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A Voice For The Fans ~ On The Road Again
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Editor's Note: This column was originally to run on Monday, June 22, 2015, but due to unforeseen circumstances it was delayed until today.
If
things had been different, Dan Wheldon would have turned 37 on Monday, June 22,
2015.
I bid you welcome gentle readers, and a warm welcome as well to our assigned reader of all things NASCAR, thought to be cozily ensconced in the Fan and Media Espionage Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. I do hope your experience today will be a pleasant one.
Having finished with the modern version of the "Northern swing", which includes the tracks of Dover, Pocono and Michigan, and then taken a week off… for good behavior, I guess… the teams now head west to Sonoma Valley in the beautiful California wine country and the twists and turns of the track at Sears Point, for the first of the two road races on the schedule.
Always, at this point in the season, it’s been the custom of your scribe to deliver a speech on the joys of road racing as compared to traveling in endless circles, as does the little army described so eloquently (?) by my alter ego, The Lady in Black. This year, it seems that there’s been a change in the thinking of a lot of fans, and perhaps my explaining and cajoling isn’t as necessary as it once was. Has anyone seen the poll that USA Today has been running on the top-10 NASCAR tracks on the circuit… according to you, the fans? I stumbled upon it a week or more ago, cast my ballot and checked to see where everyone else was going… fully expecting to see Daytona or (Horrors) Talladega right up at the top… but NO!
Imagine my “shock and awe” at seeing atop that list the track I left behind over 20 years ago, Watkins Glen International! NASCAR fans, you never cease to amaze me. All this time, I thought no one had been listening, but apparently a whole lot of someones were listening, heard and got the message. Of course, I’m not the only one that’s tried to deliver that message over the years, but whether you heard it from me or any of the other intelligent and informed members of the motorsports media (Yes, there are!) I’m just thrilled that you got the message. Second on the list is my “Pretty Little Martinsville.” Imagine that! Mama is two for two!
Road courses and short tracks are the two things we need more of. Are you listening Brian? These aren’t the readers on my site or any other single site voting here. This is a nationwide poll conducted by USA Today, a nationally recognized Newspaper, well read in print and on line. This is AMERICA talking to Brian France! Are… you… listening? No, of course you’re not. You’re Brian France.
Oh dear, the dummy behind this keyboard almost forgot to give the fans a link to the place to vote and the results so far. That may or may not be of help to you, as the voting closes at midnight on Monday, June 22, and I’ve no idea if this column will run on Monday or Tuesday.
Returning for a moment to the “Is anyone listening” theme, I believe it was this very poll that one on-air pundit pointed out to Steve O’Donnell and asked yet again about the possibility of a road course in the Chase. This was one question I dearly wish had been accompanied by one of those annoying videos that take forever to load and then pop up as we’re in the middle of reading what might otherwise have been an interesting piece of print journalism. Alas, it was not, so one couldn’t see the look of disdain on his face as he “patiently” explained how every race in the Chase was in perfect position, leaving no room for a replacement… and besides, there are only two road courses on the schedule. Sonoma, we were told, is quite happy with their June date, and the idea of Watkins Glen doing a fall race would be iffy, due to possible bad weather. (And the idea of doing a night race at Daytona on 4th of July weekend is NOT iffy? Oh, Please!)
Fans… and you too Steve, if you’d be so kind… please take another look at the list of tracks eligible for voting in this poll… a poll I believe is said to have been set up by USA Today with collaboration from NASCAR. The poll lists 20 tracks, which means since the Cup Series races on 23 different tracks, that 3 were excluded from this little popularity contest… with NASCAR’s blessing! Those tracks missing from the list are New Hampshire, Chicago and Kentucky. Two of those three now hold a Chase race, yet they don’t even rate in NASCAR’s own top-20.
