Turn 3

Charlotte the only place for NASCAR hall

By DAVID GREEN

It appears that the new NASCAR Hall of Fame is headed for Charlotte, according to a story in the Observer. That's where it belongs.

The notion that the shrine is nothing more than a potential cash cow for an already excessively wealthy sanctioning body is an argument I won't get into. Given the number of museums and halls of fame dedicated to auto racing, there may be some question about the validity of another one, but I won't debate that here.

I'll limit my comments to the real estate maxim of "location, location, location." If we're going to have this, it should be in Charlotte.

Charlotte, after all, is the center of the stock car racing universe. If that's not a lead-pipe cinch, it's a hard argument to refute. It has the strongest combination of heritage and present-day clout of all the potential sites that were bidding for the shrine.

With its speed trials dating from the early 1900s, Daytona has one of the oldest ties to motorsports of any location. It has NASCAR's flagship speedway, and it's the site of NASCAR headquarters.

But Charlotte has some long-in-the-tooth racing heritage, as well. It was the site of the first race in Bill France's Strictly Stock series, which has grown into Nextel Cup.

Not only that, but in the 1920s, Charlotte was the site of one of the high-banked tracks with wooden surfaces, overgrown versions of bicycle racing velodromes, that sprang up in the first two decades of the 20th century. The board tracks were a harbinger of the high-banked speedways that now are best known for their NASCAR races.

It's true that there were board tracks in places such as Miami, Los Angeles and other cities -- including Kansas City, which was also a bidder for the NASCAR museum. But it was northeast of Charlotte where, in 1960, Bruton Smith and Curtis Turner carved out a 1.5-mile, asphalt-paved, modern version of one of the old board tracks.

That track helped launched the modern superspeedway era, and until the NBA and NFL made their way to the region, stock car racing was the only big-time sport in town. It was Charlotte, not Daytona Beach, not Atlanta, and not Kansas City or Richmond, that gave stock car racing intense media coverage -- not just when the show was in town, but year-round.

I've always been quick to argue the notion that stock car racing was exclusively a southeastern sport. There's interest in big-time NASCAR racing and grassroots short-track competition in every region of the country, if not every state, and standout drivers have been produced by every region. That's true not only of today, but throughout the sport's history.

But the sport did rise toward the major league level in the southeast; the Carolinas were smack in the middle of the geographic region and the heated interest in the sport; and Charlotte is smack in the middle of the Carolinas.

That's where the soul of the sport is best exemplified. And that's where this hall belongs.

The Hate-tona 500

By DAVID GREEN

Today's Daytona 500 was many things, none of them "kinder" or "gentler." "Contentious" was more like it.

There was something for everybody who hates anything or anybody in NASCAR racing. Kyle Busch, before and after he became the subject of much debate during Speedweeks, didn't mince words. He hates Daytona, maybe more than Kyle Petty hates Darlington.

Winner Jimmie Johnson put the crowning touch on things when he sarcastically "dedicated" his Daytona 500 victory "to all the haters of the 48 team."

Wow. What a gracious comment, especially from somebody whose outfit had its leader sent home from this event because of a rules infraction.

Hearing that remark, one would think there's more enmity between the Lowe's team and its detractors than there is between -- oh, Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth, or Ryan Newman and Casey Mears (or, perhaps, Dodge and Casey Mears).

Maybe it's just me and my weird way of looking at things, but somehow I don't think sticking out your tongue and chanting "na-na-na-naaaa-na!" from victory lane is going to make those "haters of the 48 team" rush out and buy your souvenirs or pass Home Depot stores on their way to Lowe's.

So, how might Jimmie alter things and become a beloved Daytona 500 winner instead of a reviled one?

1. Stop cheating, or get better at doing it and not getting caught.

2. Stop being disingenuous about infractions when you do get busted. Just 'fess up that you tried to get away with something and didn't get away with it. (After this many times with your hand in the cookie jar, I mean, come on.)

3. Bad-mouth Jeff Gordon once in awhile. Lots of NASCAR fans who boo you boo Gordon, too.

Just kidding. It's like Abraham Lincoln said about fooling people -- you're not going to get all of them to like you all of the time.

It's just not going to happen. Relax and forget about it. Some people are going to like you, and some are not. Enjoy the fans you have and tolerate the ones who don't like you -- or cultivate a perverse enjoyment of tormenting them.

No one did that better than the late Dale Earnhardt.

If you're going to make snide remarks like you did tonight in victory lane, learn to do it with a grin and a twinkle in your eye, the way Earnhardt did that night at Bristol when he said, after spinning out Terry Labonte, "I didn't mean to wreck him. I only meant to rattle his cage a little."

I guess the only things Earnhardt hated were restrictor plates and those poachers he caught deer hunting on his property that time in 1993 or '94, just days before the Winston Cup awards banquet.

