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| Courtesy Thomas Vick, Evergreen Speedway (click to enlarge)
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| Street Stock division in action at Evergreen Speedway on June 20. |
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What We Learned: Dirt Cup and more
Posted
at
2:25 pm
by Scott Whitmore
The final night of the 38th annual Jim Raper Memorial Dirt Cup at Skagit Speedway lived up to all the hype preceding it. Great racing, great atmosphere, great crowd.
The first 10 laps of the Race of Champions, with a see-saw battle between defending champion and eventual winner Jayme Barnes of Marysville and Tyler Walker of Los Angeles, was great.
Barnes jumped out to the lead at the green flag, but Walker got past him coming out of turn 2. Then Barnes went down and around on the backstretch to take the lead back. And so on and so on.
I’ve thought about it some and I’m going to say that the battle between Barnes and Walker was the best racing — any series, any type, anywhere — that I’ve seen so far this year, in person or on the tube.
Dirt Cup was also the first time in a couple years — since covering state high school baseball— that I’ve worked alongside other sportswriters and media folks. I think, especially over a three-day event, working next to peers — sharing information, helping with fact-checking, swapping sea stories — adds something to the experience.
I must be more comfortable with what I’m doing now, too, as I didn’t have any concerns about whether I was missing something because someone else was working a different angle or lead. That’s not to say my work was any better — it’s not: I read he others after Dirt Cup was over — just that I’ve got my way of doing things, and it works for me.
I’m glad I was able to be there to see the Dirt Cup in person. Once again, my thanks to everyone at Skagit Speedway, especially Steve and Debbie Beitler, Kaleb Hart, Seth Sands and Brian Simonseth, for making my job so much easier when they themselves were pretty busy.RANDOM THOUGHTS
A welcome sight: Really enjoyed seeing Richard Petty in Victory Lane again after Sunday’s NASCAR Cup race at Infineon. Been way too long, hasn’t it?
Go boom: I caught the beginning of the IndyCar race at Iowa on Sunday before heading out to enjoy Father’s Day, just enough to see several of those expensive toys smacking into walls. Although not as spectacular as a Formula One car hitting something, the IndyCar chassis leaves a lot of debris after hitting something.
Saw by the results, too, that there were just a handful of cars on the lead lap at the end at the end … makes me wonder if it’s worth watching the replay.
Double-file restarts and single pit stops: I’m wondering when the double-file restarts (“shootout style,” as the NASCAR PR instructions want us to call them) are going to be introduced in the Nationwide and Truck series. For the life of me I can’t see why they haven’t been already.
And let’s hope the rumors are true and NASCAR is going to cancel the Truck series rule prohibiting tires and fuel in the same pit stop. Crew chiefs hate it, owners hate it, drivers hate it, and I hate it.
Danica to NASCAR? One of the things us media-types discussed at length during down periods at Skagit Speedway was the ongoing soap opera of “Will Danica Patrick Jump to NASCAR?”
The general consensus we came up with is that she will go whichever way makes her the most money. And make no mistake: the money will be there, even in these tough times, because Danica is sponsored to the hilt — every other commercial on an IndyCar broadcast has her in it.
Should she jump to NASCAR, she will be looking to start at the top, not the bottom, of the ladder, and with a top-tier team. So which of the Big 4 — Hendrick, Roush, Childress or Gibbs — would be a possibility?
Beyond the lack of success his teams are having this year Richard Childress is probably out because he said she would have to spend some time in a lower series, Nationwide or Trucks, before racing in Cup.
Rick Hendrick is set with his four teams, and Jack Roush will have to cut a team before next year. That leaves Joe Gibbs, who is thinking about adding a fourth team. If money is the issue holding Gibbs back, Danica would be the answer. Take a second, though, and imagine a team meeting with Kyle Busch and Danica Patrick in it.
Here’s another thought: Danica joins Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman at Stewart-Haas Racing, which gets its hardware from Hendrick. All kinds of tie-ins with this idea: She’s originally from Illinois, Smoke and Rocket are Hoosiers — we could call them the Midwest Gang; Smoke came out of IndyCars and can help her with the transition; etc.
Personally, I think she’s trying to drive up her price for a stay in IndyCar, probably with one of the top two: Ganassi or Penske. But at least it gives us something to talk about until the end of the season.
F1 turmoil: On the other hand, the current unrest in Formula One didn’t get much of a rise out of anyone I talked to at Skagit Speedway. There’s just no denying the fact that F1 is more popular overseas than it is here in the U.S.
For those that care, I think there will be a resolution to the current rift in Formula One that has pitted most current teams against the governing body. It will probably be a compromise that leans too much in the direction of the teams, however, as they have the upper hand. The governing body had the right idea to cut costs and get more teams into the sport, but the way they went about it was too heavy-handed. Better luck next time.PHOTO CREDIT
The only downside to covering Dirt Cup was missing Saturday night's racing at Evergreen Speedway. I missed just one race night all of last season, so it was a tough decision to make.
Today's photo shows some of what happened in my absence, with the Street Stocks in action on the three-eighths mile oval. Thanks to Thomas Vick, Evergreen's track photographer for the shot.SCORECARD
Oh-fer again this week. Zero, zip, nada, nothing.
'Nuff said.
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