Personality to return?

In NASCAR Scene Daily, there is this entry:



"Ticket sales are flat or they are below [previous years]," (Lowes Motor Speedway’s H.A.) Wheeler said Thursday during the final stop of the annual NASCAR Sprint Media Tour. "And [TV] ratings are down, and it's not because we get 300 channels. It's because we need to get back to our roots. We need to make this car of tomorrow work ... [Do] whatever NASCAR's got to do to make it work, and get us back to racing, [to] where we were putting black donuts on the side of the cars and not making felony offenses out of 'em.

Good for you Humpy! Racing the last few years has become sanitized to the point where a friendly bump or hand wave brings down the six-figure wrath of NASCAR. I know these guys can afford the penalties, but that’s not the point.

Personality is lacking out there both on and off the track.

Fast cars, fast tempers and the occasional fisticuffs made NASCAR popular with fans over the last 50 years. There is a line between good racing and recklessness; between smart driving and stupidity. Most (I said MOST) drivers know where that lies.

NASCAR has gotten bor-ing in the six years I’ve been watching. I went to Bristol last season, a COT (yawn) race. All they did was zip around the track pretty much single file. It was kind of like watching Matchbox cars on a snap-together track. The only “personality” was Carl Edwards’ backflip after winning.

Humpy and his colleagues at Speedway Motorsports Inc. certainly should wield enough collective weight to influence the sport and CEO Brian France.

He says he’ll “stay on it” until something happens.

Also during the media tour, Tony Stewart addressed the personality issue with NASCAR.com’s Ron Lemasters Jr. for the weekly e-newsletter to the Official NASCAR Members Club folk.

RLJ: There's been a lot of talk, as there always is, about driver personalities and people that are boring and how they can show more personality and everything like that. Obviously you don't have a problem with that, but my question is, is it worth it for people to show their personalities given that there's such a firestorm sometimes when you do, if you make comments that people don't like?



TONY STEWART: Yeah, I don't think it's worth it to be honest. And the thing is most of the people you deal with on a weekly basis, nine out of the 10 get it and know what you mean, but the 10th person that doesn't get it or is trying to find an angle to make it the way they want it to come out makes it not worth it. It's just a lot easier just to be kind of plain-Jane and know that when you leave the track Sunday night you don't have to go to work Monday and Tuesday putting out fires.

Tony always makes it plain.

It’s 23 days to Daytona. Let’s see what this season holds.

Bring on the Herd!

Showing Herd pride, fans will see the schematic of the #75 Marshall Dodge Charger, sanctioned by NASCAR, during the Capitol City Classic tonight.
The car isn’t complete yet, said Herd Racing LLC majority shareholder Dana Tomes, but he’s hoping and believing to have it ready realistically for the Nationwide Series (formerly Busch) by California, Las Vegas and Phoenix, Feb. 24, March 10 and April 20 respectively.

“It all comes down to money,” Tomes said. The plan is to raise $1.5 million from Marshall University alumni and another $1.5 million from shareholders. The university has signed on to allow the team to use the Marshall name, logo and slogan, “We Are Marshall.” The school is not a financial sponsor, Tomes said.

Car sponsorships range in price from $200,000 for the entire car for one race, to $1,000 to put your company or name on the sidepost for a race.

There is a potential audience of at least 60,000 fans at the tracks, and another 1 million viewers on television, Tomes estimates.

Because of his Marshall University ties, Brett Rowe, 40, of Barboursville has been chosen as the car's driver. Rowe formerly drove in the Busch Series for Revelocity Racing and Day Enterprises. In 2007, Rowe had eight starts, finishing as high as 21st in the Gateway 250. He ran 22 in the Pepsi 300, and had six DNF's.

As money comes available, at least $300,000 per race for car, driver, crew and transportation, Herd Racing will enter the fields. Also a part of the decision of where to race will be proximity to Huntington. Accessibility for the local fans would include Kentucky Speedway, and tracks in Tennessee and Virginia, Tomes said.

Fortunately for the team, they are not having to build a car from the chassis up. With the premier series, Sprint Cup (formerly Nextel Cup), moving to the Car of Tomorrow, hundreds of standard race cars are available. Herd Racing has purchased cars from Yates Racing, Tomes said, and as funding is available, will continue to do so.

Another advantage the Herd team has is partnering with Faith Motorsports with raceshops in Hickory, N.C., in which Tomes is a backer of driver Morgan Shepherd.

“We want this to be something in which the alumni and Huntington can take pride,” Tomes said.

Local racing starts in May

The question was posed a few days ago, “Will Ona Speedway open in 2008?”

The answer is “Yes!"

A tentative race schedule is up on their website, and they will run every other weekend.

