Is Jeff Gordon the best driver in NASCAR?

 

Short answer:  He might be.

 

Jeff Gordon is probably the most booed driver on the circuit.  It's not because he's not a nice guy, but it's because he wins too much.

 

Most of us NASCAR fans have favorite drivers, and drivers we boo.  Jeff has always been one of the most popular drivers, and he's been probably the most unpopular driver for many years now.  Why is this?

 

To a lot of us here in the South, it's simple.  He's not one of us.  He's a yankee, or a California boy.  He acts like a robot.  He's got no personality.

 

Is all that true?

 

For those of us that were and still are Dale Earnhardt fans, all of the above is very true.  Jeff's personality leaves us wanting more, a lot more.  Dale Jr. at least talks like us, don't he?  Sterling Marlin, Ward Burton, and Elliot Sadler all talk more or less like us too.

 

And we love those guys.

 

The fact is that NASCAR is no longer a Southern sport.  It is a national sport.  But I don't think that tells the whole story as to why Jeff Gordon winning races makes us mad.

 

A lot of us are mad when Tony Stewart spins out another guy in his quest for a win.  A lot of us also cheer for Tony.  A lot of us will pull for bad boy Tony Stewart over Jeff Gordon any day.  Why is that?

 

My friends, it's ATTITUDE.  We want it and expect a lot of it from our racing heroes.  Jeff Gordon is like bland food to us... we just don't like it!

 

Tony Stewart, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kevin Harvick. Two out of the three are not even from the South, but we love them anyway.  Why?  Because they're REAL PEOPLE!  They let a little emotion show, and not always just happiness, because we all know that you have to take the good with the bad.   Life is not always happy, and that's true even among the ultra rich Nascar boys.

 

I think the bottom line is that we like drivers that remind us of ourselves.  They don't have that aura of Hollywood around them.  They're just like your next door neighbor,  a neighbor that races on Sunday instead of sitting around on the porch telling you rather dirty stories about his younger days.

 

People like real people.  People don't like perfectly groomed, never ruffled, never flustered, never pissed off people!  It's that simple.  Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson are just like the mannequins you see in department stores.  To borrow a line from an old Friends show, they're just not interesting!

 

 

 

 

 

Well, I got the rant out of the way, so now we can talk about good things.

 

I've got a family reunion coming up this weekend, and it will be good to see everybody again.  Unfornunately we won't be seeing my oldest uncle, William Edwin Crooks, who died recently.  Willie, you are missed by many, and you are surely missed by me.

 

But enough about me, I'm actually looking forward to a week off from Nextel Cup racing.  After the heat on and off the race track, I think everyone needs to cool off a little.  That fight in the pits at Chicago just didn't need to happen, but it did, and teams that travel every week, for weeks on end to all ends of this great country of ours need a rest too.

 

After my rant this past week, Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished poorly at Chicago, but this time he can't blame it on his pit crew.  He missed pit road, lost some track position.  Then he got caught speeding down pit road on his second attempt.  And at least one time, he was slow leaving the pits, because he forgot they were taking only 2 tires instead of 4.

 

Driver error, ladies and gentlemen.  Pure and simple.  Dale Jr.'s pit crew had nothing to do with his poor finish this week.  It was all driver error.  Dale Jr. just made a fool out of himself this week, and I hope he learned a major lesson from this race.

 

Kevin Harvick moved up a little at one of his favorite tracks.  Kevin had problems all day, but still managed to get a decent finish.

 

The bump by Tony Stewart to Kasey Kahne?  I don't usually agree with Nascar, but in this case I do.  It was just a racing deal, and unfortunately for Kasey, it killed what could have been a race winning car.  Tony has his faults, but penalizing him for racing hard will not solve any problems.  We need hard chargers out there every week, and Tony won that race, in my humble opinion, fair and square.

 

Hello again, and I'm going to make some of you mad.  Just want to get that out of the way.

 

This will be the first and hopefully only anti-Dale Jr. piece I ever do.  I really like Dale, he's a personable guy, and he's a good stock car driver.

