One Helluva Good Race; Sorry You Missed It
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I bid you welcome gentle readers, to some musings from
the mind of a very old race fan. Did you watch any of the race at Fontana last
Sunday? Oh, you were the one! It would seem from the ratings (2.9 in the
overnights) that you and I were pretty much alone. Everyone else was either
watching freakishly tall men drop a ball down into a net or shopping somewhere…
probably for spring plantings in my area. I no longer do that. I put my yard on
notice several years ago that there will be no more annuals, only perennials,
and it’s survival of the fittest. Want water? Pray for it; because I’m not
wandering amidst the pine straw to bring a hose to you. Pine straw is slippery
and I’m about as steady on my feet as those cars are out on the track with this
low or often no downforce “package.” (Buzz Word)
Remember when I told you I wasn’t concerned about the
“creative” new scoring system? Well, apparently I lied… but only to a point. I
guess “concern” isn’t the correct word. Let’s say I’m puzzled, confused,
disenchanted… heck, I’m just plain lost. Clicking right about here will bring up the stats from
the Fontana race. Just cast an eye over to the right where you’ll find the
points earned for that race. Down toward the end of the lineup, they read as
points should, high to low, but up at the top, where the points are important,
we see an exercise in futility for some, while Dame Fortune smiles brightly on
others. Case in point, Brad Keselowski finished 2nd and garnered 36
points for his trouble. The ONLY drivers in the top ten that Brad beat were
Daniel Suarez (7th for 30 points) and Ryan Blaney (9th
for 30 points). Aside from the winner, Larson, that means that 7 of the top-10
drivers outscored the second place car. HUH?
Recall if you will that with the Latford system, it was
possible for the second place car to tie for points with the winner, if he led
the most laps in the race. That is the small anomaly that had some of us asking
that the win be worth more points… simply to eliminate the possibility of a
tie. Remember, the name of the game we’re playing is racing! A race,
disallowing the genetic definition, has always been defined as a contest of speed,
where he who gets there first is the winner. No more, apparently. Just grab you
a pair of Stages (Buzz Word) and you enhance (Buzz Word) your score enough to
whup the winner. Gentle readers, that just ain’t right!
With all that said… without calling names, mind you,
there are still times when change (Buzz Word) can be a good thing, and that’s
really what your scribe came to talk about today. It just took me several
paragraphs and the letting out of a large buildup of steam to get around to it.
The race at Fontana made me acutely aware of what
promises to be a good change in the sport, regardless of scoring gimmicks and
other games people play. Way back when the Chase (Buzz Word no more) was the
Chase, never to be called Playoffs (Buzz Word 13 years later) I shared with you
my method of dealing with that bit of lunacy. Ever since, this scribe watches
each race on its own merits. Scoring doesn’t matter much to me, and the more
they mess with it and distort it, the less I care.
There was a time when I felt the race(s) at Fontana were
nothing but a joke. NASCAR took the Southern 500 out of Darlington and sent it
to Southern California instead. I hated that track and everything it stood for.
It took over a decade to right that wrong, and since no one came to see the
races there anyway, one of her races was taken… for Kansas’ second race I
think. But despite the politics and lies (They’re all downstairs shopping),
something has quietly happened to that now 20-year-old track. The pavement has
matured. She’s now full of cracks and sealer to patch the cracks, and wouldn’t
you know? Just like Atlanta… the racing there has gotten better with every
crack and patch. Finally, after all this time, she races much like the track
she was patterned after, Michigan. Five lanes wide and side by side!
But no, that is not the change I meant. The one I am
enjoying most is the one on the track… the changing of the guard! I was happy
as a clam, whatever that means, watching the youth movement come to the fore on
that now great racing surface. Names like Larson, Elliott, Logano, Blaney,
Jones, Suarez, Dillon and Dillon were putting it right to names that have ruled
the headlines of late… Harvick, Johnson, Busch, Busch, Kenseth, Keselowski,
Earnhardt and the rest. No fear; just grab a gear! Pick a lane and make the
pass!
I’d feared that racing would suffer with the loss of
prominent names such as Gordon, Stewart and Edwards, but I’m here to tell you,
if what we watched on Sunday is any harbinger of things to come, racing is just
fine and is as healthy as ever. I truly feel sorry for those folks that chose
not to put on the race on Sunday. If you ever were a race fan, that race would
have grabbed you by the collar and reminded you why! Even the chosen mutilator
of our National Anthem couldn’t dim the light of the racing we watched at
Fontana! (Honey, it is far from alright to make the Star Spangled Banner “Your
own.” That song belongs to me; to us; to America… and you can’t have it!)
Being of some age, as you well know, the race in Fontana
took me on a mind trip… a sentimental journey if you will, back to somewhere in
the mid-80s, when the young comers were named Earnhardt, Wallace, Gant, Richmond,
Rudd, Elliott, Labonte, Allison, Kulwicki, and many more. The old guard… Petty,
Yarborough, Pearson, Allison and the rest were fading and the youth movement
was on and evident. That's happening today, right before our very eyes. Watch
it and enjoy it. Sometimes change is insidious… creeping in slowly and almost
unnoticed, but when it comes over us like a wave crashing up on the beach and
carrying the starfish back into the water as it ebbs, it is a grand and
glorious thing to behold. It doesn't happen often enough, and we might never see
it again, but it's here now… an official changing of the guard! See y’all
at Martinsville!
That means time now for our Classic Country Closeout,
and this week we have a wonderful collection of Grand Ole Opry performances by
the pioneers of Country Music. If you like Country at all, you’ll recognize
most every song and performer on this one. Please enjoy:
Be well gentle readers, and remember to keep smiling.
It looks so good on you!
~PattyKay 