News-Record.com

I'm in N&R mandated training again tomorrow, like I was today, so posting will be light.

In the meantime, use the comments to talk about racin'. What have you seen in two Cup races that you've liked? Disliked? Anything on your minds about Sunday's Busch race in Mexico City? Anything you want to ask Dustin Long? It looks like he'll be passing through town Thursday.

Chat away ...

Now you have a reason to go to Martinsville at night: On Sept. 3, otherwise known as the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, the Whelen Modified Tour will run at Martinsville under the lights.

The lights are only temporary. The speculation that the lights will make a return engagement? Call that ongoing.

Let's face it: A night race or two might be the thing that keeps Martinsville on the schedule. Richmond runs both of its races at night. The stands are packed, and the racing rocks. The Bristol night race? Even better.

The speculation is that Martinsville needs to do something so fans -- the ones who come to the race as well as (and more importantly) those who watch it on TV -- want to see the race. Some bumping and banging under the lights might just be the thing.

Roanoke Times writer Aaron McFarling offers up his take here.

It's an off week for the Cup guys, but the Busch drivers will be racing Sunday at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriquez road course near Mexico City. I'm sure both of my regular readers (hi, mom! hi dad!) know about the race. If you need to get up to speed, read this and this and some of the stuff here.

If you missed the entry list, the race will feature the usual assortment of Buschwhackers and guys doing double-duty in both series this season (Kevin Harvick, Carl Edwards, Jamie McMurray, Robby Gordon), a couple of guys who don't do much Busch racing (Rusty Wallace, Elliott Sadler) and a couple of road-racing ringers (Boris Said, Ron Fellows). No Jeff Gordon, no Dale Earnhardt Jr., in case you're wondering.

Despite the lack of NASCAR's two biggest stars, this thing is a much of a big-time business opportunity as a race.

And me, too. Your pole sitter for Sunday's Busch race in Mexico City:

No, it's not hired guns Ron Fellows or Boris Said. (They'll start fourth and fifth.) No, it's not defending series champ Martin Truex Jr. (He'll go off third.) And, no, it's not hometown favorite Adrian Fernandez. (He crashed in qualifying and got a provisional.)

Your pole sitter: Mexican driver Jorge Goeters, who's making his first-ever Busch start.

Yeah, me neither. What I've been able to piece together on him in the last 10 minutes: He's 33 years old, he's raced in a bunch of different obscure series, and he tested recently with David Green at Virginia International Raceway.

Sunday, he'll be in the #66, Greg Biffle's usual Busch ride. I wonder if Biffle could have gotten the car around the track as well as Goeters did.

Today's Sports section had a nice Associated Press story on the Telcel Motorola 200 (a.k.a. the Busch race), but we didn't get the results in the paper.

So here they are.

Your winner (but you knew that if you read the paper) was Martin Truex Jr. He was followed by Kevin Harvick, Carl Edwards, Pleasant Garden's Shane Hmiel and Big Bad Boris Said.

Other notables: Rusty Wallace was sixth; Adrian Fernandez, the best-finishing Mexican driver was 10th; and pole-sitter Jorge Goeters came in 38th after his car blew up with 15 laps to go.

Business writer Dick Barron (he blogs here) is our resident Formula One expert. Dick has said that F1 is a big deal everywhere else in the world. Sort of like soccer, I guess.

He also has asked that we mention F1 from time to time, so here we go:

The F1 season kicked off Sunday in Australia, and seven-time (and defending) champ Michael Schumacher didn't win. (He got rear-ended and spun and finished 18th out of 20th.)

That's about all I know about F1. That, and it's pretty. And it's not NASCAR.

For more on the race, go here or here or here.

Your winner: Giancarlo Fisichella of Italy, who drives for Renault. I'll see if I can find Dick, who could explain what all of this means.

All in all, the Telcel-Motorola 200 (a.k.a. Sunday's Busch race) was a pretty good race. My guy (Martin Truex Jr.) won, the fans seemed pretty into it and the Mexican drivers didn't embarrass themselves. (Except maybe for polesitter Jorge Goeters - he was running away from the field for the first 24 laps, then had one of the worst pit stops in recent memory. He'll learn.)

