PENSKE DODGES SPOIL TOYOTA CORONATION AT DAYTONA
[GET THE LATEST "TRUTH" HERE (http://speedzzter.blogspot.com)]
The Fiftieth running of the Daytona 500 stayed “on script” for about 499 miles.
The non-production, purpose-engineered and built Toyota V8s had a reported 30 horsepower advantage over Chevrolet’s non-production, purpose-engineered and built “R07" engines (at least according to the horrendously shoddy Fox television broadcast of the race).
Apparently some were "more equal than others" in this year’s “Great [Nippon-]American Race.”
Toyota’s sudden engine prowess seemingly propelled the Joe Gibbs “Toyota Camry” funny-cars of Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart and Denny Hamblin to the front of the pack at will. Even formerly uncompetitive ham-n-eggers such as Michael Waltrip suddenly had almost “lead at will” ability in their stocky, common-template “Car of Today” “Toyotas.”
Tipping their hand, Toyota had snatched all but one of the four preliminary races run starting Thursday.
The “common-template-Toyota” funny-cars had an air of “inevitability.”
The lone non-Toyota-powered victor up to that point was the overwhelming fan favorite Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Earnhardt, now in a Hendrick Motorsports “Chevrolet” funny-car, benefitted from the assumed momentum of an organization which captured 18 of 36 “points races” in the Grand National . . . err . . . Winston . . . uh . . . Nextel . . . um . . . Sprint Cup in 2007.
[One would forgive the casual sports fan from missing the irony in that some of the longest motorsports races in the World during the longest professional sports season in the World as being for the "Sprint" Cup. At least it's not the Viagra Cup . . . yet]
Junior also basked in the week-long glow of a win in the pre-season NASCAR all-star race.
The hapless Fox broadcast spent most of the pre-race mostly ignoring a couple of dozen legendary past Daytona 500 drivers and beautifully restored American stock cars (nary a Japanese car among them), assembled apparently to yield an ersatz note of historical legitimacy to how the third generation of the France Family has systematically ruined “stock car” racing in America.
But the Fox pre-race show did build up the legacy, legend and fortunes of Junior, as expected.
Of course, to make sure that nobody missed the importance of the Earnhardt "brand" to the "modern" NASCAR, the France family made sure to thrust what looked like the 1998 race-winning No. 3 Chevrolet of the late Dale Earnhardt, Sr. dramatically out from under the performance stage and into the race-groupie crowd during the pre-race ceremonies.
The sum of the Earnhardt mania literally brought paid Toyota shill Darrell Waltrip to tears in the broadcast booth. (Waltrip then babbled some "Inside The Intimidator" anecdote about the Bible book of Proverbs, apparently not realizing that 98% of his handlers back in non-Christian Japan wouldn't have the slightest idea what he was rambling on about).
Thousands of fans in freshly-minted green & white “Junior 88" gear probably viewed Earnhardt, Jr., as the last hope for loyal Americans to beat back the “inevitable,” NASCAR-ORDAINED Japanese invasion of “the Great American Race, and temporarily save another tradition from being sullied by the money-grubbing hands of Brian France.”
And as it was, the “Fiftieth Renewal” of the Daytona 500 did appear to be a Tokyo rout for most of the afternoon. Joe Gibbs “Common-Template-Toyota” funny-car driver Kyle Busch (dumped from the Hendrick uber-team last year) “was on a mission,” spending 86 of 200 circuits in front of a bland, common-template car & driver field.
"Indiana" Tony Stewart, apparently seeking a “free haircut” in victory lane from the fawning motorsports press (NASCAR’s de facto outsourced public relations department), got his Joe Gibbs “Common-Template-Toyota” funny-car straightened out and was at the front for the denouement.
"Smoke" Stewart's surge was almost as if scripted to give the Gibbs traitors and the Tokyo invaders a touch of All-American Apple Pie "cover" for what was shaping up to be a certain object lesson as to just how far Detroit had fallen during the past five decades.
(Never mind that the never-been-production Toyota “engine of tomorrow” is a bizarre compacted graphite iron and aerospace aluminum concoction borne of computational fluid dynamics, thousands of dynamometer hours, and millions upon millions of dollars to make a “contemporary” single-cam-in-block, pushrod/rocker arm/two-valves-per-cylinder racing engine inside of an arbitrary, almost-luddite rules “box” that could have been drafted in 1955. Also never mind that the chunky “Camry” funny-car traces its engineering linage through such obscure parts as 1960s Chevrolet half-ton truck trailing arms, 1950s Ford “Nine-inch” third members, and 1960s-era four-speed manual transmissions ).
