Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

Kyle Bush beaten but is still the best

WEEKEND HEADLINES:

1. Gordon wins Phoenix Sprint Cup Race
2. Two bad ideas need a re-think

NASCAR'S BEST GETS BEATEN

Kyle Busch is the best racing driver in North America today.

That Busch, who’d earlier won the Camping World Truck Series race Friday night and the Nationwide Series stock car race Saturday eventually finished second to Jeff Gordon in the Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix International Raceway on Sunday is of no consequence.

As he said afterward, he hadn’t had the car to stay equal with Gordon and to fight for the win, but he was all alone in second place and nobody was going to take that away from him.

Defending series champion Jimmie (Five Time) Johnson was third, Kevin Harvick finished fourth and Ryan Newman rolled home fifth. Full Sprint Cup race story here.

Busch was hoping to sweep a NASCAR race weekend for the second time in his career. He’d thrown the triple for the first time at Bristol, Tenn., last season and was two-thirds of the way to his goal Sunday before Gordon got in his way.

In fact, he was winning the race with eight laps to go when Gordon finally got past him coming out of Turn 4. After that, despite continuing to charge, he couldn’t get near the eventual winner.

When I say he’s the best driver on this side of the pond, it’s because when conditions are right and his race car is humming, nobody can touch him. I’ve always thought it a shame that he hasn’t tested himself in other than the NASCAR arena because I have no doubt that he would more than hold his own.

He even appears to have calmed down – perhaps as the result of his recent marriage. He was gracious in defeat on Sunday and even started off a post-race TV interview by apologizing to fellow driver Carl Edwards for running into him early in the headline event.

He and Edwards saw a lot of each other this weekend. Busch led all 200 laps  of the Nationwide race Saturday and Edwards was right behind him the whole way. Full Nationwide Series race story here

Gordon won his first race in 66 starts Sunday, last visiting Victory Lane at Texas Motor Speedway in April of 2009. It was obvious he was rusty because he stalled his car while doing donuts after the checkers and couldn’t re-fire his car.

A wrecker had to push him and the car into the podium area for the awards presentation.

Gordon was clearly delighted.

“Wow,” he said as he passed beneath of the flagstand, checkers waving. “You guys are awesome! Are you kidding me? Pinch me, pinch me! We just beat Kyle Busch! He’s so tough to beat!”

They’ll all go at it again next weekend in Las Vegas. The racing season is well and truly under way.

Notebook Jottings:

- There was none of the two-car drafting that we saw at Daytona going on at Phoenix. In fact, there was no drafting at all. It was wonderful, foot-to-the-floor, door-handle-to-door-handle, mano a mano car racing.

-The Sprint Cup cars are going faster and faster on the short tracks like Phoenix. Heading out of the “dog-leg” betweens Turns 2 and 3, the cars were sliding right up to the wall, as they were on the main straightaway after exiting Turn 4. It was great stuff to watch.

- The race Sunday was the last at the “old” Phoenix raceway. Since it was built in 1964, the oval (there’s a road course there but the oval is where the action has been) has been a high-speed track where the Indy cars (primarily) and the stock cars have raced.

Between now and the NASCAR race in the fall, the track will be reconfigured to go from a mile to about a mile-and-a-half. They’ll do this by moving the exit from Turn 2 and the dog-leg out about 30 yards and increasing the banking between Turns 1 and 2 and Turns 3 and 4. It will be a big, wide, sweeping D track.

 It will be a faster track, that’s for sure, and perhaps more dangerous.

- Trevor Bayne, the 20-year-old who won the Daytona 500, did not have a good weekend. He crashed his race car on Friday and had to qualify the backup. He hit the wall fairly early in the race Sunday after he tried to cut in front of Travis Kvapel, and was eliminated. (His spotter let him down.) He officially finished 40^th.

The Big  One, which involved more than a dozen cars (it was a bit of a crash-fest early, with more than half the 43-car field having to stop for repairs of one kind of another), was triggered when Matt Kenseth and Brian Vickers traded a little paint exiting Turn 2 and Vickers lost control. Pow! Bam! Whammo!

Feelings were hurt but nobody was injured. Vickers blamed Kenseth but really only had himself to blame for losing control.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished 10^th, which should give him a boost.

HERE ARE TWO DUMB IDEAS (there's still time to cancel one of them)

One of the big problems in this “instant everything” age we’re living in is that people (individuals, governments, corporations) often don’t think things through.

Translation: what seems like a good idea at the time often doesn’t work out the way it’s supposed to.

For instance, the Ontario government recently cancelled contracts for wind power with several thousand landowners (primarily farmers) all over the province, not because wind power isn’t a good idea but because the province doesn’t have the transmitting capability to handle all the power being produced.

(Gee, ya think they woulda thought of that, eh?)

And with the rush to produce electric cars, it was interesting to read in Saturday’s Wheels section a story by Mark Toljagic that reported batteries – generally – aren’t as sturdy and powerful as they once were (for any number of reasons) and that a new generation of lithium batteries finding their way into electric cars don’t like cold temperatures. (Hmm. And where is it, exactly, that we live again?)

Which brings me to two things that INDYCAR and NASCAR have come up with in recent days and weeks that could have used a little more study.

First, NASACAR.

For years, up-and-coming stock car drivers complained that the stars of the Cup series were dropping down to the Busch (now Nationwide) development series, or the truck series, and stealing points, money and opportunity, not necessarily in that order, from them.

So NASCAR decided that since it can’t forbid anybody from racing in whatever series they wish (they have very strict right-to-work laws in the United States), the best thing to do would be to prevent the Cup drivers from scoring points in the lesser series.

