Friday, May 28, 2010

To Honor Those That Have Served



This coming Monday our nation's people will pause to remember those who gave of themselves to preserve this great country we call our own. It’s also a time to reflect on what has made our country, without exception, the most wondrous invention in the annuls of mankind. This invention, this combining of personal freedoms, rights to live by and a constitutional framework for a democracy set our forefathers on a path that created this United States of America. It was our system of personal freedom and freely elected government that led the people to willingly stand and defend the American way of life.

Over the years American men and women have been faced with unceasing adversity while the United States was formed, expanded, torn apart, and threatened. Today, with our freedoms in place, its easy to forget how we got to this point and while we all hope for the time when it won't be necessary to defend ourselves, it still remains that we must.

This is a heartfelt thank you to all who have drawn arms on a minute’s notice, trudged through swamps, stood on the fence, manned the turrets, drove the mules, sailed on and dove beneath the seas, charged the beaches, hunkered in the trenches, flew with the wind in their face or with a hardened canopy for protection, for those who bore the litters, bound the wounds, rehabilitated the maimed and kept the families informed. For those that gathered information and kept communications flowing, worked undercover, cooked the meals, built the roads and drove the trucks. To all those Americans over the years who left their family and friends as young, starry eyed people and who were changed beyond recognition both physically and mentally when finally returning home, and ultimately, to those who never came back, thank you, thank you.


In the fervent hope that we shall never forget.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

The Coca Cola 600 and Some NASCAR History



NASCAR and Charlotte, North Carolina; you can’t think of one without visions of the other coming to mind. If Daytona is the crown jewel of NASCAR, then the Queen City is its cradle. In the past, if the fact that nearly 20 NASCAR racing teams called the Charlotte area home didn’t seal the title, the newly opened NASCAR Hall of Fame in uptown Charlotte makes it an indisputable point.

Among the racing teams located in the Charlotte area, there resides several of NASCAR’s major icons. The names Petty, Earnhardt, Hendrick and Childress along with Rouse, Penske and Gibbs pop right out; making the Queen City a virtual Who’s Who of the sport.

Another icon of NASCAR also calls the Charlotte area his home. He has been a lightening rod within the sport. A promoter and entrepreneur who, when he came to the conclusion that he couldn’t compete with Bill France, Sr.’s vision of stock car racing, shut down a competing racing circuit he was instrumental in creating and joined forces with France’s National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. Bruton Smith along with another entrepreneur and early NASCAR driver, Curtis Turner, joined forces and started construction of a super speedway just north of Charlotte in 1959.


Originally set for May 29th, the race had to be delayed for construction to be competed.


On June 19th, 1960 the inaugural World 600 race was included in NASCAR’s racing schedule and run on the new Charlotte Motor Speedway. Photo on the right shows race winner Joe Lee Johnson accepting the trophy from Bruton Smith in the middle and his partner Curtis Turner who drove in the race too, finishing 39th in a field of 60.

Times were tough back then. The Smith-Turner partnership soon lost ownership of the speedway through a Chapter 11 Bankruptcy proceeding. Both Smith and Turner went right to work individually trying to regain control. While Smith concentrated on growing his auto dealership businesses, he soon began buying up shares in the Charlotte Motor Speedway Corporation.

Bruton finally re-realized his dream in 1975 when he gained controlling interest of the track. By this time he was also well on the way to establishing a premier new auto sales empire that today has resulted in Sonic Automotive, Inc. with 166 franchises, in 26 U.S. markets, from coast to coast.
The revenues generated through the Sonic Automotive phase of Smith’s automotive empire were in turn plowed into the purchase and development of several auto racing tracks scattered around the country.

You can’t be a friend to everyone when you start out life as a small town farm boy and then parlay your God-given talents into billionaire status and Bruton Smith is no exception. His process of acquiring ownership of older race tracks and constructing others has allowed Smith to shuffle race dates. This resulted in Smith shifting North Wilkesboro’s two NASCAR dates away from the older, less profitable short track venue. North Wilkesboro was the first track to hold a NASCAR racing event and this move has drawn on-going fire from the sport’s traditionalist fans, but, in my opinion, it was moves such as this that have grown the sport to the point that it rivals the National Football League in national popularity.



