Happy Thursday! March 25, 2001: In his 75th career Cup Series start, Elliott Sadler wins his first race, taking the checkered flag in the Food City 500 at Bristol, .426 seconds ahead of John Andretti. Jeremy Mayfield is third, Jeff Gordon fourth and Wade Burton fifth. Sadler has three Cup victories in 398 starts. Picture yourself cruising in Tony's 2010 Camaro Coupe 2SS. It's a "Summit White", list price at over $35,000! Tony asked Will Castro of Unique Autosports to work his magic and add a few customizations! Buy a ticket for $50 – you'll be entered to win the Grand Prize including the Camaro, A VIP Trip to Stewart-Haas Racing and a personal meet & greet with Tony!!! 70 Early Bird prizes starting March 15th. Get 'em while you can!!!! Just go to www.smokescamaro. Comments from the Peanut Gallery From Bob S *From Dave B* Bob, good to hear from you again. Hope all is well with you and yours! From Lou Hi Momma, My comment on the Jimmy Johnson comment you made, and others commented on. While you can't deny that Jimmy Johnson is a good driver there are many other drivers just as good, and maybe even better. Jimmy Johnson has said himself that Chad Knaus is responsible for his success. Jimmy doesn't make any suggestions on what to change, he just says what the car is doing and Chad and his crew just keep improving the car during the race. Also they seldom, if ever, make any pit road mistakes. In one of the prerace interviews at Bristol they said that always before Jimmy and Chad had started with Jeff Gordon's set-up at Bristol. They started with their own this time and improved on it during the race and won. In the past the driver was the main reason the car won, but in the modern era with all the computers and adjustments available, it is the set-up. The Old Man of NASCAR, Lou Elliott I would say I have to agree with you on that Lou, but it still doesn't take the sting out of JJ winning everything in sight! Bits and Pieces Edwards Concerned with Lack of Speed By Reid Spencer Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service "Our test is going lousy, actually," Edwards said Wednesday after posting the 32nd-fastest speed among 44 cars on the second day of spoiler testing at the 1.5-mile track. "We're very slow, and it's very frustrating. We worked very hard all day yesterday, and we've worked hard this morning. "I would love to say that we're really fast and it's going well. But we're learning all the things that aren't working." Edwards likes the look of the spoiler, which will replace the rear wing on NASCAR's Sprint Cup car for Sunday's Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway and beyond. "I think it looks great," Edwards said. "I think it's a great move. The fans are going to like it, and it doesn't seem to make the car feel much different." Now the challenge is to find some speed. "I don't know exactly what we're missing, and I just hope we figure it out," said Edwards, whose fastest morning lap time of 29.775 in race trim was more than a second slower than those of Jeff Burton and Kevin Harvick, who made qualifying runs. "We've got to be better." A Shift in Gordon's Strategy By Reid Spencer Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service Never mind that Johnson has won three of the first five races, worth 30 points toward the Chase. Gordon is thinking long term. "I think we're so focused right now on our own stuff and what we're doing, and we're really in kind of test mode, which is different than we've approached this point in the season in the past," Gordon said Tuesday evening after the first day of testing at Charlotte. "We just feel like what we've been doing in the past has not been working. "We came out of the box strong last year and felt like we were the best team the first 10 races, and we just flat-lined. We just didn't improve and get better. "For us, we're more focused on what we're going to do to compete with those guys later in the season. We're not getting too caught up in the fact that they have three wins and 30 bonus points right now. … We feel like we're going to get our share, and there are still a lot of bonus points left to get before that Chase starts. If we stay on the path that we're on, we're going to get our share and our momentum is going to be there when it really counts—and not right now." NASCAR reveals Talladega specs According to NASCAR vice president Robin Pemberton, the sanctioning body will issue a restrictor plate with openings of 15/16ths inches for the April 25 Aaron's 499 at Talladega Superspeedway. Those openings are smaller than any tested last week at the 2.66-mile superspeedway. The rear spoiler at Talladega will measure 63 inches long and a uniform 4.5 inches high. NASCAR chose the small plate/small spoiler combination in response to higher speeds and closing rates observed during last week's test when larger plates were used. Hendrick Motorsports still deemed most valuable: Forbe's reports that the average NASCXAR Sprint Cup team generated $92 million in revenue last year, a drop of 4%. Teams were hurt by a 19% decline in Nascar licensing revenue. Total retail sales of licensed merchandise were $1.63 billion in 2009 compared to $2 billion the prior year, according to License Global magazine. The economic downturn and a saturated licensing market helped spur the decline. Another factor was the near bankruptcy of leading Nascar merchandise company Motorsports Authentics. Despite the revenue drop, the average operating income (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) for the top teams was flat at $7 million. Teams have trimmed budgets by reducing head count, tracking inventory more closely and cutting travel budgets. One area that has not yet been affected is driver salaries--but those cuts will come once contracts start to expire. No. 1: Hendrick Motorsports, Current value: $350 million, One-year value change: none Fuel changes coming in NASCAR: The only question about fuel injection in the NASCAR Sprint Cup series is when it will be added not if. Not far behind could be the use of an ethanol-based fuel. Robin Pemberton, NASCAR vice president of competition, said that plans remain set for fuel injection to debut in the Cup series next season and that NASCAR's use of an alternative fuel also could come next year. "We should have some more answers probably in the next 21 days,'' Pemberton said about fuel injection."I'd say we're on target, hopefully for early 2011 but it remains to be seen. We can't do it and screw things up but things are moving along pretty nicely right now.'' As for using an ethanol-based fuel, Pemberton said: "We're still looking at the fuel and what ratio percentage that we will use when we get there."Our goal when we set out ... was (it) to happen in 2011. We have teams that have been running on the dynos with E10 and E15 and all the way up to E30. For the most part it's been E10 and E15.'