Another good race is in the can.
Quite entertaining and a bit exciting. Maybe it’s the venue, or just equally as fun as that monkey and football thing.
K. Petty noted that drivers don’t know much about the rules of Nascar. Maybe Nascar isn’t completely up on them either. I got the impression that Mr. Knauss had to advise Nascar of its own rule about “maintaining a reasonable speed”. The book also says, according to David Scott of the Charlotte Observer, that that determination is a judgment call. Without making my own judgment call, it seems a good portion of the Nascar rule book is made up of judgment calls – even when the rule appears to be black and white.
I remember a race at Pocono(?) in the middle ’90’s(?) when the 24 was “scrubbing” his tires along the Long Pond straightaway during a caution and spun out into the grass. I don’t remember if he actually came to a stop, but a number of cars passed him. He was allowed to resume the position he had before the spin. Anyone have any particulars?
Unfinished business from last week: We’ve had the splitter cutting tires and injuring people on pit road for some time. We’ve got a machete sticking out of the side rear of the car (which has, I believe, already struck a crew member in the chest). So Nascar’s latest disciplinary action is aimed at valve stem caps. To their credit, I hear Nascar is planning to change all the noses in the near future and possibly eliminate the splitter. That’s a move whose time has always been here.
6.20.82: @ Michigan, in her first of 2 Cup races, Robin McCall (Mrs. Wally Dallenbach) started 29th and finished 35th in the J.D. Stacy Buick.
If Ned were in the booth, we’d know what’s up with Rich Bickle.
Ref: racing-reference.info, Greg Fielden’s “Forty Years of Stock Car Racing”, Richard Sowers’ “The Complete Statistical History of Stock-Car Racing”.