I noticed in Gene Haddock’s latest blog poll concerning who should be included in the second class of inductees for the NASCAR Hall of Fame, Bruton Smith’s name was left out. I believe this stems from Smith’s controversial moves, but it can’t be denied, Bruton Smith has been instrumental in the sport’s growth in nationwide popularity, and I, for one, believe he deserves this honor.


But enough of that; here’s a look at Bruton Smith’s Charlotte Motor Speedway and some of the NASCAR history that has been made there:




Built on a two thousand acre site, the facility, beyond the 1.5 mile tri-oval, features a 1/4 mile oval, a dirt track venue across the street, an off-road track, the Richard Petty Driving Experience, a driver's school, infield motorhome parking, concessions, restaurants and nearly 170,000 seats. Innovations include 52 condominiums built into the turn one grandstands. People living there are greeted with views of the track. This was a first for NASCAR. Another first was a lighting system installed in 1992 that was designed to keep the glare of traditional lights on standards to a minimum by using mirrors. This move made Charlotte's the first super speedway to put on night racing. More recently, the track was ground up and re-surfaced with a state of the art process developed in Texas and now in use on several SMI tracks. According to Bruton, more upgrades in terms of racing team and spectator comfort are soon to come.

Some History:



Remember those Dodges? Look pretty funky now but in 1969 they were really something!


Bobby Allison wins in 1971 (nice hair styles back then, huh klvalus?)






Dale Earnhardt solidifies his title as the "Intimidator" with the "Pass in the Grass" in 1987...



A young and emotional Jeff Gordon is pictured after his first NASCAR win in 1994.







A happy bunch of Pettys after Adam got his first win on a super speedway in an ARCA event.






Dale Jr. wins the 2000 All Star Shootout with a proud dad there to congratulate him. (For you, Athens!)

Tony Stewart grabs hold of his first NASCAR win as a team owner in last year's $1,000,000 All Star race. Not a bad way to start off as an owner! (That one's for you, SB!)

So who is going to make history at this year's Coca Cola 600?




Will Junior get a good ride?





Will Jeff finally deliver?



Will the Busch boys figure it out?



Will Denny Hamlin verses the rest of the field be Kurt or Kyle's undoing?



Will a bright new face adorn the winner's circle (Just for you tez!)



Or will it be (boring) business as usual?


Inquiring minds need to know! Like Miss USA 2009 Kristen Dalton pictured here at Lowe's. (That's right, Gene. This shot's for you!)

And last but not least, Jon, how'd you like to be in the back seat with those Shell Oil dudes?

Can Kevin hold off the hard chargers?

Hope you all enjoyed!

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Nationwide going the Pony Car Route - Real Soon!












A couple of years back NASCAR unveiled plans to take the Nationwide’s car and follow along with the Sprint Cup car move to a redesigned COT, but this time they wanted to change the manufacturer’s models to what we affectionately refer to as the “Pony Cars”. Ford and Dodge have followed right along, developing a Mustang and Challenger version respectively. Chevrolet and Toyota, most likely due to financial restraints, have drug their feet and stuck with their Sprint Cup car frames. It was hoped that Chevy would come out with a Camaro, but will run an Impala SS version instead, while Toyota sticks to the Camry (Has Toyota ever marketed what we would call a “Pony Car”?).

The template Pony Car shell



We will get to watch these new cars in action when they make their debut at Daytona International Speedway on July 2nd. The new Ford and Dodge cars, along with the Chevy and Toyota Nationwide versions of the Impala and Camry will appear in just four points races during the balance of the 2010 Nationwide. Besides their debut at Daytona, look for them on Aug. 14th at Michigan International Speedway, Sept. 10th at Richmond International Raceway and Oct. 23rd at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
May 18th over 25 teams ran their versions of the Nationwide Pony Cars at Daytona and it was readily apparent there are many problems to be resolved prior to the July 2nd debut.

Recognize the Mustang?



