Subscribe to this blog's feed« David Green: Only 'chokes' in racing are within the carburetors | Main | Coo Coo Marlin's one-time escape attempt wasn't so great »
August 15, 2005
Contractual obligations and inner-loops
Our Consumer Watchdog bud Andy Shain makes a good point when he notes how interesting it is to see extremely well-heeled car owners squirming and crying foul when pretty darned well-heeled drivers say thanks, but no thanks and head for the door. Or announce their intentions to, anyway.
Because Andy knows what you and I know, that the foo is more often on the other shoet and it's the drivers who are being told to take a hike by their car owners.
NASCAR drivers are independent contractors, you know. That's NASCAR's definition, not mine.
I still think some of the principals in the current contract wrangling will work something out and that we won't see so many lame ducks driving at the start of the 2006 season, which is why you're now seeing all the posturing and hearing all the denials.
But, as Mrs. Past would certainly tell you, I'm not always right. Sometimes I'm just flat-out wrong.
Missed opportunity
I thought the NBC booth bunch missed a good opportunity to pay a little respect to one of NASCAR's late independent drivers and to do a little more reporting in Sunday's Sirius at The Glen.
In noting how long Watkins Glen International has had the "inner-loop," which slows the cars coming off that long straight before they reach the downhill right-hander, how much trouble would it have been to mention why the change was made?
The paving crews went to work adding that chicane soon after J.D. McDuffie tangled with Jimmy Means, ran off and slammed into the tire wall and died during the Winston Cup race at The Glen in 1991. But not before sports car ace Tommy Kendall ran off at the same place and broke his legs.
f
August 15, 2005 in Racing | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451bce769e200d83452a14b53ef
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Contractual obligations and inner-loops:
Comments
I am SO glad to see you mention the death of J.D.McDuffie. I commented to my daughter who was watching the race with me about that very thing. They never mentioned that the inner loop was a direct result of McDuffie's death. I thought that was terrible. Can you imagine mentioning the kill swithc, the HANS device or the SAFER barriers without bringing up Kenny Irwin, Adam Petty, or Dale Earnhardt??
NASCAR and the broadcasters are too quick to keep the dirt on drivers who have gone, and their coverage of the inner loop is a prime example.
At least they mentioned Tim Richmond once during the broadcast, since he DID win the first NASCAR race at the Glen.
Posted by: BARman | Aug 15, 2005 3:46:18 PM
I have also tired of those that are quick to whine and cry about the current "lame duck" status of some.
As you correctly point out they are "independent contractors" free to do as they please. Much of the debate has centered on loyalty and that drivers "owe" the team owners not to sign before a current contract is complete. Which is nonsense of course and presupposes they aren't allowed or capable of planning for their career or their families future.
As I quoted at my place Ed Hinton of the Orlando Sentinel puts it in perspective:
"Drivers usually got the short end of everything. They worked for percentages of purses. If they were badly injured, tough. They were out of a job, without pay, if they couldn’t drive."
"Driver Jody Ridley once was seriously injured at Dover. He would recall that his team didn’t visit him in the hospital, and that the transporter rolled out of town carrying Ridley’s street clothes and his wallet. He found himself alone, with nothing but the hospital gown he was wearing, until Bobby Allison brought him some clothes, signed him out and flew him home."
"Allison drove for 16 teams and won 85 races. He is unable to retire at age 67 because he has nothing to show for all those gentlemen’s agreements. Where did all that money go? Much went to paying his own hospital bills for career-ending injuries in 1988, but a lot of it went into his secretive one-man charitable effort toward ill-treated and/or disabled drivers and their families."
Posted by: Marc | Aug 15, 2005 6:16:04 PM
The inner loop should not have been added to begin with - they want to blame that for McDuffie's death when the real problem was his brakes exploded; the inner loop wasn't going to save him.
Posted by: Mike Daly | Aug 15, 2005 6:17:47 PM
I remember McDuffies death, I think it was around the time I really started getting into watching Nascar. I vacationed down in the Finger Lakes area of NY a few weeks after that crash and met a volunteer fire figther who was on the scene of that crash. What struck me was the fact that the papers reported McDuffie "being in good shape (physically after the crash) with (I believe) just a broken wrist." Of course he died from head trauma according to the report when in fact he was impaled on the steering column. After reading the newspaper article and seeing how Means (I thought it was Schrader) reacted at the drivers window of McDuffies car it finally made sense. I couldn't understand if there was not visible trauma why Means or Schrader would be so visibly upset. A steering column through the chest would do that I guess. Nascar implemented the collapsible steering column shortly after that crash and took the chicane out. I thought it was a sad oversight that they didn't mention JD's death when they talked about the chicane addition.
Posted by: Tony | Aug 15, 2005 7:59:53 PM
Leaving aside the inner loop adds to the challenge of driving the Glen (which it does) and the circumstances of J.D.'s death (most accounts blame brake failure) adding the loop has slowed down the speeds going into turn 5.
From a saftey standpoint that's always a good thing.
Posted by: Marc | Aug 16, 2005 6:05:19 AM
J.D McDuffie was one of my favorites...even though he was never a flashy guy or a major threat to win. But in the 80's when I started liking Nascar there he was. Usually the field would go by and then here he'd come. There's no chance we'll see another like him in this new Nascar with cute drivers and mega teams. But somewhere up there there's a Rumple Furniture car going strong.
