NECROTIC NASCAR 2009: THOUGHTS ON THE SPRINT CUP BANQUET

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One of Truth With Speedzzter's most popular posts is "The Day NASCAR Died" (see sidebar).

While the homgenized FunnyCar of Tomorrow, the plethora of "cookie cutter" race tracks, the loss of traditional venues, and the Toyota invasion have drained the life out of the sport formerly known as "stock car racing," a larger problem is the scripted, corporate ciphers driving the "NASCARS" in seemingly endless nose-to-tail succession around the tracks.

About 98% of the current NASCAR drivers are some of the most uninteresting automatons on the face of the Earth. And one of the few things worse that watching the mess that NASCAR has become on-track, is watching some "made-for-TV" spectacle off-track. One such waste-of-time was the 2009 NASCAR SPRINT CUP awards banquet.

Rebeldryver on Banghift.com put it succinctly:

Tried to watch Nascar awards show. I couldn't. Even more boring than Hollywood award shows. Same speeches by the drivers. Only difference is that they are wearing monkey suits instead of racing suits. Speed's coverage is about usual for a Nascar on Speed show.

Yup.

Too bad that "Think With Your Dipstick" guy (Not Tiger Woods, BTW) didn't come out to liven the thing up a tad.

Of course if he did, today's typical namby-pamby NASCAR celebrity driver wouldn't have decked the guy . . . but instead would have launched into another memorized listing of sponsors . . . .

"Well the ARMANI TUXEDO really absorbed the sting of that dipstick today at The WYNN LAS VEGAS HOTEL AND CASINO. And I've got to hand it to the LOWE'S CHEVROLET crew who got me dressed up and dialed in for tonight's NASCAR SPRINT CUP Banquet on SPEED. Those HAINES ALL-COTTON BRIEFS were really workin' too."

"And PRADA really gave me a good set of shoes for tonight's NASCAR SPRINT CUP Banquet on SPEED. . . . I was able to maneuver around and put my LOWE'S CHEVROLET keaster exactly where I wanted it on stage tonight." It really helped me collect my fourth consecutive NASCAR SPRINT CUP championship trophy for HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS, LOWE'S, QUAKER STATE, KOBALT TOOLS, THE NATIONAL GUARDand CHEVROLET."

"And Chad Knaus really made all the right calls to get me away from that crazy dipstick guy and get me back to the head table here at The WYNN LAS VEGAS HOTEL AND CASINO."

"And I'm sure that after a couple of cans of MONSTER ENERGY drink, some GOODY'S COOL ORANGE POWDERS, and another NASCAR drug test, we'll be ready just cash that $6.6 Million SPRINT CUP check and keep on diggin' for Number 5 . . . Could somebody get my man -- the 2009 Bill France Award of Excellence winner Rick Hendrick -- a KLEENIX and some VISINE eye drops?"

NASCAR 2009 RECAP: FUTILITY LEAVENED BY TEDIUM

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Maybe you haven’t noticed, but the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup season is finally over. And perhaps the best thing that Ford fans can say about it is “at least that turncoat Mark Martin didn’t win the Sprint Cup!”

2009 NASCAR MANUFACTURER STANDINGS
1. Chevrolet (262 points; 18 wins)
2. Toyota (207 points; 11 wins)
3. Ford (164 points; 3 wins (only one non-restrictor plate win))
4. Dodge (159 points; 4 wins)

In 2009, Ford won only a little over eight percent of the thirty-six races that comprised what Autoextremist Peter M. DeLorenzo calls “NASCAR’s death march of a season” (of course an actual “death march” would have exponentially more drama and human interest than the France Family’s common-template, common-specification snoozefest). In more than nine of every ten races, the Fords lost.

And at times, it didn’t even seem that close.

For throwbacks who root for “The Brand” (Ford, of course) rather any particular driver, this season was almost as bad as the seasons during Ford’s idiotic withdrawal from American racing in the 1970s.

For the first time in a couple of decades, I didn’t tune into NASCAR’s final race of the season. The 2009 Ford 400 at Miami-Homestead seemed to offer almost no prospects any Blue Oval “dust and glory” (other than perhaps the detritus stirred up by the Ford pace car).

And indeed, what happened is of little note, other than the fait accompli of Jimmy Johnson’s fourth straight title driving for pardoned jailbird Rick Hendrick.

So what can we learn from this wasted season of futility leavened with unbearable tedium?

1. “Some are more equal than others.”

The principal justification for the whole non-production, common-template, spec racer mess is that it produces “equal competition.” Yet with bankrupt Chevrolet and invading Toyota taking over EIGHTY PERCENT of the races, it is clear that the “equal competition” spin is an empty canard.

Just as in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, “some are more equal than others.”

Of course Ford spent virtually the entire 2009 season without their non-production FR9 “cheater” engine, while GM and Toyota both had not-remotely-production engines that were “maxed out” to the NASCAR spec.

Ford’s reliance on the last of the production-based engines, however, wasn’t the real problem.

The blame rests squarely on Ford Racing and Jack Roush. If the on-track results so far during NASCAR’s common-template “IROC era” are any indication, neither Ford Racing nor Roush fully appreciated the challenge of making NASCAR’s hideous “Car-of-Tomorrow” handle. The Fords got behind early in the COT era and apparently haven’t been able to catch up.

Either that, or Ford is simply stuck with some of the most dim-witted crew chiefs and whining, hamfisted, overly-cautious drivers in the history of motorsports.

2. Downsizing is wrong-sizing.

Once upon a time, Bill Elliott won as many races in a Ford during a NASCAR season as Toyota did this season. In those olden days, Ford’s effort was otherwise swamped by the cubic spending of GM. It was truly a “David versus Goliath” struggle.

