Texas Traditions

In 1997, my bro-in-law hooked me up with freebs to the inaugural Busch and Cup races at the new Texas Motor Speedway. I was working in Terrell, Texas the week before the race. So my travel expenses to get there were covered. I stayed with my sister and bro-in-law, he got comps on the tickets, he bought my dinner, the brews were covered with the hospitality, he got me pit passes, AND he arranged for a Sunday morning pre-race ride in a motorcade of Monte Carlos on the track. I don't think I spent a nickel of my own all weekend - a rare, perfect race weekend.

The area was hit with a deluge of rain in the days leading up to race weekend, and the parking lots were like a Florida swamp. But on race days, the skies were fine and we were ready to go racing.

Ricky Craven crashed...hard...during practice for the race. He suffered a head injury that took him a long time to recover. A Bodine - Todd - was chosen to fill his seat for the weekend.

Jeff Burton won his first Cup race that weekend in Jack Roush's 99 Exide Ford. The Cat in the Hat has had more than his share of success at TMS ever since.

While we were glad to see a first time winner, most of his competition got wiped out after only a quarter lap of racing. Darrell Waltrip and Johnny Benson barreled down nose to tail into turn 1 of the 1 groove track - but they didn't make it out together. DW was turned & about half the field piled in behind him. It was as if TMS wanted its own Texas-sized version of a Talladega Big One.



Eddie Gossage and Bruton Smith worked on the track a couple of years later and fixed it for much better multi-groove racing. I think the drivers genuinely enjoy racing there now vs. their dislike of it when it first opened.

But while Gossage fixed the track, he created another beast in its place - the traditional cowboy hat and fake six-shooters in victory lane. There have been some real 'winners' over the years. Some of these drivers look about as much like a cowboy as Vanilla Ice resembled a rapper. Heck, Eddie even makes the Indy guys wear the hats! Here's a sampler.

There simply has to be a better, less humiliating way to celebrate a hard earned victory in the state of Texas.

Update 2009-04-06: Well, I guess there's not a a better, less humiliating way...



TMC

Alan Kulwicki

December 14, 1954 - April 1, 1993

The Underbird did it his way. I was fortunate enough to see him start from the pole at Atlanta in 1991 in his first race with Hooters as his sponsor. And I was fortunate enough to be at Atlanta again in November 1992 when he led the most laps, traded the lead with Bill Elliott, finished 2nd, and won the Winston Cup championship. Many have suggested the 1992 Hooters 500 was the greatest NASCAR race of all time - the Kulwicki/Elliott/Davey Allison championship battle, Richard Petty's final race, and Jeff Gordon's first Cup race.

It was so bizarre to hear on April 1, 1993, that Alan was gone. Killed in a plane crash returning to Bristol, TN from an autograph-signing session in Knoxville the night before. The reigning Winston Cup champ - gone - less than 6 months after his triumph. 

Alan in garage pre-race - Atlanta - Spring 1992

Alan and The King headed to starting positions - Charlotte - Fall 1992

TMC

Martinsville Singing

The King and John Andretti in victory lane at Martinsville, April 18, 1999.



Source: Daffi's AndPetti World

For the first few races of this season, I've tried to add a race-relevant song to this blog. I was pleasantly surprised at how many choices of song titles are available involving race track names or cities.

This week I got my first real challenge. Martinsville, Virginia is rich in racing tradition. The little 1/2 mile track originally opened by Clay Earles pre-dates the formation of NASCAR itself. Its a track that's still stuck in time as compared to the big speedways with all their modern amenities. Yet with all the racing lore there, songwriters or poets haven't exactly flocked to it to inspire their words. So I was stuck. Matter of fact, I just shrugged it off and found me a good Ft. Worth song to bridge the gap between Bristol and Texas.

And then mid-week, it hit me. My ol' bud Monte Dutton - racing writer extraordinaire - is a songwriter as well as a NASCAR beat writer and blogger. He wrote a song last year titled appropriately enough "Martinsville".

This week, he added the tune to this NASCAR This Week blog & saved me the trouble of having to embed it here.

So grab a Marty hot dog, smell the azaleas, expect a win from Hendrick Motorsports on Sunday, and listen to Monte Dutton's rendition of "Martinsville".

Monte Sings Martinsville

TMC

Bristol recap part 2

Now where was I... Oh yeah!

