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Concord (verb) – when a race track/auto dealership magnate threatens a municipality with the removal of a race event, or entire racetrack, in order to get what he wants – refers to what happened to the city of Concord, N.C.

Last week Bruton Smith took his fight with the police chief of Loudon, N.H. public. The ever vocal leader of Speedway Motorsports and Sonic Automotive said he is considering moving a date from the New Hampshire Motor Speedway after struggling to negotiate what he felt was an acceptable bill for police protection. The fight between the two has even reached New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch.

After hearing this I couldn’t help but think I’d seen this play out before with Bruton Smith. Turns out I have.

Let me take you back two and half years. The place: Concord, N.C. Bruton Smith wanted to build a dragstrip on the Charlotte Motor Speedway property. After protests from nearby homeowners, the Concord City Council voted against the dragstrip. Smith’s reaction? He threatened to bulldoze the Charlotte Motor Speedway, and move it somewhere else.

After almost two months of posturing and negotiation, Concord gave in and let Smith build his dragstrip. In addition, they gave him $80 million in incentives, and even renamed the road leading up to the speedway Bruton Smith Blvd.

How’s that for the having the upper hand? After Concording Concord, it looks like he’s Concording Loudon – though this time he may actually come through on his threat.

Since Smith bought NHMS three years ago there has been speculation that eventually the track would lose a date. While the track continues to be a favorite among fans, SMI would like to add dates to Las Vegas and Kentucky. And since  Smith doesn’t have the emotional attachment to NHMS that he has to Charlotte, this could be a very convenient excuse (it also allows him to not have make the tough choice somewhere else within his organization).

We’ll see what happens in the weeks and months to come, but the police chief and town of Loudon are playing with fire. I know it’s a bad idea to give into a screaming child, but not doing so here could cost the city and state hundreds of millions of dollars – all over what amounts to about $100,000.

Unfortunately, the people that could stand to suffer most are the small business owners in and around Loudon who depend on the events, and the fans who love NHMS and the different racing it produces.

Here’s hoping this Concording has a happy ending.

Remembering Raymond Parks

NASCAR pioneer, and team owner Raymond Parks passed away Sunday morning. Parks, who was the last living person on hand at the meeting founding NASCAR in late 1947, won the first two championships in the sport – one with Fonty Flock and the other with Red Byron. Though he was not well known to the world, his impact on this sport was immense. Thank you for everything Mr. Parks.

Be sure to check out Ed Hinton’s eloquent eulogy of Raymond Parks.

TheNASCARInsiders.com

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You’re not happy when he’s winning. You’re not happy when he’s finishing 38th, 129 laps down. What do you want out of Jimmie Johnson? We should hash this out though, because he’s not going anywhere for a while.

Over on twitter and on message boards across the Internet this week people have been angrily asking why Jimmie’s car didn’t get inspected and then they were accusing him of not maintaining minimum speed during the race.

As we all saw last weekend Jimmie wrecked in the opening laps of the race and spent the next hour in the garage as his team tried to fix the car. He came out, I believe, 113 laps down.

I’ve read during the race Chad Knaus came over the radio and told Jimmie that NASCAR told him, Jimmie was under minimum speed, which was 33.27 seconds, or 162ish MPH.

Of course everyone (well maybe not everyone) is calling foul.

The problem is, NASCAR generally warns a driver before throwing the black flag. Here was his warning. I’ll be honest with you, I’m not 100% sure how exactly they decide to throw the flag, but I don’t think this was a situation that called for it.

TC and I worked some calculations and found based on the number of laps he lost between when he came back out and the end of the race, he was losing a lap every 14 laps (give or take). If he’d been the five or so seconds off the pace that would have been necessary, he would have been losing a lap every six laps. That didn’t happen.

And then there are all those screaming about Jimmie’s car not getting inspected after the race. Why would NASCAR have inspected a car that finished 38th, 129 laps down? I suppose they’re also advocating for regularly sending Joe Nemechek’s, and Tommy Baldwin’s cars to be inspected too (you know to make sure it actually was a vibration that brought them into the garage). That makes sense.

At the track the top-five cars are typically taken in for an inspection. Here is a good explanation of both the pre and post race inspection process. In addition to that, the engines of the top two finishers are taken back to the NASCAR R&D Center in Concord, NC to be inspected. The car of the winner and one randomly selected car are also brought to the R&D Center. Here is an explanation of what happens there.

So was it possible that Johnson’s car could have gotten selected? Sure. Did it? No. And let’s be honest, it wouldn’t have done anybody any good.

I’m not really sure where all the anger toward this team comes from, but I think it’s misguided. I understand you may not like Jimmie, and you may want to see him fail (that’s fine), but there is absolutely no reason to believe or suspect this team isn’t doing this honestly (at least as honestly as everyone else).

Likewise this idea that NASCAR wants Jimmie to win four straight championships couldn’t be farther from the truth. Jimmie’s dominance has not done any favors to their Chase format and continues to drive people off. If you think they want that you’re crazy.

I understand and respect the passion, but looking for trouble where there isn’t any is not a good use of time.

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In other sports, home games happen just as often as away games.  But racing is different.  We spend almost the entire season at away games.  The sport as a whole only gets two home weekends a year; the 600 weekend in May and the October night race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.  Both offer a welcome respite from the usual grind of the season.

I can’t speak for everyone, but I always enjoy the chances to go racing here in Charlotte.  It’s like every other weekend in that I still get to do what I love, but it always seems to mean a little more getting to do it close to home.

One thing you always notice about the Charlotte races is the amount of people roaming around the garage area and on pit road during the race.  Besides the usual suspects, the proximity to home allows many friends and family who don’t normally get to see what we do to come out and spend the weekend with us.  The credential lists for these weekends always end up full because of the extra requests. 

On top of that, it’s nice to not have to travel to a far away race track.  Instead of long plane rides or crowded van trips, it’s only a short drive for most to the track.  And it’s nice at the end of the day to be able to go home and sleep in your own bed.

And I don’t know if you happen to notice a difference, but to me it seems like the racing action is always a little more amped up.  I think everyone wants to be able to win in front of a home crowd, so teams bring their “A” games and drivers are a little more aggressive.  Charlotte races don’t usually disappoint.

To top it off, the facility at Charlotte really is a great one.  The garage and pit areas are nice, and you can’t beat having a half mile dirt track and the greatest drag strip on the planet all in the same complex.  Bruton (and Humpy) really did a great job.

For high school and college sports, those homecoming games are always a big deal.  The fans come out to support the team, there are a ton of festivities, and you know the games will be hard fought.  Racing is not different.  Our homecoming weekends mean just as much.  There really is no place like home.