Turn 3

Kyle vs. Dale Junior: A juicy topic

By DAVID GREEN

Kyle Busch: Outspoken, or arrogant?

Dale Earnhardt Jr.: Unlucky, or overrated?

Responses to such questions depend almost entirely on personal prejudice. Kyle Busch fans say their favorite is outspoken, and they like him partly because of that. Dale Jr. fans think Busch's recent remarks about their favorite driver enhance Busch's image as a punk, and believe Junior is a talented driver who is a victim of circumstances.

These opinions are theories, and the great thing about theories is that they cannot be proved or disproved. They can be supported; they can be questioned; they can be heatedly debated. Vociferously, with passion.

Even Busch's supporters (most of them) will admit Kyle can go a little too far sometimes in expressing himself. Whether he did in this particular instance, though, goes back to the original premise about opinions. In support of Busch's remarks, Junior does indeed have a checkered history with crew chief relationships; in undermining his purposes, he's the one dumped by Hendrick Motorsports to make room for Junior on that team.

Junior's supporters have some ammunition to back up their enthusiasm. At times, Junior has shown himself to be a solid competitor. He has won on just about every type of track, in fairly hefty numbers; he has won two championships in the junior division, now named the Nationwide Series. On the other hand, he has demonstrated flaws in his game, never more glaringly apparent than this year with the missed pit stall and other such "brain fade" incidents.

Busch supporters can rightly point out that Kyle had his difficulties, dating back to the tobacco settlement prohibition of his racing in the Truck Series before he turned 18. That temporarily derailed his career and eventually led him to switch from Roush Racing to Hendrick very early in his career. They can point out that not only did Kyle have to compete with a big brother who had won a Cup Series already, he was inevitably going to be compared to Kurt Busch, who in his early years had a reputation as a young punk much like Kyle does now.

That kind of stuff can affect a fellow.

Dale Jr. fans can right note the pressure that comes just with being named "Dale Earnhardt Jr." Nobody could ever fill the Simpson shoes Junior's dad laced up. They can point out the emotional turmoil of the messy separation of Junior from the team his father formed, and with which he had enjoyed all of his greatest successes.

The other side, in both arguments, can dismiss those things as excuses.

My opinions:

1. Busch is both outspoken and arrogant. Bottom line: He's the fastest thing on the track most Sundays (or Saturday nights, or whatever).

2. Junior's achievements don't measure up to his reputation and he has, indeed, had some situations that would almost certainly distract a fellow. Bottom line: He's better than his critics say and not as good as his most fervent fans believe.

One thing about which there can be little argument: Nobody makes better copy for journalists or better material for fans than these two guys.

Memorable Memorial Day weekend

By DAVID GREEN

This is my favorite weekend of the year, for racing and other reasons. I'm a veteran and a patriot, and so naturally I place a high value on memorializing the men and women who have given their lives in defense of my country, and that is the purpose of the holiday at the end of May.

By a happy coincidence, the holiday weekend has become one of the more significant ones in all of auto racing. This year is one of the exceptionally rich ones, with the Formula One Grand Prix of Monaco starting a full day of competition. At midday is the Indianapolis 500, and then, later in the afternoon and on into the night is the Coca-Cola 600.

Memorial Day being an American holiday, the grand prix schedule sometimes places Monaco on another weekend. Even in those years, it's an above-average day, with two of America's top races on tap. Sunday, it's a trifecta.

Monaco is considered by most fans and competitors to be the elite race on the F1 trail. It's all but anachronistic; modern racing cars hardly function on the narrow, winding streets of the city of Monte Carlo. But it has history (the first race was run in 1929) and an aura about it that make it special.

Likewise, even many fans who care only about stock car racing and wouldn't watch any other IndyCar event may be inclined to watch the Indianapolis 500. It and the track on which it has been run 92 times since 1911 are so much an integral part of what constitutes American motor sport.

One of my favorite aspects of the 500 is the pageantry of its pre-race activities that pays homage to the military, particularly the casualties of wars. The playing of "Taps" is one of the most intense and emotional moments in sport for me, with the abject silence of more than a quarter of a million people and the haunting strains of the familiar bugle tune.

Yes, the race itself and American open-wheel racing overall have been down for more than a decade. I don't consider myself a traitor to NASCAR when I enjoy IndyCar racing's resurgence. American racing has been out of balance for a long time, and it needs to regain a more even keel.

My picks: Lewis Hamilton at Monaco, Graham Rahal at Indy and Tony Stewart at Charlotte. Gut predictions from a fan, all of them; no insights or insider knowledge are claimed or implied.

It's hard to say which of the three races I am most eagerly anticipating. I can't separate them.

That's a good thing. It's a win-win-win situation for me this weekend.

All-stars through the decades

By DAVID GREEN

On the occasion of the all-star race this weekend, my thoughts are on the subject of all-stars down through the decades of NASCAR racing -- the best and/or most popular drivers from the overlapping eras of the sport's six-decades-long history.

With the 25th anniversary all-star event looming, let's start with the present era, but then I want to go back to the start and move forward chronologically. My nominations for a top six, again based on achievement and fan reaction (both positive and negative), are, in no particular order, Jimmie Johnson, Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon.

