How long does it take?

Saturday Mark Martin won his first race since 2005. I've always been a Martin fan. I've never really liked Rousch Racing, but there's something about Mark Martin that you just can't dislike. Very few racers have it and I wonder how long it takes to get it. What does it take to be the driver that other drivers root for? Does it have to do with age? Is it only from showing respect on the track to other drivers? Is it the fact that he's finished 2nd in the points four times and has never won a championship? There are a ton of reasons that could explain this but I don't think any of them are right but none of them are wrong.

There are a select few drivers that are loved by many and hated by virtually none. Jimmie Johnson isn't one, Dale Jr isn't one, Jeff Gordon isn't one, and even the late Dale Sr. isn't one. These drivers are loved by many, but are probably hated by many more. They win too much, or they're too arrogant, or fans can't stand them for reasons they can't explain. But talk about Mark Martin and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who says anything bad about him.

My feeling is that you add up his on track respect, with his talent, his desire to win, his age, and the lack of a championship and that's how you get 20 some odd competitors to come to victory lane and shake your hand once you've won a race. It's what makes your former boss, and biggest owner of your competition, come and give you a hug and say "nice job". You don't see that very often. I kind of doubt that Rick Hendrick was hugging Kyle Busch after his first win with JGR and I doubt Teresa sent Junior a gift basket after his first win with Hendrick's.

Mark Martin has done a lot for the sport of stock car racing but he's done it quietly and in a way that you almost forget about him, and that's how he seems to like it. He likes being questioned about being too old to compete and being put in a car that has struggled some over the last few years. All those "obstacles" will make it that much sweeter when he finishes in the top five at the end of the year. And while it's a crap shoot at this point, don't be surprised if we have a silver haired Champion for 2009 because Mark Martin has what it takes to make that very thing happen, and he knows it.

Gordy Got His Boots

After 16 tries and 16 failures the Dupont Chevrolet finally found victory lane in Texas. And not only that, they did it after a 47 race winless streak that had been looming over their heads like a storm cloud promising a rain delay. While the 24 team is not quite at the level they ran in 1998 pulling off 13 wins that year, I can say that they are looking better than they've looked in a very long time. In 2007 Gordon racked up 30 top tens and 6 wins and still managed to finish 2nd behind the 48. After a "bad" 2008 where he finished 10th it looks like the whole team is back on track to be a championship contender.

With Jeff 6th on the all time win list and having 4 Cup Series Championships you can't deny that the man is a good driver. The burning question that comes up in discussions with friends is if Jeff Gordon is better than Dale Earnhardt Sr. If you look at wins Jeff is better. If you look at Championships then Earnhardt is better.....maybe. Yeah he has 7 rings to Gordon's 4, but they were all won under the old points system. If you run all of Jeff's seasons under the same points system he would now have 6 championships and is still arguably in his prime. And while I'm a fan of the "good old days" racing I do believe that the competition today is more stiff than in Earnhardt's prime.

I'm not taking anything away from Earnhardt Sr., he was a great driver and I would put him in the top three of all time. And for sure he's done more for the sport of racing than any other driver except maybe The King himself. I just think that when it comes to raw talent Jeff Gordon deserves a little more credit than what he gets.

Now if we could just get Ray Evernham to come out of retirement Jeff could go out and win 4 more titles then no one could question his talent.

The Bristol Experience

If you've never visited Thunder Valley I would highly recommend it. They don't call it the fastest half mile in the world for nothing. I've been to just about every style of NASCAR track there is and you just can't beat that short track racing. For those of you who just watch racing for the wrecks you might not get what you're looking for here. The wrecks aren't spectacular but the racing is. And even though I preferred the racing on the old surface and banking, the new track is still far better than going to Charlotte and watching them play follow the leader for 600 miles. The new progressive banking and concrete make for 2-3 lanes of racing, which is a good thing. The old bump-and-run that we used to see at every Bristol race is no longer an effective or needed move, at least not yet. Give them a little time to wear that new concrete in and I bet you'll see it again. I hope so.

While the racing is always good, there was no question who held the dominance in Tennessee this weekend. Kyle Busch had by far the best car in Saturday's Nationwide race, but a late pit mistake cost him the win. Even though it had to suck for him, it was pretty awesome to see them loosen up his car and watch him make a charge from the back of the field the last 25 laps of the race. Whether you love him or hate him you have to admit that the boy can wheel a car. I'd have to deem him the most electrifying driver in all of racing right now.