Posted by: Keith | Aug 16, 2005 3:23:00 PM
I will never forget a photo of J. D. Mcduffie from the right side window at speed. Open face helmet and a big cigar visible. What a man! Try that in todays NA$CAR.
Posted by: Grumpy | Aug 16, 2005 10:11:03 PM
I liked J.D.'s stogies, too, and would like to think I'm a little like him, at least in that department: I enjoy a good cigar, but I'm just as likely to fire up a cheap one.
Posted by: Bob Henry | Aug 17, 2005 7:59:44 AM
Grumpy, I'm sure rule 12-4-zzzz covers lit stogies these days.
Posted by: Keith | Aug 17, 2005 12:59:12 PM
I was at Watkins Glen the day J.D. died, and I have to take issue with Mike Daly's comment on this one.
The inner loop shortens the backstretch, putting a limit on the top speeds cars might be capable of attaining. More importantly, it causes drivers to have to begin slowing down about 250 yards sooner than they did on the day J.D. was killed. When his brakes failed, J.D. would have had that much more room to go straight through instead of trying to take the chicane, and he very likely would have rolled off into the runoff area without serious harm.
Another casualty of the old Turn 5 was Geoff Bodine, who had a hard head-on crash into the tire barrier one year after he failed to make the sweeper.
Just about every road course in existence has done something along the lines of Watkins Glen's inner loop to make drivers slow down before they get to what used to be extremely high-entry-speed corners. It has taken a lot of the thrill out of road racing for drivers and spectators alike, but I applaud the trend anyway.
Posted by: David Green | Aug 18, 2005 2:15:01 AM
Driver Loyalty:I don't blame drivers for getting everything that they can while they are healthy, but who should they get it from when they are injured?
I'm old enough to remember Bill Sr. running around the pits in jeans and a T-shirt to get this sport that we love started.
If you are reading this, you should be old enough to remember how you seen Bill Jr. and at least I never even seen him walk at a fast pace, but the whole family has now become Billionairs, not Millionairs, but Billionairs.
And if you want to talk about "Loyalty", lets look at how loyal the France family has been to those who made the sport. CBS, ESPN, Darlington, Rockingham, you and me.
NASCAR only does things that have big $'s attached to it. They have gouged everything and everybody that they can.
So drivers get everything you can get but in my humble opinion you are trying to get it off of the wrong people,(owners and sponsers). It is NASCAR that should be paying hospital costs and compensation in the event you get injured, after all, who made them "Billionaires".
Posted by: Ronald Squibb | Aug 22, 2005 10:32:41 PM
"Chicanes" in general.
Spa's Eau Rouge is one of the last, fast. "interesting" bits in F-1.
Chicanes have emasculated fast tricky bits to please those who by faster rides than their skill levels can handle.
The GP drivers of the 1960's did not cry about these fast tricky bits, but they kept out the day tripper bizness people.
There WERE drivers who opposed Lauda on losing the 'Ring and THEY were ones who witnessed Piers Courages horrible death, Bandini's fire etc.....
Bikes still race the TT at I.O.M. no chicanes......MotoGP types can't hack it, but it seperates the men from the boys...
Hey, I LIKE large runoff areas ( a Glen problem, with all that expensive Armoco!). Elkhart, Mid-Ohio, VIR, Limerock, Laguna Seca and many other good tracks don't seem to need a lot of walls on the edge of the pavement....city circuits are the pits.....
J.C.
Posted by: J.C. | Sep 30, 2005 7:54:12 AM
I don't see that anyone here has J.D.'s death exactly right. The truth of it is and you can see it if you watch the tape(which I have) and read the interview from Jimmy Means, is that J.D's car slamed into the tire barrier breaking the fencing and one of the fencing poles came through the right side of the car and decapitated him. For some reason neither family or nascar wants you to know this. Some offical accounts suggest that J.D's car fliped over onto mean's car. Somebody wasn't watching.
Posted by: ART | Oct 1, 2005 11:55:13 AM
I know i was one of 900,000 people there the day J.D McDuffie died but I was. In turn 5 where we camped every year since 1986. I hate to say it but we camped there because thats where all the "action" was. Everyone says he had brake failure and hit the wall, fliped and landed on Jimmy Means car. I say that we saw the tire from the car go by before the car did, not just the tire but the whole wheel. Then he hit the tires at pretty much full speed and the car went high enough for jimmy to hit the wall under him,and bounce out of the way before J.Ds car hit the ground. Jimmy got out of his car and ran over to J.D.s car which was on its roof, looked inside and looked away with his hands grabbing the top of his head and then waiving the rescue workers over to the car as if he could'nt look at what he saw. The trucks pulled up and not one minute after they got there they took out a tarp and held it up to block the view of the infeild spectators. There was no big rush to get J.D out of the car as you might expect. alot of us speculated that they may not of even gotten him out before the put the car on the flatbed, they took the car away with the tarp over the roof (which they didnt cut away )and I know thats the only time Ive seen that since Ive been going. I can't say for sure what happened to J.D Mcduffie that day but I know that the rescue workers knew from the first minute they got on scene that there was nothing that they could do to help him. I know im rambling now but I remember that thursday when we got to the the track seeing the Maroon and gold # 70 on the back of an old flatbed hauler waiting to enter the track. In the day of huge 18 wheeler rigs and major sponsors it looked out of place like somthing you may see at the local track on friday night. I like to think that J.D. died doing what he loved and hopefully he wont be forgotten.
Posted by: dave | Aug 30, 2006 7:56:20 PM
Post a comment
Advertisements
