Last year, Chip Ganassi and Theresa Earnhardt reached the conclusion that Juan Montoya wasn’t getting the job done in NASCAR Sprint Cup Series racing and so they fired him. He started 253 races and won two and you wondered what took them so long.
I wrote a column and said there were another dozen (or so) drivers in NASCAR’s top series who had been wasting everybody’s time for years, cruising around on Sunday afternoons, not doing much of anything, and that they should be pink-slipped too.
There is good news today, and bad. The good news is that NASCAR’s top series is welcoming eight rookie drivers to the Sprint Cup Series this season . The bad news is that most of the slugs who were still taking up valuable seat space in competitive race cars last season are back for yet another kick at the can.
Now, with NASCAR’s new approach to the sport — win, or go home; the only way to make the Chase is to get there via Victory Lane; and so-on — you would think that most owners in the series, not to forget the sponsors who are forking over millions of dollars for people to participate, would be looking for drivers who could either get to the finish line first or bust their butts trying.
Apparently not, because we will still have to put up with the likes of Casey Mears (380 starts, one win), David Gilliland (258 starts-0 wins), Dave Blaney (466-0), Marcos Ambrose (191-2), Michael McDowell (147-0) and David Ragan (254-2).
(This critique only includes drivers with more than 100 starts, by the way.)
Gone, thank goodness, are Travis Kvapil (great name; too bad the talent didn’t match), David Reutimann, David Stremme and Scott Speed — although one or all could make a guest appearance or two over the course of the season.
With those last four sidelined for the moment, however, here’s hoping the preceding six names will soon get their walking papers because there are all sorts of ambitious, talented and flat-out hungry young drivers in the Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series who — you can bet — are just chomping at the bit to get their shot at a Cup ride.
Ryan Blaney, Ty Dillon — hey, even Canadian Cameron Haley (who’s profiled on Page W22 in Saturday's Toronto Star Wheels section) — are all willing and able and deserve a shot before any one of those above-mentioned losers turns another lap.
The rookies this year are a healthy crop. Austin Dillon (yes, he’s Richard Childress’s grandson but he still had to drive and race the cars he was handed) has worked his way up the ladder and will start from pole in Sunday's Daytona 500. He’s carrying No. 3 on his car, the first time that number has been seen in Sprint Cup competition since the man who made it famous, the late Dale Earnhardt, was killed in the Great American Race in 2001.
Can he carry on in that number’s tradition? We’ll see — but probably.
Others who are sure to make their marks this season include Alex Bowman, Ryan Truex, Kyle Larson, Parker Kligerman (pictured, he takes over from Kvapil as driver with best name), Cole Whitt, Justin Allgaier (a close second in the name category) and Michael Annett.
Good luck and Godspeed to them all. It’s about time there was a changing of the guard. Let’s hope this Class of 2014 quickly makes us forget all of those posers who, yes, could legitimately say they were NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers but sure couldn’t ever say they were winners.
The Canadian International Auto Show has taken up a lot of my time and energy this past week, so this column will be a bit of a catch-up.
The big news at the weekend, though, was rookie Austin Dillon winning the pole for the Daytona 500 in the No. 3 car made famous by Dale Earnhardt. Martin Truex Jr., who was kicked out of the Chase for the Sprint Cup last fall because of the shenanigans that went on at Michael Waltrip Racing, will start beside him driving for the one-car Furniture Row team.
I mean, what a Cinderella story. The No. 3 car hasn't been seen in Sprint Cup competition since Earnhardt died in it at Daytona in 2001 and Dillon, grandson of Earnhardt owner, mentor and friend, Richard Childress, takes it out for the first time in his Sprint Cup career and promptly plants it on the pole for the biggest NASCAR race of the year! I mean, it doesn't get any better than that, does it?
Now, I know the conspiracy theorists will be all over this one, just as they were a year ago when Danica Patrick won the pole (she turned 25th fastest time Sunday). According to those folks, NASCAR gives certain drivers a little extra horsepower to ensure they will win the pole (or the race, whatever) and ensure that NASCAR gets the maximum amount of publicity, as a result.
The only difficulty with that scenario is the 47 other drivers who were out there Sunday, giving it their all. Does anybody, for a moment, think that Jimmie Johnson or Kurt and Kyle Busch or any of the others would stand for manipulation like that? Of course not. Yes, they're all in business together but not one of those forementioned drivers (think Brad Keselowski for a moment) would sit back and zip their lips if they really thought for a moment that pole runs or race finishes were fixed.
So Dillon and Truex will share the front row for next Sunday's 500; the rest of the field will be set Thursday night after the qualifying races are held.
I watched for awhile (although I kept switching channels to the Canada-Finland game at the Olympics) and there is no doubt that single-car qualifying continues to be about as exciting as watching paint dry. Which explains why - again - the Daytona International Speedway grandstands were as empty at they are when the Rolex 24 is on.
For the rest of the races this year, NASCAR will go to knockout-type qualifying, in which there will be multiple numbers of cars on track at the same time and over the course of the session some will be eliminated while others will continue on to the next round.