 

But he talked down his guys last week at Daytona.  A driver should never do that.  EVER!  Neither should his crew chief.  YES!  Both Sr. and Jr., Eury and Earnhardt, respectively, talked down their crew last week at Daytona.

 

That's wrong.  You don't do that.  Driver, Crew chief, I don't care.  You don't do that

 

Does anyone remember Ricky Rudd with the fabled 28 Texaco-Havoline team, owned by the fabled Robert Yates?

 

Ricky Rudd was hateful.... for the last half of his last season with the 28 team, he poor-mouthed the crew.   If you aren't Southern, then that means he talked bad about them.

 

After that, he ended up driving the 21 Wood Brother's car, which ain't much of a car anymore.  No disrespect to the Woods.

 

Dale Jr. has basically done the same thing to his Bud crew.

 

I was a supervisor once.  A long time ago, but it's true, I was.

In other words, I had people working for me.

 

I learned a few things,such as never allow yourself to become a supervisor again,  but I learned a few other things. 

 

1. Thou shalt never pass out doom and gloom in public.

 

2. Thou shalt pass out praise upon the masses whenever a TV camera is pointed at your zip code.

 

Sounds simple.. but it's not, i guess.  You NEVER, EVER complain about your crew in public.  It's just not done.  If you have a problem with your crew, you take it out back in the garage, back in the shop, where ever.  YOU NEVER DO THIS IN PUBLIC, and you NEVER DO THIS IN FRONT OF TV!

 

On Monday, hopefully before it's drinking time, you go to the shop, you take whatever employee you're pissed at to a private time, no holds barred, meeting.  Lunch, behind the shop, whatever..... I don't care!  You tell that guy or lady what your problem is, and you get a response.  If you don't like it, then take it up with your owner, crew chief, etc.  put make it PRIVATE!!!!!!

 

Dale Jr., If i sound a little pissed at you, then don't worry.  I AM!  You finished 22n'd today in a race that you should have kicked ass at, and you managed to barely finish on the lead lap.  Well, you know what?  I'm glad you didn't finish in the top 5 this week.  You sucked last week, and this week you're actually paying the price in money and in points.  If you're just too freaking rich to be where you are, then go home.  There are plenty of other drivers out there waiting for a shot at your sponsor and driver's seat.  You've grown up a lot in the last couple of years, but you need to grow up a lot more.  And so does that supposedly wise crew chief of yours.

 

Congratulations to Tony Stewart, and his first win of the 2004 season!  Well done, Tony, and you did what you had to, didn't you? 

 

Well, another Daytona race as come and gone, and the points race did not get any closer, at least not to the two leaders.  It's getting down to crunch time with the new rules to see who's going to make the top 10, since it's becoming increasingly to stay within 400 points of the leader.

 

I'm going to just say it.  Nascar is shooting itself in a major artery, not just in the foot.  Every week, a new rule, and sometimes they work, for a week or two, or they just don't.  Never since I've been watching Nascar have I seen as many new rules as I've seen in the last year. 

 

The best example of this was the penalization of Jason Leffler well after the Busch Series race on Friday.  He was penalized for "unnecessary roughness".  Excuse me, but what the HELL?  That's a new, arbitrary rule that Nascar just came up with on the spot.  I've heard of that one in football, but in Nascar?  Leffler was fined "1 second, which dropped him significantly in the race standing.  I'm still scratching my head over this one.

 

Since the deaths of Kenny Irwin, Adam Petty, and Dale Earnhardt, Nascar has tried to make racing safer.  Bravo. 

 

But making up really stupid rules on the spot is not helping Nascar reach mainstream America.  What happened Friday night at Daytona reminds me of professional wrestling.  Pretty entertaining, at least to some people, but hard to take seriously.  Sorry, but this is serious stuff.  Contrary to popular belief, Nascar does NOT fix races.  It's impossible.  Nascar can give certain teams breaks, at times, but they can never preordain the winner of any event.  Back in the old, old days, it was tried, and didn't succeed.

