Superspeedway racing tends to bring out the worst in everyone and this weekend in Talladega was no different. We had accusations of team orders, then subsequent denials, crew chiefs telling drivers to wreck on purpose, blatant cheating and complaints from everyone on track about the driving. There has been shock and outrage from the NASCAR press corps and the sport’s fan base. After all, who knew any of this went on?!
We’re Shocked Someone May Have Been Cheating
SBNation’s Jeff Gluck posted a story yesterday with audio from #48 crew chief Chad Knaus. Knaus is heard telling Jimmie Johnson to “crack the back of the car” if they win. Presumably they were beyond the allowed tolerances for whatever reason.
Knaus admitted the intention saying he was, “ Just being proactive, I just told Jimmie, ‘Look, man – we’ve just got to make sure there’s a tire mark or some type of visible damage.’ Just because cars do move when you race them like that.”
This ended up being the story du jour on Wednesday. It was unbelievable that a team could be working in the gray area – no one does that! Of course we already knew Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus were cheaters…
The Roush Team Orders
Jack Roush telling his drivers to stick with Ford teams!? Ridiculous.
This was the outrage of the weekend after word seeped out that Ford and Roush had, at the very least, made it clear that their teams should stick together at Talladega.
Ford and Roush both denied “orders” were issued, but it was pretty clear what the expectation was.
The way the talk was this weekend though you would have thought Roush was the only one that made this expectation clear. Of course anybody with two eyes and a basic understanding of the sport could see every other team on track had done the same, and why wouldn’t they? As I wrote on Monday, you draft with who brought you.
You Feel Double Crossed?
Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon were both beside themselves after the race Sunday. They had committed dancing partners who they felt abandoned, or sabotaged them in favor of teammates. It’s a cruel world.
Stewart told SB Nation:
“It’s a shame, because I’ve never seen more politics in a race go on in my life than what I saw this weekend…I think the car owners are to blame, the manufacturers are to blame and the fans don’t deserve that.“
Gordon echoed Stewart, saying after the race:
“I don’t think [Trevor Bayne] really ever had any intentions of pushing me, and if he did, the Ford folks told him to do something different. It’s politics, that’s part of it.”
As they say, it’s business, it’s not personal. And of all people I would expect Gordon and Stewart to know that. It’s true it’s unfortunate for the fans, it stinks for those who got the shaft, but the fact is it’s reality. Welcome to NASCAR boys.
Hey Trevor, Cool It With The Hyperbole
Speaking of distraught, Trevor Bayne. He’s young and apparently doesn’t know when to go light on the hyperbole. In an interview with SceneDaily he said:
“I was caught in the worst situation I could have ever been in.”
Devastating. I’ll bet there was some cringing at Roush after that interview.
He did go on to say that he wasn’t forced to switch drafting partners but felt it was his role as Kenseth’s teammate. Either way, nobody can fault him for making the decision he made – not even Jeff Gordon. He’s in a precarious position at Roush and needs to do what he has to do to keep the bosses happy and his butt in a ride.
A lesson though (not for our interests but his own) when you’re trying to make a good impression, toe the company line.
This whole week has left me shaking my head and rolling my eyes. While we don’t necessarily get to be witness to some of this stuff on a weekly basis, it happens that often. No one should be surprised about ANY of this. Consider this week a window into NASCAR reality.
Now on to Martinsville and a decidedly less controversial setting.
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Ford and Jack Roush made waves this weekend after word seeped out of the camp that the teams were directed to draft exclusively with their manufacturing counterparts. With two Roush Fords in serious contention for the championship it wasn’t a surprising edict – especially not from Jack Roush.
At the end of the race we saw what appeared to be the edict in action as Trevor Bayne gave up drafting with Jeff Gordon to draft with Matt Kenseth. The move was bad news for Gordon who ended up finishing way back in 27th. Bayne and Kenseth finished 15th and 18th.
The help kept Kenseth in contention, moving him to second in the points just 14 back from teammate Carl Edwards. And after everything, not doing damage is the most important thing at a place like Talladega.
The track serves as THE wild card race in the Chase where literally anything can happen. That uncertainty leads teams to do everything they can to control the things they can. This is why you see teams like Roush and manufacturers like Ford letting their drivers know where loyalties need to lie.
