Full Throttle

With Daytona just around the corner I thought this week’s Old Timer’s Trivia would head to the opposite end of the country.

Just who is at the wheel of the #77 1956 Chevy, and what long dead dirt track is he blasting around?

This driver once held a record now held by F1’s Fernando Alonzo as the youngest man to win a Formula One Grand Prix.

His open wheel exploits include both the old AAA (both Sprint and Championship divisions) and USAC Championship Car series. In 12 Indy 500 starts he had one win with 2 top fives and 2 top tens.

In stock cars he competed in the NASCAR Grand National (now Sprint Cup) series finishing in the top ten 5 times with a best finish of third.

This drivers family tree has strong and deep roots in racing. A son was killed while testing an Indy car and a brother moved to the mid-west to first compete on Michigan short tracks and later moved on to have a distinguished NASCAR career.

The race track featured in the photo was originally built on the site of a city dump. While in operation the half-mile track featured tight semi-banked turns, long straightaways, and a tacky surface that was conductive to excellent sprint and midget racing.

Three NASCAR Grand National (now Sprint Cup) events were held at the track, the first won by Eddie Pagan. The second NASCAR event was a 500 lap event won by Parnelli Jones. In the final event Eddie Gray lapped the entire field for the win.

So… who’s the driver and what track is he racing on. And who’s brave enough to admit they’re old enough to remember any of this?

Present Old Goat excluded of course. I must admit I was lucky enough to have attended several events over the course of the tracks last nine seasons.

Meet 20 year old Kristin Bumbera from Houston, TX.

A member of the 2008 NASCAR Drive for Diversity Program she will be joining Golden State Racing owned by Frank Jordan for this racing season.

Bumbera will drive the #00 for the successful west coast team in the NASCAR Whelen All American Series for a minimum of 18 races.

Golden State Racing, the reigning NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Champion also holds the championship trophy for the 2006 SRL Wild West Shootout Series and since it

(NOTE: This is the second installment in a series examining the recent groundswell of “I hate my NASCAR life and wanna head for the Good Old Days” meme that’s running roughshod in certain places around the interwebs.)

Today’s edition looks at misguided thoughts in some quarters of NASCAR Nation, the - “Good Old Days were cheaper, and damn it, I hate it and I hate NASCAR for it!”

At a base level these people are correct, it’s more expensive to attend a NASCAR event, but so is everything else in the world. Funny how that works, but such is life and such is economics.

But such is the life of the deniers, point that out to them and woe is you, you’re either a paid informant for PCNA or just stupid.

My first point of rebuttal is NASCAR doesn’t operate within a bubble. What happens economically in America has direct impact on both the sanctioning body, and also those that sponsor the three major series and its racing teams as well.

Outside the NASCAR bubble are signs of trouble also. The NHRA’s Dave Connolly may not compete this year for a lack of sponsor. The Pro Stock driver isn’t a field-filler either, he won eight events last year and has finished in the top five in the standings for three consecutive seasons. Torco Racing Fuels, who sponsored Connolly, also pulled money from five other NHRA teams.

True enough this may not be directly related to economics, reportedly its because of health concerns for Torco President and founder Evan Knoll. It’s also possible Knoll has been the victim of rising health care costs. Regardless there’s ample evidence the smaller teams in the NHRA are seeing what NASCAR’s are, less cash to work with.

(Oops, here’s more NHRA trouble, E-Gads man a “dramatic shift in both the financial markets and the perceived strength of the U.S. economy” leads to less cash to throw at racing! I sense a pattern here, but not one the nutjobs would ever see.)

(News just broke Frank Cicci Jr is on the verge of closing up shop after 20 years. One quote is appropriate to the matter at hand: “It’s been difficult to find a sponsor in recent years and now, with the way the economy is today, it’s even tougher to find the $5 million you need to run a team,” Cicci said.)

Who was it that said, “it’s the economy stupid?”

More “outside the bubble” news can be had looking at MLB. Some have expressed concerns about Texas Motor Speedway’s prices. While seat prices have remained steady those hitting the campsites and RV parks have seen a dramatic rise in costs.

Welcome to reality folks, you ain’t alone. NY Yankee fans will see the cost of parking jump to $29 in 2010 - double the current $14 rate when the new stadium opens. Wanna snack while watching your favorite over-bloated slugger swing for the fences? That’ll set you back $9.50-$10.75 for a sandwich.

And like the Yankee’s venders, NASCAR providers of 5 buck tube steaks and 10 buck beers for the most part aren’t controlled by NASCAR. (the obvious exceptions being ISC owned tracks but even then it’s the venders that set the price not NASCAR)

Here’s a quick reality check; SuperStupid Bowl tickets are being scalped in the 5 figure range. NASCAR’s version, the 500, offers (although sold out for the 500) 2 day packages including travel and two nights in a Double Tree hotel for under 600 dollars per for the July event.

