I heard Buck and Bass from over at rowdy.com call what happened Sunday as the “Debacle 400″ and, they were right.  Well, It must be my getting old but I held back on commenting on the tire situation at the Brickyard 400 just to get all the information possible.  We all know that in the early hours of a story, info is sketchy at best and that often results in inaccurate stories.  Given what transpired last Sunday, I wanted to be as accurate as possible.

First of all, we should probably take a look at what Goodyear has to say.  Here’s their follow up to the Sunday test.  And I do say test because that’s all it could be called, because it damn sure wasn’t a race.

Follow-Up To Tire Performance At IMS

Heading into the race, it was clear to everyone – Goodyear, NASCAR officials, race teams and the media – that the highly abrasive track surface would lead to rapid tire wear, as it always has. Typically, that issue resolves itself as the race progresses. However, this year’s race had one significant change.

This was the first race at this track with the “new” Sprint Cup car (the Car of Tomorrow). The car is heavier and has a higher center of gravity than the previous car, leading to more stress on the tires, particularly those on the right side. The car also possesses a significant reduction in downforce from the previous car.

In April, Goodyear staged a tire test at the track with three drivers (Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Brian Vickers and Kurt Busch) that resulted in the tire brought to Sunday’s race. The focus of the tire test was to improve treadwear. A number of right-side compounds were evaluated to address the treadwear, but none of the drivers were comfortable with the reduced level of grip of those compounds. The decision was made to use the same right-side compound as was used in 2007 because its performance under race conditions was a known quantity. The compound was paired with a revised construction and a softer left-side compound.

The exact tire combination that Goodyear brought to Indianapolis this year was tested with those drivers on the track in April.

However, actual tire performance in a 43-driver field in real-world race conditions on a new car is always going to be different than in a test. Sunday’s race was held in essentially new conditions. Although this surface has always been very abrasive, it has always “rubbered in” on race day. In other words, as the race progresses, rubber from natural tire wear effectively sticks to the track, making the surface less abrasive and improving tire wear. That didn’t happen on Sunday.

Certainly, Sunday’s race results are not what Goodyear wanted nor what it expected and we are committed to working with NASCAR and Indianapolis Motor Speedway to correct it. As an industry, we will solve this problem and we’ve already started that process.

Well, after reading the follow-up, it certainly is different from a  lot of what I had heard and read over the past week.  I heard everything from “Goodyear didn’t bring the tire they tested with” to “It was a new surface”.  It looks like it was the tire tested and that Goodyear was attempting to address a problem they had already noticed with wear.  Where NASCAR and Goodyear “screwed the pooch” was when they didn’t do more aggressive testing leading up to the race.

Not to fault Dale Jr., Brian or Kurt, but three cars basically doing hot laps do not constitute a proper test.  Indy is the second most important venue in the series so calling that a proper test is ridiculous.  Given that this was the very first appearance of the CoT at Indy and, that Indy is such an important race, NASCAR should have provided for an open, full test in full race trim for any interested team.

I know NASCAR and Goodyear are both in the business of making money but, some type of compensation should be given to the fans who paid good money, saved up vacation days from work all year and paid upwards of four bucks a gallon for the gasoline to attend the glorified test session.  If nothing else, maybe a discount on next years event.  NASCAR ie. the Brian France has forgotten what it’s like for Joe Sixpack to make an annual pilgrimage to one of these events.  Sure we see the rock stars all the time on the pre-race but for lots of people, going to one of these races is a huge part of their lives.  So, “We’ll do better next time” doesn’t cut a whole lot with me.

NASCAR has been having problems with event attendance and TV ratings over the past few years.  I myself sometimes get incredibly disgusted with the sport and things like this are the root of why.

