The Day

[Northstar T]

I hadn't even heard this was to be on the Speed chanel, but last night I just happened to catch the last 3/4 of the show simply called "The Day". a tribute to the day 10 years ago when Dale Earnhardt died at Datona. If you get a chance to watch this, it's a VERY moving show with interviews with most of the key people that were there that day (Sterlin Marlin being the blatent exception) . I can tell you there was not a dry eye in the bunch, even now, ten years later, as the stories were being told. My wife and I cried as well. I was recording the 2001 race that day, as I wanted to work out in my shop, but as the end of the race wound down I came in to watch the last 20 laps or so live. when it was finally announced that "we've lost Dale Earnhardt" I was in total shock and disbelief. still am today I guess. I still have a #3 tribute sticker in the rear window of all my vehicles in memory of.
Today watching Nascar is like watching snow boarding for me. it just doesn't really matter.
Anyway.... watch the show if you get the chance. weather you loved him or hated him, he WAS the sport of NASCAR racing.

Russ

 

[Keeper]

I remember watching the race. I seen the crash and thought nothing of it. Looked so harmless compared to the other crashes.

I will have to check this out.

 

[Lee_in_KC]

I remember watching the race. I seen the crash and thought nothing of it. Looked so harmless compared to the other crashes.

Me too. I was so happy for Mikey and ol' DW was cryin' because Mikey finally won a race... and then the news about Dale... bittersweet day. I want to read Mikey's book... can you believe it's #4 on the best-seller list?!?!?

 

[EX JUNK]

Lee, are you referring to "IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE" by Michael Waltrip and Ellis Henican? If so, my son gave me that book for my birthday this past Sunday. I'm looking forward to reading it.

Jim

 

[Allen]

Russ--me too--If you've ever seen NASCAR accidents then you know just how quickly the outer metal covering can disintegrate leaving little more than a twisted shell and roll cage area of the car intact.It is the roll cage that is the strongest and most important part of the CAR'S body. This strong steel! frame is meant to protect the driver from severe
bodily harm during a collision with a-- wall or another car.--Inside the roll cage is a specially crafted driver's seat that has a five point harness for maximum safety.RIP-#3 Dale

 

[Lee_in_KC]

Lee, are you referring to "IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE" by Michael Waltrip and Ellis Henican?

Yessir.

 

[jcunning]

It's hard to believe it's been 10 years.

 

[Johnny]

Yeah, I saw it. Very moving. Saw that Harvick's car was black for the Bud Shootout. Wonder if he will keep it black? Sure miss Ole Number 3.

 

[T-Odd]

I was there - a few days after the crash. Rode down to Daytona for Bike Week and sitting in the Hooters across the street from the Speedway, watching the news showing the crash over and over. EEEEERY feeling to say the least.

Dad was a fan back when Dale was unpopular which seemed to be the case up to the point of the crash and then for whatever reason he became popular or so it seemed. He even had a number 3 credit card with a picture of Dale on it, and I recall several times at the TSC when cashiers would make funny faces when they saw it... I guess they were Jeff Gordon fans or something.

I don't play favorites with anyone in NASCAR. It's a game of who-cheats-beast-wins, and if you don't believe that then I'd suggest you converse with some old crew guys.

I might watch the first five laps, and maybe the last five laps, and get a real real good nap in between. Been to races in person, and still wouldn't turn down a free ticket, but I just don't follow it anymore.

Maybe it's because I grew up at the dirt track and sprint car racing (even though only twenty five laps) is more exiting.

 

[blownt]

One of the best cheaters around is here in Houston, AJ Foyt. Won just about every kind of race there was. One of his best tricks was nitrous in the rollbar.

 

[T-Odd]

The best cheat I ever heard was the XXXX-brand crew getting the NASCAR inspectors tipsy and swapping out the templates.

THE "XXXX-brand" car fit the template perfect, every... EVERY other car in the field failed tech.

That was a while back though, and I'm sure security is so tight that nothing like that could ever happen again.

Right?

 

[Differen T]

The best cheat I ever heard was the XXXX-brand crew getting the NASCAR inspectors tipsy and swapping out the templates.

THE "XXXX-brand" car fit the template perfect, every... EVERY other car in the field failed tech.

That was a while back though, and I'm sure security is so tight that nothing like that could ever happen again.

