Turn 3

Chase, we hardly knew ye

By DAVID GREEN

Changes in the Chase for the Cup? Well, of course -- the outdated thing will be three years old this year, for cryin' out loud. In today's MTV-loving, immediate-satisfaction-demanding, attention-deficit-disorder-plagued society, NASCAR is about two years overdue in overhauling this oh-so-yesterday antique.

We should have known, when Tony Stewart won last year's Chase without scoring a victory in the final 10 races, that alarm bells were clanging in Daytona Beach. It was under the radar of most of us because Stewart, riding a season-long bulletproof consistency and a scorching mid-season streak in which he won five times, was pretty much a consensus pick as the driver most deserving of the 2005 championship.

That's in stark contrast to 2003, when poor Matt Kenseth had the same sort of season as Stewart, except for the mid-season winning spurt, and claimed the final Winston Cup with only one victory, while Ryan Newman was winning eight races. On the heels of Kenseth's title, quicker than you could say "uh-oh," NASCAR instituted the Chase for the Cup.

The problem with the Chase was that, while it did create a playoff-like dramatic atmosphere in which the season champion was determined, it did not fix the "problem" (as some perceive it) in NASCAR's championship points system -- specifically, that it does not adequately and appropriately reward the winners of races.

The only adjustment in the points that came with the 10-race Chase was an extra five points for the winner. That did, at least, address the ridiculous scenario in which a driver could finish second but, if he led the most laps, receive the same number of points as the race winner.

It was a step in the right direction, but only a microscopic step. People go home or turn off their television sets after a race remembering two things: (1) who won and (2) who might have been involved in an unusual incident (a spectacular crash, a pit-road miscue, et cetera). Somehow, that has been lost in the promotion (hyping) of a season-long championship. Races have been reduced to near-insignificance except for their equal shares in the "big picture."

A system that provides real incentive for winning races would run contrary to that way of thinking. It would award 100 points to the winner and drop by as much as 25 to 50 percent for second place. It would reward no one who did not finish in the top 25 percent of the rundown.

Such a system might well make a mockery of a 10-race playoff. It would be much less likely to produce a controversial champion over the full course of a season.

Does that mean NASCAR won't address the issue of appropriately rewarding race winners when it revamps the Chase? I won't mislead anybody by intimating that I have any idea.

The championship will be whatever NASCAR determines it will be, and that's really all that matters. The sanctioning body is never going to please everyone, especially among the ranks of spectators and the media. Competitors are going to do their best to work the system (whatever it is) to their advantage.

In that sense, anyway, the champ will almost always be the correct and deserving one.

The M&M’s are melting in his hands

By Mike Harper

One must wonder what NASCAR owner’s Robert Yates and Chip Ganassi are thinking these days. Actually, both have a few things in common. First, they each have an open seat in one of their Cup cars for next season and second, they’re both experiencing a time where drivers want to leave their organizations.

For Ganassi, this is the second straight season where driver retention has been a problem. Last season Jamie McMurray announced that he succeeded in terminating his contract with Ganassi early, giving him the avenue to join forces with Roush Racing this season. Most recently, Casey Mears decided not to renew his contract with Ganassi allowing him to sign with Hendrick Motorsports.

In the midst of realizing the same hardship, Yates has lost NASCAR champion Dale Jarrett to Michael Waltrip Racing for next season and Elliott Sadler is rumored to be heading out the door as well.

Drivers leaving and jumping ship makes me wonder what is happening internally at these organizations. If the owners of these teams were 100% honest with themselves, they would know that a driver wanting to leave their organization is troubling, but multiple drivers looking to get out is a huge red flag that something must not be right inside their stable.

If we look at Sadler specifically, Yates is in trouble. I truly believe Jarrett leaving will not sit well with Sadler and you’ve got to ask the question, if Yates’ drivers were performing as well as the Roush Racing drivers, would Jarrett be leaving in the first place? I’m sure Sadler has thought about that very question.

