Checkered Past

I like sports trivia as much as the next guy, but ...

By Bob Henry

ThatsRacin.com editor 

The better team: Richard Childress Racing's No. 3 Goodwrench outfit with Dale Earnhardt behind the wheel or Darrell Waltrip doing the honors in one of Junior Johnson's cars?

Fred Lorenzen or Curtis Turner? Red Byron or Fireball Roberts?

It's the stuff sports trivia buffs thrive on and it's a lot of fun.

Old vs. new Yankees? Bart Starr's Packers or Brett Favre's five years ago?

Another good one: Who's better, today's NASCAR Nextel Cup drivers or the old Winston Cup and earlier guys? You know, guys who ran a lot more races for a lot less money and banged up just as many fenders, whether they were on race cars or their rental cars?

So, why must Waltrip work so hard to single-handedly let all the air out of such colorful debate by showing up and strapping into today's race cars and trucks?

The short answer is, of course, there's a lot of money being spent.

Waltrip, at least since wrapping up his fare-thee-well tour with Travis Carter's team nearly a decade ago, has had some pretty good equipment under him. In the oft-repeated "one-and-done" deals, the popular racer-turned-TV commentator has had the names and slogans of many a well-heeled sponsor all over the rides he's had.

So it will be this weekend at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway, site of another catch-phrase-heavy race weekend that's considerably weightier on the sponsor side than anything else.

I guess letting go is difficult, which is one point in sports trivia-dom that is undisputed.

And why shouldn't a wealthy and well-connected former champion do whatever the hell he pleases, regardless of his age? Which is 59 at last count.

Aside from how it looks in terms of racing vs. show biz, I mean.

Well, for another thing, the NASCAR Busch Series has already been "whacked" pretty soundly. We routinely hear Waltrip, his colleagues and counterparts comment on how well - or poorly - the "top Busch Series regular" has done in a given day's event.

Not that I blame race promoters for such whackiness. It's got to be a lot eaasier selling tickets to a Busch race laden with Nextel Cup stars than without them. But there are only so many spots in a field, some earned, some not.

Waltrip, of course, won't have to concern himself with qualifying. Points previously earned will put the car in the field. Still, is it really the answer to a race promoter's fondest dreams to find Waltrip's entry form in the morning's mail, whether it's at Martinsville or anywhere else?

Unless some of that ol' DW magic gets rekindled pretty quickly here (and please tell me the required incantation isn't the same one we hear from Waltrip at the beginning of every race he calls), his chances simply aren't that good.

In other words, even the "top Busch Series regular" won't have too much to worry about.

It would be a great story to see Waltrip run well, to contend, even if it's only for a short time on Saturday.

It would certainly and quickly find its way into sports trivia arguments.

I just think it's a shame to trivialize racing the way such stunts do. Not that anyone honestly expects Waltrip, NASCAR or anyone to put the brakes on that sad trend anytime soon.

How deep - or wide - is that talent pool?

Juan Pablo is, Danica might and Schuey ain't.

The story about Juan Pablo Montoya moving to the DaimlerChrysler NASCAR subsidiary headed by Chip Ganassi has some good legs. I was just sorry to see it get all tangled up coming out of the gate with the What's Danica Going To Do?! frenzy.

Patrick has a lot of fans and she's attracting new ones to auto racing every day. So I have no real problem believing that a rising tide is good for all of us with boats and without big stakes in oceanfront property.

Still, who didn't know that by the time Patrick was even asked the Big NASCAR Question, and well before she could start answers No. 1, 2 or 3, it would already be open season?

And the hunt was on wordlwide for comment and signs of commitment.

Formula One veteran Jacques Villeneuve, a Canadian with Indianapolis 500 and CART sucess featured prominently on his resume, acknowledged a little interest in stock car racing.

"NASCAR has always looked very exciting, racing wise," the son of the late Gilles Villeneuve told reporters.

What seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher told the pack doesn't fall quite as easily on a NASCAR fan's ears.

"Personally I wouldn't do it because I think, what do you do in NASCAR? What is exciting there? I can't see that, running around in ovals.

"I don't know how heavy these cars are," the Ferrari driver said, "but (it's) a heavy and very low-developed car to drive compared to a Formula One car. I don't see the challenge, for me."

Ferrari sells a lot of cars in the United States, but nowhere nearly as many as DaimlerChrysler. And, so far at least, there's no sign of a Ferrari-NASCAR connection, even if officials are eager to add new makes to the roster.

So the wildly successful and wealthy Schumacher obviously enjoys some freedom of choice in assignments that Montoya might not.

But what do you suppose all of the interest in driver recruitment - whether it's our own or on the part of NASCAR teams - means? I think it is a hard-to-ignore symptom of a very real issue at stock car racing's pinnacle:

A good driver isn't necessarily hard to find, but a special one apparently is.

"Looking back on what Chip (Ganassi) did and what drivers there are," Montoya's teammate-to-be Reed Sorenson said on Friday, "there are no drivers out there."

Which would explain a little of why we see some team owners and sponsors salivating all over drivers who haven't shown us much yet, but might.

So the beat and search go on. And none of us need act surprised when we eventually read something like this on the Internet:

"I'm hearing that Montgomery McKinley Rothschild III, the one-time Briarcliff Mall BMX bicycle season runner-up from Providence, R.I., has been offered a long-term contract to drive for the new Hundai team entering NASCAR competition in 2011."

"Update: Montgomery - known as "Montgomery" to his close friends - is expected to have finished prep school by then and to have had his 18th birthday."