Green Flag 2.21.08: Rocketman for the Win
Posted by Jim Carson on 02.21.2008
And he's gonna be hi-igh as a kite by then.
Let's get straight to the top development in motorsports: the possible reunification of the IRL and Champ Car. Just kidding; it's still a bunch of rumors now. Anyway, here's what really happened.
ROCKET OVER DAYTONA
Sorry folks, but I've never liked Ryan Newman. First off, the Rocketman has been one of the most boring drivers in NASCAR (a friend who spent two years as a broadcast services coordinator for NASCAR said she wanted to fall asleep standing up when the Rocketman was talking), although Newman showed quite a bit of personality in appearances on ESPN2's NASCAR Now and with David Letterman.
But here's the real reason I've disliked Newman since he broke into NASCAR from his USAC sprint/Silver Crown upbringing. His first stock car race was in ARCA at Pocono in 2000, and it was in a Penske car. With three laps to go, the Rocketman was in second and gaining on leader Bob Strait. He could have found a way to pass him with some effort to do it halfway-cleanly, since the Captain's equipment was better than the non-NASCAR-connected ARCA veteran Strait's, and Pocono has some wide places. Instead, Newman just flat-out punted Strait without giving it a second thought, and Strait was sent spinning into the inside wall and eventually to the hospital for a checkup. Newman obviously went on to win the race. The Rocketman won twice more in ARCA that year, and Penske formed a plan for his new prodigy to run partial seasons in the then-Busch Series and Winston Cup in 2001 (he actually ran one Cup race at Phoenix in 2000), then full-time in Cup starting in 2002. Newman probably would have followed the same path with Penske if he had finished second in that debut ARCA race, and definitely if he had won it cleanly. But the first time Newman got noticed from the general public, it was for a dirty move, which no one who only looks at results can remember.
That said, it's not the most disappointing thing to see the Rocketman win the 50th annual Daytona 500, and make the Captain the first car owner to go to victory lane at Daytona and for the Indianapolis 500 (he's handed a driver milk at the Brickyard 14 times), and to see his supposed top driver Kurt Busch draft with his supposed #2 man Newman and slide past the Toyotas for the win. First off, the race wasn't won by Baloney or Shrub, who have easily become more dislikable in Cup than Newman (notice I said "in Cup" because both Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch are fantastic for short track racing). Also, I like seeing the first ever Sprint Cup race won by the Alltel-sponsored car, with all the fuss made about the Cingular-AT&T merger and Sprint-Nextel's fight to get AT&T out of the sport. I got your exclusivity right here, Brian France.
The Daytona 500 was clearly two separate races: the first 150-odd laps where there were only two cautions, both for debris, and the last 40-some laps with all of the accidents and short runs. The pivotal point was when David Ragan made his first bid for the Roush driver to get canned at the end of the year when he slid up into his teammate Matt Kenseth and took them both out. From then on, the race never had another green-flag stint longer than seven laps, and when it takes at least a lap and a half to get the restrictor-plate engines up to full song (even in the Wingboxcars), it totally changes the race. Some guys were good the whole way through the 500, such as Baloney and Shrub, but some were better on the long runs and fell off some in the stop-and-go traffic, like Denny Hamlin (and Junior, but not pitting for tires in the last three cautions had something to do with that). And the Penske teammates were stronger on the short runs.
Pardon me if I'm not happy for Sam Hornish Jr., the other Penske driver; I want him to fail and drop out of the top 35 in owner points by Bristol, because the Penske points switch was a fraud because Kurt Busch is a fake champion. And I can't be happy for Robby Gordon after his much-needed eighth-place finish, because he suffered a not-needed 100-point penalty and six-race suspension of his crew chief because of an unapproved front bumper cover on his Wingboxcar; now Robby is back in serious jeopardy in that top-35 thing. But there is one feel-good story that we can feel good about: fifth-place Reed Sorenson, who evidently didn't like my prediction that he'd be overshadowed and pressured by his big-name Ganassi teammates JPM and Dario Speedwagon.
Don't get too panicky about the lackluster finishes by the Hendrick cars. For Pete's sake, it's only one race out of 36. The only Hendrick driver that should feel rough is Casey Mears, because he made a seemingly-bonehead move to force one of the late cautions when he moved up to blatantly block Baloney. This blocking garbage needs to be seriously examined, because it often causes more problems than excessive bump-drafting entering the corners (it was 1 to 1 in this 500, with Happy Harvick's push-crash of Dave Blaney).