Formula One has been doing this for a number of years, as has IndyCar. It is much more entertaining than single-car qualifying and it keeps the fans awake.
Now, if this works, I wonder how long it will be before NASCAR (or the announcers that promote the series) takes/take credit for inventing knockout qualifying. Don't laugh; the tendency for revisionism in the World of NASCAR can sometimes be frightening.
We all know NASCAR invented SAFER barriers, don't we? Never mind Tony George, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the University of Nebraska. Yes, NASCAR might have become involved after research and development was well down the road but by no means was it the instigator. And yet, NASCAR has been credited more than once on NASCAR broadcasts with coming up with the idea.
The latest theft - and that's what it is, by the way: theft - occurred on NASCAR Raceday Sunday. Kenny Wallace was talking about how drivers feel about going for the pole at Daytona and he said this:
"At times like this, I'm reminded of something the great Richie Evans once said: 'Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing.' "
Richie Evans said that? I always thought Vince Lombardi said that. But according to Kenny Wallace, one of the best-known quotes in the history of American sport wasn't uttered by the coach of the Green Bay Packers but by a NASCAR Modified Series racer from Rome, N.Y.
Who knew?
Okay, on to other, more important, things like the romance between Patrick and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. I see trouble brewing.
As most people in relationships know, honesty is crucial. If you screw up, you have to 'fess up. You can't fib and expect trust.
So Saturday night, during the Busch Clash (I don't care what they call it now, it will always be the Busch Clash to me), there was a pileup and Patrick went low to miss it. Expecting to go throught the grass, the car somehow got tangled in it and sent her into a spin. She kept the car off the wall and was just about straightened out when she was hammered by none other than her boyfriend, Stenhouse, putting both of them out of the race.
In a post-infirmary-visit interview, she made mention that, of all people, she had been wrecked by her boyfriend and then added, "He said he couldn't see (because the hood was up)." Stenhouse, in a separate interview, made the same excuse.
He'd better hope she doesn't see the replay that those of us watching on television at home saw. It shows him being involved in the pileup, then appearing to floor it before sideswiping her, at which point the hood on his car flips up.
The in-car camera appeared to illustrate that he could see very well where he was going on the speedway before he ran into her. Otherwise, why was he accelerating? Take a look by clicking here. Essentially, he was being careless and should have said so, before apologizing.
By the way, stand-up guy Richard Petty refused to back down from his statements made to me, Erik Tomas and Stephanie Wallcraft at the Canadian Motorsports Expo a week ago, that the only way Patrick could win a Sprint Cup race was if everybody else stayed home, but insisted he wasn't being sexist. For her part, Patrick brushed it all away by saying everybody is entitled to their opinion and she's heard it all before and will undoubtedly hear it all again.
Last, Tony Stewart seems to be a changed man. Very calm and laid back. You can tell he's absolutely delighted to be back in a racing car after that serious sprint car accident he had last summer - which, I understand, was way more serious than anybody has let on. He had a tough time healing and his career could have beeen in jeopardy. Which explains his happiness at being back doing what he loves the most. And not even a multi-car wreck could upset him.
Catching up:
Sebastian Saavedra is back in IndyCar, this time with KV Racing. He will race beside Sebastien Bourdais. . . . Toto Wolff isn't the only pay manager in big-league auto racing. Davey Hamilton is back as a co-owner of the Indy car being fielded for Simon Pagenaud by Schmidt-Peterson Racing. Hamilton's contribution to that team in recent years was the sponsorship he brought from Hewlett-Packard but after they withdrew at the end of last season, Hamilton was out as a co-owner. Now he's back. I don't know what he brought to the table, but it's something significant, you can bet. . . . The news that Simona de Silvestro will work with Sauber in F1 this season is a bit of a puzzler. She had a pretty good minor league career in the Atlantic series but her time in IndyCar was largely uneventful (as my old pal, the late Art Wright, used to say about my racing career). She had one podium finish in four years of full-time employment and never finished in the top ten in the season standings. She was 19th, 20th, 24th and 13th. She reminds me of Katherine Legge, who got an awful lot of publicity for very little success. Sauber is a bring-as-much-money-as-you-can team, so she has her work cut out for her. At the end of the day, she has to be able to cut the mustard and while she can race in IndyCar, I just don't think she has the talent to race in F1. . . . When Alex Tagliani announced his return to the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series at the Motorsports Expo, I asked if D.J. Kennington would be preparing his car. "It's (the deal) not done yet," Tag replied. There was a reason for that statement. Late last week, it was announced that Tag's race car will be prepared by three-time NASCAR Canada Champion Scott Steckly's 22 Racing team out of Milverton. They'll do well together.
Whenever Toronto sports radio gets boring on the afternoon drive, I tune in Sirius XM Radio for a dose of Christopher "Mad Dog" Russo.
I like his style.
Just before this year's Super Bowl, he was incensed that TV heavyweights Bob Costas and Chris Berman had both interviewed New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichik and hadn't asked him about "Spygate."
"Spygate" happened in 2007. The Patriots were caught videotaping defensive signals employed by coaches on opposing teams. The NFL threw the book at the team and Belichik and the Patriots haven't won a Super Bowl since. "Mad Dog" Russo thinks there's a connection.
