| | | | | | | | |  | | | |  The fans deserve a chance to see a race for the win! - Dennis Michelson
Sit down, strap in, and get ready to sound off as Doin’ Donuts radio show joins the blogosphere! Let Lori Munro and Dennis Michelson know your opinion on the topics below then tune in Monday night at 8pm ET on RaceTalkRadio.com for more "Doin’ Donuts."
GREEN-WHITE-CHECKERS IMPROVEMENTS
Dennis says...
NASCAR implanted the green-white-checker system to give racing fans a better chance to see a green flag finish. But this year the majority of the green-white-checkered finishes have ended on the white due to wrecks! NASCAR needs a better system for the green-white-checkered plan. First, bench all of the cars that are NOT on the lead lap! Thinning out the number of cars on the track will give the lead lap cars a better chance to race. NASCAR should also give those drivers more than one chance to get the finish in under green flag conditions. Let there be three tries to get the race in under the green flag! Fans are paying big money and television viewers invest up to four hours or more to feed their NASCAR fix every Sunday. That sort of loyalty deserves a green flag finish when possible!
Lori says...
Big no-no to bench the non-lead lap cars. Why you may ask? Because their sponsors AND fans deserve to see their car/driver on the track when the checkers fly. When you start eliminating individuals you also run the risk of eliminating sponsor dollars and no matter how you cut it, it’s a fact that money drives every facet of stock car racing. I think NASCAR has done its best by putting only the lead cars out front when a restart is 10 laps from the end so being that the Cup series is “the premiere level of the sport”, then its up to the drivers to perform at a premiere level. If they can’t handle the green–white–checkered finishes without continually wrecking, then maybe their teams/sponsors need to sit back and re-evaluate the talent level of their driver.
RACE BACK TO THE CHECKERS
Dennis says...
Another way NASCAR can give the fans more for their money is to allow racing back to the checkered flag. Since the safety crews are already woefully slow letting the drivers race back to the checkers as long as the wreck is after the start/finish line won’t hurt the safety response at all! Saturday night’s race was a great example of a wreck that shouldn’t have prematurely ended the race. Racing is a dangerous business. While I do not support the idea of racing back to the caution all race doing so at the end of the race makes sense. The fans deserve a chance to see a race for the win! Since drivers have spotters to let them know where the accident remains are on the track there is no reason if the accident is well past the start/finish line that the drivers can’t race back to the checkers on the last lap of the race.
Lori says...
NASCAR should be allowed to govern the sport as they see fit and that includes judging each lap of each race on an individual basis, taking into consideration every facet of what is unfolding in front of the fans. Jeff Gordon’s “tag” from Carl Edwards at Daytona did not elicit the wave of a yellow flag simply because Gordon was well cleared of the traffic and in no apparent danger. Had he been crosswise on the track with everyone capable of hitting him, then that’s a no-brainer and the yellow should be thrown. One rule simply can’t cover every situation and should be used as a starting guideline and then the incident judged on its own individuality.
SICK SMOKE
Dennis says...
How long will it take for the media and fans to suggest that Tony Stewart would have sucked it up if he wasn’t leaving Joe Gibbs Racing at the end of the year? The choice of JJ Yeley as a super sub was rather interesting. Couldn’t JGR have found a better driver to sub? Tony Stewart is a warrior and has driven hurt or sick on many occasions. For Smoke to get out of the car he must have been suffering a near death experience! JGR needs to have a better relief driver around than Yeley!
Lori says...
To Yeley’s credit, as a relief driver I think he did a half-decent job with his 20th place finish. Nobody can replace Stewart and from the best of my “insider info”, AJ Foyt was busy at Watkin’s Glen, although he would have required less padding than Yeley (or maybe the “Jaws of Life”) to insert him into the orange Camry. Without a doubt, Tony was pretty sick to even consider getting out of his car, but as for this being some kind of defiant act against Toyota or anything less than what it was, is ludicrous. But I’m sure the talk and rumors and innuendo will start if it hasn’t already.
REACTION OR OVERREACTION
Dennis says...
This week the NHRA made the announcement that their nitro classes will have their races reduced by 320 feet to allow for more run off distance and to slow the speeds. The change comes just a week after the sport lost driver Scott Kalitta. After NASCAR lost drivers Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin Jr very little was done. It is great to see a sanctioning body making a quick fix to enhance safety so fast after the accident. Perhaps NASCAR should learn from this example and react rather than study changes when they have an accident in the future.
Lori says...
Years ago, Indy & midget cars had their roll bar placed lower than the driver’s head. Kurtis Craft midgets and Watson roadsters gave way to safer engineering and now just sit in museums quietly telling tales of lost drivers and flamboyant crashes. Any time a sanctioning body makes an evasive or reactive move to improve safety, it can’t be a wrong move. Let’s put our dimes and quarters together and get Bill Simpson on the line and see if he agrees that NASCAR has the balls to put safety ahead of everything else.
ROWDIEST SEASON SINCE
Dennis says...
Kyle Busch made one of the greatest saves in Saturday night’s race and then rallied for the win in the closing laps. Whether it is a short track, speedway, road course, or restrictor plate track Kyle is the driver to beat each and every week. It is rather ironic that this is the greatest season in NASCAR history since Jeff Gordon’s 13 win championship season in 1998. Coming into the season Kyle Busch had a total of four wins in his three complete seasons. This year he already has six wins in Cup, four in the Nationwide Series, and two more in the Craftsman Trucks. Even more impressive this is coming in his first year at Joe Gibbs Racing after being let go by the best team in the sport! We might be seeing the most impressive NASCAR season in the modern era.
Lori says...
Don’t forget the implementation of the COT fulltime in ‘08 and Toyota’s maiden voyage with Joe Gibbs Racing paired with the youthful exuberance of Mr. Kyle Busch as well. He is having a phenomenal season and some of the sports icons are comparing him to past icons such as Tim Richmond. (Still waiting for my TR poster that was banned years ago…). We saw Kyle’s steering get out of whack on Saturday night and it took falling back a few spots to sort it out but for the love of God, he managed to make it all work to his advantage somehow.
It’s always been said that any of us will be successful when we find something we truly love to do, and make a career out of it. I for one am glad that Kyle Busch didn’t play with fire trucks or surfboards as a kid. Auto racing 2008 would have been far less of a thrill indeed.
BEST RACE OF THE WEEKEND
Dennis says...
Whenever the NASCAR Craftsman Truck series has the weekend off it opens up the “Best Race of the Weekend” contest. But the holiday weekend gave race fans an overdose of great racing! When the Formula One race is thoroughly entertaining you know it’s been a great weekend. The Indy Car Series race was definitely the worst and craziest race of the weekend featuring three wrecks DURING one caution. Restrictor Plate racing is always nerve wracking but isn’t always my favorite racing, but both Daytona events were fascinating to watch and exciting to the finish. But the Rolex race from Daytona on Thursday wins the award this week. The Daytona Prototypes are putting on a better show every year and this week’s race featured the best finish ever!
Lori says...
I’m with you here Dennis. When I got to hear Scott Pruett in victory lane say, “Hi to family at home”… my night was complete and I shut out the lights wearing my “I LOVE PRUETT” t-shirt to bed. Road racing has for so long been known as a more “gentlemanly” sport than stock car racing and some stock car snobs still think road racing is all hoity-toity and champagne and mink coats. Like so many forms of motorsports, road racing has changed and you’ll see just as much bumping and grinding as on the oval tracks in the southeast. Be they in shopping carts or a 2 wheeled Segway… it’s all about competition and the Rolex series has some of the best competitors that ever strapped in to take the green.
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