The Frontsretch Newsletter: Cole Pearn Suspended, Martin Truex, Jr. Docked Points for Roof Flap Issue

THE FRONTSTRETCH NEWSLETTER
Presented by Frontstretch.com
The Best Seat at the Track, The Best View on the Net!

Mar. 3, 2016

Volume X, Edition XXI

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What to Watch: Thursday

- Today is pull-in day at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the Sprint Cup and XFINITY Series teams.  Some inspection for the XFINITY Series teams will take place today, but no on-track activity is scheduled.

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Thursday's TV Schedule can be found here.

Top News
by the Frontstretch Staff

Martin Truex, Jr. Penalized for 2nd Roof Flap Violation, Crew Chief Cole Pearn Suspended

Rule of thumb: If you're on probation, NASCAR's going to be watching you very closely.  Cole Pearn appears to have not gotten the message.  On Wednesday, NASCAR announced a one-race suspension and a 15-point penalty for Martin Truex, Jr. and the No. 78 team for a second roof flap infraction.  In addition, Pearn was fined $50,000.  Five other teams were also penalized for various infractions.  Read more

Entry List: Kobalt 400

NASCAR has released the entry list for this weekend's Sprint Cup race at Las Vegas.  Once again, only 39 cars will attempt the race.  Read more

Entry List: Boyd Gaming 300

NASCAR has released the entry list for Saturday's 300 mile XFINITY Series race.  42 cars are entered in the event.  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

Potts' Shots for the week of February 29

Potts' Shots

by John Potts

Big news this week. Stewart Haas Racing switching from Chevrolet to Ford for the 2017 NASCAR season.

SAY WHAT?

Tony has been a Chevrolet man from the start. Drove Toyotas for one year when Gibbs switched, then bailed to become co-owner of SHR. And it was my understanding that Chevrolet was full force behind that move, and in bringing SHR under the Hendrick umbrella as well.
As a few other writers have opined, I have to wonder if there has been trouble brewing in paradise. Granted, Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch have at times outperformed the rest of Hendrick's home stable. Could that be the problem? Are the Hendrick crew chiefs tired of sharing everything?

According to the reports, SHR will begin building their own race cars toward the end of this year, in preparation for 2017, and will use Ford engines and bodies.

Should be an interesting 2016 season, to say the least.

Speaking of Tony, it was good to hear he was at the track last weekend.
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Something of a bombshell came over the past couple of weeks in the form of an announcement from the Environmental Protection Agency that they seek to outlaw the conversion of street vehicles to racing machines.

Now, this isn't a big deal to those in the big-name series, and even for Late Model and Sportsman-type competitors at most local tracks. All of that stuff is constructed specifically for racing, from parts which are also built specifically for racing.

For Street Stocks and Mini-Stocks at most tracks, and surely for any entry-level class, this would be a virtual death knell.

Where would a prospective competitor start if he's operating on shoestring budget, which most of these people are?

It would just about eliminate the racer who does it for a hobby.

To their credit, the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA), a pretty strong group made up of pretty smart people, has jumped into the battle, stating their opposition to such a measure.
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Interesting situation for Matt Kenseth in last week's Sprint Cup event at Atlanta…

He was penalized by NASCAR for some reason, crew member over the wall too soon or something like that, and didn't come in for his pass-through penalty soon enough to suit the sanctioning body.

Actually, he simply ignored the black flag [Note: Kenseth claimed during the race that no one told him that he'd been black flagged because crew chief Jason Ratcliff was too busy arguing the penalty with NASCAR officials]. Sanctioning organizations don't like that. In fact, it makes them very, very angry.

It went so far that they gave him the black flag with the white X on it, which signifies that you are no longer being scored. This resulted in Kenseth losing two laps instead of one, and took him out of contention.

Now, I don't know whether this was the fault of the crew chief, the spotter, or whoever, but it was a pretty blatant violation of the rules, nevertheless.

I mention it because it reminded me of a situation which arose at Coburn, Va., when I was flagging for the American Speed Association.

We had a driver ignoring the black flag in a 200-lap race at Lonesome Pine Speedway, and I was getting pretty frustrated. The situation must have continued for more than 20 laps, until we finally got a caution flag. At that point, I figured we'd get the problem solved quickly.

Nope. He continued to motor around, seemingly blind to what I was doing. I got the attention of his pit crew, who were right across from me, and then pointed to my headset, attempting to ask if their radios were working. All I got was a shrug.

Rex Robbins then asked what I was going to do next without stopping the race and having a personal confrontation with the driver.

We didn't have a black flag with an X on it, so I told Rex to send me a scorecard with the driver's number very prominently displayed on it.

