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Archive for the ‘From the Marbles’ Category

Further proof that all is not quite copacetic in the NASCAR sponsorship world — Tony Stewart, of all people, is continuing to look for sponsorship for 14 races for next season.

The 14-race gap arises because Old Spice has decided to make a change in its marketing strategy. (When you’ve got Old Spice Guy busting all kinds of advertising records, you don’t need to dabble with a two-time NASCAR champion, apparently.)

So who’s going to take over the hood spot for those 14 races? Mobil, currently with Sam Hornish Jr., has been named several times as a possibility; riding with Stewart would certainly be an upgrade in terms of visibility, even for 14 races.

If a deal with Mobil is imminent, Smoke didn’t tip his hand at Wednesday’s Media Day. "We’re still working on it," he said. "It’s a constant work in progress, but it’s a tough economy. We’ll just keep digging."

Compounding the problem is the fact that Ryan Newman also lacks a full-season sponsorship. Welcome to the joys of team ownership, Tony!

Still, if anyone should be able to land a high-profile sponsor, it’s Stewart. He runs well, he’s one of the most recognizable and distinctive personalities in NASCAR, and three months from now, he might have a shiny new championship to show off.

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It’s only three episodes in, but "Riding Shotgun: Kyle Busch" is fast becoming my favorite non-race NASCAR show ever. (It’s already better than Fontana.) The wacky adventures of Kyle and his fiancee Samantha Sarcinella are fodder for a whole year’s worth of episodes, but we’ve only got five. So we’ll have to content ourselves with moments like this one, from Wednesday night.

Kyle and Sam were walking through Times Square when a woman (billed below as "Lady") challenged Sam with an unmistakeable call-out:

I really, really hope I don’t have to tell you what "mine" refers to. But how did Sam respond?

Hey, at least she’s honest. But who, pray tell, would make such a crass observation? What woman would be so enamored with her own stature that she would call out the beauteous Ms. Sarcinella? Fortunately, the camera showed us …

Oh. Uh … hmm. Well, look at it this way — at least her hair matches Kyle’s paint scheme. Your move, Sam.

[Update: The "lady" is apparently Sandy Kane, an occasional guest on the always-funny Opie and Anthony show. That's terrific!]

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So it turns out that hanging out right next to a multimillion-dollar high-tech piece of machinery that can accelerate at unimaginable speeds isn’t such a good idea.

Today in "Pit Crew Nightmares," the story of a near-tragedy at this past weekend’s Italian GP in Monza. Hispania driver Sakon Yamamoto was in the pits for a stop, got the all-clear signal, and took off. Only problem was, all wasn’t clear. Watch the left rear (from our perspective) of the car, not the man circled:

The mechanic, whose name was only given as "Marcel," was absolutely tagged, but thankfully is stable, and never lost consciousness. 

(Hat tip: Jalopnik)

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It’s Chase time, and that means it’s time to run down the field of our competitors. We continue with the zero-win Chasers. Next up: Jeff Burton. Say hello, everybody!

2010 record: Zero wins, zero poles, five top-5s, 13 top-10s.

Best finish: 2nd (Dover)

High point: May to early June, when Burton ran off five top-eight finishes in six races. That sequence, combined with another five straight top tens in July and early August, cemented Burton’s spot in the Chase.

Low point: Talladega, where Burton finished 32nd, a victim of one of the last-minute Big Ones. No shame in that, really.

Prospects for the Chase: Solid, but like many of his zero-win brethren, he’ll need the top guys to falter. He doesn’t have the margin to allow anybody to get too far ahead of him, but he always seems to be able to pull out a decent finish. Will "decent" be enough this year?

Related 2010 links:

Jeff Burton shows up at Daytona a few months early
Jeff Burton and Kyle Busch still aren’t getting along
The Chrome Horn, episode 37: Jeff Burton

All right, your turn. How will Burton fare in the Chase? Make your best case for The Senator right here!

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It’s Chase time, and that means it’s time to run down the field of our competitors. We begin at the ending, starting with the last man in. Ladies and gentlemen, a warm welcome for Clint Bowyer!