He never sarcastically dedicated anything to them.

Santino -- what about 'Red Line 7000'?

By DAVID GREEN

It was one thing when the news reports that I read neglected to mention that Daytona 500 grand marshal James Caan once starred in a movie about stock car racing. It was understandable when the Speed TV crew that interviewed Caan this morning all seemed oblivious to this footnote in Caan's acting resume.

But I thought for sure Caan himself would mention his role as fictional driver Mike Marsh in the 1965 movie Red Line 7000, directed by Howard Hawkes.

Some critics thought Caan was particularly good in a mediocre movie. He was a star in the making, and Red Line was another in a long line of forgettable films about auto racing. As a teenager infatuated with the sport, I was ready to ignore the technical glitches and the curious soap-opera plot. I just enjoyed getting to see racing action on a big screen.

The footage was fabulous -- better, I think, than the staged "racing" or the computer-generated stuff from some more recent movies.

It included some great stuff of the spectacular tumble driver Rod Eulenfeld took during one of the 100-mile qualifying races at Daytona that year. (This footage also appears in the 1971 movie Vanishing Point.) Eulenfeld was not seriously hurt in the actual wreck, but the footage provided the basis for an important plot element in which one of the drivers is fatally injured.

I was learning fast how Hollywood takes great liberties with the facts, and so I took that in stride and just enjoyed the racing scenes. And I thought Caan looked a whole lot like Fred Lorenzen -- who, not so coincidentally, was the real driver of the No. 28 Ford driven by Caan's character.

Caan is quite an accomplished actor, best known for his present-day role in the television series Las Vegas and for his work as Santino (Sonny) Corleone in 1972's The Godfather. He's done a good bit of other work that I enjoyed, including the role of Chicago Bears running back and cancer victim Brian Piccolo in the made-for-TV Brian's Song in 1971.

But I saw him first in Red Line 7000. Later, when I saw him onscreen in other roles, I always remembered him as Mike Marsh, driver of the No. 28 Ford.

So, when Caan was asked if he'd ever been to Daytona before, I figured surely he had been -- and I figured he would mention his role in a movie about racing. I was wrong, on both counts.

Of course, all his scenes in Red Line 7000 were probably filmed on sound stages, or at the old Ascot Park dirt track in Los Angeles. Sure enough, today's trip to Daytona as grand marshal is Caan's first visit to a NASCAR event.

Welcome to NASCAR 2006, Santino. If you're not mentioning that racing movie because you're embarrassed for some reason, lighten up. It wasn't all that bad -- especially your part in it.

Penalizing excellence, rewarding stupidity

By DAVID GREEN

Can you really blame Carl Edwards for being angry? After all, what he had done was a good thing, if not a brilliant thing: He made an evasive move, a move in which he had microseconds to react, and avoided a catastrophe.

In doing so, except in the sense that he kept from tearing up his own car and several others, he gained nothing. He passed two cars that were slowing to report to pit road. He got passed by two or three others who, like him, had not intended to pit.

And for this, he earned a penalty from NASCAR.

Meanwhile, during Sunday's Budweiser Shootout, another driver hits one competitor from behind, nearly causing a crash, and cuts off another competitor, nearly causing another crash. For the first misbehavior, NASCAR sends out instructions for the driver to "settle down." The response to the second incident? Deafening silence.

Edwards' maneuver came as competitors raced off Turn 4. Some of them intended to go to pit road for their mandatory green-flag pit stops during the second segment of the race. Things got bottled up, and Edwards was about to plow into Jimmie Johnson's car when he made a quick left turn onto the wide, paved apron along the short chute.

In doing so, of course, he crossed The Yellow Line.

Ooooooh. He crossed The Yellow Line.

Never mind that he prevented what could have been a major accident; he crossed The Yellow Line.

The problem, NASCAR, is not that drivers cross The Yellow Line. The problem is that their out-of-control blocking tactics encourage each other to drive so far off line. Enforce a prohibition on blocking, and see how many drivers purposely get so close to the grass -- except in emergency situations, such as the one Carl Edwards faced Sunday.

Edwards did exactly what he should have done. To do anything else would have been to call into question his judgment, his concentration, his good sense, his vision, his competence as a driver.

But in doing the right thing, he crossed The Yellow Line.

So, he was ordered to pit road for a drive-through penalty. At first, he refused to comply. When Edwards finally reported to pit road, surprise! -- he was busted for going too fast during his drive-through. The consequence? Another drive-through penalty.

Perhaps it would have been better for everybody, in the long run, if he'd called NASCAR's bluff and just stayed on the track. He would have finished in the same spot -- last among the cars still running at the finish -- to which he was relegated by the penalty.

