News-Record.com

I think some folks in the racing community are a little light-heade today:

* Champ Car driver Paul Tracy, of Toronto, wants to take a crack at NASCAR. He'll test an ARCA car today in Concord, then he'll get behind the wheel of a Childress car Monday at Michigan. His goal is to race Aug. 21 at Michigan.

Tracy's not signed for 2006, so maybe he's doing this to put some heat on his current team. Or maybe Champ Car's top driver -- he's the 2003 champ and he has more career wins than any other active driver -- thinks he'll do better than the No. 33 made famous by Kerry (not Dale Jr.) Earnhardt.

* Here's the headline on Detroit Free Press columnist Mike Brudenell's column that ran Monday: Give me IRL's smaller crowds over NASCAR. According to Brudenell, about 35K fans showed up for Sunday's IRL race at MIS compared to the 160K who came to June's NASCAR race. Sure, it would be a lot of fun to eavesdrop on Chip Ganassi or ride a bike with Buddy Rice. But I'd rather brave the NASCAR crowds to watch some racing that means something.

* This final piece came from scenedaily.com:

NASCAR eyes own news service

NASCAR Chairman Brian France believes racing is not being adequately covered by the nation's newspapers and wants to create the sport's own news service for newspapers, television and radio stations, Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Daily reports.

"You're going to see us get into the content business, very similar in one respect to the NFL channel," France told a cable television industry summit, writer Andy Bernstein reports. "We're going to have to create content that is customized for media outlets."

No time table for a launch or other details were reported.

(emphasis mine)

Just because the N.Y. and L.A. Times virtually ignore the sport doesn't mean it's not getting covered. NASCAR.com and Speed Channel, although not controlled by NASCAR, already act and feels like NASCAR's propaganda arm.

This last posting has ensured me an early-morning call from our racing writer, who is on track to file 300+ (with the emphasis on the "+") stories this year. Heck, Mike Mulhern probably has filed 1,000 stories this year, some of them with properly sourced true and actual facts.

Just what I love: a cattle-call audition, NASCAR style.

Here is the list for the Roush gong show participants who will be trying out this week (Tuesday-Thursday) at Martinsville Speedway. It's an interesting list: a Canadian, a New Zealander, at least two women, a bunch of ARCA drivers and, sadly, only four from N.C., none local to me.

David Smith has more here (and scroll down). His pick: Erik Darnell, a 23-year-old from Illinois who runs ARCA and AutoZone Elite and drives the brighest, yellowest car you've ever seen. (Don't blame me if you clicked that last link without reading on.)

P.S. Darnell is one of two drivers taking part who already is with Roush's driver development program.

I'm always tempted to chuckle every time I heard the phrase "Roush gong show," but, heck, that's how Kurt Busch got to the big time.

You kind of have to wonder why other Cup teams aren't trying the same thing.

Here's "Reality on Wheels," a slightly longer version of what we had in today's paper.

Matt promised pics of his own on his bull board -- the link is here, but I'm getting a 404 error when I go there. What's up with that, Matt? And who's your pick?

Monday update: Matt's current site is here. His pics are in this thread, along with Jayski's list of the 12 drivers who made the cut.

Two things happened Sunday in Indianapolis to suggest that maybe I should start watching NASCAR with the sound turned down:

1. At the end of the race, the NBC crew was blathering on about Tony Stewart's alleged lack of fuel. If you're running out of gas, most drivers are going to whoa back a bit so the car doesn't start sputtering as you're coming around turn 3 on the last laps. But to hold off Kasey Kahne, Stewart drove like he had a couple of spare gallons in the back seat. (I haven't seen so much weaving since the last time I saw the Greg Biffle commercial driving those back roads with a hot sandwich in his lap.) Then Stewart took what seemed to be five more laps after the checkers waved. Seems he had a lot of people to see before he went to Victory Lane.

So was Stewart really out of gas, or did NBC took Stewart's crew chief at his not-so-honest word?