Now, how did we get to this point? Who led the way, made the headlines, won the races, and laid the foundations and built on them?

Early years: Red Byron, Curtis Turner, Lee Petty, Tim Flock, Herb Thomas, Buck Baker. Honorable mention: Marshall Teague, Fireball Roberts, Bob Flock, Fonty Flock.

Middle Fifties: Turner, Petty, Flock, Baker, Junior Johnson, Fireball Roberts. Honorable mention: Herb Thomas, Speedy Thompson, Marvin Panch.

Late Fifties-Early Sixties: Petty, Roberts, Johnson, Joe Weatherly, Richard Petty, Fred Lorenzen. Honorable mention: Buck Baker, Ned Jarrett, Rex White, Marvin Panch.

Middle to late Sixties: R. Petty, David Pearson, Ned Jarrett, Cale Yarborough, Lee Roy Yarbrough, Bobby Allison. Honorable mention: Junior Johnson, Fred Lorenzen, Bobby Isaac, Donnie Allison.

Seventies: R. Petty, Yarborough, Pearson, Allison, Dale Earnhardt, Darrell Waltrip. Honorable mention: Benny Parsons, Neil Bonnett, Dave Marcis.

Eighties: R. Petty, Allison, Earnhardt, Waltrip, Bill Elliott, Rusty Wallace. Honorable mention: Tim Richmond, Neil Bonnett, Terry Labonte, Harry Gant, Ricky Rudd.

Nineties: Earnhardt, Elliott, Davey Allison, Jeff Gordon, Dale Jarrett, Mark Martin. Honorable mention: Darrell Waltrip, Rusty Wallace, Terry Labonte, Harry Gant, Ricky Rudd, Jeff Burton, Ernie Irvan, Sterling Marlin, Alan Kulwicki.

Early Aughts (2000 to 2005): Gordon, Tony Stewart, Matt Kenseth, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kurt Busch, Kevin Harvick. Honorable mention: Mark Martin, Jimmie Johnson, Bobby Labonte, Dale Jarrett, Greg Biffle, Ryan Newman.

Honorable mention for the present group: Kevin Harvick, Mark Martin, Denny Hamlin, Jeff Burton, Kurt Busch, Greg Biffle, Ryan Newman.

Racing in the Bluegrass

By DAVID GREEN

Some 41 years ago, when my career as a motorsports journalist got off the ground, racing -- of automobiles, that is -- was not a very big deal in my home state of Kentucky.

Kentucky, in the 1960s, had been the site of one NASCAR Grand National race. It was at Corbin Speedway, on Aug. 29, 1954. Lee Petty won, with Hershel McGriff second. Buck Baker and brothers Herb and Donald Thomas rounded out the top five.

The Commonwealth had made one other contribution of note to stock car racing -- Owensboro native G.C. Spencer, who had relocated to Inman, S.C., in northern Spartanburg County, and raced full-time for a good many years at NASCAR's top level.

In 1968, Darrell Waltrip -- another Owensboro product -- had yet to be discovered.

But there was stock car racing to be enjoyed in my neck of the woods, at the old Keeling Raceway and the Purchase District Fairgrounds in Mayfield. Before I was able to get out there with the boys in a car of my own, I contributed reports to a weekly newspaper in Paducah.

My, how things have changed. Now, none other than O. Bruton Smith himself is trying to bring days of Cup Series thunder to Kentucky Speedway. Dale Earnhardt and Dale Earnhardt Jr. bumper stickers abound. Finally, we have had some Kentuckians who didn't change the listing of their hometown (one again, you guessed it -- Owensboro) who enjoyed a measure of success in NASCAR.

Keeling is gone and the only "races" in Mayfield are tractor pulls and demolition derbies. But Junior, Ken Schrader and Tony Stewart are part owners of Paducah International Raceway, and there's another high-profile (but curiously managed) dirt oval, Kentucky Lake Motor Speedway, near Gilbertsville.

Even such things as a recent ceremony at the new Marshall County Hospital in Benton had a NASCAR connection. Scott Lathram, in whose name a new helipad was dedicated, was one of the victims of the October 2004 plane crash near Martinsville and was Stewart's helicopter pilot. 

I'm sort of ambivalent about Bruton's tiff with the former owners of Kentucky Speedway, who seem bent on getting some satisfaction out of NASCAR via litigation for not adding their track to the Cup Series schedule. I've come full circle and am now much more focused on the local racing scene.

Perhaps NASCAR mania in Kentucky has completed a lap in its own right. News coverage here -- even in Lexington, a lot closer to Kentucky Speedway than those of us down here west of the Tennessee River -- focused on Patrick Patterson's decision to remain at the University of Kentucky for one more basketball season. Even former Wildcat coach Rick Pitino (now at UK mortal enemy Louisville) and a Cincinnati-St. Louis baseball game story got higher play than Smith's admonition of the former Kentucky Speedway owners.

And of course, there's that horse race at Churchill Downs the first Saturday every May.

Still, auto racing is a much bigger deal in Kentucky now than it was four decades ago.