Turn 3

Christmas Shopping for NASCAR

By Mark Young

Christmas is just around the corner and while doing a little shopping for the wife I thought about gifts I would buy for some of our NASCAR celebrities.  Now the catch with these gifts is that they might be a little out of the ordinary or something that they wouldn't find under the tree on a normal Christmas morning.  So join me if you will and check out my Christmas shopping list.

Jimmie Johnson - Official Evel Knievel Suit. We all heard about his episode with a golf cart during the charity golf outing a few weeks ago.  Now I have been in a few of these "outings" myself and though I have never ridden on top of a golf cart I have been a passenger when my partner tried to jump a creek with one.  With the Evel Knievel suit he can do whatever he wants with style and perhaps the cape will allow for a softer landing.

Kyle Busch - One roll of "Hello My Name Is" stickers.  Now I missed watching the banquet because I had knitting class that night but I did hear plenty of people tell me about how he forgot the name of his date.  With the roll of stickers he can always make sure whoever he is with has on a name tag and save him from the embarrassment.

Kenny Wallace - A lifetime supply of Ritalin.  I love Kenny Wallace because he is so energetic and enthusiastic but dang, that dude is hyper!!

Jimmy Spencer - A new hair-do/ hair piece.  Now I am sure I ticked off a few folks but keep in mind this is from one folically impaired man to another.  My wife and I have been debating since last season as to whether or not he has a hair piece.  I still doubt it but if that is his real hair he needs to mix up the style a bit.

Brian France - A Tom Tom GPS Navigation Unit.  We all heard about how Brian ran into a tree while trying to get home after a night out.  If he had a Tom Tom then it would save him some unpreferred media exposure as well as fewer dry cleaning bills as he supposedly spilled his soda all over the interior.

That's all I have for now my friends, I hope you have some more to share with me.  But in all seriousness I would like to thank all of you for reading Thatsracin.com and especially for reading my blogs.  I have made a bunch of new friends.  More importantly I want to thank Bob Henry and the TR.com staff for letting me have the chance to share my thoughts with you.  I look forward to doing some new stuff next season and mixing it up with all of you.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Me and Tony Stewart

By Mike Harper

Welcome to the media world Smoke.

Tony Stewart, two-time NASCAR champion and driver of the No. 20 Home Depot Chevrolet for Joe Gibbs Racing can add "radio show host" to his resume. Sirius Satellite Radio, the Official Satellite Radio Partner of NASCAR kicked off the 2007 season early with the debut of Tony Stewart Live a few weeks ago, a show hosted by Stewart (a.k.a. Smoke) and NASCAR pit report Matt Yocum.

In a newspaper interview prior to the show’s debut Stewart said, "It's a great opportunity to talk about anything we want to talk about," and it didn’t take Stewart and his radio mates long to throw out their opinions about what NASCAR should and shouldn’t do.

I think the media suit fits Smoke pretty good. Actually, I was pleased to find out Smoke and I agree on something other than where to buy home improvement supplies.

In a column I wrote for the Spring 2005 issue of SpeedWorld Magazine titled "NASCAR Penalties Out of Control" I stated, "There’s a problem in NASCAR when drivers and crew chiefs violate a rule, but wait for days for NASCAR to decide the penalty. In other sports there are no gray areas. In the NFL if a player gets caught holding it’s a 15-yard penalty. In NASCAR, drivers have no clue what their penalty will be when they violate a rule because NASCAR comes up with it as they go. It’s time to standardize the penalties!"

In other columns I’ve written dating back to October of 2004, I’ve screamed it from the mountain tops that "NASCAR should set a penalty so that a driver and/or owner knows what the ramification will be if they break a specific rule." I say this for two reasons. First, by making up the penalty for a rule violation as they go, NASCAR opens themselves up to their critics and it gives the perception that they play favorites to certain drivers. Second, I’ve said time and time again in my columns that if the penalties were standardized, drivers would be able to measure the risk/reward to a rule violation.

During Stewart’s first radio show on Sirius he said, "That’s something with NASCAR that I’ve never understood. I don’t know if it’s the frequency of penalties and the fines that go along with it or to me it should be if you punch a driver it cost you this much, if you flip somebody the bird and it’s caught on TV it’s this much. If you say a bad word it’s this much. Let us know what it is because the risk might be worth the reward, I don’t know. I might be willing to pay $25,000 to knock somebody out."

I agree with Smoke.

If Smoke wants to break a rule and pay the standardized fine, then so be it. It’s his choice and he will know the consequences if caught. Under today’s process, NASCAR will think about the penalty and announce it the next day or two. In addition, the majority of the time it’s inconsistent with a penalty and/or fine that they’ve given to another driver breaking the same rule in the past.

NASCAR needs to set fines and penalties in such a way that drivers, crew chiefs and owners won’t want to break a rule. If you flip the bird it’s $50,000 and 25 points, period. Punch another driver, $100,000 and suspension for one race, period. Push another driver, 5 points and a "way to go" for increasing the ratings!