2. After Jimmie Johnson put his car into the wall near the end of the race, everyone, Johnson included, quickly pronounced him fine. Johnson was fine in the sense that he was walking, talking and not unconscious. But when the cameras caught up with him as he sat on a wall in the pit area, Johnson didn't quite look all there. He's lucky he didn't suffer a concussion.

Any other thoughts or observations on one of the weaker races on the Cup circuit?

P.S. Congrats to Stewart. He drove a great race and deserved the victory, mostly so Dustin doesn't have to write (and I don't have to read) more stories about how desperately Stewart wants a Brickyard win. It wasn't quite as bad as the why-can't-Dale Sr.-win-the-Daytona 500, but it was heading that way.

It's been nice knowing you, Jason Leffler.

Mulhern hinted at it in today's Winston-Salem paper, but any race fan with a pulse knew it was a matter of when, not if. Leffler didn't race at Sonoma in June, and he was going to be bumped for Sunday's race at Watkins Glen. Neither one was a good sign.

The intriguing thing here: Terry Labonte, JJ Yeley and Denny Hamlin will be splitting seat time. I see two of those guys making their way to the Cup series pretty soon thanks to a little help from the boss.

In our ongoing coverage of Silly Season 2005, Dustin Long just got this from the folks over at Roush Racing:

ROUSH RACING ANNOUNCEMENT

CONCORD, N.C. (August 9, 2005) – Roush Racing announced today that Kurt Busch has advised team officials that he has signed with another team commencing in 2007. The name of the team is not known. Kurt also requested a release from his contract for 2006. Due to sponsor and team considerations no decision on that request will be made for an indefinite period. Roush Racing will have no further comment at this time.

Roush

(emphasis mine)

Dustin's on the case. He's thinking Busch is going to either Penske (Rusty's No. 2) or DEI, but he's just guessing at this point. We should have more in tomorrow's paper.

My first guess was the No. 2. That's about the only ride out there that's potentially better than what he has now.

Update: Busch going to Penske Racing South.

Wonderboy (emphasis on boy) Reed Sorenson is moving to the Nextel Cup series next season.

The only surprise here was when, not if, Sorenson would graduate to the big leagues. That, and the fact that Ganassi is adding a fourth car when he hasn't had such a hot year with the three cars he already has, and the best of those three (McMurray) is trying to get the heck out.

Sorenson's signing confirms (like we needed any more proof) NASCAR's commitment to making the sport younger, or at least its drivers. The story broke tonight right as I was trying to get out of the office, so I had to buckle back down, edit the story and chase down his mug shot. I found one on NASCAR's media site, and my first reaction was, Dang, he's young, and this picture doesn't show any whiskers, either.

In case you're wondering, Sorenson will turn 20 right at the start of the 2006 Speed Weeks. And if you want to make yourself feel old, he was born on Feb. 5, 1986 -- the start of my second semester at college, which, incidently, where J.D. Gibbs came in a couple of years or so after I did. (Yes, that J.D. Gibbs. And he's running a race team.

Excuse me while I go drop my dentures in some water and go does up with Geritol.

To put together the preview post, I cruised on over to NASCAR.com to check the standings to see if Ganassi's season was as mediocre as I had thought. (Answer: Yes, yes it was.)

I glanced at the top 10 and something hit me: After Stewart and Johnson, there aren't any other Chevy drivers in the top 10.

If you listed the top 10 by car, not driver, you'd get:
1. Chevy
2. Chevy
3. Ford
4. Dodge
5. Ford
6. Ford
7. Dodge
8. Dodge
9. Ford
10. Ford

If you're counting at home, that's 5 Fords, 3 Dodges and 2 Chevys. (In 11th or 12th, the two spots that seem to have a reasonable shot at the Chase, are a Dodge and a Ford.)

Is this a problem for anyone, especially you Chevy fans? Or am I just finally stumbling on the obvious? What does this all mean? Is one model that much better than another?

If you've ever taken a close look at the road-course cars the Cup drivers use, you'll see these little metal thingees sticking forward right underneath the windshields.

