News-Record.com

Maybe it's overstatement, but it's a pretty darned accurate way to describe Jeff Gordon's car yesterday at Talladega. Gordon could drive that thing wherever he wanted. Another driver passed him, Gordon passed him right back with a vengeance. And not since Dale Earnhardt himself raced at Talladega have I seen a car as wide as the No. 24.

Absolutely stunning.

As for the rest of it, it was typical Talladega: A lot of jockeying for position and one big bad wreck. My take on Talladega: I love the racin', but I hate the wreckin'.

If you want to hear more about yesterday's race, our racing writer, Dustin Long, will be on the local sports-talk radio station (790-AM "The Ball") at 3:25 p.m. today. Listen in.

If you've got something to say about Sunday's race, that's what the comments are for.

The only luck Bobby Labonte has this year is the bad kind.

The former Cup champ is 33rd in points. He has 5 DNFs in nine races, most on the circuit this year. He survived the Big One yesterday at Talladega only to see his engine blow up shortly after.

And now this:

Dustin Long reports on his way back from Talladega to his home near Charlotte, he was cruising through Greenville, S.C. I-85 when he saw something parked on the side of the road.

It was one of Bobby Labonte's souvenir trailers ... with the hood up.

Guy can't catch a break.

You all saw it, the 25-car pileup toward the end of Sunday's race. (Admit it: That's why you watched the race. I mean, nobody was tuning in to watch Kyle Petty limp his car around the track.)

Today's big question: Who caused the thing? Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mike Wallace were the key players in this drama, which took out more than half the field and delayed the race by 45 minutes. Folks are hot about it. (The language in that last link is not work safe unless you're a sailor, and even some of them might blush.)

There's been a ton of finger-pointing after Sunday's Big One at Talladega that took out more than half the field and caused me to delay my return to yard work by nearly an hour.

Yesterday, Dale Earnhardt Jr. laid out pretty darn clearly who he thought was to blame for the Big One as well as a second crash that took out Junior and some other drivers: Jimmie Johnson.

Said Junior: "If there was one idiot out there it was him. To be honest about it, I think Jimmie Johnson caused about all the wrecks out there."

Not him. Him.

John Robinson, the N&R's editor, wants y'all to know about a new rule:

The big news rocking the Formula One world: The BAR-Honda team has been banned from the next two F1 races for running an underweight car two weeks ago at the San Marino Grand Prix. (Another story here; here is the technical explanation of what happened.)

It wasn't just driver Jenson Button who was nailed. (He finished third at San Marino, but his car was 11 pounds lighter than minimum.) Neither he nor his teammate, Japan's Takuma Sato, will race in the next two GPs. Both were disqualified retroactively from San Marino.

The BAR-Honda camp, meanwhile, is "appalled" at the penalty. FIA, the sports governing body that had sought a year-long ban, said BAR-Honda had been treated "rather leniently."

Over in NASCAR-land, the F1 action makes those 25-point penalties look pretty weak. Can you imagine NASCAR keeping the entire Roush crew out of a race or two? Or Hendrick? DEI? Yates?

That's pretty much what F1 is doing.

It's one of them racin' deals.

When you're atop the points standings and you're the odds-on favorite to win the Cup title, you're a big fat target.

Do you think Jimmie Johnson deserves that big target? Or do you want to talk about something else? There is a race on tonight.

4:45 p.m. update: More on Johnson here and here. Like the Rantville guy, I'm done with the topic. Dustin Long also told me earlier today he's on a Johnson moratorium unless the fingers start pointing in JJ's direction again.

Monday update: Here are more Darlington memories, courtesy of the Winston-Salem Journal's Mike Mulhern. (reg. req.)

Mulhuen's take is more pragmatic: Few upgrades, even less marketing, poor local roads and a complete lack of amenities could seal Darlington's ultimate doom.

Original post:
That was the gist of the teaser on the front of today's USA Today.

The story, however, gives this answer: No. Probably not, anyway.

No wonder it took me a while to figure out that Sunday's race at Talladega had been red-flagged. Seemed the fools in the Fox booth told the announcers not to mention it.

At least Fox has fessed up and said they goofed. Said Fox Sports CEO David Hill: "It was a stupid thing to do. I've never heard anything so ridiculous."

September 6, 1965. It was a Monday -- and one of the wildest races ever, not just in Darlington history but maybe NASCAR history as well.

