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Welcome to the Cup Scene Daily for
Vol. III,No.VIXII FINAL EDITION
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Quote of the day: "No matter what, and I mean no matter what, don't let me talk you into pitting (under green).That's bitten us every time here. I'm gonna gripe, cry and complain about wanting to pit, but don't listen to me."- Dale Earnhardt Jr.to car chief Tony Eury Jr. during the first caution of the Subway 400. 7 DAY ARCHIVE SundayMonday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday INSIDE TODAY'S ISSUE: Recent test sessions will be reference tool at Vegas Jeff Burton signs Hot Wheels for Darlington Team Sports Shareholders Sue Former TRAC Series Officials Newman aims for Cup's pole record NASCAR 3D IMAX Experience Premieres in Hollywood Junior plans on have a gas at Vegas for his milestone Riggs fastest at Atlanta NASCAR types switch gears for SPEED Channel program Nemechek wants to maintain spot in Top 10 Spencer speaks out, again Kahne eyes bright future Zoom Lens: NASCAR Everything I Need to Know About NASCAR I Learned From Judge Judy (and other media ramblings) Cup Scene readers speak out about the new point system
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Happy Birthday: Rick Mast, Gary Myers, Pat Tryson, Chris Passantino With every race, track workers put their lives on the line, scrambling on and off tracks to clean up twisted metal, rubber shreds and other debris. They often work in traffic, among fast cars and in places where drivers cannot always see them.
Daytona Beach police ruled the death an accident, but officials of the IPOWERacing series for compact cars are still trying to determine what, if anything, could have been done to prevent it. "We will monitor the investigation and make sure that anything that might come out of that investigation that can help us improve our system will certainly be looked at closely," NASCAR spokesman Jim Hunter said. Among the three biggest American series - NASCAR, the IRL and the Champ Car World Series - that compete for TV ratings and fans, it's moments like this that unify them. Most track safety workers are part-timers - emergency room doctors, paramedics, nurses, firefighters - who do it because they love the sport, not to get rich. Unlike drivers, track workers do not benefit from sophisticated equipment such as head and neck restraints and soft wall barriers, or cars designed to absorb the impact of a crash. Though the track safety workers usually wear brightly colored uniforms, they are virtually defenseless if a driver cannot react quickly enough or, worse yet, doesn't see them. IRL workers don't even wear helmets because, Brown said, it limits peripheral vision. "When you sit a couple inches off the ground, everything looks like racetrack," said Lon Bromley, director of the Champ Car safety team. "When a person is walking on a racetrack, he blends in. "Safety workers need to understand that they're out there on the driver's turf and they need to be accountable out there," he added. "But there's always a risk when we put a worker on the track." The question now being asked is what can be done to better protect the most vulnerable people on the track? Bromley has never had a safety worked killed on the track, and since the IRL's formation in 1996, neither has Brown. Their precautions include: -Parking emergency vehicles on the track in front of workers to shield them from cars. -Sending safety teams onto the track in vehicles with flashing lights and using at least one crew member to direct traffic while others clean up debris. Different colored flags also are used as a warning. -Using radio contact to inform race control officials, drivers and spotters how and where to direct drivers out of the workers' way. However, Randy Claypoole, executive vice president for IPOWERacing, said the investigation into Weaver's death has revealed some safety procedures were not followed. "Communication has to take place," Claypoole said. "Furthermore, a safety was supposed to be placed between the worker and several drivers have said they never saw a truck to warn them." Drivers in the race, however, said the crash occurred on the most dangerous part of the track, where there is only 200 yards of visibility. Ray Paprota, the first known paraplegic to compete in a national stock-car race series, had just left the pits and was trying to catch up to the main pack. Claypoole said that was normal race procedure in the IPOWERacing series, which was running its first race as the sanctioning body of the IPOWER Dash 150. Witnesses said that as Paprota came into Turn 2, he appeared to spot Weaver and immediately hit his brakes, which are operated by a lever behind his steering wheel. The car fishtailed, and the rear of the passenger side struck Weaver. IPOWER's next race is April 10 at Hickory, N.C., and there is no indication about whether there'll be any new policies. "If something can be changed, we'll change it," Claypoole said. But as racing officials search for better ways to protect their workers, Bromley, Brown and others know it will always be a risky job. "You have to have a game plan in place the whole time," Brown said. "But you can't worry about it." Recent test sessions will be reference tool at Vegas March 4Bring out the notebooks, or rather, the laptops. Teams will be doing just that this week at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, site of Sunday's UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400. Taking notes took on added importance in January, when the preseason test sessions came west to LVMS.
