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RobbyG Fan
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My Two Cents Worth
Todd Berger -- TR Staff
I waited until today to write this week’s column, expecting some things to happen that didn’t. I guess that’s what you get when you rely on mainstream media sources like the Boston Herald and other fiction outlets. Despite their claims that Ricky Craven would replace Robby Gordon at Dover, the likable New Englander remains without a ride and Robby Gordon remains in the Cingular Chevy…at least for this week.
Well, the first of the final ten races that comprise the Chase for the Championship is over, and what did we learn?
We learned that no amount of hype could make good racing at a bad track, which Loudon clearly is.
We learned that the top ten drivers in “the chase” are not immune to involvement in other drivers’ messes on the track. (I will address this in depth later).
Over the last two weeks, we also learned that some of the drivers in “the chase” have a fairly high opinion of their place in racing now, and some of them expect that the have-nots should not race them the same way, as they would have in the past.
We learned that anytime Jimmie Johnson is involved in any kind of accident or even sees such an incident, he and he alone will decide who is “the idiot,” and he will then refer to that driver and his actions as “the idiot” and “idiotic” for the remainder of the day.
I personally learned that I would never ever like Kurt Busch. I can’t. As far as my wife and myself are concerned, if Kurt wins the title, we may have to start watching something else on Sundays. The combination of him winning the Cup and Roush winning his first title would be too much for me to take.
(Remember, Jack Roush wasn’t the official owner of Matt Kenseth’s car last year. Mark Martin was listed as the winning owner).
Now that some of that stuff is out of the way, let’s get to some of the bigger stories.
Despite NASCAR’s best efforts, immeasurable hype, advertising, marketing and mantra repeating, it seems that TV ratings are still down from last year. I know it’s only 6%, but that certainly cannot be a confidence builder for NEXTEL, NBC or NASCAR.
Hey Brian, where are those millions upon millions of fans and, more importantly, viewers that you assured us would be here when we got to Loudon? Maybe they don’t understand your explanation of The Chase and our need for it either.
I’m sure you’re all familiar with the saying “where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” This week, rumors continued to swirl around Jamie McMurray as they relate to him being the replacement for Rusty Wallace in the Miller Lite Dodge starting in 2006. Rusty is denying it, Jamie is denying it and Chip Ganassi is denying it, but I don’t think any of that matters. As much play as this rumor is getting, I have to believe that it’s more than innuendo and lip service at this point. Clearly there is something to it, and I am betting that we will hear more about this once the 2004 season is over and teams start really looking at 2006.
In what appears to be the rule rather than the exception, rumors are also in the air about Kodak and the 77 team evaluating other drivers to possibly replace Brendan Gaughan. He’s been in Cup racing for exactly 27 races. This, I fear, is the downside of this ridiculous young gun movement in NASCAR.
It used to be that a driver couldn’t even begin to expect a quality ride until he was 30 or well into his 30’s. Then, along came Davey Allison in 1987 and Jeff Gordon in 1992, and before long, every team wanted the next wunderkind. Over the next decade, we got Tony Stewart, Dale Jr., Matt Kenseth, and then the explosion of youth with Casey Atwood, Andy Houston, Ryan Newman, Kurt and Kyle Busch, Brian Vickers and Kasey Kahne.
Every owner is now so focused on finding “the next young star” that the owners and sponsors are no longer willing to wait to develop a driver’s talent and experience as well as the team’s chemistry. One only has to look at Casey Atwood, Andy Houston and now Gaughan as examples of where this idea was and is flawed. Another example of a driver affected by this is Jason Leffler, who is now being rumored as the new driver for the #11 Joe Gibbs Racing FedEx Chevy for 2005.
Let’s see: Big team + big money sponsor + big hype and big expectations = (in all likelihood) disappointment from the driver, team and sponsor. Then, the sponsor feels they may not have gotten their money’s worth, and they become gun-shy and are less likely to stay in at their current level of sponsorship or at all. That hurts everyone, including Brian and the Company.
Now, it is time to address the Robby Gordon mess from Sunday.
On lap 17, Robby Gordon made an aggressive but clean pass on Greg Biffle entering turn one. In the center of the corner, Biffle got into the back of the 31 and turned him around, sending him crashing into the wall.
Robby radioed to his team what had occurred, and then spoke the following sentence clearly:
“I’ll get him.”
That was his biggest mistake.
On lap 65, Biffle passed Robby and Robby punted the 16 in similar fashion as was done to him. Unfortunately, title contender Jeremy Mayfield was outside of Biffle and Tony Stewart was fast approaching, ultimately t-boning the 16 and ending his day. Mayfield would return 49 laps down to finish 35th while Stewart would finish 39th.
