for contact between the two drivers earlier in the race, which took Edwards out of contention.
Clips of the incident have been replayed so many times that it's starting to resemble the annual "A Christmas Story" marathon on TNT, complete with schoolyard rivalries, pragmatic authority figures and a protagonist who reached his breaking point in a most dramatic, and nationally-televised, manner.
NASCAR has been riding the crest of a veritable tsunami of media attention since the race. Fingers are being pointed in so many different directions that we’re all basically spinning around in circles at this point trying to figure out where we are.
It hardly seems possible that anyone could be unaware of what happened, but just in case, here’s a brief recap.
At the Talladega race back in the spring of 2009, contact between the two drivers sent Edwards’ car sailing through the air into the catch fence. In Atlanta, the two cars touched again, sending Edwards to the garage and costing him over 150 laps.
When he finally got back in the race, Edwards returned the “favor” by deliberately -- I’m not judging him, Carl openly admitted it -- putting Keselowski into the wall. The result was a weird case of rewind/replay as Brad’s car then went sailing through the air and into the catch fence.
NASCAR put Edwards on probation for the next three races, the two drivers and their car owners, Jack Roush and Roger Penske, will be sitting down with NASCAR officials to discuss and settle the issue, and then I guess we will return to our regularly-scheduled racing.
Except it isn’t quite that simple. For starters, almost nobody you talk to seems satisfied with NASCAR’s decision. Comments run the gamut, from “Edwards should have been parked for at least one race” to “Keselowski had it coming.”
Next is NASCAR’s decision earlier this year to allow more contact between cars on the track, a policy a lot of people are referring to as “Have at it.” That’s all fine and good when you’re jostling shoulders at a concert venue in order to get a better view, but when you’re using a 3,400 pound stock car to move your neighbor a couple inches to the right, things can get dicey.
Also to be taken into consideration is the fact that these are two very different drivers. Edwards is experienced, monumentally talented and amiable by nature, while Keselowski, while also talented, is still a brash rookie trying to make a name for himself. So far, that has often meant deciding where he wants to be on the racetrack and refusing to give up even a fraction of an inch of space.
But when exactly did determination become a bad thing?
So we have controversy, excitement and a rivalry. I’m liking it.
What I do not like so much is the “stock car as a weapon” scenario.
Professional drivers are smart and they can do amazing things with those cars. To watch them strategize and maneuver around one another to improve their positions bit by bit, lap after lap, is one of the most fascinating things about racing. It’s so much fun to watch.
But although many people love them, crashes are not so entertaining. They’re terrifying. Yes, the safety features of a Sprint Cup car are amazing. Week after week we see wrecks -- some mild, others more dramatic like the ones at Atlanta and Talladega -- and watch the drivers simply climb out of the window and walk away.
I’m afraid we’re almost becoming conditioned to think that regardless of the severity of the accident, no one will ever get hurt. Even the drivers seem to feel that way. After the wreck at Atlanta, Keselowski said he wasn’t worried about himself, but about the fans.
Whether NASCAR’s handling of Carl Edwards was right or wrong is not for me to judge. I have my opinion, but there’s one thing I know for sure. A race without Edwards in it is a less interesting race for an awful lot of people.
That old line from the movie "Days of Thunder" -- “Rubbin’, son, is racin’” has practically become the mantra of the sport. NASCAR’s decision to allow the drivers to mix it up during races was a good call. It did not cause this accident.
Race car drivers are fierce and passionate. They worry and laugh, and they get mad. It would be unnatural if they didn’t. They’re human.
But I hope I speak for most people when I say that when friction occurs, the boys might consider taking a page out of the old Yarborough/Allison book and settling things the old-fashioned way, by finding a nice quiet place in which to slap one another upside the head.
Now, THAT would be fun to watch.
Cathy Elliott is the former public relations director of Darlington Raceway and author of the book "Chicken Soup for the Soul: NASCAR," released in February 2010.
FocusBy Cathy Elliott February 2010
Like everyone else on the planet, I saw a lot of pre-game Super Bowl TV coverage on February 7, because there was no racing that day and I had nothing else to do.
And like everyone else in NASCAR Nation, I got all excited and fangirlish during the portion of the broadcast when celebrities were giving their picks, and some of “our” drivers were included in that group.
Tony Stewart’s segment was predictable, as he reminded everyone that he’s an Indiana boy and therefore had to go with the Indianapolis Colts. He looked and sounded good. Score one for the home team.
Just a few seconds later, Mark Martin filled the screen. His prognostication went something like this: “I don’t even know who’s playing in the Super Bowl, but if Brett Favre was in it, I’d pull for him.”
I hung my head. I closed my eyes. I may have groaned aloud. Surely I hadn’t heard this right. One of the most respected, successful and popular drivers in the entire sport of NASCAR did not just tell most of the world that he had no clue who was playing in the Super Bowl.
Yes, he did.
This, in my spontaneous and very reactionary opinion, was going to be a PR disaster. As NASCAR continues to fight for dominance in professional sports -- a battle in which it is performing quite well -- it is vitally important that our athletes be visible, approachable, articulate, and relatable.
But then it hit me, like one of those smack yourself in the head “Wow, I could’ve had a V8” moments. The day before the Super Bowl, Martin went out and won his first-ever Daytona 500 pole, becoming the oldest driver in history to start NASCAR’s No. 1 race in the No. 1 spot.
I couldn’t help but wonder, if someone had asked New Orleans Saints and Super Bowl MVP Drew Brees on that afternoon before the game who was sitting on the pole for the Daytona 500, would he have known the answer?
I’m no Vegas odds maker, but I’m thinking probably not.
Sometimes it seems that what gets not only athletes, but people in general, into hot water, is the scattershot approach we take to getting the things we want.
The ability to identify your goals, making a plan outlining how you’re going to achieve them, and setting that plan into motion is a critical key to success. This is often described as the sniper-versus-shotgun tactic. You only hit one thing instead of a bunch of random ones, but it’s the one thing you were aiming for.
This is a great definition of how NASCAR drivers and their teams work. They set their sights on their target, and they don’t allow themselves to get sidetracked. You don’t hear stories about them jetting off to Monaco with global superstars, because they don’t. Their numerous alleged girlfriends aren’t being interviewed on tabloid TV shows, because they don’t have any. They aren’t going out to bars and shooting themselves in the foot, because … that’s just dumb.
A handful of them did go off their heads and got really wild during the off season, doing crazy stuff like going off and racing in other series; can you imagine? But for the most part, when the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series was in the record books, they had some Christmas dinner and got to work on 2010.
Mark Martin has never won the Daytona 500; that was his immediate target, his one and only interest. If he had won the thing 25 times, he would still feel the same way. But so did the 42 other drivers on the track with him on February 14.
So what if Martin didn’t know who was playing in the Super Bowl? His mind was on something much more important to him, that day and every day -- stock car racing.
For one of NASCAR’s most beloved drivers to publicly admit he wasn’t paying much attention to what was happening over in someone else’s world didn’t demonstrate an attention deficit, or a lack of interest.
Instead, it was a glorious example of what absolute, immovable focus looks like, and that’s the best PR a sport could ever hope to have.
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