A Tale Of Two Championship Series

It was the last race of the ARCA season, and the championship had come down to the wire. All Scott Speed needed to do to clinch the title was finish seventeenth or better, and all Ricky Stenhouse, Jr had to do was hope that something would happen to make sure he could make up the 90 point deficit he held. .

From the very beginning of Sunday's race at Toledo Speedway, it looked as though Stenhouse was out to make sure Scott Speed wouldn't finish seventeenth or better. Starting in the second row, along with Speed, he rode Speed's bumper lap after lap, beating and banging aggressively until only a little more than twenty laps into the race, he rode Speed's bumper all the way into the wall.

It is possible that Speed's car could have been repaired well enough to finish seventeenth or better, but Speed himself felt that it would at least take twenty laps to repair the car well enough to the point where he could make it around the track. So, already two laps down, he took his crippled car back on to the track, waited for Stenhouse to pass him, then gunned the throttle and knocked Stenhouse's #99 car hard into the wall. Needless to say, neither Speed nor Stenhouse won the championship. Justin Algaier, who entered the final race fourth in the championship points, won the race and the championship.

In my mind, retaliation is never a good thing. It is a poor display of sportsmanship, and endangers not only the two cars and drivers involved, but often results in damage to the innocent bystander who might get collected in the wreck. But that doesn't mean it can't be justified. If Stenhouse had won the championship after wrecking Speed, something would have been terribly wrong.

As Brad Daugherty pointed out on ESPN's NASCAR Now, every stock car has either been on the giving or receiving end of retaliation, at some point in his or her career. However, retaliation doesn't always have to result in a wreck. I'm thinking about Jeff Burton's retaliatory bump of Kyle Busch's car after Busch used his bumper to move Burton out of the way earlier, in the race at Kansas a few weeks ago.

Jeff Burton lives by the rule "you get raced the way you race." He was upset by the way Busch had passed him, but he didn't wreck the 18 car. Instead, he bumped him just enough to let him know he was displeased, and to get the car loose enough for him to pass.

Burton is quite possibly the most unique driver in the sport. Where every other driver sees racing as primarily a physical sport, Jeff Burton takes the cerebal approach. He studies every track, and every driver. He notes where his best line is, and how he races against each driver's unique style. He remembers how his car handles at every turn, and the effect of traffic on the handling of his car. He plans, and he is always ready to advance his position when the opportunity presents itself. He seems to never be caught by surprise. He knows the car in front of him is going to get loose in turn three, because he has been watching it, and he will be there to pass when that other car does get loose.

He avoids trouble in much the same way he gains positions. He pays close attention to the way the cars in front of him are moving up and down the track. He sees it when a driver gets too close underneath another driver's car and compensates to avoid the inevitable spin, or, at least, the wobble. As good at car control as most of the other best NASCAR driver, Burton is always prepared to thread the needle when the need arises.

All this is part of why Jeff Burton is the second favorite driver of many a NASCAR fan. If he were to win the championship this year, something which he has a very good chance of doing, there would be very few fans who would be unhappy. He now stands a mere 69 points out of first place in the championship points. All he needs to do is keep on doing what he is doing.

Some of this, some of that, and the other

It's funny how, as the season winds down, we find less to get fired up about enough to think of a worthwhile post. It isn't that nothing is happening--there has been plenty of news.

NASCAR will implement their new drug testing policy beginning next year, in which all over the wall crew members, drivers, and NASCAR officials will be subject to mandatory random drug testing. Prior to the beginning of the season, all employees of all teams, and all employees of NASCAR will be tested. NASCAR has not, however, come up with a list of banned substances. They probably want to see how many people take over the counter cold remedies, drink Amp, or eat at Starbucks, all products that could result in a false positive. It should be up to the teams to police their own people, and we will stand by that assertation.

As it always seems to happen, just when a driver is getting good, he loses his ride. AJ Allmendinger has been showing steady improvement in adapting to NASCAR style racing, since he got back in the seat of the #84 Red Bull Racing car earlier this year. However, the big wigs in Austria who run the team seem to feel that Scott Speed fits the image they want, better. So, AJ is out of a ride for next year. Red Bull has yet to announce that Speed will be their man next year, but that is expected. Meanwhile, speculation has it that Allmendinger will fill the void left by Reed Sorenson when the driver of the Chip Ganassi Racing #41 car announced that he will be driving for Gillett-Evernham Motorsports next year. There may be more to this than meets the eye, as Red Bull waited until near the end of the season to announce that Allmendinger would be leaving the Red Bull Sprint Cup team. This made it more difficult for him to find options for next year, and we think, personally, that RBR may have been thinking of using Allmendinger in another series. However, Allmendinger has made it clear that he wants to stay in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. He has a lot of talent, and has been learning the car well. It is very possible that he will have a ride next year. It should be remembered that the last time he was released from a team--in the now defunct Open Wheel World Championship Series--he went on to win five out of nine races.