In this instance there seems to be some surprise that Bayne switched dancing partners choosing a teammate over a potentially better pairing. But it makes sense when considering what was at stake: a championship, a precarious future and a whole lot of money. Would you not have done the same?
Success in this sport involves reliance on those who are around you. That goes for the Ford teams, the Chevrolet teams, the Dodge teams and the Toyota teams. While the Roush and Ford team orders are the only ones that made the press this weekend there were no doubt similar understandings at organizations throughout the sport. Consider the other teams on track. Who was working with whom?
The Fords were with the Fords, the Chevrolets with the Chevrolets and on and on.
At superspeedways you draft with who brung ya – it’s true for EVERY manufacturer and EVERY team. While it’s unfortunate for those left out, it’s a cold hard fact.
A lesson from this weekend? It’s easy to be a Monday morning quarterback. A demonstration of that is the couple of people telling TC he’s full of it for writing that all those deals for Daytona would fall apart (thank you for pointing out the obvious). Turns out they didn’t. In a couple of instances (like AJ Allmendinger and Marcos Ambrose), two guys stuck together through thick and thin at the detriment of one or both teams.
Through 170 laps we had guys working different strategies with a singular hope – that they would be in a position to be lucky at the end. It was, in a word, chaos. At the heart of everything was the tandem drafting that dominated from the drop of the green flag and has become the new norm at superspeedways. When all was said and done, there were 57 lead changes among 25 drivers. Compare that to just 23 lead changes before tandem drafting at the same event in 2009.
In the after math of Saturday, some have taken to their respective perches to decry this new style of racing as boring and not racing at all. It’s fast paced, high energy and always edge of your seat. But it’s made the races almost inconsequential as teams jockey just to be decently positioned when the race comes to an end. To some extent it’s more about luck now than it is about quality of equipment or even skill. See example of this type of racing below.
Then there is the old pack style of drafting where you had 20 or 30 cars literally within inches of each other doing 200+ mph. There was no getting away from the packs and when you had the big one, you had the big one. Still, drivers weren’t dependent on just one other car to make things go. And everybody worked with everybody. It often though led to follow the leader style races through the middle portions and made for racing that was less than exciting. See example below.
I think either way you slice it, there were people for and against both styles of racing. Which is the best way? I’m not sure I’ve got an answer, but I’ll bet you do. Which style do you prefer? Sound off on Daytona.
Love it or hate it, restrictor plate racing has created some ridiculously close finishes over the years. This last weekend at Talladega was just another example. Why? Because choking off the engines levels the playing field. Squeezing a restrictor plate in between the carburetor and intake has certainly slowed the cars down, but in the process it has also spawned a level of parity that we don’t see at any other race track. Underdogs and back markers are suddenly not so. And guys like Trevor Bayne and Dave Blaney become stories.
To this point in 2011, we’ve run two of the four plate races for the season. And through those two races, only three drivers have finished in the top ten in both: Carl Edwards, Mark Martin… and David Gilliland. Wha?! Yep, that’s not a typo. David frickin’ Gilliland. Driving the under supported, we can’t afford sticker tires, #34 Ford for Front Row Motorsports, Gilliland is suddenly a contender at plate tracks. In both events he qualified in the 39th position, but was able to stay out of trouble and draft his way to the front. And the restrictor plate on his engine made it possible.
One of the more interesting story lines from Sunday’s Aaron’s 499 was that of Dave Blaney. Blaney drives the #36 for Tommy Baldwin Racing, where usually he has to pull off the track early in races with perfectly good race cars. With very few sponsors, TBR and Blaney are forced to start and park so they can afford to race full events here and there. At ‘Dega, they brought Golden Corral on board and had one of their best days to date. While the possibility of a good finish was ruined by a spin off the nose of Kurt Busch’s car late in the race, Blaney ran up front and was even able to lead 21 laps. There are no moral victories, but what happened to Blaney and TBR would be the closest thing to one. Hopefully it helps them secure more funding for future races.