That's right: They're windshield wiper posts. The wipers aren't attached. I suppose there's something buried in the NASCAR rule book about putting them on. (I mean, under a whole course caution, or a special rain-caused red flag. I have no idea exactly what it says.)

I caught the tail-end of a racing show on Fox Sports Net tonight, and the talking head said something about a 50 percent chance of rain Sunday at Watkins Glen -- which means there are even odds that NASCAR might run Sunday's race in the rain.

Wonder how those cars are going to do with rain tires?

Any driver who has 10 Nextel Cup wins in his career is in pretty elite company. Only 50 drivers have done it: Petty, Pearson, Allison (three of them), Waltrip, Earnhardt (Sr. and Jr.), Gordon, Johnson (Junior and Jimmie), etc. etc. The list includes the legends, the current stars and a few guys who have "potential Nextel Cup champion" written on them.

And then there's Tony Stewart, who got his 24th career Nextel Cup win on Sunday at The Glen. His current hot streak -- he's won five of the past seven races -- isn't unprecedented. Richard Petty won 10 straight in 1967. But Stewart's is a stout streak.

His 24th win puts him 24th on the all-time victories list, one behind Jim Paschal and Joe Weatherly, and broke his tie with Ricky Rudd. On the modern (i.e 1972 and after), Stewart is 12th. Among full-time active drivers, he's fifth, behind Jeff Gordon (72), Rusty Wallace (55), Mark Martin (34) and Dale Jarrett (31). By the start of the 2007 season, when Martin and Wallace retire, he'll be third, maybe second.

Although it seems like Stewart will win just about every race from here on out, he'll probably never catch Gordon. He started his career faster than Jeff -- Tony had nine wins after two seasons, and Gordon needed three full seasons to get nine. But Gordon ripped off 33 races in his next three seasons, a Petty-esque streak that no one's come close to duplicating lately. And Stewart's 34 -- not old by any stretch, but Gordon's the same age. (Stewart's actually about three months older).

So do you think Stewart have any shot in heck of catching Gordon in the win column? And when we look back at his career in 10 or so years, will we remember him as a guy who had a few hot streaks, or one of the sport's all-time greatest drivers?

Is Jack Roush having a change of heart? "We will consider releasing him, but it's not presumed that we will," the Cat in the Hat said Monday.

He's talking, of course, about lame duck driver Kurt Busch.

Man, this thing getting weird. I'm wondering that if Busch gets his wish to go to the No. 2 next year, will McMurray end up with Roush in '06? Ganassi has said no-way-in-heck, and Roush today said he's going to keep his hands off of McMurray until Ganassi lets him go.

Roush, incidently was in Darlington today to finish the gong show. That's a true test of talent: turning a bunch of Cup-car novices loose at Darlington. I sure hope they put them all on the track together. I'd definitely watch that.

The Richmond track (my hometown) has seen some crazy things.

Like, last year, when Jeremy Mayfield needed to win to make the Chase. Sure as the sun rises in the east, Mayfield won.

What happened there today beat that:

RICHMOND, Va. - A rush to purchase $50 used laptops turned into a violent stampede Tuesday, with people getting thrown to the pavement, beaten with a folding chair and nearly driven over. One woman went so far as to wet herself rather than surrender her place in line.

Note to Mike Helton: Please never do this. Enough people come to your races already.

Like we didn't see this coming:

DEI signs Tony Jr. to long-term deal

About all this means, other than the fact that Tony Eury Jr. will be sticking around DEI for a while, is that he won't be leaving the team at season's end with his driver, Michael Waltrip.

So will Tony Jr. and Dale Jr. be working together in 2006? Who knows? But my Magic 8-Ball says "Signs points to yes." And that's probably a good thing, as Jr. and Jr. had six wins last year, which is five more than Dale Jr. has this season.

Here's hoping.

More on the topic. There's actually a Teresa Earnhardt quote in the story! Who knew she was still around?

I'm slammed here at the ol' office -- the boss is out this week, and I'm in the middle of trying to figure out what stories will go in the next three days worth of papers and editing the ones I do have. (Yeah, racing's in the mix, though Dustin is off the track this weekend and enjoying his last little bit of freedom until he writes himself to death during the chase. That said, I'm open to suggestions.)

