Green Flag 7.12.07: Those Pesky Teammates and Parents
Posted by Jim Carson on 07.12.2007
Relax, Shrub; Sam Hornish could be your teammate.
This'll be one of those Green Flag efforts that doesn't begin with NASCAR. It also won't begin with a snappy opening on other sports or world events.
We'll start with the pointy cars, because some gray-haired parent in a button-down shirt had mistaken the pit road at the Watkins Glen International road course for the dugout at a Little League ballfield.
TOOTING YOUR HORNISH
At one point in the IRL race at Watkins Glen, Sam Hornish Jr. put a little tire mark on the side pod of Tony Kanaan's car, which is understandable because it's hard for the pointy cars to pass on a road course. The two cars then collided a wee bit after the race when everyone except for winner Scott Dixon headed for pit road, which is understandable even though TK probably should have avoided it.
Hornish immediately jumped out of his car and stomped over to Kanaan, and the two exchanged some words, although no personal contact was made. They backed away from each other, than inched toward each other again, probably (and understandably) because it was tough to hear what someone else is saying when you're both wearing helmets and HANS devices. But when that happened, Hornish's father stepped in and gave a two-handed shove to Kanaan. That led to someone somehow connected to Andretti-Green Racing (maybe just a fan or supporter) running after Big Sam and both men going onto the pavement and getting covered by security officers and guys with Penske and AGR shirts. And remember, they weren't wearing helmets.
This is going beyond the Danica-Wheldon feud from Milwaukee last month. Remember when A.J. Foyt tackled 1997 Texas race winner Arie Luyendyk after Foyt thought Arie was a lap down and his driver Billy Boat was the winner? Big Sam's sham was the most foolish-looking thing in the IRL since then.
The car owner for Kanaan (and Marco and Danica and Franchitti), Michael Andretti, started to confront Big Sam after the shove, but Marco came in and held his dad back. Hornish could have done the same thing, although it probably wouldn't have prevented the IRL from suspending Big Sam for one race.
Kanaan and Hornish were hit with five-figure fines, but they're doing fine with the exposure they're receiving from the incident. Who's the one suffering the most in this area? Race winner Scott Dixon. The IRL has made a habit of this ... quick quiz: who's the guy that won the Indy 500 in 2005 when Danica led laps and ran fourth?
At least Hornish and Kanaan weren't driving cars fielded by the same car owner. Hey, that leads us to Daytona.
GREAT TEAMMATES, JUST LIKE COKE AND PEPSI
Entering the Pepsi 400, the biggest stories of the weekend, besides one that led to an Unsung (below), were sponsor-related. It's officially gonna be the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series in 2008, and Coca-Cola would take over the rights to the former Firecracker 400 at Daytona. Fortunately there were some good ol' on-track controversies to put the headlines where they belong: showing how much of a pain it can be to deal with Kyle Busch and Tony Stewart.
Baloney went first by mistaking a bump-draft for a punt while running second on lap 20-something of 160. Problem: the guy he wrecked out of the lead was his teammate, Denny Hamlin. Stewart was also gone, at least for about 30 laps.
Stewart, from TNT: All of a sudden he just stops on the exit of turn four in front of 42 cars and I guess expects us to drive around him. The Hurricane had similar sentiments. Hey Baloney, remember that thing called "closure rate" and how you have to manage it at the restrictor-plate tracks? Maybe you couldn't get off the gas soon enough, but you dang sure have no business blaming Hamlin for the crash.
Team owner Joe Gibbs had more microphones stuck in his face than in a Redskins locker room, and tried to smooth things over by saying they were just two extremely competitive drivers. But in the Gibbs case, it was about competition. Later there was Kyle Busch, and that's sparking theories of conspiracy.
Shrub, as we all know, won't be back with Hendrick Motorsports next year; team ownership is giving his seat to that Junior fellow. Shrub still managed to run at or near the front for much of the race including the all-important late laps. After the end of the race, Shrub lost out to Jamie McMurray by .005 second in the second-closest margin of victory in the history of Nextel Cup. Then Shrub showed he was upset that his teammates in the #24, #48 and #25 weren't on the low side trying to help the #5 get to the stripe first.
With one lap left, McMurray slid up in front of Jeff Gordon to take control of the high groove, which seems to be the better one on the final lap (ask Daytona 500 winner Happy Harvick and Unhappy Mark). At that point Shrub was the only Hendrick guy in the low line, but voila! he was side by side for first place, with plenty of cars behind him. Three other guys, including the points leader and another guy in great shape in the standings, aren't going to risk crashing just to slide down to what they thought was the slower line just to help you.
It makes no difference whether or not Shrub will be around with Hendrick next year. Now if the team brass really wants to shun you and make your duck truly lame, they'll lock you out of the Monday morning team meetings at the shop. Ask Brian Vickers how that feels.