"The question must be asked," he said, again and again one afternoon after suggesting the Patriots had probably warned the two sportscasters against bringing up "Spygate."
"If they had made that a condition with me, I would not have done the interview," said Russo, adding that in every case of controversy, "the question must be asked."
So last Sunday afternoon, NASCAR legend Richard Petty flew into Toronto to meet and greet thousands of fans at the eighth annual Canadian Motorsports Expo. But before he did, organizers arranged for him to spend 10 minutes with local reporters and I was included.
Erik Tomas of Raceline Radio kicked things off with a question about Petty's very first NASCAR Grand National race in 1958 at the old CNE Speedway and the conversation went on from there. The "King" of stock car racing was charming and insightful, discussing everything from the new Chase for the Championship rules to Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s lack of racing success.
After 15 minutes or so, the organizers began looking at their watches. We were behind a curtain and on the other side sat about two dozen people who had paid for the privilege of meeting Petty and getting his autograph and they were becoming restless.
Tomas got the windup signal and he looked at me and said, "One more - Norris?" and I said, channeling Christopher Russo: "The question must be asked: can Danica Patrick win a race in NASCAR Sprint Cup?"
And Richard Petty said, "Only if everybody else stayed home."
Tomas, a good friend and colleague, started to laugh. "You knew what the answer would be, Norris, even before you asked it," and I replied, "Yeah, but I had to hear it."
I went home and played back the recording to make sure the quotes were accurate and Sunday night I posted the story at the Star's wheels.ca site and at thestar.blogs.com/autoracing.
Monday, it was all over the United States. Never mind the newspapers like USA Today and Internet sites like ESPN and SportingNews.com, the story even made the television NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams.
I don't agree with Richard Petty, by the way. I think it's quite possible Patrick will win a race in Sprint Cup, maybe even this season. She won a race in IndyCar, nearly won the pole for the Indianapolis 500 and finished in the top ten in that iconic race six times, which ain't bad at all.
Who knows why he said what he did, considering that he then went on to praise her for bringing so much attention to Sprint Cup racing? Was he trying to throw her off her game, seeing as she won the Daytona 500 pole a year ago and qualifying for that race is being held this weekend? Was he trying to get NASCAR and the Daytona 500 back on the front pages? Or is he, like too many men these days, still stuck in the Sixties?
It really doesn't matter. It is what it is.
But as Christopher "Mad Dog" Russo suggested, when it comes to Danica Patrick, racing in NASCAR, and winning, the question must be asked.
I would still be kicking myself if I hadn't done it.
The only way Danica Patrick will win a NASCAR Sprint Cup race is if she’s the only driver on the track, says the legendary 'King" of stock car racing, Richard Petty.
Petty, who visited Toronto Sunday for an appearance at the Canadian Motorsports Expo (for the live blog from there, please click here), answered quickly and decisively when asked if the former IndyCar star who's now a second-year driver for Stewart-Haas Racing would ever visit Victory Lane in the Cup series.
"(Only) if everybody else stayed home," said Petty, who started his NASCAR career in 1958 in a race at the long-gone Canadian National Exhibition Speedway in downtown Toronto.
Petty spent much of the time in a media scrum discussing how NASCAR has evolved over the years from "race time" to "show time" and he acknowledged that Patrick has been good for the sport in that respect.
"If she’d have been a male, nobody would ever know if she’d showed up at a race track," said the seven-time Daytona 500 champion. "This is a female deal that’s driving her. There’s nothing wrong with that, because that’s good PR for me. More fans come out, people are more interested in it. She has helped to draw attention to the sport, which helps everybody in the sport."
(To listen to the interview with Richard Petty, conducted by Norris McDonald, Wheels' Steppanie Wallcraft and Erik Tomas of Raceline Radio, please click here.)
Petty said NASCAR has grown so big that much of the attention paid to the series and the drivers these days has moved the actual racing into the back seat.
"When NASCAR Cup racing first started, it was racing," he said. "Over a period of years, with our sponsorships, what we had to do for TV, to get the fans to come, the first thing you know is that the race is secondary, because all the rest of it is buildup, buildup, buildup.
"It’s sort of like, say, watching the Super Bowl; it was a lot more exciting watching the buildup than the game. The game just happened to break out in the middle of a good party. We’re not quite that far along but in order for us to do what we need to do on race day, the sponsorship and the fan stuff, we have to do all this other stuff.
"It’s like us coming up here, there’s no racing around here right now, but we can go out and start advertising our sponsors. We can come to Canada and say our next race is Daytona, come on down and see us. It takes all of that to really make it work. Like I say, it's become a show-time deal."
Petty, who won 200 races in a career that went from that Toronto race in 1958 to the Hooters 500 in Atlanta in 1992, was outspoken on several subjects, including the new NASCAR Chase format that emphasizes winning (he doesn’t see why it won’t work) to Dale Earnhardt Jr. (he doesn’t have his father’s talent).
But he seemed to be more at ease while talking about some of his racing adventures north of the border.