So what's on your mind for the weekend?

Can Tony Stewart make it six out of eight? (Speaking of Smoke, check out Ed Hinton's latest on him.)

Will the Roush cars gang up on the field and take four of the top five spots like they did last time at Michigan?

Who's going to climb back into the top 10 in points? Who's going to fall out of the top 10?

Or, if you want to see the future of NASCAR, check out the starting grid for tonight's ARCA race at Michigan: Kyle Krisiloff, a Hendrick development driver, is on the pole; Steve Wallace, Rusty's son, starts fifth; up-and-comer Chase Miller starts seventh; Jarit Johnson, Jimmie's little bro, goes off 16th; Jason Jarrett, Dale's son, is one spot back; and David Ragan, some people's pick to win the Roush gong show, starts 19th.

Remember that at the 2010 Daytona 500.

Okay, back to work. I want to see the comments up in the teens when I get back.

Good weekend!

Nearly 24 hours later, I'm still stunned that Jeremy Mayfield won Sunday's race at Michigan. The guy had been doing laps all day, and next thing you know, he's winning. All I could tell from BP & crew is that it had something to do with gas mileage. (Which is comical. These cars get, what, 6 gallons to the mile or something?)

Of course, I didn't watch Sunday's race all that carefully. I saw the popped tires and the trash (oh, the trash -- where was the NBC graphic to show how the drivers get the hot dog wrappers off the grill at 190 mph?) and a long parade of green flag runs. Yeah, it was that boring of a race. (Diecast Dude probably summed it up best.)

But it was good for Mayfield. Last year, he squeezed into the Chase at the very last minute, and most folks figured he'd sink without a trace, which he promptly did. This year, the fact that he has one win, and it's not at Richmond, suggests he might make some noise in the Chase.

Meanwhile, the Scotsman has more on Sunday's race and Jeff Gordon, who is knocking on the door of the Chase but can't seem to get in, at least not yet.

Some blog gossip: Looks like Rantville got the boot over at thatsracin.com. Or maybe he booted himself. I have no idea. (Hmmm. That's not really gossip, is it? More of a news flash.)

Anyway, the Roush Racing of NASCAR blogging found someone else, and her blog is called The Infield. Go check it out. And, no, I don't know the answer to the question she asked about pizza.

... out of 10 in the Virginia-Carolina USAC Ford Focus Midget Series race Saturday night at South Boston (Va.) Speedway. (A little recent background is here.)

Before anyone goes into the Hmiel-should-never-race-NASCAR-again rant -- not that he doesn't deserve it, because he blew a big fat second chance this summer -- just think of this. Three months ago, Hmiel was racing at one of the best race tracks anywhere. Saturday night, he was on a very slow (race)track to Nowheresville in one of the warm-up events.

In other words, Hmiel has a better idea than any of us of how far he's fallen. Or he should, anyway.

The cover boys of EA's new NASCAR 06 for the PS2 and Xbox are Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson.

Dang it.

This guy.

Mark McFarland is driving Dale Jr.'s Pro Cup car this season. Next year, he'll be in the Busch Series behind the wheel of the No. 88.

He's 24, which is ancient by today's up-and-comer standards, but he's already got eight Busch races under his belt, including four way back in 1998.

Here is the official word from the Junior camp.

P.S. I predict these folks and these folks will be changing their domain names soon.

If your NASCAR schedule isn't handy, you ought to know by instinct that the Bristol night race is right around the corner, which it is. Saturday night, 7 p.m. TNT. If you're not tuned in, you better have a pretty darned good excuse.

You don't need the Chase for the Chase to get you wound up for Bristol, the most exciting and most surprising race on the schedule. Same for Richmond. No extra excitement needed there, either. California? Yeah, the exercise of figuring who's in and who's out of the Chase will help.