I liked the fact that the opening ceremonies were done in Spanish -- that really gave you the flavor of the place, and you didn't need to know a word of Spanish to realize there was a pre-race prayer, just like they have in all of the U.S. races. Plus I loved saying Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

So what are other people saying?

A note from Caraway Speedway in Asheboro came over the transom (a.k.a. the Sports e-mail account, which passes for a transom in this high-tech world of ours.)

The Caraway season fires up March 19 with a full slate of races. Travis Swaim of High Point will be back to defend his late model stock title. He's gunning to be the fourth driver in track history to win back-to-back titles. The others: Dennis Setzer (the current NASCAR Craftsman Truck driver), who won three titles from 1988-90; Steve Loftin of Thomasville, who won in 1998 and 1999; and Reidsville's Jason York, track champion in 2000 and 2001.

Ronald Fox will be Swaim's crew chief. Swaim will be in the No. 21 Falcon Racing car.

For more on Caraway, check out the track's Web page.

By the way, if you ever have a chance to catch a short-track race, go. It's loud and fun, and the track is small enough that you can see the whole thing. It's a great night out.

Or, as business writer Dick Barron would call it: Formula One.

Dick is our resident Formula One gearhead. He's been kind enough to explain the results of last week's F1 season-opener in Australia and shed some light on the sport in general. If you think, for instance, that NASCAR has some funky rules, consider F1. Drivers can no longer change tires during a race. And now they must run the same engine two races in a row.

I'll let Dick explain:

Because it's good for you, that's why.

No, seriously: Because NASCAR and F1 seem to be flirting.

For one, Ray Evernham is sniffing around Britain for engine technology.

And Ferrari seems interested in the turn-left-go-fast circuit.

Sure, this is old news -- both items from the F1 rumor mill date back to January -- but it's something to watch later on. You didn't think Toyota was really going to be the only non-American car company to be interested in NASCAR, did ya?

Okay, that's the last non-NASCAR post for a while. We'll return to our regularly scheduled programming with the next entry.

There is much rejoicing in NASCAR Nation: The Cup drivers will be back on the track Sunday at Las Vegas.

The season's only two weeks old, and not much in the way of news has broken out yet. (Which is both a blessing or a curse if you're racing writer Dustin Long: If there's no breaking news, you can work on some big-picture stories. But because there's no breaking news, there's the constant fear that news will break out -- or that you're missing a big story.)

But I digress. There are some story lines that bear watching this week at the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400:

Is Roush for real? Jack Roush's drivers could win the next 10 Cup titles, and race fans would still be questioning the Cat in the Hat. But a Roush driver (Greg Biffle) won the last Cup race, and Roush drivers have won five of the past seven Vegas races. (Remember Matt Kenseth? He's two-time defending race champ.) And four of the five drivers at the top of the point standings are Roush drivers. Yeah, Roush is having a pretty good year.

Is DEI doomed? Michael Waltrip hasn't finished a race this season, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. stunk up the track last year. (He finished 35th because he was driving a garbage truck dressed up to look like a stock car.) Sadly, I expect more of the same Sunday.

Can Kasey Kahne finally win one? He took the Vegas pole last year, then finished second. He's due. Why not here?

Finally, will the racing improve? The California race was bad enough, and Vegas -- a little sister to the California track -- doesn't promise to be much better. Although the Cup teams have had two weeks to solve the problems caused by the new tires and shorter spoilers, I'm expecting a lot of follow-the-leader racing and little passing. I hope I'm wrong.

The race is done, Jimmie Johnson is your winner and Dale Jr. fans (myself included) are in despair.

Lemme revisit the questions from my previous post:

Cheating, like turning left and driving fast, has been part of NASCAR ever since there was a NASCAR. Every driver and crew chief, it seems, tries to bend (or even break) the rules to give their car an advantage.

Last week at Vegas, you had three such instances that got caught: Kevin Harvick's mostly empty gas tank, race winner Jimmie Johnson's height-challenged car and runner-up Kyle Busch's oversized rear quarter panel.

Chances are -- and we should know this afternoon -- all three of these teams are going to get smacked. Will they lose points? Will NASCAR take away some cash? And will Harvick's crew chief, Todd Berrier, be watching from home for the next few weeks? At this point, who knows?