There’s a great place to start Steve! Oh, and for goodness sake, start thinking at least an inch or two outside the box. It isn’t necessary to change the dates of either Sonoma or Watkins Glen, but how about adding a road course such as Laguna Seca (SoCal) or Barber Motorsports Park (Alabama), each of which is located where fall weather would be no more a problem than might be encountered at Talladega or Martinsville? While we’re at it, why not add a fourth road course to run during the regular season? Each time the Xfinity cars go to Road America, this fan gets green-eyed jealous that they get to race on that beautiful course and we, the Cup fans, don’t. Ever since 1988, the schedule has contained 4 restrictor plate races, which necessitate a different car than used at other tracks. Road course cars, likewise, are set up, geared and configured quite differently from those run on the 1.5-mile parade grounds. If the series runs 4 restricted races, then why not 4 road courses, to justify the need of building that “special’ car?
Now then guys and gals, looking again at that list, I’m seeing something horribly askew. Watkins Glen is at the top of the list, yet Sonoma, our only other road course, is at the very bottom? How can that be? I’ll grant you that I preferred the track at Sears Point before Bruton Smith put his grubby paws on it and bypassed the “Carousel” part of the course, but it’s still an interesting race, and a place you won’t be hearing much about “aero-push.” I could see it coming in at mid-list, but last behind all those cookie-cutter cures for insomnia? Someone isn’t thinking straight.
Surely, we all realize that stock car racing is a direct descendant of road racing, right? Back in the beginning, the racers were, for the most part, a bunch of moonshine jockeys that got together on weekends to determine who had the fastest car or the biggest cojones…or both.
Yep! Here comes the lecture!
Many of you reading today are familiar with the twisting, winding roads in the hills and mountains of the Carolinas, Virginia, Tennessee and Georgia, where men like Junior Johnson, Curtis Turner and Raymond Parks lived and plied their trade. Those of you that have not traversed the Southeastern part of our great country are still familiar with the names mentioned... or should be. Trust me; our early heroes were even better on the roads than they were on the ovals and I suspect they would be mightily amused to hear the purists of the Roundy-round circuits proclaim that road racing is “boring.” Heck, it was both lifestyle and livelihood to them.
Of course, I realize that not all road racing has its roots in the south or even in America for that matter, but for today, since the conversation revolves around stock cars, let's keep it at home. I can remember somewhere back in the 1960s when the stockers made their first long haul up to Watkins Glen, about an hour from where I used to live. (Not their first road race, just the first one at the Glen) Actually, it was amusing to see those big heavy cars being tossed from side to side and drivers that were known to be aces on an oval spending an inordinate amount of time trying to dig out of the “kitty litter.”
Obviously, those drivers, many of whom were still children when NASCAR came into being, had come some distance from the moonshine days and the cars were very different from those little pre-war Fords with the huge trunks. Their foray into the Glen didn’t last long that time, but soon they found themselves racing at good ol’ Riverside in southern California, a track I sorely miss. Alas, someone decided that the world needed one more shopping mall.
Ah, but as usual, I digress, and become lost in my own personal preferences. (Senior moment; please indulge me) The point I’m trying to make is that I love it when they go racing on the roads, as do many of the drivers. Make no mistake; these are not the drivers of the '60s that were trying something different and finding it somewhat beyond their skill set at the time. Many of today's drivers are more than capable of racing in other series, where road racing is the norm. How many familiar names do you hear these days in the 24-Hours of Daytona? Road racing presents a chance for the skills of a driver to outshine raw horsepower and for a crew chief to prove his worth by outthinking the competition. We get to see all too little of either on the fast ovals.
I think we can agree that part of the fun of stock car racing is in the diversity of the tracks that host it, something we might be in danger of losing in the not too distant future. Right now, we have races at the two giant Superspeedways, three short tracks of varying configurations, a couple of flat milers (NHMS and Phoenix), one banked mile track in Dover, Pocono, which fits no description even close to the others save for one corner that resembles Indy, and to date, we still have one race at our egg-shaped anomaly, Darlington. Then of course, we have the road courses, Sears Point and Watkins Glen. All of the rest bear a striking resemblance to one another.