"My daddy came up here in 1950 and we ran a race somewhere (a NASCAR race - in 1952, actually - on the old dirt track at Stamford Park in Niagara Falls) and then we came back in 1958 and ran there (at the CNE).
"You know, I ran over 1,100 races (in my career) and this was the very first one. I told them (that) they ran me clean out of my country to start my career; I had to come to Canada to start my career.
"I remember my dad came up to lap me and knocked me into the wall and I crashed. I do remember that part. He went ahead and won the race, so that kinda made up the difference."
Reminded that NASCAR was the support race on a supermodified show that night, Petty - who was known as Dick Petty in those days and who finished 17th in his first race - said:
"You have to figure that in 1958, NASCAR was really a southern sport. I mean, we went from Virginia to Florida and from Florida to Texas. It was all down below the Mason-Dixon line. We came up here and it was lucky that anybody had ever heard tell of us.
"It’s about 500-600 miles from here to my home, which is right in the middle of North Carolina, so we were really off the beaten path. At that time, we just knew we had a race, we came and ran the race and then we put all our junk on the trailer and took it back home."
Petty and his son Kyle ventured north in the 1980s to run a Kawartha Cup snowmobile race at Peterborough for sponsor STP and it was so cold they had to call off the races because "the ice was coming up (off the track) in sheets." Quipped the seven time Winston Cup champion:
"The guys in the grandstands were throwin’ beer cans on the track and I thought, ‘Hey, this is just like home.’ "
I'm live-blogging from the Canadian Motorsport Expo this weekend - got going a bit yesterday but had to make a pit stop (my daughter is in the process of giving birth) - and will be back out at The International Centre in Mississauga later this morning to keep up with the news.
If you want to stay current with what's happening, please click here.
Meantime, there were several announcements of note (and of significance) Friday:
- Tagliani Autosport, a new auto racing brand and entity formed by veteran Canadian IndyCar, NASCAR and SportsCar racer, race winner and Indianapolis 500 pole sitter Alex Tagliani, officially announced a new entry to return to the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series for the 2014 season.
Tagliani, who suffers from food allergies that have nearly killed him twice (and I'll write more about that as the Canadian Tire season approaches) will be sponsored by Pfizer Canada Inc., the Canadian distributor of The EpiPen epinephrine auto-injector.
Although it's no secret that "Tag" is still trying to put together a full-time IndyCar series ride, and that there are other international racing possibilities in the works, the Quebec driver said he fully expects to be able to compete in the majority of the series' 11 races.
If there's a conflict, the No. 18 car will still be at all the races with someone other than Tagliani in the cockpit.
"Tag" will be on stage at noon today to answer questions from fans, so don't miss the opportunity to have a few words with, or get an autograph from, one of Canada's racing icons.
- Move Motorsports executives Jason Sharpe and Diane Dale (promoters of the Toyo Tires F1600 Championship) announced details of a new Formula 2000 championship (see photo).
Sanctioned by CASC–Ontario Region, the promoters are bringing back to life an amazing series that played a significant role in driver development in Canada during the 1980s and '90s.
“The series will be well-organized, well-promoted and provide a cost effective series for experienced formula car racers and young drivers alike,” Sharpe said, adding that the plan is to start small with four races this season and then expand nationally as the series evolves.
I'm particularly interested in this initiative. I've been talking on and off in recent years with people experienced in launching and promoting auto racing about a national open-wheel series - Canada's racing heritage is open-wheel, open-cockpit from coast-to-coast - and couldn't be more pleased to see people like Sharpe and Dale take the bull by the horns and get something going.
More about this, also, as the racing season gets closer.
- The Canadian Touring Car Championship announced that Continental Tire Canada has extended its presenting partnership for three more years.
John Bondar, founder and president of Canada's premier professional sports car racing series, said the key advantage of the partnership is the Continental ExtremeContact race tire, which will continue to be the official and exclusive tire of CTCC.
The tires have proven to be able to handle the extreme challenges of touring car racing and the drivers have come to rely on their performance on the track to give the fans the best racing experience, Bondar added.
- There is lots to see and tons of people to talk to at the Expo, which is in Hall 5 of The International Centre. Hall 5 is around the back, so when you enter the property off Airport Road, just keep going.
Here's a brief summary of everything going on today. And don't forget - there are dozens of exhibits and exhibitors at the Expo.
10:45 to 11:45 a.m. (on the Inside Track Stage) - Stock Car Promoter Panel featuring Mark Dilley (Sunset Speedway), JP Josiasse (Peterborough Speedway), Glenn Styres (Ohsweken Speedway), Charles Priestley (Hurricane Midgets)
12:00 to 12:30 - Alex Tagliani tells the fans about his new NASCAR Canadian Tire Series team and sponsorship, which was unveiled Friday at the CME.
12:45 to 1:15 - NASCAR Sprint Cup star Ryan Newman will take to the CME stage for a Q&A with the fans. Newman will drive for Richard Childress Racing in 2014. Next weekend, he’ll take part in qualifying at Daytona in search of his second career Daytona 500 win.
