Dodge/Save Mart 350 preview

[bigboydan]

Dodge/Save Mart 350 preview


This weekend we get to see something that only happens twice a year for the NASCAR Nextel Cup drivers; they’ll be making right turns. Though there are several variations of tracks on the Cup series tour based on width, distance, banking, and surface, the bottom line is that they are still going in circles never making a right turn. When they hit the road courses at Sonoma and Watkins Glen, it truly separates the one dimensional drivers from the pure drivers.

No disrespect is meant to the drivers that don’t perform well on the roads. NASCAR’s roots are in oval racing and many drivers have grown up with nothing but that whether it’s on dirt or asphalt. The drivers that grew up outside of NASCAR’s roots, or the South, definitely have an advantage. Drivers that raced competitively at one point or another in their career, usually at a young age, in go-karts have a built in learned sense that others just can’t seem to get. It gets so bad for some of the NASCAR regulars on short tracks that owners sit their normal drivers down and replace them with anyone of the hired assassins. These hired guns are the best of the best in the sports car world holding titles in just about every type of road course racing.



Because NASCAR is so popular now, these drivers get lots of attention for their prowess, both good and bad, but the newer group of hired guns have yet to win a race. In the old days of road racing at Riverside, the sports car and Indy drivers used to fill the field and dominate with the likes of sports car legend Mark Donohue, A.J. Foyt, Parnelli Jones, and Dan Gurney. The NASCAR regulars didn’t care much for the roads then either, while the road regulars prided themselves as being the best drivers in the world and loved that they could dominate the NASCAR regulars driving their type of cars.

As NASCAR drivers began coming from other places than the deep South, they started seeing vast improvements and consistency in the road races. Drivers like Tim Richmond who came from open wheel racing, Terry Labonte from Texas, Rusty Wallace from Missouri, and Geoff Bodine from New York started to take control in the road courses.

Oval racing, while very popular in America, is still viewed around the world as simple. Road course racing from the individual driving in Formula One to the team of drivers splitting duties in one car at LeMans are considered the best drivers in the world. However, NASCAR is gaining in perception as they continue to diversify and attract great young talent from all fields of racing.

This week in Sonoma, Joe Gibbs is sitting down Jason Leffler in favor of veteran Terry Labonte (40/1) while Cal Wells is sitting Bobby Hamilton Jr. in favor of one of the best sports car drivers of all time, Ron Fellows (12/1).

Of Terry Labontes’ 22 career Cup wins, two have come on road courses. It’s a great move for the Gibbs team because they are just looking to get points and automatically qualify the No. 11 car for races. They are out of the top 35 in points and Leffler’s inexperience on the courses makes their chances worse at qualifying.

The Cal Wells team is even worse off than the Gibbs team. They are going for the best available and got it with Fellows. Beyond all the great venues he been champion at all over the world, he still regards a NASCAR Cup victory as his top goal. He’s won twice in the Truck series and also has 3 wins in 6 starts in the Busch series. The question this year rests with the car. In the last few years he’s driven for DEI and had great test sessions coming in. The Tide car is not a very good ride, but Fellows could make up the difference.

Other teams are bringing in additional cars specifically for this race so they can bring in some of the top drivers and perform well for their sponsors. MB2 Motor sports is bringing in Boris Said (12/1), Chip Ganassi is going with Scott Pruett (10/1) again, and Richard Childress will be using Brian Simo (25/1). All 5 of these hired assassins will have a major factor in this race and all of them have a legitimate shot at winning the race.

The best driver of the hired guns for my money would be Ron Fellows, but the best equipment for this race would be between Pruett, Said, and Simo.

Of the Cup regulars, you have to start with Jeff Gordon (4/1) who has eight career road course wins in 24 starts. Gordon had gone through a dry spell in the road courses after being almost unbeatable over a five-year stretch until finally winning again in this race last year. The timing couldn’t be better for Gordon and a road course because he’s going through one of the roughest 5 race stretches in his career.

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Formula One Disaster
While it’s clear that the rest of the world believes Formula One is the highest class of automobile racing, they have some serious Public Relation problems in America in regards to their class, and/or lack there of.

After the initial novelty wore off from the inaugural United States Grand Prix on storied grounds of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, attendance has declined as well as the hype with the American media. Their visit this season was an unforgettable one and it had nothing to do with racing at all.

The F-1 President, Bernie Ecclestone, made a sexist comment Friday that kicked off the weekend of festivities at Indy in regards to IRL rookie Danica Patrick.

"She did a good job, didn't she? Super. Didn't think she'd be able to make it like that," Ecclestone smugly and sarcastically answered to a gathering of reporters.

As if that wasn’t enough with just the tone suggesting what he meant without saying it, he figured he’d follow it up by actually saying what he meant.

"You know, I've got one of these wonderful ideas that women should be all dressed in white like all the other domestic appliances,"

What??? Come again………. I’d like to think, and hope, that it was part of their marketing strategy to get the USGP in the American news for their fledging event, but I don’t think so. Ms. Patrick has had a hard enough time enduring all the whispers from detractors on her way up the ranks to where she’s at now, but this is the first time anyone has been that blatantly stupid in front of cameras.

As for the actual race, with the world’s best drivers, it turned out that only six started the race. Formula One waited until a half hour before the start of Sunday’s race to pull out 14 drivers from seven teams because of unsafe Michelin tires that those seven teams use. They had concerns Friday after Ralf Schumacher wrecked hard as a result of the faulty tire, but they thought it would be best to make the announcement just prior to the scheduled start time.

Naturally, the fans didn’t think that was the best time to announce it and hurled just about anything they could find onto the track. Had it been only Americans in attendance, the crowd would have been minimal, but the track was filled with many who had traveled across or up the Atlantic ocean for their American vacation to the premier league of motor sports.

They did get to see Michael Schumacher get his first win of the year, but that win is likely to be taken away as this will be considered a non-points exhibition.

Between orchestrating wins with Ferrari a few years ago, sexist comments, and a total disrespect of their fans, it’s not likely Formula One will ever be missed if they don’t come back to America, at least not by this racing fan.