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Did You Know
In 1948, NASCAR sanctioned its first race.
Should Winston Cup drivers be limited on number of tire changes under caution like the Busch Series?
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from Melinda (on Friday)
Sorry, but I don't much care for your "signature" closing from Dale
Earnhardt. The guy's dead, right? Not really one to be giving
racing advice.
And the response I’ve gotten on the above:
from Larry
NA$CAR Momma,
Your ending quote by Dale Earnhardt was
Dale, and yet another reason why he was the great man he was and I love
it!
Larry
DE3FAN in Wisconsin
from Lisa
To Melinda, shut up or get off the track, lol. The first time
I read the closing quote you use from Dale Sr., I got a tremendous chuckle!
He was a great man and it is a timeless quote. His unfortunate passing
only makes this quote more of a treasure. Love the stuff you have
to say even though I may not always agree.
dj88fan
from Erika
Sorry, I just can't let Melinda's comments go unchallenged.
I cannot believe that someone would call themselves a Nascar fan, and say something so disrespectful of the deceased. And especially about someone who was certainly one of the greatest racers we've gotten to see. WOW! It really floors me that someone can be so insensitive.
I've known many people, especially family, who gave me a hard time about being a Dale Earnhardt fan for many years. But they were the first to understand the level of my grief when he passed away, and have shown tremendous respect for his driving skill. They might sometimes give me a little hard time, but they would never stoop so low as to say something as mean as what Melinda had to say.
I noticed you invited her to unsubscribe. Can we vote to have her kicked off? I don't think we need that kind of disrespect and hate on this particular forum.
Thanks for letting me vent!
Sincerely,
Erika (riki3fan)
Well Erika, I do pride myself on letting people say what they wish, and I don’t feel I can kick Melinda off, no matter what I think.
from Tim & Dawn
Dear Nascar Momma
I met you as a stranger I took you as a friend I hope we meet in heaven
were friendships never end. God Bless take care we do .
ps thank you for all the great reading.
I wish I could attach the wonderful picture that came with this email. Thanks guys.
from Jd
Couldn't have said it better Sandra!!!
Jdw
from O’sure
what is gone --- J.C. is gone (32 A.D.?) Shakespeare is not among us,
has Elvis really left the building, my children said "We love you mom"
for the last time in '83. Is D.E. not here among us who remember? Thank
you for waking 'us who remember' up. I'm glad that the Melindas have set
us on the road to recovery.
O'SURE
from Peggy
Thanks for a wonderful and inspiring newsletter..... I appreciate your
comments from the great Dale Earnhardt at the end...
Always look forward to your news letter and maybe I was fortunate to meet the great man himself back in the summer if 1998 after fires swept thru my neighborhood and how he gave so much of himself and DEI for the wild fire victims of Florida....
Keep up the good work...
Peggy
from Dave and the dogs
ok hi look forward to your news-letter
each day - you do a great job - thanks
I like the closing quote- hope you
keep it - with the weekly rule changes
it’s very fitting ,
dave and the dogs
Now, she has emailed me once again, but figured I would wait a few days to post that one….Then you all can have at her.
from Jeff24
I must have blinked cause I never saw Jeff get Bobby sideways. It never
ceases to amaze me when a writer confuses "getting him loose" with "knocking
him sideways". To me sideways is when the driver looks out the windshield
and sees either the inside or outside wall.
Jeff24
Darby, Pa
Gotta say it; totally agree there, that is why I always take what the press says with a grain of salt.
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Come view them all before everyone
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Let Eve's fingers do the walking for you.!
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Toon of the Week
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After: Virginia 500
1 -- Jamie McMurray
89 Leader
2 -- Greg Biffle
89 Leader
3 -- Casey Mears
80 -9
4 -- Jack Sprague
78 -11
5 -- Tony Raines
71 -18
6 -- Larry Foyt
38 -51
7 -- Hideo Fukuyama
7 -82
RACE TRAILS GOLF
Fox's broadcast of Sunday's Virginia 500 Winston Cup race from Martinsville
Speedway drew an overnight Nielsen rating of 4.6 and a 10 share, according
to today's Sports Business Daily. The weekend's highest ratings went
to CBS, which posted a 9.3/19 for Sunday's coverage of the final round
of the Masters golf tournament and a 6.2/14 for Saturday's round, although
those figures were down 6 and 11 percent respectively. The 2002 race was
aired on Fox's FX cable station, where it drew a 4.5/11, according to Sports
Business Daily figures.