(Roanoke Times) After five races, the top 12 taking shape: the top 10/12 drivers five races into each year of NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup and how many of those drivers made the Chase after 26 races: Hamlin & March of Dimes team up again: FedEx Racing and March of Dimes Team up for Babies: Denny Hamlin, Joe Gibbs and representatives from FedEx Office and the March of Dimes will unveil a special #11 March of Dimes/FedEx Office Toyota on Thursday, March 25 at the Joe Gibbs Racing shop in Huntersville. The car will run at Phoenix International Raceway in effort to raise awareness for the March of Dimes and March for Babies fundraising walks.(FexExRacing) 2010 Sprint Fan Vote has started: The 2010 Sprint Fan Vote, which allows race fans to choose which eligible driver gets to compete in the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race, opened today. Voting will continue until one hour before the start of the NASCAR Sprint All-Star race, Saturday, May 22, at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C. Fans can cast unlimited votes for their favorite driver during the voting window. Sprint customers can vote using the NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile application on their Sprint or Nextel devices. As an added incentive for customers, every wireless vote submitted from a Sprint or Nextel device counts double towards a driver's vote total. To download the new NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile, which is free with any data plan, Sprint customers should text "NASCAR" to 7777. Sprint customers can also vote without downloading the NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile application by texting "VOTE" to 7777. (Standard text messaging and data rates apply.) Carquest makes 2010 debut on the #5: CARQUEST Auto Parts, a major sponsor on the #5 team since 2005, will be back on the hood of Mark Martin's #5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevy this weekend at Martinsville. The red, white and blue paint scheme will be featured in a total of eight races this season (HMS) Start #100 for Bliss: Mike Bliss' next Sprint Cup start will be the 100th of his career. Bliss is scheduled to attempt to make the Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway in the #36 Tommy Baldwin Racing Chevy.(TBR) Kvapil to Race A&W All American Food Ford: Coming off his second top-25 finish of the season, Travis Kvapil and the #34 team head to another short track this weekend. Kvapil will be carrying the colors and logos of A&W All American Food for the first time this season.(Front Row Motorsports/ NASCAR Teams Conclude Two-Day Spoiler Test at Charlotte, all speeds posted: The final day of NASCAR Sprint Cup Series spoiler testing and preparation for the May 30 Coca-Cola 600 concluded at Charlotte Motor Speedway with Jeff Burton, driver of the #31 Richard Childress Racing Chevy, posting the fastest time of the day. Burton's speed of 189.215 paced the 49 cars from 40 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series teams who came to Charlotte Motor Speedway for a two-day test session devoted to spoiler work. Spoilers will replace the wings currently on the backs of NASCAR Sprint Cup cars beginning this weekend at Martinsville. Feedback from drivers on the second day of testing echoed the comments from the Tuesday session: the true test of the new spoiler will take place under race conditions. The only incident of the day on track took place when the #22 Penske Racing Dodge driven by Justin Allgaier hit the wall, sustaining significant right front damage. Allgaier was unscathed but his car did not continue in the test session. During the test session, fans were given an opportunity to watch their favorite Sprint Cup drivers from the grandstands, which were open for free. Ticket holders to any Sprint Cup race at Charlotte Motor Speedway were granted special access to watch testing from a VIP area in the infield. Over the lunch break, more than 250 ticket holders also got the chance to participate in a Q&A session with NASCAR drivers Kurt Busch and Marcos Ambrose, and seven-time NHRA Top Fuel champion Tony Schumacher. Tickets and interest-free payment plans are available by calling the speedway ticket office at 1-800-455-FANS or online at www.charlottemotors Wilson wins Scotts EZ Seed Showdown at BMS UPDATE 4: For Rick Wilson, it was de ja vu during Saturday's Scotts EZ Seed Showdown at Bristol Motor Speedway. Wilson said the finish of the race played out just like his win in 1989 when he spun the wheels on a late race restart and saw drivers stream by him. "This was identical to the 1989 race," said Wilson of Bartow, Fla. "The car was great and the key was getting out ahead early. I was just riding at one point, because I knew I had a great car. "It was just like 1989. Phil (Parsons) got around me on the restart, but I just waited and got back around. I wish we could have gone 200 laps." Several other drivers echoed Wilson's thoughts. Cale Yarborough was excited to behind the wheel again, but disappointed that it didn't last longer. "It was fun," he said, "just not long enough to do what I wanted to do. Something happened to the car." Dave Marcis' day also was cut short, but he was glad to lace up his famous wingtips once more. "I was having fun, the car was good, but I ran over something and it cut one of the belts," he explained. "I think I got it shut off before I caused a lot of damage. It was fun and I enjoyed it. I'm glad to be back." Jimmy Hensley was glad just to be on the track. "I wish I could have been more competitive,
No decision on future by Kahne yet: #9-Kasey Kahne is in the final year of his driving contracts and as such are considered a prize free agents in the 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup Silly Season class. Kahne has said that how Richard Petty Motorsports performs in the early races this season will go a long way towards determining whether he re-signs with the team or moves elsewhere in 2011. Asked by SPEEDtv.com Tuesday if he had come to a decision about whether to stay at RPM or move on, Kahne said, "Not yet. ... I feel like we've had a pretty good five races seven if you count the other two (Budweiser Shootout and Gatorade Duel) to start the year so I feel pretty good about where we're at and where we can still go this year." And despite being 23rd in points, Kahne said he was optimistic that his team could rebound and he could qualify for the Chase for the Sprint Cup. "We've had just a few things go on, but that's racing and things happen," said Kahne. "I think we can recover from that and gain some of those points back pretty quick, and get in the top 12 and win races."(SPEEDtv) Different primary colors for Allmendinger: Insignia, a Best Buy exclusive brand will be the primary sponsor/colors for the #43 Richard Petty Racing Ford of A.J. Allmendinger in the 19 remaining scheduled races Best Buy is sponsor the car/team. Insignia was the sponsor at Atlanta and Bristol and Best Buy blue was on the car at Daytona.