Right?
[/quote

I'm old enough to remember when.... The cars came off the showroom floor, fire suits were t shirts dipped in borax, Fireball Roberts drove a Pontiac, when ABC Wide World Of Sports was the only game in town and they only used it as a filler and cheating was an art form and I the story that I heard was AJ had the bottle in the radiator and fed the manifold from the bottom side using a thermocouple in the thermostat housing. It went over 5 MPH faster than anyone else. But then AJ never did know when to lift. There was also Smokey who always brought something different to Daytona and Indy . The greats back in the day not only drove, but worked on their own cars, Dale was one of the last of this breed. His passing opened the door to the PR drivers, young, good sponsor image, drive on Sunday, promote the sponsor every waking hour. Don't get me wrong, they have the best racing equipment ever to turn a wheel on a track and they can drive it, but a lot of drivers from back in the day paid the price for it. I tried to get the company I worked for to get involved in the early 90's, but our European owned were already into the GP series. When they finally did get into it just their associate sponsorship cost them more than a whole team did when I proposed it. I turn it on when the race starts and turn it of at the checkered flag, what's in between is still good racing, but the rest is just one big promo.

 

[Allen]

Dale Earnhardt JR--will start from the rear at Daytona 500!!

 

[Mike]

Well, as one of the owners of a certain Pro Stock Dodge team, that suffered a mysterious "broken rotor" on the starting line would say, "It's not cheating until you've been caught!"

What was interesting was after the two year suspension *cough* recovery period this team went through after the "broken rotor" *cough* shop break-in incident, this team was at the NHRA Springnationals in Columbus, OH. They were pitted alongside the Orndorff & Eckman Pro Stock team. A very loud explosion rocked the entire pit area and when people realized we weren't under attack, a nitrous bottle that had been blown off the Eckman-drive car had managed to slide under their trailer and ended up venting itself in the Dodge team's pit. The irony was lost on exactly no one.

Not that I am suggesting any of the NHRA Pro Stock teams ever stretched the rules by using illegal fuel additives or oxygen enhancing products. Or that any of the teams were using tubing with o-ring seals in place of the dowel pins that would normally align an intake manifold end rails to the block end rails. :wolf: You'll notice I've not suggested anyone might have been using propylene oxide as a fuel additive, or that they might have been storing fuel containers in tubs of ice water in their trailers. Or that some cars may have had some rather ingenious scoop mounts that might have been doing more than holding the scoop on the cars. Or how I would often see people struggling to carry an "empty" oil case to the back of the car, to put the chutes in. Or how cars sponsored by some of the heavy-hitting series sponsors were often waved past the scales after making a pass.

We had an issue for one season that would, on occasion, result in the scoop being blown off the car when Brian would lift. It would look rather spectacular, as the scoop would often blow as high as 25' - 30' in the air at the finish line. The scoops were pressurized so high at those speeds and when the throttle blades were closed, the air had to go somewhere. We had a featherweight attaching system we were using, because we were playing with plenum spacers at the time. We blew a scoop off at the World Finals and Joe Tech came down on us like white on rice. He wouldn't let us take the car to the pits and made us pull alongside the return road, where I had to strip every body panel off the car and identify every wire and hose on the car for him. We were using a return-style fuel pressure regulator and Joe just knew there was something suspicious about there being a fuel line running to the top of the fuel tank. He was rather disappointed to discover we were legal as the day was long, just the same as always. Joe was a nice enough guy, but when he sunk his teeth into something, he was like a rabid dog.

 

[RPM]

I always said real races cars go too fast to turn left!

Mike you ever heard of Wayne County Speed?

 

[Old Rotor Flap]

I'm from back in the days of Sneaky Pete Robinson, who really knew how to shed weight. Later in life, I'd use his lessons on weight reduction in design work.

I could get a Grammy Award for shaving a gram here and gram there off my drag bike. I just never gave up the pizza and wine.

Between an Inch counter "printed" on the front tire with magnetic ink ....it didn't work..... and hidden delay box in a street bike. oops, naughty boy .... or a couple of laser pointers that would show the laser beam from under the tail section of my pro bilke vertically to the ground in the smoke during a burn-out to raise the dander of the tech guys.... they thought I was counting distance and time to control throttle or ignition to the big end. I had the circuit board out of an old VCR mounted under the body with wires going everywhere, but connected to nothing .... I never thought of it as cheating, I thought of it as advancing the sport.

By the way, NHRA stands for No Harley Rules Anticipated. Byron Hines, the father of Pro-Stock bike racing did the bike world both a service and dis-service. Good for him, he made millions off Harley Davidson creating the Pro-Stock Bike Class at NHRA. How much was under the table to the NHRA on that deal?.