 

Adding to the problem is advertising.  Yes, i said advertising.  Sponsorship is a huge deal for everyone involved in Nascar.  Advertising is the reason you see such pretty paint schemes out on the track.  But Pepsi, and Jeff Gordon made a commercial, obviously well before Saturday's race, showing Jeff as the winner of the Pepsi 400.  Pepsi, as the race sponsor, and Jeff Gordon, carrying associate sponsorship from Pepsi, decided to make a commercial that they could use, IF Jeff won the race.  Well, Jeff did win, so Pepsi comes off as a huge winner.  Or did they?

 

On Saturday's broadcast, Fox broke away from the race coverage while Jeff was still doing burnouts.  Jeff had not even got to Victory Lane yet, but the next image on my television screen was Jeff Gordon celebrating his win in a Pepsi commercial. 

 

To the new viewer, or the uneducated viewer, it would appear that this race was run last year, or at the very least, last week.  No way it could be live, because he was still out on the track when the coverage cut away.  Bad move, Pepsi, Fox, and Rick Hendrick racing.  To the uneducated, new, or just curious racing fan, that made it look at the very least like a 'fixed' race.

 

Speaking of Fox, Saturday was Fox' last Nascar broadcast of the season.  Since the very beginning of the new TV deal, I've enjoyed Fox' approach much better than NBC.  Fox does it right, from 'Crank it Up', to 'Boogity, Boogity, Boogity'.  I love listening to Jeff Hammond and DW, and Larry McReynolds.  These guys are always funny and full of information.  As for NBC, I like Benny Parsons, and I'm beginning to have a little more respect for Wally Dallenbach as well.  I really didn't like Wally much the first 2 seasons, but I'm beginning to warm up to him a little.

 

My biggest complaint with NBC is that they just don't seem to take the product that their broadcasting seriously enough.  Fact in point:  They have yet to broadcast the night race at Bristol on NBC!  It's always on TNT, which is their broadast partner, but the night race at Bristol is one of the best races in any series, anywhere in the world!  I don't know how many times over the last few years there has been a live race on TNT, yet NBC seems to find it more important to broadcast a month old CART event, which no one really cares about anyway.  That, or beach volleyball.  I mean, if you're spending all that money, which NBC and Fox are for the rights to broadcast the races, take advantage of it!  I can guarantee that the Bristol night race will get better ratings than anything else they put on, primetime or not!

 

Well, that's my rant for the day.  Chicago is coming up and I personally hope that the 29 will get it's mojo back for this race!

 

Until next time.

 

 

 

 

Sorry for a lack of attention to this site, but as much as I wish it was my full time job, it isn't.  I just haven't had the time to keep up with things as well as I was able to last year. 

 

That being said, I'm still devoted to doing the best site that I'm able to do.  I do realize that there are race fans out there that are totally lost without my fantastic commentary.  For those of you that need a daily, even an hourly fix of JC's brand of racing analysis, please check out www.geeyourekindadumb.com .  Hey, I do all I can!  If that link doesn't work, please e-mail me at kf4mgz@bellsouth.net , and I'll make a house call, at $100.00 an hour plus travel expenses, and I promise I'll get that link working.

 

But I digress, which is one of my strengths. 

 

Infineon (read Sonoma) is one of those dreaded road course tracks.  My opinion of road courses is pretty well known, if you know me, but lately, there's been some good stuff to watch on some of the road courses.  Last year, Kevin Harvick spun out some other guy, think he drives the 24, but I'm not sure....  Someone told me he was a famous race car driver, but the name escapes me at the moment.  Anyway, he spun this idiot out, like on the last lap, and it was all really cool.  I'm hoping something like that happens again today, seeing as how some idiot, who's name I don't recall, won the pole for the race at Sonoma.  I hope the 29 does it's magic again and this time beats the other idiot, that won this and the other road course last year.  Oh, the other idiot is Kevin's team mate, but I don't recall his name either.