(DingerWorl Keselowski's Crew Claims Tissot Pit Road Award in Bristol: Brad Keselowski's over-the-wall crew captured the Tissot Pit Road Precision Award in Sunday's Food City 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Bristol. The #12 over-the-wall crew, which became the fourth winner of the weekly competition, helped Keselowski reach a 13th-place finish--his best of the 2010 season. Keselowski's Penske Dodge Charger spent the least amount of time on pit road 259.305 seconds during the first short-track race of the season. Matt Kenseth's #17 Ford was second (294.979) and Greg Biffle's #16 Ford was third (295.830). Keselowski's over-the-wall crew consists of: Ben Brown (front-tire changer), Scott Reineger (front-tire carrier), David Mayo (rear-tire changer), Trent Cherry (rear-tire carrier), Bryan White (jackman), George Whitley (gasman) and Britt Goodrich (catch can). The team's crew chief is Jay Guy. The winning pit crew in each Sprint Cup race will earn $5,000 and a Tissot V8 Quartz Chronograph watch. The team with the most Tissot Pit Road Precision Award wins at the completion of the 36-race schedule will receive a $105,000 bonus plus Tissot watches for the over-the-wall crew members and driver. The #56 crew for Martin Truex Jr. leads the Tissot standings with two wins after the first five races of the season.(Tissot) Soldier namesd 'ExtenZe Local Hero' and Honorary Crew Chief: While under intense attack, Army National Guard SSG. Brian Harrison, a Purple Heart recipient, kept his cool and provided essential cover fire so his team could exit a disabled Humvee and find safety while in Iraq. Because of this heroic feat, 26-year-old Harrison has been named an 'ExtenZe Local Hero' and will be the ExtenZe Racing Honorary Crew Chief during the NASCAR Sprint Cup weekend at Martinsville Speedway. More info see www.ExtenZeRacing. Allgaier testing for Penske at Charlotte: Penske Racing's Nationwide Series driver, Justin Allgaier, is testing the #22 Dodge at Charlotte Motor Speedway Tuesday. Team are testing the spoiler, which replaces the wing starting at Martinsville this coming weekend. SPEED's Bob Dilner reported on Sunday's SPEED Report that Allgaier would test for Penske, but no word if/when he will make his Sprint Cup debut. AND Justin Allgaier participated in his first official Sprint Cup Series test and hoped Tuesday's session will lead to an upcoming race at NASCAR's top level. Penske Racing brought four cars to the two-day test at Charlotte Motor Speedway to give Allgaier seat time. The 23-year-old is coming off his first NASCAR victory, a win in the Nationwide Series last weekend at Bristol. Drivers are permitted to participate in two NASCAR-approved test sessions before committing to entering a Cup race."Obviously when I started at Penske Racing my goal was to reach the Cup level, so for me, this is a good way to come out and get some laps and see what these cars drive like," said the second-year Penske driver. "Hopefully we can help out the other guys. I think that's the biggest thing -- how do we benefit all three of our Cup teams and get me some experience at the same time? This is the easiest way to do it."(Associated Press) DW says Dale Jr. should run some truck races: in a Q&A, 3-time Cup Champ and FOX broadcaster Darrell Waltrip said of Dale Earnhardt Jr.: "Expectations are so high with him that if he's not winning, then the world is not right and so I think they're making baby steps to get him back to where he needs to be. I told (car owner) Rick (Hendrick) and I really, honestly believe this, I'd run him in some truck races. He needs to get somewhere where he can win, and I'd get him in a truck. Not a Nationwide car, a truck. They're fun to drive, have a good time in the truck series. If I was Junior, I'd go talk to (Kevin) Harvick and ask him if I could drive that 2 truck. I'd go out, and I'd win me a couple of races and I think that's what he needs, it would really help his confidence, and I think his fans would enjoy seeing him do that. I think it would be a win-win."(Virginian Pilot) McGrew, Earnhardt do not have issues David Newton/espn. CONCORD, N.C. -- The crew chief for Dale Earnhardt Jr. didn't like the way his driver's profanity-laced tirade over a speeding penalty and shouting match with him was portrayed during Sunday's Sprint Cup race at Bristol Motor Speedway. Lance McGrew reminded that almost every crew chief in the garage, including Chad Knaus and four-time defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, has moments "where they are ready to kill each other." Telling Earnhardt not to "lay [expletive] down on me," McGrew said, simply was his way of getting his driver refocused on a good finish and that it didn't signal problems with their relationship. "I kind of hate the way the media wrote it up like we were airing dirty laundry over the radio," McGrew said before Tuesday's spoiler test at Charlotte Motor Speedway. "A lot of the crew chiefs here talk to each [other] that way, period. But he's the only one that gets criticized. "It's bull----." Earnhardt agreed. "I was glad he got that point across that he was upset," he said, " 'cause me and him really do have a good relationship. We really do kind of see we're working together to fix this. He's really [expletive] working hard and he sees me doing the same thing. There's a lot of respect there. I think we're doing it the right way." Earnhardt had moved into the top five at Bristol when he received a speeding penalty that dropped him to 26th with about 180 laps remaining in the 500-lap race. McGrew sensed that his driver was so caught up in the penalty that he had to say something to reset his mind. Earnhardt responded by saying: "I can't lay down here. This is Bristol. I don't ever [expletive] lay down. Don't ever say that again on the radio. Don't need the whole world hearing that." Earnhardt went on to blast NASCAR, saying in profanity-laced terms that the governing body needed to improve its system for determining speeding penalties. "Not picking on my teammate, but Mark [Martin] gassed the [expletive] out of his car towards his box," Earnhardt said over his in-car radio. "So if they want to correctly gauge the pit-road speed they need to get the [expletive] kind of system that can [expletive] do it for every car on the track, not just depending on what stall you're in." Earnhardt said he was just venting. "I wanted to drive up there and knock the side off the pace car because that was the only way I could get back at them guys [NASCAR] in the booth, but that would have been the worst thing in the world I could have done," Earnhardt said. "That's just the daydreaming that goes on in your head at the time. "I just had to calm down. I didn't want to do anything stupid or make an ass out of myself. Venting like that was a good release for me." That he was able to direct it at McGrew, Earnhardt said, spoke well of how far their relationship has come since McGrew replaced long-time crew chief Tony Eury Jr. last season. "Me and Lance really have gotten to know each other more ... faster than probably it should have happened or what happens with other people," Earnhardt said. "We don't really ever have these awkward moments to where ... he