To do this, however, and to avoid charges of discrimination, they ruled that all NASCAR licensed drivers had to declare before the season started in which series they wanted to score points. They could still run in the other series, but if they couldn’t score points, what would be the point? (Or, apparently, so went the thinking. . .)

Well, perhaps they should have served notice of doing this in a year or two, rather than instituting the rule immediately. Because now they have the Daytona 500 winner, Trevor Bayne, unable to record points in the Cup series (he’d opted for the Nationwide), which is a bit of a public-relations disaster, and they still have all the Cup drivers running in Nationwide or trucks because they either had already-signed contracts before NASCAR came up with this bright idea or else they own teams in those series.

Maybe it will work out – eventually. But the two Nationwide Series races to date have been won by Cup drivers and the current points leader – Reed Sorenson – hasn’t finished on the podium in either of them.

(In fact, get this: Danica Patrick finished 14^th at Daytona and 17^th at Phoenix and is fourth in points. Duh.)

The INDYCAR bright idea is even nutsier.

New CEO Randy Bernard has had a stellar year since he took over the top job and just about everything he’s done has deserved applause (new cars, new engines, new manufacturers, new tracks for 2012). His idea for the 2011 season-ending race at Las Vegas Speedway in October, however, might be his first mistake.

He wants to add five, non-INDYCAR regular drivers, to the field and if one of them should happen to win that final race, they would be paid a $5 million bonus.

Now, Bruton Smith owns that speedway and it was Mr. Smith who first proposed the $20-million  bonus to the first driver to win the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 at the Smith-owned Charlotte Motor Speedway on the same day.

So I wonder who came up with this brainwave . . .

But did anybody really think this thing through (see above)?

What if one of these interlopers (how about our own Jacques Villeneuve, for instance; Michael Andretti and Al Unser Jr. are some of the other names being floated) causes an accident and takes out – or injures - one of the drivers in contention for the INDYCAR championship?

How stupid is that going to make INDYCAR look? (If they’re looking for coverage, I guarantee they’ll get lots of it should that happen.)

Some of the reasoning behind this is that Bernard (or Smith, whichever; maybe both) thinks that if one of the NASCAR drivers – the Busch brothers, Kurt and Kyle, come from Las Vegas and might want to race in front of their hometown crowd – should happen to take a crack at this that it will bring incredible publicity to INDYCAR.

But that will not happen for two reasons. 1, Robert Kubica (Jimmie Johnson’s insurance company won’t let him do it because of what happened to the F1 star, not to mention Rick Hendrick) and 2, NASCAR is racing that same weekend – the night before, in fact – on the East Coast and it would be difficult (not impossible, but difficult) to finish racing a stock car in the Carolinas at 11 or midnight and then take a plane west to the desert to strap into an unfamiliar Indy car less than 18 hours later.

It’s a really dumb idea and it’s got potential for disaster and somebody should convince Mr. Bernard to throw the red flag on it before somebody gets hurt and everybody looks foolish.

There’s something else at play here that might even be the most important point of all. By doing this, INDYCAR is saying that its regular field of drivers isn’t good enough and needs some of these “star” outsiders to elevate the playing field. To “goose” the interest, so to speak.

Hmm. Wonder how Dario Franchitti, Scott Dixon, Helio Castroneves and the rest feel about that?

DYNAMIC DUO WINS AGAIN

The 2010 Canadian, American, and North American Rally Champions, Antoine L’Estage of St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que. and Nathalie Richard of Halifax, N.S. won Missouri’s Rally of the 100 Acre Wood this weekend, the second round of the Rally America series.

There's just no stopping those two.

The day Dale Earnhardt rolled over in his grave

Quick reminder: A reception to honour the life of the late Bob McAllister will be held tonight at the Musket Restaurant, 40 Advance Rd. (right off Kipling, four streets north of the Queensway).

A complementary buffet will be served at 7 p.m. Celebration to follow.

I’ll be there (here’s a link to a story I wrote when Bob died) and I hope you will be too.

It will be a gathering of the clan and there will be a million stories.

Moving right along, NASCAR is back in action at Phoenix this weekend — my favourite NASCAR speedway in a great part of the world (particularly in winter) and it really would be nice if INDYCAR could somehow find a way to get back there.

Two things: 1, it’s highly unlikely that we’ll see any of the doggy-style racing
we saw at Daytona last weekend and 2, we’ll get to see what Trevor Bayne is really made of. It’s possible that this young guy is the Real Deal. On the other hand, his victory at Daytona could have been just one of those things.

Something I hope we don’t see at Phoenix (or anyplace else again, for that matter) is all that palsy-walsy-ing between the drivers that went on at Daytona.

Everybody in the 500 had everybody else’s radio frequency. Everybody was everybody else’s friend.

“Hi Kyle . . . this is Kurt . . . want me to push for awhile? . . . or would you like me to push you? . . . we could go to the front together . . .pretty please?”

Dale Earnhardt, who was dead 10 years as of last weekend, rolled over in his grave. Guaranteed.

Dale Earnhardt would drive up behind someone he was racing against for money and glory and he would say OUTTA MY WAY.

Now they say, “Hi Kurt . . . mind if I pass?”

How can any of those guys ever get out of a car again and shake his or her  fist at another driver because of something that happened on-track?

Because two weeks later, they might need each other. . .

“Hi Jimmie . . . this is Kyle . . . how’s the baby? . . . Can I go by? . . .”

NASCAR racing is showing signs of becoming the NBA, which is now officially a fraternity of rich guys who give each other hugs before the games start.