Read about the trials in Lee Spencer’s article at FoxSport.com:
http://msn.foxsports.com/nascar/story/NASCAR-pony-cars-get-ready-for-prime-time-debut-Lee-Spencer

One thing that stuck out concerning the Daytona test trials; the cars are evidently going to be slower than the Sprint Cup cars.

Did you know that last weekend in Dover the Nationwide cars ran faster than the Sprint Cup cars in qualifying?

Do you think the new Nationwide cars are purposefully being designed to slow them down?

Finally, it’s too bad we have to contend with today’s economy. I suppose we’ll get to see the Chevrolet Camaro compete with the Mustang and Challenger down the road since GM backed off on the development costs.

There's your Challenger, klvalus!



Toyota's Supra concept car...



Tez found this shot of a Toyota Celica concept car.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

On This Day in History


I was still living in California, farming citrus and working for a farm chemical supply house in the spring of 1980 when Mt. St. Helens blew it’s top, but ten years later I was living up in Washington State working with orchardists there growing apples, pears and cherries. I had married by that time and my wife and I lived in a little town south of Yakima known as Zillah. We were the proud parents of a one year old daughter and decided it would be fun to take her and go camping near St. Helens. The second day we were there we took a drive to the south toward the mountain. Working our way up a heavily wooded draw the road finally crested the south end of it and we were suddenly confronted with downed timber that ran for probably 30-40 miles, all the way up to the slopes of the mountain. Every tree had been laid out on the ground pointing in the same direction (north).

Literally millions of huge pine and fir trees looked like blown down toothpicks. It was almost like a giant hand had been waved across them from the south to the north. It was unbelievable. The shock wave caused by the eruption was said to have traveled at better than 200 MPH and whoosh, blew everything in its way down. Then came the ash cloud. The volcanic ash rose thousands of feet into the air and eventually circled the globe. The power of nature is hard to comprehend.

So here it was, ten years later and we received a special 10th year anniversary section in the Yakima Herald-Examiner that told many stories about that fateful day, May 18, 1980.

I’ll recount one of the more horrific stories here.

A young married couple from Spokane Washington both enjoyed being amateur geologists and for her husband’s birthday, the wife surprised him by chartering a pilot out of Yakima to take them up on Sunday morning, May 18th, and make one circumference around Mt. St. Helens which had been in all the news for the last several months since the old volcano was showing signs of coming back to life. There were flurries of earthquakes emanating from the mountain causing geologists to rush up there and set up instruments. Speculation was running rampant concerning the possibility of an eruption.

So here was this married couple, giddy about taking a close look at the newsmaker, along with their hired pilot, flying along on this pristine Pacific Northwest morning approaching Mt. St. Helens in a Cessna 172. The couple’s enthusiasm over being there, happily pointing out various things around and about the mountain to each other caught the interest of the pilot who was intently listening and following what was being said. He was hooked and wanted to hear more so when he completed the first fly-around he told them that for no additional charge, he would take them for a second circumference of St. Helens…

The little plane was just turning back to the south after crossing above the north side of the mountain when the couple excitedly noticed landslides across the north face.


Suddenly the mountain seemed to fall in on itself and then came an explosion of such magnitude that it blew a cubic mile of earth and rock sky high. The couple screamed that they had to get away or be engulfed by the shock wave that was sure to come. The pilot had enough sense about him to first put the plane into a straight down full-power dive to pick up as much air speed as possible. He then pulled out level and ran as hard and fast as the little plane could go to the south. If he had simply gone to full throttle, the wave would have caught them, but his maneuver was later confirmed to have saved them from sure death.

At the time the newspaper report was written in 1990, ten years after the eruption, neither of the two amateur geologists had been back up in an airplane of any sort and neither would understandably talk about what had happened…

There were many other stories. Old Harry Truman, the man that wouldn’t leave his home on Spirit Lake and died in the eruption comes immediately to mind. The effects of the heavy ash fall, Yakima and Moses Lake went dark in mid-day with street lights running. Hysteria took over in many locations. People, scared that there was poison gas in the ash cloud surrounding them, hunkered down and expected to die...