Ah, the Chase. Now two years old, it has added an extra something to the NASCAR schedule. In years past, we'd be looking at the top of the Cup standings -- Man, Tony's pulling ahead! Can Mark Martin get back into contention? That Biffle guy, he's sure fallen back in the last few weeks.

But really, because of the Chase, we don't really care about that, at least not for another couple of months. Three weeks from now, Stewart's 100+ point lead over Jimmie Johnson will be down to 5, and we'll start all over again.

This weekend, and for the next two weekends, we'll be looking at eighth through 13th or so. Can McMurray hang on to 10th? Can Sadler turn things around and make it back to the top 10? Do Matt Kenseth and Jeff Gordon have enough time left?

If you pick up today's paper, there's an AP story that's more or less an autopsy of Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s season. There's also a mention of Gordon, NASCAR's other superstar who might be watching this year's Chase from 11th on back. He's 58 points out of 10th with three races to go. If I'm a betting man, and I'm not, I'd bet that Gordon will slide into the top 10 and make a run for his fifth Cup crown. As of the first Chase race, at New Hampshire, he'll be 45 points behind the leader, and he's got too many tricks up his sleeve to do what Mayfield did last year, and that's make the Chase and fade immediately to irrelevancy.

But, see, this is how the Chase has warped our thinking. Gordon is in twelfth place in the standings right now, 624 points and 11 spots behind Tony Stewart.

Say that again as hard as it is: Jeff Gordon is in TWELFTH PLACE. Jeff Gordon has never finished a season in 12th place. Since 1994, his second full season in Cup, Gordon has finished no worse than ninth. That's 11 straight seasons of top 10 finishes. That's freakin' amazing. That's Fixtureville. Not even Dale Earnhardt himself managed that many top 10 season finishes in a row.

But if this were two years ago, we'd be shaking our heads and wondering what the heck happened to Jeff Gordon and how he got so lousy all of a sudden, if we could even remember who he was. Remember, no one comes back from 11 spots and 6 million points back, not even Gordon himself. But it's the Chase era now, and we can still talk about Gordon hoisting his fifth Cup trophy in Victory Lane at Homestead in November and have people say, "Y'know, that could happen."

Like I said, warped. Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing depends on what you think of Gordon. But remember, don't bet against him.

If the Chase started today, there would be four drivers in the Chase without a win: Rusty Wallace (4th in points), Mark Martin (5th), Ryan Newman (8th) and Jamie McMurray (10th). Four other drivers who did manage to take a checkered flag this season -- Jeff Gordon (3 wins), Kevin Harvick (1), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (1) and Kasey Kahne (1) -- would be on the outside looking in.

I can go either way on this. Sure, NASCAR should do more to reward wins, and it would be a shame for someone to win the season title without actually winning a race. (There will be at least one driver in the Chase without a victory so far this year, so it is possible that the 2005 champ won't have gotten to Victory Lane unless they'd gotten themselves on the guest list.) But while wins are nice, finishing toward the front each week is important, too. Just because Jeff Gordon has three wins, we shouldn't overlook the fact he's got eight finishes in the 30s. And don't start on Dale Jr., who has one win and three finishes in the 40s.

So call me Switzerland. I see both sides, and I'm not picking one, at least not this morning.

Charlotte's David Poole, however, jumps right in with ... wait for it ... the Poole Rule: Drivers should get 500 points for their first win during the first 26 races. You don't have to click the link to know that would put Jeff and Junior into Chase-eligible spots.

So what do you think? Does Poole have a point? Should NASCAR leave its points system alone? Or should we all just chill out and enjoy Saturday night's Bristol race?

P.S. Marc from Full Throttle's take on the topic is here. He's in the leave-it-alone camp.

Saturday night's race absolutely did not disappoint. There were the usual wrecks, a couple of temper-tantrums and, now, a points race more muddled than it was Saturday afternoon.

Some observations:

* What in the heck got into Dale Jarrett? Sure, he gets ticked off sometimes (and everyone does at Bristol, it seems). But he doesn't have a rep as a headhunter, and his takeout of Ryan Newman was dumb, dumb, dumb. The wreck hurt Jarrett's own chances at making the Chase -- he slid from 11th to 14th in points, 78 points out of the 10th spot. That rash decision could have cost him a million or so bucks and a chance at another Cup title.