One wonders had NASCAR's selective abhorrence of technology not begun stultifying the adoption of modern original-equipment developments in 1957 (fuel injection, supercharging, turbocharging, overhead camshafts, multiple valves, IRS, etc.) whether the Japanese invasion of America's streets and in motorsports would have progressed as far as it has.
Almost the only respite from the first three-and-a half hours of “riding around” (occasionally punctuated by one of NASCAR’s infamous “debris cautions” thrown about the time everyone needed a pit stop anyway) was a spate of Chevrolet ads touting that even though everything in Junior’s world had changed, he was still loyal to the Bow-tie brand (i.e. still cashing multi-million dollar checks from GM, unlike that disloyal worm Tony Stewart . . . .) Chevrolet also threw in a few “loyalty” spots for Junior’s senior brethren at Hendrick Motorsports – elder statesman Jeff Gordon and two-time defending “Cup” champion (and Gordon clone) Jimmy Johnson.
The other, more insipid diversion was Fox’s new “Gopher Cam” and matching cartoon graphic. Apparently assuming that the average NASCAR fan prepares for the race by downing a case or two of Budweiser (the official beer of NASCAR, we’re told) and has the mental age of a toddler, someone at Fox decided it was an entertaining use of one of Fox’s 75 cameras to bury it at the edge of the pavement, and then claim it was a breakthrough in racing television. Undoubtedly, most of the fans enduring the Toyota 499 hoped that Junior would stray below the yellow line just long enough to whack the blurry camera and the cartoon mole. Sadly, neither happened. But Junior’s still in a Chevy . . . .
By the way, there were some field-fillers from Ford and Dodge in the Toyota 499. . . .
Ford -- apparently not wanting to spoil the impact of the return of Knight Rider as a Shelby GT500KR later that night on NBC -- kept their chrome-decal Gillette Fusion grilles mostly off camera.
One notable exception was when one of the seven Ford funny-cars (the one that used to be driven by the “ageless” (according to Fox) Mark Martin) slammed into one of the other seven Fords (driven by the still-aging Matt Kenseth). Perhaps the Roushkateers figured that would be about the only way to get some sponsor air-time during the Toyota 499 . . . .
During the Toyota 499, the hapless Foxcasters delighted to point out that the even more hapless Robby Gordon had “switched” from Ford to Dodge in the weeks leading up to the Toyota 499.
Not much of a loss (except that this “other Gordon” finished two full spots ahead of the highest finishing Ford).
Fox also tracked down Bob Nardelli, Cerberus’ head dog at the latest “new Chrysler,” for an interview. Nardelli said nothing newsworthy or memorable to Fox, but he had previously promised any Dodge team who won Daytona a million dollars of Cerberus’ money.
Given how the “common-template-Toyotas” were running (including the one paid for by Nardelli’s former employer, “Home Depot”) old “Minimum Bob” probably felt like the “Cerberus Million” was safe.
And it was . . . right up to lap 199 of 200.
As is the modern script, the racers just “rode” in forgettable queues until about the last 25 laps. Then it was “time to go.”
Still, even “go time” was mostly “common-template-Toyota” funny-car time.
Uncharacteristically, the Hendrick “common-template-Chevrolet” funny-cars had mostly faded. The hopes of the crowd faded as well as Junior’s new Hendrick brain trust apparently failed to bring him in for new tires at the proper time during the late-race caution flags, giving the Joe Gibbs “common-template-Toyota” funny-cars an even larger advantage. Fox reported that Junior would have come in with the leaders on one stop, except that the Hendrick brain trust clogged the radio and failed to tell Earnhardt to come in soon enough.
The Richard Childress “common-template-Chevrolet” funny-cars driven by Clint Bowyer and former Roush-Fenway Ford driver Jeff Burton each had brief moments in the lead spot light during the caution-plagued final 20 laps. But nothing they did dashed any hopes that the race was between a handful of “common-template-Toyotas.”
After all, the non-production, purpose-built pushrod OHV “Toyota” mill had 30 extra horsepower (as the Toyota-paid shills in the Fox broadcast booth repeatedly reminded us) . . . .
