THE NOTEPAD: Fontana Cup Race

A CASE OF DEJA VU
By Dave Grayson

Deja Vu: it’s an interesting little concept that allows events to repeat itself unexpectedly. In the first two weeks of the NASCAR season it appears that Kevin Harvick may be on his way to mastering the meaning of Deja Vu. Let’s take a look at some rather interesting statistics within a period of seven days.

At the season opener in Daytona Harvick won the Busch Series race in rather convincing fashion and very reminiscent of his total domination of the series that led to an overwhelming 2006 championship. The next day he won the Daytona 500, coming off of a red flag, in a final lap shootout that will forever be regarded as one of the best finishes in the history of the track.

Now let’s fast forward six days to the California Speedway and their Busch Series race. Harvick started sixth in the race but was quickly hampered by tire problems and wound up two laps down in what was beginning to look like a long day for him. Harvick, through hard racing and good pit strategy, made up the two laps and actually led 11 laps of the race despite the fact that he was racing with worn tires that were beginning to have the texture of shredded wheat. He wound up finishing in a very credible sixth place.

Now let’s move on to the Nextel Cup race at the California Speedway. In the final laps of the race Harvick was in second and everyone was wondering if he was going to pull off a final lap win just like he did the week before at Daytona. With eight laps left in the race, the event was red flagged due to an accident. Under yellow again, Harvick lined up behind eventual race winner Matt Kenseth and everyone in the grandstands were on their feet waiting for the drama to unfold. It didn’t happen. Instead of taking the green restart flag, Harvick came down pit road with a flat tire and had to settle for a 17th place finish. Now that’s Deja Vu. Spooky isn’t it?

I DON’T THINK THE UNLEADED FUEL HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT.

The Nextel Cup event at the California Speedway had the distinction of being the first event that used unleaded fuel provided by Sunoco and that created a unique challenge for engine builders. One of the concerns was the fact that the former leaded fuel had a lubricant in it that formed a protective seal around the valves and the pistons. The new unleaded fuel does not have that lubricant and that presented the concerns.Those concerns were heightened by the fact that the California Speedway has a reputation of being tough on power plants because of the high ammount of RPM’s the engines turn there.

But it wasn’t like NASCAR informed their teams about the new fuel at the last minute. The teams have known for months that this day was coming and, by the time the Auto Club 500 had concluded, it was pretty evident who did their homework in the research lab and who didn’t. For example, Hendrick Motorsports began their research in early November with the new fuel and ran their race engines on a dyno for 700 miles at race speeds while carefully looking for any potential negative impact. The reward of the effort was a strong weekend for all of the Hendrick teams led by Jeff Gordon’s pole winning qualifying speed and a second place finish in the race.

Doug Yates, who builds the engines for Robert Yates Racing and Roush Fenway Racing, also did his homework. That was obvious by the fact that Roush driver Matt Kenseth swept the California Speedway weekend and won the Busch and Nextel Cup events. Yates also started his research work last November and, reportedly, spent over one million dollars to make sure his engines were going to be ready.

Richard Childress Racing also did their homework, during the off season, and were rewarded by very strong runs from all three of their cars.

On the other end of the spectrum it was painfully apparent that the one organization that didn’t get the homework done was Dale Earnhardt Incorporated, DEI. Martin Truex Jr went out early in the race, while running in the top five, with a blown engine. Dale Earnhardt Jr hit pit road with a engine going sour early in the event as well. He did return to the track running on seven cylinders, in an effort to salvage some championship points, but even that effort was shortlived when his engine blew for good. The third DEI driver, Paul Menard, finished the race but could only muster a 20th place finish one lap down. However, the night before, Menard ended a strong run in the Busch Series event with a late in the race blown engine. All of this is on top of the fact that both Truex and Earnhardt blew engines during a pre season test session at Las Vegas three weeks earlier.

Adding up the damage, that’s five blown engines in less than a month for DEI and now the pressure is on. They have less than two weeks to fix this situation before the March 11th Las Vegas race. I can only imagine the level of stress that must have been present at the DEI engine department the morning after the Auto Club 500.