Certainly, it would not have been better for Edwards with regard to Sunday's Bud Shootout, possibly for an even longer period of time. NASCAR would have lowered the boom on him for such disrespect. His scorecard would have been pulled long before the checkered flag waved and he would have been fined. His Roush Racing team would have had lots of interesting times in the inspection process for weeks, months, maybe years to come. NASCAR has an even longer memory than Jimmy Spencer.

But somebody needs to emphatically point out the lack of common sense demonstrated by NASCAR officials Sunday.

One of the most blustering and arrogant drivers on the track gets a milquetoast admonition; one of the most brilliant gets sent to detention.

Am I taking notes from this, to put to use in disciplinary matters in my English classroom? Yes. I'm filing the notes under "What Not To Do."

Racing shines on Winter Olympics stage

By DAVID GREEN

There it was, the eve of the official kickoff of stock car Speedweeks in Daytona, one night before the Budweiser Shootout, and I was watching -- the opening ceremonies for the Winter Olympics, brought to me from Torino, Italy, by NBC.

It was a pretty entertaining evening in general, but as a race fan, I was especially rewarded by the appearance of a Formula One racing car which had a role in the event. The car was a Ferrari, sans corporate sponsors' logos and bedecked instead with the five-ring symbol of the Olympic Games on the engine shround and rear wing and a representation of the Italian flag on the nose cone.

It wasn't seven-time champion Michael Schumacher at the wheel; one report named Ferrari test driver Luca Badoer, while Dutch television speculated that it was motorcycle racing ace Valentino Rossi (Italians, both). The driver, whoever he was, wowed the crowd with some doughnuts, filling Stadio Olympico with the shriek of the V-10 engine and Bridgestone tire smoke. What a great thing for auto racing fans, I thought, for our sport to be a part of this.

And then, I thought: Why couldn't we (Americans, that is, whose favorite form of motorsport is NASCAR stock car racing) have done something like this in Atlanta in 1996?

Last night's Ferrari moment was apropos. For one thing, there is F1's Olympics-style podium recognition and the playing of the (gold medal) winner's national anthem. There's also the global nature and competitive nationalism of grand prix racing. But mainly, there was the significance of racing and of the Ferrari marque in the host country.

Surely a similar argument could have been made on behalf of NASCAR -- if not in Salt Lake City in 2002, surely in Atlanta in 1996.

Not that the orchestrators of the events in Torino did everything right. I couldn't help thinking, what in the world were the former Italian Olympians doing in those silver jumpsuits? Silver is the color of Germany in international racing, dating from the pre-World War II Auto Union (now Audi) machines and present-day Mercedes-Benz, a partner with the British McLaren team.

I guess it's true that the silver outfits worked much better for the light show, and better reflected the green-white-red colors of the Italian flag that Ferrari red would have done. But silver? SILVER? How about white, instead?

Also, there was a significant omission from the list of participants. The honor of carrying the torch into the stadium during opening ceremonies is reserved for those with an Olympic pedigree, but it's too bad Alessandro Zanardi couldn't have taken part in some way in this marvelous event. Zanardi is a remarkable and inspirational representative not only of his home country, but of Earth's human population at large.

If he couldn't carry the torch, he could have driven the Ferrari in its exhibition. Heck, Zanardi does better doughnuts than Badoer -- or Rossi, or Schumacher, or anybody else, for that matter. It was Alex who made that particular form of victory celebration popular during his tremendous run in CART.

If Zanardi couldn't be a part of the event, at least his sport was. If the Olympics should ever come back to America, here's hoping that American auto racing might have some representation in the events.

How 'bout them NASCARs?

By DAVID GREEN

Anybody remember Mason Williams, the musician-songwriter-artist-poet-screenwriter who rose to prominence in the 1960s with the old Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour? Among other things, Williams gave us the great acoustical guitar instrumental Classical Gas.

He also gave us an off-the-beaten-path collection of writings titled Them Poems, with such memorable subjects as "Them Dog Kickers," "Them Moose Goosers" and "Them Yodelers."

You're surely wondering by now, what does all this have to do with racing? Well, in honor of the new season about to begin, I have attempted a Them Poems-style piece on stock car racing, following the classical Williams formula and the irreverent disregard for conventional rules of grammar and usage.

I picked out some of the archtypical notions about our favorite sport at which I might poke fun, including the relatively new idea of "NASCAR" as a noun that refers to a car that races in NASCAR events and the lightning-rod Tom Cruise movie all of us either love or hate, or love to hate, or hate to love.

Without further ado:

Them NASCARs

How 'bout them NASCARs?
Ain't they a sight?
Usually turnin' left,
Seldom to the right.

Revvin' they engines,
Burnin' they rubber,
Beatin' and a-bangin'
Upon one-anudder.

Racin' Daytona,
Other tracks, too
Racin' on old tracks,
Racin' on new.