Sheesh. Give me Jay Rosehill and P.K. Subban any day.

Talking about rich guys, and rich series, the Williams F1 team is reviewing the price it wants to charge for shares in the team.

Seems the stock market where the shares will be sold thinks the price is too high and won’t attract buyers.

Read more in today’s Daily Telegraph.

P.S. There’s a chapter floating around from that new book on Bernie Ecclestone that I wrote about yesterday (see post below, if you’re interested). It’s about his marriage to Slavika. It illustrates perfectly that even if you have all the money and just about all the power in the world, you can still be led around by the nose at home.

You read that chapter and you almost feel sorry for the guy.

Almost.

Explosive new book about Ecclestone

I had a friend in Kingston who had one of the sharpest minds I’ve ever come across.

One time early in December, in a bar, he got into an argument with another guy about whether there would ice in Kingston harbour that year. As of that date, the Greater Cataraqui River hadn’t frozen over.

Said my friend: “There will no ice in the harbour this year.”

Said the guy: “Of course there will be. Want to bet?”

My friend: “I’ll bet you a magnum of champagne there will be no ice in the harbour this year.”

The guy: “You’re on.”

My friend (to the bartender): “Make that Mumm’s.” (To the guy): “It’s December, you dummy. There’s never ice in the harbour before January.”

I was reminded of that when I read the Times of London report today on a new book about F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone and how he once nailed McLaren’s Ron Dennis for a small fortune by sucking him in the same way my Kingston friend did to that guy in the bar.

Here is the report in the Times:

LONDON, Feb 24 (The Times) — In the end, it is all about the money. For the first time, the intimate financial affairs of Bernie Ecclestone are laid bare in a new biography to be launched tonight that reveals that he amassed a 2.5 billion pound fortune selling Formula One five times over, at the same time taking home another 600 million pounds in "personal income".

    Ecclestone has vowed to boycott the launch of No Angel: the Secret Life of Bernie Ecclestone, tonight at a plush London address, furious that Tom Bower, his biographer and one of Britain's best investigative journalists, has revealed details of his marriage to Slavica, a Croatian former model.

    They are divorced after a relationship that became what Bower called "a battlefield." The former Mrs Ecclestone is worth an estimated 750 million pounds thanks to Britain's biggest divorce settlement.

    But usually it is Ecclestone who gets away with the money, reflected in a vast fortune acquired by transforming Formula One from a collection of weekend enthusiasts into one of the world's biggest sporting spectacles.

    Before their spat, Bower enjoyed unprecedented access to Ecclestone, travelling in his private jet and being allowed to meet trusted associates.

    Bower might not have found the incriminating evidence that Ecclestone's enemies crave but he has pulled together the most colourful insight into the rise of a used-car dealer in south London to billionaire friend of pop stars and royalty, and unpeeled the story of a man who charmed his way to becoming one of Britain's most successful entrepreneurs, yet put a dent in a wall with a phone hurled in a fury.

    We learn that even after selling Formula One, he banks a salary of 2.5 million pounds plus a 1 million pound bonus from CVC Capital Partners, the latest owner, as its chief executive, as well as expenses - and they include fuel for his 40 million pounds Falcon jet, used for a quick getaway before the end of each grand prix.

    Bower also lifts the lid on an intriguing enmity between Ecclestone and Jean Todt, who succeeded Max Mosley as president of the FIA, motorsport's world governing body. Mosley worked hand-in-glove with Ecclestone for 40 years but Todt is viewed with suspicion by Ecclestone, who misses no opportunity to aggravate the new president.

    The ruthless side of Ecclestone's character shows up in his early life as a car dealer, according to one anecdote in which an acquaintance ordered an MG model from Ecclestone with one stipulation: it had to have a heater. When it arrived without one, he complained. Ecclestone replied coldly: "Are you calling me a liar? You want to be careful, boy. I've had fingers cut off."

End of complaint.

    If Ecclestone likes to play up his hardman image, it is the quickest mind in business that has been his greatest asset in regularly outwitting leading corporations with legions of accountants and lawyers. No detail escapes his attention, as Ron Dennis, the former McLaren team principal, discovered.

In an argument over whether the teams should sign a new Concorde Agreement, the deal that binds them to Ecclestone's network of companies, Dennis told Ecclestone: "The Concorde Agreement will not be signed."

    "I bet it will," Ecclestone said.

    A wager was made at 250,000 pounds. Ecclestone bent down and signed the agreement in front of a puzzled Dennis. "We never said how many people had to sign it," a triumphant Ecclestone said, and he collected the money.

    Ecclestone has not yet read Bower's book and will not until he gets over his fury. When he does, the memories of the deals struck over an extraordinary life will flow thick and fast.

Formula One's facing a 'correction'

There were a number of interesting comments posted to my entry yesterday concerning trouble looming for Formula One.

In addition, my emailbox generated private responses. In the end, the general consensus is that a sea change is on the horizon and all are curious as to how Bernie Ecclestone, and F1 generally, will handle it.

As was pointed out, correctly, by several people, Formula One racing is an entertainment that’s for sale. Promoters, be they individuals or countries, apply for races and — for the most part — they’ve been awarded to the highest bidders.

But there are signs that F1 had already priced itself out of the marketplace, never mind what’s happening in the Middle East currently.

— Williams F1, the legendary team led by Sir Frank Williams, has been forced to sell shares in itself because sponsors willing to pay the outrageous fees demanded have dried up.

— Nearly half the teams are now supported by a driver, or drivers, putting up the money for the privilege of racing for them.