2010 record: Zero wins, zero poles, four top-5s, 14 top-10s.

Best finish: 4th, four times (Daytona 500, Chicago, Indy, Bristol II)

High point: The Air Guard 400 in Richmond. With a Chase berth on the line, Bowyer ran up front all night, finally finishing 6th to hammer down the 12th spot. Precision and consistency kept the 33 team in the race, and it all paid off.

Low point: Bristol I, where he finished 40th and completed only 56 of 500 laps. When start-and-parkers are finishing ahead of you, it’s not a good day. But things would get better.

Prospects for the Chase: Eh, not so good. Bowyer’s a strong driver, but there’s nothing he does at the moment that someone else doesn’t do better. He’ll need help from the rest of the field and some good early breaks if he wants to be any kind of a factor this year.

Related 2010 links:

• Allow us to make the first ‘Clint Bowyer eats his Wheaties’ joke
• Clint Bowyer’s Friday just got a little busier
• The Chrome Horn, episode 31: Clint Bowyer

All right, your turn. How will Bowyer fare in the Chase? Make your best case for Rawhide right here!

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Your Chase competitors, ladies and gentlemen: (back row) Hamster, Flatline, Cuz, Fiffle, Urt, Smoke, The D00D, Rainbow; (front row) Cupcake, The Senator, Vader, Rawhide. (Also known as Denny Hamlin, Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle, Kurt Busch, Tony Stewart, Kyle Busch, Jeff Gordon; Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton, Jimmie Johnson, Clint Bowyer.)  

It’s a fairly significant turnover from last year. Out are Brian Vickers, Kasey Kahne, Mark Martin, Juan Pablo Montoya and Ryan Newman. In are Harvick, Burton, Bowyer, Kenseth and Kyle Busch. Does that speak to the level of talent in NASCAR, or does that mean everybody’s just lining up to play second fiddle to Jimmie?

We’ve got all kinds of Chase breakdowns throughout the week, driver by driver, but for now, it’s your turn. Who’s your pick to win? Who’s going to chump out in Loudon? Make your case in the comments below. Go!

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RICHMOND, Va. — On a night where the Chase contenders could have showed up, phoned in 400 laps and jetted off to prep for next week’s opener at Loudon, NASCAR’s leading lights did nothing of the sort. And the last man in made sure that when he got into the Chase, he did so at full speed.

Denny Hamlin and Jimmie Johnson, the two points leaders coming into Saturday night’s Air Guard 400, traded the lead back and forth, with Kyle Busch challenging as well. Meanwhile, Clint Bowyer, the man whom we were constantly reminded was "the only man with something to lose," made sure that he hammered down any doubts about his ability to close out his Chase-worthy year by hanging around the front all night long and keeping his key challengers — Ryan Newman, Jamie McMurray and Mark Martin — several turns behind him.

"Being in the Chase speaks volumes about these boys [on the 33 team]," Bowyer said. "We got down early [in the season], but we dug deep and stepped up."

He noted the oddity of having his hauler parked right next to Newman’s, and the way that both his team and the 39′s mixed throughout the weekend. "His wife gave me a$50 dollar bill and two peanuts before the race," Bowyer said, laughing at the traditional symbols of bad luck in the pits. "But I told her I wasgoing to take her money and her Chase spot and luckily we did."

With Bowyer slicing the last bit of drama out of the night, Richmond became a statement race. Each of the conventional-wisdom prospective champions — Hamlin, Johnson, Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick — spent time at or very near the front. And in the end, it was Hamlin stamping his name on the 2010 regular season, posting more wins — six — than anyone else, and brushing away the last of Harvick’s regular-season lead.

At the other end of the spectrum, several drivers indicated that they’re most certainly not riding a high wave of momentum going into the Chase. Leading that contingent is Jeff Gordon, who dropped from second place in the Chase to last, with the points reset, by failing to win a race all season. It was an ugly evening for Gordon, who never looked comfortable, and not the way he wanted to go into the Chase. Similarly, Greg Biffle, Matt Kenseth and Jeff Burton all limped or edged their way out of the regular season.

