Full Throttle

Courtesy of Andrew Legare Star-Gazette sports editor.

WATKINS GLEN - It seems like every six months or so a rumor floats around that Nextel Cup’s days at Watkins Glen International are numbered. After all, bigger markets and more modern racetracks beckon, as does the almighty dollar.

But hold up a minute, doomsayers. Not only does Nextel Cup belong at Watkins Glen International, it needs to be here. Here are 10 reasons NASCAR must keep its Nextel Cup race at WGI for years to come:

1) Despite what Sterling Marlin and others have said, wine and cheese are good for Nextel Cup drivers, who can get all the beer and nachos they need at Talladega. Actually, and I paraphrase here, what Marlin once said is Watkins Glen is for the wine-and-cheese crowd. Maybe he meant the track is for drivers who can win here, something he hasn’t done.

2) There are roughly 150,000 people here for Nextel Cup weekend every year. A lot of them like to go overboard on the beer drinking, they tend to yell a lot, and obnoxious behavior has been exhibited every now and then. So while they may have a future in politics, if you take this race away most of them won’t have anywhere to go for their annual summer weekend party. They may just end up in your backyard. Is that what you want? Do you?

3) This racetrack was the site of one of the largest fan gatherings ever back in the summer of 1973, when the Grateful Dead, The Allman Brothers Band and The Band played here. Some estimates had the crowd for that “Summer Jam” at 600,000. No doubt, there’s some Dead fans still wandering around here looking for Jerry Garcia. At least with a race here, those fans can stumble upon some NASCAR and cheer for Jeremy Mayfield.

4) NASCAR fans would certainly miss the slogans. Watkins Glen is “New York’s Thunder Road.” What we have here, folks, is “Racing, Only Twisted.” And then there are the slogans that almost made the cut, such as “Watkins Glen - It used to be new” and “Watkins Glen - Many cows live close by.”

5) Watkins Glen attracts road-course aces such as Boris Said and Ron Fellows. Their presence alone increases the number of drivers in the series who don’t act like they’re God’s gift to the sports world by 15 percent.

6) We have the need for speed, so you can’t take the race away. This is the same area that produced the late, great Ernie Davis, whose blazing speed helped earn him the nickname “Elmira Express.” And Elmira native Eileen Collins just got done commanding the space shuttle Discovery, which hits top speeds of 17,500 mph. That means - without accounting for the “Racing, Only Twisted” nature of the track - Collins and her crew would finish Sunday’s Sirius Satellite Radio at the Glen in about 45 seconds.

7) The NASCAR media love it here! Or maybe they just love leaving here. It wouldn’t be a Nextel Cup weekend at the Glen without listening to other media point out all the faults of this track. They point to the antiquated facilities, they complain about the antiquated phone lines and they let it be known they don’t appreciate the instability of the Internet connections.

They’re often right, but what they don’t realize is the “old-school charm” of the Glen makes all those other fancy tracks and their working phone lines look that much fancier.
It’s not the Coca-Cola 600, which is the most insanely tedious race ever known to mankind. Anyone who can sit through 600 miles of racing is a better person than me - and someone whose patience will someday make them a viable candidate for pope.

9) This race is a big fish in a small pond. Move it to Staten Island or somewhere else in the New York City area and it becomes a big fish in a big pond that doesn’t give a damn about NASCAR, unless perhaps Derek Jeter is driving the No. 2 car.

10) The farmers need the rain that inevitably comes every Nextel Cup weekend at Watkins Glen.