— Canada is back on the schedule after losing the Grand Prix in 2009 but F1 comes here now for what amounts to a pittance ($15 million a year) compared with the amount it’s been used to getting, here and elsewhere. 

— Australia, perhaps taking a cue from Canada, has let it be known that the current F1 deal there is no longer acceptable and when the contract comes up for renewal it will be at a dramatically lower price or there will not be a race.

— It’s costing the organizers of the 2012 U.S. Grand Prix in Austin, Tex., a fortune to build an Abu Dhabi-type circuit (it’s Formula One, dontcha know?) and when combined with what they’ve agreed to pay the circus to put on a show, ticket prices are sure to be astronomical.

So it’s very possible that, just like Malaysia, Singapore and China, the first year in Texas will be a success because of the curiosity factor but then fewer and fewer people will be able to afford to attend.

— India and Russia are new races — India this year and Russia in 2014. The huge population of India might guarantee success for F1 in the medium to long run but it’s a good bet that people in Russia will find themselves in the same boat as (see countries listed in paragraph above).

The fight for democracy in the Middle East started in Egypt and spread throughout the region. There is a lull, at the moment, in the violent Bahrain protests, which led to the cancellation of the Grand Prix, and perhaps this lull will be permanent if things can be worked out.

But whatever, it’s clear — as one emailer wrote — that the royal family came to realize pretty early on that ordinary people in Bahrain view the GP as a giant waste of money being spent for the benefit and amusement of the privileged and ruling class.

And this divide between the general population and the ruling classes is only going to get bigger, and take place in more places around the world, as the cost of living increases and the quality of living declines.

As popular as it is, F1 can't compete against the need for more basic and sensible spending, either personally or nationally. As happened in Canada, it’s only a matter of time before all other race-hosting countries or promoters have to face that fact.

Does this mean the end of F1 is near? Of course not. But sooner or later, in the vernacular of the stock market, there will have to a “correction.” 

How that “correction” is handled will determine the future direction of F1.

Beginning of trouble for Formula One?

The chickens are starting to come home to roost for Bernie Ecclestone.

When he embarked on a mission several years ago to squeeze every last cent out of countries and/or promoters willing to put on Formula One races, a number of "traditional" host nations fell by the wayside.

We were in that group for a year. Canada didn’t have a Grand Prix in 2009; the United States hasn’t had one since 2007. Nobody – governments or individuals/businesses – would pay the outlandish prices Ecclestone was demanding. (He caved on Montreal, simply because he couldn’t have a "world championship" without a presence in North America and the teams refused to go back to Indianapolis.)

So he started doing business with a number of countries where, to put it mildly, the democratic rights of the citizens who live there are not anywhere near the top of the ruling classes’ list of priorities.

Those countries now include (as represented on the 2011 F1 Grand Prix schedule): Bahrain, Malaysia, China, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi).

So now we’re watching the start of popular revolutions – bloody uprisings, actually – in the Middle East.

The first cancellation of 2010 came Monday, when the royal family of the Kingdom of Bahrain officially called off the Grand Prix scheduled for March 13. This followed by several days the shooting deaths by security forces of at least six people. Several hundred others were injured.

To its credit, the royal family has initiated a dialogue with opposition groups in an effort to try to reach some sort of accommodation.

But if what’s happened in Egypt and what’s happening in Libya is any indication, there’s an unstoppable force at work in that part of the world and other Middle Eastern plutocracies may soon be caught up in it.

And who knows what fires might be started elsewhere by the sparks coming from there?

Bernie Ecclestone is the genius who took what essentially was a European open wheels series and turned it into a true, international, world championship.

But then, instead of letting Formula One grow naturally and on its own, he upped the ante so much that his short-sightedness is threatening not necessarily to destroy it but to severely hobble it.

Bernie should have remembered what some of us learned in Sunday School: As you sow, so shall you reap.

The chickens are starting to come home to roost for Bernie Ecclestone.

When he embarked on a mission several years ago to squeeze every last cent out of countries and/or promoters willing to put on Formula One races, a number of "traditional" host nations fell by the wayside.

We were in that group for a year. Canada didn’t have a Grand Prix in 2009; the United States hasn’t had one since 2007. Nobody – governments or individuals/businesses – would pay the outlandish prices Ecclestone was demanding. (He caved on Montreal, simply because he couldn’t have a "world championship" without a presence in North America and the teams refused to go back to Indianapolis.)

So he started doing business with a number of countries where, to put it mildly, the democratic rights of the citizens who live there are not anywhere near the top of the ruling classes’ list of priorities.

Those countries include (as represented on the 2011 F1 Grand Prix schedule): Bahrain, Malaysia, China, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi).

So now we’re watching the start of popular revolutions – bloody uprisings, actually – in the Middle East.

The first cancellation of 2010 came Monday, when the royal family of the Kingdom of Bahrain officially called off the Grand Prix scheduled for March 13. This followed by several days the shooting deaths by security forces of at least six people. Several hundred others were injured.

To their credit, the royal family has initiated a dialogue with opposition groups in an effort to try to reach some sort of accommodation.

But if what’s happened in Egypt and what’s happening in Libya is any indication, there’s an unstoppable force at work in that part of the world and other Middle Eastern plutocracies may be caught up in it.

And who knows what fires might be started elsewhere by the sparks coming from there?

Bernie Ecclestone is the genius who took what essentially was a European open wheels series and turned it into a true, international, world championship.

But then, instead of letting Formula One grow naturally and on its own, he upped the ante so much that his short-sightedness is threatening not necessarily to destroy it but to severely hobble it.