After I got it, I held it up so the pit crew could see it, then held it up as the driver in question came down the front straightaway, and tore it in half.

That got action. Next lap, one of the crew ran out onto the track, got as close as he dared to the traffic, and signaled for the driver to come in. He got that message.

Let's just say that after the race, we had a pretty interesting conversation.
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Another instance of flags being ignored comes to mind…

In the latter days of the original ASA, we didn't treat the "layover" flag as advisory. We used it to keep slower cars out of the way of those racing for the lead, and expected it to be obeyed.

Rather than advising a driver he or she was being lapped, it meant to yield to the overtaking car.
I even explained at the drivers' meeting one day at Milwaukee that if I flipped that blue flag with the yellow diagonal stripe down in front of them while holding the black flag rolled up over my head, the message was specific. "That means you're pi$$ing me off!!!" After that meeting, one of our better drivers, Dave Watson, told me to "…leave that in the act."

Naturally, the situation arose during that particular race, and even using the rolled-up black didn't help.

Knowing that most teams were monitoring race control, I simply said, "If any team down there in the pits hears this, somebody tell that guy I'm going to drop him like a bad habit next time around."

Sure enough, a crew chief from a nearby pit walked over to the pit of the car in question, pointed at me, and said something to his counterpart on that crew.

Next time down that front straightaway, the car in question turned left so fast I thought he was spinning out.

As a matter of fact, the leader of the race told me later, "I thought he broke an axle."
Nice to have friends down there.

John Potts is a Senior Writer for Frontstretch. He can be reached via e-mail at john.potts@frontstretch.com.

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The Critic's Annex: 2000 Marlboro 500

by Phil Allaway

Welcome back to another classic edition of the Critic's Annex.  This week, we're taking a brief look at the 2000 Marlboro 500 from then-California Speedway, the season finale for CART that year.  The race was run over two days due to rain and the weather ultimately played a big role in that the changing conditions made it so that next to no one finished.  How well did ESPN do here.  Let's take a look.

Marlboro sponsored the race all the way through 2002, but did it in a very low-key fashion.  On-air, it was referred to as "The 500 presented by Toyota."  Parent company Philip Morris were responsible for NASCAR instituting the minimum age of 18 rule in 2001 after they freaked out upon seeing a 16-year old Kyle Busch on-track in practice.  The rule forced Busch to leave the premises and Tim Woods, III had to be drafted in at the last minute to replace him.  However, that was a year after this race.

Pre-race coverage was focused on the championship battle, which was between Gil de Ferran, Paul Tracy, Adrian Fernandez and Kenny Brack.  All four of the drivers gave quotes about the title chase.  That was really the extent of pre-race coverage.  De Ferran set a closed-course record (241.428 mph) to win the pole for the race, something that was described as a "surprise" at the time.  There was next to nothing about that.

Early on, the action was fast and furious.  Passing was not exactly constant, but it was definitely in place.  However, one of the non-championship related pre-race topics came into play.  Engines.  Tracy suffered a "plenum explosion" on the top of his engine that put him out of the race early on.  The engine cover blew off his car as a result of the explosion, resulting in debris on-track.  Cristiano da Matta crashed exiting turn 4 after hitting that debris.  ESPN had everything covered there.

 

I'll be honest.  I was never much of a fan of Parker Johnstone as a TV analyst.  He was a much better sports car racer (and a somewhat marginal racer in CART).  However, he was right on task here in explaining what happened.  He diagnosed Tracy's lack of a plenum and pop-off value on his No. 26 and explained the previous issues with the plenum that Honda had dealt with during the season.

 

During that yellow, it started raining and eventually led to the red flag that forced the remainder of the race to be completed on Monday.  During that delay, ESPN aired a few interviews, including one with Tracy where he described what happened and that they were going to try to fix the car.  ESPN then left to move to alternate programming with a promise to return with updates.  Eventually, the race was postponed to Monday.  With the time difference, that meant something like 2 p.m. EST.  Since I was in 11th grade at the time this race ran, I got home from school shortly after the race resumed and was able to watch it.

For the remainder of the race, engines were the main topic of discussion.  Tracy's plenum explosion was the only failure of that type in the race, but it was the first of many engine failures.  De Ferran was the only driver without a Ford engine to finish the race (he was third and claimed the title.

Part of the reason why the engine issues were so evident was the pure speeds in play, and by extension, the high rpm's.  In the draft, 250 mph wasn't out of the question at the time, combined with 15000 rpm's.