NASCAR and Goodyear, be on alert, either get it together or, another sanctioning body will become king.  Personally, I like ARCA, USAR and even the ASA series.  All of these smaller series remind me of the NASCAR from the 70’s or 80’s back before the growth hit.  All these series need is the attention that is deserved.  If you want to see real racing with the “fire in the belly”, that’s where you find it.  Racing is like loving, it’s much better when the heart’s in it than when it’s the wallet alone.

Well, I haven’t decided if this one’s good or bad yet.  This is especially close to my heart as I live in Kentucky so, this is my home track in essence.  Man, oh man….  Humpy retired yesterday and this was announced today, coincidence?  I can’t help but to think of North Wilkesboro and Rockingham when SMI purchased both of them.  We all know how well that one worked out for the pair of NC tracks.  North Wilkesboro sits in ruin and Rockingham was saved only last year from the dozers.  In the interest of being fair, I’ll reserve judgement until more info is known.  I’ll post the full press release below for your review. 

jc

Courtesy: Kentucky Speedway Media

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (May 22, 2008) – Speedway Motorsports, Inc. (NYSE:TRK) has agreed to purchase Kentucky Speedway from Kentucky Speedway, LLC. The agreement was announced today by O. Bruton Smith, founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Speedway Motorsports, Inc.  The acquisition is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Kentucky Speedway, which opened in 2000, hosts one NASCAR Nationwide Series event, one NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event, one IndyCar Series event and other racing events each year.  The speedway is located in Sparta, Ky., approximately one-half hour south of Cincinnati, Ohio. The speedway is easily accessible via modern highways.

Located on approximately 820 acres, Kentucky Speedway features a 1.5-mile tri-oval speedway, with chair-back grandstand seating for 66,089 spectators, 50 luxury suites with seats for approximately 2,000, 100 private RV spaces, 200 reserved camping spaces and 1,000 unreserved camping spaces. Kentucky Speedway regularly hosts near capacity crowds for its Nationwide Series events.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for our company to grow into a new market in a modern speedway facility. We continue to be committed to investing in the motorsports industry,” said Smith.

Smith added that he has offered Jerry Carroll, who was instrumental in the development of Kentucky Speedway, the opportunity to remain involved in its future operations.

Kentucky Speedway will join an outstanding lineup of SMI facilities. The company also owns and operates Atlanta Motor Speedway; Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tenn.; Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif.; Las Vegas Motor Speedway; Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C.; New Hampshire Motor Speedway, in Loudon, N.H.; and Texas Motor Speedway in Ft. Worth, Texas.

With this acquisition, the company will own race tracks in the West, Northeast, Midwest, Southeast and Southwest, including four of the nation’s top-10 metropolitan markets.

The breakdown includes: the sixth-largest market (Infineon/San Francisco); the fifth-largest market (Texas/Dallas-Ft. Worth); the seventh-largest market (New Hampshire/Boston); the ninth-largest market (Atlanta); the 24^th-largest market (Cincinnati); the 25^th-largest market (Lowe’s/Charlotte); the 41^st-largest market (Las Vegas); and the 92^nd-largest market (Bristol/Tri-Cities).

Today’s ARCA Carolina 500 didn’t disappoint.  I almost felt goosebumps as I tuned into Speed to watch today.  Sadly, I have a big day at work tomorrow so I wasn’t able to head down to watch the race at the track but, I do plan on going to the Hooters Pro Cup race in late October.  The race was caution filled but still fun to watch.  No real surprise that Joey Logano took home the trophy.  One of my absolute favorites, Ken Schrader came in second.  Here’s the results from ARCARACING.com

Courtesy: Rockingham Raceway Park

ROCKINGHAM, N.C. (May 3. 2008) – Joey Logano, who paced Friday’s  ARCA RE/MAX Series practice at Rockingham Speedway, edged Ricky Stenhouse Jr. by a mere 0.080 second Saturday to earn the pole position for this weekend’s Carolina 500.
 
Logano, who will make his NASCAR Nationwide Series debut for Joe Gibbs Racing in June, posted a lap of 146.645 mph, 24.549 seconds, in a Chevrolet. Stenhouse, driving a Roush Fenway Racing Ford, turned a lap on the 1-mile track of 146.169 mph, 24.629 seconds.
 