FOX Sports’ Larry McReynolds had some interesting thoughts about the Sadler/Yates topic. "Whose shoulders is it on to fix the problem? That's one man: Robert Yates," said McReynolds. "Sadler wants to make this deal work, but something is going to have to change. If something doesn't change, he isn't getting any younger so he's going to need to look at some other options."

Other options? Darn right, because he’s got them. Depending on where UPS ends up, Sadler could be their driver in two years. If and I mean if, Sadler follows his mentor Dale Jarrett to Michael Waltrip Racing and UPS moves with Jarrett, Sadler could drive the Dominos/Burger King sponsored car until Jarrett retires in two years, then he could move into the UPS car. My mind amazes me sometimes.

Will Ford Motorsports have that? No way! Ford lost Jarrett and I’m sure they’re fighting for Sadler at this very hour. That said, with a ton of help from Ford, Sadler might stay in a Ford either at Yates (if they can turnaround their program) or he’ll end up at Roush Racing in the No. 6 car replacing Mark Martin.

Roush was replacing Martin next season with current Busch Series driver Todd Kluever, but Kluever’s lackluster start must surely have Roush rethinking his 2007 plans.

Sadler could also end up at:

• Red Bull Racing’s second car
• Penske Racing if Kodak keeps their promise and comes back next season
• Ganassi’s No. 42
• Evernham Motorsports if they move out Jeremy Mayfield
• Back home to the Wood Brothers
• If DEI and MB2 merge, there’s a few options

Maybe it’s just easier to stay put.

Bad Day in California Sun

By Jason Jarrett

Nothing notable really happened at Michigan and I did not really feel like just making something up so I waited until this week to make another entry.

This week I want to hit on a few things that have come to mind. The trip to Sonoma and Infenion Raceway was my first but it was a good trip. The race track, from what I understand, has been improved from the fan’s viewpoint and from the team’s perspective. There was nothing that really nothing that stood out in my mind on that other than it seemed like the fans could see most of the track. I was surprised that the spotters could see as much as we could see. The only major place that we could not see was coming out of turn 11. We did have someone to help with that section of the track during the race.

As everyone knows by now, DJ did not have a good day. Their pit strategy was good and it looked as if they were going to gain some spots once everyone made their last stops for fuel. The events that followed really ruined the day for the 88 team. As DJ left the pits and entered turn two the car spun. He may have had some help but when I reviewed the race on TiVo I could not find a replay of that spin. This spin caused them to loose a ton of track position, any track position that might have been gained by the last stop.

There were a few close calls all day long but the last one was more than close. He was racing a in a pack of cars that were really going at it and racing extremely hard. It seemed like that is the way the day started and it stayed that way somewhere on the track all day. Like I said before, this was my first trip to this track, but I don’t really remember watching a race on Television, at Sonoma, that had so much contact. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are incidents every week that happen and never get on TV, but this seemed more than normal for Sonoma. The place looked really hard to pass on and a lot of the cars were equal so it made it more difficult to make clean passes. The final incident occurred toward the end of the race in the uphill right hander that takes the cars on a couple of elevation changes. That spot had many spins throughout the weekend. The group of cars entered in single file so I turned my attention to the next right hander to be prepared for anything that might happen ahead of where DJ was running. I saw nothing happening up there yet and as I turned my focus back to the 88 car I saw that he was already into the car in front of him and then piling into another car that was spinning because of contact. This was a very hard hit to dad but as I talked with him later he mentioned that when he ran into the car in front of him the throttle was hung wide open, causing him to hit the next car in front of him even harder. That was the end of his day!

I have felt comfortable about the spotting thing from day 1, but this weekend presented the biggest challenge so far, probably because I have spotted on every other type of track except a road course. I definitely got my lesson on a new type of track this weekend. As I looked back and saw him piling into those cars, I felt terrible, and felt like I missed something really big or something that could have been avoided. I could tell in the crew chief’s voice that he was thinking the same way. Well, we don’t have a replay system on the spotter’s stand so I worried about this all the way home. I kept asking the question to myself, "Did I miss something?" or "Could I have prevented this accident?" As I worried on the way home, I kept replaying what I remember over and over again, thinking that someone had seen something that I missed.