Undoubtedly, everyone expected the race to finish under caution or in a "made-for-HDTV" “green-white-checker” “Overdrive,” given the “script” of the past few years.
So when the race went green to the end after the last “inside 10 to go” single-file restart, it was a surprise.
As was the sudden strength of the Roger Penske “common-template-Dodges” of Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch.
(Ford fans will of course lament that Penske was an opportunistic defector to Dodge from Ford when DaimlerChrysler rammed its way back into NASCAR a few years back)
Tony Stewart’s “common-template-Toyota” funny-car was on-the-point as expected – its rumored 30 extra horsepower holding off all comers. Teammate Kyle Busch was charging in the lower line behind the “common-template-Dodge” of Ryan Newman. Stewart blocked low and Newman swapped to the high side, slotting in front of his teammate (former Ford driver) Kurt Busch. Busch (Kurt, not Kyle) then used the giant railroad tie bumpers on the two Penske common-template “cars of today” to their best effect, ramming Newman into the lead during the last half of the last circuit of the race.
The Toyota 499 was over.
The threat from Tokyo via North Carolina was vanquished . . . for at least one more week.
Inevitable apparently wasn’t.
The Toyota “sweep” of the NASCAR portion of “Speedweeks” was averted. An ALL-AMERICAN combination of “common-template car/driver” had won the Fiftieth Daytona 500. The first (and perhaps only) winner of the Cerberus Million had been crowned.
What happened to the script? Apparently nobody dropped off a copy at Penske.
As if to add an ironic, if not cynically surreal, bit of comedy to the unexpected triumph, “the Captain himself, Roger Penske bummed a Hendrick Motorsports “pit cap” from convicted felon Rick Hendrick** and wore it during the post-race interview on television.
Where were the Fords?
10th Greg Biffle
19th Carl Edwards
26th Jamie McMurray
28th David Gilliland
30th Travis Kvapil
36th Matt Kenseth
42nd David Ragan
But that Shelby GT500KR did get a lot of screen time over on NBC . . . .
**Rick Hendrick was convicted of mail fraud in 1997 but was pardoned by William Jefferson Clinton.
[GET THE LATEST "TRUTH" HERE (http://speedzzter.blogspot.com)]
The Fiftieth running of the Daytona 500 stayed “on script” for about 499 miles.
The non-production, purpose-engineered and built Toyota V8s had a reported 30 horsepower advantage over Chevrolet’s non-production, purpose-engineered and built “R07" engines (at least according to the horrendously shoddy Fox television broadcast of the race).
Apparently some were "more equal than others" in this year’s “Great [Nippon-]American Race.”
Toyota’s sudden engine prowess seemingly propelled the Joe Gibbs “Toyota Camry” funny-cars of Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart and Denny Hamblin to the front of the pack at will. Even formerly uncompetitive ham-n-eggers such as Michael Waltrip suddenly had almost “lead at will” ability in their stocky, common-template “Car of Today” “Toyotas.”
Tipping their hand, Toyota had snatched all but one of the four preliminary races run starting Thursday.
The “common-template-Toyota” funny-cars had an air of “inevitability.”
The lone non-Toyota-powered victor up to that point was the overwhelming fan favorite Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Earnhardt, now in a Hendrick Motorsports “Chevrolet” funny-car, benefitted from the assumed momentum of an organization which captured 18 of 36 “points races” in the Grand National . . . err . . . Winston . . . uh . . . Nextel . . . um . . . Sprint Cup in 2007.
[One would forgive the casual sports fan from missing the irony in that some of the longest motorsports races in the World during the longest professional sports season in the World as being for the "Sprint" Cup. At least it's not the Viagra Cup . . . yet]
Junior also basked in the week-long glow of a win in the pre-season NASCAR all-star race.
The hapless Fox broadcast spent most of the pre-race mostly ignoring a couple of dozen legendary past Daytona 500 drivers and beautifully restored American stock cars (nary a Japanese car among them), assembled apparently to yield an ersatz note of historical legitimacy to how the third generation of the France Family has systematically ruined “stock car” racing in America.
But the Fox pre-race show did build up the legacy, legend and fortunes of Junior, as expected.
Of course, to make sure that nobody missed the importance of the Earnhardt "brand" to the "modern" NASCAR, the France family made sure to thrust what looked like the 1998 race-winning No. 3 Chevrolet of the late Dale Earnhardt, Sr. dramatically out from under the performance stage and into the race-groupie crowd during the pre-race ceremonies.