Nazareth Speedway says its May 18 Busch Series race will be titled the Goulds Pumps ITT Industries 200 following completion of a sponsorship deal. ITT Industries bills itself as the world's largest pump manufacturer. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Lowe's Motor Speedway says it will offer free parking in all unreserved parking lots owned by the track for its May events and let fans reserve tickets with a 10 percent down payment plan. "We know the current economy is tough," said Doug Stafford, executive vice president for the speedway. "This allows fans the opportunity to reserve a great seat to any of our May races now and pay for them later." Tickets to the May events, which include Winston Cup, Busch and Craftsman Truck series races are available by calling the speedway ticket office at 1 (800) 455-FANS or on line at www.lowesmotorspeedway.com.
Penske Racing president Walt Czarnecki says the rumors that Todd Parrott would take over as crew chief for Rusty Wallace were "nonsense." That was comforting to crew chief Bill Wilburn, who "went right to Rusty" when talk of a change began circulating. "I know we haven't run well lately," Wilburn says. "But if we won a race, no one would be talking." Parrott was placed on indefinite leave by Robert Yates Racing, and sources in the garage say Parrott has been told he has 30 days to find another job. . . .
Jeff Gordon put himself in position for his 62nd career win with a perfectly executed bump-and-run on runner-up Bobby Labonte at Martinsville. Gordon, who says he learned the move from watching the late Dale Earnhardt, says there's no etiquette involved in bumping the leader out to the way, but if it's toward the end of the race, the leader should expect it. Gordon is astute enough to know there could be retaliation down the road. Labonte will have to get in line behind Wallace. . . .
Dale Earnhardt Jr. continues to excel on short tracks, especially at 0.526-mile Martinsville. His third-place finish was his third consecutive top five there. He says there is no secret to his success, other than he enjoys short tracks. "Where else can you tear your car all to hell and everybody be pretty happy about it?" he says. Junior, second in points, whittled 78 off Matt Kenseth's lead and trails by 51. . . .
Kenny Wallace says his car was top-five material at Martinsville, but he finished 12th and was hot afterward. Why? Midway through the race, Wallace came in for a scheduled pit stop, but his crew had no gas in the cans. He was forced to pit again when gas was available and lost two laps.
There are four gas pumps at each track, but one was broken, and Wallace says seven cars, including his, were unable to get gas. "How can you come down pit road and not be able to get gas during a Winston Cup race?" Wallace says. "I'm very disappointed in NASCAR. I came down pit road for a stop and left like a Bozo with four tires and no gas." Wallace's car was strong enough to make up both laps. . . .
Much was made of the Alcon brakes Ryan Newman used at Martinsville. Too much, it turns out. Alcon brakes are used by many teams in Formula One and are supposed to withstand a lot of heat, but 30 laps into the 500-lap race, Newman's spotter warned him that his car's brake rotors were the brightest on the track. Newman lost his brakes for good after blowing a tire, leaving the race after Lap 436. He finished 38th. Most Winston Cup teams use Raybestos or Brembo brakes. . . .
Give credit to Elliott Sadler for seeing fifth place and taking it at Martinsville -- even though it meant rooting defending Cup champion Tony Stewart out of the way. Sadler gave the credit for the solid run to crew chief Raymond Fox; Sadler's average finish at the track had been 27th place. . . .
NASCAR announced last weekend that wheels must be tethered to the cars by two fiber cables instead of one steel cable at all tracks more than 1.25 miles in length beginning with the April 27 race at California Speedway. After Newman's left front wheel assembly broke loose and sailed over the wall during a wreck April 6 at Talladega, NASCAR officials conducted tests during the week and quickly moved to make the change, which also applies to the Busch Series and Craftsman Trucks.
Lee Spencer covers NASCAR for The Sporting News. Email her at lspencer@....
ESPN.com news services
MOTEGI, Japan -- A.J. Foyt, a team owner in both the IRL and NASCAR,
had harsh words for
NASCAR on Saturday for its recent inconsistency in its rules.
Foyt's comments stem from the yellow flag decision at Texas Motor Speedway two weeks ago, to last week's race-winning pass where Dale Earnhardt Jr. clearly went below the yellow out of bounds like to pass race leader Matt Kenseth.
"More people are waking up to NASCAR, but they are afraid to speak out," Foyt said. "I have nothing to lose, either way. The yellow flag thing is a bad deal and one of these days, someone will get killed over it.