When I made it home, around 2 A.M. on Monday morning I immediately turned on my TiVo to watch the replay. I replayed it for about a half an hour, over and over again. I came to the conclusion that no matter if I had been looking right at him there was not much I could have done to totally prevent this accident from happening. That wreck happened fast! All I could have done was tell him that they were wrecking directly in front of him, but I don’t think the end result would have been different.

I know from my own racing career and from racing with guys with much less experience that sometimes things happen that people will never understand unless you are in the car at that particular moment. There are even times that I watch replays and say, "What was that driver thinking?" The reality of it is, until you are the one sitting in that car at that particular moment you don’t know how to react. Each situation is different and when you are a driver, you have one chance to react to a situation in front of you, no matter what the people in your ear are telling you. I knew this before but I see it every week now from a different perspective.

We will move on to Daytona and see if DJ can work some of his restrictor plate magic.

Check us out at www.racingadventure.com or call 888-GO-RACE-1 if you want to come drive a racecar. Come out and join us for some speed and passing!

Talking points as mid-season approaches

By DAVID GREEN

Some points to ponder as we approach the return to Daytona on Independence Day weekend:

(1) Have we determined that DEI has lost its restrictor plate magic, or will Junior be a contender in the Pepsi 400 Saturday night?

The opinion here is that it's the Hendrick Chevys that are now the ones to watch. And didn't some guy start a championship run with a win at Sonoma, followed by a win at Daytona, last year? In other words, watch out for the 24.

(2) What's up with guys announcing engagements, then going out and winning races?

In Champ Car, A.J. Allmendinger did it week before last at Portland, Ore., and then this past weekend, Jeff Gordon pops the question and then pops the cork in Infineon's victory lane.

Man -- that's a more expensive route to victory than home improvement projects.

(3) What in the world is up with Kevin Harvick trying to body-slam Paul Menard's car into the inside wall after the Busch Series race at Milwaukee Saturday night?

I suppose Happy was miffed because Menard didn't cooperate and spin out after Harvick repeatedly tried to dump him, but when J.J. Yeley got into Harvick's rear bumper, Harvick spun out like a bump-and-run victim is supposed to. The nerve of that Menard guy -- maintaining control after somebody gives him a cheap shot from behind.

That had to be the most bizarre incident of the weekend. Harvick's curious confrontation with Menard was kind of like the Chicago White Sox pitcher who was ejected for throwing a beanball last week. At the time of the incident, the Sox had a 19-2 lead over the St. Louis Cardinals. Dude -- you throw at somebody when they're beating you by a big margin, not when you're whipping them. What are you trying to do -- add injury to insult?

Cheer up, Kevin. Menard is still a relative newcomer to NASCAR. Perhaps someday, he'll learn to spin out when you hit his car.

(4) Remember when everybody was talking about what a strong start Tony Stewart was having to this title defense season?

Well, as the first half of the season approaches, it's fair to say the champ is in a bit of a slump. And yet, he's still running pretty strong. He's not crashing out or blowing up while running 35th. He probably wasn't going to catch Gordon Sunday, but he was a good bet for second until his engine went sour.

Not too many drivers have ever maintained for a full season the kind of winning edge Stewart rode at mid-season to last year's championship. That kind of excellence doesn't usually come out of a clear blue sky, though. Stewart was competitive just about every race last year.

He has been fairly competitive in most races this year, too. I'd say a ding-dong battle between Stewart and Gordon for this year's Cup title is not out of the question. Then again, they might be fighting it out for third place, if Jimmie Johnson and Matt Kenseth keep on keepin' on.

If I were the NASCAR King

By Mike Harper

Here I go out of character again, so please forgive me.

