February 6, 2008

Dr. Bud's Racin' Rules - the 2008 Pre-Season Predictions Version.

By Dr. Bud E. Bryan

Austin, Texas. Well, now that the second-best damn Super Bowl ever has officially ended the football season (sorry Giants fans, I still rank SB III when Joe Willie Namath's Jets beat the 17-point favorite Baltimore Colts as a bigger deal), it's time to start thinking about the racing season. Okay, save your emails, I know the Daytona 24-Hour was run a couple of weeks ago, but let's face it, other than for us hard-core road racing fans, it didn't constitute the beginning of the season for the rest of the country because football was still goin' on. But now that the pigskins have stopped flyin' we can all get down to business.

Some driver somewhere will actually take responsibility for screwin' up on the track. No, I have no idea where or when this will happen, but I predict that a driver will actually dispense with this "we" bullshit - as in "We were runnin' really good today, just off the leaders' until we hit the wall," or, "We got the set-up just a hair off which is why we spent the entire race in a battle for 35th," or, "We got caught up with the pace car back there which is why we lost two laps" - and just admit that he or she f---ed-up royally. As in, "Yeah, I punted him off. Didn't mean to but I tried my best Michael Schumacher late-braking imitation and drilled him like an RPG." Or, "It just seemed like a good idea at the time to go four-wide into Turn 2. Guess what, it wasn't." How about this one: "I was so geeked coming off of 4 there was no way in Hell I was going to make the pit lane, but I tried anyway. I think they're still picking up the pieces." And how about in F1: "For sure I thought I could pass the first two rows of the grid going down into Turn 1. Big mistake. Did I really take out half the field?" I think racing fans of all stripes are tired of this "we" bullshit in racing. And no, we're not stupid - we understand, of course, that there is an entire team of technicians behind these drivers, but come on, did the team keep its foot in it while on the grass and shoot up the banking like a pinball causing the Big One? Did the team overshoot the pit box and send the whole pit lane scrambling? Did the team throw the race away while leading trying a bonehead move to even a score with a rival from earlier in the race? Nope. It was the driver, and the driver alone. I think it would benefit all of us fans if today's modern drivers - robots and otherwise - took to heart those immortal words of the great Buddy Baker, who nonchalantly climbed out of his car after hitting the wall one day and said after being asked what happened: "My brain blowed-up."

A race with just three finishers. The car count is so shaky in Champ Car that they'll actually try to pawn-off a 16-car grid (if they're lucky) as a "full field." Given the nature of half the tracks they run on, it's conceivable that three cars will be left running at one of their races. Would you be surprised? I wouldn't be. Notgonnahappen.com? We'll see.

Formula 1 will dissolve into juvenile petty bickering over some affront, real or imagined. As most AE readers know, F1 stopped having any appeal to me years ago. Yeah, I'll watch a handful of races a year, but beyond that the season is too long, the racing is either nonexistent (whoever leads into Turn 1 wins) or too boring, the media blather is too stupid, the cars have no appeal, but most of all, the fact that Bernie Ecclestone has turned the whole thing into his personal carpet-bagging money circus makes my skin crawl. When you add in the fact that these guys act like a bunch of five-year-olds half the time, the whole thing is a giant beat-off. And when you think of the budgets these guys are playing with, and the fact that this sport isn't doing one damn thing to advance the efficient automotive technologies of the future that we'll all be driving, I find it extremely difficult to give a shit. I'll watch a good Formula Ford race any day over the average F1 race.

The stick-and-ball media, Madison Avenue and Corporate America will start to lose its fascination with NASCAR. Actually, this started a couple of years ago. This is more Peter's thing, but I'll add my two bucks: NASCAR is oversaturated, oversubscribed, overblown, overwrought, overdone and on its way to being just plain over. And I couldn't be happier. My NASCAR viewing will consist of the following races this year: The Daytona 500, the Coca-Cola 600 (the last hour anyway), the two road races (Watkins Glen and Sears Point), the Brickyard, the Bristol night race and the Richmond night race in September. The rest of the schedule? NASCAR has become like the NBA - watch the first twenty laps and the last 20 laps and call it good.

This will be the last year for two separate open-wheel racing series in the U.S. Get your fill, Champ Car fans because 2008 will be it. The 2009 season will see the core top teams from Champ Car move over to the IRL. It's as inevitable as, well, as the Month of May at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

There will be an insurrection in the SCCA. Seein' as this weekend is the big annual convention  for the SCCA in San Antonio and all, I thought I'd go down there and stir up some trouble. Nah, not really, but I predict a savvy group of members will unify and force some big changes in the SCCA, including moving the Runoffs from Topeka asap. I get the whole Heartland thing, but the SCCA has to get over itself and have its season-ending championship on a rotating schedule on this country's greatest natural-terrain circuits.

Danica will finally win a race. Or, let's put it this way, if she doesn't win a race this year her contract with AGR and her driving future will be in serious jeopardy, I don't care how popular her "Q" rating is.

Toyota will win several NASCAR races and contend for the Sprint Cup. This is like predicting the sun will rise in the east tomorrow. And, I wouldn't be surprised if Toyota's first NASCAR win comes on February 17th, in the Daytona 500.

Juan Pablo Montoya will contend for the Sprint Cup. This guy is good, what can I say? He is the toughest and most gifted driver in NASCAR this side of Tony Stewart and he will win races and contend for the championship. And if Toyota doesn't win the Daytona 500, don't be surprised if J.P. isn't right there at the end.

The ALMS will become the racing series. Linking future production technologies to our future production cars through racing is The Answer for manufacturers, and the ALMS will just keep on its upward trajectory (see "Fumes" AE # 430 - ed.).

Beyond the Indy 500, no one will care about open-wheel racing in the U.S. See my point above about the unification of the two major open-wheel racing series in the U.S. The sad thing is that even with a unified series, open-wheel racing in this country just might be done. Unless Tony George grows some cojones and launches the sport into a new technological dimension (see "Fumes" AE # 430 - ed.), then I'm afraid the Indy 500 will be the last race standing for hard-core open-wheel fans.

Somewhere, somehow, racing fans will find a way. There will be one fleeting moment at one race that will remind racing fans why they love the sport and why they'll keep coming back for more. And we should all be thankful for that, because the alternative would certainly be grim.

Adios until the next time.