McReynolds right sometimes, but wrong too

When something of importance takes place in the racing world, particularly the stock car racing world, the SPEED channel emails to reporters a release of quotes from their panel of experts who are quick to comment.

Such was the case Tuesday when SPEED sat down with Larry McReynolds to talk about the departure of the Eury family from Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s Nationwide Series team – Tony Sr. first, followed by Tony Jr.

Then, later in the day, out came a series of quotes from McReynolds and others concerning the reinstatement of A.J. Allmendinger by NASCAR following treatment after he failed two drug tests.

Now, sometimes McReynolds has amazing insight and is bang-on with his observations. Other times, he shows that he’s making it up as he goes along and doesn’t really understand what he’s talking about.

Tuesday’s two sets of quotes illustrate both tendencies perfectly.

On the departure of the Eurys from JR Motorsports, McReynolds said this:

"I think their current driver lineup is running as well as they’re going to run. In the Nationwide Series, Danica Patrick is probably as good as she’s going to be. She’s going to run between ninth and 15th and maybe score a top five on a really good day. I don’t care if you put Chad Knaus in as her crew chief, she’s going to run where she is running. As much as I’d love to say she could run fender-to-fender with Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Austin Dillon or Elliott Sadler, I don’t think it’s there. Danica is great for our sport and I’m excited about her running full time in the Cup Series, but she has run 51 Nationwide Series races  and that’s a lot of races.

"By the same token, Cole Whitt is going to run where he is running. He was thrown into the deep end pretty fast. I think he’s between a sixth and 12th place driver right now. That’s where he ran with the Eurys, and that’s where he’s going to run without them."

Who can argue with that analysis? Larry McReynolds is absolutely correct.

On the other hand, this is why he should be very careful when he spouts off on subjects that maybe he’s not a hundred per cent up on. Or else, he’s misunderstood what he’s been told.

This is what he said about the possibility of A.J. Allmendinger returning to racing in the IZOD IndyCar Series with Roger Penske’s team:

"What I think might be going on, though - and I talked to Robin Miller (SPEED open wheel reporter) earlier today about this before we even knew A.J . was reinstated – is that A.J. is under consideration for Roger Penske’s IndyCar ride. Roger has an open seat. I know Roger has offered it to a couple of drivers who have turned it down. A.J. was in Fontana last weekend with Roger, and A.J. came from open-wheel racing. That might be the best place for him right now. It might not be what he wants, but it probably is the best option for his career at the moment. What top rides are available in NASCAR? None at the moment. I truly think he’d be better off driving an Indy car for Penske than taking a middle-of-the-road ride in the Cup Series."

Okay, this is what popped out of that paragraph and hit me right square between the eyes:

"Roger has an open seat. I know Roger has offered it to a couple of drivers who have turned it down."

Huh? Drivers have turned down an offer from Roger Penske to drive one of his Indy cars?

I don’t think so, Larry.

In fact, not a chance.

That would be like me saying, "Rick Hendrick has an open seat. He offered it to a couple of drivers who have turned it down."

Which would never happen.

But in case you’re right and I’m not, names please.

Comments

[Jake]

He said he talked to Robin Miller about the Almendinger situation. That means Miller told him those facts about the Penske IndyCar ride. McReynolds is a NASCAR analyst, which means he got his information from Miller. He was just reporting facts he got from someone whose main focus is on IndyCar.

[George X]

I do know first hand that Ryan Hunter-Rey turned down an offer from Penske out of loyalty to Michael Andretti for restarting his career when nobody else would and therefore resigned with him. Not sure if there's a second driver that also turned him down. Very well could be that Penske made an offer to a driver already committed to another program. So I don't think McReynolds comments are all that far off. Personally I think he's more off about the Earnhardt comments than anything. When Danica first came to the Nationwide series, she hovered mostly in the 10th to 15th position on the race track. When the car was available, they DID put several cup drivers in the car that season and if you really watched closely, most of the those cup drivers, including Kasey Kahne, ran....guess where, in the 10th to 15th position most of the races. Given the cup drivers are far more experienced and much better than Danica on restarts and one race where Kahne was running mid-pack, had several late race cautions. His excellent restart skills combined with a lot of attrition late, led to a top 6 finish. Bottom line though, yes she stuggles on the restarts, but once she finds her groove, she runs very competitively. I was wathching lap times on Raceview in the last cup race and when she was about to go a second lap down, it took several laps to do so. She was consistently running with 1/10th to 2/10ths of the leaders times. I looked back at her prior race and Tony and Ryan Newman both sucked in that race too. Point is, Junior's team is not anywhere near being the best team on the track right now nor is Tony Stewart's team at several races. She is still somewhat inexperienced in Nationwide, but is honestly running within 5 positions of where a cup driver would run in the same car and has run within 10 positions of where a Cup driver would run in the Cup car. Once she gets more comfortable in a crowd on restarts, I honestly think she'll surprise an awful lot of people.

[B Donohue]

Ryan Hunter-Reay actually did turn the Captain down to stay at Andretti Autosport in the IICS. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/motor/story/2012/09/15/hunter-reay-turns-down-penske-bolsters-andretti-lineup/57783690/1

[Robert Lee]

According to the report on Windtunnel, Ryan Hunter-Rea was offered a ride with Penske and he turned it down - resigned with Andretti Autosport.

[ron house]

i dont always agree with mcreynolds. he could not get earnhart sr. to go fast and they let him go two.maybe a lttle bad blood here too.

[kevin]

RHR turned down an offer to stay at Andretti Autosport. Simon Pagenaud also turned doen an offer to drive for Penske, due to being under contract still.

http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/article/indycar-hunter-reay-chooses-andretti-over-penske/

[Andy]

AJ was mediocre in his first two years running Champ car for a second-tier team. He was fired and immediately picked up by Forsyth and had a five race win streak that season. He left for NASCAR at the end of the season (2006).

He did poorly in NASCAR (all open-wheel drivers do for some reason) and we all know the most recent events.

One streak in one season doesn't make someone Tony Stewart. Open wheel has evolved faster than NASCAR in the six years he's been gone. There's no reason to believe he'll be competitive. For all we know, his crew chief was cheating and that's how he pulled off the streak.

Penske is faltering, but he's still among the top teams in Indycar. Anyone who would turn down his offer must already work for Ganassi or Andretti. There are much better choices to fill the empty seat and Penske would be making a mistake by picking AJ over a proven candidate.

But Roger has a lot of integrity. he's the type of guy that would give a man a break even when he knows it's not in his best interest. The guy has a two BILLION dollar net worth and probably has less than a decade left to enjoy it. So why not piss a little of it away in the spirit of fair play and positive public relations.

[Tyler]

People have turned down Rick Hendrick too. Keselowski was supposed to replace Mark Martin, but didn't want to wait around and went off on his own. Mark then tried to get Matt Kenseth to replace him, but Matt wouldn't leave Roush at the time.

[Michael in SoCal]

Did Allmendinger fail two tests or one? I know he was tested and came back positive, and that the second sample taken at the time of the first was retested and that also failed. To me, that is failing one drug test, not two.

[George X]

You are correct Michael. He only failed once. His A & B samples (taken from the same pee cup and split into two containers) were tested separately and both failed. But only failed on a single occasion.