THE FRONTSTRETCH NEWSLETTER
June 18, 2015
Volume IX, Edition C
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What to Watch: Thursday
- Today is pull-in day for Camping World Truck Series teams at Iowa Speedway ahead of tomorrow night's American Ethanol 200. While the garage will be open from 2 - 6 p.m. CDT today, there is no on-track activity.
Top News
by the Frontstretch Staff
Busted: NASCAR Issues Warnings To 4 Teams After Michigan
by the Frontstretch Staff
Busted: NASCAR Issues Warnings To 4 Teams After Michigan
On Wednesday, NASCAR issued warnings to four Sprint Cup teams for various minor infractions last weekend in Michigan. Dale Earnhardt, Jr.'s No. 88 earned one for requiring three trips through pre-race inspection on Sunday. Meanwhile, the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas of Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards, along with Phil Parsons Racing's No. 98 for Josh Wise earned warnings for more than two trips through pre-qualifying inspection. Read more
Landon Cassill Out, Bobby Gerhart in for XFINITY Weekend at Chicagoland
JD Motorsports announced on Wednesday that Landon Cassill will miss Saturday night's Owens Corning AttiCat 300 so that he can compete in the Ironman 70.3 at Mont Tremblant in Quebec. As a result, the team has shuffled their drivers around. Ross Chastain will drive the No. 01, while Harrison Rhodes will drive the No. 4. Replacing Rhodes in the No. 0 will be Bobby Gerhart. Read more
No. 97 XFINITY Series Team Loses Appeal of Dover Penalty
No. 97 XFINITY Series Team Loses Appeal of Dover Penalty
On Wednesday, the National Motorsports Appeal Panel heard Obaika Racing's appeal of their points penalties stemming from an incident where a piece of tungsten fell out of their car during practice at Dover International Speedway. Carl Long hit the Obaika ballast and crashed. The panel chose to uphold the penalties. Read more
Have news for The Frontstretch? Don't hesitate to let us know; email us at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com with a promising lead or tip.
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Today's Featured Commentary~~~~~~~~~~
by John Potts
We spent the last weekend at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, "covering" the second Brickyard Vintage Invitational, sanction by the Sportscar Vintage Racing Association (SVRA).
I was there last year for the first one and found it to be one of the most enjoyable days I'd ever spent at a race track. I got something of a taste for something like this when we hosted a couple of vintage events at Indianapolis Raceway Park, but they were nothing compared to this one.
Over 500 cars, spanning almost a century of motorsports. The oldest car there was a 1912 National, which ran in an early 500-Mile Race. Kind of curious to see two guys in full-face helmets in that car. All they usually had in those days were early aviator-style caps. The latest cars were likely the NASCAR stockers on hand.
The SVRA has a neat slogan. "Some people collect art. We race it."
Well, a lot of them do.
My son, Matt, was my photographer, and he immediately headed for a corner of the road course. On Saturday, he stationed himself at the end of the backstretch, and reported that it was easy to see which drivers were just enjoying driving their expensive race cars and which ones were about racing.
"You can tell by when the brake lights come on," he said. "Some guys are on the brakes early and others are almost into the turn before they hit the binders."
We spent the last weekend at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, "covering" the second Brickyard Vintage Invitational, sanction by the Sportscar Vintage Racing Association (SVRA).
I was there last year for the first one and found it to be one of the most enjoyable days I'd ever spent at a race track. I got something of a taste for something like this when we hosted a couple of vintage events at Indianapolis Raceway Park, but they were nothing compared to this one.
Over 500 cars, spanning almost a century of motorsports. The oldest car there was a 1912 National, which ran in an early 500-Mile Race. Kind of curious to see two guys in full-face helmets in that car. All they usually had in those days were early aviator-style caps. The latest cars were likely the NASCAR stockers on hand.
The SVRA has a neat slogan. "Some people collect art. We race it."
Well, a lot of them do.
My son, Matt, was my photographer, and he immediately headed for a corner of the road course. On Saturday, he stationed himself at the end of the backstretch, and reported that it was easy to see which drivers were just enjoying driving their expensive race cars and which ones were about racing.
"You can tell by when the brake lights come on," he said. "Some guys are on the brakes early and others are almost into the turn before they hit the binders."
There were two real highlights for the weekend. The first being the Indy Legends Pro-Am on Saturday, with 33 former Indy 500 drivers paired with "amateurs" for a 40-minute race on the 2.439-mile road course in American cars.
Yeah, Corvettes, Mustangs, Cobras, even one Falcon.
Bob Lazier and his partner Jim Caudle won the thing in a Corvette, leading after all the pit stops sorted themselves out. Mark Dismore and Scott Hackenson were second in a Mustang, with another Mustang third handled by Max Papis and Curt Vogt.
The pit stops provided some of the most interesting action. The amateurs (usually the car owner) started the race, and were required to run at least three laps before coming in for a driver change. Some of them stayed out a little longer than we expected, but it was the pit stops themselves that got our attention.
