AP News, April 6th, 2007
From week to week throughout the NASCAR season, AP Sports Writer Chris Jenkins asks _ and answers _ the big questions circling the garages and race tracks:
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Q: What, exactly, did Jeff Gordon expect Jimmie Johnson to do at the finish at Martinsville?
A: Get out of his way, I guess. Funny how that didn't work out.
After Johnson beat Gordon in an aggressive but respectful duel to a 1-2 finish at Martinsville Speedway, you figured Johnson and Gordon would get out of their cars, exchange manhugs, and wish each other well. Maybe Gordon, the teacher, would give Johnson, the student, a friendly "nuggie."
Instead, Gordon seemed pretty terse _ at least according to Jeff Gordon standards _ in his postrace television interview, hinting that he wasn't happy about the way Johnson held his ground and that next time, he'd bump him harder.
There's give-and-take courtesy in racing, where slower cars are expected to yield to faster cars. But Gordon has been around long enough that such rules don't apply at the end of the race _ even if the guy in front of you is your teammate, and you helped him get his job.
But if Gordon wants his teammate to move over so he can win a race, he'll have to change his name to Schumacher, hire Rubens Barrichello and go race in Europe.
Maybe Gordon figured Johnson owed him one because Gordon helped get Johnson hired at Hendrick Motorsports and has been a mentor and friend ever since. But did Gordon tell Rick Hendrick to hire Johnson because he seemed like the kind of guy who'd give up a race victory because he's a nice guy?
Didn't think so.
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Q: So what's the protocol between teammates when racing for position?
A: This isn't the elite Formula One series, where top teams usually have an established No. 1 driver and that driver's teammate is expected to yield to him on the track.
That was the arrangement for years at the Ferrari team, where Michael Schumacher was No. 1 and Barrichello existed to get out of his way. Schumacher has since retired; Barrichello, presumably, has been hired as his butler.
But it doesn't work that way in NASCAR, where each driver has his own corporate sponsors and those sponsors are paying big money because they expect their guy to try to win. So on the track, there usually aren't orders from team owners beyond expecting drivers to race each other without wrecking each other.
Of course, we've already seen that basic rule violated when Juan Pablo Montoya took out teammate Scott Pruett in the Busch Series race at Mexico City _ without any apparent consequences for Montoya.
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Q: What's the latest on the proposed NASCAR track near Seattle?
A: It's deader than grunge music and the halibut being slung around the Pike Place Market.
What a shame.
We were really looking forward to the expanded sponsorship opportunities that could have come with a move to the Pacific Northwest. Someday, we'd hoped to see Ward Burton get out of his race car in a flannel firesuit and tell the cameras how well his Starbucks Prius was handling that day.
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Q: Why wouldn't somebody want a NASCAR track in their area?
A: Um, have you ever been to a NASCAR track?
And when you were sitting in all that traffic at 5:30 a.m. _ and again at 8 p.m. _ were you struck by all the signs of vibrant economic development (read: temporary stand selling firewood and No. 3 belt buckles) the track obviously had attracted to the area, and thinking how great it would be to live there?
Me neither.
There seems to be a healthy dose of skepticism over whether it's wise to spend taxpayer money on building a racetrack and suspicions about trumped-up economic impact statements _ all legitimate concerns, particularly after Darrell Waltrip offered to build it with his own money.
He was joking. They weren't.
But there seemed to be something else at work here: a little bit of elitism.
According to media reports, one lawmaker said he thought Richard Petty _ who won't allow his team to accept alcohol advertising on moral grounds _ had been picked up for a DUI.
And according to the Seattle Times, state rep. Larry Seaquist said, "These people are not the kind of people you would want living next door to you. They'd be the ones with the junky cars in the front yard and would try to slip around the law."
Seaquist later said he was referring to racetrack promoters _ in which case he's way off.
All the racetrack promoters we know drive pretty nice cars.