The opportunities that plate racing provides are not just limited to the Cup Series. Joe Nemechek was able to work with another underdog, Mike Wallace, and fight his way back from being a lap down to finish third in the NNS race at Talladega. Wallace was also on his way to having a season making day, but was the main victim of the last lap crash that resulted in his car taking a tumble down the backstretch.
When we head to Daytona in July, you can be sure that you’ll hear the usual from the media about tandem drafts, deal making, and spotters. But by the end of the weekend, there is a good chance that the story of an underdog driver will be part of the headlines. And it will all be because of a thin piece of aluminum.
Shortly after Sunday’s Aaron’s 499 at Talladega, Dan Bell (VP of Communications for FOX Sports) tweeted that it was “one of the best races in NASCAR history.” With a four wide finish that saw Jimmie Johnson win by 0.002 seconds, it certainly was one of the best finishes ever. But while the two car drafts create a ton of lead changes, and a level of unpredictability not seen anywhere else, I’m not sure we can really call the race as a whole a great one.
I know there are a lot of you out there who are going to disagree with me, but from where I was sitting on Sunday, I didn’t think the first 177 laps of this race were all that great. Positions on track change lap by lap just based on who has the most momentum at that point, and any race strategy is pretty much pointless. A duo can go from the front to the back, and back again very quickly. It makes for a lot of passing, but it’s almost pointless. After seeing a few races with the tandem drafting, these races just doesn’t seem as exciting to me. I’m certainly not a fan of the “big one,” but I liked the old style of superspeedway racing better. The three wide, ten rows deep, white knuckle racing was more fun to watch, IMHO.
With all that said, I’m wondering if we can really call a race great or “one of the best in NASCAR history” if the first 177 laps were so-so, and the last 11 were good, including a spectacular race to the line. Shouldn’t the entire race be exciting and fun to watch to be able to deem it great?
In these cases, I’m wondering if the explanation could be as simple as we only remember what happened at the very end of a race. The result was so great that we forget how not great the rest of the action was. We are blinded by an insane four wide, paint swapping, door to door, all out mad dash to the finish.
As we head into an off weekend for the Cup Series (don’t forget about the Trucks and NNS at Nashville!) I do want to say that this season is playing out as one of the most interesting in recent memory. No driver or small group of drivers has emerged as clear favorites, and we’ve had 7 different winners in eight races. It’s been fun to watch. Bring on Richmond!
Heading to Talladega this weekend, we are getting ready to bear witness to a couple of newer phenomenon in NASCAR competition. The first of course is the new style restrictor-plate racing that dominated the day at Daytona in February. The tandem drafting will most likely be the name of the game again on both Saturday and Sunday at ‘Dega. And the second I’m referring to is the ability that drivers now have to talk to each other during the race. Racing Radios and Racing Electronics can now program systems in which the drivers can jump from their own radio frequency to that of another driver and actually communicate during the race. We saw it happen at Daytona because it allowed the drivers to better navigate the tandem drafting, but I’m not sure if it’s something that should be happening.
Some teams have had setups in the past where teammates could switch over their radios and talk to each other, but it didn’t happen often, and when it did it was usually under caution or at superspeedways. Now though, some drivers will have as many as 15-20 different drivers they will be able to talk directly with during the race.
I understand why some find it necessary, as with the tandem drafting and the “switch” that must take place periodically it can make things easier. But I question if discussing strategy and talking with competing drivers is really in tune with the spirit of competition. It can also create problems for spotters, crew chiefs, and crews.
Just as an example, when driver A jumps over to driver B’s channel, he can no longer hear radio traffic from his own channel. Any information that needs to be conveyed to the driver from the crew and crew chief must now be relayed through the spotters. It adds a level of complication to making adjustment and pit strategy calls that probably isn’t necessary. I’m wondering how long it will be before a driver needs to pit, or is calling out adjustments he needs to his crew, but isn’t on the right radio channel. Chaos will most certainly ensue.
For the spotters, when drivers are hooked together, we’ve seen that usually the lead car’s spotter will end up spotting both cars. This effectively eliminates the immediate need for half the spotters stand. The half that aren’t working however, must still continue spotting their race car, as their driver could return to his own radio channel at any moment. It’s a very odd situation to listen to.