Green Flag, Green Flag

I think I got ahead of myself in part 1. I was in the Big Sleazy, New Orleans, the back half of last week. I got back into town late Friday night, kissed the kids & put them to bed, packed a few remaining things, and bedded down for a few scant hours of sleep.

The rooster crowed as my wake-up call at 4:30 in the blessed AM. I did my perfunctory 3 S's of the morning, met the race weekend crowd, and we were on the road by 6 AM for a quick 5 hour jaunt to Bristol. Upon arrival, the aforementioned Schaefers were cracked and hoisted. A good time was to be had by all - but little did we know HOW good a time.



The Schaefer Hall of Fame signature sign - autographed on the back only by the chosen few who choose to begin their race weekends by drinking a Schaefer first, have gone to more than a handful of races, know that Jeff and Robby Gordon aren't related, and are committed to a full fun day.



The rest of what turned out to be a 22 hour day for me went something like this:

Schaef > Brats > Coors Light > Nationwide Race > Coors Light >
Old Timers Race > Outback dinner > Fosters > Holiday Inn lounge >
Some kind of cold brew...and Jaeger >
Negotiation with the race buds with local pizza delivery guy >
Ride with the pizza guy to Bristol area sports bar > beverages > cab to hotel >
Indecipherable text message to race bud with hotel key...who was standing 3 feet away >
Deep slumber at 2:30 AM

A Great View of Thunder Valley

Fantastic shot of the whole track. Thanks Rookie for sharing this pic - and the Schaef pics (and brews too). Too bad you had to sit at 37,000 feet and wear an oxygen mask to snap it.



Race Notes

• Kyle Busch acknowledged in the post-race press conference that he challenged his crew to man up on the final pit stop and not let him down like he felt they did in Saturday's race. I was scanning him a bit on Sunday, and his words were "OK ladies, let's not f*** it up on this one." Just a bit different than he chose to spin in to the press.
• Shrub was in his own ZIP code Sunday. I was amazed and disppointed how many of the major teams failed to bring their A game - Dale Jr, all the Rouskateers, the RCR triumverate,
  
• Travis Kvapill did all he could at one point during the race to give Golden Corrall all the exposure he could. He raced Shrub hard for about 15 laps - even to the point that Kyle's teammate Denny Hamlin closed quickly and at one point even almost wrecked Kyle. I don't particularly care about Travis one way or the other, but its been sad to see the rapid decline of the famed 28 team.
• The shelving of the 28 team may be just the beginning. The overachieving 44 team of A.J. Allmendiner was only slated to run 8 races. But with A.J.'s fine run at Daytona, the team earned enough jack to keep them in business through the 600. After that, its anyone's guess what will happen. But its going to be a true shame if a team in the top 20 as A.J. is now can't get corporate backing to go further than one-third of the season.
  

Race News

• Mark Martin - So he says he wants to return full-time in 2010. Please, make it stop. He's been a bust this year. I don't lay all of it at Mark's feet. The current 5 / former 25 team has been a cursed dog for decades. Rather than state the obvious, I'll simply quote Matt McLaughlin's skewering comment:
  

"Apparently, Mark Martin would like to compete again full-time in 2010. Color me surprised. Cue up that old Lynyrd Skynrd LP, because I’ll take the word of a liar…one more time. Don’t get me wrong; Martin is a class individual, and his name belongs on any top 5 list of the greatest drivers never to win a title alongside Junior Johnson and Tim Richmond. But I feel he owes anyone who bought his “Salute to You” retirement gear what seems like a decade ago a refund."

• Finally, I read where Papa Rick has given the vote of confidence to keeping Dale Jr. paired with Tony Jr. This - after Jr. intimated that the media was causing high stress levels and underperformance on the team by constantly harping on the 88 team's finishes. Please Jr, spare us all. Are you talking about the same media who turned out in droves to see you leave DEI and again when you chose to sign with HMS? The same media who follow you around and treat you like a rock star and not ask any really tough questions about your racing career? The same media who keep a camera constantly trained on you during a race to replay whatever may happen during the 3 hours of the race? The same media who don't even raise the question of why a random caution is thrown giving you the lucky dawg as soon as you go down a lap?

On to Martinsville. Wish I was going.

