Green Flag 12.29.07: The Ones We Lost in 2007, Besides Penske's Dignity

Posted by Jim Carson on 12.29.2007

A little activity from December and a lot of reflection from 2007.


Greetings, race fans. This is the time of year when motorsports ranks about 47th on the priority list of the sports world as a whole, but that's OK because things will heat up in about a month down in Florida.

The biggest NASCAR news of the past three weeks is a result of the biggest travesty of the past decade: the fake Kurt Busch's fake 2004 Nextel Cup fake "chase" championship. Seems that Roger Penske is using the horseshit rules to his advantage, switching the 2007 owner points from the #2 team and the (now #77) team on which Sam Hornish Jr. qualified for 2 of 8 races he entered last fall. That means the #77 is now in the top 35 in owner points and Hornish is thus guaranteed a spot in the first five races of 2008, and Kurt is guaranteed spots in those races because he's the most recent past "champion" not already in. I REALLY hope Hornish falls flat on his face now, even more than the other open-wheel immigrants.

Otherwise, the crew chief alignment is falling into place, with as many as 10 Cup teams announcing their crew chiefs for 2008 in the past month, including all three of Mikey's cars. Unfortunately the sponsor alignment has had no new pieces placed since Thanksgiving, and both Yates cars and both Haas CNC cars are the biggest vacancies to be filled there.

A1GP is competing this time of year ... well, the series that bills itself as the World Cup of Motorsport is in the middle of a five-week holiday break, but you get the point. The fourth round of A1GP was in mid-December at Zhuhai in China, and the feature race produced probably the biggest upset in the three-year history of the group when Narain Karthikeyan gave the first win to Team India (assisted by a costly-long pit stop by former race leader Neel Jani of Team Switzerland). Google that driver's name and find a photo, and you'll swear you've stumbled upon a National Spelling Bee finalist. Until finding his niche in A1GP, Karthikeyan was best-known for running badly in Formula One for the laughingstock Minardi team. And it was another former Minardi F1 punchline that was part of the other major story from China, when Malaysian Alex Yoong was punted by eventual race runner-up Jonny Reid (the series' fastest-rising driving star). And in the next A1GP round in January at Taupo in New Zealand, the identical engines used by home countryman Reid's pointy car and the other 21 machines in the field will use a 30 percent biofuel mixture.


Now the Green Flag pays its respects to some important people in motorsports.

THE ONES WE LOST IN 2007

- Dan Shaver, age 56, Jan. 2, cancer. Shaver raced in several road racing series before moving to stock cars, mostly ARCA where his best finish was ninth. In the last four years Shaver was a team owner, and he was one of the first to put Denny Hamlin and Aric Almirola in superspeedway cars.

- Bobby Hamilton, 49, Jan. 7, cancer. Hamilton had three wins in the former NASCAR Winston Cup series in a roughly-10-year Cup career, then stepped back to the Craftsman Truck Series and turned his own team into a championship effort, winning the 2004 title. He was also the present-day hero of the entire racing community in and around Nashville.

- Benny Parsons, 65, Jan. 16, cancer. BP drove in Winston Cup for almost 20 years and won the 1973 championship, and is the answer to a popular trivia question of who is the only driver to win championships in Cup and ARCA (1969). In 1988 he retired from driving and went straight into the TV booth, where he was a regular for ABC, ESPN, and from 2001-06 NBC; BP was the first star driver to make such a full-time career change, and he became even more loved by the public because of it. Man oh man!

- Hugh Murphy, 65, Jan. 22. He was killed during an enduro race at a track in Charlotte County FL. This was only the second race at this track since new owner-promoter Bobby Diehl took over the place.

- Jack Birmingham, 65, Feb. 26. He was the owner of the Eel River Racing team in Cup from 1998-2001 (State Fair Corn Dogs #30 for Derrike Cope, Viagra #27 for Mike Bliss; the team folded when Mark Martin took the Viagra, so to speak) after purchasing the former Bahari Racing operation (Pennzoil #30; Johnny Benson was the rookie of the year in 1996).

- Pete Babb, 79, Feb. 28. Longtime NASCAR official.

- Jack Smith, 81, March 14. Founder and chairman of Food City, a supermarket chain in and around east Tennessee, and a longtime sponsor of races at Bristol Motor Speedway.

- Eric Medlen, 33, March 23. Medlen, in his fourth season driving an NHRA Funny Car for John Force Racing, suffered a severe closed-head injury in a testing crash four days earlier at Gainesville FL, the day after the NHRA national event there. The death of Medlen, son of longtime Force employee and team chaplain John Medlen, triggered a reexamination of safety measures for all drag racers, spearheaded by Force. His memory also fueled a summer comeback by Force, pushing him from 17th in the points to third in about two months.

- Robert Peterson, 80, March 23. Co-founder of Hot Rod magazine.

- Jimmy Sprinkle, 44, March 31, drive-by shooting near his home. He was a mechanic for the Red Bull NASCAR team.

- Joie Ray, 83, April 13. Ray was the first black driver to hold licenses in the American Automobile Association, Central States Racing Association and International Motor Contest Association, which were the three largest sanctioning bodies in American motorsports during the 1940s. He also raced in one NASCAR event at the old Daytona beach course.

- Scott Kircher, 45, April 14, motorcycle accident. He was a transporter driver for Ginn Racing.

- Jack Combs, 80, April 18. He was one of the original owners of North Wilkesboro Speedway.

- Dick Miller, 66, April 21, Parkinson's disease. He was the CEO of Goodmark Foods and the man behind longtime Slim Jim sponsorships in the NASCAR Busch Series and Slim Jim All Pro Series.