Days of Thunder NASCARs,
Rubbin' and racin'
Some of them's a-leadin',
Others are a-chasin'.

Them rippin', snortin' NASCARs,
Roarin' and a-goin',
Keepin' up the pace
Til their engines are a-blowin'.

How to be a NASCAR?
Easy to describe it;
Git ch'self a NASCAR,
Climb in and drive it.

(Just in case this may have jogged somebody's memory or, even better, aroused somebody's curiosity, said somebodys are urged to check out The Official Mason Williams website.)

The Daytona 500 of pro football

By DAVID GREEN

Isn't there some big-deal ball game on TV tonight? Oh, yeah -- it's the one that everybody refers to as "the Daytona 500 of pro football."

OK, OK. So nobody really refers to the Super Bowl that way, except maybe a few overly optimistic NASCAR fans.

Anybody who makes any comparison between the two events, though, usually brings up the point that the Super Bowl takes place at the conclusion of the NFL season and determines its champion, while the Daytona 500 is at the opposite end of the annual NASCAR calendar.

Good, I say.

The complaints about having the biggest event of the season at the beginning usually come from traditional stick-and-ball folks, who are accustomed to seeing hockey end with the Stanley Cup playoffs, college basketball with the NCAA championship tournament, baseball with the World Series, and so forth.

Funny how I have never heard any criticism about the Masters occurring in April, nor the Kentucky Derby for being held on the first Saturday in May.

That could be because there's no undue emphasis on a season championship title in golf or horse racing. The signature events are perceived in their proper context. Of course, professional golf has other major events and horse racing has the two other events in its Triple Crown. But these don't detract from the significance of each other.

If the Daytona 500 were anywhere other than first in the Nextel Cup schedule, the struggle for "those invaluable Nextel Cup points" would probably steal some of the thunder from the event itself. It will be a miracle if, during Daytona 500 coverage, someone doesn't point out sagely that, "if the season were to end now," whichever driver happened to be leading at that time would be the Nextel Cup champion of 2006!

So, how do we take the emphasis off "those invaluable points" and put it back on races, where it belongs? By giving a disproportionate share of points to the driver who wins each race, of course.

That's not likely to happen. So, thank goodness the Daytona 500 merely starts the madness and is not obscured by it.

Checkered flag for character extraordinaire Dick Brooks

By DAVID GREEN

Stock car racing fans from the late 1960s and the following decades knew him well, and fans from the 1990s who listened to Motor Racing Network broadcasts of NASCAR races knew by heart his standard introduction to victory lane ceremonies: "There's a bunch of happy people down here."

In contrast to that emotion, there's sadness in the racing world this week. Dick Brooks -- 1969 Grand National rookie of the year, winner of the 1973 Talladega 500, and character extraordinaire -- is gone.

Brooks died Wednesday at his home near Spartanburg, S.C. He was 63. The cause of death was believed to be heart failure.

To begin his stock car racing career, Brooks came from Porterville, Calif., to the city that at the time was the hub of the sport -- Spartanburg, home of championship team owners Bud Moore and Cotton Owens and of one of NASCAR's all-time great drivers, David Pearson. Pearson had won Grand National championships in 1966 and again in '68, and he would win the title again in Brooks' rookie year.

According to legend, when Brooks competed in Speedweeks activities leading up to the 1969 Daytona 500, it was the first time he had ever been present at a NASCAR event. He started 33rd and finished 32nd in the 500, which featured a 50-car field.

Brooks quickly established himself as a plenty capable driver, scoring three top-five and 12 top-10 finishes in 28 races en route to the 1969 rookie title. He claimed his 94th top-10 in 358 career starts by finishing 10th in his final race, the 1985 Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

He won only once, in the ill-fated Talladega race in the fifth year of his career. The single victory belies his talents, according to Pearson. "He was a lot better driver than he got credit for," Pearson said of Brooks in a story published in the Spartanburg Herald-Journal.

When he first came to NASCAR, Brooks was known by his more formal given name, Richard. Along the way, the name was shortened to Dick. The more informal nickname never would have worked with the regal driver named Petty, but it was just right for Brooks, probably the only radio sportscaster in history whose regular uniform was a pair of blue denim bib overalls.

In addition to helping broadcast races, Brooks became a successful businessman in his adopted hometown. According to the Herald-Journal obituary, he was more than just a local celebrity with a racing connection. The article described him as "a former NASCAR driver, radio correspondent, philanthropist and Upstate businessman" and lauded his charity work.

In recent years, Brooks made the news by surviving first a motorcycle wreck and then a mishap while taxiing in an aircraft on the landing strip on his rural property near the Woodruff community.

Those who never knew of Brooks' exploits as a driver or of his down-home, unpolished style as a broadcaster can never appreciate what the sport has lost. Those who knew him will miss him.

Rest in peace, Dick.