Volcanic Ash in Moses Lake Washington


As a monument, the National Park Service left all of the burned out vehicles to sit where they were parked next to the road on that day and erected a vista point where, from 20 miles away, visitors can look right into the north side crater. The plant life has slowly returned to the area and along with it came the animals to repopulate it. The mountain has since had many earthquakes and has even emitted smoke and ash on occasion, but nothing to compare to what happened on this day, 30 years ago…


Mt. St. Helens Eruption video with a personal account by a Yakima television reporter.

The Car of Tomorrow



What happens when NASCAR goes green?

No, I’m not referring to green flag racing.

This is a question that looms in the not too distance future. What will happen to one of the most popular sports in America once all of the major automobile manufacturers discontinue building vehicles that use fossil fuels?

We all know this day is coming; it’s just a matter of time. What will NASCAR become? The easy answer is that the sport will not stop using fossil fuel, but what if the auto manufacturers stop supporting the sport? It’s a given that auto racing in all its varied forms has represented the leading edge of vehicle development from its inception. Will the manufacturers ask that NASCAR and the other major auto racing organizations switch to what they are then offering the public on their showroom floors?

Let’s look at this from a different angle. I think of all the sports we as fans enjoy in America (and I’m sure there are many that would argue this point), the fans that follow NASCAR are the most conservative and patriotic. NASCAR exudes patriotism. From this perspective, it appears that if our country is going to be prosperous in the future we’ve got to, like it or not, divorce ourselves from fossil fuels. This one move will go a long way toward maintaining a healthy economy down the road. Our reliance on foreign oil must be stopped. Can you imagine how much money we send overseas on a daily basis for this one commodity? Just think what we as a country could do if all that money was staying home and being used to stimulate our economy instead of being sent to our good friends in the Middle East or down in South America. In the final analysis, cutting ties with fossil fuel is the patriotic thing to do and I don’t think anyone will disagree with that.

So here’s the conundrum: What will NASCAR and its fans do when the auto manufacturers complete the switch and fossil fueled vehicles are no longer offered for sale in our country and NASCAR is asked to switch as well?

What are the options?

Hydrogen fueled combustion engine cars is the most logical replacement, but how safe would it be to race vehicles featuring Hydrogen fuel cells? Without going through a lot of scientific research, suffice it to say that the amount of Hydrogen necessary to fuel a vehicle for any extended length of time requires that it be compressed into a very strong container. If that container is punctured in a grinding, spark filled accident, the potential for a huge explosion would be great. Can you see that happening at an event with over a hundred thousand fans in attendance? Technology can and will overcome a problem such as this, but how far into the future will it be?

Electric, battery laden cars might be the answer, but at what cost to the popularity of the sport? Can you imagine sitting in Bristol and watching a bunch of race cars run by hearing only the occasional squeal of tires through the turns? The echoing roar would be long gone. Looking at it in terms of today’s technology, the amount of power necessary to run an electric car at conventional racing speed would drain today’s batteries in no time. Would racing fans be subjected to a Tortoise verses the Hare type of racing as the racing teams tried to figure out the best mix of speed and power conservation? In the same vein, pit stops could take on a whole new mind set. What if it takes 20 minutes to recharge a race car’s bank of batteries? Drivers pull their race cars into the pit and a guy storms out to plug the car in then turns to nonchalantly help another couple of guys change the tires, clean the windshield and maybe crank on the suspension settings, all while the driver gets out for a stretch and maybe takes a bathroom break. At the end of the stop the plug is removed and the race is on once again!

What if the car, running at 150 MPH on average, can stay out for 40 laps before needing a 20 minute recharge? What if the same car can make 60 laps at 100 MPH before having to pit, or it can go 100 laps at 80 MPH? It would certainly change the whole idea of “racing”…

What other alternatives might there be if fossil fuels are done away with and the support NASCAR enjoys from the automobile manufacturers fades away?

I know it seems sacrilegious, but that day is coming sooner than we may like to believe.