Anyone who followed racin' back then or saw ABC's "Wide World of Sports" can forget the 1965 Southern 500. That was the race where Cale Yarborough #27 Ford went airborne between Turns 1 and 2 and sailed over the guardrail. When the car landed, Cale got out, climbed the bank back to the track and waved his arms to let the 50,000 fans at the race know he was fine.

But the 1965 Southern 500 had a lot of other craziness - and tragedy - as well:

The most disappointed person after Saturday night's Darlington race other than me was ... wait for it ... Ryan Newman.

Me, I'm trying to escape the basement of my fantasy NASCAR league, and Newman's on my team. Newman's first-to-fifth slide cost me 20 points, which leaves me 762 points out of first rather than a more respectable 742.

Of course, Newman was actually the guy piloting the No. 12, and there probably are fewer things frustrating as a driver to know that a guy is going to go sailing by you like Greg Biffle did and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. So what would you have done if you had been sitting behind the wheel of the No. 12?

The regular driver of the No. 48 Lowe's Chevy has had some problems this year keeping his car from banging into others.

At 10 a.m. Tuesday, Jimmie Johnson will turn his ride over to someone else, a certain North Carolina governor who also has had trouble controlling the No. 48.

I'm beginning to think it's the car.

Monday night update: Speaking of reckless ... Must be something about blue cars.

"No, governor. You do the burnout AFTER the race."

(reg. req.)

If history is any guide, some of your top-10-in-points drivers are going to stink out loud in Saturday's race at RIR.

Then you have the list of winners from the past seven Cup races there: Jeremy Mayfield, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Ryan Newman, Joe Nemechek, Matt Kenseth, Tony Stewart and Ricky Rudd. If you counted right, that's seven different winners.

So who do you like in Saturday night's race? One of the past winners? One of the four guys who haven't done very well here?

Me? I'd like to see one of the Virginia drivers (Sadler, Rudd or Jeff Burton) win it. Of those three, I'll go with Burton. He's won there once before, and he's had three top 5s there in four races in 2002 and 2003. (I had to look it up, in case you're wondering, like I do with all the stats here.)

Here's another dark horse: Rusty Wallace. He's got more modern-era Richmond wins -- six -- than any other driver. 'Course, the most recent one was in 1997.

So what's the concensus around Spotter-ville?

Yes, Dustin Long will be up in Richmond covering everything that moves. But I've got to give props to my hometown paper. Its NASCAR coverage is usually pretty good, and it's in high gear already leading up to Race Weekend at RIR.

If you go here, you'll find a quick profile of Busch driver and Richmond-area native Denny Hamlin, an update on Ward Burton's whereabouts and a story on what it means to a driver when the car owner tells him, "Yep, you're my man." (Hint: It's not a good omen.)

And those are some of the stories through Wednesday. There's bound to be more as the week goes on. It's worth registering.

First, though, make sure you check out Dustin's work. He's got some good stories on tap for the weekend.

After defending champ Buddy Rice crashed at today's Indy 500 practice, the AP reports, "(car owner Bobby) Rahal said onboard computers indicated the car hit with a force of 75 Gs - although Rahal believed it was even harder than that."

75Gs?! That's got to be a misprint, right? There's no way the human body can withstand that. Or can it? If that's accurate, that's just amazing.

Rice, by the way, suffered a back bruise and a concussion. All praise the SAFER barrier.

Best weekend development: Kasey Kahne's first win. (Stories here and here, if you missed them in print.) Now maybe people will ask him what it's like to always finish second.

Second best weekend development: Jimmie Johnson's early crash. (And here, too. You did register for the Richmond site last week, right? And what exactly was Johnson doing trying to make it three wide?) That tightens up the points race and let a few more drivers climb back within the magic 400-point Chase window.

Third best weekend development: Someone other than a Hendrick and Roush driver won. 'Course, it had to be an Evernham guy, so we got all the hoo-ha about how Kahne is farther along than that other Ray Evernham protege was at this point in his career. I might start to believe it when Kahne wins a few more races.

Humpy Wheeler has picked the winner: Jeff Gordon.

The Lowe's Motor Speedway owner has correctly guessed, er, picked, more than half of the All-Star race winners. But he hasn't nailed one in four years. So maybe you should watch.

Humpy Wheeler isn't the only one picking winners these days. The Charlotte Observer's David Poole has challenged Wheeler, the owner of Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte, to a pick-em contest. Winner gets a steak cooked by the loser. The loser gets two steaks. (ba-BUM! Thank you, I'll be here all week.)

