FORD STINKS UP THE SHORT TRACKS

[Get the latest Truth With Speedzzter here]

Bristol and Martinsville are probably not two favorite words in Ford Racing Boss Brian Wolfe's vocabulary these days.

To the dwindling number of Americans who "cling to guns and religion" and the rotting corpse of NASCAR after the corporations looted it and Brian France did his dead-level best to gift-wrap it for Toyota, Bristol and Martinsville represent the sort of action-packed short tracks that are the backbone of American oval racing. Thus, their importance is far out of proportion to their diminutive sizes.

In fact, Bristol and Martinsville are a welcome respite from the bland, "cookie-cutter" 1.5 mile ovals that predominate the homogenized, shrink-wrapped, sleep-inducing SPRINT CUP FUNNYCAR-OF-TOMORROW schedule.

And after a big debut for the Roush-Fenway Fords in 2009, Brian Wolfe was undoubtedly optimistic that Ford Racing's new parsimonious strategy might actually pan out.

Then the traitorous Joe Gibbs "Toyota Camry" common-template FunnyCar-of-tomorrow, aimed by the almost universally-loathed "Rowdy" Kyle Busch, took over for a triad of forgettable races (probably much to the satisfaction of the hapless Brian France and the sushi-eaters in NASCAR's luxury corporate boxes)

It should be noted that Rowdy's Tokyo Reign did little if anything to improve attendance at NASCAR's weekly WWE-On-Wheels "shows."

And at Bristol and Martinsville, Ford's NASCAR efforts crashed and burned bigger than a Pinto rammed by an 80,000-pound semi.

[No] Boogity, [No] Boogity, [No] Boogity.

Perhaps the only way Ford could have done worse (other than just wimping out as they did in November 1970) would be to put Toyota's crash-prone Michael Waltrip in a Fusion-FunnyCar-of-Tomorrow . . . .

In fact, at Martinsville, Ford was so uncompetitive that it placed only a pair of cars in the top twenty. And added to the misery was the shuttering of the Yates Racing #28 team (which was one of only two Fords in the top twenty at Bristol), the Wood Brothers part-time schedule, and an ever-growing field of Toyotas.

The best Ford at Bristol was Carl Edwards -- languishing back in fifteenth place.

It's a good thing that NASCAR fatigue and the France family's detonation of the essence of stock car racing has greatly reduced the audience for this fiasco.

Ford's short-track futility is not unexpected.

For five decades, Ford has done an abysmally poor job of supporting the grassroots of weekly short track racing across America. And the Achilles heel of Roush racing has always been the "short track program." NASCAR's testing ban and the "cheater" engines that NASCAR gave Chevrolet, Dodge and Toyota only make this worse.

Add on Ford's lack of car count, and you have a perfect formula for giving away the non-superspeedway portion of the Sprint Cup schedule.

Thus, Ford Racing fans were left with little more than rooting for arch-enemy Chevrolet to knock off the boring NAS-TOYOTA juggernaut.

But at least President Obama hasn't called for Brian Wolfe to be canned, so he's a bit better off than Rick Wagoner (who probably was in no mood to celebrate Hendrick Chevrolet's twenty-fifth anniversary victory at Martinsville).

Now if we could only get Obama to sack Brian France . . . .


(Truth With Speedzzter would like to give a shout out to the "TV TROPES" website for linking to this blog in its "Serious Business" trope page:

A blogger known only as "Speedzzter" went NUTS after Kyle Busch gave Toyota their first NASCAR Sprint Cup win. His rant must be read to be believed.

Of course, the greed-soaked sell-out of NASCAR's traditions to Toyota IS SERIOUS BUSINESS (and Truth With Speedzzter does not take such traitorous, Anti-American actions lightly).)