Storybook ending to Daytona 500

Weekend headlines:

1. Bayne’s Daytona 500 victory confirms sport’s youth movement

2. ‘Great American Race’ was, to be frank, boring

3. Formula One can’t go to Bahrain. Just can’t

1. NASCAR’s great story

It’s official. The kids have taken over big league auto racing.

Close on the heels of 23-year-old Sebastien Vettel, of Heppenheim, Germany, becoming the youngest champion in Formula One history (he’d become the youngest driver to do just about everything first in F1 earlier), 20-year-old Trevor Bayne of Knoxville, Tenn., became the youngest driver to win the Daytona 500 when he captured the 53^rd annual "Great American Race" on Sunday. Full race story here

Bayne turned 20 on Saturday and celebrated his birthday in style, holding off Carl Edwards at the checkers. David Gilliland was third, Bobby Labonte was fourth and Kurt Busch, who’d won last Saturday’s Budweiser Shooutout and the first of two Gatorade Duels at Daytona on Thursday, finished fifth.

Bayne, in only his second Sprint Cup start (the other was last year at Texas Motor Speedway), was driving for the Wood Brothers, who haven’t had a car finish first at Daytona for 10 years.

As delightful as this latest accomplishment is, Glen and Leonard Wood will still be best remembered for two other achievements: inventing the choreographed pit stop (this changed NASCAR racing back in the early 1960s and they were so good at it that they were hired to service Jim Clark’s Indy 500-winning Lotus in 1965) and owning and operating the "21" team that utterly dominated the sport in the 1970s with David Pearson driving.

Bayne, who started racing go-karts when he was 5 and was signed to a Nationwide Series driver development contract by Roush-Fenway Racing only a year ago, wasn’t contracted by the Wood Brothers (who get their chassis from Roush-Fenway) for a full Sprint Cup season.

As NASCAR drivers are only allowed to race for points in one class, Bayne opted to run for the championship in the Nationwide Series, which means he wasn’t awarded points for his big win on Sunday. So Edwards leads the Sprint Cup standings with the 46 points he won for finishing second.

Bayne, a religious youngster, thanked God almost from the moment he stepped out of his car.

Unlike Vettel, who wagged his little finger at his rivals from the podium in Abu Dhabi last fall after winning the world title (a signal questioning the size of their you-know-whats), Bayne was gracious when talking about his opponents and his team.

He joked that he didn’t know what to do when he won.

"I keep thinking I’m dreaming," he said. "It just shows how powerful God is (that he won)."

He had trouble finding Victory Lane and had to be flagged down.

"I didn’t even know where to go," he said. "I’ve never been to a race track with so many people before."

The previous youngest winner was Jeff Gordon, when he was 25. He reportedly told Bayne to enjoy the day because hard as it is to think this way now, victories in major races don’t come along all that often.

The only other driver to win the Daytona 500 on his first attempt was Lee Petty, who won the very first one in 1959 when the France family opened the Daytona International Speedway.

Bayne will drive in the next four Sprint Cup races, starting next weekend in Phoenix.

2. ‘Great American Race’ was boring.

It’s a good thing for NASCAR that they had a storybook ending, with 20-year-old Trevor Bayne winning the Daytona 500 on Sunday, because otherwise, it was – if you’ll pardon the pun – very close to being a crashing bore. Lap-by-lap report here

NASCAR, fans and TV viewers became very disenchanted with the sport three years ago in 2008 when the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard in Indianapolis had competition yellows thrown every 10 laps or so because the tires that Goodyear had taken to the race kept blowing out.

So yesterday, the tires were fine (and have been fine, for the most part, since that 2008 disaster) but the Siamese-twins style of racing adopted by just about everybody in the field (where two cars hooked up in a draft that let them both go faster) resulted in numerous cautions.

To be fair, the one-dog-sniffing-another’s-butt-style also led to a record 74 lead changes among 22 different drivers.

The 16 yellows that were thrown were a record for the Daytona 500 and led to it being the second-slowest race in the event’s history. Which meant – much like the Allstate 400 – they’d throw the green and then anywhere from ten laps to 15 laps later, there’d be a caution because of a wreck – the most serious coming on Lap 29 when Michael Waltrip spun David Reutimann and before the smoke cleared nearly half the field was involved, including many of the favourites.

Now, I don’t want to give the impression that parts of the race weren’t enjoyable, because they were. It takes an amazing amount of skill – and an enormous amount of trust on the part of the driver doing the pushing, because he can't see a thing – for two cars to go blasting between a couple hooked up down low and another two glued to each other up high.

But a race is supposed to be that – a race – and not a survival of the luckiest.

I watched the 1981 Daytona 500 on ESPN Classic last Friday night and that race was great stuff. No restrictor plates, drivers passing each other high and low and the winner, Richard Petty, gambling with 24 laps to go when he pitted and opted to stay with the tires on the car and just get fuel. He held off Bobby Allison and Ricky Rudd, but barely.

Notebook Jottings:

– The anthem singer, Martina McBride, sang the Star Spangled Banner the way it’s supposed to be sung. It’s an anthem, not a blues. She also remembered all the words, unlike Christina Aguilera at the Super Bowl. Blame the "interpreting" of that song on Jose Feliciano, who did it the first time at a World Series game in 1968. It nearly killed his career; now, it happens frequently. But good for Martina.

– Now, instead of cheering for one driver in the race, you have to cheer for two. This could get confusing.

– Talking about confusion, Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s spotter nearly piled him up early in the race when he was so busy talking to the other spotters, making deals for pushing-pulling and all the rest, that he missed seeing a yellow. Junior went below the yellow line rather than punting the car in front and gently ticked off the spotter.

