Written by Monte Dutton Sun, 2017-07-30 19:21
I miss the stock car racing of my youth mainly because I miss my youth.
My hero was David Pearson. He was from up the super highway. Occasionally, my dad bumped into him when he landed his twin-engined plane at the Spartanburg Downtown Airport because Leo Sell, whom my father retained as a crop duster, flew in and out of there, too.
Pearson grew up on a mill hill. They called them hills whether they had any or not. My grandfather worked most of a half century in a mill. I worked at one in the summer. Third shift. I went to college so I wouldn’t work in a mill anymore. Pearson raced stock cars.
Written by Monte Dutton Mon, 2017-07-24 13:00
In 1994, when NASCAR first held a major race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, it was considered the greatest thing since sliced bread (with apologies to Joey Logano, who vitamin-enriched his several years later).
Now it’s moldy, old bread. Its approval rating is right up there with TrumpCare.
I wrote about every Cup race at Indy except one through 2012. I don’t think last year’s race, won by Kyle Busch, was much different from the first, won by Jeff Gordon. Like so much else in NASCAR, the race went out of style. It went from a big deal to a ho-hum. The first Brickyard 400 had the highest attendance of any stock car race in history. Last year’s race had about 20 percent as many. The world’s most famous race track had over 200,000 empty seats.
Written by Monte Dutton Sun, 2017-07-16 19:22
Can you sense a bit of panic in the air?
Gosh. Life is so distracting. A man (or, I hasten to add, a woman) can’t pay attention to any one thing, so, naturally he (she) doesn’t pay attention to anything.
Take NASCAR. Please.
If it’s a great race, the TV ratings plunge. If it’s a lousy race, they plunge. If it’s modestly interesting, guess what happens? An argument can be made that it doesn’t matter. NASCAR fell into Johnny Cash’s burning ring of fire.
Wood Brothers Racing, the oldest active NASCAR team and one of the winningest teams in series history, and veteran driver Paul Menard, will join forces for the 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENSC) season, the two parties announced today. The new partnership will see the team continue to compete full time for the coming seasons with Menard driving the legendary No. 21 Ford Fusion.
