First Day Qualifying:
We got off to an interesting start, with Rusty blisterin' the track at 194+ the second man out of the gate. This, I felt, and so did Rusty, would hold up pretty good, we all sat back waitin; to see what Gordon would do, havin' drawn third from last place to run. In my wildest scenario, I did not see Wallace gettin' bumped all the way down to sixth!
Overall, it appears everyone's speeds were up over practice times, and this brought a mood of uncertainty. With 57 entrants for 43 spots next week, you know that unless you're in the top thirty or so, you gonna have a problem. If you are a new team, outside that top thirty, it could well be that you will need a miraculous run in the Twin Races to get in!
The first serious challenge to Rusty came from Mike Skinner, who'd been sayin' all week the team was not as competitive as it should be. Well, he ripped off a 194.5+ lap, unseating Rusty and takin' the pole.
Again, this looked like an unbeatable time, and the likes of Burton, Mayfield, Jarrett, were not in that league at all.
Some interesting new paint jobs showed up, as well as some VERY new faces. Dan Pardus' 30th place was encouraging, Buckshot struggled, ending up 44th, and Sadler was surprisingly off the pace in 38th. Standridge (46th in a T-Bird), Craven (47th), Barrett (48th), Hillenburg (49th), and Ken Bouchard (51st - in the "Three Stooges Beer" Chevy - Gad, I hope he makes it!) are in serious trouble, as near as I can figger it, and Shepherd, Gibson and Benning are likely gonna go home...
Never heard of Glen Morgan, but he had a real pretty car; I noticed there was no signage on Mike Harmon's car, according to JAYSKI's site, Junie's waitin' for the "Big Daddy" corporation to "show him the money".... Gibson and Craven had very striking livery, thanks to Hollywood Video - they looked like team mates, but are not...
Morgan Shepherd was pilotting the 81 car, unsponsored, new owners, 54th place - looks like poor Morgan is off to another rough start... rumours that he may end up in Junie's 90 car, in place of Harmon...
Looks like DW's gonna have to use the Past Champion's provisional again, unless he comes up big in the 125's; best he could do was 41st, team mate Spencer somewhat better at 28th, but that was only 4/10ths faster than DW! Overall field real close! Buckshot's 44th only a second slower than Marlin's 13th!!
Rich Bickle showed up in a new team, with "Lucky Dog" sponsorship on the 45 car. His 24th place is in that grey area, but he's a good racer... Nadeau popped out yet another Cartoon Network livery (gettin' old, guys...) and put himself securely in in 21st. Even if he wrecks Thursday, he can be a bumper this year, instead of a bumpee... Likewise Benson, in 39th, and Lepage in 40th.
Grissom did a pretty good job in Joe Falk's 91 car, Lepage's old ride, putting it in the field in 42nd. Provisionals should help... Musgrave, David and Jeff Green, Derricke Cope, all are hangin' in...
THE SHOCKER of the day, however, has to be the performance of "rookie" Tony Stewart, who knocked off an incredible 194.599 to bump Skinner from the pole. You could hear NASCAR pool sheets bein' shredded all over North America - mine included... Of course, Tony is no more a rookie than was Schrader, Gordon or Skinner when they came up. He cut his teeth in the IRL, a truly scary form of motorsports, and was aggressive in '98 in Busch. But to grab the pole??? Jeez...
So now we sat back, waitin' for Gordon's run to see if he could step up to the plate. Out of turn 4 on the first lap, into lap 2, turn 1 - 196+ mph.. Hoo Boy, here we go agin...
After the dust had settled, Gordon had unseated Stewart and took the pole. His speed was 195.067, almost 0.6 mph faster than Stewart, who had barely edged out Skinner by .046 mph!! Looks like Ray and the boys have done their homework again, it could be another long year for Martin and Jarrett.
Almost as an afterthought, Kenny Schrader went out right after Jeff, and hammered a 194.553, good enuff for third place!
(But we had to watch an excerpt of Ms Lewinsky's deposition, so we missed it... as a non-US citizen, I have no opinion...) We then bopped off to Pebble Beach (I think) to watch some old duffers play golf, without seeing Irwin's run...
I was kinda mad, but then it occurred to me: CBS had just shown nearly three hours of qualifying, something undreamt-of five years ago! I'll take it, and thank you, Ken, Mike, and the boys in the booth...
An editorial comment: Check out the "angle of attack" of Gordon's car in the picture above. This is typical of every qualifier. The idea is to put on shocks that "pump down" until the rear is literally bouncin' off the pavement, the theory being to get the spoiler down out of the air. To me these cars look very unappealing aesthetically, and everything the drivers say indicates they are a handful to drive, and physically punishing in qualifying trim. Gary Nelson: if you find time hangin' heavy on your hands, here's an area to look into. Maybe you should hand out shocks for qualifying, just like you do tires and restrictor plates...