Similarly, David Pearson wheeled the Wood Brothers Mercury to huge win totals during the “lost years” of Ford’s factory pull-out, despite running only a partial schedule and making do with a rapidly shrinking supply of factory parts.

The ancient heroics of the Elliott family and the Wood Brothers have likely convinced bean counters in the Glass House that Ford can somehow get more “bang for the buck” than the Detroit bankrupts and the “Evil Empire” (Toyota). The "new-speaking" corporate management geeks call it "right-sizing."

Ford’s abysmal results in 2009 ought to firmly discredit such hazy myopia.

Ford’s addition of the underperforming Richard Petty Motorsports teams for 2010 hopefully is recognition that in the new “IROC” era, a larger number of entries is necessary for evading testing limits, enhancing driver development and retention, and improving the odds of success.

3. Intramural competition is healthy.

Ford’s bosses could easily draw the wrong conclusion from Hendrick Motorsports’ domination of the 2009 season. GM’s effort was stronger because they had more well-funded teams racing their non-production “Chevrolets.” For the most part Ford collapsed their NASCAR operations into the Roush-Fenway organization. Although Hendrick supplied powerplants to a number of satellite teams, the competition among GM teams most certainly sharpened the Hendrick attack.


4. Jimmy “IROC” Johnson isn’t the greatest NASCAR driver of all time.

The NASCAR-beholden media is fawning over Jimmy Johnson’s four straight Cup titles. Many of these NASCAR scribes claim Johnson’s ascended to the very top of fendered oval racing’s all-time ziggurat, even in an era where competition is the best its ever been. They even argue that Dale Earnhardt, Jr.’s poor results in Hendrick machinery proves that Johnson himself, not the massive Hendrick “Panzer blitz,” is responsible for Johnson’s success.

R-I-G-H-T.

Johnson and Chad Knaus may be the current champions of strategic winning (i.e. riding until it really counts). They apparently understand the math behind NASCAR’s made-for-TV Chase format better than virtually anyone else. But it’s ridiculous to elevate Jimmy Johnson to any greatness transcending the specialized corporate superteam/radial tire/power steering/big downforce era in which he races.

How many championships would Johnson have won saddled with a Roush-Fenway COT?

And how would this most forgettable of corporate P.R. babbling “metrosexual” drivers have fared in the days when crusty, leather-tough bootleggers and war heros slung huge, spoiler-less, manual steering stock cars around on bias belted tires for 50 or more races in a season? Would they have even let a “pretty boy” like Jimmy in the drivers’ meetings back then?

Take away Jimmy Johnson’s track-scraping “big bar, soft spring” set-up, most of the downforce, and his phalanx of engineers and specialists, put him into a production-based race car towed out in the open behind a pickup, and then see how many championships he could win.

But if NASCAR’s self-serving claims about competition parity are to be believed, then Jimmy Johnson is apparently the king of the IROC racers. But he’s hardly in the same league with the real men who manhandled real stock cars.

5. Ford should have hired “Rowdy” Busch.

Kyle Busch may be the rough-driving wild man that traditional fans love to hate. He may have been the odd man out during his days with the Jailbird Hendrick juggernaut. He may be one of the most annoying manufactured “stars” of this bland IROC era. He may have even demanded more money than his abbreviated resume justified. But had Ford instead of Toyota hired him, it’s possible that Ford would be looking at more than a puny triad of wins in 2009 (even stuck with the apparently inept Roush-Fenway COT).

6. Ford’s development ladder must be broken.

As the Roushkateers age – and the aged, jockey-sized prune, Mark Martin, embarrasses his former employer – it is abundantly clear that Hendrick and GM are far better at spotting and developing talent than Ford. Both on the pit box and behind the wheel, Hendrick has done a better job “locking in” the people necessary to dominate. Even ex-Hendrick drivers seem to continue greatness.

Meanwhile, no Ford driver “stepped up” in 2009. Matt Kenseth showed a couple of flashes early on, but usually qualified poorly and spent many races complaining about how his car handled. “Cousin” Carl Edwards returned to mere mortal status in 2009. Greg Biffle lacked the speed to deal with the Hendrick COTs or the “Toyotas.” It would be hard to find any “swag” for any of the other Ford drivers down at the local Walmart, which should be a good indicator of their seasonal futility.

Only at the fall Talladega wild-card of a race – the AMP Energy 500 -- did one of the lesser Ford drivers (the lame duck Jamie McMurray) break through the deafening Hendrick/Toyota noise.

Most certainly, there are some bean counters and “shiny, happy, smiley” golf-playing bureaucrats who are questioning Ford’s NASCAR investment today. They may even point to how the ruthless “Evil Empire” (Toyota) cut its losses in Formula One as a model for “corporate responsibility.”

But now is not the time to tuck Ford’s tail between its legs and abandon the field to “Government Motors,” or the blandastic Japanese invaders and their collaborating henchmen. Now is the time for honest reflection and fighting back. Ford didn’t win Le Mans four straight times by quitting. Ford didn’t revitalize Indy Car racing by cutting corners and costs. And Ford’s Cosworth didn’t become the default powerplant in Formula One for more than a decade by giving up in the face of better established factory operations.

For better or worse, NASCAR is the face of American racing. Its nauseating, necrotic corpse may be merely a shadow of its former self. It may have nothing much to do with production cars anymore. It may be suffering from the heavy-handed fumbling of the Frances. Its days of glory, great demographics, and double-digit growth may be gone for good. But, if Ford is serious about motorsports, it must be in NASCAR . . . and much more competitive in NASCAR.
Let’s hope 2010 isn’t as horrible as 2009.