However, since when did racing become so complicated? (See reference to 1981 Dayton 500 above.) And now we have Formula One drivers talking about so many buttons being on their steering wheels that they fear they’ll push the wrong one.

What’s going on here?

– Where is Jimmy Johnson? I mean, yes, he was caught up in the Big One on Lap 29, so we know he was out there. But this is the five-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion and he didn’t stand out during practice, he didn’t qualify well, he didn’t draw any attention during his Gatorade Duel race and he wasn’t really doing anything spectacular in the race before being wrecked.

Is it over for Johnson?

By the way, NFL star Deion Sanders was called "Prime Time" because he was a two-sport athlete (he was a Major League Baseball player as well as a football star). So A.J. Allmendinger has started calling Johnson "Five Time" and I bet it sticks.

– After the Big One, and after any number of other single-car wrecks on Sunday, cars were taken to the garage, fixed up and sent into battle again – in some cases more than 30 laps behind.

Now, NASCAR awards a point – or points – to every car that’s in the race (with the odd exception of this particular winner, who’s only running for points in the Nationwide Series – see above). So even if a car is 35 laps behind, the driver wants to keep going as long as possible because the point, or points he picks up for finishing as high as he can, could pay dividends at the end of the season.

But is this wise? Is it safe to have cars that have gone into a wall, say, at 200 miles an hour go back out on the speedway?

Any number of times on Sunday, announcers Darrell Waltrip or Larry McRaynolds would make mention of a car’s poor handling, or whatever, because "they’d been in a wreck earlier." In fact, several cars were involved in more than one accident.

Before a car starts a race, it goes through a rigorous inspection process. But after a race starts, and a car is wrecked, it can return to the speedway and rejoin as the result of a visual inspection by a NASCAR inspector.

Something’s not right there.

– Matt Kenseth was turned into the wall and knocked out of the race. You could see the Crown Royal logo on the car, which reminds me of a story.

Last year, Kenseth flew up to Toronto in his private jet for an appearance at the Canadian Motorsports Expo. He was met by a volunteer from the Expo, who accompanied him back to the airport later, after he 'd met the fans and signed autographs.

Kenseth invited the volunteer aboard the plane to show off the bar, which was suitably stocked with his sponsor’s product. Then, as they were enjoying a short snort, Kenseth started complaining about the difference in the price for jet fuel in North Carolina and "Canada."

The volunteer was really taken aback. "I couldn’t believe it," he said. "He’s got a gorgeous private plane and he bitches about the price of fuel to fly it?"

– I watched the race on Fox, Rogers cable channel 28. I don’t know what happened so far as simulcasting on TSN was concerned, but I switched back and forth a few times to make sure and the commercials on 28 were different than the ones on TSN 30. In any event, the Budweiser commercials on the U.S. channel were great, as usual. Too bad the Bud car, driven by Kevin Harvick, was about the first to drop out because of a blown engine.

– The two-car tandems made for some fascinating conversation between drivers. I particularly liked the exchange between Kyle Busch and Jamie McMurray – last year’s winner. Busch wanted Jamie to push him; McMurray agreed, but then said this: "Sorry, I have to go back and get Juan," referring to his teammate, Montoya.

– It was the tenth anniversary of Dale Earnhardt’s death in this very race. On the third lap, everybody in attendance – about 150,000 – stood and held their arms up with three fingers extended in honour of Earnhardt’s No. 3.

I was thinking of this as Carl Edwards pulled up behind Trevor Bayne for the run to the checkers. Edwards behaved himself and settled for second. Would Earnhardt? Or would The Intimidator have turned Bayne around and won the race?

I think he would have turned him around.

3. Formula One can’t go to Bahrain

ED. NOTE: The post below was published last night, before the Grand Prix was cancelled today. See story here

Formula One simply can’t go to the Kingdom of Bahrain in three weeks and race there as if nothing has happened and Bernie Ecclestone and everybody else in F1 knows it.

People were killed there in the past week. There is a lull at the moment, but hostilities can break out again at any time.

The popular uprisings throughout the Middle East are not going away any time soon (see explanation here). F1 is asking for it if it rubs salt in the wounds by even showing up in any of those countries.

F1 is symbolic of money and the power that accompanies it – the very things these uprisings seek to overthrow. In fact, on Sunday night's Speed Centre news show, a correspondent reported that protesters were focusing on the Grand Prix in Bahrain as something they never again want to see in their country.

The reason nobody has said anything officially is because of – you guessed it – money. If F1 pulls the plug and says it won’t go to Bahrain, it could be sued by the promoters. But if the organizers cancel . . .

The Sunni Muslim Al-Khalifa dynasty rules Bahrain, but the Shi'ite majority has long complained about what it sees as discrimination in access to jobs, housing and health care.

The United States and its oil ally Saudi Arabia see Bahrain as a Sunni bulwark against neighbouring Shi'ite regional power Iran. So there's lots of politics here.

The latest reports quote opposition groups as saying they will not enter into discussions with the royal family until they are good and ready and items already on the agenda include transforming Bahrain into a constitutional democracy and the release of political prisoners.

It could be a week before any kind of dialogue even starts – which would be two weeks out from the Grand Prix.

So, although the teams still seem to be putting up some kind of a facade (latest story on that here), it’s not going to happen.

Special Section and F1 in Bahrain

Please check out our Special Section on Auto Racing in 2011.

You can’t beat the lineup of subjects — in-depth previews of NASCAR Sprint Cup, INDYCAR, Formula One, Sports Cars (the ALMS and the Rolex series) plus local racing and TV guides — and you can’t beat the lineup of expert writers: Gerald Donaldson, Sylvia Proudfoot, John C. Bassett and Mark Zwolinski, among others.