(One side note here: Tony Stewart was remarkably composed after the incident, for which I commend him. Mayfield was not as calm, but I can understand his anger).
Now, let’s address the first issue: did Biffle turn Robby intentionally?
Of course he did. Every driver from the Truck Series and higher knows that, if you hit a car from behind in the first half of a corner, he’s going to spin out. There is simply no saving a car under braking when it’s hit from behind. Biffle knows this. Robby knows this. Hell, I know this. So for Biffle to say it was an accident was and is ludicrous. Greg has a history of being very aggressive, and he has made this move on other drivers in the past. So Greg’s “I didn’t mean to do it” is irrelevant.
Should Robby have stated on the radio that he was going to “get him?”
Of course not. I never said that Robby always executed the most self-control, discipline, or good judgment.
Should Robby have wrecked Biffle intentionally? I say yes. In this sport, it’s eat or be eaten. Want to know what a successful Cup driver that doesn’t police his sport himself or defend himself has to say on the matter? Too bad. Because there isn’t one. The last driver that let everyone run over him was Scott Pruett, and you see how well his career is going. Even the kindest and most levelheaded drivers occasionally take matters into their own hands. Matt Kenseth and Jamie McMurray come to mind from this year.
One other little detail here. On lap 114, Robby was a little loose exiting turn two. Sterling Marlin was behind him and never lifted (a’la Biffle on Marlin exiting turn one at Watkins Glen just a few weeks ago) and spun him around. Did Marlin get penalized two laps? No. Did NASCAR reprimand Marlin? Of course not. That’s how NASCAR operates. They were kind enough to throw the caution, however.
And think about this. Tony Stewart ran thru the first half of this year like a wrecking ball, exacting revenge and handing out discipline at every turn. Yet NASCAR, in its infinite wisdom, chose only to discipline Tony in the form of a fine, and only after a near series-wide mutiny. Meanwhile, Robby can get himself warned by NASCAR for rough driving…AT BRISTOL…ON LAP ONE!!!
I can cite chapter and verse the number of times Robby has been done wrong by NASCAR, but I won’t. Let’s just say that if it were anyone else and any other owner, they’d be whining so loud that their silly straw hat would explode.
Now, let’s consider Robby’s position for a moment. He won his first Cup race in 2001 at Loudon, beating that year’s champ Jeff Gordon. That was also Lowe’s first win as a sponsor. Since 2002, Robby Gordon has the same number of wins as teammate Kevin Harvick. Yet Gordon’s team is always available for the 29 crew to pick over for its own benefit, including crew chiefs, car chiefs, crewmen, etc. Robby has worked hard in inferior equipment for almost three years, has three wins, and yet he is constantly in the rumor mill.
Robby is and always has been an outsider. He is an open-wheeler and a Californian. NASCAR has been absurd in their application of rules and penalties to Robby over the years while showing leniency to other teams and drivers, including Tony Stewart, Kurt Busch, Jeff Gordon, Dale Jarrett, Rusty Wallace, Matt Kenseth, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and even Kevin Harvick.
Now consider what’s happened to Robby this year. He is obviously (in my opinion) out of the Cingular Chevy by the end of this year. At Sonoma, on a track that he contends on frequently and won on last year, his team “forgot” to tighten the lugs on a wheel to start the race, causing Robby to wreck. Then, on subsequent stops, they forgot to stow a chain properly, resulting in repeated tire failures. Yet Robby refused to blame anyone. He just said the team would work harder.
At Indy, Robby had a top five car until a flat tire late in the going. Robby radioed in the he was “coming in right now.” His crew chief advised against it, and in the process of making another lap around the 2.5-mile track, Robby’s tire exploded, tearing the car to shreds and ending any hopes of a good finish.
I contend that the Sonoma “mistake” was intentional, and the Indy deal was the result of a crew chief and team that had quit on a driver, despite the driver not having quit on the team.
Robby is obviously good with his sponsor and is great with his fans, of which there are many. He has won in every series he has competed in, which now includes the Busch Series after he won at Richmond two weeks ago. He is a favorite to win two races a year and a threat to win several more, even while driving inferior equipment. I simply don’t know what else anyone can expect of a driver.
I hope that Robby leaves RCR after this year, runs his two-car Busch team, wins the title in 2005, and then comes back as an owner-driver in 2006. I think, with the Busch programs established and running well, he can survive and prosper in an owner-driver role in Cup.
That does not mean, however, that I think NASCAR will give him the same fifth and sixth chances they give other drivers. But that’s okay. Robby’s been doing more with less for longer than any of these guys care to know. I do hope, however, that he could somehow win a race before the end of the year, if for no other reason than to promote Cingular and to thumb his nose at NASCAR and Nextel.
