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Friday, February 8, 2002 Let the Daytona International Speedway ride beginMY TWO CENTS | By Ken Willis DAYTONA BEACH — Gentlemen, start your waltzing. Today, they take to the track for practice and start the game, beginning another NASCAR racing season. But they're also beginning, of course, a season within a season, since the Daytona 500 still stands alone as the ultimate prize among the 36 offered along this high-speed parade route. The next 10 days, we'll witness a 180-plus-mph game of musical chairs that will end when the white flag falls late in the day on Feb. 17. The white flag will also signal the conclusion of Lap 199, and at that time those remaining from the original 43-man lineup will look to the front, rear and sides to see where they stand. Really silly when you think about it: Teams spend disproportionate amounts of their multi-million-dollar budgets for this race. They test here three days, and sometimes add a few more days of testing at Talladega. They spend thousands for visits to the wind tunnel. All that, and in the final minute of Speed Weeks, with the world watching, all it takes is one wayward puff of wind — one ill draft — to send a potential winning car into a drunken stumble toward the middle of the field. It seems very wrong that victory in the marquee event of stock-car racing isn't necessarily determined by the skills of drivers and mechanics. But that's what happens when you hamstring the horsepower with restrictor plates, making the 30th-place car just as capable as the leader — and the leader just one flinch away from running alongside Rick Mast. "That's why you see a lot of people who aren't big fans of restrictor-plate racing, because there are so many things out of your control. It happens all the time," says Ricky Rudd. IMPROVING YOUR CHANCES The best a driver can hope for is to simply be in position to have his lottery ball fly out of the hopper when the lap counter reaches 200. For that, it helps to have an engine that, through hours and weeks and months of work in the motor labs, somehow finds the extra 15-20 horsepower the guy in the next garage stall doesn't know about. He gets in position by having two left-side tires that will stick to the white line through the turns. This aerodynamic edge is even more important than raw horsepower, since any small edge in horses can be wiped out with a puff of draft. Over the past five plate races, dating back to the fall race at Talladega in 2000, the best way to be in proper position was to pilot a Chevrolet prepared by the "Axis of Aero" — Richard Childress Racing, Andy Petree Racing and Dale Earnhardt Incorporated. That trio's collaboration on bodywork has led to five straight wins at Talladega and Daytona. But that recent domination is still subject to the whims of the draft — the whims of someone in front or behind. Regardless of what you do. "You can make every move all week long correctly, then make one wrong move late in the race and find yourself all the way back, without enough time to get back," says Rudd. "You can be driving the smartest race you've ever driven. Maybe you're third or fourth in line, whatever, and the guy in front of you makes a mistake, bobbles, and you have to check up or run through him, and you can find yourself in last and out of time to get back to the front. It can happen to anybody." Of course, the opposite is also true. "It depends on if you're the guy going to the back, or the guy who didn't run very good and all of a sudden you accidentally squirt up into the top 10," says Mark Martin. "You come out of here rejoicing if you're one of those." RESIGNED TO FACTS There are two obvious-to-all problems with the four Daytona/Talladega races each year. First, there's the competitive problems stated above. Some have come to peace with the fact that any advantages they may enjoy can disappear here with the equalizing restrictor plate. They've learned to shrug it off, reluctantly, and hope to make up their losses at the other 32 stops along the way. "You can't change the way things are," says Martin, who, along with team owner Jack Roush, dreads this type of racing. The other problem involves something more dramatic than finishing first or 31st. It involves finishing in one piece, something that took on new significance after the final lap of last year's Daytona 500. While the drivers and teams have made strides in the area of safety, there's still no bulletproofing. But in their own way, the drivers have also come to peace with that. They know that for the promoters, this is show business — it's about selling tickets and TV rights. If NASCAR racing were strictly about competition first and foremost, the rulebook wouldn't be so thick and adjustable. The lion tamer, after all, works for the audience, not the lion. He can always find another beast that will work in a spotlight for raw meat. Audiences, however, can be picky. NASCAR racing is about contrived competition, and nowhere is it so contrived as at the mothership, Daytona International Speedway. Many in the garage are smart enough to realize that. Or, perhaps, simply resigned to it. Gaining an advantage through knowledge, sweat and skill? Maybe at Rockingham, but not here. "I think that's a wonderful perspective, but it's from the owners' and drivers' and crew members' perspective," says Ricky Craven. "On the flip side of that, from the fans' perspective, that's exactly why it's so exciting, because at no point do they see any security, at no point do they see a boring race. "It's still an entertainment business," adds Craven. "If every week were the same, I don't think this sport would have its flavor." At Daytona, the flavor can be sweet or sour, depending on which line you're in when the white flag flies — it's an acquired taste, at best. HICI Special Report — Speedway Safety: NASCAR Addresses Speedway Safety |
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