 

Dale Earnhardt Jr. lost his lead last week in the standings, and didn't qualify especially well (20th) for today's race.   Fortunately for him, Jimmie Johnson qualified even worse (34th).  There's generally not a lot of passing at Sonoma, so if Junior can keep it between the sand traps, he might get back the points lead this week.

 

Kevin Harvick qualified 8th, and he's as tough at Sonoma as he is anywhere, so the 29 is my sleeper pick for the win today.  I'm just hoping that the 24 and 48 find either copious quanties of oil no longer contained in their engines, or lot's of work from the sand today.  Nothing personal, but I want to see their short game skills first hand today.

 

Do me a favor.  Go find someone and be nice to them today, and invite them to watch the race with you! 

 

 

 

It's Coco-Cola 600 Weekend at Charlotte!  JC will be there, along with a host of other drunken rednecks.  I don't plan to throw a Budweiser over the fence, unless a Hendrick car or a Roush car wins.

 

But seriously, I'm not a proponent of throwing anything over any fence, at any race, at any time.  I understand why some people do it, but I don't think it's a good show for racing fans to look like complete idiots on national TV.  Nascar is, as we've been told, a growing sport.  Nascar is reaching out to bigger markets, such as New York, and Los Angeles, and maybe Seattle, Washington.  We, as fans, are told by none other than Brian France, that this is what Nascar needs to do, in order to expand it's horizons.

 

I don't work for Nascar, and no one has ever asked me to decide where the tracks have to be in order for Nascar to make a buck.  All I can say is that I'm a little confused by some of the news that has come out of Nascar of late.

 

First off, let me qualify myself as a fan by saying that first of all, I'm Southern and proud of it.  I don't consider myself to be a redneck, but I don't care if others call me that.  The term "redneck" comes from the description of the old Southern farmer, who toiled from sun-up to sun-down in the fields.  His neck was red, because he performed the tasks required of him in the hot sun.  To me, "Redneck" should not be a negative term.  It describes a man who worked hard, in conditions that were not always cushy, just to put food in his family's mouths.

 

Stock car racing was born here in the Southern USA.  I've lived in the state of South Carolina all my life, and I've been a fan, of one degree or another, of stock car racing since I was about 7 or 8 years old.  I'm now 40.  I remember the days when the tracks were ruled by names such as Pearson, Petty, Yarborough, Earnhardt, and a lot of others.  I remember watching in the early '70's when the last Grand National (now Nextel Cup) race run at Greenville-Pickens Speedway (SC) was televised.  I am a fan of this sport, in other words.

 

I'm pleased to see that the rest of the country is becoming aware, and even becoming fans of this great sport.  To realize that there are young kids in California watching the weekly races, courtesy of FOX and NBC, and hoping to one day be a part of this great sport,  is encouraging to me.  Many young drivers that are currently finding great success in Nascar today are from California.  More power to them.

 

California does deserve 3 races.  Two at California Speedway and one at Infineon.  They deserve them.  I don't question that.

 

But I have to ask a question:  Does Rockingham deserve to go without a race, period?  And does Darlington deserve to lose a race?

 

They say that the South is saturated with races.  There may be a lot of truth to that. As of 2004, the schedule contains 2 each races at Charlotte, Atlanta, Darlington, Daytona, Talladega, Martinsville, Richmond, and Bristol.  We also have a race each at Rockingham and Homestead.  Rockingham is gone after 2004.  Many feel that Darlington, after losing a race, will shortly follow Rockingham.  In 1996, North Wilkesboro lost it's final date as well. 

 

The South is where Nascar was born and grew up.  Southern racing fans have for the most part made Nascar what it is today.  If Nascar is good enough for the masses out there, in places such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc., it seems to me that Nascar is going to have to do one of two things. 

 

Nascar is going to have to expand the schedule, run more than the current 38 points races each year.  This will add much to the cost of running a race team, keeping crew, support people employed, etc.  It's tough on the drivers as well, but when you see how much money they make, it's much easier to feel sorry for the crew people.