Dates are May 10 and 24; June 7 and 21; July 12 and 19; August 2, 16 and 30; September 13 and 27; and October 11 and 25.

General Admission gates open at 5 p.m.; racing begins at 7 p.m. Pit Gates open at noon. No word yet on admission prices, though.

Drivers can register their Elite Modified, Late Model, Hobby Stock, U-Car, Any Car and Classics now.

There are lots of opportunities for racefans to attend events locally. You don’t have to go to Bristol, Martinville, or even Kentucky Speedway. We’ll take note of them as we get the information.

Hoosier daddy?

Damion Gardner of Pittsboro, Ind., won the A-Main event at this year’s Chili Bowl in Tulsa, Okla.

By the way, it’s an INDOOR event. A reader actually complained we didn’t mention it was an indoor event. Have you been to Tulsa in January? Even the most remote thought of anything being done outdoors in Tulsa in January is absurd. Ice, wind, cold, storms that knock out electricity for up to 2 weeks. Need we say more? Didn’t say it was an indoor event.

Since there was no story run in the Sunday edition of The Herald-Dispatch, here’s the A-Main highlights.

The top 10 finishers were a flurry of Hoosiers. With the exception of Kevin Swindell of Tennessee, Brady Bacon of Tulsa suburb Broken Arrow and Nathan High of Arizona, it was all Indiana. Two time (and defending) champion Tony Stewart finished eighth.

Proving NASCAR names don’t mean anything in Midgets, Jason Leffler came in 17th, and Kasey Kahne (whoo!) finished 22nd. Jason still wants his own Golden Driller, but this year, the three time USAC Midget champ settles to be the owner of the winner. The blue-eyed Kasey won Belleville Midget National titles in 2000 and 2001, and a USAC Midget championship in 2000. You can go home again, Tony proves that.

But alas, the Golden Driller eludes both young men. Jason and Kasey will just have to wait until next year, again.

Here are the results of the 50-lap A-Main final, thanks to the official Chili Bowl website, www.chilibowl.com

1. #71G Damion Gardner, Pittsboro, Ind.; 2. #9X Dave Darland, Walton, Ind.; 3. #1ST Shane Cottle, Kokomo, Ind.; 4. #67 Bryan Clauson, Noblesville, Ind.; 5. #05S Jon Stanbrough, Avon, Ind.; 6. #39 Kevin Swindell, Germantown, Tenn.; 7. #99 Brady Bacon, Broken Arrow, Okla.; 8. #20 Tony Stewart, Columbus, Ind.; 9. #21 Tracy Hines, Newcastle, Ind.; 10. #12JR Nathan High, Goodyear, Ariz.; 11. #20J Levi Jones, Olney, Ill.; 12. #29L Jesse Hockett, Warsaw, Mo.; 13. #71 Cole Whitt, Alpine, Calif.; 14. #73 Josh Ford, Oxnard, Calif.; 15. #33 Davey Ray, Loves Park, Ill.; 16. #7F Aaron Fiscus, Sun Prairie, Wis.; 17. #71K Jason Leffler, Long Beach, Calif.; 18. #11 Jerry Coons Jr., Tucson, Ariz.; 19. #11W Terry McCarl, Altoona, Iowa; 20. #12W Billy Wease, Noblesville, Ind.; 21. #49JR Bobby Michnowicz, Torrance, Calif.; 22. #91 Kasey Kahne, Enumclaw, Wash.; 23. #71X Brad Kuhn, Avon, Ind.; 24. #67A Gary “Bubba” Altig, Mechanicsburg, Ill.

Racing's Super Bowl and BCS Championship in one

When is “midget” not a derogatory term? At the Chili Bowl where more than 250 of the country’s best midget car drivers show up to earn the Golden Driller trophy and the prestige that goes along with it.

To defending champion Tony Stewart, the Chili Bowl is “one of the coolest races of the year.” He’s got a point. Kasey Kahne just calls it "exciting."

Yeah, Daytona’s great and the Coke 600 is OK, but the Chili Bowl is racing’s answer to football’s BCS Championship or the Super Bowl.

A mere 10,000 spectators is small in terms of capacity, but it’s an amazing four nights of racing. I have racing friends in Tulsa and hope they get tickets.

Among this year’s line up this week:

Wednesday night Danny Lasoski and Joey Saldana will take to the clay oval. Thursday night’s entrants include J.J. Yeley.

Friday night entries find some Sprint Cup heavy hitters (take that any way you want), in Kasey Kahne, Jason Leffler and Tony Stewart, the defending A-Main champion.

“Smoke Johnson” as he has entered in previous years, will be defending his Chili Bowl title, which he also won in 2002. That was a pretty good year for Smoke between the Winston Cup and the Chili Bowl.