Check out what’s going on with auto racing and alternative fuels:

BMW’s Hydrogen Race Car:


At least it sounds like a race car...

Drag Racing in Oregon!



Running a Road Course:



Will this be long gone?

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Lug-Nuts Invades Dover International Speedway


Thought I’d do a little background research on the races this weekend up in Dover Delaware not being very familiar with the track or the area.

The research kind of fell into place as a result of looking through what Harold Brasington was faced with to get Darlington built (minnow ponds and all) back in the late forties. By comparison, Dover International Speedway started out about 20 years later than Darlington.


The track around 1965.


The original idea was to have two types on racing on the same site, motor vehicle and horse racing. It appears that with the advent of slot machine gambling being legalized on Delaware’s pari-mutuel horse racing facilities, the Dover Downs Raceway fell into a very lucrative business combining all three ventures and eventually building what is today a four star hotel (I wonder if they allow Speed Beagles to stay there?) and casino complex next to the race tracks.

The site today. Quite a change!


This place is really something. Construction and improvements were ongoing for over 15 years with the speedway’s seating capacity finally topping out at 135,000 seats in 2001. Changes have continued to transform the track to this day with some of the most imaginative creations seen in the motor sports racing world.

Miles...


Miles the Monster came into being as a result of the concrete track’s nick name, “The Monster Mile”, and the ownership group, Dover Motorsports, Inc., has played this angle to the hilt. They recently had a huge statue erected outside the track’s main entrance and even incorporated Miles into the Sprint Cup trophy.



The Monster Bridge! Seats 56 patrons...




The Monster Mile Bridge is an innovation seen nowhere else in motor racing. If you can not only afford one of those seats during a major racing event, but can actually get your hands on one of the tickets, it’s got to be really something watching drivers right through their windshields as they come at you. The bridge is set up just as the drivers have to slow going into turn three off the back straightaway. Gene tells me he sits in one of those nice loge seats every year with Miss Hurst Shifter at his side for the Autism Speaks 400 presented by HERSHEY®’S Milk & Milkshakes. Must be real nice and cozy there dude!

Another feature offered at Dover International Speedway that I haven’t heard of before (I’m not sayin’ they don’t do these things elsewhere, I’m just sayin’ I haven’t heard of it if they do) is for a price you can pay to take a spin around the Dover Speedway in a Sprint Cup type car.


For a hundred dollars you can ride shotgun for four laps with one of the track’s racing instructors. For a little less than $400 you can drive the car yourself for 10 laps with packages going up to as many as 30 laps for slightly less than a grand (chump change for klvalus!).

These are just racing attractions. Throw in the Las Vegas style casino, the high class accommodations, top restaurants, etc., etc. and this place is one classy joint!


I was also interested to find that within a 300 mile radius of the track there are 70 million Americans!


Here’s a look at who, based upon past performances, ought to do well at this year’s races:

The top five active drivers are (top to bottom) Carl Edwards, Jimmie Johnson, Ryan Newman, Greg Biffle, and Tony Stewart.

Looking at the highest average finish at this track among active drivers, the top five are Clint Bowyer 17.9 in 8 starts, Dale Earnhardt Jr. 18.2 in 20 starts, Tony Stewart 19.2 in 22 starts, Bill Elliott 19.3 in 58 starts (Way to go Bill!), and Johnny Sauter 19.8 in five starts…

The most wins among active drivers looks like this: Jeff Gordon with 6, Bill Elliott with 4, Michael Waltrip with 3 (is he still running?), Jamie McMurray with 2 and several with 1 win.

Jon… Where’s Kevin? For that matter where’s Kyle Busch?

Will the old guard step up on the one mile concrete track or will one of the young guns grab on and not let go?

Here are some scenes from last year:

Logano Goes Through The Spin Cycle:


Johnson Duels Martin For The Win Last Fall:

And Last but not least, Here's How They Do It In Dover, England!

Don't think I'd leave my tractor parked out there OR be standing nearby!

How's the old Beatle tune go? Why don't we do it in the road...

Here's hoping that everybody enjoys the races except Gene, cuz that goes without sayin'!