The 1.5-mile track will host the first event of the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup season using softer tires that are noticeably different from last year -- tires designed to have adequate grip, but a grip that lessens as more laps are run, in effect making tire management a real concern for teams as they determine their set-ups. The softer tires are designed to lose grip over the course of the race, while the smaller spoiler is designed to decrease downforce - all of which should combine to give the drivers greater control of their race cars. The rear spoilers will now be 5 1/2 inches in height, a decrease of three-quarters of an inch from last season. The season-opening race at Daytona International Speedway and the following race at Rockingham (N.C.) were anomalies. The rules changes weren't implemented at Daytona, and Rockingham's abrasive surface chews up tires, anyway. So, Las Vegas will provide the first true test for NASCAR's new rules package that will be in effect at all of the tracks besides Daytona and Talladega (Ala.). Well, the second test. A total of 34 Nextel Cup teams tested the new rules at Las Vegas in January. That first test is what has Wallace confident he will finally be able to snap out of his 100-race winless streak. "It was a pretty good test for the softer tires and decreased downforce rules. We have to be excited about the way we stacked up with everybody overall," he said. "It'll be back to where you'll see mostly four-tire stops, and that puts a big premium on the work the guys do on pit road." In addition, the track's configuration will produce the first true showcase for those new, shorter spoiler heights. This also should usher in a period of truer exams for the drivers, with cars less aero-dependent. Simply put, the new tire/spoiler combination should produce a "less car, more driver" equation. An outspoken fan of that potential situation is 2002 series champion Tony Stewart (No. 20 Home Depot Chevrolet).
"Hopefully it'll take some of the fuel-mileage racing out of the equation, because we'll have the sort of tire wear where guys will have to pit and take on four tires instead of just getting gas to improve their track position," said Stewart. "The new rules should get our racing back to the way it used to be, where we have to rely more on tire management than fuel mileage."
John Darby, the director of the Nextel Cup Series, said that race fans probably will not notice a significant difference from the changes.
"I think our feeling right now is that the racing is pretty good," Darby said. "Obviously, we work really hard to promote side-by-side racing and at least to provide the opportunity and abilities for a faster car to pass a slower one in front of him.
"The changes will be small enough and slow enough that we won't see a drastic difference on the race track. The merits behind it are more to address some problems that we see coming at us that could potentially distract from what we are doing on Sunday [now]."
"I don't worry about rules changes or different tires. I like the tires, and I like the spoiler. We all have to use it. If they gave me a different spoiler, I'd be upset."
"It's still too early to tell [how the racing will be]," Stewart said. "I'm not sure it'll be exactly the way it was [a few years ago], but it will be a step toward how it used to be. In all reality, it'll be just another phase of how the competition side of this sport has evolved since I first came here."
From rookie Kasey Kahne (No. 9 Dodge Dealers-UAW Dodge): "We should get a better idea this weekend about how the new aero rules and softer tire will play out. I really like the new tire, because it puts more control into my hands."
Stewart said the absolute true test of the "new" tire may not come until next week's event in Atlanta.
"The performance of the tires has always fallen off at Vegas, but the new tire is falling off a little bit more, obviously," Stewart said. "But that's a good thing. It's what a lot of the drivers have wanted for a long time because the fuel mileage and track position games we saw played last year have been taken out of the equation this year."
Added Bobby Labonte (No. 18 Interstate Batteries Chevrolet): "With the [different] tire, when the test was there [in January], speeds were fast for a few laps, but they definitely gave up a lot, so we'll have to adapt to that, make sure that we do a good job of getting our car balanced as good as possible."
It's a learning period, Stewart said, one that started at the NASCAR Preseason Thunder sessions at Las Vegas.
Notebooks, at this point, are mandatory.
"But I think that suits [our] team well," Stewart said. "We can take a new set of circumstances and pinpoint all of the variables to find a new combination that works for us on the race track."
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