In my daily scan of the Internet for news, dirt and other worthy reading material, I found myself wondering what life would be like if I were the NASCAR King. I’m sure many of you have played this little game in your mind before. It’s like this, if I were Jack Roush, I would’ve never hired Jamie McMurray. (Just kidding Jamie – it’s an example for heaven sakes)

Well, I’ll give this a try and then lets see what you’ve got!

If I were the NASCAR King, Adam Sandler would say "Gentleman start your engines" at every Cup event from now until the end of the season. Sandler was on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and he was wearing a No. 9 Dodge baseball cap. I think he’s hooked!

If I were the NASCAR King, Johnny Benson would be in a full-time Cup ride. Not just some chump ride, but a well-funded team in excellent equipment. I bet he’d do a better job than some of these young-guns out there!

If I were the NASCAR King, I’d take possession of Gene Haas’ private jet since he won’t be using it for awhile.

If I were the NASCAR King, each week every NASCAR racecar would carry the name of a fallen soldier above the passenger side door.

If I were the NASCAR King, I’d put Dale Jarrett and Elliott Sadler in Roush cars and put Greg Biffle and Carl Edwards is Yates cars to find out how they’d finish.

If I were the NASCAR King, the worst weekend finisher from the Hendrick Motorsports stable would have to be Erin Crocker’s boy toy for the week. Can I say that?

If I were the NASCAR King, it would be mandatory that all NASCAR fans and industry insiders check out Lori Munro’s weekly cartoon. Boy do I love her work!

If I were the NASCAR King, I’d get to write one of those NASCAR Harlequin romance novels. See honey, I’ve got a romantic side.

If I were the NASCAR King, I’d have the Dixie Chicks do a pre-race concert at the next Pocono Cup race. Maybe that would be just the ticket to get one of the Pocono races moved to a more exciting short track! Man, that was bad. My apologies to the Pocono fans.

If I were the NASCAR King, TR.com's Mark Young and his wife would cover more races! He’s one cool cat.

If I were the NASCAR King, every upcoming young driver would need to watch an educational film on "Just say no to drugs or you’ll be booted from NASCAR" hosted by Shane Hmiel.

If I were the NASCAR King, it would’ve been in Scott Riggs’ contract that he must wear swim shoes when in the water.

If I were the NASCAR King, $1 of every ticket sold at NASCAR races would go to a NASCAR charity.

If I were the NASCAR King, drivers would do their own prosecuting. Needless to say I miss rivalries.

If I were the NASCAR King, race winners would get 100 bonus points.

If I were the NASCAR King, there would be a conflict of interest rule in NASCAR. How can a driver race against his own car?

If I were the NASCAR King, I’d bring back the $1 million fan give-a-ways!

If I were the NASCAR King, sorry Kansas but I’d kick your race date out of the chase and replace it with Bristol Baby!

Now, enough of me! Give it a shot.

No rage about the roads from this corner

By DAVID GREEN

The wine country of northern California may not be the favorite destination (physical or "televisional," if I may coin a word) for a great many NASCAR fans and some competitors, too. But I, for one, am looking forward to Sunday's Dodge/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway.

Personally, I wish the track were stilled called by its traditional name, which paid homage to Sears Point on the northern extremity of San Pablo Bay (no offense intended to the folks at Infineon Corp.). And I wish the NASCAR circuit had retained its old configuration, complete with the downhill Carousel corner, instead of undergoing a drastic revamping over recent years. Anybody remember that thrilling pass by Dale Earnhardt over Mark Martin in 1995?

But by any name, and in any configuration, it is still a road course -- and, as such, provides much-needed variety to the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series schedule.

I know I'm very likely in the minority here. I have many friends and acquaintances who think stock car racing ought to be staged only on oval tracks. I respect their opinion, but I prefer a variety of circuits.