 

With so many retirements, drivers that wouldn't ordinarily get a lot of airtime got decent coverage.  Current Sprint Cup Series racer Casey Mears made his CART debut in this race and finished fourth in a third entry from Team Rahal (now Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing).  Alex Barron led laps and was running third for Dale Coyne Racing when he blew up.  He got a lap back early in the race the old-fashioned way.  He passed the leader on-track to get it back, then drove off and got to come all the way around when a caution flew.

 

The driver interviews in the pits were quite interesting.  Jimmy Vasser drove his final race for Target Chip Ganassi Racing this day and he talked about the possibility of heading to NASCAR.  He did eventually make a couple of starts in what is now the XFINITY Series, but the first of those didn't happen until 2003.  Cal Wells also talked about trying to find replacement sponsorship for his operation in CART (Pioneer moved to Mo Nunn Racing for 2001 while Telefonica left the sport).  That didn't happen, so Wells ended up focusing on his two-car Winston Cup team.

 

The race ended under yellow when Alex Tagliani blew an engine with under two laps to go and crashed in turn 1, giving the win to Christian Fittipaldi.  Tagliani was injured in the crash, but ESPN left the air fairly quickly after the race ended, so we really didn't get a full update on him.  That was not necessarily good.

 

Post-race coverage was centered on the championship.  De Ferran and Penske got a lot of coverage, including interviews and the trophy celebration.  Fittipaldi, runner-up Moreno and championship runner-up Fernandez got interviews as well (Mears and seventh-place Tarso Marques, who was three laps down, were the lone snubs among finishers).

 

Overall, this was a crazy race to watch, but not because of anything ESPN did.  The race itself was full of drama and the duo of Paul Page and Johnstone did a very good job bringing viewers the race.  The action was fast and furious and ESPN had a hard time bringing all of that action to viewers.  There are two reasons why that would be the case.  The bad reason would be too exclusive of a focus.  Then, there's the reason here.  There was just too much to cover at once.

 

I hope you enjoyed this look at the 2000 Marlboro 500.  Next week, I'll be back with a look at part of the Pirelli World Challenge season opener from Circuit of the Americas.  I haven't picked a race to critique yet (there's six of them), but one of them will be in here.  I'm thinking of looking at the first GT/GTA/GT Cup race, which is on Saturday.  The second clashes with the Kobalt Tools 400.  Until then, enjoy this weekend's action from Las Vegas and Austin.

Phil Allaway is the Newsletter Manager and a Senior Writer for Frontstretch.com.  He can be reached via e-mail at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com.

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Frontstretch Line of the Week
 
From Rico Abreu Fueled by Support in Rookie Truck Season

"Crafton has been huge – a huge help for me.  I got to follow him there that second practice. Never got to really hook up with him and bump him or anything but just follow him.

"It's cool to be friends with him off the track. I got to spend a little time with him here and there. We just keep building that relationship so he doesn't race me too dirty when we race each other." - Rico Abreu on learning to race at Daytona from Matt Crafton
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TODAY AT FRONTSTRETCH:

Happiness Is...Busy-ness, Hype & Aero

by P. Huston Ladner

Two-Headed Monster: Who is the Greater Driver, Jimmie Johnson or Dale Earnhardt?

by Aaron Bearden and Sean Fesko

Beyond the Cockpit: William Byron Young, Fast & Ready for His Rookie Truck Season

as told to Zach Catanzareti

Nitro Shots: Motorsports Evangelism?

by Toni Montgomery

Eyes on XFINITY: Sin City Showdown will set the Tone for 2016

by Bryan Gable

Truckin' Thursdays: Caution Clock Consequences

by Beth Lunkenheimer

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FRONTSTRETCH TRIVIA:

Q: Before his retirement, Jeff Gordon was often referred to as someone who would always find new places to install SAFER Barriers.  Sure enough, he found a place at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.  Where was it, and how did he figure it out?

Check back Friday for the answer, here in the Frontstretch Newsletter!

Wednesday's Answer:

Q:  The original flat tri-oval configuration at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was not particularly well-known for big crashes.  However, Shane Hall managed to have a huge wreck on the backstretch during a testing session back in 2000.  What happened?

A: In 2000, NASCAR held a January test session in Las Vegas.  Hall was driving for a new team, Alumni Racing, which was owned by a number of graduates of The Ohio State University.  The most notable of those owners was former NFL quarterback Mike Tomczak.  Hall spun exiting turn 2, hit the inside wall and went into a series of rolls.  Hall was ok, but the car was thrashed.  Unfortunately, since it was a test session, there is no video of the crash.

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COMING TOMORROW

In The Frontstretch Newsletter:

We'll have some news from today while we preview Sunday's Kobalt Tools 400

On Frontstretch.com:

Zach Catanzareti answers Four Burning Questions heading into this weekend's action in Las Vegas.
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