THE FRONTSTRETCH NEWSLETTER
What to Watch: Thursday
- Today is another appeal day in NASCAR. Richard Childress Racing will be making their case for why its P5 penalty for alleged usage of tire bleeder valves should be no-billed or decreased. It is sure to be a media circus at the NASCAR R&D Center. We'll have a write-up of the situation at Frontstretch once a decision is made.
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Thursday's TV Schedule can be found in Couch Potato Tuesday here.
April 16, 2015
Volume IX, Edition LVI
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What to Watch: Thursday
- Today is another appeal day in NASCAR. Richard Childress Racing will be making their case for why its P5 penalty for alleged usage of tire bleeder valves should be no-billed or decreased. It is sure to be a media circus at the NASCAR R&D Center. We'll have a write-up of the situation at Frontstretch once a decision is made.
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Thursday's TV Schedule can be found in Couch Potato Tuesday here.
Top News
by the Frontstretch Staff
by the Frontstretch Staff
Kyle Busch Discusses Daytona Wreck, Says No Timetable for Return
On Wednesday, Kyle Busch met with the media at the Joe Gibbs Racing shop for the first time since suffering injuries in the XFINITY Series season opener at Daytona in February. While Busch is walking on his own without casts, there is still no timetable for his return. Read more
NASCAR Holds Open Test in Kentucky
Representatives from several Sprint Cup teams participated in a two-day tire test with Goodyear. While rain was an issue at times, it never completely washed out the sessions. Read more.
Cole Whitt, Front Row Motorsports Announce 2-Race Sponsor
On Wednesday, Front Row Motorsports announced the signing of Tweaker Energy Shot to serve as the primary sponsor of Cole Whitt's No. 35 Ford for two races, this weekend at Bristol and at Watkins Glen in August. Read more
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FRONTSTRETCH JOB: WEBMASTER
Frontstretch.com is looking for a talented and motivated individual to fulfill the role of the site's webmaster. The ideal candidate must be highly proficient in WordPress, as the site recently converted from Textpattern to WordPress as its content management system. The webmaster will assist with leftover conversion tasks, work with the management team to implement site enhancements and help troubleshoot problems as they arise. The candidate must also have a working knowledge of search engine optimization strategies to help improve search rankings for the site. Motorsports knowledge is preferred but not required. The candidate should have on average at least 1-2 hours per week to devote to Fronstretch initiatives. If you are interested, please contact our Business Manager, Tony Lumbis at Tony.Lumbis@gmail.com.
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Editor's Note: Potts' Shots will return next week.
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The Critic's Annex: Masters Of The Clock: The Legend of Martinsville
by Phil Allaway
Every time that I read the title of the show, I think of Masters of the Maze, a 1994 children's game show originally hosted by J.D. Roth (and later, Mario Lopez) that aired on The Family Channel (now ABC Family) on weekdays.Back to the special. Reg E. Cathey, best known for roles in Se7en and various David Simon-produced shows set in Baltimore (including HBO's The Wire), but best known to me as "Dirty Dee" from the 2001 film Pootie Tang served as the show's narrator. He paints a portrait of Martinsville as a down-home type of place where tradition rules, equating it with places like Wrigley Field or Augusta National Golf Club.
Drivers, active and retired, give their opinions about what it's like to race at Martinsville, and the common theme is that Martinsville represents a change from the norm. When I discovered NASCAR in 1988, there weren't that many intermediate tracks. There was Atlanta (still a true oval), Charlotte and Michigan. Given the speeds, you could throw Pocono in there as well. Everything else hadn't been built yet, so such a statement in 1988 might not have made that much sense. The track is a throwback if you will, but definitely a difficult throwback.
From there, the show talks about the founder of Martinsville, H. Clay Earles, described as the embodiment of the work ethic of Southern Virginia. He worked in a furniture factory as a youngster before acquiring gas stations, working hard to make a living for himself and his family.Earles saw a race in 1946 and was intrigued, thinking that Martinsville needed its own track. So, he built one that is still used regularly 68 years later. However, the first race was a quagmire. Earles, in a file interview (Earles died in 1999) in the special talked about how he didn't anticipate as many fans for the first race (6013 showed up to a track that only had 750 seats) or the choking dust.
Early on, Martinsville attracted a string of different drivers to Victory Lane with none showing a particular level of dominance. Of course, if that continued, they'd have to have a different title for the show because there wouldn't have been a definitive master of the track.
The first real master of the track was Fred Lorenzen. His reign of dominance at the track roughly coincided with the track introducing the grandfather clock as a trophy in 1964. At the time, the Ridgeway Clock Co. was three miles away from the track in nearby Ridgeway, but today, Ridgeway Clocks is part of the Howard Miller Company. Production has been moved from Ridgeway to Michigan. Footage of the clocks being made in the original Ridgeway factory and the current Michigan facility were used in the special. Also of note, if you want one so that you can put on airs and claim you won at Martinsville, it'll cost you a couple of thousand dollars, depending on what you order.
Richard Petty won 15 times at Martinsville (12 after they started awarding the clocks). However, much of Petty's dominance at Martinsville was more or less written off as an extension of his dominance of everything else at the time. Remember, most of those 15 wins came during a period of time in which he had very few peers (and a number of those peers didn't exactly run full-time).