Here are their picks side by side:
Event/Poole/Wheeler
Pit crew (Thurs.)/Mayfield/Waltrip
All-Star pole (Fri.)/Kahne/Johnson
Trucks (Fri.)/Hmiel/Hamilton Sr.
Nextel Open (Sat.)/McMurray/Marlin
All-Star Challenge (Sat.)/Kurt Busch/Jeff Gordon
Busch pole (5/28?)/Biffle/Edwards
Busch race (5/28)/Sorenson/Kenseth
Cup pole (5/26?)/Newman/Nemechek
Cup race (5/29)/Johnson/Martin

My picks? I don't have that kind of guts, but my gut tells me that they'll be lucky to get three right -- between them.

Anyone else want to take a guess or three?

We're going to see a lot more pieces like this one as Jeff Gordon closes in on Dale Earnhardt's win total. Gordon is at 72 and climbing, and Earnhardt won 76 before he was killed in 2001.

This almost makes me feel bad for Darrell Waltrip, who's actually the modern-era record holder with 84.

My brain's too fried today to figure out who I think is better. Have at it in the comments if you'd like.

Sorry for the lack of recent bloggage. But I'm feeling a little bit like some of those field-fillers, who find themselves two laps down 25 laps into a Cup race.

At work, I've been busier than the body shop guys in Jimmie Johnson's shop.

At home, I've spent the last two nights downloading the biggest RPG file ever for my soon-to-be-13-year-old son and doing some major cleanup work on my PC. Tonight's chore is defragging the harddrive on a 6-year-old P3550 Gateway, another all-night ordeal.

We'll have an All-Star race-related treat for you Friday. I promise.

One of our Sports writers is looking for some help on a story. Specifically, Robert Bell is hoping to talk to some African-American race fans.

If you'd like to get your name in the paper - er, I mean, be interviewed -- please call Robert at 373-7055 or e-mail him at rbell@news-record.com. He'd appreciate the call.

Sorry, Richmond, but the smart money is on Charlotte.

A Charlotte win might just crush Richmond. For years, Richmonders (and I'm one, born and bred) dismissed the Queen City as an overgrown truck stop on the way to Atlanta. Richmond is still a better place to live. But on the prestige meter, Charlotte ranks well above my hometown.

Besides, Charlotte's closer to Greensboro. That's a plus for me.

One word: Creepy.

Dustin had an item in his mid-week notebook about the 1989 Winston (now known as the All-Star race, which will run Saturday in Charlotte).

I was curious to read more, so I asked the folks in the News & Record library to pull the story on the race. It's a wild tale written by a guy that News & Record readers will recognize right away.

This story is the reason I'll watch the All-Star race Saturday night. I've been waffling all weekend, mostly because it's not a points race and Charlotte's not my favorite track. (Don't get me started on the 600, which makes the Dakar Rally look like a drag race.) But it's this kind of craziness - you know, stuff like The Pass in the Grass and Jeff Gordon't 2001 win in a backup car - that makes the all-star race more memorable than, say, a points race at Pocono or Watkins Glen.

Here is the story as it appeared in the May 22, 1989 News & Record. Warning: It's a pretty hefty pdf file. But it's worth checking out if you want to see how the Sports page looked 16 years ago.

Or you can go down past the jump and read this little piece of racin' history. It's a good one.

As an added Friday bonus -- I promised you some good bloggage -- here's something fresh on the 1989 Winston from Ed Hardin, who covered the race for the N&R way back when.

Here's Ed:

Twenty drivers already are in Saturday night's All-Star race.

Twenty-eight others are hoping to get into the back door, aka the Nextel Open. (Fans vote in a second driver, so the All-Star field will have 22 drivers.)

Sterling Marlin seems to be the sentimental favorite to win the Open. Me? I'm pulling for Jeff Burton.

So who are you rooting for in the Open?

Who's the bigger punk?

(a) Brian Vickers, for running over Mike Bliss right before the finish line of the Nextel Open?

or

(b) Kevin Harvick, for slapping Joe Nemecheck in the head after a wreck started by Tony Stewart?

The answer below the fold ...

Anyone know how much Jeff Gordon is paid in a year? Or what Dale Earnhardt Jr. gets? How about Greg Biffle or Mark Martin?

Of course you don't. Nobody knows, or almost nobody. About the only thing more secret than Nextel Cup R&D programs are the driver contracts. It's a far cry from football, where even the most casual ESPN viewer knows how much a particular football player's paycheck counts toward a team's salary cap.

But here's a glimpse: This is Kasey Kahne's old contract with Robert Yates Racing.

And: This is Kahne's contract with Ford.

(Warning: Both are PDF files.)