And so now we go into second and and third qualifying rounds on Monday and Tuesday, then the Twin 125's on Thursday. I can't begin to imagine the permutations and combinations this could all lead to - it'll be an interestin' week.
For the record, the top ten Qualifyers were Gordon, Stewart(!!!), Schrader, Skinner, Martin, Wallace, Terry Labonte, Irvan(!), Mike Waltrip(!!),and Dale Earnhardt.
BUD SHOOTOUT QUALIFYER:
But meanwhile, we moved on to Sunday's Bud Shootout.
I dang near missed the 11:00 show this morning! Forgot all about the Bud Qualifying race; just happened to check the listings at about 10:55, and rushed down to the tube. My head was in the 12:00 timeframe for the Shoot-out itself!
The Qualifier pits those drivers who set best time in the second round qualifying efforts last year, and the winner moves up into the Shoot-out. When you think it through, this leads to an interesting mix of cars, and allowed a whole lot of new paint schemes to be first out of the box in actual competition. This is because many of the drivers involved are somewhat , er, mobile, and the right to compete lies with the driver, not his '98 team. Thus you had Craven, able to show the 58 car's colours, likewise Geoffrey Bodine, Trickle, Jeff Green, Kenny Wallace, and so on.
These guys were mixed in with established teams that had occasional (for some, chronic) struggles in '98, such as Elliott, Pressley, Marcis, Spencer, Nadeau, and Skinner.
Format is same as the Shoot-out: 25 laps, mandatory two-tirw pitstop between laps 10 and 13; draw for starting position, strap up tight, run like Hell...
Starting order was Bodine, Pressley, Trickle - in the #13 Elliott-owned car, Jeff Green - in Bud Moore's #15, Nadeau, Nemechek, Skinner, Elliott, Bradberry, Kenny Wallace, Pardus, Spencer, Park, Marcis, and Shepherd - in the #81 car. Pardus missed the drivers' meeting, so had to drop to the end of the pack.
At the green flag, Bodine, Pressley and Green led 'em off, with Trickle slow - missed shift? This bunched up the latter half for a lap or so, but Trickle got 'er revvin' and was soon up to speed. In true restrictoracin' style, leader Bodine was quickly hung out, as Pressley, Green and Nemechek drafted by him on lap 2. Then it was Green's turn to be odd man out, as two lines formed, behind Trickle and Pressley, on the third lap.
By lap 8, six cars were in line, leading the field. Pressley was out front, followed by Trickle, Skinner - showing same muscle as yesterday in qualifying, Wallace - after a big move on the apron around lap 5, Nemechek and Park. On lap 8, Skinner and Wallace hooked up to blow by Trickle, followed by Nemechek and Park.
Lots of good action on lap 9, as Skinner and Nemechek relegated Pressley to third, and Park and Spencer ganged up in turn on Nemechek and Trickle.
They all hit the pits together, at the end of lap nine, except Pardus and Shepherd, who held off a lap. Skinner and Pressley exited side-by-side, and after a little high-speed rubbin', Mike took the lead, with Pressley and Park in line behind him.
Actually, the mandatory stop took most of the steam out of what had been a potentially wild race, as pitstop timing variances spread out the field. Poor Spencer got dinged for speeding, and parked the Winston Taurus.
At lap 15, Skinner, Pressley and Park had a 20 carlength breakaway, with Mike Wallace leadin' another pack closin' the gap.
Lap 19 saw a debris caution, that reclosed the field. And I mean reclosed! Another little twist for this event - side-by-side restart! And caution laps don't count!
Thus, on the lap 19 restart, we had Skinner and Pressley side by side, with Park and Wallace right behind them, then the rest 2 by 2 on back. Skinner got out front, followed by Pressley, Park, and Wallace.
At the end of lap 20, It was still the same up front, with Wallace checkin' out lines to get by the front three. Nemechek and Bodine were runnin' side by side fightin' for fifth, and bottling up everyone behind 'em. Finally, with Elliott's help, Geoff found himself 7th, as Bill and Joe drafted by him...
Mike Wallace was tryin' to make a race of it, but on lap 22, he had to check up, when moving on Pressley and Skinner, and Park squeaked past him. Ultimately, he'd lost enough momentum that Nemechek and Elliott also got by.
No one could make a move on Skinner, and the race finished with Skinner a couple lengths out on Pressley, then Park, with Elliott, Nemechek and Wallace roundin' out top six. Park seemed happy to let Pressley die on the inside. As Pressley said later, he didn't realize it was a formal affair, until he saw all those bowties around him... Remember, Park drives for DE, who is Skinner's team mate... hmmm...
