When one of the legends in the sport leaves us, we remember. If a man is known simply by the company he keeps, Robert Yates did very well. As a team owner, he was the boss to such NASCAR luminaries as Davey Allison, Larry McReynolds, Ernie Irvan, Dale Jarrett, and Ricky Rudd.
When your form of peaceful protest is deemed to be disrespectful to your nation, when the paying customer is offended and decides to take their business elsewhere, maybe one needs to reconsider a more effective form of protest. No matter the cause, you want the people with you, to support you bringing attention to it, to even cause them to rally to deal with the issue. To do otherwise renders the action as ineffective and nothing more than a divisive self-indulgement. Lord knows, we have seen far too much of that lately.
Everyone is super excited about going to Loudon, New Hampshire for the big event on Sunday. Okay, Alan Gustafson is not. Is not going, that is. Chase Elliott was second in Chicago, leaving him sixth in points. That was then. Now, he is eighth in points. If your car fails post-race inspection, sometimes they take away 15 points, along with your crew chief for a week.
So it begins. Chicago, where the Chase began. Chicago, where winning was a big thing, but not the only thing. Win and you advance. Drop out or too near the rear of the pack and all you have is New Hampshire and Charlotte to get it right, to fix the problem, to save your season. Three races, 16 drivers, and just a dozen spots available in order to continue the quest.
Change can be a good thing. Sometimes it is, but other times it is a simple reminder that we are getting older and, like disco, what was popular yesterday might not be tomorrow.
For a race that has been around since 1958, it is a damn shame that it does not carry the proper branding to link it over the decades to the time it was claimed by the likes of Speedy Thompson, Cotton Owens, and Joe Weatherly. Let us properly honor it and refer to this Saturday night’s contest in Richmond, Virginia as the Federated Auto Parts Capital City 400.
History and tradition. Often NASCAR sells it out for a corporate buck, but the Southern 500 was a race to win long before they went round and round at Daytona, Talladega, or all those generic races on cookie cutter 1.5-mile tracks across the country. It was the race a driver wanted to win. That legacy continued in Darlington, South Carolina on Sunday night at the track too tough to tame, the famed Lady in Black.
With the Southern 500 coming our way from Darlington this weekend, it seems like a good time to talk about tradition. The first one in the books was back in 1950, making it the oldest of the sport’s iconic events. Most of the time, it goes to someone who is in or will be in, the Hall of Fame. That number will only grow once Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson get in, along with a few other contenders I can think of.
While we continue to yearn for announcers who captivate us with their voices, delivery, dialogue, banter, information, or entertainment value, it does not matter this Saturday night. This time, the track will take care of all that itself.
Michigan, where winning was everything. Okay, points might have mattered for the likes of Chase Elliott, Jamie McMurray, Matt Kenseth, and Clint Bowyer, but for everyone else winning was the goal.
