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Shut Up and Enjoy Real Racing
2/19/08: SOZ Studios, MI - By Dennis Michelsen "DMIC" (RaceTalkRadio.com)
Are all the whiners the only people commenting about the 2008 edition of the Daytona 500? How anyone could be complaining about the 50th annual Great American Race is beyond me! I was captivated during all 500 miles of this amazing race. I was an outspoken critic of the Car of Tomorrow design but I have to admit that NASCAR nailed it for this type of racing at least. Hey race fans…shut up and enjoy some real racing instead of that restrictor plate crap we used to be served!
Not a NASCAR Apologist
Before you pen that email suggesting that I am simply speaking out after sipping the NASCAR Kool-Aid take a moment to look at my history as a writer. After the deaths of Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin Jr I mouthed off that NASCAR had not done nearly enough to make the tracks and cars safer. When NASCAR paid off Jesse Jackson's Operation Push with a donation I called it a blackmail payment on Fox News' "O'Reilly Factor." The Chase for the Championship format was blasted for being a bad way to crown a champion and I still hate it. I pointed out the need for a few exhibition races of the new Car of Tomorrow design rather than Beta Testing it during a championship season. Don't even get me started on the Top 35 rule although it is better than franchising. But when NASCAR does something right they deserve credit and this new car gave us the best restrictor plate racing we have seen in many years!
Real Racing Restrictor Plate Style
Forget the NASCAR cooked statistics and look at the numbers that really matter! Throw away the loop data. Toss out the box score that says there were 42 passes among 16 different leaders. The only two statistics that count to compare the racing from one event to the next are "Green Flag Passes" and "End of Fuel Run Top Ten Cars." Everyone raves about how fantastic the Daytona 500 was last year with the photo finish for the win. What is forgotten is that the race only featured 8 green flag passes for the lead versus 25 in the 2008 edition of the race! (That only includes passes not inspired by pit stop sequences) This year 22 different cars cracked the top ten at the end of fuel runs. That shows the competitiveness of this event when more than half the cars cracked the top ten! Heck we even got a last lap pass for the win so what more do you want? Maybe next time we can have the guys drive over jumps or through a ring of fire every few laps. By any measure the 50th annual Daytona 500 ranks as one of the best ever!
No Big Packs So What
Isn't the idea in racing to get away from your competition? The forty-three car freight trains we get at Talladega and often at Daytona under the old rules package isn't real racing! It might be an interesting spectacle but it isn't what racing is all about. Just watch these guys coming off of any corner late in the fuel runs and you will see drivers working their butts off to drive their cars! Pull out your copy of "Back in the Day" and check out the racing we saw back in the glory days of racing. You won't see a pack of forty-three cars but you will see guys sawing on the wheel! The Car of Tomorrow design put the emphasis on the driver and crew rather than just aero and engine power, which you can buy if you throw enough money at the problem! Yes the cars got strung out just like in real racing. The big packs might be an interesting spectacle but this is real racing!
Crash Seekers Not Needed
Perhaps the reason this race is considered boring is that it didn't involve a big wreck with cars cart wheeling out of control! Maybe that is the secret after all we didn't see enough carnage to please the average fan! If you tune into racing to see crashes then you have a warped sense of what racing is all about. Oh sure a spectacular crash from time to time can be entertaining but racing for the lead trumps carnage any time! A little note to all of those fans that are upset that we didn't see flames and flipping…real people get hurt or killed during wrecks. Seven years after losing our sport's Superman we should realize that and not need carnage to entertain us! To all you sadistic idiots that tune in to watch carnage don't fret we will see a classic "Big One" again in the future.
Commercial Craziness and Television Coverage
If you want to complain about the television coverage of the Daytona 500 and that they took too many commercial breaks during the event I won't argue with you. But think of why the commercials had to come in bunches later in the race and the answer is obvious. Since we didn't have that many cautions until that late barrage the folks at Fox had trouble fitting their breaks into the flow of the race. Yes I wish we had picture in picture coverage during commercials and it is a travesty that we don't have that option for at least every other commercial break. But we still got a feel for the excitement of the race. Mike Joy and the crew did an excellent job of making sure we knew what happened when the commercials came into play. Fox Sports brought us back from break abruptly and right to the action when a wreck did happen. Maybe you can say the Gopher cam was overused and a bit hokey but it did give us a unique look at the race and the banking! We got over 100 hours of live broadcasting from Daytona and commercials are needed to pay for our coverage…that is a simple fact!
Big Names Didn't Win
A look in the stands and you sure don't see a lot of Ryan Newman apparel so maybe that's why the race was so boring to so many fans. Junior fans had to watch their guy finish 9th instead of capping off the sweep at Daytona. The legions of Jeff Gordon fans didn't get a chance to cheer their guy on to Victory Lane either. Team Penske posted their first one-two finish and not because someone had bad luck on the last lap either. This was no Derrick Cope-ish wacky finish this was the two Penske Dodge cars out racing the two Toyota entries for Joe Gibbs Racing! Isn't that what racing is all about…the occasional upset? Just because your favorite driver (Or mine) didn't win doesn't mean this race wasn't great!
Shut Up and Enjoy Real Racing
Maybe it is just the squeaky NASCAR wheel that is speaking up about yesterday's race. Perhaps for every person mouthing off that this wasn't a good race there are 4000 happy fans out there laughing it all off. Maybe it is just stylish to bitch and moan about NASCAR always getting it wrong even when they do get a few things right. Perhaps saying something good about NASCAR is not acceptable unless you are a mouthpiece for the sport. Maybe it is all about selective memory turning great finishes into the best race ever seen in our minds' eye. Perhaps it is just natural to always want more. Let some people win the lottery for $2 million and they will bitch, moan, and groan about how much tax they will end up paying! Shut up and enjoy some real racing you whiners!
Tune in Wednesday night on "QUICK CHANGE" and listen to what Mike Harper and Lori Munro have to say about Dennis' tirade. You can also sound off by emailing Dennis at dennis@racetalkradio.com and listen in to see if your comments become part of the show! Wednesday night at 8pm Eastern on www.racetalkradio.com
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