doesn't know if I'm kidding or serious. He always knows." McGrew said telling Earnhardt not to lay down wasn't meant as an insult or that NASCAR's most popular driver has laid down before. "It was, 'Dang, look, you've got to be positive. You've got to realize your car is freaking fast. We can still get a good finish out of it,'" McGrew said. Earnhardt rallied to finish seventh at Bristol and improve to eighth in the point standings, his first time in the top 12 in 48 races. He told The Associated Press on Tuesday that his frustration stemmed from his aggravation with the penalty. "Yeah, I was happy [about that]," Earnhardt said. "At one point I felt like we were putting ourselves in position to battle for the win, to have a shot at it. Man, I hadn't thought about that more than 30 seconds and I was getting sent to the back. "It was disappointing because I could have run in the top five. We didn't get [expletive] last year with top 5s and top 10s. I get this feeling that top 5s are hard to come by and I want to get rid of that feeling." McGrew said there never were any hard feelings between the two over the incident. "You've got to know when to poke and when not to," McGrew said. "I could just tell he was really frustrated. The car changes so much from running to the back to the front, he just needed kind of a poke to piss him off and get his focus back." Alan Gustafson, the crew chief for Martin, said all drivers need to be nudged every once in a while. "Drivers get really frustrated, and when they get frustrated you've got to get them motivated to get it back," he said. "Dale was really frustrated. Lance had to reset him, so to speak, on winning the race. That's what he did. That is not a reflection on Dale and their relationship. Three-time Cup champion Darrell Waltrip, now an analyst for Fox, said Junior Johnson used to do the same thing to him. "Leading the race by a lap and you slow down a little bit, Junior Johnson would say, 'Boy, you ain't laying down on me, are you?'" Waltrip said. "Now that was motivation to me. It didn't require me to come back and say, 'What are you talking about? Don't ever say that.' "Every mule is different. Some you have to hit with a stick and kick. Others you pat on the back. Maybe Junior didn't take kindly to that." Drivers give favorable reviews to spoiler By JENNA FRYER/AP Auto Racing Writer CONCORD, N.C. (AP) -- NASCAR received favorable driver reviews about the switch from a wing to the traditional spoiler. NASCAR opened a rare two-day test session Tuesday at Charlotte Motor Speedway for teams to get their first extended track time with the spoiler, which will return to competition for the first time since 2007 at this weekend's race at Martinsville Speedway. "It was a very important day for us, and I felt like it went really well," said four-time series champion Jeff Gordon. "I liked the way the cars looked with the spoiler, and the cars drove really well. All in all, it was a great day for us and we certainly gathered a lot of data." The rear wing was a component of NASCAR's current model of race car that was phased into competition in 2007. Fans disliked the look of it, and drivers listed it among their dislikes of the car. "We had reasons to go to the wing. Some of those might not have panned out, " said Robin Pemberton, NASCAR's vice president for competition. "Quite frankly, no one really warmed up to it. They didn't like it, they didn't like the appearance of it. They didn't embrace it." NASCAR decided during the offseason to go back to the spoiler, partly in a hope that it improves competition. Martinsville, the sixth race of the season, was the earliest the change could be made because of all the planning involved in such a technical change to a race car. Dale Earnhardt Jr. believes switching back to the spoiler, which was last used in the 2007 finale at Homestead, will be beneficial to most drivers because they have vast experience with it. "The racing really should look about the same, and I think the races have been pretty good this year. If anything, it definitely will not hurt it," Earnhardt said. "The spoiler always worked pretty well and did a pretty good job, and they've got a lot of information from the spoiler over the years. So we all kind of know how the spoiler works. "We don't really know the wing that well, and NASCAR doesn't know the wing that well. There wasn't a lot of effort to really manipulate the wing to see if it could change the way the racing was. We can with the spoiler because we know so much about it over the last 30 years." NASCAR had 93 races with the spoiler, and four-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson led all drivers with 22 victories. Whether the switch affects Johnson, who has won three of the first five races this season, remains to be seen. "I wouldn't say that is going to change Jimmie Johnson, but maybe it'll slow him down," Kasey Kahne said. "Who knows? Everybody is definitely trying hard." Gordon On Racing: I just want a Championship Rick Minter | Senior Writer, RacinToday.com Editor's note: This is the second installment in a three-part series in which RacinToday.com's Rick Minter talks with four-time Sprint Cup champion Jeff Gordon. During a sit-down interview conducted last weekend, Minter and Gordon had a wide-ranging talk about everything from racing cars to rearing children. Today Gordon discusses rivalries, Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson, NASCAR's fan base and the "Southern" influence on the sport. — As our interview continued, I pointed out to Gordon that in my younger days, the two larger-than- "Same with me and Earnhardt," Gordon quickly responded, almost finishing my sentence for me. "We rarely wrecked together. We ran first and second a lot and battled for the lead many times." And like Pearson and Petty, Earnhardt and Gordon also had a high-profile wreck at Daytona, as he pointed out. I asked Gordon what it would take to have a Petty-Pearson type rivalry today. "What makes a good rivalry is the fans on their side and against the other guy, the boos and the cheers when the race is going on and in the introductions," he said. He went on to say that the two rivals would need to be almost polar opposites. "You have to have the black and white," he said. He held out his hands to illustrate: "One over here and represents something more conservative or younger, whatever it may be. Then this one over there represents the core fan, the good ol' boys and people who have been following the sport for years." So can he and his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson ever be rivals? "Never," he said. "We won't. Jimmie will have a rival – whoever beats him on a consistent basis and keeps him from winning the championship." And then Gordon added some things that sounded a little surprising, considering the teammate connection. "That will be good for the sport," he said of the prospect of a driver derailing Johnson's championship run. "Somebody's waiting for that and looking for that. That person is going to be a hero." I