Besides the communication issues, I also wonder if spending time and focus switching radio channels while at speed is the right thing for drivers to be doing. Racing at Daytona and Talladega is hard enough without having to worry about what radio channel you are on. This gives me a driving while talking/texting vision.
You won’t often read a blog post by us that doesn’t have a clear cut opinion, but I have to say that I’m really on the fence with this one. I certainly understand the reasons why the drivers are doing it, but I also have clear reservations.
Thoughts?
As we get ready to head to Talladega this weekend, pit crew coaches across the sport will spend the week preaching to their crews about the importance of not making mistakes. Even if it means pit stops take a few extra seconds than normal, it’s more important to get things right, than it is to have quick stops. Why? Because pit stops in the new era of superspeedway racing really don’t matter.
In a world where races often have multiple leaders per lap, the importance of track position has been lowered. Cars can go from the back to the front, or front to the back, very quickly. Having blazing fast pit stops and picking up spots on pit road is really not worth the risk of possibly having dropped lugnuts, loose wheels, and other mistakes. Obviously crew chiefs don’t want slow stops, but there is less of a focus on being quick, and more of a focus on being mistake free.
Besides the nature of the racing, another reason why pit stops mean less has to do with the tires. Now that both Daytona and Talladega have new surfaces, tire wear over the course of a race has become a non-issue. Some even said that it may have been possible to run the entire Daytona 500 on one set of tires! In any case, crew chiefs want to spend the least amount of time on pit road possible, and if they don’t need to take tires, they won’t. At Daytona in February, this led to a lot of fuel only and two tire pit stops.
Something else to keep in mind when watching pit stops this weekend, is that some teams will set the cars up to maximize speed on track, and in turn sacrifice speed on pit road. What I am referring to specifically is the shock package that some teams use. We’ve seen in the past that the front tire changers and carriers will struggle with the right front. When the car is jacked up, the shock won’t bleed down and it causes the right front tire to stay up in the fender. It makes it very difficult for the changers to get the old tire off, and for the carriers to get the new tire in. Not every team has this problem, but it can significantly slow down pit stops for the teams that do.
Like I’ve said here before, races can’t necessarily be won on pit road, but they can certainly be lost there. This weekend, crews will be doing everything possible to ensure the race is decided on the track and not on pit road.
Why is it when a driver cries foul they’re always correct (drivers are of course the pinnacle of impartiality and infallibility)? And why is it so many people think NASCAR has an agenda with every call they make (after all this is the WWE right)?
Take Saturday night. Kyle Busch wins in the closest finish in Truck Series history and what’s everybody talking about? Him having a tire, or two, below the yellow line as he crossed the start-finish line. That of course means he should lose the win (or maybe not).
NASCAR’s position was that Kyle was forced sideways due to contact, which was why he went below the yellow-line, and why they wouldn’t penalize him.
“He wasn’t forced down there because of a lack of room,” NASCAR Vice-President of Competition Robin Pemberton said. “He got down there because of the door-to-door contact…We looked at it two or three times. We had three or four camera angles and there was absolutely no question whatsoever.”
After watching the video of the final laps over and over and over (and over) again, Kyle was in fact a bit out of control as he went below the yellow line. On top of that, it appears to me Kyle may have had the lead before he crossed below the yellow line (here is the video).
Did Almirola get ‘hosed’? I don’t think so – and I think the video backs that up.
I have to wonder though if the situation were reversed, would people be screaming as loudly about Almirola winning? Or is this just a side effect of Kyle-fatigue? I tend to think no in the former and yes for the latter.
You are of course free to disagree, but the fact is, no matter what you feel, the sanctioning body had to make a ruling on the matter. And as with a lot of on track rules, there has to be discretion. From the beginning, the yellow line rule has not been (and can’t be) a black-and-white rule. There are absolutely incidents where a driver shouldn’t be penalized for crossing below the yellow line.
Now before you jump on me for being a NASCAR homer I will say I haven’t always agreed with NASCAR’s yellow line rulings. Case in point, Regan Smith. I thought he was forced below the yellow line, NASCAR didn’t. To be fair though to the call in the Regan Smith incident, he crossed below the yellow line (why that happened is of course under debate) and continued under the line to pass Tony Stewart. That didn’t happen here.
