Posts Tagged ‘Auto Racing’

I don’t think your going to see another charity race featuring old NASCAR drivers being held at Bristol any time soon.

Last Saturday at Bristol when Larry Pearson and Charlie Glotzbach crashed during a Legends race for retired drivers. Both were reportedly knocked unconscious and transported to the hospital. Pearson was treated for a compound fracture of a broken ankle, fractured pelvis and broken hand.

Pearson, a two-time Nationwide Series champion, is 56 years old. Glotzbach, who won 12 Sprint Cup races and raced at the front so often in the 1960s and 1970s he picked up the nickname “Chargin’ Charlie,” is 71.

Pearson slid across the track in the second turn near the end of the 35 lap exhibition race. Pearson’s car appeared to have a rear tire problem, causing it to slide up the track, hit the outside wall and drop down off the banking.

Several seconds passed before Glotzbach drove into the area and hit Pearson at near full-force.

The crash was a stark reminder of why a “Legends Serious” proposed a couple of years ago never got off the ground.

It’s too dangerous.

Racing even on a small track at relatively slow speeds is never entirely safe. There’s always an element of risk involved. At any moment, on any lap, disaster can strike.

To think that such legendary racers as Richard Petty, Cale Yarborough, Bobby Allison and others of their era would participate in such competition is absurd. They’re too smart to even consider it.

Racing is dangerous. It always has been and always will be.

NASCAR has done a great job of making its Sprint Cup cars as safe as possible – witness such recent tumbles as Brad Keselowski’s upside-down flight at Atlanta – allowing drivers to walk away without a scratch.

But anybody who thinks it’s safe to speed around concrete walks in any type of race car is kidding themselves.

A few years ago a “Celebrity Race” was held at Nashville Speedway. Several country music stars competed, along with members of the media and a couple of area football coaches. They drove deceptively-toy-like Legends cars.

A few laps into the race a TV sports director crashed into the wall. He suffered a severe head wound and almost bled to death en route to the hospital. He spent weeks recovering from the near-fatal crash. That was Nashville’s final Celebrity Race.

There will never be a Geezer’s Tour in racing for the same reason why there’ll never be a Senior League in pro football: Too much hard contact for brittle old bones.

I think it’s a great idea to pay homage to retired drivers by keeping them in the spotlight. Bring them to the track and let them sign autographs. Let them meet the fans. Let them tell stories and ride around the track and wave. Let them do anything but race.

I think we’ve seen our last Old-Timers race. What happened at Bristol could happen anywhere and any time a retired racer climbs into a car. Pearson’s close call should scare some sense into them.

The drivers raced in Late Model cars from the United Speed Alliance Racing tour.

Larry Woody from RacinToday.com contributed to this report

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Pemberton admitted the change was made in large part simply because many folks did not like the look of the wing, but also because the spoiler hopefully will make even better racing.

“I think the racing is pretty good,” Pemberton said. “I think it’s an opportunity to change things up a little bit — and quite frankly, the wing wasn’t accepted as universally as we had hoped it would be by competitors and the fans alike. So after much effort, we started looking and decided to go back to the spoiler.”

Appearing at the same Charlotte Motor Speedway news conference as Pemberton. Martin Truex Jr. said he welcomes the change from wing to spoiler on the No. 56 Toyota he drives for Michael Waltrip Racing.

“My first reaction was that it looks better,” Truex said. “Every car I ever ran in my entire life except for the last three years had a spoiler on it, so I’m a little more comfortable with it.”

Truex’s team was among those participating during a spoiler test at Talladega Superspeedway on Tuesday. He said while speeds were a concern, most drivers were in agreement that the spoiler did not cause any dramatic handling differences at that 2.66-mile track.

“I was happy with it. Obviously, Talladega is not a great judge for us, because you go out there and pretty much run wide-open. You’re at the mercy of the engine and the draft, and that’s pretty much all it is,” said Truex, who admitted “the fastest he saw” was 208 mph and that he, too, heard of others who supposedly went 212 mph or more. “As far as the package we used there, that’s the only place we’ll use it and we’ll have to work on other race tracks to figure out what we’re going to use on them.”