asked Gordon how badly he wants to beat Johnson, thinking about the emotion he showed after losing to him at Las Vegas earlier this season. "I just want to win the championship," he said. "I think one of the most disappointing things about Vegas was not only did we not win the race, but we let Jimmie get the win. "That was big to us, and it's big to everybody out there. Everybody wants to beat those guys because they've been so good." Veteran promoted Humpy Wheeler has said for years that what NASCAR needs to shore up its core crowd is for a son of the South to rise up and take the sport by storm. Gordon agreed, in a way, that the Southern influence is mostly missing today. But he pointed out some possibilities for a revival. "Clint Bowyer, even though he's from the Midwest, grew up on dirt tracks. He fits that (image) to me, and he's having a year that he can stand out. And even though (Kevin) Harvick is from California, he has some of that too. I don't think it's the Southern roots thing; I think it's what you represent and who you are and how you go about it." So could another Southern driver like Sterling Marlin or Bill Elliot or even a Dale Earnhardt, who first came on the scene as country as a turnip green, make it today? "They're going to have to win a lot, be really spectacular on the track," Gordon said. "Sponsors are driving the sport. It's gotten expensive, and you have to have a sponsor." He said sponsors often prefer marketability over driving talent. Gordon said some sponsors say: "We'd rather have this guy, even if he doesn't win as much because we can market him. That's the tough balancing question. The car owners are looking for a guy that can win, and they try to figure out how to sell him and make him marketable." Gordon said he takes particular pride in the fact that he got his job at Hendrick Motorsports without having a sponsor as part of the deal. "Rick Hendrick hired me without a sponsor, and that meant the world to me because that told me that's what this series does," he said. "I still think that over any other series out there, that's still the number one priority in NASCAR – can someone drive? "I hope it always stays that way. But it's expensive and you either close your doors or you get a sponsor." I asked Gordon how the fan base had changed in his years as a Cup driver. He said that while NASCAR had gained large numbers of casual fans, he still appreciates the old core crowd. "It's a sport that appeals to a lot of different people but that avid, 'I'm going on a four- or five-day camping trip to the track with my buddies,' still exists," he said. "That's one of the things everybody recognizes now with the economy and some of the things that have gone on there. We can't obsolete those fans. We've got to make sure it's still affordable for them. Those are the fans that will be here forever. They passed it down for generations." MPM2NITE Matt McLaughlin · Frontstretch. Martinsville Shouldn't Lose a Date... It Deserves Another The two Cup dates at tiny Martinsville are circled on my calendar as "must see" events. The racing there isn't always spectacular, but the ratio of classics to clunkers is about as good as it gets anywhere on the circuit. And as two of just six short track races left on a schedule once dominated by dates on the bullrings, racing at Martinsville is a welcome throwback to the good ol' days. In fact, this oval is the only one that's held Cup races since the inaugural 1949 Strictly Stock season – and that alone awards it legendary status. Yet this Spring, there are ugly rumors Martinsville might lose one if not both dates in the interest of expediency and larger markets on next year's schedule. Such a move would have once been thought unthinkable, but given the fate of North Wilkesboro, Rockingham, and the Labor Day event at Darlington it's not unprecedented. Let's put it this way: I don't trust the black-hearted bastards that are the barons of our sport today to keep their greedy little fingers off tradition, no matter how cherished or important it might be. On a purely practical and soulless level of thinking, it's easy to see why Martinsville is on the Endangered Species list. The neighboring town the track is named for (population: 15,416) is one of the smallest that still hosts a Cup date. To the marketers behind the sponsors who splatter their colors across today's Cup clown cars, rural, western Virginia is barely a blip on the radar. Grandstand capacity is also amongst the smallest on the circuit (around 67,000), though in fact track management has managed to post a pretty good ratio of butts to seats compared to some of the grand palaces of speed added to the circuit in the last decade. Others argue that in this era of 900 horsepower funny cars posing as "stock" cars, the equipment has simply outgrown the tiny little half-mile track. Balderdash. (And that's not my first choice of words.) A valid argument could be made that racing at Martinsville and reining in those 900 horsepower monsters on the relatively narrow tires our series features takes more driver talent than just about any race left on the circuit. Horsepower is great on the straightaways, but the two at Martinsville pass in little more than the blink of an eye. That makes managing the brakes and tire wear the keys to winning there. For even if a driver has the fastest car that particular Sunday afternoon, he is quickly faced with the challenge of lapping slower cars shortly after each restart. With this paperclip largely a one-groove track, passing opportunities come few and far between – even for someone that is markedly faster than his intended victims. Patience is at a premium, too, and sometimes it quickly erodes away. With no place for slow cars to turn, the easiest way to pass at Martinsville is to lay a front bumper to the rear of the car that's holding a driver up and move him out of the way. The "bump and run" is part and parcel of racing at Martinsville. As the pay window begins to open towards the end of a race, those competing for the lead often suffer severe lapses in manners. Some newer fans find this sort of racing barbaric, but for old school purists the bent fenders, smoking tires, and frayed tempers are racing the way it ought to be done. That contact isn't always unintentional, either. For decades, drivers have used this place as a means of revenge, paying back others for incidents where they were the innocent victim on one of the series' faster circuits. Turning the tables is easy to do here; and with beating and banging so much a part of racing at Martinsville, it's difficult to determine whether contact was intentional or inadvertent. As an added bonus, speeds are low enough it's possible to send a clear message to another driver off your front bumper without risking crippling him, like Carl Edwards' moment of indiscretion at Atlanta did with Brad Keselowski. No less a driver than Bobby Allison, one of the sport's iron men, purportedly used to tape a note with the car numbers of his intended victims on the dash prior to each Martinsville