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Two Sanctioning Bodies at a Crossroads

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by Chris Leone, Special To NASCAR commentary and driver pictures, 2011 NASCAR schedule, video, Bench Racing With Steve and Charlie

I do weekly Fantasy Pick'Em columns here at OPR, as well as the occasional opinion and analysis piece. I also provide the IZOD IndyCar Series coverage. For more on that, head to my site, OpenWheelAmerica.com. My Twitter handle is @christopherlion.

June 28, 2010 11:04 pm UTC No Comments

You’d think it impossible, but the IZOD IndyCar Series nearly upstaged NASCAR’s best and brightest this past weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway without even staging a race. And although they didn’t quite pull it off, they certainly did their damnedest.

For one, Danica Patrick made her much-discussed return to the Nationwide Series. That wasn’t too successful, as an early-race accident put her off of the lead lap for the final 190 out of 200 laps, rendering her goal of a top-15 impossible. But Patrick did begin to grasp some things by the end of the event, and did manage to score her best career stock car finish (let’s ignore the fact that it was 30th).

The next day, the sport’s top names – CEO Randy Bernard, top driver Dario Franchitti, and SMI CEO/track mogul Bruton Smith (the man whose purchase of NHMS has greatly upgraded the facility) joined track promoter Jerry Gappens and New Hampshire governor John Lynch to announce next year’s return of the series to Loudon.

The press conference lasted nearly 30 minutes, and touched on topics from NHMS’ potential loss of a Sprint Cup race date (especially if the IndyCar event is a great success) to other potential additions to next year’s IndyCar schedule, especially other SMI tracks like Las Vegas, Atlanta, and Charlotte.

Dario wheeled his No. 10 Target Dallara-Honda out on the track for a few hot laps in between the national anthem and starting command for the Cup race, and although TNT’s cameras didn’t catch it, thousands of longtime NHMS ticketholders sure did. IndyCar has come a long way from where it was in 1998, the final year that NHMS hosted an open-wheel event, which was won by Tony Stewart (before he was Tony Stewart).

Granted, NASCAR sure gave IndyCar some help in the interest department as the race soldiered on. The massive gap between cautions, over 200 laps, had some taking to their Twitter accounts and praying for debris cautions. But in perhaps the greatest proof ever of the theory of relativity, the race that seemed to drag on was actually on pace to tie or eclipse the record for fastest race ever at NHMS until Juan Pablo Montoya crashed out.

All the discussion over the past few weeks about drivers lacking respect for one another vanished. Listening to Stewart apologize for getting into Kurt Busch in the media center, in a last lap battle that Busch called “fun” no less, suggested that such arguments had lost some of their bite.

And all of the hype surrounding Joe Gibbs Racing over the past month or so vanished as Kyle Busch fell back at the end, Denny Hamlin spent time off the lead lap, and defending race winner Joey Logano was nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, those who wondered if Jimmie Johnson had finally lost a step were treated to a nice helping of their own words as he fought back from a poor early pit stop for the victory.

This brings NASCAR back to Daytona for its Independence Day spectacular, and at a perfect time – as the series begins to limp from the loss of new and interesting storylines, and the re-emergence of the same old song and dance up front.

IndyCar, on the other hand, heads into the second half of its season at Watkins Glen with more momentum than it’s ever had since reunification in 2008. Promoters are fighting to put their events on its schedule, chassis manufacturers are fighting to put their cars on track for 2012, and best of all, the drivers are fighting for three distinct championships, with all still very up in the air.

Next weekend’s events will be very interesting to see where momentum takes both niches of motorsport. Will NASCAR produce a story for the ages coming out of Daytona, or will IndyCar continue to nibble away at the big picture and increase its market share? We can only watch and find out.

Filed under: Bruton Smith, Danica Patrick, Indy Cars, New Hampshire International Speedway 

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NASCAR Pictures: Lenox Industrial Tools 301 from Loudon

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by BethAnne, Special To NASCAR commentary and driver pictures, 2011 NASCAR schedule, video, Bench Racing With Steve and Charlie

I am the field producer/photographer of the syndicated radio show/website ON PIT ROW. When Steve and Charlie ask me to 'jump', I say "Yeah right."

June 27, 2010 10:11 pm UTC No Comments

NASCAR Race Photos from NHMS Sunday

On Pit Row photographer Glenn Bure was there today for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Check out the pictures of NASCAR action from Loudon.

Photo credit: Glenn Bure – OnPitRow.com

Filed under: NASCAR, NASCAR photos, New Hampshire International Speedway, Sprint Cup Series 

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NASCAR Pictures: Danica Patrick Returns

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by BethAnne, Special To NASCAR commentary and driver pictures, 2011 NASCAR schedule, video, Bench Racing With Steve and Charlie

I am the field producer/photographer of the syndicated radio show/website ON PIT ROW. When Steve and Charlie ask me to 'jump', I say "Yeah right."

June 27, 2010 9:18 am UTC No Comments

More NASCAR Photos of Danica Patrick at Loudon

Danica is back in NASCAR and driving in the Nationwide Series at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Here are some more great photos of Danica at Loudon taken by Glenn Bure for On Pit Row.

Photo credit:  Glenn Bure – OnPitRow.com

Filed under: Danica Patrick, NASCAR, NASCAR photos, Nationwide Series, New Hampshire International Speedway 

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NASCAR Pictures: Saturday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway

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by BethAnne, Special To NASCAR commentary and driver pictures, 2011 NASCAR schedule, video, Bench Racing With Steve and Charlie

I am the field producer/photographer of the syndicated radio show/website ON PIT ROW. When Steve and Charlie ask me to 'jump', I say "Yeah right."