If NASCAR wants to get people's attention, they'll go for the points option.

... NASCAR dropped the bomb:

* Kevin Harvick lost 25 driver points, 25 owner points and his crew chief: Todd Berrier's wallet is $25 grand lighter, and he'll be on the sidelines for the next four races.

* Jimmie Johnson lost 25 driver points and 25 owner points. His crew chief, Chad Knaus, was fined $35 large and will miss the next two races.

* Kyle Busch got the same 25/25 points penalty as the other two drivers. His crew chief, Alan Gustafson, was fined $25,000 and will miss two races.

Still no 50-point penalties as I suggested below. But the crew chief suspensions ought to wake up a few people in the Nextel Cup garage.

UPDATE (12:49 p.m.): NASCAR spokesman Jim Hunter told the AP:

"NASCAR doesn't feel it is fair to the teams who do meet all of the post-race requirements to continue to have people who are pushing it to the limit and then through miscalculations or whatever on their part, fail inspection. These rules are black and white and we bend over backward if a car has been in a wreck, been hit, to give them the benefit of the doubt.

"This is just unacceptable. So maybe the crew chiefs being at home will help remedy this issue."

AP story is here. Dustin Long will have more in the a.m. paper.

In case you missed:

Dustin Long has a piece on NASCAR's penalties here.
Both Rick Hendrick and Richard Childress plan to appeal the suspensions of their respective crew chiefs, so it looks like all three will be working Sunday. Dustin confirmed that Childress engineer (and former Ricky Craven crew chief) Scott Miller would have subbed for Todd Berrier on Sunday at Atlanta. But we took it out of the story at the last minute when Childress finally said he'd appeal. (Hendrick came out of the gate saying he would appeal, so the issue of who was going to sub in the No. 48 and No. 5 pits never came up.)

Also, Dustin had an intriguing piece about NASCAR's effort to reach out to Latino fans here and in Mexico. The Acapulco 400? Maybe someday soon.

Thursday update: Childress still plans an appeal, but Todd Berrier will be on the sidelines for the Atlanta race. It's complicated, so go here for more. As Dustin mentioned yesterday, Scott Miller will be atop the No. 29 box on Sunday.

No, not public hanging. Losing a victory.

Whether Jimmie Johnson simply broke the rules by accident or out-and-out cheated depends in large part what you think of Johnson. (Johnson blames his post-race inspection problem on a broken part, which he said isn't his fault. Still, some people might say that the part became broken, if you know what I mean.)

So what should happen to rule-breakers who happen to win a race? Here is your chance to weigh in. Some lucky respondents might find their answers in Sunday's paper. So go answer the question.

Thursday update: Thanks to everyone who took the time to e-mail a response. No more, please. Look for some that'll run in Sunday's paper.

In this story left over from last week, Ryan Newman and Jeff Gordon chew on the bones of the Mexico race.

Newman wondered why NASCAR ventured into Mexico when there are more places still to go in the U.S. Said Newman: "The Pacific Northwest for sure. The upper Midwest, maybe North Dakota. And there's a lot of people in Montana."

Hmmm.

If a team ain't cheating, it ain't trying. So goes the old racin' saying noted by the AP's Jenna Fryer in a story earlier this week about the fallout from the Harvick-Johnson-Kyle Busch incidents at Las Vegas. (Sunday update: Here is Dustin Long's story from Sunday's News & Record.)

Cheating stories are legendary around pit road. Here's one about a Jeremy Mayfield crew member adding STP to the car's gas tank during a race. Here are some more about Smokey Yunick and the Pettys. And here's a legendary tale about Jeff Gordon, Ray Evernham and the car NASCAR asked it to destroy.

We also dug into the N&R's archives to revive this Dustin Long story from 2002 on the topic after a rash of NASCAR penalties:

The last 20 laps at today's Cup race at Atlanta? That was some racin'. (Here is the Associated Press account.)

It looked like Jimmie Johnson was going to race away to his second straight victory. Next thing you know, Carl Edwards is wrestling his car into the lead right before the finish line.

If Johnson had that to do all over again, he would have gone to the wall to cut off Edwards and make Edwards pass him down low. But Edwards was flying, and Johnson had to check up to keep himself from running up into the No. 99 car.

