Speed Mail: Time to step up, and more rain talk
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Can you dig it?
Denny Hamlin is in a hole right now. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is in a little bit of a hole right now, not to a lot of his making, but he's still there. Casey Mears has had a good race car two weeks in a row, but got caught up in accidents and he's now outside the top 35 in owner points.
We got a lot of guys that want to get to Victory Lane on Sunday, but there's a whole bunch that want to get momentum turned the other direction based on these first two races.
Rain, rain go away
Gerrel K. from Morton Grove, IL: Larry, thanks to you and the entire FOXSports announcers for keeping up the fun and laughter during all the lengthy delays (at California). Also, the extra interviews by the four pit reporters were most appreciated. Just wanted to mention that I have enjoyed the "Ask the Pros" section of the Web site with you, DW and Jeff. You three did a good job sharing racing info with the fans, and also some humor with some of the questions.
Larry McReynolds: Without tooting our horn too loud, I agree with you Gerrel. I think we at FOX do an awesome job doing things during a rain delayed broadcast that you can't do during a race — talk to these guys, find out about them, run special features, etc.
The race always takes care of itself. So I think the more we can show these fans about who these people are, what they are about, their likes and dislikes, what's their character, what's their personality — that will let fans latch on to these guys more.
That's why I'm so proud that our network does not have the philosophy of putting on last year's version of the race if it looks like we are in for a long delay. That gives the nine of us an opportunity to talk about things and go in-depth with things about our sport and the people that we never can really do.
And I think we do a good job. We get information out there, we have some fun and I think that's one of the reasons why our overnight TV ratings matched the number from last year's race. It just bothers me when I hear people say, "The TV network pulled the plug on this race."
Trust me, that doesn't happen nor does it exist. I don't know the exact number, but if people knew how much money the network lost on that type of rain delay that didn't end up actually being a race and then having to come back and do it again the following day ... nobody wins during a rainout in NASCAR, nobody.
I don't want to make light of the rain, as anybody in North Carolina can tell you the importance of rain because of the drought we are experiencing. But in NASCAR, whenever it rains, you do what we all did — make the best out of it.
Last point on SoCal, restrictor plates
Before we go forget about the topic, I got more than a few e-mails from fans about Jeff Hammond and my thoughts on the Internet reports about changes to the track formerly known as California Speedway. It was hard to pick just one to answer, so here are a few of my thoughts that I hope will clarify any remaining questions.
I don't want fans to misunderstand what either one of us was saying. We are not blasting anybody, but restrictor plates make for competitive racing at two venues — Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway. Everywhere else it just kills the racing. We've tried it before. We raced with them at New Hampshire back in 2000 and I've seen them tested at Atlanta and a few other places. What did we see? They don't work elsewhere.
For Gillian Zucker, as a track owner/promoter who had issues with her racetrack — and they were not self-inflicted. I think the problems this past weekend caught everybody with their britches down — but for her to say that the track may consider making changes and trying to get restrictor plates is like fixing a weird noise in your engine by turning the radio up.
I still shake my head at this because we had one of the best races we've ever had at that racetrack last week. Bottom line: Nobody makes rule changes on the competition side except the competition department of NASCAR.
| Speed Mail Larry McReynolds |
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Humpy Wheeler, Bruton Smith, Gillian Zucker, Tony George ... they can all have their wish list of changes for NASCAR, but nobody is going to dictate changes. And with the race we just had there, NASCAR won't do that.
For Michael Waltrip to get on that bandwagon, that's another typical Michael Waltrip deal. Fix your race car and you'll be just fine. He has the same thing to work with that championship leader Kyle Busch has. He should go out and fix his race car and not focus on lobbying for changes to racetracks.
If I had one wish for Auto Club Speedway — although I think we are on to something with this new car because it produced good racing — but if the track was going to do something, I would agree in part with the suggestions that the banking should be raised. However, I say it should go from 14 to 18 degrees of banking. But based on what we saw Monday, I say just fix the weepers and that track will be fine.
Raising the banking to 32 degrees and putting restrictor plates on the cars makes absolutely no sense.
All of us — the network, the racetrack, NASCAR, the competitors — took what was a disastrous three days and turned it into an excellent ending on Monday. That's why I am surprised by the ideas coming from Gillian and Michael. I'm not blasting them, I'm just wondering what they are talking about.
FOX race analyst Larry McReynolds has more than 25 years of NASCAR experience as a mechanic, crew chief and broadcaster. He and his fellow Crew Chief Club members take you behind the wall at www.crewchiefclub.com.
"How to Become a Winning Crew Chief" is on bookstore shelves, or you may order your own autographed copy from www.DWStore.com.
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