If you think the Rocketman was the recipient of the weekend's most invaluable teammate push, you didn't see the second dual Duel on Thursday. Mikey and his prodigy David Reutimann were already in the 500 field, so they plummeted through the twin field to pick up Dale Jarrett and draft with him to bring him up into a qualifying position. I don't think anyone in the sport had any objection to DJ finding any way he could into the field for his final Daytona 500 (he's retiring after five more races). After all, who would have been in if DJ hadn't made it ... Patrick Carpentier? Ugh.
The "big one" didn't come in the 500, and I'm talking about the huge crash, not the blowup between Kurt Busch and Baloney Stewart after Bud Shootout practice. But there was a big one two days earlier.
DAYTONA HAD MORE THAN JUST THE WINGBOXCARS
There was a typical Daytona restrictor-plate moment in the Daytona division which didn't use restrictor plates: the Craftsman Truck Series. No one was really at fault, but when Shrub and Mike Skinner slid into each other (it looked like two guys trying to move into the center lane on a stretch of big-city interstate highway, which always freaks me out), it triggered an eight-car wreck which essentially meant the end of the night for half a dozen guys including major championship contender Skinner. Shrub managed to shake off the effects of the contact and finish a close second to Todd Bodine.
The Buschenwide Series managed to avoid a major pileup as well, with the worst of four cautions involving only four cars, and not surprisingly one was Crusty Wallace Jr. OK, no one looked to be at fault there either, but it's fun to poke at Steven until he gets on the right track. Oh yeah ... Baloney won, he and Shrub dominated most of the action, and only sixth-place Bryan Clauson broke up the glut of Cup invaders in the top 11 finishing positions. That's the major reason why you won't see too much discussion of the Buschenwide Series in the Green Flag.
You know what traditional action wasn't at Daytona this year, missing just like it was in 2007? The International Race of Champions series. And IROC looks to be done forever, because its cars and equipment will be auctioned off next month. IROC, which for 30+ years pitted top drivers from NASCAR, whatever the major open-wheel series was at the time, and occasionally sports car road racing or another series and matched them up in four 12-car races at various tracks in NASCAR-like identically-prepared cars. Mark Martin was a five-time IROC champion, kinda making up for the fact that he never won a NASCAR Cup crown. Anyway, IROC outlived its usefulness when the series stopped going to at least one road course, and when so many other divisions' top drivers moved to NASCAR. I wonder who could have enough of a vision to buy the IROC equipment, and also what the heck he'd do with it all once he has it.
QUICK LAPS
- Florida Speedweeks in February means much more than Daytona. In the nine days leading up to the 500, a nearby paved half-mile called New Smyrna Speedway held races for divisions of Late Models and open-wheel modified cars every night, for the 42nd straight year. And for 12 days leading up to the Great American Race, two dirt tracks held their own versions of Speedweeks; Volusia Speedway Park near Daytona and East Bay Raceway Park near Tampa had thrilling Late Model racing and sprint car racing, with some modifieds sprinkled in here and there. On dirt, Ken Schrader (yes, that Ken Schrader) and Jared Landers were the modified stars, Craig Dollansky won the miniseries points title for the winged sprinters, and Billy Moyer won four of the 11 dirt Late Model events he entered. Speedweeks on dirt also produced some breakthroughs, especially at East Bay where a Wisconsin wildman named Terry Casey won one of the Late Model shows, and a West Virginian called "Lucky Louie" Krushansky won the highest-paying modified feature. On asphalt, Jeff Choquette has won seven of the nine Late Model races he's entered this year, and 13-year-old Logan Ruffin beat drivers up to four times his age for the points title in crate-engine Late Models. The biggest development from New Smyrna was the blistering success of Jimmy Blewett in two modified divisions. Last September Jimmy's racing future was in doubt after a crash at Thompson Speedway in Connecticut, when he was racing for the lead with his brother John Blewett III in a NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour race; the result was a disastrous wreck where John III suffered fatal injuries. Jimmy Blewett was Florida's real feel-good story this February.
- Something happened last weekend that hadn't happened in more than three years in Supercross: someone other than James Stewart, Chad Reed or Ricky Carmichael won a feature race. Kevin Windham, who was the last non-big-three rider to get a win in 2005, pulled it off in Houston. Of course, Carmichael is now retired from motorcycles and is entering his second year in stock car racing (he was at New Smyrna racing Late Models), and the dude formerly known as Bubba injured his knee last month in the third race of the season, so 2008 has been all Reed, who was 5-for-6 entering Houston and finished second there to continue his cakewalk to the Supercross championship. Nothing against Reed, but if Windham or someone else doesn't emerge as an elite-level rider, 2008 will be the most uneventful Supercross season in recent memory, and few will pay attention until next January when Stewart hopefully returns at 100 percent.
Hopefully I'll return at 100 percent next week. Thanks for reading, and in honor of my former college roommate, go Memphis!