“Every car I ever ran in my entire life except for the last three years had a spoiler on it, so I’m a little more comfortable with it.”
said Truex JR.

That’s where the test at Charlotte next Tuesday and Wednesday comes in.

“The test next week here at Charlotte is going to be a great one for all of us,” Truex said. “There is a lot to be learned about the setup of the cars, what the spoiler likes vs. the wing and how it drives different. As drivers, we’re going to have to figure that out — and the teams are going to have to figure out how to get the cars better to work with the spoiler as opposed to the wing. I think it will be quite a bit different.”

Pemberton said it is an important test, noting that many teams already have tested with the spoiler at non-NASCAR sanctioned facilities of all other types and should be ready to use it for real come Martinsville. He added that he expects the biggest difference will be that it may enable cars to maneuver around each other more freely and more frequently.

The Charlotte test likely will put that theory to, well, the test.

“It’s been some time since we’ve had a test of this magnitude at any race track, and I think the teams will be working hard to find the setup that will work with respects to the spoiler,” Pemberton said. “Many of the teams already have a month under their belts; they’ve tested it at various places around the country. They’ve got some experience and they’re not coming in totally blind, and I think you’re going to see what we’ve got in front of us for the rest of the year in regards to the spoilers.”

Joe Menzer: NASCAR.COM contributed to this report.

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When the Sprint Cup and Nationwide series cars return to Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend, two of the corners on the half-mile oval may feel like they’re missing something about three feet of something.

It won’t be an illusion. Bristol Motor Speedway is extending the Steel and (SAFER) barrier 84 feet coming out of Turns 2 and 4,  a move that will narrow those transition areas by about three feet each, which should make for tighter racing at the 160,000-seat facility.

Kevin Triplett VP. of Public Affairs at Bristol Motor Speedway said “We know it’s three less feet coming off that transition. How the drivers will adapt to that, we don’t know.”

“What we’re hearing from folks who aren’t renewing their tickets, from the majority of them is, it’s economically related, and there’s not a lot we can do about that. But we are hearing from a lot of folks who say, Bristol has been known to be tight, and you guys have given them so much room.

“There’s an element out there that loves three- and four-wide racing, and there’s an element out there that would love it to be a little bit tighter. So we looked at how we could do it keeping the element of safety in mind. We decided, well, we could extend the SAFER barriers. And adding SAFER barriers, we think, is always a good thing.”

The alteration, which Triplett said would be completed in time for this weekends race, will not affect Turns 1 and 3. It also does not involve moving the concrete wall, but rather extending the barrier into parts of the frontstretch and backstretch that had previously been uncovered. Some traditional race fans have grumbled about a perceived lack of action on the otherwise popular short track since a 2007 resurfacing which widened the racing surface by about four feet.

“This will take some of that back,” Triplett said. “It will narrow it up. It will tighten the transitions in the turns.”

Triplett said the idea arose in a meeting a few weeks ago, and that the track’s operations team assured management they could get the work done before Bristol’s spring NASCAR weekend. Triplett said he wasn’t sure how the change would ultimately affect the racing at the facility, which has sold out 55 consecutive Cup Series events yet still has tickets available for its upcoming race.

“Honestly, it’s one of those things where, how do we respond to some of our fans and still have what we have?” he said. “We don’t know what the result will be. We know it’s three less feet coming off that transition. How the drivers will adapt to that, we don’t know. We’ll just have to wait and see how that goes.”

David Caraviello, NASCAR.COM contributed to this report.

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I read this over at MRN and thought I would share it with you guys.

“Suitcase” Jake Elder operated out of a suitcase and in the shadows. At one point, he jumped to three different teams over a 4-month period. But he was a crew chief extraordinaire, making the careers of many top NASCAR drivers. He died Wednesday in his native Statesville, NC, at 73, after suffering a stroke in 2006 and remaining in failing health.

Just ask Bobby Allison, David Pearson, Darrell Waltrip, Fred Lorenzen, Mario Andretti, or A.J. Foyt (USAC stock cars) who put them on track. It was Elder, who also worked his magic for the late Benny Parsons and rookie Dale Earnhardt Sr. He worked for Petty Enterprises 1963-64 before the Chrysler boycott. While with Petty, Richard won 23 races and his first Cup Series championship.

