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05/29/2015 |
I
bid you welcome gentle readers, and hope that everyone reading enjoyed the long
Holiday weekend and the serious overdose of racing that comes each year on the
most solemn of America’s Holidays… Memorial Day.
Everyone with the tiniest interest in racing knows by now that a late race pit
stop for Lewis Hamilton snatched Defeat from the jaws of Victory in Monaco and
handed the win to teammate, Nico Rosberg.
No, Hamilton was not elated or joyful at finishing 3rd in a race he
had dominated.
Next,
an impressive back to front performance (twice) saw Juan Pablo Montoya drinking
the milk in the Indianapolis Victory Lane after a great race with lots of speed
and lots of passing. (Unfortunately, lots of wrecks as well, including a mishap
on pit road that injured 2 crewmen) Finally, after 600 l-o-n-g miles, it was
Cousin Carl Edwards doing backflips on the Charlotte front stretch and praising
a gas-mileage gamble that paid off. In the wings was a heartbroken Martin Truex
Jr., knowing all too well how Hamilton felt that morning.
That
pretty much sums up Sunday, with all that racing built around a whole lot of
patriotism and well watered with tears and “Thank-yous” for those that gave
all. Now I guess we’re all ready for some racing at the Monster Mile in Dover,
Delaware, and yes (!) it’s a DAYTIME race!
But
wait; not so fast if you please. There are things I’d like to discuss with you,
and they concern six-time Champion, Jimmie Johnson and his almost identical twin
slides at Charlotte. In the first instance, both car and driver escaped
unscathed. In the reprise, that was not the case. In case you missed it… as in
“already in bed”, here’s a replay, in living color. By the way, I love what
Charlotte has done. They have painted all of their SAFER barriers bright yellow.
Class act Marcus! If you’ve got it, flaunt it!
Now,
with our memories refreshed, here’s what Jimmie had to say about that
slide-ride in a late-race Q&A session:
Q) YOU HIT THE SAFER
BARRIER THAT HAS BEEN ADDED SINCE OCTOBER. DID YOU KNOW THAT? HOW CLOSE DID YOU
COME TO HITTING THE OPENING ON PIT ROAD?
Johnson: "I could see
the SAFER barrier and I could see that opening and I could see the No. 2 (Brad
Keselowski) pit. I was frightened I was going to get through that hole. It
wouldn't have been pretty for me, but to have teams and stuff there that was
something I was staring at sliding for a long ways. I was very thankful the
SAFER barrier was there and wish we could find a way to extend a wall out and
redirect the car away from that opening or close that opening up."
Gentle
readers, if that doesn’t give you a bit of a chill, it should. Upon reading
that, the first thing I did was watch that short video again… that time through
Jimmie’s eyes. On the video, you can hear the FOX broadcast team telling us
that the second time was just a little different from the first slide. What
they couldn’t see then was that oh-so-important view through Jimmie’s eyes.
Yes, his angle to the wall was different. Right near the end of the slide, he
changed the angle with a hard left into the fast-diminishing SAFER barrier
rather than allow the car to travel out of control onto and even behind pit
road, where pit crews were working and perhaps not paying attention to a car
coming off the track and straight into their “office” as it were.
Jimmie,
as I’m sure you’re aware, some folks say they don’t much care for you because
you win too much. Being a fan of the late Dale Earnhardt, I’ve never understood
that mindset, but today it’s in hopes that a lot of those folks are reading
here that I say, “Thank you! Jimmie, you are a man among men. Had you allowed
that sliding car to enter the pit road area, it could have resulted in serious
injuries or worse to those who were there and taken unawares. Instead, you took
yourself into the wall, trusting that the SAFER barrier would cushion the blow and
no one… including yourself… would be injured.” We’re all happy it worked out
that way.
Speaking
of SAFER barriers, which I seem to do a lot these days, and pit road entrances,
let’s take a look at the track hosting the next race, Dover International Speedway.
Dover’s
walls appear to be no more than half protected, with both outer straightaways
showing red and both inner turns as well. Your scribe finds that they put up a
brand new catch fence over the off-season, but I can find nothing regarding SAFER
barriers. While watching Jimmie’s wreck at the entrance to the Charlotte pit
road, I recalled seeing something on the Dover map that my partner Jim prepared
for me. Do you see the green line indicating a SAFER barrier along the inner
side of the front stretch and reaching back into turn four? At the very tip of
that barrier, on the left side or turn-4 end, you can see something that on
this picture appears small and black.