 

The other alternative, as I see it, is to divide the Nextel Cup series into at least 2 divisions.  Each division runs 1 race at each track, and at the end of the year, the top 20 or so from each division run either one race, or a series of races, hopefully in Southern climes, to decide the division winner, and then take the top 10 cars from the winning division, and hold a final race for the Cup Championship.  The top few drivers in the losing division will be able to compete as well, and if they win the final race, they will be crowned Cup Champion.

 

Divisions would not be made up by region, but by the simple luck of the draw.  The season schedule would be divided up into 3 segments, and before each segment, each driver would have to draw a number from a hat.   The number that they draw, i.e. A or B, or 1, or 2, would be the division that that driver's car will compete in.  This makes it impossible for any one division to control a dynasty of good drivers for any length of time.

 

One exception to this plan would be Speedweeks and they Daytona 500.  That schedule would run as it always has, and all drivers from any division that can qualify will be able to compete in that race.  The only other exception would be the All-Star event.  All drivers will be able to run that race, if so qualified.

 

This plan's major flaw, as I see it would be sponsorship of individual teams.  Sponsors are hard to find these days.  Many good teams are without fulltime sponsors.  Which leads to a possible plus for this plan:  the creation of more Cup teams.  2 divisions would be able to accomodate more teams.

 

The obvious plus side of this is that there could be 2 races running on any given weekend during the season, and most tracks would be able to keep two races.

 

My big question is:  Is Nascar big enough to pull this off?

 

Comments and suggestions are heartily encouraged!

 

Well, we've all got a rare week off from racing this week, thanks to the Easter holiday.  It's time to take a deep breath, enjoy the week off, and get ready for some more short track action at Martinsville.

 

I, your humble host, am an unabashed Chevy fan, and drivers such as Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Kevin Harvick, Bobby Labonte, Tony Stewart, etc. do not disappoint me when they win races.  I'm glad that so far, we've had 2 victories by Dale Jr.  I'm a little disappointed in the performance of some of the other Chevy drivers though. 

 

Kevin Harvick has Champion written all over him, and though he's managed to stay in the top 10 in points most of the season thus far, it's still frustrating to see him struggling at tracks, such as Atlanta, where he should be a favorite.

 

Kevin's problem is not driving ability.  Kevin's problems are with his crew, his cars, and maybe even his owner.  Tackling the last first, is Richard Childress spreading himself too thin with 3 Cup teams?  JC thinks that he might be. 

 

Any multi-car team is going to have management problems, and it appears that the 29 has been victim to that.  The GM Goodwrench team consists of some of the best people in the business, and even though they manage to win about 2 races a year, they have suffered with consistency.  Just take a look at Matt Kenseth's 2003 year.  Matt only won one race, but he carried the lead, and took the championship for 2003 because of one thing:  Consistency.

 

The rules have changed for 2004, and the top 10 drivers will have a 10 race shootout at the latter part of the season. RCR needs to really focus on that, not just to be there at the end of 26 races, but to be there in the final 10, when it really counts.  RCR, of course has other cars besides the 29, but so far, the 30 and 31 teams don't appear to be in the picture for the shootout.  The 29 is what they got, and it's what they've got to improve, not just for the last 10 races, but every race.

 

 

 

Wow!  What a weekend.  Went down on Friday, got to see Cup and Trucks qualifying, then on Saturday, got to see both Cup practices, as well as the Trucks race.  Sunday began with a trip through the pits, got up close and personal with some of the crew members as they prepared tires, pit boxes etc.

 

The best part, of course, was being there to see Dale Earnhardt Jr. win his 11th Cup race.  Got to listen to him on the radio all day, which was also a lot of fun.  Hearing Dale relaxed and asking Tony Eury Jr. if they were enjoying their pizzas during a rare caution on Sunday was a real stress reliever for me, if not for Dale and his crew.  I was more nervous in the closing laps than probably anyone on his crew! 

 

The most disappointing part of the weekend was the poor showing by Kevin Harvick's 29 GM Goodwrench Chevy.  It just was not their day.  I watched Kevin go backwards through the field all day, and I know it was frustrating for him and his crew, as well as his fans, of which I am one.  Hopefully the 29 will be strong for Darlington next week.  Darlington is one of those places where anything can happen, and I hope Kevin's day goes much better this week.

