Full Throttle

What do you do when you’re labeled by one of the MSM darlings as the “least popular” NASCAR driver (”most loathed” by another), supported by a driver introduction featuring a 150 decibel chorus of “BOO,” smack the fence five times and have loose nuts resulting in a stop-n-go?

The answer is obvious if your one Kyle “The Desperado” Busch, you turn the Lady in Black into the Lady on Her Back and take a bow to your less than adoring crowd after yet another win.

It’s all pretty simple isn’t it?

Busch when asked post race whether the boo-birds have any effect: “Not really. I don’t care. I’m here to race. I’m here to win. If I win, just makes ‘em more upset and crying on their way home.”

“By the way, somebody threw a beer can at me. Next time just make sure it’s full so I can enjoy it out there, all right?”

Somewhere Jeff Gordon is smiling as the cascade of beer cans have found another mark.

And somewhere else someone should be tracking down the asshat that did it so he/she/it can be banned from NASCAR sanctioned events for life.

Technorati Tags: Kyle Busch, Auto racing, NASCAR, Darlington Raceway, Motorsports

Race drivers love to complain, and that’s especially true when things aren’t going their way or their ream isn’t living up to expectations.

It’s been that way since Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 1895 and I see no chance it will abate in the near future.

It was only natural when seeing the latest Jeff Gordon quotes I filed them away along with a century of history preceding them.

But then I read them again: ” … NASCAR knows it’s happening,” Gordon said on Friday at Darlington Raceway. “They are the ones that see the cars come through inspection. They see it. When cars can’t even get on the scales because they’re running sideways, it’s something they need to address.”

Gordon’s referring to the cars doing the “crab-walk” down the straightaway. After a second reading the light bulb of cognition flicked on in my skull. “Yeah that’s it, that’s what I saw during Friday nights NNS event.”

At the time I thought nothing of it. After all the Cup series has just cast aside a car that can be best described as a Twisted Sister as compared to their street models. Prior to the CoT coming into being the old “template cars” were so bent out of shape they resembled something made during an Old-Fashioned Taffy Pull Party.

But there they were, the new car’s right rear hiked up like an incontinent dog in a fire hydrant factory.

I only wish I had a tape on the NNS event to go back and review it, because despite Gordon’s contention, more “legs were hiked” than just the pack of Roush-Fenway mongrels cars.

I seem to remember a much larger litter and NASCAR Series director John Darby not only admits to the phenomena but insists Hendrick Motorsports was the first to experiment with the new car as a twisted Sister and that Edwards’ #99 team was one of the last.

That leads me to believe I was correct in not calling out Jeffy as a whiner, but feel fully justified in saying he and any other members of Hendrick Motorsports thanking or speaking the same are Pots calling the Kettle black.

None of which bothers me in the slightest. If Roush, or any other team, finds a way to make the car work and NASCAR gives it a pass, more power to them both.

One thing I will do is pay closer attention to which teams are doing the crab walk down the Lady in Black’s straights this evening.

Technorati Tags: Darlington Raceway, Jeff Gordon, NASCAR, Auto Racing, Sprint Cup Series, Roush Fenway Racing, Full Throttle, F1 Rage!, Carl Edwards

Can we (we meaning ink-stained wretches) all just forget about making the lame Busch - Intimidator comparisons? I’m getting bored stupid seeing my reader fill up with gazillion headlines all touting the same line of tripe.

If Kyle Busch puts the slightest scratch on his right rear quarter panel on his way to a win at Darlington I fully expect the next tsunami of headlines will be Busch - King Richard comparisons. Petty pretty much patented the Darlington Stripe in the mid to late sixties.

While on the subject of ink-stained wretches, did you know Darlington may have been the only sport venue in the country where the press box filled up from the back row forward.

Until 1966 the Darlington press box provided the nation’s motor-sports writers with a unique opportunity to prove their collective family jewel size. The box was situated precariously on thin stilts just outside the first-turn guardrail. The closest reporters were no more than 20 feet from the top of the metal strips that were generously called “guardrails.”

Note I said until 1966. That year Earl Balmer (pictured above) gave everyone, ink stained or otherwise something to ponder.

Balmer had the reputation of a hard charger, who drove more with his foot than his head. As one pitside observer said: “He’ll jam that car into the corner as deep as it’ll go, and if he makes it through the turn, he figures he can jam it in a little deeper the next time around.”

Needless to say he didn’t make it through turn one that year. While running down the main straight, his car was tapped from behind; Balmer lost control and climbed the guardrail. It is generally agreed that he came within a whisker of falling outside the track and collapsing the press-box supports.

After that the press box picked up the name “Balmer’s Box” and was the only one on the circuit that remained virtually empty on race day.

Quotes on the Darlington Stripe: Fireball Roberts once said of turns 3-4, (now 1-2) “If you could put roller skates on the side of your car, this turn would be perfect.”

“No one really wanted to hit the rail, but you had to drive as though it wasn’t there,” said Pete Hamilton. “You usually got it with the right rear first. You would hit and never get off the gas. It was so quick—just a whap. Geez, the first time for me it sounded like the car had fallen apart. I thought I had destructed. It would go blrrp because the sections of the rail overlap and it was like you’d run a stick across a picket fence.”

That Lady in Black bites:

In 1964, Darel Dieringer spun in the first turn of the first lap, sending about half the field every which way, then spun again in the third turn of the same lap, a record. “Gawdamn,” said Dieringer, who does not like to be reminded. “Everybody thought I was drunk.”

Bobby Allison once called the track a “witch” after an unusual accident that was caused by apparently nothing at all. “At other tracks I might feel like running a short-track race on the way home,” he said, “but when this race is over, I don’t feel like doing anything.” And Buddy Baker added, “You got to be a genius just to drive into the pits.”

Richard Petty: “I’ll tell you, a lot more races are lost on this track than are ever won. On most tracks, you’ve got a margin for error; here you’re on the edge all the time. You’re so close, you slide just a little and you watch the rest of the race from the pits. “It’s like a road course. It’s more fun to drive alone than in traffic. You don’t race the other drivers, you run against the track.”

And finally on the tracks weird pear shaped configuration: “We built the track the way we did because that’s the way it came out.” - Barney Wallace one of the original group of investors in Darlington.

And the final “finally,” a Darlington Tribute and Camp Darlington.

An addendum to the final “finally:” Swervin’ Irvan and Ken Schrader make the top ten list of Stupidest Moments in NASCAR History at the 1990 TranSouth 500 at Darlington.

Technorati Tags: Bobby Allison, Richard Petty, Auto racing, Dale Earnhardt, Buddy Baker, Darel Dieringer, NASCAR, Darlington Raceway