Another
trip to Google Earth and a lot of patience produced a blowup of that area that
shows whatever that is far more clearly. Now gentle readers, the $64,000
question is… What IS that?
As
close as I can tell, it’s either tires or barrels of something, stacked or
placed in 4 rows of 2 and 3 singles, probably with an eye toward protecting
drivers from hitting that exposed abutment full on… or maybe providing a hiding
place for my dear friend, The Orange Cone, who hangs around the entrance to pit
road a lot. The more I look at that, the more frightening it becomes. Over the
years, this fan has seen a couple of drivers hit one of those things, and the
results are never pretty. It makes me wonder if there isn’t some way to end
that wall with a short perpendicular stretch of SAFER instead of tapering off
to a concrete point.
See
where the SAFER ends, right at the entry line to pit road? I’m suggesting, or
maybe just thinking out loud, a T-section of SAFER going the other way, right
there. I’m not an engineer, but sometimes I wish I were. Common sense tells us
there has to be a better way. Of course, common sense isn’t nearly as common as
it used to be. (Dean, if you’re reading today, any comment, public or private
would be greatly appreciated.)
Dover
is a long way from North Georgia, so I am not very familiar with the chain of
command up there. I do know the name Denis McGlynn, who is president and CEO of
Dover Motorsports, which along with the track in Dover, at one time ran Memphis
Motorsports Park and the Nashville Superspeedway… the big one, not the
Fairgrounds track. The former was sold but the ¾-mile oval track is currently
not in operation. Nashville Superspeedway has been “sort of” sold for at least
a year, to an entity known as NeXovations, Inc. Some
funds, I’m told, have changed hands, but in small dribs and drabs, serving only
as earnest money as negotiations and red tape stretch on and on. This past
January, Michael Tatoian was announced as the new
President of Dover International Speedway, but still reporting to Denis
McGlynn.
Gentlemen,
whoever is running the show, I do hope you’ve been keeping abreast of the fact
that a huge push is on for all tracks to upgrade their walls to SAFER barriers
everywhere. This is coming from concern by drivers, car owners and media
combined, in response to the serious injuries sustained by Kyle Busch in the
Xfinity race at Daytona in February. I can find nothing on your website that
indicates when the SAFER you do have was installed, and I find nothing anywhere
about you having done any upgrades to it. As always, it is possible that the
map is out of date. If that is the case, complaints should be directed to
Google. We only print them here; they create them, and this one did not come
with an imagery date.
In
closing, please allow me to implore that you give serious and immediate
consideration to adding SAFER barriers to the unprotected walls as soon as
possible and practical, and please gentlemen, look into something more effective
than whatever it is you have stacked at the end of that abutment that shouldn’t
exist in the first place.
Time
now for our Classic Country Closeout and this week we’re going to get deep into
the old Country sound, somewhere between storytelling and blue grass wailing.
Here, for openers, are the Osborne Brothers, Sonny and Bobby, with one I just
love because it’s so sad but true. Please enjoy, “Georgia Mules and Country Boys.”
I’m not sure why, but every time I hear this one, my mind conjures up a
picture of Junior Johnson.
Next
up, it’s time to expose all of you to the ultimate test of “fandom” when it
comes to Classic Country. This is Tex Ritter, at either his absolute best or
absolute worst. The song is from the album of the same name, one of the very
first actual vinyl LP albums I ever owned… “Blood on the Saddle.”
And
then, as was his way, Tex would switch immediately from deep gloom and despair
to the peaks of hilarity like a ride on a runaway elevator. Here is Tex with “Boll
Weevil”, and no, this is not that bouncy little thing that Brenda Lee
did back in the 50s. This one is much older, and far better, in my humble
opinion.
Alright
then… start those toes to tapping as we hear the banjo strings tuning up to
give us Grandpa Jones calling out “Old Rattler.” Lawd,
it doesn’t get more Country than this!
To
close out this session, let’s hear from Hank Thompson, always one of Mama’s
favorites, doing his version of something we know is a joke… “Mama
Don’t Allow No Music Played ‘Round Here.”
Be
well gentle readers, and remember to keep smiling. It looks so good on you!
~
PattyKay