The top ticket price at MIS is 110 bucks and they have a Valentines Days “pay half now pay half later” special ongoing. Atlanta Motor Speedway offers Family 4-Pack ticket (Turn Three Elliott Grandstand), for $159, a family of four can watch the March event and each enjoy a hotdog and a Coke.

Hot dog and a Coke not enough? Fine Darlington’s offering an all-you-can-eat special at the new Colvin Grill. Full on gluttony starts at $60 for adults and $55 for children 12 and under. I could put a serious dent in Darlington’s bottomline even at 60 bucks per. And last I checked ticket prices for a grandstand seat run from $45-$110.

The short of it is it’s not NASCAR’s fault your hotel room is five times the normal rate during the week leading up to an event.

The addendum to this story of woe is it’s far too easy for some of these people to whine and cry than it is to contact their local chamber of commerce or Better Business Bureau and complain about the things NASCAR has no control over.

If you want to look around, instead of spending hours wailing about how bad NASCAR is, these just might be as good as the Good Old Days many are longing for.

To be continued, next edition: “My driver has more “vanilla in’em than Ben & Jerry’s French Vanilla”

UPDATE: Here’s a “special note” for those that point at a few recent NASCAR defections by it sponsors as evidence the sport is in trouble: NASCAR is starting its 2008 racing season with nearly 100 corporations onboard with big-ticket sponsorships, more than twice the number it attracted in 2005.

NOTE: This turned out to be longer than expected so it’s the first of a series and will be resumed in coming days - ed.)

Jeebus!

Let the damn season begin! Please!

Please, so some of the nutzoids, conspiracy theorists and general all-round misinformed will have something to occupy themselves with. At the very least, for a few hours on weekends.

Since PCNA (a/k/a Brian France) let lose with his “back to it’s roots” dictum a few days ago a few blogs and forums have erupted into a cacophony of lunacy.

What follows may provide a rough ride, both for those that tire easily of those prone to drunken rantings and those that are drunk (’cause I’d rather think they’re drunk than insane) and live in a detached reality. Hold on!

“They” say Brian France is the worst leader ever, he’s lorded over his domain in a fashion reminiscent of Generalissimo Francisco Franco. They wanna go back to the good old days! NASCAR’s roots is where they wanna be, So be it!

So let’s go.

February 7, 1964, qualifying day for the Daytona 500. Paul Goldsmith in a Ray Nichels prepared Hemi equipped Plymouth scorched the high banks at 174 miles an hour. It smashed the old two lap qualifying track record of 160 miles an hour.

FoMoCo was livid as they had heard rumors of this new fangled Hemi and claimed the Hemi was no more a production item than rear-view mirror fuzzy dice. With the chart topping speeds they had confirmation.

Goldsmith and Richard Petty won the 40 lap qualifiers with an above 170mph average speed. At the end of the 1964 season, Richard Petty and his Hemi Belvedere had won his first 500 and was crowned as Grand National Champion, the first of his seven Cups

This is where today’s fans get a taste of the Good Old Days. Just before the last race of the season, Big Bill France announced new rules for 1965. Effectively, it banned the 426 Hemi outright.

Chrysler reacted by imposing a boycott on any factory team stating flatly that no Chrysler product would race in NASCAR until the rules changed. No GM cars either, they still maintained an earlier decision to stay out of NASCAR competition; so it was down to watching Fords beat other Fords.

Without the Chryslers, and popular Richard Petty, people stayed away from NASCAR events in droves. Big Bill tried reinstating Curtis Turner, who he had banned for life for gambling on NASCAR races (in reality he was ousted for trying to form a drivers union), with no luck, the stands remained empty.

Finally in late July 1965 France let the Hemi back in, with some restrictions, and on July 25, 1965, the MoPar teams came back.

Yep… present day fans, “we had it made. Those were the days,” They think. Or were they?

Big Bill France had a return engagement in August 1969 in one of the most infamous incidents in NASCAR history.

Richard Petty and a group of 11 other drivers met in secret to form a Professional Drivers Association, the PDA. As recruitment began more and more vets signed on as they believed that France would never act against Petty. Battle lines seemed to be placed across the entrance to Talladega Motor Speedway’s September date.

The PDA’s biggest issue was tires and safety at Talladega. That really came to the forefront when “Chargin’” Charlie Glotzback turned in a pole winning lap of 199.466 miles an hour.