June 26, 2010 11:51 pm UTC No Comments

Photos of NASCAR drivers from Happy Hour practice Saturday at Loudon

Here’s a NASCAR photo gallery of shots taken Saturday by Glenn Bure for OnPitRow.com. Good stuff!

Photo credit: Glenn Bure for OnPitRow.com

Filed under: NASCAR, NASCAR photos, New Hampshire International Speedway 

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Story of the Day Not So Much of a Story

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by Chris Leone, Special To NASCAR commentary and driver pictures, 2011 NASCAR schedule, video, Bench Racing With Steve and Charlie

I do weekly Fantasy Pick'Em columns here at OPR, as well as the occasional opinion and analysis piece. I also provide the IZOD IndyCar Series coverage. For more on that, head to my site, OpenWheelAmerica.com. My Twitter handle is @christopherlion.

June 26, 2010 10:06 pm UTC No Comments

Danica Patrick Loudon NHMS FridaySo what do you think was the biggest story out of New Hampshire Motor Speedway today?

Was it Ryan Newman‘s victory in the 100-lap modified event, finally bringing home a victory for himself and team owner Bono Manion after years of frustration? Nah.

How about Kyle Busch‘s successful defense of his 2009 victory in the Nationwide Series, bringing to an end the track’s streak of 23 consecutive different winners and no repeat winners in the series? Better yet, his new record of most Nationwide laps led over a career, surpassing the series’ greatest of all time, Mark Martin? Nope.

Could it have been the lack of AT&T coverage at the track, rendering Twitter updates difficult if not impossible for some of us? No, although I would like a word with the folks at Sprint.

Danica Patrick?

DING DING DING!!!

The past couple of days have been all about the return of the sport’s rental media darling, on loan from the IZOD IndyCar Series on her off weeks. Everybody has been hanging on her every word, her every lap, her every action all weekend.

The stated goal for the No. 7 JR Motorsports team this weekend was a top-15 finish, after three sub-30th runs in her first three races of the year. Two were due to wrecks that were not entirely her fault, if at all. Regardless of February’s foibles, however, today was meant to be a day for growth, and perhaps her first solid, lead-lap finish of her stock car career.

Of course, it only took until lap seven for that to go out the window. Morgan Shepherd got loose and slid into Patrick, putting her into the wall and off the lead lap. She would never regain lead-lap status, and she didn’t hesitate to show Shepherd her “appreciation” on the ensuing restart by bumping the back of his car.

To be fair to both sides, Shepherd may have driven too hard into the corner too early in the race. But Patrick could have also given him more room, allowing for the beating and banging inherent in the nature of stock car racing. And if Shepherd was a faster car at that point in the race, there’s no sense in making it difficult to get by; it’s only lap seven, after all.

Regardless, Danica went from 25th all the way down to 39th, recovering to finish 30th, five laps off the pace. But much of that gained position came from cars that fell out of the event entirely, or parked their vehicles. Of those still running at the end of the 200-lap event, she only beat one car, that of Charles Lewandoski, which only made the race because Peyton Sellers was disqualified for illegal fuel during qualifying.

The spotlight cast on Danica, however, may also illuminate the reason why so many open-wheel drivers have failed at stock cars in the recent past. Clearly, Danica’s driving style is going to be different after years of having no ability to bump and bang the other cars on track, lest somebody’s wheel go flying off the vehicle. As such, it is up to those in charge of mentoring her to acclimate her to a different driving methodology, as well as a different driving terminology – “loose” and “tight” versus “oversteer” and “understeer.”

Yet if you listened to Tony Eury Jr.‘s prerace interview with ESPN, he talked about trying to get his team to adapt to what Danica knows, and teaching them her terminology from the IndyCar. Therein lies the problem – not only do the physics of an 1800-pound open-wheel car not translate to a stock car about twice its size, the crew members aren’t pushing enough of the established way of doing things on their still-impressionable (at least in stock cars) driver.

If this is the way that the crews of Dario Franchitti, Jacques Villeneuve, Patrick Carpentier, et cetera decided to do it, and not the way that Tony Stewart‘s mentors worked back in 1998, I think we’ve figured out the problem.

Certainly, Danica isn’t exempt from blame in this situation – if she’s going to moonlight in stock cars, she needs to do more to learn the system. She needs to do her homework – watch more races as a spectator, learn the lingo, start developing a second style of driving that has nothing in common with her IndyCar ways. But as much as some folks would have you believe, her lack of success and speed thus far does not squarely rest on her shoulders.

Unless and until things start to change in the No. 7 team all the way around, we’re going to see more mediocre and subpar runs out of them before any success is achieved. It’s a shame, really. I think all of us would like to see one of the Nationwide Series’ biggest stories turn out more like a fairy tale than a horror movie.

Filed under: Danica Patrick, New Hampshire International Speedway 

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NASCAR Pictures: Friday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway

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by BethAnne, Special To NASCAR commentary and driver pictures, 2011 NASCAR schedule, video, Bench Racing With Steve and Charlie

I am the field producer/photographer of the syndicated radio show/website ON PIT ROW. When Steve and Charlie ask me to 'jump', I say "Yeah right."

June 26, 2010 8:07 pm UTC No Comments

Exclusive NASCAR photos of practice and qualifying for the Lenox Industrial Tools 301

On Pit Row photographer Glenn Bure is in Loudon, New Hampshire this weekend. Expect great photos of your favorite NASCAR drivers all three days.

Photo credit: Glenn Bure – OnPitRow.com

Filed under: Danica Patrick, NASCAR, NASCAR photos, New Hampshire International Speedway 

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