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Fins to the Left Fins to the Right Daytona Pack Racing is All Right

by Charlie Turner

Thanks for stopping by OnPitRow.com and the Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie blog. The best NASCAR and IndyCar news and opinion, exclusive pictures and video. I'm Charlie Turner. Follow me on Twitter @onpitrow

February 28, 2012 11:48 am UTC No Comments

The 2012 Daytona 500 was memorable for many things including the debut of Monday Night NASCAR.

I don’t write race recaps. I don’t enjoy doing them and there are really good, professional journalists who do that better than I ever could anyway. So go read Bob Pockrass or Dustin Long or Ryan McGee’s stories this week if you want to know what happened in the Daytona 500 and why it did.

Congrats to Matt Kenseth on winning the race and to Jack Roush for owning the front row of the grid in addition to the car that won the race. Nice start for the Roushies in 2012.

Dale Earnhardt Jr finished second, and looked to have a shot at the win late in the race. But it was not to be.

The Pack is Back. Pack racing at restrictor plate tracks is once again the rule. The proof came when, with a couple laps left, and Kenseth all alone out front with no one to draft with, the combo of Junior and Greg Biffle couldn’t catch him.

In the days of tandem plate racing, Matt would have been as toasted as Reilly Mansfield at a Saturday night gig. But he held on.

The pack racing led to some crazy wrecks. And Juan Pablo Montoya’s, yellow flag spin into a jet dryer was just bizarre . So was 15 hours, spread over two days, of pre-race fill by DW, MW and MJ.

I hope to hell there’s no weather in the forecast for Phoenix.

Photo credit: Round girl Cindi by BethAnne Heisler – OnPitRow.com

Filed under: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Darrell Waltrip, Daytona 500, Daytona International Speedway, Greg Biffle, Juan Pablo Montoya, Michael Waltrip, NASCAR, NASCAR & the Media, Sprint Cup Series

Tagged with: bob pockrass, Dustin Long, restrictor plates, Ryan McGee

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NASCAR 2012 Daytona 500 Year of the Twitter

by Charlie Turner

February 27, 2012 11:46 pm UTC No Comments

Have you heard of twitter NASCAR?

Give me a break. As we wait for the restart of the Daytona 500, after a horrifying, firey, yellow flag crash that others will write about plenty, I’m listening to DW and Mike Joy talk about their twitter accounts.

Darrell let “slip” that his twitter had passed 100K followers this weekend. And that Brad Keselowski’s twitter had done this and someone else’s had done that. Mikey Waltrip is a twitter whore. The NASCAR garage is a twitter bordello.

I get it. We have a twitter account. Hardly worth mentioning. I tweet a few things that I think might be entertaining or enlightening. Mostly stuff about the show. I retweet smart things I see. I don’t live on it.

I remember, during 2011, asking Jeff Hammond (he wasn’t the only one) if he was on twitter. He said he didn’t do that social media stuff.

Last week, we had @HollywoodJeff on the show for the first time in 2012. He mentioned twitter and social media and our twitter accounts and social media and his twitter and..on..and on…socially…

This is a rant. I’m sick of guys who have all the attention anyway, using air time that should be used giving us info, instead using it to pump their f’ing egos.

Filed under: Darrell Waltrip, Michael Waltrip, NASCAR, NASCAR & the Media

Tagged with: Add new tag

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Hollywood Evicted from Hotel? Say it Ain’t So

by Charlie Turner

October 1, 2011 6:46 am UTC No Comments

Do we really need more Waltrip-ness in NASCAR?

Michael Waltrip is replacing Hollywood Jeff Hammond in Fox’s Hollywood Hotel pre-race and in-race TV segments for the 2012 Sprint Cup season.

No offence Mikey, but that is gonna suck. Here’s why. There’s just too much Waltrip on the NASCAR-network already. I like these guys. I don’t even mind Boogity-Boogity, but between Michael’s and Darrell’s commercials and their, already pervasive presence in race coverage I get plenty of Waltrip. Jeff Hammond was a nice break from it all. Hollywood will be a great pit reporter.

I think that one of the reasons TV ratings for the actual races have declined in recent seasons is that there is SO MUCH TV NASCAR available, throughout the week, that folks feel its’s OK to miss a 3-plus hour, live race broadcast because they can get the highlights somewhere during their schedule. I can’t help but think that further saturating the NASCAR-air, even though it’s different, may drive more viewers away from the actual race coverage.

That’s just me, maybe. But the best NAPA Know How commercials are the ones with Martin Truex Jr in them, without Mikey.

Filed under: Darrell Waltrip, Jeff Hammond, Michael Waltrip, NASCAR, NASCAR & the Media

Tagged with: Fox Sports, Hollywood Hotel

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NASCAR Lacks Faith in All Star Race

by Charlie Turner

May 22, 2011 8:30 pm UTC No Comments

The NASCAR All Star Race has almost everything going for it. The Charlotte Motor Speedway venue looks – and is – spectacular, particularly under the lights on All-Star Saturday Night.

One way or another, the best of the best of stock car racing are matched up in a winner-takes-all, million dollar cash run. The perfect set up.

My favorite part of the whole thing this weekend was when All Star Pole winner, Carl Edwards was given a microphone and he – Carl – conducted interviews with drivers before the Showdown, race-in race . Really good stuff!

Other Speed TV guys like Dr Dick Bergeren helped show how loose the competitors were, and how racing for the cash seemed to be a nice change from regular race weeks. It was cool.