Darrell Waltrip was another master of the clock. Significant time was given to the 1980 Virginia 500. They had some quirky pit rules back then that I'd honestly like to know a little bit more about, as in, why did they institute them? To cut costs? The clip that was aired from MRN TV indicated that if a pale yellow flag with a red cross was displayed at the beginning of pit road, you could not change tires. If you did, you got a two-lap penalty.
Time was even given to the hot dogs in the special. I'm surprised that people didn't flip out more when Smithfield replaced Jesse Jones this year... you know, after they tasted them. It just shows how much things have changed since the last time they tried a change, people weren't even willing to try them.
The other masters profiled included Rusty Wallace, Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson. Those three men combined for 23 victories. While the top 5 all-time winners were profiled on this special, the addition of Lorenzen and Denny Hamlin makes me wonder why a couple of other drivers didn't get their due. In this case, I'm talking about Cale Yarborough and Dale Earnhardt.
Yarborough all but doesn't show up at all and is not interviewed. Did he ask for too much money to appear? The Earnhardt omission is really glaring as well, knowing that he won six times on the paperclip against some steep competition. If you referred to Earnhardt as a master of Martinsville, no one would disagree with you. I guess he wasn't flashy enough in earning his wins. There's plenty of footage of Earnhardt kicking tail that could have been included and I'm sure Earnhardt talked about Martinsville in interviews countless times over the years. The man was a veteran of Carolina short tracks before getting to Cup. He prided himself on being on the man to beat at a place like Martinsville. I just think that viewers were worse off without seeing one of the greats give his thoughts (via file footage) on the track.
Yarborough all but doesn't show up at all and is not interviewed. Did he ask for too much money to appear? The Earnhardt omission is really glaring as well, knowing that he won six times on the paperclip against some steep competition. If you referred to Earnhardt as a master of Martinsville, no one would disagree with you. I guess he wasn't flashy enough in earning his wins. There's plenty of footage of Earnhardt kicking tail that could have been included and I'm sure Earnhardt talked about Martinsville in interviews countless times over the years. The man was a veteran of Carolina short tracks before getting to Cup. He prided himself on being on the man to beat at a place like Martinsville. I just think that viewers were worse off without seeing one of the greats give his thoughts (via file footage) on the track.
NASCAR did a decent job showing just what Martinsville ultimately means to the NASCAR community. There were exterior shots of Martinsville itself, but they really didn't get into what the track actually means to Martinsville, which would have been interesting. That's something that FOX Sports has done well in the past. A feature that aired on NCWTS Setup prior to the first truck race at Rockingham is an example.
Regardless, I did enjoy watching the show. It's a good history lesson for those who might not know all that much about the venue. I've personally never been there, but would like to go at some point.
Regardless, I did enjoy watching the show. It's a good history lesson for those who might not know all that much about the venue. I've personally never been there, but would like to go at some point.
Phil Allaway is the Newsletter Manager for Frontstretch. He can be reached via e-mail at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com.
~~~~~~~~~~Frontstretch Line of the Week
From Beyond the Cockpit: Austin Wayne Self Geared up for Title Run in ARCA"It's more work now. I guess I'm becoming an adult, and it's a little hard to wake up and pay the bills. You live in North Carolina and you're basically living racing. Before, you lived racing, but now you live, eat, breathe and sleep racing. It's around you all the time. I think I saw Greg Biffle at Starbucks yesterday. I call it 'Redneck Hollywood' because it is nothing but race car drivers and the race car life up here. My friends at home ask me what it's like and I'm like 'man, it's different.' If you want to be a race car driver, you come to Charlotte and you live it." - Austin Wayne Self on moving to North Carolina and living the life of a full-time racer
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TODAY AT FRONTSTRETCH:
by Beth Lunkenheimer
by P. Huston Ladner
by Toni Montgomery
by Mike Neff
~~~~~~~~~~FRONTSTRETCH TRIVIA:
Q: Races at Bristol can be quite bizarre at times. In the 1998 Food City 500, Ted Musgrave finished on the lead lap in eighth for then-Roush Racing. However, he also got up on a fellow driver's hood early in the race. What happened?
Check back Friday for the answer, here in the Frontstretch Newsletter!
Wednesday's Answer:
Wednesday's Answer:
Q: If you look at the results of the 1994 Food City 500 on Racing-Reference.info, you'll notice that a grand total of three cars finished on the lead lap. That did not happen naturally. What happened to all but give the race to Dale Earnhardt?
A: During a round of green flag pit stops, Joe Nemechek slowed and went onto the apron in turn 3. However, he hit some speedy-dri that had been laid down and got loose. Nemechek's Meineke Chevrolet drifted back onto the track and hit the No. 1 Skoal Classic Ford of Rick Mast, spinning Mast into the turn 4 wall. The caution came out as a result, trapping former race leader Geoff Bodine a lap down and leaving only three on the lead lap (Earnhardt, Ken Schrader and Lake Speed). The crash can be seen here.
Schrader and Speed simply didn't have the speed to keep up with Earnhardt and dropped back while maintaining their positions in a depleted field. Bodine never was able to get his lap back and finished fourth.
Schrader and Speed simply didn't have the speed to keep up with Earnhardt and dropped back while maintaining their positions in a depleted field. Bodine never was able to get his lap back and finished fourth.
COMING TOMORROW
In The Frontstretch Newsletter:
We'll have a recap of Thursday's breaking news for you, include the results of RCR's appeal
On Frontstretch.com:
We'll have some burning questions to consider heading into Bristol, while Joseph Wolkin takes another in-depth look at the XFINITY Series.-----------------------------
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