All this adds up to another reason I'm not crazy about restrictor-plate racing: You can't really do anything on the track without someone behind you helping you in the draft. If Shrub or Baloney want to make a pass at Chicagoland this weekend, they'll just pull low or high and do it, which is the way it probably should be.
In an IRL-like scenario, the controversies with Shrub and the Gibbses took some focus away from McMurray, who won for the first time in 166 races (and overcame a pass-through penalty for passing someone by crossing the out-of-bounds line). Remember that the last time Jamie won was in the fall of 2002 when he was filling in for the injured Sterling Marlin with Ganassi's team at Charlotte. Remember also that in the fall of 2005 when McMurray and Kurt Busch were trying to get out of their Ganassi and Roush contracts a year early because they wanted to go to Roush and Penske, and I called McMurray the most overrated driver in NASCAR and not worth the contract fuss (and rivaling Formula One's Mark Webber as the most overrated in all of motorsports). Congrats to Jamie for dropping that designation.
QUICK LAPS
- The Hamlin/Baloney moment of international racing on French Grand Prix weekend came from F1's feeder series, GP2. Timo Glock won the pole, and his teammate Andreas Zuber started next to him on the front row of the longer feature race. For some reason, the two iSport team cars took their grid spots pointed a little toward the center of the track instead of straight ahead. The red lights went off (international road racing's equivalent of a green flag dropping), and within 100 feet of the starting line Glock and Zuber crashed with each other and their cars rode piggyback off into the grass. That far eclipses the stupidity of what happened between the Gibbs cars at Daytona. It took a week to bounce back, but Zuber won the feature race at the British Grand Prix weekend. Glock had DNFs in the French sprint race and both shows at Silverstone, but somehow he's still leading the GP2 points.
- Qualifying in NHRA Powerade Drag Racing is pretty simple. The cars that made the 16 fastest runs in qualifying make Sunday eliminations, and everyone else goes home; no one's exempt or uses provisionals like in oval track racing. Tony Schumacher has qualified for every field of Top Fuel eliminations since 2002. Greg Anderson and his teammate Jason Line haven't had DNQs in four years. (That's a big reason why those three gentlemen have won recent championships.) Angelle Seeling...er, Savoie...er, Sampey has qualified for every race for over 11 years in Pro Stock Motorcycle; the bikes don't run every NHRA event. But here's the funny part, and it's about Funny Car: no driver has been in the field of all 14 events this season. Everyone's been saddled with a DNQ. The last drivers to swallow that first DNQ in 2007 were Jeff Arend and Ashley Force, who didn't come all that close at Bristol last weekend. Of course, there's the fact that earlier this year John Force had his first DNQ since the late 1980s, so it's been a weird season. Nice of ol' John to win one last weekend; he hadn't even been out of the second round in 2007 until Bristol. (Dang, I miss Eric Medlen.)
UNSUNG RACERS OF THE WEEK
Got two to catch up on, and they both captured the attention (and even a little sympathy) from the NASCAR world in the past two weeks, despite neither of them winning. One didn't even get to race in the week he was honored, and the other didn't know until just now when his next race would be.
The last Craftsman Truck Series race was at Memphis the week before last. Ted Musgrave had been suspended for one race because of numerous bumps against rookie Kelly Bires under caution the week before that at Milwaukee, so Germain Racing tabbed Brad Keselowski to fill in at Memphis in the #9 truck. Keselowski has been in a shoestring-budget Busch Series team for most of 2007, so this was a lately-rare chance to run quality equipment. Brad promptly went out there and won the pole and led the most laps; unfortunately he was bumped out of the way by the slightly-faster and slightly-less-patient Travis Kvapil for the lead with 10 laps left and Brad wound up 16th. Musgrave will be back in the #9 truck at Kentucky this weekend. It may be a happy ending for Keselowski, because he'll be in the JR Motorsports Busch car for at least the next three races.
A tougher break occurred last weekend at Daytona. There were 53 cars in the qualifying line, and 39 of them had made their timed laps. Boris Said, that fuzzy-headed road racing guy, was the fastest in qualifying, as the top five were all non-exempt qualifiers. But then rain interfered, wiping out the session. Since not everyone got their laps in, NASCAR went to the points to set the field for the race. And since Boris' #60 was a part-time team, they didn't have enough points so they were shut out of the Pepsi 400 (Jeremy Mayfield and possibly Mikey were also screwed out of their chances because of the weather. NASCAR didn't really have a choice in the matter, unless they want to allow for an extra day between qualifying and the race. Eh, Cup races should be on Sundays instead of Saturday nights anyway.
Here's hoping that wherever you plan to watch a race this weekend, the weather is beautiful.