“I feel pretty confident for tomorrow,” Logano said. “I think we got a really good car for the long run. We were able to move around a lot in practice yesterday and try different things. Traffic is gonna be a bear out there, so it’s gonna be staying out of trouble most of the night.”
 
Stenhouse said he didn’t expect for be second quickest.
 
“To come out here and pick up a second, I was pretty surprised,” Stenhouse admitted. “I figured we’d be top five or 10. I didn’t really know we’d be on the front row. The guys changed a little bit on the car from out last qualifying run yesterday [Saturday]. I just got into the gas and it stuck.”
 
Rounding out the top 10, respectively, were: Justin Lofton, Dodge; Michael Annett and Jack Bailey in Toyotas; Matt Carter, Ford; Justin Marks, Toyota; Justin Allgaier, Chevrolet; Ken Butler, Toyota; and Austin Dillon, Chevrolet.
Dillon, the grandson of NASCAR championship car owner Richard Childress, said the 312-lap event was “grassroots racing again.”
 
“I watched the last race here (in February 2004),” Dillon said. “This is really cool to go back I history and watch these guys, and now we get to come here and race 50 cars on the track. That’s just really cool.”

Courtesy: Rockingham Speedway

ROCKINGHAM, N.C. (May 2, 2008) – Joey Logano led ARCA RE/MAX Series practice Friday at Rockingham Speedway, but only in the final minutes of the three-hour session as festivities began for Sunday’s Carolina 500 – the reopening of “The Rock”.

Throughout Friday’s practice at the 1-mile track, Matt Carter, the series point leader and son of former NASCAR crew chief and team owner Travis Carter, sat atop the speed chart. But in the session’s final minutes, Logano’s team placed a new set of tires on his Joe Gibbs Racing Oil-Gresham & Associates Chevrolet, allowing him to leap over Carter and into the No. 1 position with a 25.111-second, 143.363-mph lap. Carter, in his Stine Seed-NuSouth Lemonade Ford, wasn’t far behind at 25.121 seconds, 143.306 mph.

“We came off the trailer nothing like the test,” said Logano, who will make his NASCAR Nationwide Series debut next month for Joe Gibbs Racing. “I wasn’t happy at all. We had to work at lot harder in practice and got it closer to where I wanted it. (We) made some mock runs, made it a little better with the mock run. But, I don’t know if that Happy Hour deal is gonna help us out a whole lot.”

Rounding out the top five, respectively, were Michael Annett and Justin Marks, both in Toyotas, and Dexter Bean in a Chevrolet.

Austin Dillon, grandson of NASCAR championship car owner Richard Childress, posted the 13th quickest lap. Driving his Garage Equipment Supply Chevrolet, Dillon recorded a lap of 25.852-second, 139.254-mph lap.

Defending series champion Frank Kimmel was 17th quickest, while Chad McCumbee was 18th fastest.

NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series regular Johnny Benson, a former Cup winner at Rockingham, practiced Ken Schrader’s Four Winds Motorhomes Dodge. Schrader was in Richmond for NASCAR Sprint Cup qualifying. He will be at Rockingham Saturday for qualifying.

Veteran James Hylton, who finished second to Richard Petty in the NASCAR Grand National [now Sprint Cup] standings in 1967, hit the wall during practice and had to settle for 48th quickest.
Qualifying for Sunday’s race begins at 10 a.m. Saturday, with the second round of time trials set for 2:30 p.m. NASCAR two-time Cup champion Tony Stewart is scheduled to wave the green flag on the Carolina 500, signaling the reopening of The Rock, at noon on Sunday.

For more information or to order tickets for the May 4 ARCA RE/MAX Series Carolina 500 and the Nov. 1 Hooters Pro Cup American 200, please contact the speedway at (910) 205-8800 or visit our Web site at www.rockinghamspeedway.com.