Behind Mike Wallace, finishing order was Nadeau, Trickle, Bodine, Green, Marcis, Shepherd, Pardus, Bradberry and Spencer. Thus, Mike Skinner got to move up to the Shoot-out, and a lot of the others must be wondering about their chances of crackin' Daytona - those in new cars who couldn't make an impression, such as Bodine, Pardus...
BUD SHOOTOUT:
And so we moved quickly into the Bud Shootout, open to all those drivers who took poles in 1998, plus the winner of the earlier Qualifier race (Skinner). Thus we had fifteen entrants, whose starting positions had been drawn on Thursday.
On the pole was Rusty Wallace, in the Miller Taurus. This year the colour scheme was fairly subdued, ecept instead of white and dark blue, it appeared white and black. Wild and crazy guy, that Rusty... Unfortunately, Rusty missed the drivers' meeting, and ended up at the rear of the pack....
Lining up second was Kenny Irwin, then Rick Mast, in Cale's #98 car. Actually this car was a T-bird, the one Andretti won the Firecracker in a couple yrs back! They hauled it out, presumably, because they had no personnel to prepare anythin' else, and it was a better car than any of last year's Thornapple Tauruses, anyway... For this race, Budweiser had purchased space on the hood and rear quarters - to get their logo in the race, I presume, as their "real" car did not win a pole last year. Ironically, Craven, who HAD won a pole, was in the race, but his pole had come after he lost the Bud ride.
In fourth was Kenny Schrader, with a blue and white livery, in place of the usual green and white. Derricke Cope was fifth, followed by Craven, Mayfield, Gordon, Bobby Labonte, Hamilton, Ward Burton, Irvan, Martin, Jarrett, and, bringing up the rear, Skinner.
At the green, Mast and Irwin set off side by side, chased by a snarling horde. By the start of lap 2, Irwin had the lead, and Gordon and Labonte were runnin' four wide headin' to the front. Skinner did an incredible job, up around 6th or 7th in two laps. Lap 3 saw three by three racin' thru the trioval, with Gordon sniffin' around for the best line by Schrader.
Lap 7 saw Schrader get by Mast for first, and Gordon had settled into third, chased by Labonte and Martin.. Rusty had hammered up thru the field into the top ten. On lap 8, Mast and Gordon disposed of Schrader, and Mast looked like a sitting duck. Sho' 'nuff, on lap nine the train formed, and Gordon, Labonte, Martin, Skinner(!) and Schrader all steamed by the hapless Rick.
As in the qualifier earlier, on lap 10, EVERYONE hit pit road. Martin was out first, followed by Skinner, Mayfield, and Labonte.
What happened to Jeff, you ask? Hard to say - what we saw was he stopped over the line, and the crew did not heed the official's demands to push him back before changing tires. Result was a 15 second penalty, that ended their hopes. Differing stories: Jeff was said to have radioed in that the brake pedal went to the floor; Evernham said in the pitside interview that he slid over the line with the wheels locked... hmmm, hard to see in replays whether or not wheels were locked, mighta been left side only... anyway, JG continues to be consistent in his luck in special event races! After motoring around on the apron, Jeff parked, as had Spencer in the previous race. Only difference was, Jimmy came out and spoke to the media...
So where were we? Oh, the race. Lap 12 or so saw Mike Skinner get hung out, as Mayfield, Labonte and Wallace freight-trained by him.
Lap 16 had the leaders all in line; Martin leading Mayfield, Labonte, Skinner, Schrader, and Wallace, who'd lost a couple spots. This order held for next three laps, only move being Labonte trying to get a run, only to have Mayfield block him...
Next lap, Shrader showed his hand, getting around Skinner and Labonte sans drafting partner, and taking over third place. On lap 22, Mayfield paid for his conservative approach, as Schrader and Labonte got by him.
With one to go, Martin, Schrader and Labonte had a little breakaway, but Martin was glued to the bottom white line, and neither Kenny nor Bobby could do anything with him.
Thus, he cruised into the record books with the win, with the 33 and 18 cars on his tail. Overall, a very popular win.
Finishing order behind Labonte had Skinner in fourth, followed by Mayfield, Burton, Wallace, Jarrett, Mast, Irwin, Hamilton, Craven, Cope, Irvan and Gordon.
So, what does all this mean for next week, or the season? Not much, except that there appears to be serious parity among the top teams, and the cars do seem to be able to run closer, and pass and repass better than last year. The strength of Martin, Mayfield and Wallace was confirmed, but with Gordon's snafu, there are still unanswered questions. The answers to these will begin to fall into place at the 500 next week!
"Mr. NASCAR" |