He
Said, She Said: Silly Season Started Early This Year and Open Wheelers Invade NASCAR
October 17, 2007
Everett
Mugg and Debbi Willis
Another Year, Another Silly Season:
He Said: Silly Season started this year when negotiations between Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Dale Earnhardt Inc. (DEI),
(mainly Teresa Earnhardt), broke down. It has not stopped since. Jr. will take over Kyle Busch’s ride at Hendrick Motorsports
(HMS) in a surprising move and Busch will move on to Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR). I say surprising, because if I owned HMS and
had to make room for Earnhardt I would have let Casey Mears go. Mears is a fine talent who was never developed properly because
he was stuck on a Chip Ganassi team, (more on Ganassi teams later). Busch landed at JGR leaving J.J Yeley without a ride.
Hall of Fame Racing (HOF) let Tony Raines go and hired J.J Yeley. Since HOF
is affiliated with JGR one would suspect there was some pressure put on HOF for
that move. Yeley has been spectacularly poor in great equipment with an established team while Raines has been outstanding
in mediocre equipment on a start up team. One could say Raines got the short stick in that deal. Raines has always done much
with little while Yeley has done nothing with much.
She Said: You make some great points about the drivers but I don’t see anything “silly” about
this season, it’s become downright insane! “Silly” used to mean the driver’s vied for opportunities
when they knew their contracts were up and they’d be looking for a ride. This season defied all others when a family
feud took their little tiff to the track every single week until everyone was sick of who said what to whomever, when or how!
“Silly” used to be when sponsorship was creative and it was really interesting to see who’d come out with
the next best idea. Now, sponsorship needs to worry about what happens when mergers swallow up their original arrangements
and they “cease to exist.” Likewise, it takes a battalion of lawyers to find every right they thought they had
and any they think they might still have and if that doesn’t work, come up with a compromise. In the meantime, NASCAR
just claims another sponsor for their “official sponsor” list, thus shortening the list of those who can sponsor
the drivers OR the competitors who can sponsor teams. “Silly” used to mean fun. There’s no fun in the
way this season’s been playing out. Darlington’s lost her bite and striping. Bristol’s
night race wasn’t the usual BRISTOL night race leaving everyone to wonder
what happened. And Talladega actually got called boring! What’s fun
about watching all that?
Ganassi Signs Yet Another Open Wheeler:
He Said: Chip Ganassi has never won a NASCAR Cup Series Championship. It is my contention he never will. He signs
raw rookie stock car drivers (Reed Sorenson) or open wheelers (Casey Mears), throws them in the deep end and watches to see
if they sink or swim. He seems to want to compete in open wheel, but Formula 1 (F1) wants no Americans, Indy Racing League
(IRL), (some sort of hybrid American Stock car series and F1 pretenders) is dead and World of Outlaws (WoO)/United States
Auto Club (USAC) (real American open wheel racing) is beneath him. He is the square peg in the round hole. It is a shame he
cannot embrace the venue that generates his cash and represents the Country he was born in. He obviously wishes he was European.
Montoya is a great open wheel racer and seems to be an affable feller. Dario Franchitti is a great open wheel racer and an
affable feller. Stock cars are not open wheel cars. In open wheel a slower car blocks because the driver behind can not rub
fenders, there are no fenders. In stock car racing there is a penalty for blocking and it is accessed by the driver being
blocked. Hello Mr. Blocker, meet Mr. Wall. Where does Mr. Ganassi think he will get someone to give these two some stock car
instruction, Reed Sorenson? Poor Reed, he was moved up too early and given no veteran to lean on. Next year he will be given
minimal equipment and fired for another open wheel guy that Ganassi knows. Meanwhile he (Ganassi) will still not win a NASCAR
title and still be spit on by F1 and the rest of the loser, European or European wannabe, open wheel community. I can not
in honesty say I feel sorry for him.
She Said: Well said, and actually, we’re in fairly close agreement across the board here. Going from Open
wheel to closed wheels (Stock Cars) has always had a fairly steep learning curve. There’s just something about having
learned to drive around and inside of each others space like open wheelers do, it takes more time to recognize what will cause
crashes, aero issues or tire problems when trying to adapt to stock cars. The difference though with Ganassi, is that he has
money and he’s willing to throw lots of it around to LOOK good even if he doesn’t. Thus signing Franchitti, who’d
originally been talking to Richard Childress. I’m only guessing here, but obviously, Childress wouldn’t pay what
Ganassi would. Childress knows what he’s doing. Ganassi on the other hand would rather have his stable of IRL’s
over in NASCAR and hopefully luck out along the way. Which is what I think will happen with Franchitti. I’ve no doubt
Franchitti will do just fine, probably win quickly and most likely turn NASCAR a little upside down with his Hollywood wife, Ashley Judd and his
driving skills.
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Oh, I Almost Forgot, The Chase:
He Said: It goes on. Jeff Gordon now leads but that could change. I think we could stick a fork in the bottom
4 (they are done) but maybe not. Halfway through the chase, the leaders could experience the same bad luck and the bottom
four could be right back in the mix. Yet, realistically, stick a fork in the DEI/Richard Childress Racing (RCR) cars (Clint
Bowyer is the exception). The DEI/RCR partnership has brought DEI up one and dropped RCR down 10 notches. RCR was performing
well without this “partnership.” Why Childress thought this would be a wise move is beyond me. RCR still wants
to win Championships and races while Teresa just wants to pimp her dead husbands name for every penny she can pimp out of
it. She makes Yoko Ono look legitimate. The bottom line is that if NASCAR were still using the old system, Jeff Gordon would
have all but sewn up his 6th Championship.
She Said: You went from shedding light and a breath of fresh hope on the chase to waah-waah about the “would
have” on Gordon! Good gracious! The Chase is what it is and he has to live with it like all the rest of us. I think
it’s safe to say positions 4-8 definitely has more than their fair share of work cut out for them. Goodyear needs to
be ashamed of some of the stuff they’ve delivered to Harvick’s pit over the past 5 weeks and particularly last
week! Making tires a constant issue race after race, either too hard, too soft, too whatever is a stupid move by someone somewhere
that needs to stop so racing can get back to racing instead of crisis management. RCR/DEI will work out their situations.
Variables have cost them greatly in recent weeks. And give up the blame game on Teresa. If Dale Earnhardt Jr. was wildly successful
and chasing the championship right now, would everyone be cheering Teresa? I hardly think so. She’s not a public punching
bag. Furthermore, if NASCAR hadn’t changed the millions of things they’ve changed since their hair-brained
thinking of 2000 (starting with the shock and spring packages), maybe we wouldn’t be thinking about the “would
haves!”
2006 StockCar Review.