So why in the world did Speed/NASCAR have to hype it up with Two Waltrips and a Straight Man?

I’m sorry DW and Mikey fans but Saturday night was too much AllWaltrip for me. I counted three different times in segment number two alone when Michael and Darrell Waltrip took turns telling us – IN REALLY REALLY EXCITED VOICES – how all the stars were moving up front and would be there at the end for the most fantastic, exciting, blah, blah blah…..

This could not have been an accident. I think that NASCAR knows that the contrived nature of the All-Star race is lame. I mean, what is the purpose of segment one? Segment two is almost as bad. NASCAR knows it sucks and dropped the Waltrip bomb on us to keep everyone awake.

I have a suggestion. Hold a 100 lap race, give each team two sets of tires, give the winner a million bucks and let Mike Joy pick his own broadcast partners.

Hallelujah!

Photo credit: Round girl Cindi by BethAnne Heisler for OnPitRow.com

Filed under: Carl Edwards, Darrell Waltrip, Michael Waltrip, NASCAR, NASCAR & the Media, Sprint Cup Series

Tagged with: All Star weekend, Charlotte Motor Speedway, Mike Joy, Sprint All Star

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Can Kurt and Kyle Busch become NASCAR’s winningest Brothers

by Steve Wronkowicz

I am co-host of the syndicated radio show: ON PIT ROW. Over ten years on the air and three on the net; see what can happen when I don't let the facts get in the way of my opinions.

March 30, 2011 7:38 am UTC No Comments

Kurt Busch Loudon New Hampshire in car bure 10

Don’t expect the most prolific NASCAR brother combo of our time to challange for the most Cup wins ever by siblings.

Kurt and Kyle Busch currently sit in sixth place all-time with a combined forty-two wins in the Sprint Cup Series; Kurt with twenty-two and Kyle twenty. But there is a formidable task ahead as sitting atop the brothers win list are Bobby and Donnie Allison with ninety-four Cup wins.

While Kurt and Kyle have one thing on their side in a quest to move to the top of this category–time; their ability to win Cup races at a fast enough rate isn’t looking plausible. Even if the brothers could average winning a combined five races per year it would take them into the 2021 season to even tie the Allisons. Averaging those five wins per year would be based on Kurt and Kyle continuining to win a combined 15 percent of the races they enter. Currently Kyle is winning at just shy of nine percent of the Cup races he enters and Kurt is at six percent.

With 369 Cup starts Kurt has been starting races at NASCAr’s highest level for ten years and one would wonder if he has ten more in him. Last night Kurt talked ON PIT ROW about his career, racing in his home town of Las Vegas and his new found love for drag racing. You can watch the entire interview with Kurt here. Is Kurt’s foray into the drag racing world a preview of things to come as a veteran looks toward his future?

Younger brother Kyle has only 227 Cup starts under his belt and would seem to be better suited to carry the brothers torch toward knocking off the Allisons. Kyle not only has a better winning percentage than Kurt but most likely has more years left in him winning at that higher percentage.

Most of the brother acts ahead of the Busch brothers show lopsided win totals. The Waltrips have a combined win total of 88; Darrell with 84 and Michael with four. The Flock brothers with 62 wins; Tim with 39 while Fonty has 19 and Bob only four. Donald Thomas has one win to combine with brother Herb’s forty-eight.

Only the next tandem above the Busch’s of Terry and Bobby Labonte show an equal number of wins, with twenty-two and twenty-one respectively.

If Kurt and Kyle are to have any chance of rising to the top in this NASCAR catagory it looks as if brother Kyle needs to concentrate on winning in the Cup series at a much more prodigious rate.

photo credit: Glenn Bure/ON PIT ROW

Filed under: Darrell Waltrip, Joe Gibbs Racing, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, Michael Waltrip, NASCAR, NASCAR History, On Pit Row The Fastest Two Hours on Radio, Terry Labonte, The Waltrips

Tagged with: Bobby Allison, Bobby Labonte, Darrell Waltrip, Donnie Allison, Fonty Flock, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, Michael Waltrip, NASCAR Brothers, Terry Labonte, Tim Flock

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No Such Thing as a Win without Honor?

by Charlie Turner

July 11, 2010 11:33 pm UTC No Comments

Which is harder; to not have won a Cup race at all, or living with your only win questioned by your peers for having come in a rain shortened race?

I don’t know. I’ve asked plenty of racers the “Is there such a thing as a win without honor” question. They have all said that there is no such thing. Every single one of them told me the same thing. Maybe they lied.

David Reutimann doesn’t care anymore. He won the LifeLock.com 400 at Chicagoland Speedway convincingly, decisively. Honorably.

The voices will stop now. No more whispers about the way he won the 2009 Coke 600 while sitting in pit lane with MWR team owner Michael Waltrip, praying for rain. No more asterisks.

That all goes for the #00 Michael Waltrip Racing team too. While Reutimann passed the resurgent Jeff Gordon twice for the lead, on the track, the Tums team was near flawless all night in the pits. A late race, green flag pit stop, from the lead, went perfectly.

And David Reutimann drove away to another win. Sounds good doesn’t it Beak?

Photo credit: Icon Sports Media, Inc

Filed under: Chicagoland Speedway, David Reutimann, Michael Waltrip, Michael Waltrip Racing, NASCAR, Sprint Cup Series

Tagged with: Beak, LifeLock.com 400, MWR

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