I'm not asking for equal portions; two or three road-course events per year is fine with me. But I'd glad Infineon and Watkins Glen are on the circuit, and I wouldn't mind seeing the Cup Series return to Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis.

Yes, I said "return." Tim Flock drove a Bill Stroppe-owned Mercury to victory in a Grand National event (63 laps on the 4-mile course, 252 miles) at Road America on August 12,1956.

At least one NASCAR historian, the late Gene Granger, counted the Daytona beach and road circuit as a "road course," even though it had only left-hand turns and was shaped like an elongated oval, because it was something other than a traditional oval and utilized part of a public road. Not counting the GN events held on that circuit, the Road America event 50 years ago this season was the third race on a road-racing circuit in Cup history.

Coincidentally, this year marks the 50th anniversary of another road-racing milestone -- the establishment of the Watkins Glen International course in upstate New York, the other road course on the Nextel Cup trail. Prior to 1956, the famous Watkins Glen Grand Prix was held on a 6-mile circuit that began in the village, made an uphill right-hand turn toward the location of the present track, and ran northward before winding its way back to the east, then south along the lake shore and back into the town. The surface switched from macadam to gravel to dirt to concrete, and there was a point where the race course crossed the New York Central Railroad tracks.

Part of the allure for Sears Point and Watkins Glen, I'll admit, is the setting. Both are in gorgeous and dramatically different parts of the country.

But the racing is of great interest, as well. Great road circuits have distinct personalities. Even before it was revamped, Sears Point had the reputation among NASCAR drivers as a "short-track" kind of road course. Conversely, Watkins Glen -- even the short version utilized by NASCAR -- was considered a "superspeedway" road course.

The fact that many NASCAR drivers are not that much at home on road courses (Sterling Marlin once said Sears Point would be a fine track, if only they'd plow it up and turn it into an oval) only adds to the list of reasons why road courses ought to be a part of the schedule, along with short ovals, intermediate ovals and the restrictor-plate tracks that have come to be known as "speedways" or "superspeedways" (even though, for NASCAR records-keeping purposes, a superspeedway is an oval 1 mile or greater in length). I would add dirt ovals to the list, but that's a subject for another day.

Truth be told, many NASCAR drivers readily adapted to road courses as quickly as NASCAR began running them -- on June 13, 1954, on a makeshift course built on airport runways near Linden, N.J. Al Keller won that race, driving the Paul Whiteman-owned No. 4 Jaguar that, in light of Toyota's entry into Cup racing, has been retrieved from the trivia files and is now well known to most NASCAR fans.

TIME OUT FOR A TRIVIA QUESTION: Between the races won by Keller and Flock, there was one other event held on a course with left- and right-hand turns. What was the name and location of the track, when was the race held, and who was the winning driver? Email answers to me, or post them as replies to this blog item. (I can't promise any prizes; there's no corporate sponsor for this contest, you know.)

Buck Baker won the first NASCAR race at Watkins Glen, in 1957. Fireball Roberts, Marvin Panch, Eddie Gray and Jack Smith won on road courses before the decade was over.

In the 1960s and '70s, among the first to challenge the road-racing specialists such as Dan Gurney, Mark Donohue and others was David Pearson, who quickly became an outstanding driver. Dick Hutcherson stood on the podium after a third-place finish as co-driver of a Ford GT40 at Le Mans in 1966. In 1964, when Billy Wade became the first driver to win four consecutive Grand National races, two of the four were on road courses -- Watkins Glen and Bridgehampton, N.Y.

Bobby Allison, Richard Petty, Terry Labonte, Tim Richmond, Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip, Benny Parsons -- all were road-course winners in the 1970s. Ricky Rudd and Rusty Wallace emerged as the standout road racers of NASCAR in the 1980s; Bill Elliott's first Cup victory came in 1983 on a road course, the great Riverside International Raceway, near the site of today's California Speedway in Fontana; and Earnhardt was plenty proficient, as he would later underscore in the 2001 Rolex 24 at Daytona in a Corvette, even though his first road-course win did not come until the 1995 Sears Point race referred to earlier.