If it has wheels and there’s at least one other racer, Tony’s there. He’ll race anything and be successful.

Leffler has been a winner at the Chili Bowl, not as a driver, but a crew member for Sammy Swindell in 1992. Now a four-time winner, Swindell will be back to try for a fifth. Jason is looking for his first as a driver. He's a three-time USAC Midget champ and has been chasing the Golden Driller for a number of years on the track.

You can catch Saturday’s final on pay-per-view or live streaming Friday night at www.nascar.com.

Go Boris, go!

When you drive at a superspeedway, car temperatures get pretty hot.

When you skid down a bobsled run, temperatures get pretty cold.

Boris Said can take ‘em both.

Over the weekend, Bobsledder Boris won the Chevy Geoff Bodine Bobsled challenge in Lake Placid, N.Y.- again. It was his third win in the four years of the Challenge.

For practice day last Friday, it was -8 in the morning and warmed up to -4 in the afternoon.

Since 1993, Geoff Bodine has been heading up Bo-Dyn Bobsleds for the U.S. Olympic team. He began building bobsleds after learning the U.S. Team had to purchase equipment from Germany. Now, the sleds are American made.

The event, which pitted NASCAR drivers against NHRA drivers, raised money for the U.S. Bobsled team.

Spunky, spunky, spunky

James Hylton says this will be his final Daytona 500 bid.

The 73-year-old almost made it last year, but missed the mark with a flat tire in one of the Duels stopped that run.

If you will recall, Hylton was the 1966 Rookie of the Year and made an attempt in 2007 to be the oldest participant in the Daytona 500.

Wouldn’t it be cool if he made it this year, with it being the 50th anniversary of the Great American Race and all?

I look at it like this. Most people shouldn’t drive at the age of 73, but Hylton doesn’t seem to have a problem on the track. Well, except that flat tire thing last year.

I’ll be pulling for him to make the race, how about you?

Drive forward, look back

As the new year begins, let’s take a look back at the stories and issues that captivated our attention, shall we?

Junior. Teresa. Bud. Pepsi. Farewell to the red #8 Bud car and DEI. Long live the #88 Amp/National Guard car and Rick Hendrick. The lady in black (isn’t it time to give that up yet? It's been almost 7 years) came off looking like something out of the Wizard of Oz, and I don’t mean Glinda the good witch.

And along that conversation, how’s the JR Nation coming to grips with having the glamour boys for teammates? I think we’re looking at a powerhouse, but I still see shirts proclaiming “8 Reasons I hate 24.” Will the rough and rugged Mr. Earnhardt fit in with the Armani suits? Off track, I’m not so sure. His demeanor, his party-boy image and (sorry to say) sometimes his command of grammar don’t necessarily fit with the slick, polished duo of Jimmie and Jeff. On track, given good equipment, I think he’ll be just fine.

Next issue. Teammates. We’ve already glanced at the 3J’s, now let’s turn our thoughts to JGR, Tony, Denny and Kyle. Interesting, and volatile combination. That’s three strong-minded, strong-willed and strong-opinionated men behind the wheel of a nearly two-ton car driving oh, anywhere from 90 to 200 miles per hour, depending on the weekend. I hope Joe and J.D. Gibbs know what they’re doing.

And more than teammates, business partners. Racing requires big money. That means taking on partners. Roush teams up with Fenway Sports. Ray Evernham sidles up with the the National Hockey League. DEI and Ginn still boggles my mind. As team owners need to come up with more cash, there will be more mergers.

Toyota. I’m still having issues with that. But JGR and Tony, Denny and Kyle will become the poster boys for Team Toyota. I’m looking for a much better showing from the Toyotas in 2008 with those three at the helm. And we KNOW Tony won’t drive anything he can’t win with. Gibbs has two seasons to make Toyota a winner with Tony, who’s contract will be up at the end of 2009 and there’s no extension yet.

While that leads to another foreign issue – the open wheel waltz. Juan Pablo has fared well. He’s not made any friends among the drivers with his on-track antics, manhandling of the cars and not understanding respect for other drivers, but he did win a race. Patrick Carpentier and Jacques Villeneuve have made a decent showing so far. Dario Franchitti will move up to the Sprint Cup (that name is another topic for another day), after a brief stint in the Busch, er, Nationwide Series (ditto on the topic).

No matter how you look at it all, 47 days to Daytona. Let’s hope for an exciting one, at least at the end. Although, you have to admit, it was pretty interesting at the finish in 2007, inches to win – poor Mark Martin. And Clint Bowyer made jaws drop, too.

Vroom, vroom, vroom, as the song says.

Bring it on NASCAR, bring it on.