He also made sure the rule book represented what he had to have to compete against the Suzuki's and Kawasaki's - a real dis-service to heads up racing.

Harley's were allowed to have EFI. Byron's EFI is F-1 Racing quality, very, very expensive and banned on Suzuki's and Kaw's. That means it has traction control !!!! The NHRA admitted they didn't know how to determine if traction control was part of their EFI.
Advantage; Harley.
Diadvantage; Suzuki and Kawasaki.

Did I get too far off topic?

 

[jesse]

At one time i watched Nascar until earnhart hit terry labonte on the last lap so he could win the race, Terry made a good statement afterwords about haveing to do that to win .
The same thing happened to boxing when they gave ali some of his later fights,because he drew the money.
Just my view ,a lot of people see it different.

 

[Mike]

Mike you ever heard of Wayne County Speed?

Now Ron, at no point did I ever mention who owned the above-mentioned Pro Stock Dodge.

And where I come from, if you have plans to turn the car in any direction, you better put the chute out long before you get there.

That entire mess was when the thinly-veiled politics in drag racing stepped in and took over. But it's nothing we haven't witnessed in all other forms of motorsports, *cough* NASCAR *cough* included. The people that think Cup racing is genuine are the same people that think championship wrestling is genuine. Tons of money are on the NASCAR table and races are carefully choreographed to provide the best bang for the buck. Have you ever noticed how the race announcers go on and on about the pit stop strategies being used during yellow flags? The only strategy involved is how NASCAR feels they can best manipulate caution periods to make a routine moment appear thrilling and exciting. NASCAR is in the business of selling advertising rights and television broadcasting rights, not running races.

I remember hearing Robin Miller being interviewed on a local radio program and making the comment that Bill France sits at his desk on Monday mornings, pulls a dart from a desk drawer, throws it at the dartboard hung on his office door and the name his dart hits is the winner of Sunday's race. "Get Brian Vickers on the phone and let him know he'll be in the winner's circle this week."

If you doubt any of this, get real dispassionate about a particular race and then watch it without a care for who wins. But be careful, because you'll see things happening you never noticed before. You'll watch Billy-Bob Backmarker, who has run dead last in every race this year suddenly start running 2 MPH faster than the race leaders to take the Aunt Eunice's Bait Shop, Hair Care & Tire Center-Hardees-McDonalds-Burger King-Taco Bell-Olive Garden-Outback Steakhouse-Jack In the Box-Snap-On-Craftsman-Mac Tools-AT&T-Verizon-T-Mobile-Budweiser-Miller-Coors-Jack Daniels-Jim Beam-Southern Comfort-Skoal-Tide-Glade-Cheerios-Pop Tarts-Captain Crunch-Raisin Bran-WalMart-K-Mart-Target-Dollar General-Army-Navy-Air Force-Marine Corps-Coast Guard-National Guard-Lowes-Menards-Home Depot-Ace Hardware #583 Nash Metropolitan to the second place position to help push *insert favored driver's name here* to victory.

What people fail to pick up on is all the money they don't see. People crowd around the television to watch the Teutuls and Vinnie throw temper tantrums and build bikes. Have you ever noticed all the retail stores selling American Chopper apparel? The money isn't in the bikes, it's in all the advertising rights.

Now think about all the NASCAR-branded coolers, cups, glasses, plates, bowls, picnic baskets, shirts, shoes, trousers, shorts, coats, jackets, hats, umbrellas, bumper stickers, license plates, mouse pads and door mats you own. And if you decide you want to sponsor a Cup team, you'll not only spend millions for signage on the race car, but you will also have to pay NASCAR for the opportunity to be a sponsor. And what do you suppose Fox will be spending to broadcast the Daytona 500, this weekend? And we're not looking at the 167,000+ planks to park your butt, the standing room space or the infield space they will be selling admission to. Do you still think this is really about racing?

 

[RPM]

The people that think Cup racing is genuine are the same people that think championship wrestling is genuine.

Oh come on now surely you don't think thay Pro Wrestling is fake. LOL Yes I believe that nascar is all fake and set up just like wrestling. One driver does something and he is penalized X amount of points another driver does the same thing and nothing happens. Different rules for different folks.

 

[T-Test]

These very things that you speak of is the reason that I will never support any "Proffesional Sports" again. To much money for them and not enough real talent for me. Who on this earth is worth millions of dollars a year just to do what we all did as kids for fun? Some have talent but most are picked for 'The Money to be made."