Stewart’s new role in the media will surely give the media something to talk about. He’s one of the most opinionated drivers and now he has a platform to share his views and in my eyes that’s a win-win for the industry. In the past, NASCAR has shut down such opinionated shows. Pit Bull on SPEED comes to mind and the original NASCAR Nation on SPEED comes to mind too. But shutting down Stewart will be a difficult task for NASCAR.

The good news is the ideas and opinions that have gone ignored by NASCAR could find themselves at the top of the priority list because it’s being talked about. The bad news is the same thing, the ideas and opinions that have gone ignored by NASCAR could find themselves at the top of the priority list. Funny how that works!

In the end, Tony Stewart and I agree on the subject of penalties. And my volume control on this subject just got turned up higher thanks to Smoke and his new radio gig. So Smoke, crank it up and preach it brother! I’ve got your back on this one.

Europe, China on NASCAR radar

By DAVID GREEN

Did I miss it, or did nobody in the U.S. take note when Brian France was quoted in Financial Times magazine last month as stating that NASCAR has global intentions? MSNBC picked up the story, under Bernard Simon's byline, from FT, but otherwise, I haven't seen any mention of this. Maybe I haven't been paying close enough attention.

Anyway, in case you missed it, "It's terribly important for us to keep expanding the audience," the London-based publication quoted the third-generation NASCAR prez as saying. "For our television partners, the bigger, the better."

Taking NASCAR to Europe and China was the fifth of five points Simon's story listed as priorities for America's most successful auto racing organization. Just what "taking NASCAR" to those destinations means, the story did not clarify.

The other four strategic points were to:

(1) Continue to exploit connections with Hollywood. Presumably, that means more than merely a sequel to "Talladega Nights."

(2) Broaden media coverage. "This is a terribly undercovered sport right now," France said, according to Simon.

(3) Expand the range of NASCAR teams. This item cited the addition of Toyota to the manufacturer ranks next season.

(4) Expand nationally. The Pacific Northwest and New York metropolitan area were cited as targets.

Not much of this is such groundbreaking news, I suppose -- not even the "taking NASCAR to Europe and China," when you consider that there have already been NASCAR exhibitions in Japan, non-sanctioned NASCAR-type events in Australia, and more than a few racing series for NASCAR-style racing vehicles in England and on the European continent.

But you would have thought some of those who contribute to that woefully inadequate media coverage would have picked up on this, if for no other reason to use it as an excuse to lambast France, who is surely the Rodney Dangerfield of American sports chief executives.

Maybe long-time traditional fans are so tired of the latest "new frontier" for stock car racing, they just don't care. Maybe, as far as the Pacific Northwest and New York -- and Europe and China for that matter -- are concerned, their attitude is, "Take NASCAR -- please."

Those fans, and many in the professional media and in the blogging world, would accuse NASCAR in general and Brian France in particular of forgetting the advice made famous decades ago by University of Texas football coach Darrell Royal, who said, approximately, "you've got to dance with the one that brung you."

That, of course, depends on your objective. If a gal leaves the dance hall with some cowboy other than the one who "brung" her, she may have betrayed her original date, but if the new guy was her goal all along, she has accomplished her mission.

According to Financial Times, France promised "we're always going to have the key ingredients that our core fan loves. We're going to have historically big events in the south."

Who knows? NASCAR may go on to knock Formula One off its top-of-the-racing-world pedestal someday. That would make all the business-driven decisions of recent years look good -- to everybody, that is, but the jilted "cowboys" who brung NASCAR to the dance.

Army vs. Navy

By Mark Young

During my browsing around the Internet looking for tidbits to feed my racing fix I stumbled across some excerpts from a Mark Martin interview on Sirius Speedway talking about the moves he has made and deals he was working on for the 2007 season.  After reading Mike Harper's latest blog, http://blogs.thatsracin.com/turn3/2006/11/forget_the_girl.html#more  I decided to chime in on it.  It seems that Mark had contacted Dale Earnhardt Jr. regarding the possibility of running a partial Busch Series schedule in the #88 Navy sponsored ride but went on to say that the Army and the Navy nixed it.  Now why in the world would two of our Nation's military branches say this is a bad idea?

The first thing that came to mind regarding the Army and Navy not agreeing to let this happen is who actually provides the sponsorship dollars?  We the American tax payers do!  I have had some issues with this considering the millions of dollars it costs to sponsor a team, but in the same sense it is a great form of advertising to potential enlistees.  To have the opportunity to have an experienced winning driver behind the wheel of not one but two cars sponsored by our military, in my mind, would serve as a great sign of unity.  Both teams involved are Chevrolet so we wouldn't have the manufacturer's B.S. to worry about.  Why would there be any dispute at all between these two parties?

Could someone please tell my why this was not allowed to happen?  I am not a big Mark Martin fan but thought the idea had a ton of merit.