The PDA insisted that the racetrack was unsafe. France popped a vein, and to prove them wrong, he climbed into Holman & Moody Ford, ran some 50 laps and returned to the pits safely. (Huh… lets see Brian try that!) The PDA weren’t buying what France was selling as they believed the Ford was a USAC version and much slower than NASCAR’s Fords.

The PDA’s hand was weakened when Saturday’s GT race (like a Nationwide car today) was held with no incidents.

France had vowed that no one would ever dictate to him on any issue when it came to NASCAR. He tolerated no disloyalty. Cajoling, threatening, and punitive,

Ford has made a major change to it’s NASCAR CORN program and will take overall responsibility for chassis development.

Dan Davis, head of Ford Racing Technology, confirmed a seven post shaker located within the Roush-Fenway Racing facility would be available to all Sprint Cup Ford teams. Ford also plans to farm out one of its engineers to each of the teams to assist in the development of the car.

This is a logical response to the Hendrick Motor Sports CORN domination last year and follows Fords policy which sees all Ford supported teams use the Roush/Yates engine package. Essentailly all teams will now source identical engine and chassis packages and it will be up to each team to make the best use of them.

“To me the way the engine program worked is you had the best of what Roush was doing, the best of what Yates was doing and you combined the two,” said Davis. “One plus one equaled four in that case, in my opinion. So what were going trying to do is the same thing.”

Two of the most obvious benefactors of this change will be Woods Brothers Racing, and JTG Racing, both of which will field Sprint Cup entries for Marcos Ambrose this season.

Well thank goodness for small favors!

Planet F1 is reporting Ron Dennis has ruled out the possibility of replacing Max Mosley as FIA president in the future.

“I’ve never aspired to it (FIA presidency) in the past and I don’t aspire to it now. It’s the running of a company [into the ground? -ed] that motivates me, not the governance of a sport,” Dennis said.

Maybe there is hope, however slight, that the FIA will get their sh*t together after Mad Max’s retirement takes effect at the end of his four-year term of office when it expires in 2009.

On the other hand many said Dracula wouldn’t be around very long either.

According to the “Unofficial” Boris Said blog Boris and his legion of Saidheads may have to be eating a lot of airline peanuts in the near future.

Allegedly Paul Morris Motorsports who fields a team in the Australian V8 Supercar Series, has signed the part-time Cup driver, and some-time Bobsled driver, to compete in the Phillip Island 500 and the Bathurst 1000.

Whether the story pans out or not remains to be seen, but the thought of watching Said trundle around Mount Panorama is nerve tingling to say the least.

If the Aussie fans chose The Tasmanian Devil to heap scorn on prior to his move into NASCAR (and Oh My, they sure did!) they ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Wait ’til they get a load of Boris slamin’ & bangin’ his way into the lead.

Cross Posted @ Asian Motor Sports

Gianni Morbidelli won his second consecutive Speedcar race held at the Dubai Autodrome Saturday. His victory was witnessed by special spectator, Michael Schumacher who watched the action from the Speedcar garages.

Mathias Lauda came in second, gaining a position since yesterday

According to Alta Vista French-Canadian, or just plain French, for divorce is… divorce.

I’m not sure how any community property will be divided, much less any visitation rights for the “kids” and dogs, but if reports are true Jacques Villeneuve and long-time manager Craig Pollock are headed for divorce court.

According to the Journal de Montreal, the split was primarily due to Pollock’s personal life going in another direction.

“Craig has a new wife and he seems to want to concentrate on his new family life which will be centered in Europe,” Villeneuve was quoted as telling the French Fish Wrap.

“For my part, I chose to base myself here, in Canada, with my family, in order to pursue my career as a NASCAR driver. It’s going well so far with Bill Davis Racing. I want to concentrate on it and do my things here.”

Other reports suggest the breakup is due to mismanagement on Pollock’s part and allegations of “questionable tactics” surfaced in “Pollock’s business dealings in Europe.”

Ain’t that just like a spurned lover? As soon as the going gets tough they dredge up the past to fight in the present.

Oh well, all’s well that ends well I say. I’d much rather see Villeneuve fail on his merits rather than his lack of money to compete this year.

As it is all we can point to is the joint Villeneuve-Pollock screw-up, orchestrated by Pollock, that led to the reigning F1 champ competing for the disastrous British American Racing outfit and to Jacques’ ultimate F1 demise.

If I had the extra cash I’d chip in a few bucks to ensure Jacques had 36 opportunities to show his true worth I would. But I don’t.

Gordon haters, of both persuasions, avert your eyes. This post is all Gordon, all the time.

First up is NASCAR’s favorite bad boy Robby, who donned his off-road hat recently to take a decidedly “different” racing win.

Gordon nearly set an event-record in winning Thursday