2017 Nascar Thread

"I’m sorry but it really rubs me wrong when I hear winning, championship drivers complaining about another driver racing them too hard or blocking them. Dang it, that’s what we are supposed to be doing."

https://www.google.com/amp/www.foxs...n-about-blocking-need-to-stop-041915?amp=true

 

A little perspective:

Kyle Busch on Carl Edwards pass: 'It's racing'

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sport...le-busch-carl-edwards-pass-richmond/83474728/

https://youtu.be/rBN8AUCmutE

Kyle didn't go after Carl on pit road. Why? Carl's bigger than Kyle.

 

I did a quick 2 google searches on my
Phone:
"Logano whines" revealed no relevant links.
"Kyle Busch whines" revealed page after page of links, including this one, which is for @thewarriordinghy :

https://youtu.be/w-TMTzPa-Hg

 

Teammates is the only reason... Matter of fact Carl cut Kyle breaks the rest of the season...

 

That ain't racing.

 

Yes, let's go back to STOCK car racing. Yes, add in safety features like the seat and stuff, but dam it the cars they race should be the stock bodies. The motors they run, should be stock motors that have been tweaked.

And as a Kyle bush fan, I was pissed at first, but after watching the replay, Joey was racing him hard. Now Kyle will have to race him hard back, that's the way it should be. The after race stuff adds excitement, but these drivers know they are in the public eye now (right or wrong), going to have words is one thing, but even though I love it, getting physical isn't what the sport needs.

 

He didn't want it back because Kyle himself said he'd do it back...

 

https://youtu.be/BdPHm2jhem8

 

https://youtu.be/TWSAMpPWeJ4

 

I'm not a Joey fan, but the dude can drive hard- just as hard as Kyle. Kyle has a well established history of not liking it when other drivers drive him hard. He is not good at deescalating on-track action. He flips into cretin-mode.

Kyle Busch on-track penalties:
2010: $25k fine for endangering a track official, probation for duration of season.
2011: $25 fine for pushing an unoccupied race car down pit road endangering multiple teams & officials. 4 race probation.
black-flagged and parked after dumping Hornaday under caution. Fined $50k, Suspended for one Cup and one Nationwide race, on probation for duration of season. Lost M&M Mars sponsorship for rest of season, nearly lost job to Aric Almirola.
2016: $10k fine, 4 week probation for remarks to the press.

Joey Logano on-track penalties:
__none__

For comparison, here's Matt Kenseth, another Gibbs driver:
2015: 2 race suspension, 6 month probation.

And Brad Keselowski:
2014: $50k driving into Kenseth's door post-race, fight ensued with Kenseth & Stewart

 

Imagine what those that have retired would have added up in fines and other punishments if they raced in this era. Kyle has always shown his emotions, and has always drove the wheels off his ride. And this is why we like Rowdy.

 

I know Curtis Turner served a couple of suspensions back in the '60s for various infractions on, off, and above the track.

 

Not necessarily infractions...Curtis Turner got banned because he tried to organize the drivers into a union. And Bill Bill France was having none of it.

Here's how it went down. The Charlotte Motor Speedway was built by Turner and short track promoter Bruton Smith. They were short of operating funds because building costs greatly exceeded estmates. In the summer of '61 both Turner and Smith were ousted by the board of directors. In a last ditch effort to regain control, Turner approached the Teamster's Union for a loan of $800,000. In return for the loan, Turner was asked to organize the drivers into a union called Ferderation of Professional Athletes.

The purpose of the union was to insure better purses, pension plans, adequate insurance coverage, scholarship fund for children of deceased drivers, and upgraded facilities for drivers at the speedways. As you can imagine, those all seemed like good things for the drivers and the majority of them signed up for the new union. What the teamsters didn't point out to the drivers was their desire to get pari-mutual betting on automobile racing approved.

When Big Bill heard the news, the proverbial poop hit the fan. He was quoted as saying "No known member can compete in a NASCAR race. And I have a pistol to enforce it." On August 9, 1961, he told the drivers that he would plow up the Daytona Speedway and plant corn before he had a union stuffed down his throat. He also told them the Curtis Turner, Tim Flock, and Fireball Roberts, the three principal drivers recruiting members were suspended for life.

A verbal battle ensued, with France hammering the evils of gambling and the havoc it created. The first domino fell on Aug.11, when Fireball Roberts, one of the most famous NASCAR racers, resigned from the union. Other top-ranked drivers followed suite in resigning from the Federation of Professional Athletes. With virtually all the drivers back in the NASCAR fold, the only two who remained in the union, Curtis Turner and Tim Flock, were not forgiven. Their life suspensions were upheld. Lawsuits on behalf from of the two were filed, but were dismissed. Ultimately they were both advised to drop the suits.

The interesting thing is, the Teamsters couldn't have made a loan to a company they were trying to organize. The ban against the two drivers was lifted in 1965, and while Flock decided against racing again, Turner came back and won in his seventh start, driving a Woods Brothers Ford.

And that, is today's history lesson.

 

My favorite Rodge Penske quote:

Reporter "How do you make a Million dollars in racing?"

Rodger "Start with Two!"

 

Nascar released No fines for 18/22 teams today as expected. Should be interesting going forward if they stay consistent or not. This is not the Sprint era anymore, this is the Monster Energy era and im sure they loved it...

 

Let em race it out.

 

Very well put! This episode was also covered in the fantastic Curtis Turner biography, "Full Throttle" (required reading if you want to learn about the good old days).

 

One day logano will be penalized and finally get what's coming. Top dump guy in NASCAR...Never gets penalized... Hmmm

 

I've never read the book, but now I'm going to have to. I think everyone will agree...I'm old. I became a huge NASCAR fan in my early teens (mid 60s), and read everything I could get my hands on...which was not much at the time. My brother-in-law gave me a stack of old car magazines from 61-63, which I read over and over. Motor Trend used to cover all the big NASCAR races, so that was where I got my fix. I became an avid reader of Stock Car Racing magazine at some point, so in those days before cable TV and social media, I was about as much in the know as a fan could be.

Anyway, in those old magazines, I'd read about Curtis Turner banned. Then in 1965, when I started reading Motor Trend and Stock Car Racing on a monthly basis! Chrysler boycotted NASCAR because their lightweight cars, the Plymouth Belvedere and the Dodge Coronet were ruled illegal. GM had dropped out a couple of years earlier, so that meant that all the races were a parade of Fords and Mercurys. As a result, attendance dropped at all the races, which had the promoters screaming for help. The suggestion was made that if the ban on Curtis Turner, who was a hugely popular driver, was lifted, it would help to bring fans back into the stands. So about the time I was really getting into the racing, Bill France reinstated both Turner and Tim Flock.

It's sad that I can remember all that, but I did have to delve into "The History of NASCAR" that I got for Christmas for the specific dates. It was a fascinating era of automobile racing in NASCAR, Formula 1, USAC (Indy cars), and Can-Am racing. I still think Jim Hall's Chapparals, Gurney's Eagles, Jim Clark's Indy winning Lotus are the very best looking race cars of all time.