Simple answers to stupid questions: Sonoma edition
Today's stupid question: Will a road-course ringer win Sunday's race at Sonoma?
No.
This has been another answer of Simple Answers to Stupid NASCAR questions. ...
We go through this every year. Look at the entry list! There's Boris Said! And Ron Fellows! And that guy Montoya wrecked in the Busch race last year -- you know, what's his name! And a couple of other guys you've never heard of!
These guys get a ton of press every year, and every year they don't win. Look at the list of winners from Infineon and the Glen. It's all Cup regulars (and Robby Gordon).
Why is that? Heck, how many reasons do you want?
The ringers are using hand-me-down Cup equipment, and they're working with third- (or fourth-) string pit crews and crew chiefs. They don't have seat time in the snowplows cars they're driving. And the Cup regulars can bump them out of the way with impunity because the ringers won't be at New Hampshire the week after to collect payback. Besides, Boris Said depends on Jack Roush's largesse for a ride, and Roush is going to remember if Big Bad Boris wrecked one of his rides.
Here is your handy-dandy guide to ringer futility. Be sure to jam it back in my face if Scott Pruett puts teammate JPM in the fence and takes the checkers.
Comments (3)
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But the road course ringer is one of the few things that will get me interested in a Cup race anymore. I remember the race well where Tom Kendall almost scored one for the ringers. Ron Fellows almost stole one many years ago in a NEMCO entry. It's things like this that today's NASCAR sorely misses.
By the way it's a matter of when and how you spin the phrase ringer. I believe there was a stretch of time in the mid/late 60's and early 70's when the road course ringer was batting .500 at Riverside. I think Dan Gurney won 4 or 5 races in a row and then Mark Donahue won as well.
Then NASCAR also had the era of the "oval ringer". Kindly refer to Daytona 500 winners Mario Andretti, AJ Foyt, and Pete Hamilton.
An outside driver coming into another form of racing is what makes racing. One of my favorite expressions from the local track announcer back in the 70's is when someone would be introduced as a "Northern Invader".
Posted on June 19, 2008 7:26 PM
I hear you about the interest in ringers, Mark. The fact that a bunch of interlopers is going to race gets me excited about the race, too. But I think I'm tired of getting my hopes up twice a year only to have them crushed like the back bumper of Scott Pruett's car.
The NASCAR.com piece mentions that the last ringer to win was Mark Donohue. Here's the RacingReference.info sheet on the race. Interesting stuff:
* The 1973 Winston 500 was the first race of the '73 season. (It was nearly a month before the Daytona 500.)
* Donohue was racing for Roger Penske in an AMC Matador (!). It was the first Cup win for Penske, who got into NASCAR just the year before.
* Donohue completed 191 laps (500.4 miles). Runner up Bobby Allison was a lap down. The third-place finisher, Ray Elder, was 2 laps down. Fourth-place finisher Bobby Under was 5 (!) laps down. (The race was Unser's fourth and last in Cup.)
* Only 16 of 40 cars were still running at the end.
* Richard Petty led 39 laps (second only to Donahue) before blowing an engine about halfway through.
* Donohue raced just six times in Cup and was racing's first IROC champion. He had an Ivy League degree (Brown U.), a podium finish in F1 and a Indy 500 trophy.
His Wiki page is immense.
Posted on June 20, 2008 8:55 AM
Mark Donahue was my first hero as a driver. Beyond the Indy win and the Riverside win he was a multi-time Trans-AM and Can-Am champion. He was the best driver AMC ever had. Besides the Matador he also put the Javelin in victory lane too many times to mention.
Posted on June 20, 2008 10:03 AM