On Sunday he made up for his bad luck from the day before by spanking the rest of the field. The big eared boy wonder led 415 of 503 laps and never really left the top 3. It seems that you just can't keep the #18 down. If things keep going the way they have you'll soon see Kyle Busch start racking up some Cup Championships. And I doubt that there will just be one or two of them.

The Off Week

There are three off weekends through out the Sprint Cup season. There's nothing wrong with that as far as I can see. A break is always nice. I think it's good for the drivers, the crew, and also the fans. It means you can plan a Sunday event without having to miss a race that weekend.

My only question is why all three of these weekends come in the first half of the season. Now I can see why you wouldn't want one in the last ten weeks of the chase for the cup, that makes sense. But wouldn't it be a good idea for the sport if they used one of those off weekends right before the last ten? I can think of a few reasons why it would.

1. NASCAR is always looking for ways to gain suspense. A week before our "playoff" would do that; much like the Superbowl has a week or two break before they play.

2. It would be a good time for drivers, crews, and race teams to catch their breath before the final run at the cup. I'm sure they wouldn't mind a week to regroup.

3. And finally, and most importantly I think, it gives you a rain out buffer. I'm not 100% against finishing a race on Monday, but what if it's raining Monday? I think it just makes sense to have a weekend set aside for those "just in case" scenarios. This would be the perfect weekend to do it. 9 times out of 10 they wouldn't have to use it, but it's always good to have a plan B.

The Yawn Factor Is High.

Every race has it's good and bad points and yesterday's race was no exception. I've always been a loyal Chevy fan, but it's good to see someone other than Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Busch, and Carl Edwards competing for wins. My hats off to the blue deuce, those guys were unstoppable and deserved the win, and that was one of the good things. Another surprisingly good thing was that the race started less than an hour after the broadcast aired. I remember the good old days when the green flag dropped within a half an hour of the broadcast start, but those days are long gone. 45 minutes is the best I've seen in a while, and I hope they can make that happen more often this year. After all, there's only so many stupid comments that DW can make before the green flag drops and I wish someone would put a bullet in digger's head.

I also have to give some credit to the tires. Atlanta is hard on them and they seemed to hold up for the most part. By no means do I think that Goodyear has done all the right things, but it was good to see a race in Atlanta that wasn't marred but tire issues for every team.

Now the bad stuff. The race was boring. It had it's parts that were all right, but man I get tired of watching follow the leader for 500 miles. And then to make matters worse you've got an idiot chasing tires down the front stretch that ruined what was already shaping up to be a mediocre race. Common sense is not this man's forte, and had he been hit and killed it would have brought up the median IQ on pit road. I know that's harsh, and I never want to see anyone hurt but come on. If Charles Darwin ran NASCAR there wouldn't have been a yellow flag for that situation. What's it going to take to keep guys like that out of the way? Maybe next week the sanctioning body will instill a rule where all "over the wall" guys will have to wear a 25 foot tether for their own good. I really hope that his team gets a penalty of some sort because his actions were definitely detrimental to stock car racing.

But that was a one time deal. What really needs to be done is get to the "meat and potatoes" of this issue; races are too long. Why do we race 500 miles? Every NASCAR fan I know, and I know a lot of them, don't watch most races in their entirety. If they're like me they're napping after the first hundred miles, and catching the last 100. Now I'm not saying we need to take all the 500 mile races and make them 200, that would be overkill. But there isn't a single reason why 90% of the long races couldn't have 100-150 miles cut out. At the very least it would not affect anything. At the very best it would make the racing better and keep fans more interested. I don't want to watch 1000 miles of the Pocono Parade every summer. The fact that we have two races there a year is bad enough, but 1000 miles? Give me a break! I don't want to tune in at 1pm and wait to see a race finish at 6:30. I know it's tradition, but honestly NASCAR sailed that boat out to sea a long time ago. Tradition no longer means anything unless they want to use it as a crutch. It's time to shorten races. It's time to improve racing. I'm not saying that you can't keep your Daytona 500 or the Coke 600. If a race is ran 500 miles for a good reason, and the racing is good for all 500 miles then by all means leave it alone. But races like yesterdays are long and boring and it's time to make a change for the better.

Will Goodyear have a good year?