These people didn't get in a hurry at all, and of course that made us wonder.
After asking around the next morning, I learned that the rules required you to spend at least five minutes in the pits after coming in. The purpose of this was to level the playing field a bit, making it unnecessary to bring in a professional pit crew.
In a couple of endurance races on Sunday morning, I suspect the same rule was in effect, maybe with a different minimum time, because nobody got in any kind of hurry on pit road.
Sitting on the balcony of the Media Center and watching this got me to thinking…
It will never happen, of course, but if NASCAR wants to put all the racing on the track and save the car owners some money, something like this could provide an answer.
Make the limit something like 30 seconds or 45 seconds after the car comes to a stop.
Think about it. The only downside is some guys who work only pit stops would no longer have jobs, but nobody would gain an advantage on pit road. On the other hand, this would give Chad Knaus' bunch more time to adjust JJ's car, and that could put everybody else in trouble.
The big thing about this weekend was the cars, of course. Seeing roadsters out on the oval again was a real sight, even if it was only exhibition laps.
I put the stopwatch on Roy Caruthers, a friend and former open wheel driver who has a vintage sprint car, and had him with a lap at around 110 miles per hour. That doesn't sound like much, but when you consider that there was a "no passing in the turns" rule for the exhibition laps and Roy said he seemed to be getting caught behind slow cars pretty often. One of the accompanying photographs shows Roy and his sprinter among three rear-engine cars, one of which was powered by a turbine.
On Friday, Roy said he got to take some laps in the roadster driven by Eddie Sachs in 1963, and was timed at 148. That's not bad at all considering that the 150 barrier was broken by Parnelli Jones that same year.
Another friend, Josh Shaw of Cincinnati, drove a Ford GT in one of the endurance races on Sunday morning and finished fifth – in his first race on a road course.
"I was just trying to keep from hurting the car and stay out of trouble," Josh said later.
Another highlight on Sunday was the Unser Family Reunion, featuring Bobby, Al Sr., Al Jr., Robby (Bobby's son), and Johnny. Johnny is the son of Jerry Unser, who lost his life at IMS in 1959, I believe.
Bobby and Al Sr. were in cars in which they has won the 500, Al Jr. was in one of his cars, Robby was in one of Bobby's cars, the Eagle that his father won the race with in 1968 (and Paul Newman won with in the movie "Winning). Johnny drove the 1963 Sachs roadster, and said it was a thrill because that was the kind of car his father raced.
Oh yeah, my former intern at Indianapolis Raceway Park, Doug Boles, who is now president of IMS, got in a race car for the first time, driving a Formula BMW in one of Sunday morning's races. He was leading the only other car in his class when he bottomed out and the engine quit on him.
"It was probably a good thing," he said, "because I was starting to feel racy and I really don't need to."
I'm sure this event will be back again next year and if you love racing history of any kind, this is something you want to see. I know if the Good Lord is willing, I'll be back.
John Potts is a Senior Writer for Frontstretch. He can be reached via e-mail at john.potts@frontstretch.com. Potts also provided the photos included as part of the piece.
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The Critic's Annex: NASCAR RaceHub: Fans Speak
by Phil Allaway
Welcome back to the Critic's Annex, where we look at additional motorsports content, break it down a little bit more and give opinions. As you probably recall, the rain on Sunday at Michigan wreaked havoc with the entire day. It was miserable.
FOX Sports 1 was supposed to premiere a special about Stewart-Haas Racing called BEING: Stewart-Haas Racing. The rain, plus a live MLS game (Orlando City FC-D.C. United) put the kibosh on that. However, they did have enough time to run NASCAR RaceHub: Fans Speak prior to the soccer game.
I thought the idea of giving fans a place to vent and make their opinions known directly to NASCAR was a great idea. I always read how race fans believe that there's some kind of disconnect between the powers that be that run NASCAR and the millions of fans that butter their bread and that a show like this could be a way to bridge that gap.
However, I thought the show was going to be presented different. When I first saw mention of it when I was compiling last week's TV listings, I thought that FOX Sports was going to have some kind of forum at their stage, have NASCAR Vice President Steve O'Donnell there, and allow fans to bombard him with questions about anything pertaining to NASCAR. That would have been quite interesting. I would have liked that.
That's not what we got. Either FOX Sports, NASCAR, or both decided to control the rules of engagement. Because of that, the discussion questions were guided to a point. For instance, there was no question about whether or not there should be a Chase for the Sprint Cup. It's by no means scientific, but if I polled the subscribers of this very Newsletter, I think we'd end up with three people against having a Chase for every one in favor. A poll a couple of years ago at nascar.com was 80 percent for killing the Chase and going back to the pre-2004 format.
Given the timing of the show, it should be noted that there were no questions about the current rule packages in the "National" Series, or the qualifying format. I think longtime fans would have loved to have the chance to ask about the rule package. Then again, maybe they didn't allow it because O'Donnell was already planning to rock people's socks off on Tuesday.