- Tom Hamilton, 61, April 22. Longtime car owner and occasional driver on the West Coast and twice in the Daytona 500, and founder of Stock Car Products which supplied suspension parts to the majority of NASCAR teams in the 1960s and 1970s.

- Scott Seaton, 51, May 7. The sprint car driver died of injuries sustained in a crash at a track near Flint MI.

- Jimmy Crawford, 62, May 31, heart attack. Car owner for Talladega winner Dick Brooks in 1973 in one of NASCAR's all-time upsets.

- Chris Lokken, 31, June 2. He died when his off-road-racing truck tumbled down an 100-foot embankment in the Baja 500 in Mexico.

- Bill France Jr., 74, June 4, cancer. President of NASCAR for 31 years after taking over for Big Bill in 1972, and the man credited with the bulk of the sport's growth.

- Lee Anderson, 35, July 7, drowned after boating accident. He was one of Michigan's best and most popular pavement Late Model drivers, and he also owned a chassis-building and car maintenance shop called Perfect Circle Race Cars.

- Bruce Kennedy, 46, July 10, plane crash. He was married to International Speedway Corporation president Lesa France Kennedy, daughter of Bill France Jr. Also killed in the crash was NASCAR Aviation captain Michael Klemm.

- Christian Elder, 38, Aug. 12. The longtime star of the now-defunct NASCAR Goody's Dash Series, with wins at Daytona and Charlotte, also made 24 starts in the Great Clips car in the Busch Series in 2001-02.

- John Blewett III, 33, Aug. 16. He died during a NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour race at Thompson CT, ironically from a crash that occurred while racing his brother Jimmy for the lead. John was one of New England's most accomplished and most popular stars of the last 10-12 years, winning 10 times in the top modified tour and several other track championships and regional honors. He won two of the first four North-South Shootout modified races at Concord NC, and this year's event in November was named in his memory.

- Sam Conway, 58, Aug. 25, cancer. He was the team manager for Darrell Waltrip's Winston Cup team in the 1990s (Western Auto #17). His son Kevin Conway races part-time in the Busch Series.

- Morris Metcalfe, 81, Aug. 30. Longtime NASCAR chief of timing and scoring, who retired in 2002. He's also credited with starting the first NASCAR fan club, for King Richard's father Lee Petty in 1995.

- Billy Kimmel, 27, Sept. 2. The sprint car driver died of injuries sustained in a crash at a track in Williams Grove PA. (no relation to Frank Kimmel)

- Colin McRae, 39, Sept. 14, helicopter crash. The Scotland native was the 1995 World Rally champion and had 25 career event wins in WRC, and one of the most popular drivers in the sport worldwide.

- Buck Sewell, 71, Sept. 18. Former chief mechanic for Dale Earnhardt, David Pearson, Bobby and Donnie Allison, and other NASCAR greats.

- G.C. Spencer, 82, Sept. 20. The Midwest short track legend moved up to Winston Cup and made more than 400 starts, with seven second-place finishes but no wins. The Morgan-McClure team (#4, sponsored by Kodak in the team's glory days) started with a purchase of Spencer's equipment. (no relation to Jimmy Spencer)

- Mike Swims, 42, Sept. 27, cancer. He was one of dirt track racing's revolutionary promoters, operating Dixie and Rome Speedways in Georgia for 20 years and founding the Hav-a-Tampa Dirt Racing Series, then the top national tour for dirt Late Models, in 1990.

- Wally Parks, 94, Sept. 28. Parks founded the National Hot Rod Association in 1951, helping to bring drag racing off the streets and into a safer environment; for most of NHRA's history, the winners of national events in the four professional categories win trophies of Parks' pose. Parks also co-founded Hot Rod magazine and spearheaded the building of the Bonneville Salt Flats, where land speed records are attempted every year.

- Bob Burdick, 70, Oct. 4. Only Nebraska native to win a now-Sprint Cup race (then called Grand National, in 1961 at Atlanta).

- Norifumi Abe, 32, Oct. 8, highway accident when his motorcycle was hit by a truck which made an illegal U-turn. The Japanese rider was a three-time feature race winner in MotoGP.

- Ray Cooper, 53, Oct. 13, cancer. One of the key figures, as a manufacturing representative, in bringing Dodge back into Cup in 2001.

- Shav Glick, 86, Oct. 20, cancer. Longtime sports reporter, notably for the Los Angeles Times since 1963, and one of the most respected motorsports journalists in the country. His death ironically occurred on the morning of the fifth annual NASCAR Toyota All-Star Showdown at Irwindale Speedway, where he was to have been honored that night.

- Joe Collins, 65, Oct. 25. Longtime NASCAR official and director of the organization's grassroots level, then called the Weekly Racing Series.

- Stan Shoff, 78, Nov. 12. Successful sprint car owner from 1977-2000. His glory years were with Ohio driving legend Frankie Kerr, but he was also the owner of a car in 1987 driven by a 16-year-old mustached kid from Indiana ... named Jeff Gordon.

- Billy Hagan, 75, Nov. 16. Car owner for Terry Labonte's first Winston Cup championship in 1984.

- Christopher Gould, 52, Nov. 25. He was thrown from his jet-powered car after a violent rollover crash at a dragstrip in Jupiter FL after his parachutes failed to open after his run. Gould was a former motorcycle racer who switched to drag racing cars, in part because he felt it was safer.

- Evel Knievel, 69, Nov. 30. For those of you who feel jumping over stuff with a motorcycle should be listed with sports.

- Rafael Sperafico, 26, Dec. 9. One of four racing Sperafico brothers/cousins from Brazil, Rafael died in a violent crash at the Interlagos road course during one of Brazil's stock car series events.


The next Green Flag will be more positive. Happy New Year, everyone.

---Jim