2:15 to 3:00 - The Road Racing Panel Discussion featuring Robert Giannou (Targa Newfoundland), Rob Reeves (Castrol Raceway), John Bondar (Canadian Touring Car Championship), Perry Iannuzzi and Gary Wood (CASC-OR), and Jason Sharpe (Toyo F1600 and the newly announced Canadian F2000 Championship).
3:15 to 4:30 - The Meet the Media Panel. Hosted by Todd Lewis, participants Norris McDonald (Toronto Star Wheels - that's me), Angie Skinner (SiriusXM’s NASCAR Radio), Erik Tomas (Raceline Radio), Michele-Marie Beer (Open Wheel World), Tim Miller (Hamilton Spectator/Inside Track Motorsport News/Toronto Star Wheels) take part in an always-spirited discussion about timely racing topics.
4:45 to 5:15 (In the Aviation C Seminar Room) Hosted by Gary Wood, an exciting new motorsport event will be unveiled by the Canadian Automobile Sport Clubs, Ontario Region (CASC-OR). Called the "Ontario 1500 Motorsport Adventure," the event is for up to 60 teams, comprised of two to four drivers, who will share a street legal sports/performance car.
Taking place over seven consecutive days, the teams will test their skills at some of Ontario’s top road courses and drag strips (Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (2x), Calabogie Motorsport Park, Shannonville Motorsport Park, Picton Airport, Toronto Motorsport Park and Grand Bend Motorplex, the teams will be challenged by eight Time Attack, four Autoslalom and two Drag Race event stages.
After a partial winter of some discontent (owners complaining of a lack of communication and information), the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series got two huge jolts of good news this week.
Three, actually.
First, the 2014 schedule was issued and it shows 11 races on a calendar that will start in May and go through to late September. A mix of major road-course events and small speedways, the schedule includes four races in Ontario, four in Quebec and one each in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia.
Off the list for the first time in years is Motoplex Speedway in Vernon, B.C. but there are two additions - the quarter-mile Autodrome Chaudiére in Quebec and the similarly small Edmonton International Raceway in Alberta.
The season-opener will take place at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park on the May Victoria Day weekend and the grand finale will be held, as usual, at the Peterborough-area Kawartha Speedway in late September. The stock cars will also be part of the program on Labour Day weekend at Old Mosport that will feature the second visit of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.
Second, there was a major announcement this week that got ears perked up. Mopar, which is Chrysler Canada's service, parts and customer-care brand, announced that it will sponsor Andrew Ranger of Roxton Pond, Que., in the Canadian Tire Series this summer.
The Quebec racer replaces Ron Beauchamp Jr. of Windsor who had the Mopar sponsorship for many years but wasn't too successful. The word around the series is that the Beauchamp team won't compete in 2014.
Ranger, a veteran stock car star who had a brief but shining career in open-wheel racing (Formula Atlantic, the Champ Car World Series), will drive for owner-driver (and former series champion) D.J. Kennington of St. Thomas. In fact, Kennington pitched for the sponsorship and brought Ranger in as part of the deal.
He couldn't have made a better choice. After winning the NASCAR Canada championship two out of the first three years of its existence, Ranger branched out in 2010 to run races in several NASCAR series including the Sprint Cup and Nationwide. He has been in and out of the Canadian series since, but he wins just about every time he shows up. Last year he raced three times and finished first, second and third.
Finally, at this weekend's Canadian Motorsports Expo at The International Centre in Mississauga, Canadian racing veteran Alex Tagliani will announce that he will run a full season (or close to a full-season) in the Canadian Tire championship with a car sponsored by Pfizer Canada Inc., the Canadian distributor of The EpiPen Epinephrine Auto-Injector.
The new Team EpiPen sponsored by Dicom Express entry will be unveiled Friday afternoon to kick off the 8th annual Expo.
Tagliani is racing this season in the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship for Rocketsports Racing and is still trying to put an IndyCar ride together. While full-time employment in IndyCar is unlikely, Tag will probably land something for the Indianapolis 500 where he's a previous pole winner.
Tagliani has raced frequently in the Canadian stock car championship and, in fact, revived his flagging Indy car career a half-dozen years ago at Edmonton by showing the Champ Car owners of the day what he could do by winning the Canadian Tire support race on the Edmonton Indy weekend.
So it's good news all 'round for the series and the sponsor and - more importantly - the fans. "Name" drivers like Ranger and Tagliani joining champions like Scott Steckly and Kennington, and major Canadian corporations like Chrysler and Pfizer getting (and staying) involved, all signal that the future is bright for stock car racing in this country.
2014 NASCAR CANADIAN TIRE SERIES SCHEDULE
Date Track (Length) Location
Sun., May 18 Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (2.459-mile road course) Bowmanville, Ont.
Sat., June 14 Autodrome Chaudiére (.25-mile) Vallée-Jonction, Que.
Sun., July 6 Circuit ICAR (2.113-mile road course) Mirabel, Que.
Fri., July 11 Edmonton International Raceway (.25-mile) Wetaskiwin, Alta.