So now, Hamlin enters the Chase with 5,060 points, marking a 10-point lead over Johnson. Twenty points behind Johnson sit Harvick, the regular-season points leader, and Kyle Busch. Brother Kurt sits at 5,020 points; Tony Stewart and Greg Biffle have 5,010 points; Gordon, Edwards, Burton, Kenseth and Bowyer all finish the season with a zero-win 5,000 points.

"You’ve got five or six guys who could win a championship," Johnson said. "Outside of that, you’ve got guys who are finding their cars. … You’ve had some streaky guys, then the 29 who’s been really consistent, and the 24, who’s been kind of consistent. I think everybody has it in them [to win]."

"I hope you guys are ready for a good 10 weeks," Hamlin said on the radio immediately after the win.

And he’s right — this could be a hell of a Chase, with no clear favorite. Clearly, there’s a divide between the can-dos and the probably-won’t-dos, and at the top of the can-do list is Hamlin. He runs in streaks, and if this win marks the start of a run like the one he had starting in early March — when he rolled out five wins in 11 races — the reign of Jimmie Johnson could be coming to a close.

But if that’s going to happen, Hamlin’s going to have a fight on his hands. Johnson had spent most of the last couple months in an uncharacteristically uncertain mode, but two straight third-place finishes at Atlanta and Richmond indicate that he’s all ready to challenge for a fifth straight title — even if his competitors aren’t conceding anything to him.

"Superman still has his cape," Bowyer said, speaking of Johnson, "but it’s a lot shorter this year than it’s been in the past."

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Whether it’s a good idea or not, it sure looks like the Izod IndyCar Series is playing hardball with NASCAR.

The (still to be finalized) 2011 schedule was released Friday and, as expected, the Series will not be racing at any ISC tracks. That means Kansas, Chicagoland, Watkins Glen and Homestead aren’t on the docket for next year.

That, along with a new date at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, aligns the series closely with Bruton Smith’s Speedway Motorsports Inc., the direct track conglomerate competitor to NASCAR’s ISC. (Read Jay Hart’s recent interview with Smith here)

The reason the schedule is still being finalized is that the Series and SMI are working on a deal to have the season finale at SMI’s Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The 2010 schedule ends at Homestead, and the final race on the just-released 2011 schedule is October 2 at Kentucky Motor Speedway, another SMI track.

Will it pay off for the Series? That remains to be seen. The schedule shuffle means that the first oval race of the season will be the Indianapolis 500, an interesting move given the condensing of the May Indianapolis schedule. Plus, the Series still has a majority of its races on Versus, a channel that is an afterthought to all but hardcore sports fans.

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RICHMOND, Va. — Ten drivers are locked into the Chase going into Richmond, with only the lure of bonus points (and a winner’s purse/sponsor’s love) driving them this weekend. So how are they going to approach this race?

• By going all out to get those 10 bonus points, trying to cut into the lead of the frontrunners (or, in the frontrunners’ case, extend that lead).

• By playing it conservative, using the race as a chance to fine-tune some driving and crew skills before the postseason begins next week.

• By splitting the difference — sniffing at the lead, but reverting to a more relaxed mode if the win is out of reach.

So what would you do? Each approach has its advantages, but each also has huge drawbacks, both for PR and for the potential future damage to fellow Chaser relations. (Suppose you knock a fellow Chaser out of the way during the drive to the front. Think he’s going to treat you with respect come Chase time?)

It’s going to be an interesting race, one more akin to an All-Star Race — a million bucks or nothing — than a typical Cup race. So what would you do?

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Saturday will mark the ninth anniversary of 9/11, and at the Richmond race, NASCAR will be participating in the kickoff of a yearlong countdown to the 10-year anniversary. (Should we use the word "anniversary" in connection with 9/11? Seems a bit off.)

Anyway, a few weeks back, Denny Hamlin and Kasey Kahne visited Ground Zero and spoke about the horrors of that day. Above, they’re flanked by Joe Daniels, 9/11 Memorial President, and Richmond International Raceway President Doug Fritz.

9/11 seems like forever ago already, but seeing those images again — and we will all weekend — brings it all right back. If you took a moment during the race to remember the events of that day, well, it wouldn’t be out of place.

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