The sum of the Earnhardt mania literally brought paid Toyota shill Darrell Waltrip to tears in the broadcast booth. (Waltrip then babbled some "Inside The Intimidator" anecdote about the Bible book of Proverbs, apparently not realizing that 98% of his handlers back in non-Christian Japan wouldn't have the slightest idea what he was rambling on about).
Thousands of fans in freshly-minted green & white “Junior 88" gear probably viewed Earnhardt, Jr., as the last hope for loyal Americans to beat back the “inevitable,” NASCAR-ORDAINED Japanese invasion of “the Great American Race, and temporarily save another tradition from being sullied by the money-grubbing hands of Brian France.”
And as it was, the “Fiftieth Renewal” of the Daytona 500 did appear to be a Tokyo rout for most of the afternoon. Joe Gibbs “Common-Template-Toyota” funny-car driver Kyle Busch (dumped from the Hendrick uber-team last year) “was on a mission,” spending 86 of 200 circuits in front of a bland, common-template car & driver field.
"Indiana" Tony Stewart, apparently seeking a “free haircut” in victory lane from the fawning motorsports press (NASCAR’s de facto outsourced public relations department), got his Joe Gibbs “Common-Template-Toyota” funny-car straightened out and was at the front for the denouement.
"Smoke" Stewart's surge was almost as if scripted to give the Gibbs traitors and the Tokyo invaders a touch of All-American Apple Pie "cover" for what was shaping up to be a certain object lesson as to just how far Detroit had fallen during the past five decades.
(Never mind that the never-been-production Toyota “engine of tomorrow” is a bizarre compacted graphite iron and aerospace aluminum concoction borne of computational fluid dynamics, thousands of dynamometer hours, and millions upon millions of dollars to make a “contemporary” single-cam-in-block, pushrod/rocker arm/two-valves-per-cylinder racing engine inside of an arbitrary, almost-luddite rules “box” that could have been drafted in 1955. Also never mind that the chunky “Camry” funny-car traces its engineering linage through such obscure parts as 1960s Chevrolet half-ton truck trailing arms, 1950s Ford “Nine-inch” third members, and 1960s-era four-speed manual transmissions ).
One wonders had NASCAR's selective abhorrence of technology not begun stultifying the adoption of modern original-equipment developments in 1957 (fuel injection, supercharging, turbocharging, overhead camshafts, multiple valves, IRS, etc.) whether the Japanese invasion of America's streets and in motorsports would have progressed as far as it has.
Almost the only respite from the first three-and-a half hours of “riding around” (occasionally punctuated by one of NASCAR’s infamous “debris cautions” thrown about the time everyone needed a pit stop anyway) was a spate of Chevrolet ads touting that even though everything in Junior’s world had changed, he was still loyal to the Bow-tie brand (i.e. still cashing multi-million dollar checks from GM, unlike that disloyal worm Tony Stewart . . . .) Chevrolet also threw in a few “loyalty” spots for Junior’s senior brethren at Hendrick Motorsports – elder statesman Jeff Gordon and two-time defending “Cup” champion (and Gordon clone) Jimmy Johnson.
The other, more insipid diversion was Fox’s new “Gopher Cam” and matching cartoon graphic. Apparently assuming that the average NASCAR fan prepares for the race by downing a case or two of Budweiser (the official beer of NASCAR, we’re told) and has the mental age of a toddler, someone at Fox decided it was an entertaining use of one of Fox’s 75 cameras to bury it at the edge of the pavement, and then claim it was a breakthrough in racing television. Undoubtedly, most of the fans enduring the Toyota 499 hoped that Junior would stray below the yellow line just long enough to whack the blurry camera and the cartoon mole. Sadly, neither happened. But Junior’s still in a Chevy . . . .
By the way, there were some field-fillers from Ford and Dodge in the Toyota 499. . . .
Ford -- apparently not wanting to spoil the impact of the return of Knight Rider as a Shelby GT500KR later that night on NBC -- kept their chrome-decal Gillette Fusion grilles mostly off camera.
One notable exception was when one of the seven Ford funny-cars (the one that used to be driven by the “ageless” (according to Fox) Mark Martin) slammed into one of the other seven Fords (driven by the still-aging Matt Kenseth). Perhaps the Roushkateers figured that would be about the only way to get some sponsor air-time during the Toyota 499 . . . .