 

All in all, it was a great weekend, a great effort by the 8 team to bounce back after a terrible day at Vegas.  Nascar is what it is because of how completely cool it is to be at the track on race day.  Watching on TV, even with surround sound when they crank it up just does not do justice to what you see, hear, and smell being in the stands when 43 high powered race cars running at full throttle go by you only a few feet away.  I've been to a few races, and enjoy it more every time I go.  If you've never been to a Nascar race, I encourage you to go.  There's just nothing like it!

 

Had a little change of thought, and decided that I have to make a plunge, and at least talk a little about predictions for the season.  One race is already done this season, with Dale Earnhardt Jr. winning his first Daytona 500.

 

Real quick, this is what I see happening:

 

1.  Kevin Harvick.  He's the Chosen, both by the late Dale Earnhardt and Richard Childress.  This boy can drive, pure and simple, and he's got the passion, and the talent to put it all together into a Cup Championship.  If the engines, chassis, etc. are there, then Kevin will be hard to beat.

 

2.  Jimmie Johnson.  Jimmie's been a factor since his first race in the Cup series.  He's talented, and he's got a lot of motivation to follow in the footsteps of his mentor, Jeff Gordon.  He's a factor at every track on the Cup circuit.

 

3.  Ryan Newman.  Ryan's the man that won the most races in 2003.  That's 8 races for all of you that weren't paying attention.  Ryan has proven his ability to wheel a race car, and he's a really brilliant driver.  He's had worse than bad luck at certain tracks, such as Daytona, but watch for Ryan to be a major factor this year.

 

4.  Jeff Gordon.  He's arguably the best driver in NASCAR right now, even after over 10 years in the Cup level.  Jeff's won 4 Cups, his most recent in 2001.  Jeff is capable of winning any time, at any track, if the car's good.

 

5.  Dale Earnhardt Jr.  Dale won the Daytona 500, and he's more serious than ever this year about winning a Cup.  Dale is mostly known for his restrictor plate wins, but he's also had wins at Richmond, Texas, and Phoenix in his short career.  5th. place in the Nextel Cup points is pretty conservative, but Jr. hasn't learned all the in's and out's of some of the other tracks on the circuit yet.

 

6. Matt Kenseth.  2003's Cup Champion, the very last Winston Cup Champion.  Matt's conservative style is great for saving the car and securing a top 10 finish.  They say that defending a Cup title is harder than winning the first one, and Matt has his work cut out for him this year.  He's the guy everyone's gunning for this season.

 

7.Tony Stewart.  In my humble opinion, Tony is one of the best drivers in the world.  He races anything, anywhere, and like Jeff Gordon, he's had a lot of success in every type of car he's competed in.  Tony has a ton of drive and talent, and he's the 2002 Winston Cup Champion.  Tony's sure to win more Cups.

 

8. Bobby Labonte.  Bobby was the 2000 Winston Cup Champion, and he's always a factor in any race.  Bobby's a veteran, with an impressive record that includes every kind of track that the Cup cars run.  Bobby is tough, and he knows what he's doing out there.

 

9.Robby Gordon.  Robby won both of the road course races in 2003, but he also has a circle track victory under his belt as well (New Hampshire).  Robby is a tough competitor, and like Tony Stewart, he races anything.  Robby has matured much since his tenure began at Richard Childress Racing, and it's likely that he will add to his win list in 2004.

 

10. Terry Labonte.  Many of you may be surprised by this pick, but Terry, though one of the oldest active drivers, has shown a lot of his old fire in the past year or so.  Terry is a 2 time Cup Champion, and he knows how to get things done.  You can't count Terry out of any race until his car is loaded up on the hauler.

 

Well, here's my picks for the first ever Nextel Cup Championship.  I may be wrong about a lot of these picks, but if I'm right, will you hire me to do your next fantasy racing team?  I'm available for a mere $100 per hour, 4 hour minimum.  What a deal!