It takes a very talented racer to get the best out of a car that is traversing hills, valleys and multi-directional turns; it’s like racing through the mountains of Carolina with a Trooper on your tail, and that Trooper is likely to look a lot like Kevin Harvick, Martin Truex Jr., or maybe Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart or Kyle Busch. As I said, today's drivers have learned to race the roads in very respectable style. The game is played differently on a road course and one has to be thinking out of the box right from the green flag in order to reach the checkers first. I just love trying to second-guess the calls we see made on a road course and they raise my esteem for crew chiefs, which is already very high, to a new level.
We often hear the mantra that NASCAR is a “team sport” and nowhere is that more true than on a road course. The best driver doesn’t have a chance of winning without good calls from his crew chief, good performance from his crew and it helps immeasurably to have a transmission specialist that can build one to last the length of the race. Of course, a little luck never hurts either......
Below is a diagram of the Sears Point track, showing two configurations in one. From 1989 until 1997, NASCAR ran the full track, 74 laps on a 2.520 mile road course (186.5 miles), as outlined by the yellow "rope pattern." In 1998, the section known as the "Carousel" was eliminated for the stock cars, as denoted in dark green, shortening the track but actually lengthening the race slightly to 112 laps on a 1.949 mile road course (218.3 miles). In 2000, an alteration was made, lengthening turn 11 slightly as pictured in clear yellow, making it 112 laps on a 1.990 mile road course (222.9 miles). One more adjustment was made in 2003, not to the track itself, but the length of the race was shortened from 112 laps to 110 laps on a 1.990 mile road course (218.9 miles), which is where it remains today.
While we have this map in
front of us, please allow me to mention SAFER barriers as they relate to this
track. According to Diana Brennan, Vice President of Media & Community
Relations, the track uses tire barriers as buffers where needed and has no
plans to add SAFER unless asked to do so by NASCAR in specified areas. I have
absolutely no idea if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I warned you that
the road courses were a different animal and when it comes to them, I happily
defer to Dean Sicking and his far superior knowledge of the SAFER barriers and
their viability in particular situations. I do just happen to have a second map
though, ably prepared by my partner, Jim Fitzgerald, which shows where those
tire barriers are located.
Immediately, we can see by the yellow that there are
tires in some places that don’t even relate to the course on which the Cup cars
run. Several other series use this track throughout the year, and I can’t even
begin to tell you which series they are or what their path around the track
might be. If we’re talking a type of car or even cycle that would be impeded or
harmed by having a wall where tires used to be, I can understand that. If some
series runs a markedly different or shorter course, tires can be moved to
accommodate that. Walls do not move easily and SAFER is not portable. At least
for the time being, or until we hear differently from Dr. Sicking, we’ll give
them a pass for now.
So, gentle readers, enjoy the road race, but for now, let’s move on to our Classic Country Closeout, and this time I’m going to take one of those cheap shots that you always think are coming, but never do. Up first today, for your listening pleasure is… what else? Willie Nelson singing, “On the Road Again.”
So, gentle readers, enjoy the road race, but for now, let’s move on to our Classic Country Closeout, and this time I’m going to take one of those cheap shots that you always think are coming, but never do. Up first today, for your listening pleasure is… what else? Willie Nelson singing, “On the Road Again.”
Well, I never can hear Willie doing that song without
hearing Jerry Reed doing this one, simply entitled, “The Bird” and no, not
that kind of bird. Just give it a listen. I think you’ll enjoy it.
This next one isn’t classic, but I’ve loved it from the first time I heard it played as the background music for some drama show we were watching. That version was by a young lady named Selah, but when I went hunting the song, I found this version by Rascal Flatts, which I absolutely love. Here is, “God Bless the Broken Road.” Yes… He did.
Here’s a real oldie from the days of my childhood. This is Asleep at the Wheel, and they do a very credible job on an old Boogie tune called “Route 66!”
And finally, if we’re talking about road songs, this is probably the best ever, by a guy that I could listen to forever. Here is John Denver, singing the song that made him a sensation, “Country Roads.”
Be well gentle readers, and remember to keep smiling. It looks so good on you!
~
PattyKay