TMC

Another Bristol Bash

I survived yet another Bristol weekend. Made my first trip there as a 20 year old in 1986 and saw Rusty Wallace win his first race. Went this year for about the 5th or 6th time as someone ... who is NOT 20 years old anymore but tried to act like it.

I may have to do this in multiple entries because (1) I'm not sure I can remember everything in one setting and (2) I'm not willing to sit here and type it all at one time anyway.

Let the weekend begin!

• As has been the case as just about every race I've attended since the 1992 Winston 500, the weekend with race friends began with a Schaefer brew. Yes, they still make it. The tradition of pounding a Schaef likely merits its own blog entry...another time.
  
• I had a couple of brushes with celebrity. First, I ran into Bruton Smith - Speedway Motorsports, Inc.'s CEO - in the Holiday Inn lobby where we stayed. And Saturday during the Busch race, I saw saw Linda Vaughn, former Miss Hurst Shifter. She may be getting a bit long in the tooth, but she still has the big, bleach-blond hair, tight britches, and high-heeled boots. And in her day, she was something else.

Bristol's surface

• I've heard and read many complaints about the new transitional Bristol surface. Fans and others who cover the sport in multiple forms of media complain Bristol has lost the infamous bump-and-run. The gouge-and-go is no more. No more helmet or HANS tossing. No leaping over hoods to take a crack at another driver who wronged you.
  
• As someone who has watched a lot of racing over 30+ years, I'm OK with the new surface. Its aged well over the last 2 or 3 years. Bristol finally has a bit of mojo back with multiple grooves. The drivers can actually race there now. Admittedly, those additional grooves are only meaningful if your car can keep up with the #18 Snickers Toyo - which no one else could.
• Because so many fans started following NASCAR during the peak of Earnhardt's career or in the Gordon era, many of them only know the concrete, 1-groove Bristol. But old Bristol was more like it is today - find some footage from the 60s and 70s (perhaps Dale Jr's Back in the Day series and you'll see 3 and 4 wide racing from the apron to the fence.

Old timers race

• We stuck around after the Saturday race to watch the old timers put on a show. Clearly, Bristol's management tried to put a fun event together to sell tickets and (hopefully) reconnect the fans of today to the drivers of yesterday. For that I applaud them. SMI promotions dance circles around ISC tracks year after year.
  
• The #11 Busch Beer late model prepared for Cale Yarborough looked every bit as good as his cars from 1979-1980 did. Unfortunately for Cale, he couldn't RACE it like he did in 79-80.
• I grew up as a kid going to local late model sportsman races at Nashville Speedway. Three or four times a year, the national LMS touring series came to town for 200 lap features. My dad liked the LMS series far more than he did Cup. He was a much bigger fan of drivers like L.D. Ottinger, Harry Gant, Butch Lindley, Sam Ard, and Jack Ingram than he was of Petty, Pearson, the Allisons, Cale or Buddy. What a neat opportunity to have several of those guys still with us - and with enough competitive fire in their bellies and a glint in their eyes to give it another try for 35 laps.
• I also grew up watching Sterling Marlin from the time he was a late model rookie. While I'm sure he had fun leading every lap and winning the race, it was pretty silly to have an "old timer" like Sterling in this special race when he had a starting spot in the Cup race on Sunday. Seems to me former drivers like Dave Marcis, Buddy Baker, Lennie Pond, or Buddy Arrington might have been available & could have added to the fun.
  

I'll pick it up again later with some thoughts from the Busch and Cup races as well as other news that made the weekend.

I'll leave you with a slideshow of selected pics from the weekend.

TMC

Morning Thunder

Morning Thunder is tea? Really? Hmmm, not around MY house it isn't...



So I guess its true. I do learn something new every day.

Meanwhile, after a short work trip to New Orleans, I'm off this weekend to a thunder of another variety - Thunder Valley - Bristol Motor Speedway.

The Schaefer is already cold. The scanner is charged. Tickets are in hand. Drop the rag man & let's go racin!







TMC

March 13, 1983 - Carolina 500

It's gone from 80 degrees a few days ago to Tennessee to mid 30s with a combo of rain, sleet, and snow. Sounds like Rockingham weather. Oh yeah, NASCAR doesn't go there anymore. They moved to California for about the same number of 'fans'. Whatever.

Instead, we have memories like this great finish between the veteran King Richard and the upstart Bill Elliott seeking his first win.



TMC