31 Years of a "Temporary" Fix
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I bid
you welcome gentle readers, and a cordial ‘Hey there” to our assigned reader of
all things pertaining to NASCAR. The past two weeks have given us some great
racing at the short tracks of Bristol and Richmond, but now it’s time to pay
the piper, as we’re off to Talladega and all that racing there entails.
Generally speaking, racing with restrictor plates winds up costing car owners
$millions per race in crash damage and
no one is immune to “The Big One” as the multi-car wrecks have been dubbed.
There
seem to be some folks that get a kick out of watching a snarling pack of cars,
4-wide and 10-deep, knowing that the slightest mistake by a single driver can
wipe out a large percentage of the field. This scribe has never been one of
them. I’ve often described my day when Talladega is hosting the race. I say a prayer
at the start, as I do every race, for the drivers’ safety; then I inhale at the
green and exhale at the checkers. White-knuckle brigade all the way!
At some
point in the race, one driver will make that mistake and the result will be a
massive pile-up with cars spinning, flipping, crashing, smoking, and sometimes
erupting in flames. When the screeching and screaming of brakes and tires
finally fades to an eerie silence, we are left to watch for drivers to hopefully
emerge unscathed from what is left of what 2 minutes before was a beautiful and
very expensive racing machine, but now is a twisted pile of rubble to be
scooped up onto a flatbed and hauled away to the automotive graveyard.
Are we
having fun yet? This old fan is not! I don’t believe there is a driver in the
field that can honestly say he looks forward to Talladega or little sister
Daytona… at least since the horsepower has been restricted. Most of today’s
peach-fuzz posse weren’t even born when we raced the big tracks without
restrictor plates. Racing on the giant tracks was fun back then. The fast cars could
pull away from the back markers and race among themselves to prove who was the
fastest on a given Sunday. That can’t happen with the plates choking down the
engines. Everyone has the identical capability so the fleet are forced to race
among the lame and halt… a recipe for disaster at best, and Talladega seldom
disappoints those that watch just for the wrecks.
It was
back in 1987, 31 years ago now, that Bobby Allison’s car ran over some debris
and wound up deep in the catch fence, spewing car parts into the grandstand,
though mercifully the whole car stayed on its own side of the fence. Following
that incident, restrictor plates were introduced as a “temporary” fix. To date,
they have “fixed” nothing, as cars still, even with roof flaps, go flying into
the catch fence far too often. It’s not by accident that the seats at Daytona
were moved far up and away from the track. Rather, it was by design. If the
cars continue to fly, then the path of least resistance is to move the
spectators.
At the
risk of sounding like a broken record, look at the cars of the 1970s… the big
square boxy ones used for stock car racing back then.
Bobby Allison – 1973 Chevelle Laguna
They
rode with a ton of ground clearance and were about as aerodynamic as a shoe
box, but they didn’t go airborne. It wasn’t until 1981, when the cars became
smaller and ran with a smaller wheelbase that the problem of taking flight was
introduced. There’s an answer in there somewhere, but I tire of presenting
logic and having no one listen.
Next month
there will be plates on the engines for the All-Star race at Charlotte. Racing
at Charlotte isn’t boring enough on its own, so we’ll try them there to test
the viability of adding plates at tracks such as Pocono and Michigan. As my
granddaughters are fond of remarking, “Whatever…”
Someone
will win at Talladega. I hope it’s someone I like. Truth to tell, I hope that
it’s Brad Keselowski, because he is my pick in our little on-site game. He has
won five times at the big track… and one of those wins resulted in Carl Edwards
almost making it into the grandstands, car and all. One more time… the plates
don’t work.
Before
leaving you today, I’d like to welcome back Matt Kenseth and thank Jack Roush
for bringing him back. I’m clueless as to how long he will be with us, but as a
fan, I hope it’s long enough to allow him to retire “on his own terms” and not
those of Joe Gibbs. What was done to Matt at the end of last season was just
shameful in this fan’s opinion.
Time
now for our Classic Country Closeout, and we’re sticking with Ozark Jubilee
again this week, but this one is different. No Red Foley here. Instead, we have
Rex Allen… the Original, filling in for Red, with guests Sonny James and Brenda
Lee. Awesome talent!
Be well gentle readers, and remember to keep smiling.
It looks so good on you!
~PattyKay