Hey…one can dream.
Todd Berger -- TR Staff
I waited until today to write this week’s column, expecting some things to happen that didn’t. I guess that’s what you get when you rely on mainstream media sources like the Boston Herald and other fiction outlets. Despite their claims that Ricky Craven would replace Robby Gordon at Dover, the likable New Englander remains without a ride and Robby Gordon remains in the Cingular Chevy…at least for this week.
Well, the first of the final ten races that comprise the Chase for the Championship is over, and what did we learn?
We learned that no amount of hype could make good racing at a bad track, which Loudon clearly is.
We learned that the top ten drivers in “the chase” are not immune to involvement in other drivers’ messes on the track. (I will address this in depth later).
Over the last two weeks, we also learned that some of the drivers in “the chase” have a fairly high opinion of their place in racing now, and some of them expect that the have-nots should not race them the same way, as they would have in the past.
We learned that anytime Jimmie Johnson is involved in any kind of accident or even sees such an incident, he and he alone will decide who is “the idiot,” and he will then refer to that driver and his actions as “the idiot” and “idiotic” for the remainder of the day.
I personally learned that I would never ever like Kurt Busch. I can’t. As far as my wife and myself are concerned, if Kurt wins the title, we may have to start watching something else on Sundays. The combination of him winning the Cup and Roush winning his first title would be too much for me to take.
(Remember, Jack Roush wasn’t the official owner of Matt Kenseth’s car last year. Mark Martin was listed as the winning owner).
Now that some of that stuff is out of the way, let’s get to some of the bigger stories.
Despite NASCAR’s best efforts, immeasurable hype, advertising, marketing and mantra repeating, it seems that TV ratings are still down from last year. I know it’s only 6%, but that certainly cannot be a confidence builder for NEXTEL, NBC or NASCAR.
Hey Brian, where are those millions upon millions of fans and, more importantly, viewers that you assured us would be here when we got to Loudon? Maybe they don’t understand your explanation of The Chase and our need for it either.
I’m sure you’re all familiar with the saying “where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” This week, rumors continued to swirl around Jamie McMurray as they relate to him being the replacement for Rusty Wallace in the Miller Lite Dodge starting in 2006. Rusty is denying it, Jamie is denying it and Chip Ganassi is denying it, but I don’t think any of that matters. As much play as this rumor is getting, I have to believe that it’s more than innuendo and lip service at this point. Clearly there is something to it, and I am betting that we will hear more about this once the 2004 season is over and teams start really looking at 2006.
In what appears to be the rule rather than the exception, rumors are also in the air about Kodak and the 77 team evaluating other drivers to possibly replace Brendan Gaughan. He’s been in Cup racing for exactly 27 races. This, I fear, is the downside of this ridiculous young gun movement in NASCAR.
It used to be that a driver couldn’t even begin to expect a quality ride until he was 30 or well into his 30’s. Then, along came Davey Allison in 1987 and Jeff Gordon in 1992, and before long, every team wanted the next wunderkind. Over the next decade, we got Tony Stewart, Dale Jr., Matt Kenseth, and then the explosion of youth with Casey Atwood, Andy Houston, Ryan Newman, Kurt and Kyle Busch, Brian Vickers and Kasey Kahne.
Every owner is now so focused on finding “the next young star” that the owners and sponsors are no longer willing to wait to develop a driver’s talent and experience as well as the team’s chemistry. One only has to look at Casey Atwood, Andy Houston and now Gaughan as examples of where this idea was and is flawed. Another example of a driver affected by this is Jason Leffler, who is now being rumored as the new driver for the #11 Joe Gibbs Racing FedEx Chevy for 2005.
Let’s see: Big team + big money sponsor + big hype and big expectations = (in all likelihood) disappointment from the driver, team and sponsor. Then, the sponsor feels they may not have gotten their money’s worth, and they become gun-shy and are less likely to stay in at their current level of sponsorship or at all. That hurts everyone, including Brian and the Company.
Now, it is time to address the Robby Gordon mess from Sunday.
On lap 17, Robby Gordon made an aggressive but clean pass on Greg Biffle entering turn one. In the center of the corner, Biffle got into the back of the 31 and turned him around, sending him crashing into the wall.
Robby radioed to his team what had occurred, and then spoke the following sentence clearly:
“I’ll get him.”
That was his biggest mistake.
On lap 65, Biffle passed Robby and Robby punted the 16 in similar fashion as was done to him. Unfortunately, title contender Jeremy Mayfield was outside of Biffle and Tony Stewart was fast approaching, ultimately t-boning the 16 and ending his day. Mayfield would return 49 laps down to finish 35th while Stewart would finish 39th.