Wed., July 16 Auto Clearing Motor Speedway (.333-mile) Saskatoon, Sask.
Sat., July 26 Autodrome St. Eustache (.4-mile) St. Eustache, Que.
Sun., Aug. 10 Circuit de Trois-Rivieres (1.53-mile road course) Trois-Rivieres, Que.
Sat., Aug, 16 Riverside International Speedway (.333-mile) Antigonish, N.S.
Sun., Aug. 31 Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (2.459-mile road course) Bowmanville, Ont.
Bernie Ecclestone says the reason 50 million fewer people watched Formula One racing in 2013 is because Sebastian Vettel was always winning.
Oh, boo-hoo. (You can read what Ecclestone said by clicking here.)
Did fewer people watch when Michael Schumacher was always winning? Don't think so. Or Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna? Nope. How about Nelson Piquet every couple of years there back in the '80s. Uh-uh.
So although it's convenient to blame Vettel (as is the case in the U.S., where Jimmie Johnson's six Sprint Cup titles in eight years are fingered for many of NASCAR's problems), the fact that F1 racing is downright boring these days might have a lot more to do with it.
Oh sure, every now and again there's a scrap or two for the first couple of corners, but most Grands Prix settle into a predictable pattern early on and the races become snoozefests until the checkers.
I have been known - I don't like to admit this too often - to set my alarm for 7:50 a.m. on summer Sundays so that I can be awake but still in bed when the F1 races in Europe come on. I will listen to the intro and watch the first couple of laps and then I will reset my alarm for about 9:30 and go back to sleep. More often than not, when I wake up for the finish, I haven't missed a damn thing.
My wife and I went to a movie theatre to watch a race last summer - it was a fundraiser and I was glad to promote it - but I have to say I was shocked - shocked - at how quiet everybody was. There didn't seem to be anybody excited, at all. I know most of them were Ferrari fans, and Alonso (hey, come to think of it, did 50 million stop watching when he was winning two titles in a row seven or eight years ago?) and Massa were not exactly setting the world on fire at the time, but these were the tifosi in that theatre and the silence was disconcerting.
Now, it's 2014 and the turbos are back and everybody is saying there will be a changing of the guard this year but I say don't believe a word of it. There is always hype and speculation at this time of year about somebody or some team other than Vettel/Red Bull rising up for the challenge and yet, once the season gets going, it always turns out to be the same old, same old.
So don't count on a new engine formula doing the trick.
The only way to beat Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull (do you really believe that they had all that trouble at the Jerez test?) is not to award double points at the season-ending race but to find a way to help the lesser teams get to be just as good.
How to do that? By Bernie and his people assisting them in sponsor searches, guaranteeing them a certain percentage of air time during an F1 telecast so that those sponsors get exposure, and by breaking up the old-boy network so that designers and aerodynamicists other than the disciples of Adrian Newey and Rory Byrne can move into F1 and shake things up.
Blaming Sebastian Vettel for a drop in popularity, or finding a way to penalize him, won't prove a thing and will likely be counterproductive. But working to improve the competition so that everybody - or nearly everybody - has a chance of winning on any given Sunday will return dividends in spades.
Give me a race and I'll be up at the crack of dawn on Sunday to watch it. Keep giving me parades, as was the case last year, and I'd sooner slumber, thank you.
Before we get going, it was promised in Saturday's Toronto Star Wheels that a selection of photographs taken at the Rolex 24 at Daytona by photographer John Larsen could be found in my blog at wheels.ca
Well, they're not there - but they are over here on thestar.com where my blog also appears. Click here for those photos or just scroll down to the next post. And they are terrific. Great work, John.
Okay, years ago, I worked on the daily newspaper in Kingston and among my many duties was a three-times a week column about this, that and the other. One time I got really angry at what I considered stupidity on the part of a city councillor and I wrote a column with the headline: Hey, Dave: Don't Make Me Laugh.
I'm feeling that way again today. Ross Brawn, who was run out of town by either Toto Wolff or Niki Lauda, or both, at Mercedes and has since been linked to any number of other F1 teams but primarily McLaren told a reporter for the Daily Telegraph in England that he was retiring from F1.
Brawn made the announcement at a fishing tournament.
Said the man who was behind much of the success of Michael Schumacher at Benetton and Ferrari and who then purchased the Honda team, renamed it Brawn, and won yet another world championship:
"What they (media) didn't realise when I was invited here was they had a scoop because the world's press was trying to find out if I was retiring or not. This is the busiest time of the year for Formula One and I said I would come along and open the River Dee. If they (media) had put two and two together, they would have realised I was definitely retiring."
Definitely retiring? Ross, don't make me laugh.
It will be interesting to see how he will worm his way out of this one when, in three months, six months, a year or even two years, there is an announcement that he is joining whoever as technical director, team principal, team manager or whatever they want to call him. What's he going to say then?
- I was just joshin'?
- You misquoted me? (Always my favourite, by the way.)
- Or, "didn't you hear me say 'until I get a really good offer?' As in, 'I am definitely retiring until I get a really good offer.' "
Remember those suggested weasel words when Brawn returns to F1. Which he will. He took a year off in 2007 but couldn't stay away. He is only 59 years old and there is gold in them thar F1 hills.