"I don't care what you write about. I call a spade a spade, good or bad. That's how I feel about (restrictor) plate racing. What has happened the last three weeks, it's something different every week. I think the world of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and I think the world of Tony Stewart, but whoever that judge was should be thrown out of the organization or should be the judge of a bathroom whether boys or girls go in. If he looks at the yellow line thing and says it was right, then he was wrong."
Foyt was at Twin Ring Motegi in Japan for Sunday's Indy Japan 300, but Foyt's Winston Cup team decided not to participate at Martinsville Speedway for the Virginia 500. Foyt's son, Larry, is the driver for the Winston Cup team.
Foyt was also steamed that NASCAR disqualified his son's qualifying attempt last week at Talladega for a rules violation for being too low. Subsequently, Foyt did not make the 43-car starting lineup.
"After what NASCAR did to me at Talladega last week, we didn't see any point in going up to Martinsville and tearing something up," Foyt said. "The deal they did to us at Talladega was a big (bleep)-off deal, so (bleep) them.
"I'm like Dale Earnhardt was when he was alive; those (bleeping) plate races (stink). NASCAR is so crooked. Whoever you are, I don't care what you say, if you can't see that, then you are blind. Why should you take out that many cars if you are racing?"
Foyt believes it's time NASCAR recognize that restrictor-plate racing has only made the events at Daytona and Talladega more dangerous, rather than allow teams to race above 200 mph and let the cars spread out more naturally rather than bunch them together.
"All it is any more, restrictor-plate cars is a glorified IROC race, that's all it is," Foyt said. "If you are going to go racing, then go racing. But if you want an IROC race, then just call it an IROC race. I've never been for plate racing, I never will be.
"It's just like racing back to the yellow, I'm glad to see Jeff Gordon speak out against that. Racing shouldn't be who is a complete idiot on the yellow flag. It's a different ball game than it used to be. It's not getting any better, it's getting worse."
By DAVID POOLE
The Charlotte Observer
MARTINSVILLE,
Va. - Gordon vs. Earnhardt.
It never really happened before Dale Earnhardt's death, that head-to-head showdown for supremacy that would energize the partisans in Winston Cup racing's two most populous camps.
There were skirmishes here and there and the occasional glimpse of how good it might have been. There was Jeff Gordon's famous "milk toast" to Earnhardt at the awards banquet in New York when Gordon claimed one of his four titles.
There was the innocent prank here, the prickly comment there. But never, not quite, did come the man-to-man chase for a championship that would have had fans choosing sides more sharply than ever before.
Now, as Dale Earnhardt Jr. begins to look more and more comfortable carrying the competitive mantel of his family's name, should fans dare get excited at the prospect that Gordon and Earnhardt Jr. might be building a rivalry of their own?
It's still too soon to get all worked up about it, but the prospects are certainly there.
After his victory in the Virginia 500 at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday, Gordon is third in the points standings with one quarter of the 36-race schedule in the books. He's 139 behind leader Matt Kenseth and just 88 behind Earnhardt Jr.
They've already had one stirring door-to-door battle this year, a race for second at Texas that Earnhardt Jr. won. Another one might have been shaping up Sunday, too, and this one might have been for the victory. But Earnhardt Jr. got shoved out of second place when Ricky Craven had a flat tire on a restart on Lap 444 and spent the rest of the race fighting his way back up to third.
Gordon, meanwhile, pounced on the opening.
"I saw Craven come up there and get him and slide up," Gordon said. "I just stood in the gas and said, 'I'm going to take advantage of this,' because I knew it was going to be big. If I could get by Junior, that was half the battle right there."
Labonte, who had changed only two tires on his final pit stop, was the other half. Gordon, on four new tires, finally worked his way by on Lap 487 and held on to win for the first time this year.
It would be foolhardy to ignore Kenseth. Like Gordon and Earnhardt Jr., Kenseth has won a race this year and leads the circuit with seven top-10 finishes. Several times already this year, he's squeezed top 10s out of seemingly off days, although he wound up 22nd on Sunday.
Because of who they are, however, Gordon and Earnhardt Jr. already seem to be keeping at least one eye on each other.
"Whether it's Junior or his team, I'm not really sure which - they've had weaknesses in the past, whether it be road courses, short tracks or whatever," Gordon said. "This year they seem to really have their act together. ...To be championship contenders, you've got to be able to be good pretty much be good everywhere we go. They've certainly proved that this year. If he continues that and I can keep up with what I've done in the past, then there might be something to talk about."
Earnhardt Jr. is cautious. Last year, he won the season's ninth race at Talladega and was fifth in points, but then crashed hard in the season's 10th race at California and spent most of the summer trying to clear the cobwebs from his head.