* I'll come to Kevin Harvick's defense, because I figure no one else will. If you watch the replay, Harvick's spotter told him to go low, which Harvick did, then he said "Good job," which to me implies the danger's past. So I don't blame Harvick for gassing it and going around a nearly parked Brian Vickers. The problem, which Harvick's spotter didn't mention, was that Newman's wounded car was hiding behind Vickers' machine.

* That said, Harvick's initial refusal to get back in his car and play moving roadblock for the last part of the race is inexcusable, and I think he realized that after he cooled down. But if I'm Richard Childress, I'm going to start telling some drivers that there might soon be an opening at RCR, and it's not the 31. That marriage is over.

* Speaking of the No. 31: Good job, Jeff Burton. Late in the race it was good to see three Virginians -- Burton, Rudd and Sadler -- battling it out in the top 5.

* The Petty team has had a bad enough season without having Carl Edwards trying to take out both Petty cars. Kyle Petty must have more strength than we'll ever have, because I'm sure it took a lot of it not to have one-two'd Backflip Boy after the race.

* There are now six drivers playing musical chairs for the final three spots in the Chase. My picks for when the music stops after Richmond: Gordon, Kenseth and Newman.

* I'd never thought I'd see the day that you call a race, one where Matt Kenseth won and led 80 percent of the laps, "exciting." But I have, and so did you. What a night.

It's old news, but worth noting: Scott Riggs has been hired away from MBV to drive a third car for Evernham.

That could be huge for Riggs. Evernham has had a little success over the years grooming up and coming drivers. Of course, Riggs isn't a noob -- he turns 35 in January -- but Evernham has done well by a certain other older driver, whose is on the verge of making the Chase for the second straight year just four years after getting fired in mid-season.

Riggs, as you might remember (and it's hard, because he has only 6 top 10s in 59 Cup races), had top 10 season finishes in Trucks (2001) and Busch (2002 and 2003) before making the jump.

I don't think this move makes Riggs a top-10 fixture anytime soon, but he's a lot better off.

Also, Ricky Craven got fired from his Truck Series ride. That's just darned disappointing, especially since he was very much in the mix recently as a potential driver for the 6 car next season. A shame.

Hang around NASCAR long enough and you'll hear the terms "brand loyalty" and the figure "72 percent," as in 72 percent of NASCAR fans will pick brands connected with racin'.

Whether that's actually true or not, I have no idea. I've heard it mentioned so many times that it's practically gospel, regardless of whether or not anyone outside of NASCAR's Daytona Beach headquarters can produce actual evidence of that figure.

But if you drink Pepsi because Jeff Gordon is your guy or automatically reach for a Budweiser because you're a fan of the No. 8, you might want want to be careful if you run to the store this weekend lest you grab this:

No, this isn't some sort of amateur Photo Shop job I ripped off from someone at Fark. I got this from an honest-to-gosh press release with the subject line "NASCAR MEAT PRODUCTS TO ROLLOUT NATIONWIDE LABOR DAY" that goes on to list the NASCAR-branded meat products: hot dogs, bologna, smoked sausage, lunch meats and bacon.

Mmmmmm, meat products.

I think I'll order pizza.

Sports Illustrated came late to the racin' game, and has been struggling to catch up. NASCAR has long been more popular (arguably, anyway) than hockey, tennis and golf, mainstays of SI's pages over the years.

SI has been better over the past few seasons as far as quantity of coverage. There have been honest-to-gosh season previews and some news, notes and feature stories from time to time. But SI's efforts to catch up to the rest of us remind me of a Jimmy Spencer who's three laps down at Bristol: in a word, hopeless.

Dale Jarrett was testing in Richmond on Tuesday, and my sources tell me (okay, it was Dustin, who was getting his info second-hand from another reporter) that the No. 88 driver didn't have much to say about his run-in Saturday night with Ryan Newman.