Regardless, the pickings were a little thin, and I don't like that. It's great to want input from the fanbase. FOX Sports and NASCAR need to realize that they can't do it on their terms. It only works if you do it on the fans' terms.
The format of the show was as such. FOX Sports gave out eight topics for fans at the track to choose from. Those topics were:
1. Adding a road course to the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
2. NASCAR allowing Sprint Cup drivers to race in other series.
3. The current length of the NASCAR season.
4. Length of NASCAR races.
5. NASCAR racing in the rain.
6. Single-day doubleheaders (Ex: the XFINITY-Trucks doubleheader at Atlanta earlier this year)
7. Paint scheme consistency
8. Intermissions (Halftime breaks, TV timeouts, etc.)
FOX Sports polled fans at what looks like Pocono Raceway about their opinions. Co-host Jeff Hammond gave his opinions on which topics were important to him as well.
The fans voted and cut down those eight topics to three. Those topics ended up being the length of races, allowing Cup drivers in other series and adding a road race to the Chase.
John Roberts would introduce the topic, we'd get some feedback from the "Man/Woman on the street" interviews, then they would bring in O'Donnell (from Michigan on what I think was Saturday morning) to chime in. As you would expect, O'Donnell was non-committal, but more than willing to hear out the fans' opinions.
O'Donnell is more or less the most visible of NASCAR's executives (and indisputably so on Twitter) and probably the only NASCAR executive that would have been willing to do the show. I can't remember who said it, but if O'Donnell ever ended up running NASCAR (unlikely), he would be the NASCAR equivalent of Randy Bernard, the former CEO of INDYCAR. If that's so, let's hope that he would have the good qualities of Bernard's IndyCar tenure, not the relationship with team owners that got him fired (for better or worse).
O'Donnell is more or less the most visible of NASCAR's executives (and indisputably so on Twitter) and probably the only NASCAR executive that would have been willing to do the show. I can't remember who said it, but if O'Donnell ever ended up running NASCAR (unlikely), he would be the NASCAR equivalent of Randy Bernard, the former CEO of INDYCAR. If that's so, let's hope that he would have the good qualities of Bernard's IndyCar tenure, not the relationship with team owners that got him fired (for better or worse).
The show closed with Roberts and Hammond stating that NASCAR is listening to fans' opinions and will take them into account when it comes to decision making. Whether that's actually true or not is anyone's guess.
I just found the show to be disappointing. I thought this really could have been more than it was. How to improve it? Let the fans have full control of what gets discussed. FOX Sports would claim that they did. In reality, they limited the playing field at the start.
I hope you enjoyed this look at NASCAR RaceHub: Fans Speak. Next week, we'll be back with more action. Until then, enjoy this weekend's action at Chicagoland, Iowa and the Red Bull Ring.
Phil Allaway is the Newsletter Manager and a Senior Writer for Frontstretch. He can be reached via e-mail at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com.
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Frontstretch Line of the Week
From Beyond the Cockpit: Ray Black, Jr. on the Truck Series, Growing & Scuba Diving"We have a lot of heart. I'm not saying the other teams don't, but for a smaller team, doing well means a lot to us to be able to run in the top 10. We have a lot more on our plate, and for us to do well and run with those guys means a lot. Just to stay with those guys is a pretty good accomplishment when you have Erik Jones out there spanking everybody." - Ray Black, Jr., on what SS-Green Light Racing brings to the table.
TODAY AT FRONTSTRETCH:
by Beth Lunkenheimer
by P. Huston Ladner
by Toni Montgomery
by Joseph Wolkin
by Matt McLaughlin
FRONTSTRETCH TRIVIA:
Q: The Red Bull Ring, host of this weekend's Grand Prix of Austria, is built on the site of the former Österrichring, an ultra-fast track that Formula One last raced on in 1987. That last race had serious trouble getting started. Why?
Check back Friday for the answer, here in the Frontstretch Newsletter!
Wednesday's Answer:
Wednesday's Answer:
Q: In the 1994 Molson Indy Toronto, Mauricio Gugelmin was having a great race in his Hollywood Cigarettes-sponsored No. 88, maintaining a spot in the top 5. However, an over-aggressive move led to the end of his day. What happened?
A: It was a classic squeeze-play scenario. Adrian Fernandez was trying to get past the lapped car of Willy T. Ribbs and Ribbs failed to give Fernandez the appropriate room. Fernandez ran over Ribbs' right front at turn 3, which forced Ribbs into Gugelmin, spinning out Gugelmin's No. 88 (Note: Gugelmin was running as a teammate to Michael Andretti at the time). The crash can be seen here.
While the crash was not spectacular, it broke a suspension part that forced Gugelmin to retire.
While the crash was not spectacular, it broke a suspension part that forced Gugelmin to retire.
COMING TOMORROW
In The Frontstretch Newsletter:
We'll have a recap of Thursday's breaking news for you.
On Frontstretch.com:
Amy will be back with another edition of Holding a Pretty Wheel.-----------------------------
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