"I'll believe it when we win it," he said. "This is a long season and a lot can happen. We've got to keep trying to keep working hard. We can't get really lackadaisical."
Gordon's win on Sunday was the 62nd of his career. Since he first emerged
as a championship
contender in his third full season in 1995, he has been one of the drivers
other teams measure themselves against, and a driver the media keeps trying
to pit against another in some kind of rivalry.
"There's a different rivalry every weekend. It's whoever I'm trying to pass, whoever I'm racing that given weekend," Gordon said. "If it happens to be Dale, Jr., week in and week out, then the fans and the media are going to take it upon themselves to create that."
Gordon went 23 races last year before getting the first of his three victories. He finished fourth in points, having a solid year by most standards but sub par when compared to his own career. That and some off-track issues, including his impending divorce, seemed to take the edge off the bitterness in the Anybody But Gordon camp.
That would change in a Gordon-Earnhardt Jr. points race. Nothing would re-energize a Winston Cup championship race faster, and nothing would make fans pick sides more.
"If he wins the championship its game over for anybody else," Gordon said. "We're not even going to exist out there."
Ah, but Gordon would exist. That's why it would be so much fun to watch.
Matt Kenseth leads the Winston Cup point standings. Credit: Autostock
Conversation: Matt Kenseth
By Marty Smith, Turner Sports Interactive
TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Matt Kenseth is as unassuming a superstar as you'll ever meet. If he's not decked out in trademark DeWalt black and yellow, you're likely to walk right by him. And he doesn't say much, either.
He lets his race car do the talking.
Kenseth's stealth approach to everything NASCAR has helped land him
in the proverbial Winston
Cup Series catbird seat. With four top-fives and seven top-10s -
both of which lead t he series - Kenseth carries a 129-point lead into
Martinsville.
But don't ask him about it. He's not talking. He did, however, take a few moments to sit down with NASCAR.com's Marty Smith last Saturday at Talladega to discuss his elite rank, the parking slot that goes with it and the current exploits of his feline friend, Lars.
All you ever hear from guys in your position is "It's too early to worry about points." Is being the Winston Cup points leader early in the season almost more of a distraction than anything else?
Not really. It's cool to be the points leader because everybody runs for points. It is too early to worry about it, but on the other hand we get the first parking spot, and we're ahead instead of behind. It's always good to be leading and up front, but it's too early to worry about it. I'm real happy with the consistency we've had so far -- real happy.
You have a keen knack for quietly negotiating the field. You won't hear a word about Matt Kenseth all day, then suddenly with 10 to go there you are, up front vying for the win. Is that more driving strategy on the track or adjustment strategy on pit road?
It's a little bit of everything, but mostly it's because we don't qualify well, really. I think if we qualified better and started up front, some of the days when we had a real good car, like Las Vegas, I think we would have led a whole bunch of laps and been up front all day.
But qualifying toward the middle of the pack kind of keeps us out of that position until the end of the race. But I think sometimes it's a little bit of an advantage, because we're in the back of the pack, working our way around traffic and trying to get our car to run to pass other people and make it work in traffic. That seems to help it out at the end of the race."
I'm going to start calling you the Silent Assassin. You dig?
I'm not sure whether that's good these days or not (laughing).
Much was made of racing back to the caution last weekend at Texas.
What's your take
on the "Gentleman's Agreement?"
It depends what position you're in. That whole thing last week, I feel like in hindsight, was a bad call. They probably should have left Jeff Gordon in the lead and left Kurt Busch and Ricky Rudd a lap down. The way it's always been told to me, it's scored at the line. What really happened is I didn't see Jeff coming.
If I would have seen Jeff trying to race me back to the line, I would have kept racing and beat him back to the line and Burton would have gotten his lap back and that would have been it. But I was just trying to help my teammate out and do the right thing there.
I didn't know Jeff Gordon said he'd never give anybody his lap back and didn't want his laps back, but I saw him do the same thing last year when he was leading for the 48 car.
So I think if the roles were reversed, if he was leading and the 48 needed a lap back, being a teammate, or the 25 or somebody, he would have let them back in, too. And if it would have been somebody else I was racing for points, I wouldn't have let them have the lap back. As a team, when you can, you've still got to try to help out your teammates.
Was that a confusing situation from the driver's seat right when it happened?
I knew what happened as soon as I saw Gordon go by me, but then it was too late. I wasn't confused until they let me stay in the lead, then let the other two cars go back on the lead lap. Then I was a little bit confused.
