June 19, 2009
By Nick Blake
It’s that time of year again! The time where a few rugged 30 or 40 year old road-racing veterans come over to NASCAR to run left and right twice a year. The Race To The Chase heats up with the annual visit to Sonoma, California, where this year a significantly less than usual number of road-racing experts come hoping to qualify for Sunday’s race.
Among them are Boris Said driving for EM Motorsports/No Fear Racing, Ron Fellows driving for Phoenix Racing, Max Papis continuing his part time gig with Germain Racing, Tom Hubert driving Kirk Shelmerdine’s Toyota, Chris Cook driving for Front Row Motorsports, Brian Simo driving for Tommy Baldwin Racing, P.J Jones in a late entry second car for Robby Gordon and lastly Patrick Carpentier driving Michael Waltrip’s NAPA Toyota.
All the above except Carpentier have one thing in common, they're all go-or-go-home cars. Only four will go home, but like every go-or-go-home qualifying show, it’s worth watching when most, if not all the cars have little chance of running in the top ten on Sundays. It’s like qualifying is the actual race for a start and park team.
And I just hit on the problem.
With road course qualifying being different than oval qualifying, there is no second lap to improve your speed.
If, lets say…Ron Fellows, a driver that has three top fives and five top tens in Sprint Cup Racing, not to mention four career Nationwide wins and two Camping World Truck Series wins, slides off course, or the team just doesn’t hit on the setup, if he’s not fast enough, Ron Fellows won’t race. Last season, he drove the road course races for DEI’s #01 team, a team that was locked in the top 35 in owner points. Before that he raced for Hall Of Fame Racing, also locked in the top 35 in owner points in 2007.
The other road ringers need to be on their tippy toes and be sure not to make a mistake, or else their cars won’t race either. Remember, they're up against the go-or-go-home regulars that race every week, Joe Nememchek, Dave Blaney, David Gilliland (who in a way could be considered a road ringer himself) and Scott Speed. All the aforementioned guys are pretty nifty on a road course themselves.
Once a long time ago, the road ringers would come to the Sprint Cup Series to run two races, Infineon and Watkins Glen. They came not just to run around, but to win. Ron Fellows made his mark driving For NEMCO Motorsports, Joe Nemechek’s team, which in most ways was a satellite Hendrick team. His best finish in that ride was a second at The Glen in 1999. His next second place finish came driving for DEI in 2004. Boris Said drove to top five and top ten finishes with MB2 Motorsports and his own #60 No Fear Racing Ford. Even Brian Simo earned a top ten with Richard Childress Racing in 2005. He hasn’t been in equipment that good since. And neither have any of the other road racers for that matter.
Earlier in this article I listed this weeks road ringers and the rides they're in, and to be honest, I don’t like any of their chances to even score top tens on Sunday, let alone win. How about this statistic for all you Patrick Carpentier fans out there, Michael Waltrip Racing’s best ever finish on a road course is 12th, by P.J Jones. The second best finish? 21st with Michael McDowell. So don’t get over excited that Carpentier is getting a shot in a competitive ride this Sunday.
So why all of a sudden are the road ringers forced into secondary rides with almost zero chance of winning?
It’s a combination of existing theories and new problems.
Drivers driving for the top teams are racing for a championship and to earn the highest position possible. They won’t give up their rides to road course specialists if it means losing valuable points on their watch, hence Joe Gibbs keeping Joey Logano in the #20 car rather than replace him for someone else. Plus, he’s made a great rebound in the owner points as well. He’s way above the danger zone.
Another existing theory is sponsorship. It’s hard to come by. Jacques Villeneuve, a former Formula One driver, tried to come to NASCAR during 2007. His goal wasn’t just to run road courses, heck; he made his Sprint Cup debut at Talladega of all places. Unfortunately, limited funding at Bill Davis Racing put the breaks on Jacques Villeneuve’s career.
New problems include major teams just not having enough funds to enter an extra car for that particular event. It’s something that will continue to get worse with talks of manufactures losing support. It makes you even wonder that eventually, someday the only way you can race in these events is to be a full-time Sprint Cup driver.
And the biggest difficulty of all? The Sprint Cup regulars are just that good too. Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Juan Pablo Montoya and even Kyle Busch are drivers that you will have to look out for on Sunday. They drive for the teams that have great overall equipment. They are the drivers that need points more than the road ringers do.
The question still stands. Can a one race road course specialist win Sonoma or Watkins Glen?
Sorry “Said Heads”; sorry to all you “Canadian Fellows”, it’s not happening. Not anymore.
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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