Martin may have been second to Earnhardt in that 1995 race, but he proved to be yet another driver with dirt-oval origins to master road racing, along with Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart. Their abilities have rendered the advantages of so-called "ringers" such as Boris Said, Scott Pruett, the great Ron Fellows and others all but negligible these days, and in fact few since the days of Gurney and Donohue have any of them had much success against the NASCAR regulars. None of them has won, although Wally Dallenbach Jr. came painfully close at The Glen one time.

Yes, it's a totally different concept in many ways in comparison to oval racing. That's what I like about it. What I don't like is when road-racing fans put down oval racing as simplistic, or when oval-racing fans dismiss road racing. Each requires specific skills and each is very, very difficult to do well.

Like it or not, it is an entrenched part of NASCAR racing and has been for most of the sport's 58 years. From this perspective, that's a very good thing.

The Batteries Have Been Recharged.

By Mark Young

As many of you read last week I went to the Michigan International Speedway for the race and as an added bonus I was able to obtain Media Credentials for myself and my wife (who took over 300 pictures) to spend Friday walking the garage area looking like tourists in Vegas.  Now I haven't shared this with anyone until now but over the past month or two I was getting burned out on NASCAR.  No real stories or rivalries caught my attention and watching the races on TV was starting to down right piss me off with poor coverage of anything but the big money teams and trying to create controversy.  But after spending two days at the track without any influence of the TV people I can honestly say my batteries are recharged and have found the passion I had lost some of for NASCAR racing.

Friday was an entirely new situation for me because other than this blog and writing weekly articles for my hometown paper I have never actually been to a race as a journalist and to say I was a little nervous was an understatement.  Where do we go and where do we not go?  Can we just walk up to a driver and start talking to him?  Thankfully my blog brother Mike Harper and the boss man Bob Henry gave me pointers and suggestions that really helped.

During the first Nextel Cup practice session Mike Harper took us up on the roof of the media center and man was that a great place to see action.  The wife got great photos of cars and after several dozen shots actually got the entire car in the photo! (Try taking a photo of a moving car going 190+, it isn't easy)  We also walked up and down pit road and observed the fans as they sat along pit wall waiting to catch a glimpse up close of their favorite car, and seeing grown men and women get excited at the sight of their car roll past them was great.

In my newspaper articles I do a segment that highlights Newman, Stremme, and Raines as they all hail from towns very close to me.  Once I learned that I was going to get the opportunity to be at the track with garage access I contacted David Stremme's PR people and asked to interview him.  To say that I was excited to hear my request had been granted was an understatement.  David cut his teeth on the short tracks around me and once I started asking questions about home I had his attention.  I enjoyed talking about his rookie season and the troubles he has had as well as the momentum they feel is increasing.  Who would have figured after that interview he would go out and lap the field in an ARCA car owned by Rusty.  I want to thank him for allowing me the opportunity to talk racing with one of my local heroes, good times are just around the bend.

I too saw the young man with the autographed shirt that Mike Harper wrote about and words can't explain the excitement in his eyes and on his face that day.  I felt the same excitement he did after talking with Stremme and can only imagine how pumped the guy was to finally meet his hero and get his autograph.

Sunday was a day to be a fan and at 4 AM we loaded the van and hit the road with three NASCAR newbies on board.  One of them was my friend Vinki who is in the country for a year on a work Visa from India.  Let's just say drinking beer at 7:30 AM and not stopping until well into the afternoon took its toll on my little foreign friend.  Keith called me first thing and we toasted a day of tailgating and racing, wish you could have made the trip buddy.  The anticipation in the air surrounding this race felt different than previous years and I think it was because of the imminent weather.  My adrenaline was at its peak with the fly-by of F-16's and their "buzzing the tower" after the initial pass and it didn't go down until the rain started falling.  I had a great time talking to my neighbors sitting next to me from Kalamazoo as well as exchanging favorite driver barbs with the Canadian Connection seated behind us.  Got asked lots of questions about the site (it helps when everyone in my group had TR.com T-Shirts) and I hope some of them stop by to visit.