I figured Gordon was just going to let me stay in the lead, just because he didn't want to take advantage of the situation, he just didn't want those two cars to get back on the lead lap, which I totally understand. I was really confused when NASCAR put those cars back on the lead lap, and he was scored as the leader coming back to the caution, so I was a little confused by that."
Ever heard of a Wisconsin Waterfall?
No.
It's a mullet.
Never heard of it (laughing).
I recently saw you're "Driven to Read" poster. What's your favorite book?
I like all John Grisham books. He's my favorite author. I like the lawyer-type stories and the guy-trying-to-steal-money and all the courtroom stuff that goes on in all the John Grisham books. I just read "King of Thorns," just got done with it the other day. That was pretty good.
My Mom got his autograph. I like his work, too. Let's check your statistical knowledge. Who is the only Winston Cup driver to finish every lap this year?
Nobody.
Nope. That would be you.
Nope. Nobody. The Daytona 500 was only 250.
Ohhh. He's smarter than I am. Nice. During our conversation last year, we discussed your cat, Lars, and how he was grounded due to various incendiary offenses. Give me a rundown of his latest exploits.
I don't know what he's torn up lately. Lately, he's been eating everything around the house and throwing it back up in the middle of the night (laughing). So he's been pretty good. We got him a little bit bigger house than what he had before so he's got a little more room to run around. He's pretty cool. I think he's almost 3, and he still acts like a kitten. So that's fun. He also wants to play and bite -- and run around wide open.
All we hear about is how great the Chevrolets are, yet you and Kurt Busch are first and second in the standings (heading into Talladega). What gives?
Well, I don't know. It seems like the Chevrolets are really good, but they haven't taken anything to the wind tunnel yet. Which, I'm not really sure why. They made a lot of rules and made everything pretty even, but what they did -- which you've got to commend Chevrolet for doing -- is the only thing they left you with is the nose and the tail.
So, obviously, they're going to go to work and design the best nose and tail they can design to make their car the best in the air. Basically, ours, being a Taurus, is four years old or something like that. So I just hope, even if they don't do anything this year, that we'll get something redesigned next year to catch up a little bit.
We should be a little bit behind. They just made something this year
and ours is three or four
years ago. Every time you make something it should be a little bit better.
A lot of your fans are upset with me for not mentioning you enough. I tell them it's because you like to fly below the radar. Am I lying to them?
No (laughing).
When you were racing in the Busch Series full-time, it was a premier series. In your opinion, has it declined since then? What's the state of the series?
In my opinion, it's declined a lot. When I first came down and made my first Busch Series race in 1996, I went to Charlotte, and they used to take the top 28 by time and the rest of the cars had to run that last chance race. I qualified 29th out of 72 cars -- there was 72 cars that showed up at that race.
We finished second or third in that last chance race, and made the race. I'm telling you, it was competitive. Then last year when they changed the engine thing it started going downhill a little bit. Even this weekend, there's only 40 cars here and only 20 or 25 of them are good cars. So the front is still very competitive.
The top-10 cars are real competitive and tough to beat over there. But the back half of the field has declined a lot. They're basically just getting some field-fillers in there to keep the field full.
It seems like there's some issues with lapped cars every week, too.
Yeah, it's almost to the point, in my opinion, that they need to think about doing something different. Because we're at places like Texas or somewhere, and the real slow cars at the end will be running two seconds slower than we're running and it's getting to be a dangerous situation.
They're in the way of the leaders all the time. All the time they're affecting the race. At Bristol, I watched that race on TV, and they're lapping those guys every five laps. I think there are some real slow ones at the end of the field that they either need to be more strict on the minimum speed or else reduce the field a little bit so we have a more competitive field and give the leaders more room to race.
You guys haven't had any motor trouble the past couple of weeks, so it looks like the Roush engine problem has been resolved. But that had to have been a pretty big concern at the time.
Knock on wood, things have been OK for us this year. You just never know. There's been some problems they've found that I think they've fixed, but you never know when they're going to creep up and when you'll have problems. It was a bigger leap to get through Texas, but just because we got through Texas doesn't mean everything's hunky dory for the year.
I feel good about things. They're working hard on some things to get us more power and keep the stuff reliable. But you're always a little bit concerned it's going to happen.
Your
Momma
"Don't come here and grumble about going too fast. Get the hell out of the race car if you've got feathers on your legs or butt. Put a kerosene rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up there and eat that candy ass." - Dale Earnhardt – 1998
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