During the Toyota 499, the hapless Foxcasters delighted to point out that the even more hapless Robby Gordon had “switched” from Ford to Dodge in the weeks leading up to the Toyota 499.
Not much of a loss (except that this “other Gordon” finished two full spots ahead of the highest finishing Ford).
Fox also tracked down Bob Nardelli, Cerberus’ head dog at the latest “new Chrysler,” for an interview. Nardelli said nothing newsworthy or memorable to Fox, but he had previously promised any Dodge team who won Daytona a million dollars of Cerberus’ money.
Given how the “common-template-Toyotas” were running (including the one paid for by Nardelli’s former employer, “Home Depot”) old “Minimum Bob” probably felt like the “Cerberus Million” was safe.
And it was . . . right up to lap 199 of 200.
As is the modern script, the racers just “rode” in forgettable queues until about the last 25 laps. Then it was “time to go.”
Still, even “go time” was mostly “common-template-Toyota” funny-car time.
Uncharacteristically, the Hendrick “common-template-Chevrolet” funny-cars had mostly faded. The hopes of the crowd faded as well as Junior’s new Hendrick brain trust apparently failed to bring him in for new tires at the proper time during the late-race caution flags, giving the Joe Gibbs “common-template-Toyota” funny-cars an even larger advantage. Fox reported that Junior would have come in with the leaders on one stop, except that the Hendrick brain trust clogged the radio and failed to tell Earnhardt to come in soon enough.
The Richard Childress “common-template-Chevrolet” funny-cars driven by Clint Bowyer and former Roush-Fenway Ford driver Jeff Burton each had brief moments in the lead spot light during the caution-plagued final 20 laps. But nothing they did dashed any hopes that the race was between a handful of “common-template-Toyotas.”
After all, the non-production, purpose-built pushrod OHV “Toyota” mill had 30 extra horsepower (as the Toyota-paid shills in the Fox broadcast booth repeatedly reminded us) . . . .
Undoubtedly, everyone expected the race to finish under caution or in a "made-for-HDTV" “green-white-checker” “Overdrive,” given the “script” of the past few years.
So when the race went green to the end after the last “inside 10 to go” single-file restart, it was a surprise.
As was the sudden strength of the Roger Penske “common-template-Dodges” of Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch.
(Ford fans will of course lament that Penske was an opportunistic defector to Dodge from Ford when DaimlerChrysler rammed its way back into NASCAR a few years back)
Tony Stewart’s “common-template-Toyota” funny-car was on-the-point as expected – its rumored 30 extra horsepower holding off all comers. Teammate Kyle Busch was charging in the lower line behind the “common-template-Dodge” of Ryan Newman. Stewart blocked low and Newman swapped to the high side, slotting in front of his teammate (former Ford driver) Kurt Busch. Busch (Kurt, not Kyle) then used the giant railroad tie bumpers on the two Penske common-template “cars of today” to their best effect, ramming Newman into the lead during the last half of the last circuit of the race.
The Toyota 499 was over.
The threat from Tokyo via North Carolina was vanquished . . . for at least one more week.
Inevitable apparently wasn’t.
The Toyota “sweep” of the NASCAR portion of “Speedweeks” was averted. An ALL-AMERICAN combination of “common-template car/driver” had won the Fiftieth Daytona 500. The first (and perhaps only) winner of the Cerberus Million had been crowned.
What happened to the script? Apparently nobody dropped off a copy at Penske.
As if to add an ironic, if not cynically surreal, bit of comedy to the unexpected triumph, “the Captain himself, Roger Penske bummed a Hendrick Motorsports “pit cap” from convicted felon Rick Hendrick** and wore it during the post-race interview on television.
Where were the Fords?
10th Greg Biffle
19th Carl Edwards
26th Jamie McMurray
28th David Gilliland
30th Travis Kvapil
36th Matt Kenseth
42nd David Ragan
But that Shelby GT500KR did get a lot of screen time over on NBC . . . .
**Rick Hendrick was convicted of mail fraud in 1997 but was pardoned by William Jefferson Clinton.
Labels: Chrysler, Daytona 500, Ford Racing, NASCAR, NASCAR HATES FORD, Toyota
posted by Editor at 08:25
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