Last week I received an award from Trixie's Trailer Park called the "You Make My Day" award. It's one of these things we bloggers do to show our appreciation for other bloggers. That is very much appreciated.

I will pass it on to some blogs I like to read whenever I go on line.

First I would like to return the favor to Trixie's Trailer Park. She is a lot of fun to read, her passion for NASCAR and Tony Stewart is very much appreciated, and she has some very interesting insights. Trixie, I know you are receiving this award twice, but you deserve it.

Muse and Amuse doesn't seem to get enough recognition. Cheyenne blogs on NASCAR, especially on items pertaining to Dale Earnhardt, Jr. She is, in her own words, very opinionated, and will argue the point to the death. She really has made my day on several occassions. I feel her Muse and Amuse blog is very underappreciated, and we will attempt to remedy that by presenting her with a "You Make My Day Award."

We can't forget Church of the Great Oval. Clance' (pronounced "Clan-see" like my cat) inspired me to start my own blog years ago. She always makes our day, and we are more than happy to present her this award.

The Chase heats up, and the writing about it cools down. Greg Biffle is showing what he can do when he and his team are of a mind to do it. We are all still wondering what is up with the #24 team, because we are certain that Jeff Gordon hasn't lost his talent. So we will sit back and enjoy the next Chase race at Kansas this weekend.

Scott Speed finds speed in transition from Formula 1

One of the things that makes racing in the Craftsman Truck Series exciting is the combination of seasoned veterans and newcomers. Unlike the Nationwide Series, few Cup teams utilize the Truck Series as a developmental stage for drivers they plan to put in a car in the near future (Noted exceptions are Roush-Fenway and Bill Davis Racing). Cup Series racing, because of the length of the races and the need for patience, takes a different set of skills than Truck Series racing, where patience is the opposite of what it takes to win a race.

That being said, possibly the best story of driver development came to fruition Friday night, as Scott Speed won his first race in NASCAR in only six starts. He was the third driver in three races to win his first Craftsman Truck Series race.

Scott Speed's racing career began at the age of seven, when he raced go-carts. From there, however, his development has been very different from that of most NASCAR drivers. After winning the Red Bull Drivers' Challenge he found himself in a ride for the FIA's GP2 Series, a developmental series for Formula 1 drivers. Placing second in championship points to non other than Niko Rossburg, in that series earned him a ride with the Red Bull team's second-string subsidiary, Toro Rosso, in Formula 1. His best finish in that series was ninth, at Monaco. He was released from the team later in 2007, but Red Bull wasn't about to give up on him.

They made a sponsorship deal with Eddie Sharp's ARCA series team to get Speed a ride in that series. He ran a few unremarkable races at the end of 2007, but he was learning the stock car. Unlike others from the open wheel series, JP Montoya, Dario Franchitti, Patrick Carpentier, AJ Allendinger, and Sam Hornish, Jr., for example, he wasn't fast tracked and thrust into a Cup ride
with only a little experience in the heavier and harder to stop cars. Scott Speed is being methodically and carefully developed.

It is paying off. Speed is young enough, at age 24, to learn new tricks, and he is quickly learning what you can and can't do in NASCAR racing. Just last week, at Mansfield, he was involved in nearly every incident on the track. This week, driving once again for Bill Davis Racing, he avoided trouble and did what he needed to do to get to the front, something even the seasoned veterans have trouble doing in the Truck Series.

Red Bull plans to put Speed in a Cup ride near the end of this year, but only for the purpose of experience and training. Right now, Speed is concentrating on winning the ARCA championship, which would be quite a feat for a driver who previously had no interest in stock car racing.

In a post race interview, as reported by Motorsport.com, Speed talked about his development and his attitude:

"To be honest, whether we win or not, it doesn't really affect my confidence. I don't let results control how I feel about myself - - I have said it a thousand times. Today we had a good strategy and we had an awesome truck. We got everything we could out of it. If our truck was a fifth place truck and we did the race and finished fifth, I would be just as happy with myself. The hats off to the team, they're really the ones that won this race. I'm pretty confident that anyone in this truck at the last 50 laps after the pit stop would have done exactly the same thing. For me, I'm learning step by step -- it's going to be a long process and just to have the experience to know what to do on the trucks or on the cars when I go to the COT (Car of Tomorrow), you can't just learn it right away. It's something you have to feel and something you have to learn. The learning curve I've had has been amazing and I've learned a ton everywhere. Every time I go out onto the track for a race, I definitely come away feeling a lot of experience and knowledge. I'm certainly looking forward to continuing on and of course looking forward to my first Cup race, but I'm not in any rush. I'm having the time of my life just coming over here and trying to learn this sport. It's awesome and Red Bull is giving me an incredible opportunity to do this and my hats off to them. Without them, none of this would have been possible."

We can't say at this point that Scott Speed is the next big star, but it seems that everything is going right to reach that goal. Red Bull seems to be doing something right.