race. Worn tires, a soft brake pedal, vengeful competitors, paperclip corners, and engine abuse can make for a long afternoon out on this half-mile. And it is in the blast furnace of short track racing that legends are forged forever. Richard Petty won a record 15 times at Martinsville, Darrell Waltrip won eleven times, and Jeff Gordon has won here seven times. Cale Yarborough won half-a-dozen, and most recently, Jimmie Johnson won five of six consecutive Martinsville Cup races between the fall of 2006 and last spring's event. Just how good is Johnson at Martinsville? He hasn't missed the top 10 there since the spring race of 2002. He caps a list of drivers that have won a ton of championships and races, but my guess is that they look at the Grandfather clocks — the coolest trophy on the circuit — they earned at Martinsville with special affection and pride. Lately, NASCAR has been talking a good game about winning back disenchanted, longtime fans who have been leaving the sport in droves over the last five seasons. Well, taking a Martinsville race date away would prove that talk has been nothing but lip service. Fans come from near and wide to attend Martinsville Cup races, but the locals are particularly loyal to the track. There are third and fourth generation fans who sit in the same seats their grandfathers did back when the race cars had tailfins. The pundits would have you believe that the current economic downturn is the first and worst such event in recorded U.S. history, but we've been through lean times before. And every year, those same loyal fans kept flocking back to Martinsville, managing to scrape together the money for their tickets. I recall in days of yore, the backstretch seats used to go on sale early Sunday morning at reasonable prices for blue collar fans, and the dash to get in resembled the Oklahoma Land Rush. Fans might head to Daytona or Charlotte like sheep following the herd, but for truly devoted and knowledgeable race fans, the trip to Martinsville was like a pilgrimage to see "real" stock car racing – not high speed acrobatics. Martinsville's founder, the late H. Clay Earles, was always appreciative and accommodating towards his fans. In 1955, Mr. Earles decided to pave his then-dirt track. He'd found that fans like to make a family event of the races at Martinsville, but the ladyfolk weren't fond of going home with their hair and clothes coated in dust. A lot of drivers of that era felt Earles was ruining a perfectly good race track by paving it, but the intervening 55 years' worth of races have shown that daring experiment has worked out pretty well. The magic of Martinsville is that it is the land time has forgotten. Improvements have been made to accommodate the fans, but the track surface itself looks a lot like it did five decades ago. Messing with tradition there is dangerous business. When ISC took over the track, they tried altering the Martinsville hot dog, perhaps the circuit's greatest (questionable) cuisine — and even that simple move caused more outrage than the Edwards/Keselowski incident at Atlanta. ISC wisely backed down almost immediately, returning those beloved dogs to the original recipe enjoyed by traditionalists with cast iron stomachs. Finally, sponsors had better wise up. It doesn't matter if the races are held in sunny and populated Los Angeles or bucolic and southern Martinsville, the majority of fans taking in the event, watching the rolling billboards that are today's race cars and watching the commercials during a Cup broadcast are scattered coast-to-coast. The true NASCAR loyalists, the ones who make purchasing decisions based largely on brands affiliated with racing, remain centered in the small towns of the Southeast. They've been washing with Tide, drinking Bud and Pepsi, and dining at McDonald's for decades. For all NASCAR's attempts to take on the Bright Lights and Big Cities, this sport remains a product of small town America. Sitting in the stands are the guys and gals that ride out on the pumpers with volunteer fire departments when the sirens sound late at night, who get misty-eyed during the playing of taps after the Memorial Day parade, and who wrench on their own American-made cars in the driveway most Saturday mornings. Despite the hype of the ads of late, those people are the heart and soul of NASCAR, the blue collar folks who lace up their boots and head to work at a different kind of "office" Monday morning. They head to the bank to cash their paychecks on Friday afternoon, and spend Saturdays fishing or working on a buddy's local dirt track car. When focusing on other major markets, sponsors risk alienating these folks who spend their hard-earned dollars, often still earned in what they term "dollars per hour," at their own risk. Sure, a race at Vegas or L.A. might be more appealing to the corporate clients they can get into a luxury suite at the track, but those aren't the folks who make up the backbone of the economy unless we're talking about imported luxury cars, high-end speedboats, and sand castles along the coast. So Martinsville not only deserves its two race dates annually, but it probably deserves a third. And while that's never going to happen, it's time to declare "hands off" when it comes to the oval's two existing dates. As the sole remaining track left that held an event in NASCAR's inaugural season — and given the loyalty of the Earles family towards Bill France, Jr. — the original Martinsville has got to be grandfathered against future schedule shifts. Now, more than ever, it's important for NASCAR officials, fans, drivers, team owners, and crew members to take these two journeys a year back to Martinsville to remember where this sport was born – in the hard scrabble, rocky soil of the Southeast beating and banging on short tracks on a Sunday afternoon. From small things, Mama, big things sometimes come. But even the mightiest Hickory tree is doomed if it loses hold of its roots, and for Cup racing, Martinsville remains the taproot. Take a date from Martinsville? Brother, you might as well bury a dagger in the heart of stock car racing. Nascar's Highest-Paid Drivers Earnings for the top drivers were down 6% last year and are likely headed lower Kurt Badenhausen/ Hendrick Motorsports dominated the action on the track last year and captured the top three spots in the Nascar Sprint Cup standings. Yet none of those three drivers could top the fourth driver in Hendrick's stable when it came to earnings prowess. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is Nascar's highest-paid driver for a second straight year with earnings of $30 million in 2009. Earnhardt has had little racing success the past two years, with only one win at the track. He finished a disappointing 25th in the Sprint Cup standings last year, but was voted Nascar's most popular driver for a seventh straight year. Our earnings estimates include salaries, endorsements and the drivers' share of track winnings and licensing income. Earnhardt's immense popularity translates into big dollars in each of these areas outside of track winnings. "Nascar needs Dale Jr. to be competitive, because he is so closely associated with the success of the sport. [As] go the fortunes of Junior, so goes Nascar," says Ardy Arani, managing director of Atlanta-based Championship Group, a motor sports marketing consultancy. Owner Rick Hendrick lured Earnhardt to Hendrick Motorsports before the 2008 Nascar season. He promised a chance to compete for a cup championship and an eight-figure annual salary that rivaled Jeff Gordon's for the highest in the sport. The deal made Earnhardt the top earner in Nascar--and it was good business for Hendrick. Earnhardt's car attracts more than $30 million in annual total sponsorship revenue from the likes of PepsiCo's Mountain Dew Amp Energy and the National Guard, helping Hendrick to be the most profitable team in Nascar. Earnhardt's name sells more Nascar-licensed merchandise than any other driver, and Hendrick gets a piece of this as well. Personal endorsements with companies like Adidas, Nationwide Insurance and Wrangler generate $10 million for Earnhardt annually. The second highest-paid driver is four-time Nascar Cup champion Jeff Gordon, who earned $27 million last year. Gordon ended a 47-race winless streak when he won the 2009 Samsung 500. He is the first Nascar drive to collect $100 million in winnings on the track (he's earned $110 million during his 19-year career). Gordon extended his contract with Hendrick at the end of 2009 and plans to race through at least 2013. Earnhardt and Gordon, like most other Nascar drivers, saw their earnings take a haircut in 2009. Total pay was down 6% for the 10 highest-paid drivers. Earnhardt's income dropped $5 million from $35 million in 2008, thanks to lower prize money due to his poor performance on the track and the collapse of the licensing market. Gordon's income fell $3 million, mainly from the weak licensing market. Sales of licensed merchandise was a healthy income stream for drivers in years past, but now represents less than 5% of total income for all but the top drivers. Only the four best-selling drivers--Earnhardt, Tony Stewart, Gordon and Jimmie Johnson--netted more than $1 million in 2009 from licensed merchandise. Blame the economy and the saturation of the marketplace, says Zak Brown, chief executive of Just Marketing International, a motor sports marketing company in Zionsville, Ind. Race winnings which are split among owners, drivers and their crew are also headed for a fall, as Nascar announced in January that purses would be cut by 10% in 2010. The reduction was made to help tracks who pay the purse and have struggled with declining ticket prices and attendance. Driver salaries are on their way down too. "There is not the sponsorship revenue to pay them," says Arani. Kasey Kahne (11 career wins) and Kevin Harvick (11 wins) both are in the last year of their contracts with their current teams and are Nascar's leading free agents. Both have solid track records and should command new big deals. Just not too big. Did You Notice? Thomas Bowles · Frontstretch. It's Not Just The Economy, Stupid; Tony The Terrible?, And Testing Did You Notice? … The debate raging on over all the empty seats at Bristol? Everyone's trying to figure out if the answer lies in the economy, a different style of racing, or just plain ol' fan disinterest. So, which is it? I've heard some strong, compelling arguments for #1. People claim that tough times mean tough choices when it comes to Bristol. After all, it used to be the hottest ticket in sports, where even the cheap seats didn't come cheap. The lowest price for Bristol single-day walkup tickets was $93 – compared to a $40 seat currently available for Richmond's Saturday night Cup show in May. Bristol is also notorious for jacking up the prices on their hotels. Although TV people can sometimes get lucky, I can definitively tell you I've stayed somewhere that was a $350-a-night rate for the August race. I remember looking at the invoice and thinking two things: 1) I have the best job ever that someone's willing to spend that much for me to cover my favorite sport. But I know the fans aren't so lucky. There's nightmarish stories about three-night minimums and travel expenses, totals that run you well over $1,000 for a three-day weekend that shouldn't cost half that much. Considering Bristol's within shouting distance of five other tracks on the circuit (Atlanta, Talladega, Martinsville, Charlotte, and "$40" Richmond) I can understand why fans would choose to save money and head elsewhere. And with 158,000 seats (only Daytona and Indy have more) it's not exactly like you're selling out a track like Chicagoland or Phoenix, which have less than half that capacity. When you put it like that, it just sounds so easy to just jump on that economic bandwagon and bite, doesn't it? NASCAR has you hook, line, and sinker, as do several of our track promoters 'round the country who refuse to believe the racing itself is the problem. Well, I'm sorry guys: I just don't buy it. We'll build our argument from the ground up. By and large, most fans have expressed displeasure at Bristol's repaving (in a Frontstretch poll last week, 62 to 38 percent favored the "old" Bristol). When that happens, you're going to have numerous people choose to turn their backs on the product if the ticket price still places it within the top 5 best races in the sport each year. After all, the Super Bowl doesn't have a love-hate relationship with three-fifths of the NFL fan base, does it? Let me list just a few comments from Matt McLaughlin's race recap column on Monday to get my point across. Keep in mind Matt's column is well-read; we're not just talking five grumpy people jumping online to whine about a race they didn't see: Secesh: "I'm just glad I went to Bristol back in the 80's." But let's move on to the third and most important theory listed for Bristol, that attendance is being directly affected by the economy. I just decided to pick five NASCAR tracks at random (one short track, two intermediates, one superspeedway, one triangular road/oval) and looked at their Spring attendance dates for the last five years. Keep in mind the economic crash didn't happen until 2008, so it's hard to skew the numbers before then: Spring Attendance Chart:
As you can see, there's a big skew downward in numbers between 2008 to 2009. But that doesn't mean there wasn't an overall decline as a whole before the crash. And regardless of the economic difficulties, these five tracks are producing shocking numbers: Attendance has declined a staggering 14.1 percent for them over this time period. This downward spiral for NASCAR overall continues in 2010, with only one of the first five races we've been to (Las Vegas) posting an increase in overall attendance. Now that I've thrown all these numbers at you, let's keep something else in mind: NASCAR is exaggerating the totals as of late. Remember the Fontana incident, where attendance was listed at 72,000 while reporters threatened to rebel, they were so certain the numbers were inflated? Most pegged the attendance in the 50 or 60,000 range, a 10,000+ difference that many sources off the record will tell you seems to be a pattern this season. So keep that in mind when looking at the numbers for the past three years. After all, when your product's starting to go downhill the last thing you need is reporters writing about severe attendance declines – so it's a simple, basic marketing tactic. Fudge the numbers by as much as you can (to the edges of justification) in order to minimize the bleeding. Here's one other question to ask yourself: are other sports experiencing the same types of attendance problems? Not exactly. We'll start with college football, where you'd expect numbers would be down in these economically depressed areas, right? After all, Alabama (Talladega) and Michigan have severe drops in NASCAR attendance, which means fans must not be going to any other sporting events, either. So here's a quick look at college attendance figures from 2009: Hmm. That's interesting … so fans still have the money to spend on college football but not NASCAR. I understand your rebuttal; it's a one-day show, so hotels and all sorts of auxiliary expenses aren't involved. But the ticket prices are comparable – Alabama vs. Florida is an $85 ticket in 2010, for example – so these people are still shelling out money to attend these games. It's not like these races are being held in desolate areas, either; for Bristol there's 350,000 people in the Tri-Cities area alone who wouldn't need the extra expenses of gas or a hotel to attend the race. And let's not forget the power of passion above all. If you're a sports fan, wouldn't you want to spend your cash rooting for your favorite team (or in this case, driver)? Why cut out a race and still go see college football if you like NASCAR that much more? Sounds to me like the racing wasn't as interesting, so that's the sporting event families decided to cut. Let's move on to another easy comparison: TV ratings. It would make sense that if fans are staying home, they're still turning on the boob tube to watch every Sunday, right? After all, 98.2 percent of Americans have one, and none of these races require cable or satellite to watch. But here's where the economic theory really runs into the ground: ratings for NASCAR races through the first four races of 2010 are 24 percent lower than they were five years ago – when the economy was stable. But let's dig deeper. Remember how bad this year's 500 ratings were? Let's compare that to some big event ratings of other major sports, and we see a positive trend over the last five years: Baseball: World Series Ratings – 2005 vs 2009: 7.2 percent increase (11.1 vs 11.9) Oops! Almost forgot us. I know I just threw out a heck of a lot of numbers at you. If you wanted, I could go really in-depth and talk about how the regular season numbers for all these major sports are up while NASCAR is down. But I think I've made my point. So the next time someone tells you the economy is the problem, that all these fans are staying away 'cause of money and the second things pick up, they'll be back – show 'em some numbers. People might say I'm being pessimistic. Look, I think NASCAR's done a phenomenal job with changes designed to improve the product on the race track this season. But it pisses me off when people say, "It's the economy. It's the economy." I'm sorry, but are you blind? Are you in the trenches, talking to fans, talking to people in bars, and getting a barometer on the state of the sport? I can't tell you how many emails I get each week saying, "I'm no longer a NASCAR fan because of A, B, and C." It's alarming. And trust me: it's not because they're broke. Did You Notice? … That with the way Tony The Tiger's been sniping at the media lately, you'd think his whole season's been one soggy bowl of rotting Frosted Flakes. But ever so quietly, the sport's slowest starter has climbed up to fifth in points, fresh off a runner-up Bristol finish that also served as his first top 5 of the season. Just 89 points off Harvick's pace, the sophomore slump everyone's talking about at Stewart-Haas may simply be limited to Ryan Newman's No. 39 when you look at the numbers. Just sneak a peek at Stewart's Cup career through the first five races since his rookie year: 1999: 0 wins, 1 top 5, 1 top 10, 14th in points As you can see, Smoke's current start is in line with past years and better than 2009, when he wound up dominating the summer and coasting in as the regular season points champ. People say Stewart hasn't won a race yet. So what? Only one of his 37 career victories have ever come within the first five races. And considering the upcoming spoiler switch, he'll have access to data from Hendrick simulations likely to keep them at or near the front of the pack. So why has Stewart been grouchy with the media if things are going so peachy? That's anybody's guess. But it's not because he's slumping on the race track … I'm sure of it. Did You Notice? … No need to get too long this week, so some quick hits before I go: - The #1 buzzword coming out of this spoiler test so far? Stability. Drivers feel more comfortable with the handling of the car, and the drag down the straightaways will keep both RPMs and speeds lower. That's a good thing, because if the drivers don't feel like the car will snap around smack in the middle of the turn, chances are there'll be more side-by-side racing … at least until people start thinking about the risks involved with losing points for the Chase. Oh man, we were almost getting somewhere… - Lance McGrew and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. fighting on the radio might be the best thing to ever happen to the No. 88. I've been saying for years someone needs to do just that, lighting a fire under Earnhardt while he's in the driver's seat. And guess what … it worked! The second NASCAR's Most Popular Driver got hot under the collar, he drove like a bat out of you-know-what! (Hint: The opposite of heaven). If I were McGrew, I'd keep this lesson in my back pocket and have a barrage of insults to throw at the man whenever needed. It's called tough love … and it's just about the only thing they haven't tried to get this guy running back up front. - If NASCAR's going to throw out more speeding penalties than your local cops, the least they can do is show us the data that makes it legit. Because the more people that get caught, the more it becomes an issue – and fans will begin to criticize that all-important "grey area" that can lead one to believe this sport keeps on playing favorites. NASCAR ON TV THIS WEEK
All times Eastern Well, that's all for today. Until the next time, I remain, Your Nascar Momma Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!"
"Don't come here and grumble about going too fast. Get the hell out of the race car if you've got feathers on your legs or butt. Put a kerosene rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up there and eat that candy ass." -Dale Earnhardt - 1998 |
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