His 1960s Ford involvement came through Holman-Moody. In 1972, Elder spent time with Roger Penske and driver Mark Donohue.

“Suitcase” wasn’t one to seek out media exposure. Instead of going to the press box with his winning driver and car owner,

he would be in the garage thinking about the next race on the calendar. Jake was king of chassis set-up, not prince of publicity. He built top- flight race cars, and tutored his young drivers. His dynamics surfaced on the race track.

At the beginning of the 1979 season, Jake was on with Buddy Baker, who already had the dynamic but aging Herb Nab on board. The two literal geniuses were friends, but clashed, so Suitcase packed up.

Elder, who was given his nickname by Waltrip, did not have a formal education, and never intended to make racing his career. By chance, he was a good welder who was sought-out in the mid-1950s by a local racer at Hickory, NC, and his future path became defined.

Jake “Suitcase” Elder was all business about the business of winning race cars. He didn’t allow time for BS, and those who did would quickly find themselves clashing with him. Jake was all about old school. He was as much a winner as his cars, and will be sorely missed.

All aboard, Suitcase Jake has respectfully moved on.

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With the Sprint Cup Series being so competitive it will humble even the best divers out there.

With a commanding victory at Homestead-Miami Speedway to end the 2009 season, Denny Hamlin is at the top of the list as the man most likely to compete with Jimmie Johnson for the top position of the Sprint Cup world.

So far, though, 2010 hasn’t exactly worked out the way Hamlin and crew chief Mike Ford had it planned. Through the first two races of the year, Hamlin has led just seven laps, finishing 17th in the Daytona 500 and 29th in the Auto Club 500. That was most assuredly not what Hamlin and Ford had in mind to start the year off for the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry.

Hamlin and his team will have a chance to get back on track this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, site of Sunday’s third Cup race of the season, the Shelby American.

It could be a challenge, in four previous Cup starts at the 1.5-mile LVMS oval, Hamlin has yet to lead a single lap. His best finish came in 2007, with a third-place run. Last year, he finished 22nd after being involved in two on-track incidents. Needless to say, he
will be looking for a strong run after starting this season behind where he envisioned being at the end of last year.

“Vegas is a place where we have actually run really well in the past and even though last season wasn’t as good, we still feel like we can go there and really challenge for a win,” said Hamlin. “That’s our mentality despite what happened in Daytona and California and it will be for the rest of the season. We know from past experience that it is a very long season and we have some time to work with.”

Hamlin said he’s not too worried about his early season struggles, as they’ve sort of become par for the course for the team. “I guess that’s the way it works for us — usually in a bit of a hole coming out of Daytona and then forced to chip away at the points,” said Hamlin. “The result at California didn’t help but we are focused on getting our performance right and we feel like things will fall into place. Hopefully we are getting some our bad luck out of the way early in the season when it can only hurt you so bad. We need that all out of the way by the end of the season.”

Crew chief Ford, who has been with Hamlin for his entire Sprint Cup career is optimistic based on the growth and maturity Hamlin showed in the second half of last season.

“When you first get together, everything seems to go really well,” said Ford. “Then you go through some though times and you’re tested a bit. And we feel like those tough times are behind us and we’re on the same page. Over the last few years, we’ve really grown closer together. I understand him more each year, he understands me. Through last year, it seemed like continuity really is what propelled our car.”

Team President J.D. Gibbs saw it, too.

“The future is exciting for us,” said Gibbs. “So I think really, both those guys work well together. They’re quiet, they’re not going to talk a lot about stuff, they just kind of get it done.”

They’ll definitely try to get it done this week in Las Vegas.

“Vegas is a great location for a race — there is always something to do,” said Hamlin. “The city is welcoming of the sport, we saw that when the banquet moved there last year, and the track is always working hard to bring in fans and improve the racing. They have done a great job with the garage and the infield in making it accessible to the fans. From a racing standpoint, the softer tire has made a big difference. We have more grip and the speeds are up but the racing was as good as it has ever been there. I am excited to get back there and see what they have in store for us this year.”

Speed Tv Contributed to this article.