Read it yourself, print it out for reference (particularly the TV guides) and tell all your friends.

You can find it here.

The news today, of course, is the serious situation in Bahrain where the F1 season is scheduled to start in less than a month – March 13.

Although the Grand Prix’s organizers maintain that the show will go on, I’m not so sure.

You can’t have popular civil unrest, with people dead in the streets, and then go racing three weeks later (when you can bet there will be more people dead, many injured and many more in jail).

F1 will have to cancel. The sooner, the better.

Racing hospitality icon McAllister dies

Sad news.

Bob McAllister, the congenial “Host with the Most” during a lifetime of event planning and execution (that’s him in the photo above, talking to Danny Sullivan), died on Valentine’s Day of cancer. He was 69 and left cousins and nieces.

Anybody who ever had anything to do with big-league auto racing in Toronto, Indianapolis, Montreal, Daytona and/or Vancouver probably was treated royally by Bob at one time or another. He was a “contract guy” whose business planned and produced receptions and press conferences for companies and corporations involved with those races.

If you were lucky enough to get a seat in a hospitality suite at the track, Bob was probably the guy who shook your hand when you arrived.

He considered it his mission in life to make sure everybody was happy and having a good time.

He was a fixer, too. One time, the paper I was on decided at the last minute to send me to Montreal to cover the Grand Prix. Anybody who’s ever been to Montreal for the Grand Prix knows you can’t get a hotel room. I did the only thing I could: I called Bob McAllister. And guess what? He got me a room. (Was there ever any doubt?)

Another time, a female body builder of my acquaintance complained that she wasn’t getting any publicity. I called Bob, who called in a favour and got her picture in the Toronto Sun.

He had a million connections. That’s why, at one time, he was executive assistant to an Ontario cabinet minister

Paul Madder, a racing photographer of note (he took the photo at the top of this story), went to visit Bob in Toronto Grace Hospital a few weeks ago. I tagged along and we had a nice chat and a few laughs for about an hour. As sick as Bob was, he talked about the 25th anniversary of the Toronto Indy that’s coming up this summer and how he had a few ideas that could maybe make the event that much better.

He did a lot of work for Goodyear Canada over the years, which meant he met and charmed people he’d arranged rides for aboard the famous blimp.

My friend Sid Priddle, media manager of the Molson Indy races in Toronto and Vancouver and lately of the Honda Indy Edmonton, emailed me this:

“One year, he’d arranged for Betty and I to go up in the Goodyear Blimp in Florida. We were going to be there on vacation. Bob asked us when we were arriving in Fort Lauderdale and we gave him the details.

“As we were heading to pick up our luggage, this man arrived with a sign that had our name on it. You guessed it, it was Bob. He said he’d just purchased a bottle of Port and needed someone to drink it with him.

“Although it was late at night, it didn't matter so we went to his place — which was walking distance from where we were staying — and did some serious damage to the bottle. My stomach wasn't great the next day up in the blimp, but we all had a great time and, as always with Bob, lots of laughs.”

Gary Dolson, who ran the PR department at Goodyear for many years, sent me this last night:

“Bob McAllister had a very accomplished career because he was extremely smart, and he was strategic thinker. He was also very good at making people feel comfortable whenever they visited one of his "Hospitality Suites" during a Blimp Visit, or a Race Weekend.

“During any race weekend, whether it was a Formula One race in Montreal, a Carb Day weekend at the Indy 500 in Indianapolis, a Rolex 24 Hour Race Weekend in Daytona, a Molson Indy race weekend in Toronto or the Molson Indy Vancouver, everyone wanted to be a part of Bob's world. . . For Bob, it was more than watching fast cars race around the track. For him, it was about the people — making them happy, and providing them with everything they’d need for a truly exceptional experience.

“He will be sorely missed.”

A celebration of Bob’s life will be held next Friday night, Feb. 25th, at the Musket Restaurant, 40 Advance Rd. (right off Kipling, about five blocks north of the Queensway). You can bet there will be a million stories.

One in particular — and I don’t want to mess it up by trying to tell it here so I’ll wait and relate it later — had to do with Bob sending a stretch limo to a retirement home to pick up his mother and take her to a birthday party being held in her honour. The limo driver went to the wrong retirement home and picked up the wrong woman. You can imagine the rest.

This is the death notice that was in the Star. I’ll see everybody at the Musket next Friday.

Bob (Robert) McAllister, born on January 1, 1942, passed away peacefully surrounded by love at Toronto Grace Hospital on February 14, 2011.  He was a loving uncle to Patricia and Catherine, a special great-uncle to Darrah, Benjamin, and Rachel, and cherished cousin to Yvonne (Stroud), Ken (Stroud), and Larry (Stroud).  He will be truly missed by his wonderful friends.  A special thanks to all the dedicated staff at Toronto Grace Hospital 6th floor.   Donations in his honour may be made to the SPCA as he was an animal lover.  A celebration of Bob’s life will be at the Musket Restaurant, 40 Advance Road, Toronto, on Friday, February 25th, 2011, at 7:00 p.m.  Condolences may be emailed to Ken at kaagee7@yahoo.ca .

Why didn't GM debut Camaro here?

I have been a General Motors man just about my entire life. My Dad drove nothing but Chevs and Pontiacs and I followed.

With the exception of one Ford in the late 1950s, and a Plymouth for about six months in the ‘70s, there have been nothing but GM products in my garage.