Scott Speed grabs his first ARCA RE/MAX victory at Kansas Speedway in the Kansas Lottery $150 Grand.  After a problem with his window net forced him into a green flag pit stop, he ended up a lap down.  He drove back from 40th place to claim the checkered.  On a restart with six laps to go, he was able to get by rookie Jason Smith and hold off a challenge by Ricky Stenhouse Jr.  This race marks only Speed’s fifth ARCA RE/MAX start.

“It’s certainly great to win a race — it’s been a while — but at the end of the day the most important thing is that we learned something because the goal is to be successful in (Sprint) Cup and this is a step toward that,” Scott said. “Every lap I make on the track right now is beneficial. That’s why we’re doing so many races, why we’re pushing so hard because this is where I’m learning the most.”

The ARCA race will be televised on SpeedTV Saturday, April 26 at 8:30PM ET right after Speed completes in the Craftsman Truck Series O’Reilly Auto Parts 250 also televised by SpeedTV.

Here’s the finishing order:

Photo Courtesy of Getty Images

ARCA RE/MAX Series drivers Justin Allagaier, Patrick Sheltra and Tom Hessert were at Kentucky Speedway yesterday to preview for the May 10th season-opening “Drive Smart! Buckle-Up Kentucky 150” that Erik Darnell won in 2007.

Allagaier who is in the series points lead has always performed well at Kentucky Speedway with two top fives and three top ten finishes out of five previous starts.

“You attack (this track) as you would anywhere. You come in here with your best equipment intent on being the best you can. I’ve always loved Kentucky from the first time we raced here. It’s been a great racetrack for us. We’ve had some really good runs and finished fourth a couple of years ago.

Kentucky Speedway is one of my favorites especially because I live in Kentucky but even if I didn’t, it’s just an incredible facility.  Tickets are still available for the season opener.  Check the website at http://www.kentuckyspeedway.com/.  Looks like a cool night of racing with Paul Hahn defending his 2007 win of the ARCA Lincoln Welders Truck Series "Kentucky 100" at 5:00PM and the ARCA RE/MAX event at 8:00PM.

Several ARCA drivers spent the day at the Rock testing in preparation for the May 4th ARCA RE/MAX Series Carolina 500.  Joe Gibbs Racing development driver Joey Logano was among the fastest during the comprehensive test session.

“I am looking forward to racing here,” said Logano. “It is going to be a sweet race. There is going to be so much stuff going on with this race and the strategies that it is going to be really cool to be racing in it. I feel like we definitely have a fast car that will be capable of winning this thing.”

Tony Stewart will be on hand to drop the green flag.  For an incredible value in racing entertainment, head over to the Rockingham website and pick up some tickets.  Rockingham used to be on the Sprint Cup schedule until 2004 when it’s last remaining Sprint Cup event was transferred to Texas Motor Speedway.  This year marks the tracks return to active competition.  It’s not often that we see one of these tracks saved from the bulldozers so we need to support them when they are.

I just finished reading an article that I really identified with.  The article described how NASCAR’s core fanbase was starting to erode somewhat.  Attendance was down at some of the tracks and ratings were down on flag to flag coverage.  NASCAR was concerned, as they should be.  I feel particularly qualified to comment on this one because, I’ve been a fan for about 30 years.  I’m 39 and can’t really remember a time when I wasn’t a fan.

For some time, I’ve felt abandoned by NASCAR.  When I started following the sport on TV, I had to hunt high and low to find out where the race was being televised if it even was.  Today, it’s covered heavily but it seems like the quality of the content has gone down dramatically.

For example, I remember Chris Economaki breaking the February chill covering the Daytona 500.  He had a passion for the sport that is often not seen today with a lot of the Hollywood types covering the races now like say, Chris Myers.  I found while researching this article that Chris Economaki still is an active editor at the National Speed Sport News.  I highly recommend checking him out.  He could teach the personalities of today a thing or two.  A perfect example is the way the Subway Fresh Fit 500 was covered last night.  The pre-race was preempted so that they could show part of a baseball game.  Fox actually missed the green flag dropping on a Sprint Cup Event.  Disappointing by even my standards.

