My Two Cents Worth for 8/16/04

By Todd Berger, LGR Staff Correspondent

Sunday’s race at Watkins Glen marked the running of the last road race of the 2004 season.  Many folks call for an end to the Cup series’ foray into road racing every year, but I enjoy it immensely.  I especially enjoy watching racing at Watkins Glen over Sears Point / Sonoma / Infineon Raceway.  It’s like the track was almost made for stockcars.  The racing out of the old turn 11, into turn one, the esses and thru the backstretch chicane is just great.  I love watching the big 3,400 pound cars get airborne entering that chicane, and knowing how on the edge of out of control those guys are make it all the more fun to watch. 

My runner-up for the week’s most impressive performance has to go to Ron Fellows.  After qualifying was rained out, Fellows made it into the race by the scantest of margins, using the last provisional to start 43rd.  Fellows proceeded to pass a car or two a lap, got a couple of timely cautions and with good pit strategy, brought the Nilla Wafers / Nutter Butter DEI Chevy home and impressive second, losing by a scant 1.5 seconds to…

My number one on my list of kudos today is Tony Stewart.  If you’ve read any of my stuff this year, you know that I have been less than happy with Tony’s transition from claustrophobic, misunderstood racer to bullying jerk.  But his effort yesterday was otherworldly. 

The 2002 champion was stricken with the stomach flu and by lap 15 or so was radioing that he was going to throw up and that he wanted out of the car…now.  Zipadelli began frantically searching for a qualified driver that could fit in the 20 car.  Boris said was talked to briefly, but his six foot plus frame would make fitting in Tony’s car difficult. 

Stewart continued dialogue with his team about exiting the car (while leading no less), until about lap 38, when Tony told the team to send Boris away and that he was going to do his best to finish the deal.

Stewart led the most laps and basically owned the race, winning his second Watkins Glen race in three years. 

You may also remember that I mentioned last week a hope that a Coke driver “like Stewart or Harvick” would win so we could see what tricks were in store for the Gatorade folks.  Stewart deftly avoided that problem by hurrying to victory lane, exiting the car and crawling into a golf cart and heading for the motorcoach lot. 

I was more than a little shocked when Bill Weber later reported that Stewart would not be coming out for a while, was still very sick, and had requested a “clean driver’s suit.”  Ummm….that’s just gross, especially when you consider the best option for public disclosure is that he threw up on himself.  Poor form, NBC.

(Also, while it’s 99.9% sure that Stewart was not faking illness to avoid the Gatorade Victory Lane issue or NASCAR’s quickly invented “victory lane protocol”, the fact that anyone would hint or joke about it (even me) should tell you all you need to know about how absurd the whole thing is).

I also mentioned last week that young Mr. Vickers was quickly earning a reputation for recklessness that would not go away any time soon.  This week’s incident with Dale Jarrett could be the straw that broke the veteran drivers’ back.  First it was Bobby Labonte at Pocono, then he took out Ryan Newman at Indy, and now his reckless, careless and just plain stupid move on Dale Jarrett in the chicane cost both drivers a full lap, a chance at competing for a top ten finish and, in Jarrett’s case, any real likelihood of a shot at the top ten before Richmond.  Jarrett is now 87 out of tenth but, more importantly, he is 14th in points.  If the UPS car misses the chase, you can bet this one won’t be over for a while.

Not that they’re in any danger of missing the Chase, but the 48 team in particular and the Hendrick teams in general might be getting a little concerned.  Three of their four main cars suffered transmission or engine failures yesterday as well as the “team” car of Ward Burton, and yesterday’s early exit from race for the 48 team was their second failure in two weeks, costing them most of their points lead. 

On the other hand, if you’re gonna have these finishes, now is the time instead of the final ten races.  In all likelihood, a failure like that will end a driver’s title hopes after Richmond.