In the last few years NASCAR has been making some drastic changes all in the name of closer competition. The chase was meant to give us excitement. The car of tomorrow was supposed to bring the wide gap between teams closer and the racing was supposed to be better. Those are the two biggest things we've seen and there have been dozens of smaller things too that are all meant to add to competition. Have they all worked, that's hard to say, but I have to give them credit for trying. On one side I like the chase and enjoy the excitement of a championship battle that comes down to the last week. On the other side Jeff Gordon would be a 6 time champion of we still ran under the old Winston Cup points system.

Here I am rambling on about this and you're probably questioning my title and what it has to do with competition. I'm about to get to that. NASCAR seems to want to have better competition on all fronts......except for their tire maker. Why are we bringing tires to the track that won't even hold together? You may think that they are trying to give them a tire that is a compromise on durability and drivability, which may be their excuse. But if every car has the same tire on it, why don't they just make sure they aren't going to fry off the car after 20 laps? Is it going to take the death of a driver before they finally decide to do the right thing? These are some of the most talented drivers in the world. If you put them in a 3 cylinder Yugo the racing would still be good. Why does it matter that they may qualify 10 mph slower? Am I the only one who thinks that giving them a hard tire that won't blow up is the best answer to the tire situation?

What they need to do is go to the track that is hardest on tires, do some testing and come up with a compound that can withstand a fuel run at the very minimum with no questionable wear. Once they've accomplished that then they use that tire and that tire only at every track. In this hard economical time wouldn't it be price effective to have one tire that needs to be made instead of half a dozen that are used at different tracks. I'm sure the drivers would much rather have a dependable tire than a faster race. I don't see how they couldn't. As long as everyone has the same equipment it's fair.

So the question is why are Goodyear and NASCAR not smart smart enough to see this? Well you're guess is as good as mine. It can't be money, it can't be safety, and I don't see how it's an issue of competition. The only thing it can be is the old homage "well that's how it's always been done".

The bottom line is that we're seeing the new NASCAR running on old tires and no one has a good reason why.

Please mom, can I stay up just a little later?!?

Nascar was created on the east coast. 18 of 22 tracks are in the Eastern and Central time zones. I have no numbers to prove it, but the majority of fans HAVE to live on the east side of the Mississippi River. If these things are all true, and I know they are, then tell me why the sanctioning body that is NASCAR feels that they some how owe California the right to see a race finish during prime time? Yes, I know the race was in California, and there is a three hour time difference, but wouldn't common sense tell you to start the race at noon or one pm instead of waiting until 3:15pm local track time? Is it really necessary to make the majority of fans wait up until 10pm to see the end of a "day race"? I know, 10pm is not that late, but when you're little budding NASCAR fan wants to see how his favorite driver fairs, but mom wants him in bed at 8:30 because there is school in the morning you're border lining on ridiculous.

I understand a late start for the east when they're racing on the west coast, and I don't mind it myself all that much. But when it starts to affect the chances of finishing a race, that is when I have to protest. This years running of the Daytona 500 is the perfect example. The big question that went around was if Mike Helton and the powers that be made the correct decision to call the race so quickly when the rain started. People saw roughly 2/3 of the race, the rain came, the race was called, and when driving home didn't even have their wipers on. Matt Kenseth got to victory lane and it was a dry celebration. Questioning the weather is a crap shoot, you never know for sure, so I can't say they were wrong.....

BUT it wouldn't have been an issue if they would have just started the race at 1:30 instead of after 3:30. We have the technology to put a man on the moon, surf the world wide web at awesome speeds, and the ability to do many other unbelievable things, and yet it seems that not a single person who works for NASCAR knows how to log onto weather.com and look at the forecast or a weather map. Starting the race so late leaves you no grace period at all. Sure it puts the race on later in California, sure it gets the finish into prime time television, but if you can't at the very least have a provision for bad weather where you start the race earlier, then you are cheapening the fans experience. The most important aspect of keeping the sport healthy is keeping fans. Once you lose the fans you've lost the war. If I pay hundreds or thousands even to go to a race I want to SEE THE END. I know it's not always going to happen, but right now I just don't see them making the proper adjustments to give the race the best possible chance of finishing.

Are Mike Helton and NASCAR really that blind and stupid? I'd like to think they aren't, but so far the jury is out. They need to realize that, while getting new fans is important, you can't forget about the ones that got you where you are today.