We’ve lost a few tracks over the past few years.  Take, for example, the 1979 Winston Cup Series.  I selected the 1979 season because it was the beginning of the "Earnhardt Era".  It was the year that Dale won rookie of the year and went on in the 1980 season to grab his first championship.  Well, in 1979, there were 31 races at 17 different tracks.  They even managed to squeeze in a race in Ontario.  Putting that in perspective, the 2007 season saw 36 races held at only 22 tracks.  Now, I’m from Kentucky and we’re not usually too good with math but, even I can see that we’ve added 5 events at a total of 5 additional tracks. 

I can’t imagine how we can’t find room to run at some of these historic tracks that were abandoned by NASCAR like Rockingham.  Does it mean that California or Vegas go down to one race? 

Fortunately, Rockingham was purchased for a song by someone who wants to keep racing at the Rock.  In May of 2008, ARCA will be running at the Rock.  It looks like an incredible time so I recommend anyone who can attend do so.  If I can free the calendar a bit, I may try to attend as well.  Rockingham was one of my favorite tracks over the years.  It’s a beautiful facility and has quite a few amenities.  Ever wonder what it’s like in one of those VIP seats, shoot, for only a hundred bucks, you can know.  And that even includes the food.  Tickets for the ARCA RE/MAX Carolina 500 are on sale now.  I would challenge you to find a more fun time at a better price.

I work with a guy who doesn’t follow racing but has been hearing a lot  of the buzz around the recent Michael McDowell crash.  Well, yesterday, he asked me "What exactly is this Car of Tomorrow that they keep talking about?"  I took a few minutes and attempted to explain to him what it was and realized that he probably wasn’t alone.  I bet a lot of the non-NASCAR people are wondering that very same thing.

Simply put, the Car of Tomorrow, or CoT for short, is NASCAR’s latest generation of competition stock car for the Sprint Cup Series.  If you don’t follow NASCAR, you might not know that the Sprint Cup is the premiere NASCAR series.  It was formerly known as the Nextel Cup, the Winston Cup and the Grand National series.  The new car, announced in early 2006, first hit the track in competition on March 25th 2007 at the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.  Kyle Busch won the race, earning the him the distinction of getting first win in the new design.  Taking a phased approach, NASCAR only ran the car at sixteen of the thirty-six events in 2007 and had planned on running a limited schedule for the CoT in 2008 also but owner feedback and overall performance led NASCAR to adopt the car full-time for the 2008 season.

The CoT is touted as being less expensive overall but it’s main benefit are the safety improvements.  Gone are the days of manufacturer specific templates as the CoT has only one template since it is a universal body.  The car is a larger car than the previous model at six inches longer and wider and two inches taller.  In order to better protect the driver, the driver seat has been moved away from the door by four inches, changes were made to the roll cage and flame resistant, energy absorbing foam was added to the void in the drivers door area.  It boasts a smaller but stronger fuel cell.  A front splitter and rear detached spoiler have, according to NASCAR, made the car less aerodynamic dependent.  I have to admit, I have seen some saves this year that would probably not have been possible in the old car.

The introduction of the CoT has had an additional benefit to other series.  The Sprint Cup Series is the only one that has gone over to the new design.  This means that other series such as the NASCAR Nationwide Series and ARCA Re/Max Series have a sudden influx of high quality competitive equipment that, from what I am hearing, is being had at a nice price.  This ultimately benefits the Sprint Cup because, just maybe, someone will be able to get a ride that might not have been able to otherwise.  Shoot, we may just find our next Dale Earnhardt or Richard Petty as a result.

(Photo Credit: Jonathan Ferrey / Getty Images)