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This Week’s Motorsports Summary, and Some Thoughtsby Mike Irwin ~ December 28th, 2007. Filed under: Mike's Musings. |
It’s been pretty slow through the Christmas season and going into the New Year weekend, but there have been a few happenings in the world of stock car racing over the last week or so …
Crew chief Kevin “Bono” Manion was signed to a three-year deal to continue as Martin Truex Jr.’s crew chief for the DEI #1 Bass Pro Shop Chevrolet Impala SS in the Sprint Cup series.
In other crew chief news, Chris Carrier was announced as the new crew chief for the Penske Racing #77 Mobil 1 Dodge to be driven by Sam Hornish Jr. in 2008, also in the Sprint Cup.
Sprint Cup driver Bobby Labonte’s new marketing firm, Breaking Limits (if you didn’t notice, their initials are B.L… as in “B”obby “L”abonte… cute) signed its first client, General Mills, owners of the Cheerios brand of cereal that already sponsors the #43 Petty Enterprises Dodge Charger that (guess who?) Bobby Labonte drives.
Two of the bigger stories in my mind have to be the return of Bob Margolis to Yahoo Sports after a long battle against cancer (click here to read his story) and the move of Petty Enterprises to Mooresville, NC.
Bob’s story is an amazing tale of courage in the face of nearly overwhelming odds. I couldn’t even begin to understand what he has been through. But as he says in his article, God always gives enough grace for the trials to be faced, and I can certainly attest to that in my own life to date.
The move of Petty Enterprises, while seeming to be insignificant at first glance, is really a sign for those of us who have followed the sport for longer than just the Nextel/Sprint era that the times… they are a’changin’.
For an example, last night, my 15 year old son and I were watching some racing that I had set up the DVR to record. The first program was German Touring Cars (aka DTM). My son is usually bored to death by stock car racing, but he liked the looks of the touring cars. They actually bore more than just a faint resemblance to what’s driven on the streets there in Europe. The cars were not a whole lot different in appearance than the ones the kids fix up with the wings, spoilers, air dams, and 20 inch rims and 40 (or 35 or 30) series tires.
Next we turned on a few minutes of the Australian V8 Supercars, the series from which Marcos Ambrose is a former two-time champion. My son really liked the looks of those cars. That’s not surprising, since they resemble what’s driven on the streets even more than the German Touring Car series did. Granted, the cars being raced are not sold here in the USA, but they resembled a typical four-door sedan by any manufacturer, decked out with wings and spoilers and so forth. And there was beatin’ and bangin’ going on and spins and lots of racing action.
One other interesting thing is that you could tell which car was a Ford, or a Holden (General Motors to us Americans), and not just by what headlight stickers were placed on the cars. Each brand retained its original identity and the teams had to work around with the particular body shape that their brand had, within the rules, of course. Sound familiar?
Now I’m not saying that German Touring Cars or Aussie V8 Supercars will sweep our nation in a similar way as stock car racing did.
But I do think we’ll be watching a lot more of THAT kind of racing in our house if the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series continues in the way that it has for the last couple of seasons.
December 28th, 2007 at 11:55 am
Both series could very well become favorites in America if given some marketing and decent viewing times on tv . Actually all of the cars in the German Touring Series ( currently only two makes Audi and Mercedes ) are sold in the US and the Holden that is raced in the Aussie series is known in the US as the Pontiac GTO . If NASCAR were truly interested in growing the sport instead of only making money , they would go back to brand identity as an important part of NASCAR racing . They would also do well to consider making the new Nationwide series into something very much like the German and Aussie series , including those car manufacturers plus all of the other manufaturers . The Cup drivers would no longer be crossing over to the Nationwide series , the cars would be completly different than the cup cars , so there would be no benefit in trying to learn a good set-up for Sunday .
December 30th, 2007 at 11:29 am
I couldn’t agree more. I remember with fondness how the series was even in the early nineties when Buicks and Oldsmobiles (and the recently departed Grand Prix) were racing for the checkered flag. True, they were all tube frames with little resemblance to the street car, but they gave the fan something more to root for. I would totally go for a more “stock” stock car racing as a national series. (This type of racing is happening at the local level in the SCCA. I enjoy these races not only as a fan, but I also volunteer as a flag/safety worker at the local road course.)
Barring that national series happening, I still don’t know why with the cookie cutter COT chassis we don’t see more rather than fewer makes in the Sprint Cup. Just add the right 3M stickers to the front and back and we could see the return of Pontiacs, Buicks, Mercury’s and Chryslers to the circuit. It seems like an easy way to bring more story lines/interest into the current series.
December 30th, 2007 at 11:42 am
I am glad Bob Margolis is surviving his battle with cancer. I wish him the very best. NASCAR should take a leson from the Germans and Aussies and remember where they came from. I beleive their rush to cookie cutter cars will very soon start a tide of fans leaving for more interesting racing elsewhere. They started by modifying body styles of a manufacturer to match others even though a similar style really wasn’t sold (Ford Taurus). The next big disaster was the COT.
January 2nd, 2008 at 11:30 am
I remember back in the 60’s and 70’s when I first got interested in NASCAR and the cars looked like the cars you saw in the showrooms and I personally think that NASCAR needs to get back to that and could emply many of the safety changes that they employed in the COT car. I think if they do not do something soon, the sport will go the way of the CART series and the IRL. I too agree that the Nationwide series should use something totally different than what is used today so that a Saturday run would show the set up for the Sunday race as well and breathe some life into that series as well.