I know many of you have been to races and seen the things I just explained but I couldn't help but write about my experiences.  You see the sport has grown leaps and bounds with the advent of satellite TV and the Internet we now can get as much NASCAR as we want but one thing the media can't replace is the energy you get from actually being at the track.  The sights, sounds and smells of being in the stands are what really makes it all come to life and I feel born again and cannot wait for the next opportunity to go to the races and maybe even have another chance to walk the garage.

Autographs. And you are?

By Mike Harper

Thanks to a fan at MIS, my faith in autograph seekers has been restored. In this time of making money off the signatures of drivers on auction web sites, I witnessed something that I thought I’d never see again from a grown man in his desire to grab an autograph. I saw emotion.

While in the garage area at MIS last weekend, I notice a gentleman in his early twenties standing around and he must have had 15 or more autographs on the denim shirt he was wearing. As the drivers walked by, he took his turn asking for their autographs and with each one he obtained, his excitement increased.

A few minutes later as I made my way through the crowd to Jeff Gordon’s hauler for his question and answer session with the media, I saw the same gentleman standing in line to get Jeff Burton’s autograph. At the same time, Jeff Gordon had come in from the motorcoach lot and was about 100 feet from the back door of his hauler. As I’m watching this guy watch Gordon walk by, I saw pure panic hit his face.

I’m not a lip reader, but some words can easily be made out and in this case I was able to read what he said and observe his extreme desperation to get to Gordon before he was lost behind the door of his hauler. To be honest, I’ve never seen a guy run away from Jeff Burton so fast, but in the end he caught Gordon and got his autograph on his shirt and on a piece of paper.

Later that day after the ARCA RE/MAX Series race, I saw the guy outside the ARCA inspection area and I told him that I witnessed his efforts and I was happy for his success. He replied that he’d been seeking out Jeff Gordon’s autograph for years. As a kid, he went to the Daytona 500 and Gordon won the race. Actually, it was Gordon’s first Daytona 500 win. The piece of paper that I saw Gordon sign earlier in the day was this guy’s Daytona 500 ticket from that day. After years of trying, he got Gordon to sign his ticket and in telling me, his eyes filled with tears. In NASCAR, dreams do come true and in this special case, it wasn’t about the money.

Are you a people watcher? When I travel on business and I’m stuck in an airport, I’ll find myself not buried in my laptop, but watching people as they walk by. I end up doing the same thing in the garage area when I’m at the track.

After running around gathering news stories and snapping some pictures, I’ll find a nice shaded place to plant myself in the garage area and I’ll watch people’s reactions when the drivers walk through. In doing this you see people contemplate whether or not they should approach a driver for an autograph to pure screaming emotion and I’ve even seen someone almost faint at the sight of Tony Stewart.

Did you know that some drivers walk through the garage area without anyone ever knowing who they are? While Jeff Gordon attracts a huge crowd, some will walk through and not get approached once. I’ve seen it on many occasions.

And some drivers, including a few past drivers will just ignore the fans. I guess they forgot who put them there. Don’t make me name names!

Three remarkable victories

By DAVID GREEN

Three remarkable racing victories were recorded this weekend. One was in Sparta, Ky.; one in Portland, Ore.; and one in Le Mans, France. I don't mean to slight Kasey Kahne by not including his rain-shortened but richly deserved win at Michigan in this summary, but the other three races had special qualities that go beyond the mere determination of a winning driver.

NASCAR fans are surely more acutely aware of the first of the trio -- David Gilliland's stunning triumph in the Meijer 300 at Kentucky Speedway Saturday night. That one leaves Busch Series regulars still winless in 16 races this year. Nextel Cup interlopers won the first 15, and Gilliland is hardly a "regular" in the junior division. His part-time, unsponsored, unsupported, inexperienced status makes his victory all that more remarkable.