I thought Greg Biffle’s turning of Sterling Marlin was horrid, especially considering how upset Biffle was after getting similarly run over by his teammate at the NEXTEL All Star race.  Biffle got into Marlin exiting turn one, got Marlin sideways, and had time to choose to either lift a bit to let Marlin gather it up or veer to avoid the 40 car, but Biffle did neither.  As a matter of fact, he didn’t even burp the throttle.  He simply matted it and finished the job of turning Marlin wrecking his car and effectively ending his day.  But not before Marlin had a chance to “find” Biffle on track and exact a small amount of revenge. 

The season of woes continues for Ricky Craven.  The Tide driver was the lowest finishing driver of all of the cars still running.  It was actually sad seeing that car frequently bypassing the chicane to avoid being a hindrance to other cars actually racing on Sunday.

For people that say road racing is boring, I say they should have watched yesterday’s race.  Watching Jamie McMurray go thru the chicane with Ryan Newman side by side was great, but watching Robby Gordon, Michael Waltrip and another driver go three wide thru turn ten was downright awesome.

Brendan Gaughan went from hero to zero Sunday when he went from leading the race and a sure top ten finish to dumping it into the kitty litter and eventually succumbing to a transmission failure.  Those failures often occur after trips into the sand as pebbles and sand get into moving parts, and ultimately cause bad things to happen…

Also kudos should go out to Casey Mears who led, didn’t do anything dumb and, despite running out of gas, still came home in fourth place.

It may just have been me, but that interview with Dale Earnhardt Jr. showed how much pain he was really in after a road course race.  It was almost as if he couldn’t stop squinting and couldn’t catch his breath.  I still contend that, whether it is a month or a year or several years from now, we are going to learn that Junior’s burns were far worse than we were led to believe.

I was neither shocked nor surprised at all when it was announced that Jeff Burton was out of the 99 and in the 30 AOL car.  I am, however, surprised to hear that Burton may go to the 31 after this season and Robby Gordon may go to the 30 or leave altogether.  It seems that RCR was okay before Dale, great with Dale, and just okay without him too.  The more those cars struggle, the more I appreciate how great Dale the Senior truly was.

Carl Edwards was named Burton’s replacement in the 99 car starting at Michigan, which is great.  I really like Carl a lot.  This is not the first time Jack Roush has taken a driver straight from trucks to Cup either.  Kurt Busch made a similar jump when he took over the 97 John Deere Ford for Chad Little in September of 2000. 

It also seems that Boston Red Sox owner John Henry is interested in sponsoring and someday owning the 99 car.  While that’s great and all, let’s not all forget the saga of one Michael Holigan and his hobby-like ownership “interests” of years past.  I’m not saying it’s the same, I’m just saying…

I am also intrigued to hear that not only is Jamie McMurray unhappy at Ganassi, but so unhappy that he’d consider sitting out or suing to get out of his 2005 contract option year so he can get in line to replace Rusty in the Miller Lite blue deuce.  It is also being rumored that he is being “wooed” by Joe Gibbs Racing to drive the 11 car.  I don’t know why that surprised me, since nothing should when it comes to Silly Season.

As for Robby being out of the 31 car, I think he’s learned enough over the past five years that he could probably make a go of owning his own Cup team and two Busch teams as he has discussed.  I don’t think there’s anything racing related that Robby couldn’t succeed at given the talent and drive that he has.  And by succeed I mean stay in business.  The chances of Robby being a contender as a one-car owner/driver are slimmer than slim.  Period. 

An interesting sidebar here, at least for me, the father of a daughter who turned two in April.  We were watching the race (obviously) and, during a run of commercials while we adults were talking, my daughter walked over to a 14 year old “guest” of a neighborhood lad and said “Budweiser please” following the airing of the Bud taste test commercial.  After I stopped laughing I decided that I should blame TV and alcohol companies and that NASCAR should dissolve it’s associations with beer companies or they will lose my viewership.

Nah.  There’s no way that’ll happen.  But that’s just as absurd as NASCAR’s argument against allowing “hard liquor” sponsorships on it’s cars.  It’s too funny hearing my daughter ask strangers at restaurants “Budweiser please,” and then watching them recoil in horror at my poor parenting. 

Cheers.