February 3, 2010
By Chuck Abrams
Racing got back into high gear this past weekend with the Rolex 24 and the Toyota Showdown.
Ganassi nearly won another Rolex 24 race but mechanical issues caused one car to drop out early and allowed the Action Express Racing team to get in front of another Ganassi entry to win it’s first ever Rolex 24.
Joey Logano held off a hard-charging Sergio Pena in the Toyota Showdown at Irwindale, California. Sixteen year-old Pena did the remarkable by winning the pole and then led and stayed in contention for the win all night. Often called the Daytona 500 of short tracks, the showdown is a great place to get a look at up and coming drivers.
For those race fans who complain that NASCAR is a southeastern-only sport, look at the entries in the Showdown and you will find many of the drivers hailing from California, Canada and yet others from the northeast. Looks like the drive for diversity is working – at least when it comes to broadening where drivers are coming from.
All-in-all it was a great way to start the 2010 season in my book.
And this week it only gets better with Bud Shootout practice starting on Thursday, Daytona practice on Friday and Daytona 500 qualifying on Saturday followed by the Bud Shootout on Saturday night.
Oh, and lest I forget, the ARCA race is also on Saturday -- featuring Danica Patrick in her first ever professional stock car race. If she does well, she just might run in the Nationwide series on Feb 13. I have a feeling the guys in the ARCA series will make her feel really welcome on the track.
A couple of other announcements were made this week in case you missed them.
NASCAR is cutting back on the fees it charges tracks allowing them to drop the price of a ticket. That also means race purses will be cut back 10% this year. This has been a long time coming folks and is not solely related to the current economic crisis. TV ratings and fan attendance has been dropping double digit numbers for a few years now and NASCAR has to make some changes to keep up with the changing times.
The changes you have seen in the status of the car has a lot to do with keeping fans happy as much as it has to do with better racing. In my opinion, it has MORE to do with keeping the fans happy. NASCAR has no idea what kind of racing we’ll see when the new spoiler is introduced.
Whatever complaints you have had about NASCAR in the past (and may still have) you do have to say that they are making some decent changes to keep the racing interesting as of late, starting with the double file restarts.
I am anxious (and hopeful) to see if the racing product will be better this year than last.
In other news, Penske racing is the last remaining Dodge team.
I own a Dodge and two Chryslers, so I am in Roger’s camp. Unless Dodge and it’s new owner Fiat can turn the company around, many of us may see the day that Dodge leaves the race scene for the second time. That is stunning to me, and I hope it doesn’t come to fruition.
Let me know your thoughts.
Drive fast, turn left and keep the shiny side up.
The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.
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