Fox announcer Larry McReynolds rightly emphasized that Gilliland's victory was no fluke, at least in the sense that Gilliland and his unheralded team did the best of the 43 contestants and the victory did not fall into their laps through some sort of freak circumstance. But no question, it is a wonderful "fluke" that such an underdog was able to prevail on that particular evening.

In Portland, A.J. Allmendinger won the first Champ Car race of his career in the G.I. Joe's Grand Prix in his first ride with a new team -- Forsythe Racing. His rise to the top of the heap in the series formerly known as CART came only days after he was released from his job as driver with RuSport.

His replacement, former CART champion Cristiano da Matta, managed only a fifth-place finish in Allmendinger's former ride.

And at Le Mans, in the 74th running of the famous 24-hour endurance race, Audi won -- for the sixth time in seven years, so that in itself is not so remarkable. What is noteworthy is that the German marque won with a new diesel-powered vehicle, the R10 TDI.

Diesel power is nothing new to auto racing, but a diesel-fueled car had never won a major event until Sunday.

Surely, NASCAR drivers Brian Vickers and Casey Mears would like to follow Allmendinger's example and achieve quick success in their new rides. Neither has the motivation of an abrupt dismissal; actually, their impending moves are at their own initiative. But obviously both feel they can do better than they have done.

Barring a change in their status, we'll have to wait until next season to see how they fare, rather than getting the kind of instantaneous turnaround Allmendinger enjoyed. We know Mears is taking over Vickers' ride; perhaps the Hendrick and Ganassi organizations ought to go ahead and swap drivers.

An in-season "trade" would not be unprecedented in NASCAR. After 23 races in 1996, car owners Michael Kranefuss and Cale Yarborough swapped John Andretti and Jeremy Mayfield. Andretti finished the season with Yarborough, and went on to win at Daytona the next season in the Pepsi 400. Mayfield picked up his own debut victory in 1998 after Roger Penske acquired the Kranefuss operation.

As for the diesel Audi, the sleek silver R10s serve as an example of positive, innovative thinking. The experiment was not without setbacks; the second R10 at Le Mans suffered from fuel injector and clutch problems that relegated Tom Kristensen -- co-driver of the winning entry the past six years in a row -- to a third-place finish.

But the revolutionary car is unbeaten in two races, the 12 Hours of Sebring in Florida in March and Le Mans. Next year, another carmaker -- Puegeot -- will build a diesel-powered sports prototype for Le Mans.

All three races serve to point out that perseverance and positive thinking can pay big dividends -- and that there continue to be compelling reasons for those of us who love motor sport to keep watching.

Road Trippin' To Michigan

By Mark Young

Pack your bags gang it is time for a road trip, well for this Michigan boy and eleven other friends it is.  June 18th has been circled on the calendar for months now and that isn't just because it is Father's Day.  You see this is the one race each year I get a chance to go to and see in person so excuse me if I get carried away but to me race day at Michigan International Speedway is like Christmas without the presents.

This year my group has three newbies coming along and one of them is not even from the states but is here on a work visa for a year.  I can't wait to see his eyes when we pull into the track at 7:00 AM, setup the canopy, turn on the radio, set up lawn chairs, and crack open the first Bud Select.  Shortly after that I fully intend to call out to my Blog Brother Keith in Virginia to have a long distance toast as I tried for months to get him to come out and party with us. (He must be getting too old)

We don't do anything special or out of the ordinary when we go to the race, it is just the one day each year for many of us that the recliner and TV are replaced by a hard bench seat and the sights, smells, and sounds of our favorite past-time.

Tell me about your annual road trip (or trips) to the track.  Who goes with, what do you do, where do you go?

And on a personal note, Happy Father's Day to all of you Dads out there.  And to my Dad, I wish you were going with us this year, Happy Father's Day.  I hope Mom doesn't catch more fish than you.