For Edwards, that was a fine piece of driving. With five laps to go, his car got sideways, and somehow he kept the car under control. (Yeah, yeah, I know he used to run dirt. But this is Atlanta at 190 mph.)

Hard to believe this guy was racing in the Truck Series just a year ago. Ladies and gentlemen, meet your newest NASCAR star.

Monday update: Dustin has more on Carl Edwards here.

Because I stink at it, that's why.

Before Daytona, I wandered over to NASCAR.com's fantasy racing site and signed up for what the site calls the Nextel Ultimate Fantasy League. (It's free. Yeah, I'm cheap.)

It works like this: Each league has six teams, and each team has four Cup drivers. Three drivers are active each week, and one is on the bench. Teams go head-to-head each week, so there's a win-loss competition. Points are tallied each week and added up throughout the season, so there's a points competition each week.

I was pretty pleased after the draft because I got three guys I like, including two who made the 2004 Chase (both have a Cup title in their futures) and a past champion who came pretty close to making the Chase last year.

The results so far?

On the news side of the house, Fox bills itself as fair and balanced. Whether you take that as gospel or with a wink depends on which side of the political divide you claim. If you take Fox at its word, it positions itself as a paragon of journalism. Fair and balanced, after all, is what all journalists strive (or should strive) to be.

But on the entertainment side of the house, is there anyone crasser than Fox? (ABC and "Desperate Housewives" aside, that is.) Yes, Fox brought us "The Simpsons," and god bless them for that. But Fox is the network that also brought you "Cops," "Married with Children," "When Animals Attack," and a whole host of breathtakingly bad reality shows, even by reality show standards.

Which brings me to Fox's NASCAR coverage. On TV, it's pretty darn good most days. Online, it's even better. But then there's this feature: Who is NASCAR's Sexiest Driver?

Do we really need this? Do we really care? Isn't there a better way for Fox to use its computer services? And why in the heck did Fox dredge up the ugliest pictures of some of these drivers?

C'mon, Fox. At least do us a favor and keep the "Temptation Island" creators from suggesting Web site content.

Looks like Knaus and Alan Guftason won't miss any time for rules violations at Las Vegas. NASCAR's appeals board overturned the suspension and put them both on 90-day suspensions instead.

The drivers and owners will still lose points, and the crew chiefs still have to cough up some money for fines.

The AP story is here. And here is a column from Fox's Jeff Hammond that touches on the National Stock Car Racing Commission (aka the appeals board).

Note to Jeff: We in the media didn't sensationalize the reporting. We just reported it. And it was a big deal because it's not every day that NASCAR tries to suspends Cup crew chiefs.

If you're a Dale Jr. fan, this is one place to get your fix for news on the No. 8 car. The site even has a couple of blogs written by Dale Jr.'s publicists Jade Gurss and Mike Davis.

Mike, in this post, plugs Dustin Long's upcoming interview with Junior. (It's the third of three "In Their Own Words" features we'll run during Martinsville week; Junior should be in print April 10.) Mike mentions that Dustin writes for the papers in Roanoke, Norfolk ... and Greenville.

Sigh. It's Greensboro, and I hope Mike fixes it. Still, it's nice to get the shout-out from the Junior camp.

Update: I modified the ending slightly. No need to irritate someone who's doing us a favor.

Dustin Long reported in today's paper:

An appeals board reduced the penalties Wednesday to crew chiefs Chad Knaus and Alan Gustafson, but stated its decision was not meant to strike down NASCAR's get-tough policy.

Meanwhile, Charlotte's David Poole opines on the appeals board ruling:

If every appeal is swatted down as a matter of course, then the system is seriously flawed. The problem here, however, is that this decision is also flawed. ... The message sent, therefore, is that "intent" now becomes a threshold in determining how hard NASCAR can come down on rule-breakers. That's a poor precedent to set.

Me: Every sports looks at intent. Football has two types of facemask penalties (5 yards if you didn't mean to grab it and 15 if you did), basketball has regular and intentional fouls and hockey has a whole range of penalties depending on if you use your stick to hook a guy or smack him in the nose. Why should NASCAR be any different?

Just asking.