Just like in any other sport, there are going to be rulings you agree with and rulings you don’t. That doesn’t mean they’re wrong or there is some vast conspiracy to put away a driver, or to let a driver win.
As I said here a couple of weeks ago, you can please some of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all the people all the time. This is definitely one of those situations.
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After all the talk leading up to this weekend about Talladega being a wild card race (yes, I’m guilty too), it turned out to be quite the opposite. Instead of being a track where championship hopefuls have their chances dashed away with one wrong move and “the big one,” all we’ve come out the other side with is a Chase that is even tighter.
Following the race on Sunday, our top three Chasers are now only separated by 38 points. Jimmie Johnson leads Denny Hamlin by 14 points, and Kevin Harvick is another 24 back. Heading into the final three races of 2010, the championship is still completely up for grabs.
During the race, Johnson and Hamlin dropped to the back and were hoping to ride out the madness until the very end. The “riding around in the back all race” strategy worked for Johnson, but it nearly bit Hamlin. While attempting to avoid the front of the pack, Hamlin lost the lead draft and went a lap down. He was able to get a lucky dog late in the race, and came back to finish ninth.
Instead of running in the back like his fellow Chasers, Harvick chose to run in the pack all race long. His wreck with Marcos Ambrose late in the race though showed that no strategy is safe at Talladega. Good work by his crew, and a crazy finish saw Harvick finish a close second to teammate Clint Bowyer.
Looking at each driver’s career statistics at the three remaining tracks, it would appear that with the exception of Johnson at Phoenix, none of the three have a real discernible advantage. The #48 has been awesome at Phoenix, with no finishes outside the top four in their last eight starts (including four wins), but they have had their struggles at Texas and Homestead. And Harvick and Hamlin have both proven they are capable of winning at any of these three tracks.
Minimizing any mistakes is obviously going to be the key over the final three races. Two of our three contenders had some troubles on Sunday, but they were both able to overcome them. As the pressure mounts, who will blink first?
Lost amid the Talladega chaos was the story of JR Motorsports newest driver, Steve Arpin. On Friday, Arpin went out and promptly put his Chevy in the second row during qualifying. Not bad for a kid who’d never driven an NNS car before. Once the race got started, the young Canadian ran as high as second, but was caught up in the last lap “big one” and finished 26th. He will again pilot the #7 Chevy for Dale Jr. on Friday night in the BUBBA Burger 250 at Richmond, a race that will put his skills to the test.
A racer from a young age, Arpin excelled in go carts and dirt late models. In 2008, he also won Rookie of the Year in the USAC Silver Crown Series driving for Carl Edwards. For 2009, Arpin moved into stock car racing, where he competed full time in the ARCA RE/MAX Series for owners Eddie Sharp and Bill Venturini. In 21 starts, he had four top five and eleven top ten finishes in route to finishing seventh in the final points standings.
A successful rookie campaign afforded Arpin the chance to again run for the full ARCA season with Venturini Motorsports. Through five races this season, Arpin already has two wins, Salem and Texas, and is second in the points standings.
Arpin’s success this season and last attracted the attention of JR Motorsports, and after Kelly Bires was released earlier in the year, JRM brought Arpin aboard. JRM is looking for a driver to fill open slots in both its #7 and #88 cars for later in the season, and if all goes well, Arpin might get more races.
While he proved at Talladega that he isn’t afraid to get up on the wheel and drive, his real test will be this weekend at Richmond. Anymore, doing well at ‘Dega is more about luck (see Johnny Borneman) and having a good car than it is about real driving skill. Richmond will test even the best drivers’ abilities.
Different at both ends, success at Richmond is determined by how well a team and their driver can get their car handling. In this week’s Chevrolet pre-race notes, Jeff Burton said:
“Richmond is one of the places where handling means everything. The key factors in running well is getting through the center of the corners and throttling up without losing rear grip. It sounds simple to do, but the one that wins did it the best.”
Besides having a good handling car, a driver must avoid the carnage that comes with short track racing at Richmond, and get to the finish.
If Arpin is able to communicate what he needs to crew chief Tony Eury Jr., and make it to the finish on Friday night, we just might be witnessing a star in the making. A solid top 20 finish would go a long way in getting him more races in 2010.