You can bet he will want to keep collecting his share - once the right situation presents itself.
By the way, I have no idea what is going on with Justin Bieber, and don't really care all that much, except to say that - as in the case of Ross Brawn's "retirement" - you have to wonder about the level of reporting going on these days.
Or the manipulation of the media (see also above).
Miami police said Bieber was drag racing. This has been in all the stories since. The initial reports said police had become suspicious because two cars had blocked off a street so that two other cars could drag race.
Turns out that's not exactly true. In the latest video to surface, Bieber was driving along in a yellow Lambo, all right (which is probably what attracted the eyes of the cop), but he was going 50 mph in a 30 zone in the middle of a line of traffic that was all moving at that speed.
I don't know about you but that ain't drag racing. Maybe speeding, but certainly not drag racing. And he wasn't charged with either, anyway.
Speaking of media and manipulation and famous people, I continue to be appalled at the way Michael Schumacher's family and manager have handled the latest turn in his very sad story.
Earlier this week, there was a story in a German newspaper to the effect that Schumacher's doctors had planned to try to wake him up but changed their minds at the last minute.
This was followed less than a day later by a statement from his manager that, in fact, doctors had started the process of reducing the amount of sedation in his sytem that would lead eventually to an attempt to wake him up.
And then we got the usual leave us alone request. We'll get back to you if there's anything to say.
Michael Schumacher is a citizen of the world because of media. If television, radio, the Internet and newspapers hadn't covered his every move for the last 20 years, he would not be the icon he's become. There would certainly not be the concern at his predicament that there is.
But because he is an icon, he - and his family - owes something to his millions of fans who learned everything they did about him from media and who get up each day and look for news about the condition of the man they worship.
So when reporters are told to scram, those millions of fans are told they don't matter either.
You can't have it both ways (although many celebrities want it like that; witness Rob Ford and his "private time" argument). You can't allow media to be positive one minute and then shut them out when the situation turns negative.
And by shutting out media, it inevitably leads to confusion. One day, the stories all say that the longer Schumacher is in his comatose state, the worse his chances of recovery and the next you get a neurosurgeon being quoted as saying it's quite possible his recovery will be favourable.
And then there are some reports that say he's blinking his eyes and then there are reports that say he's not. Or that he's following suggestions and moving some parts of his anatomy. Or not. People read or listen to those reports and their hopes are buoyed or deflated by the "news."
By staying officially quiet, spokespeople allow this manipulation of emotions to take place. Even if there is no news, is it not better to say so on a daily basis than to sit behind a cloak of "privacy" and allow speculation to run rampant?
And they literally were just about dead even over the course of the season, which included a race at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park last Labour Day. While they each had one win, Burton won more poles than Blaney - six to one. But Blaney had more top-five finishes (eight to five) and two more top tens (13 to 11).
Both are sons of NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers (or Winston Cup, in the case of one of them). Jeb Burton's father is Daytona 500 winner Ward Burton, now retired, while Ryan is the son of sprint-car champion-turned-stock car racer Dave Blaney.
The news today is that the sponsor of Burton's truck couldn't come up with the first instalment of moneys owed for 2014 and Turner Scott Motorsports, Jeb Burton's employer, has announced that unless there's a miracle, he won't be in their truck this season.
Which means his career has been stopped in its tracks.
Ryan Blaney, on the other hand, has got a contract with Penske Racing and will drive in two Sprint Cup races this season and a minimum of 15 Nationwide Series starts. He'll fill out his schedule in the trucks.
Doesn't seem quite fair, does it? One taking off like a super nova, the other fizzling. On the other hand, if you look behind the scene a little, there might be a hint as to how this sort of thing happens.
In 2014, you have to be the total package. You have to be able to drive the wheels off anything you strap yourself into but you also have to be suave, sophisticated, gallant, charming and able to speak intelligently in boardrooms as well as on TV and radio.
Last year, I had interraction with both those men. I started talking with Burton at a pre-season truck test at Old Mosport and he seemed decidedly uninterested in anything I asked him, including questions about his father.
On Labour Day, I walked up to Blaney totally unannounced and started asking about his father and why he hadn't started in sprint cars instead of stock cars and, etc. The kid couldn't have been nicer. I left thinking he was a class act.
This has been a tale of two young drivers. Of course, there is a lesson in there and one that Jeb Burton would be wise to learn.
Winding up, what is with Red Bull Racing?
How many ways can you say Out To Lunch?
The first test of the F1 season took place this past week and while Mercedes and Ferrari seemed to get going pretty good, the winner of four consecutive constructors championships had trouble completing a lap.
Will this year be the first in five years when Sebastian Vettel doesn't win the world championship? Hard to imagine, but maybe.
For years, every time the commissioner of the National Football League would hold a “state of the league” media conference, some Canadian reporter would ask if Toronto was going to get an expansion team. Every time, the commissioner would say it was unlikely.
This wasn’t because Canada isn’t a nice place, or because Toronto doesn't have enough people or money. It was just that if the league was going to expand, there were American cities ahead of Toronto on the list.