Dustin Long hit the highlights in a notebook item Sunday on Kahne's old contract, which is part of the court file in Ford's breach-of-contract suit against Kahne. Kahne, of course, is now behind the wheel of the No. 9 Dodge owned by Ray Evernham. And the whole thing is in court.

Interesting reading, no?

But this isn't funny, especially if you're an Earnhardt Jr. fan: Pete Rondeau is out as crew chief of the No. 8.

Steve Hmiel (Shane's dad) will take over.

Will this make the No. 8 any better? Any worse?

I was flipping channels tonight and surfed on Jeff Gordon singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the seventh-inning stretch at Chicago's Wrigley Field.

Take my word for it: He was awful.

Before he got to the end, the crowd made him feel like he does after he wins a race: They booed.

This time, he actually deserved it.

Wednesday 11 a.m. update: Cubs fans pan Gordon's performance. Here, too.

A Copley News Service writer lays down the smack: "They're called 'words,' Mr. NASCAR, and you might want to learn them the next time you agree to sing in a sold-out ballpark. Now keep turning left until you end up in Lake Michigan."

Gordon admitted last week (second item) that he didn't know the words.

... or Kyle Petty or Brian Vickers or someone else not in the top 10. Yes! Weekly's latest edition has a list of the 10 best local blogs, and The Spotter's not there.

I'm not surprised in the least, especially because The Spotter is to local blogging as a Saturday night race at Caraway is to Nextel Cup: Entertaining, but nowhere near the big leagues.

Check out the Yes! Weekly list for the best in local blogs. It's pretty close to my personal top 10.

I told you last night that you'd have to take my word for it that Jeff Gordon's rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" was, well, awful.

See - and hear - for yourself. Registration's required, but it'll take a minute.

By the way, it's Wrigley Field, not Wrigley Stadium. Just for that, I'm going to refer to the site of Sunday's Cup race as Lowe's Motor Field.

And it's a good thing, according to this report.

From MSNBC.com:
Reports of blindness in men using Viagra, Cialis

Although, in all fairness, Martin has driven so many laps at Charlotte he probably could run Sunday's 600 with his eyes closed and still get a top 10.

The longest race of the NASCAR season will be run Sunday, and there's a lot of stuff to be looking for this weekend:

* Will new crew chiefs make a difference for Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Dale Jarrett?

* Can Jamie McMurray shed the one-hit-wonder label?

* Will Jason Leffler and Bobby Hamilton Jr. be standing outside Lowe's Motor Speedway with "Will Drive For Food" signs? Neither made Sunday's race, and they stand 36th and 37th in points, respectively.

* Can Jeff Gordon pull off his fourth victory of the season to erase the ugly memories of his Tuesday night singing performance at Wrigley Stadium?

* Has anyone noticed that there's another big race on the schedule for Sunday? Ooops, I mean this one.

I got back yesterday from a weekend at Smith Mountain Lake, where my inlaws have a weekend place.

The rumor going around, according to my father-in-law, is that Dale Earnhardt Jr. has bought/is buying a house in one of the new high-end subdivisions up there.

My father-in-law told me this Sunday before the race. Then, we both thought SML is an odd choice. Many of the other Cup drivers have places in Lake Norman, which is near where they work. SML is not even close to the Wood Brothers' old shop. Best my father-in-law can tell -- and he's pretty plugged in for a weekender -- there aren't any other NASCAR types up there.

About 11 p.m. Sunday, after the checkered flag waved, it dawned on me. If Junior keeps driving like he did in the 600, he's not going to have any friends left on the Cup circuit, and SML is a pretty good place to hide out.

That's my theory, anyway. I'll be back later Tuesday with my thoughts on a wild weekend of racing.

Two terrific races produced a little of both this weekend. So let's get started:

The sublime: Say it with me now: The Coca-Cola 600. Just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? It just screams "Memorial Day," right?
The ridiculous: Next year, they oughta call it the Coca-Cola 750, because that's sure what it felt like. Or maybe the 12 Hours of Charlotte. I'm open to suggestions.

The sublime: Whatever this levigating thing was, it really seemed to work. There was actually some racing at Charlotte for a change, and it was pretty good racing at that.
The ridiculous: 22 freakin' cautions? What was this, the 600 or a Saturday night demolition derby? I'm beginning to think NASCAR ran the night race at Bristol three months early and didn't tell anyone.
The even more ridiculous: Sorry, Humpy, but there was no excuse for the crack sealer to come up like it did. I think that track of yours could stand some more work. Like maybe a complete repaving?