The greatest vehicle I ever owned was a 1982 Chevrolet Beaumont van. It had V8 horsepower and was big enough to carry a small army. It was nice and high, so that when you drove into the parking lot at the shopping mall, you could look over the tops of all the pipsqueak cars and find a parking spot close to the doors.

I also used to pull a trailer with that van that had my supermodified racing car in it. That race car was powered by one of the two 465 c.i. big block Chevy engines that I owned. It was a bomb.

I loved that van so much that when I win the lottery, I’m going to have GM build me one specially; if they won’t do it, I’ll get somebody to restore one for me.

I have been – and remain – loyal to GM to a fault. So I think this loyalty allows me the anger that follows because General Motors has browned me right off.

Toronto is the only metropolitan city in North America with four successful daily newspapers, each of which publishes a serious automobile supplement each week. When I say serious, I mean they contain reviews, breaking news, opinion, competition – you name it and it’s in them.

Toronto Star Wheels was the first (and remains the best) but Globe Auto, the National Post’s Driving and the Sun’s Autos sections are all in play and are successful.

No other North American city is served by so many newspapers with so many stand-alone sections devoted to coverage of the automobile industry. And hard as it might be to believe, the auto industry is still covered primarily by print. Radio and TV might pay lip service, but the electronic media - as in everything - are here one second and gone the next. Newspapers (and, to be fair, the motoring magazines) stick around to tell the whole story.

Tomorrow – Thursday – the Canadian International AutoShow (better known as the Toronto auto show), will hold its media preview day at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and it will be open to the public on Friday. From what I understand, there is going to be lots to see and do at the auto show, but unlike the auto shows that preceded it in Los Angeles, Detroit, Montreal and Chicago, there will be no first-time-ever "debuts" or "unveilings."

Now, Canada doesn’t have its own car company. We used to, back when they invented the automobile, but no more.

However, we do have our own "car." The Chevrolet Camaro is made exclusively in Canada, at the General Motors plant in Oshawa.

The Camaro has become a bit of a Canadian icon. And it’s arguably the most famous "muscle" car on the continent. In fact, the Camaro convertible is going to be the pace car at this year’s 100th anniversary of the Indianapolis 500. And NASCAR’s Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Rick Hendrick flew up here just a couple of weeks ago to take possession of the first two or three 2012 models that rolled off the line.

So where did GM decide to debut the 2012 Chevrolet Camaro? To announce to the world that it had arrived?

Chicago, that’s where.

Chicago.

To do it in Detroit or L.A. would have been bad enough. But Chicago?

To paraphrase Al Capone: "I don’t know what street Chicago’s on."

They did that last Wednesday. If they’d waited eight days, they could have done it in Toronto tomorrow.

And why should they have done it in Toronto?

Because the car is made about 40 kms east of the Canadian International AutoShow, in nearby Oshawa.

There is a huge auto show in Toronto.

There are four daily newspapers, all with special automobile sections, to cover it.

And because the taxpayers of Canada – in part – kept General Motors going a couple of years ago, they owed it to us.

Fitzpatrick lands NASCAR Daytona ride

Great news on two Canadian racing fronts today.

Stock car driver J.R. Fitzpatrick of Cambridge has landed a ride for Saturday’s Nationwide Series race at Daytona. He’ll be driving the #27 Baker Curb Racing Ford Mustang in the DRIVE4COPD 300, which will go to the post the day before the Daytona 500.

The 22-year-old runner-up
in the 2010 NASCAR Canadian Tire Series will be the only Canadian in Saturday’s race and will be sponsored by long-time partner Schick Canada as well as Energizer Canada Inc. 

Fitzpatrick, who scored two top-10 Nationwide Series finishes last year while driving for JR Motorsports, is champing at the bit to take on some of NASCAR’s biggest names

 “I can’t think of a better race to start the new season with,” Fitzpatrick said in a release. “Daytona boasts an atmosphere like no other and to be in a race with the opportunity to compete against guys like Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Tony Stewart is fantastic.  I’ve raced at Daytona before, a couple of years ago in the Truck Series, and ran well, leading the most laps in that event before taking fourth.”

That’s a bit of an understatement: he dominated that 2009 Camping World Series race in the later stages and with a little luck could have won it. I can still hear announcer Michael Waltrip shouting out Fitzpatrick’s performance. 

The DRIVE4COPD 300 gets the green flag Saturday at 1:15 p.m. EST. The pre-race show will start at noon on TSN2.

Meantime, retired boat racing star Ted Gryguc of Woodbridge is heading back to the big time.

He’s the mentor and coach of young Florida driver Shaun Torrente (pictured), who will team this year with Swedish driver Jonas Andersson starting at the opening race of the 2011 Formula One World Championship boat series, the Grand Prix of Qatar, on March 4-5.

The 31-year-old Torrente has 31 North American F1 career starts and has won a third of his races and currently sits seventh overall on the all-time winning drivers list.

He’ll be coached by Gryguc, a member of the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame who won various  championships when he was an active driver in the 1980s and ‘90s.

“Ted and I are close and we work well together,” Torrente said in a release.  “I know this is going to be a learning curve for the whole team but it’s challenges like this that make me want to push even harder to reach the success we expect at each event.”

Gryguc (he and Torrente had an F1 boat display at the Canadian Motorsports Expo two years ago) was Canada 's most prominent outboard racer from the late-1980s through his retirement in 1999. He won six Canadian High Point Championships and five Canadian National Championships and was the Mod VP World Champion.

In 1995, Gryguc bought a Formula 1 tunnel boat and captured three Canadian National Championships and three Canadian High Point Championships between 1995 and 1999 before calling it a day.