After what was a horrendous week for NASCAR, they had to get it right this weekend. But did they?
The weekend started with NASCAR officials meeting the drivers to discuss the new rules and their interpretation. I gathered from those in attendance that Brian France and Mike Helton were not in very pleasant moods. After seeing their sport dragged through the mud because of Michael Waltrip Racing and Clint Bowyer’s intentional spin to rig a race for a teammate, the NASCAR brain trust wanted no such repeat of that fiasco. It seems that their embarrassment has now turned to anger.
According to published reports, France and Helton were visibly angry and upset and let the drivers and their Crew Chiefs know that they would come down hard on them in the future. This would include banishment from the sport if any intentional action by the teams impacted the outcome of any race.
France believed his message to the Drivers and Crew Chiefs was made clear. “Any competitor who takes action with the intent to artificially alter the finishing position of the event will be subject to a penalty by NASCAR.”
Hard to believe a sport would need a rule to eliminate race fixing but I guess NASCAR did. The removing and adding of drivers to the Chase was heavily debated by race fans. In fairness to NASCAR, they did not cause this problem. It just seems funny to me that the very person (Bowyer) who started all this craziness is still in the Chase. It sounds to me that under the new rules Mr. Bowyer would be looking for a new job.
The other major story of the weekend was the weather at Chicagoland Speedway. NASCAR weather expert Brian Neudorff, who tweets the forecast for NASCAR cities weekly on twitter, correctly called the forecast. He stated that rain would be in the area most of the afternoon and it would end sometime after 7p.m.
At the Daytona 500, NASCAR introduced a new breed of track drying equipment called the Air Titan. The object of this new equipment was to shorten the delay of a rain event. The Air Titan was in Chicago on Thursday. Where was it Sunday?
So NASCAR making its fans and employees endure a 5-hour and 10 minute rain delay wasn’t bad enough, but the delay itself could have been reduced if the Air Titan was at the track. NASCAR’s own propaganda concerning the Titan says the track drying can be reduced by 80%.
Where was the Air Titan? Here’s the story. The individual tracks are responsible for paying for the track drying equipment. Chicago Speedway elected not to pay for the Air Titan. The Air Titan was at Chicago Thursday to condition the track but since the track was apparently unwilling to pay for it, left the raceway. I’m sure the rain soaked fans who spent their hard-earned dollars appreciated the extra hour or two in the stands waiting.
In the future let’s hope NASCAR makes it mandatory that the tracks pay for the Air Titan. Fans save up all year to attend a race. They deserve the best chance of seeing the race in its entirety and being raced in as timely a manner as possible.
Lastly, we witnessed the pecking order of the major television networks. The race was scheduled to be seen on ESPN. After the long rain delay ate its allotted time slot, ESPN began televising the Red Sox – Yankee game at its scheduled time, 8:00 pm.
ESPN announced that the when the race resumed it would be shown on ESPN2. The problem with that was ESPN2 was in the middle of broadcasting a Drag Racing event. So all you folks who invested an hour or so watching the Drag Race were told tough luck. ESPN2 moved the drag race to its other channel ESPNNEWS. Hopefully the drag racing fans have that channel on their system, otherwise they were out of luck. Big brother, meet bigger brother who just met biggest brother. Such is life in the TV industry.
On to the flat track of New Hampshire as the Chase continues. My picks.
1) Jeff Gordon
2) Kurt Busch
3) Kasey Kahne
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Main Photo Credit: teamleaks.com, cc