Which explains why people in Toronto have switched focus and are trying to get an established team — like the Buffalo Bills — to move. It’s so much easier to get into the game with a team that exists rather than trying to start from scratch.
Which brings me today to NASCAR team owner Gene Haas, who is ambitious to go Formula One racing in 2015. The FIA has asked for “expressions of interest” in filling a vacant slot in the F1 lineup and Haas has said he’d like to give it a shot.
Now, Gene Haas (left, in photo) might have all the money in the world, for all I know. But to start a Formula One team from scratch, which seems to be his plan, will cost not one fortune, but several. And to think it can be done in less than a year is, simply, a pipe dream.
But there’s another way for Haas to go Formula One racing in 2015. He could buy one of the established teams.
And there’s one in particular that seems to be on really rocky ground at the moment: Lotus F1.
It would be a helluva lot cheaper than starting a team and Haas could even be a winner right out of the gate.
Bernie Ecclestone says it’s unlikely Haas will get his wish to start a new team. But Bernie has been known to manipulate a situation or two in his time and some backroom manoeuvring in this case could result in everybody being happy.
Gene Haas would be living his dream of owning an F1 team and Lotus could live to race another day.
Maybe it won’t happen. But it should.
Today is a big day in the automotive world. Fiat-Chrysler announced that its new name would be Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.
Wow.
How many consultants and focus groups did it take to come up with that?
I remember when I was a kid and Roy Rogers' horse Trigger fathered a son.
They had a big contest to name the little fella and millions of children sent in suggestions.
In the end, they named him - wait for it - Trigger Jr.
You wonder why they bother sometimes.
Back to Bernie for a moment. I’ve had a rethink and I don't think he will go to jail on this bribe charge.
He might not even be convicted.
How can they prove he paid somebody a bribe? He admits to paying the money. Where he and the guy who accepted the money differ is on the reason for the payment. The guy says it was a bribe. Bernie says the guy was blackmailing him and he paid up to to put an end to it.
So it’s going to be very difficult to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the payment was a bribe.
The guy who accepted the bribe was easier to convict. He accepted money and didn't tell anybody. Whether it was a bribe or a blackmail payment doesn’t matter. He’s guilty because he was on the receiving end.
Bernie? You can't convict on the basis of a hunch.
This statement was issued today by the Gainsco Racing team regarding the condition of driver Memo Gidley, who was so badly injured during last weekend's running of the Rolex 24 at Daytona.
After suffering multiple injuries in an on-track accident during the Rolex 24 At Daytona this past weekend, Memo Gidley has a long road to recovery ahead. The incident occurred on Saturday when Gidley was behind the wheel of the No. 99 GAINSCO Auto Insurance Corvette Prototype when he struck the disabled No. 62 Ferrari being driven by Italian driver Matteo Malucelli, Malucelli’s car was without power and moving very slowly between turns three and four of the road course when the No. 99 “Red Dragon” hit him.
Following the incident on Saturday, Gidley was admitted to Halifax Health in Daytona Beach, Fla. Once admitted, doctors discovered multiple fractures, including his lower left leg and left elbow, along with a lower back compression fracture. These injuries have required Gidley to have two surgeries since Saturday.
On Saturday, doctors immediately addressed the left leg and left arm injuries by completing an almost four-hour surgery shortly after Gidley’s admittance into the hospital. On Monday evening, doctors stabilized and repaired the compression fracture in Gidley’s lower back in an extended surgery.
“The objective is to get Memo into a stabilized condition so that the doctors can figure out what all the issues are,” team owner Bob Stallings said. “We are not at that place yet, and doctors are still evaluating him. The procedures needed to stabilize him aren’t finalized yet.”
Stallings has remained at the hospital, and he anticipates staying until Gidley returns to Northern California. Gidley’s athleticism and physical fitness should assist him in this road to recovery.
“Memo is a competitive person and a fighter,” Stallings added. “And clearly he is drawing on those strengths as he makes his way through this ordeal. Since last night’s surgery, he has been sedated all day, so we haven’t been able to communicate with him. There is some expectation that later today, if conditions are right, that the doctors may bring him out of the sedation, but that decision hasn’t been made yet.”
The goal is to have all medical conditions stabilized over the next 24-48 hours. After that point, the expectations are that he will need a week of rest to gain enough strength for the trip back to Northern California.
“We appreciated the outpouring of support, thoughts and prayers for Memo,” Stallings said. “We plan to share those with him once he is awake enough to understand all the well wishes.”
Doctors continue to evaluate and monitor Gidley’s progress. Because of the type of injuries Gidley sustained, he is expected to spend an undetermined amount of time in a transitional rehabilitation facility in Northern California upon his release from the hospital in Daytona Beach.
Despite the challenges that Gidley faces on his road to recovery, there is every reason to believe that he will make a substantial recovery. So far, all of his attending physicians are confident and optimistic of that outcome.
Which is very good news, indeed, because when the accident happened I thought both drivers had been killed. You don't often see smashups that violent, to begin with. For both drivers to survive is incredible.