It's an off weekend for Nextel Cup, which means most people won't be paying too much attention to racing this weekend.

Squelch that impulse, 'cause there's news.

One item: USA Today reports in Friday's paper that NASCAR CEO Brian France and Magic Johnson (yes, that Magic Johnson) are talking about getting an NFL team in Los Angeles.

Another item: NASCAR.com writer Lee Montgomery is now an ex-NASCAR.com writer. It apparently has something to do with either a violation of company e-mail policy or his attempts to get to the bottom of the Brad Parrott-Robby Gordon scuffle in Mexico City. Bob Henry has the story in Knight-Ridder's Checkered Past blog.

Also ...

Carl Edwards aside, there may be no hotter driver in NASCAR than Jimmie Johnson. (I mean "hot" as in doing well on the track, not hot in the Fox Sports "Sexiest Driver" context.)

Johnson over the past 10 races, dating back to last October, has finished no worse than sixth. Wow.

The folks over at nascar.com asked themselves, Is this some sort of record? The short answer: No, because Richard Petty (remember him?) ripped off 10 wins in a row back in 1967.

The result of their question is this story looking at winning percentages, average finish by season and a bunch of other things.

For instance, Johnson has won 13 percent of the 115 Cup races he's entered, good enough for fourth place all-time in the modern era. He trails only David Pearson (22 % winning percentage), Cale Yarborough (19%) and Jeff Gordon (17%).

Go read. Fascinating stuff.

Ever wonder how much NASCAR Nextel Cup teams take in from sponsorships and spend on stuff? Ryan McGee over at foxsports.com has the answers in a lot of detail.

Story summary: There's a lot more money kicking around NASCAR than you might think, even if you think NASCAR is wallowing in cash.

Probably not, but you wouldn't know that by looking at the standings.

Heading into Bristol this week, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is 26th in standings, 315 points (!) behind leader Jimmie Johnson. Teammate Michael Waltrip, who's driving to save his job, is 27th. Remember, the two of them swapped everything -- crews, crew chiefs and cars -- during the off-season.

But Jimmie Johnson and Martin Truex Jr. say Junior is just fine, thank you very much. Johnson is shaping up to lead NASCAR's delegation to the United Nations. As for Truex, let's put it this way: I'd say the same thing if some reporter asked me about my boss.

So what does Junior think of his chances of climbing back in the hunt? Our racing writer, Dustin Long, will have more on that in tomorrow's paper.

Something to chew on: Junior won last fall's race at Bristol, and he's had some success at Martinsville, which is next up on the schedule.

Wednesday update: Here's the top of Dustin's story:

MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. said Dale Earnhardt Inc. has fallen behind NASCAR Nextel Cup teams and needs to make changes to help him and teammate Michael Waltrip recover from poor starts.

Earnhardt is 26th in the points and Waltrip is 27th after four races. No driver worse than 17th in the points after four races made last year's championship chase.

Earnhardt said Tuesday that DEI's main problem is it has not adjusted to the new tires and the rear spoiler reduction this season.

"Our company doesn't learn quick enough for these changes and we have to spend all year figuring it out, and the next year there's a new batch," he said during a break in testing at Martinsville Speedway.

Go read the whole thing.

That might be as close as you'll get to a personalized Dale Jr. plate.

The N.C. DMV announced yesterday that it will be issuing NASCAR-themed license plates. Here is what they'll look like.

The drivers who will appear on N.C. plates reads like your starting grid for the typical Nextel Cup race. The Roush, Hendrick, Evernham, Childress, Penske South, Ganassi, Petty and Bill Davis drivers are all there. So's The King, Richard Petty.

So who's missing? Both of the DEI drivers, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Michael Waltrip, darn it. Give me a few minutes and I'll see if I can find out why.

2:40 p.m. update: Here are two things I heard from DMV:

So Todd Berrier is going to have to sit out four races after all. (Here is the AP version; ignore the "staff report" tag.) David Poole's version is here.

You can argue all day about whether the Commission did the right thing and whether NASCAR is being fair or favoring one team over another. (That's exactly what some folks are doing over at one of the thatsracin.com blogs.)

My favorite thing so far is Richard Childress' screed, er, statement that he issued yesterday after the Commission ruling.