(One side note here: Tony Stewart was remarkably composed after the incident, for which I commend him. Mayfield was not as calm, but I can understand his anger).
Now, let’s address the first issue: did Biffle turn Robby intentionally?
Of course he did. Every driver from the Truck Series and higher knows that, if you hit a car from behind in the first half of a corner, he’s going to spin out. There is simply no saving a car under braking when it’s hit from behind. Biffle knows this. Robby knows this. Hell, I know this. So for Biffle to say it was an accident was and is ludicrous. Greg has a history of being very aggressive, and he has made this move on other drivers in the past. So Greg’s “I didn’t mean to do it” is irrelevant.
Should Robby have stated on the radio that he was going to “get him?”
Of course not. I never said that Robby always executed the most self-control, discipline, or good judgment.
Should Robby have wrecked Biffle intentionally? I say yes. In this sport, it’s eat or be eaten. Want to know what a successful Cup driver that doesn’t police his sport himself or defend himself has to say on the matter? Too bad. Because there isn’t one. The last driver that let everyone run over him was Scott Pruett, and you see how well his career is going. Even the kindest and most levelheaded drivers occasionally take matters into their own hands. Matt Kenseth and Jamie McMurray come to mind from this year.
One other little detail here. On lap 114, Robby was a little loose exiting turn two. Sterling Marlin was behind him and never lifted (a’la Biffle on Marlin exiting turn one at Watkins Glen just a few weeks ago) and spun him around. Did Marlin get penalized two laps? No. Did NASCAR reprimand Marlin? Of course not. That’s how NASCAR operates. They were kind enough to throw the caution, however.
And think about this. Tony Stewart ran thru the first half of this year like a wrecking ball, exacting revenge and handing out discipline at every turn. Yet NASCAR, in its infinite wisdom, chose only to discipline Tony in the form of a fine, and only after a near series-wide mutiny. Meanwhile, Robby can get himself warned by NASCAR for rough driving…AT BRISTOL…ON LAP ONE!!!
I can cite chapter and verse the number of times Robby has been done wrong by NASCAR, but I won’t. Let’s just say that if it were anyone else and any other owner, they’d be whining so loud that their silly straw hat would explode.
Now, let’s consider Robby’s position for a moment. He won his first Cup race in 2001 at Loudon, beating that year’s champ Jeff Gordon. That was also Lowe’s first win as a sponsor. Since 2002, Robby Gordon has the same number of wins as teammate Kevin Harvick. Yet Gordon’s team is always available for the 29 crew to pick over for its own benefit, including crew chiefs, car chiefs, crewmen, etc. Robby has worked hard in inferior equipment for almost three years, has three wins, and yet he is constantly in the rumor mill.
Robby is and always has been an outsider. He is an open-wheeler and a Californian. NASCAR has been absurd in their application of rules and penalties to Robby over the years while showing leniency to other teams and drivers, including Tony Stewart, Kurt Busch, Jeff Gordon, Dale Jarrett, Rusty Wallace, Matt Kenseth, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and even Kevin Harvick.
Now consider what’s happened to Robby this year. He is obviously (in my opinion) out of the Cingular Chevy by the end of this year. At Sonoma, on a track that he contends on frequently and won on last year, his team “forgot” to tighten the lugs on a wheel to start the race, causing Robby to wreck. Then, on subsequent stops, they forgot to stow a chain properly, resulting in repeated tire failures. Yet Robby refused to blame anyone. He just said the team would work harder.
At Indy, Robby had a top five car until a flat tire late in the going. Robby radioed in the he was “coming in right now.” His crew chief advised against it, and in the process of making another lap around the 2.5-mile track, Robby’s tire exploded, tearing the car to shreds and ending any hopes of a good finish.
I contend that the Sonoma “mistake” was intentional, and the Indy deal was the result of a crew chief and team that had quit on a driver, despite the driver not having quit on the team.
Robby is obviously good with his sponsor and is great with his fans, of which there are many. He has won in every series he has competed in, which now includes the Busch Series after he won at Richmond two weeks ago. He is a favorite to win two races a year and a threat to win several more, even while driving inferior equipment. I simply don’t know what else anyone can expect of a driver.
I hope that Robby leaves RCR after this year, runs his two-car Busch team, wins the title in 2005, and then comes back as an owner-driver in 2006. I think, with the Busch programs established and running well, he can survive and prosper in an owner-driver role in Cup.
That does not mean, however, that I think NASCAR will give him the same fifth and sixth chances they give other drivers. But that’s okay. Robby’s been doing more with less for longer than any of these guys care to know. I do hope, however, that he could somehow win a race before the end of the year, if for no other reason than to promote Cingular and to thumb his nose at NASCAR and Nextel.
Hey…one can dream.