THERE’S NO CHANGE OF PLANS SO FAR.

Veteran NASCAR icon Mark Martin only planned to run a limited Nextel Cup schedule, in the Ginn Motorsports/U.S. Army Chevrolet, plus a handful of Busch and Craftsman Truck appearances just for fun. Martin wanted some time off for the huge grind of NASCAR racing to spend more time with his family and to participate in son Matt’s budding racing career.

But after a second at Daytona,combined with a fifth place finish at the California Speedway, Martin left the west coast leading the Nextel Cup points standings for the first time since September of 2002. That fact led to rampant speculation that he may change his mind and run the entire Cup schedule.

When presented with the question about a change of plans, Martin replied with a resounding “NO” and his voice had plenty of authority behind the one word response. But if the good finishes for the team keep on coming and Martin remains a strong factor in the championship standings expect team owner Bobby Ginn to do everything he can to change Martin’s mind even if he has to get on his knees and beg.

NO DOUBT ABOUT IT: DAVID REUTIMANN IS ONE VERY TOUGH GUY.

It was Reutimann who had to deal with the circumstances of a very savage accident during the final moments of the Auto Club 500 when he hit the wall, after some contact from Greg Biffle, so hard that his engine caught on fire. Making the moment even more frightening was the fact that Reutimann did not immeadiately respond to the radio calls from his spotter who was telling him to leave the burning car. It turned out that the impact literally knocked the breath out of the driver and he was unable to say anthing at first. He exited the car with nothing more than a badly bruised ankle. The following day Reutimann said that he received a telephone call from Biffle and things were fine with them. He also said that he was feeling a lot better and planned to honor his busy scheudle which included car of tomorrow testing, three days after the race, as well as plans to compete in the Busch Series race in Mexico City the following weekend.

OH WHAT A FEELING: MY TOYOTA.

That used to be a well known musical jingle for Toyota television ads from days gone by. Needless to say, since the Japanese automaker joined the Nextel Cup Series this year all eyes has been on their teams. It hasn’t been a pretty sight. There were a lackluster debut at Daytona that was completely overshadowed by the post qualifying inspection on Michael Waltrip’s car that resulted in the harshest penalty in NASCAR hsitory.

Waltrip came to the California Speedway last in the standings with a negative 27 points due to the Daytona penalty. He was looking for the circumstances that would turn his entire operation around. Waltrip left the west coast with his negative 27 points because he failed to qualify for the Auto Club 500. Adding insult to injury, Waltrip was bumped from the starting field by his teammate and protege David Reutimann and then had to deal with a destroyed Toyota due to Reutimann’s aforementioned crash. The news wasn’t any brighter for Waltrip’s third team, driven by Dale Jarrett, who couldn’t complete a qualifying lap due to transmission problems. Jarrett had to take a past champion’s provisional to make the race and then spent a lot of time of pit road dealing with a variety of problems. He finished 32nd four laps down. In fact, only three of the seven Toyota made the race line up.

But, in all fairness, Toyota did have some encouraging moments at the California Speedway. It started during qualifying for the Busch Series race when Dave Blaney won the Bud Pole after turning in a lap of 180.410. Blaney even led the first 16 laps of the race. On the Nextel Cup side, Brian Vickers was the bright spot and earned the honor of giving Toyota its first ever top ten finish.

What we have here is a major case of growing pains that often comes with a new project this large. Be rest assured that Toyota Racing Development will figure out all of its problens and get their program haded in the right direction.But it’s going to take awhile and the season may very well be half over by the time we see the improvements. In the meantime don’t expect anyone in a NASCAR garage to be singing “oh what a feeling my Toyota” anytime soon.

THE BUNNY WAS VERY SAD.

Reed Sorrenson,driver of the Target Chip Ganassi Racing Dodge, was sporting the colors of Energizer Batteries on his car for the California Speedway weekend. Sorrenson had a special guest with him for the Auto Club 500 pre race festivities: it was that giant pink, drum banging, Energizer Bunny from the company’s popular television commercials. Sadly, Sorrenson got caught up in a lap six wreck and his day ended way too early. The Bunny sadly drooped his giant ears and stopped banging on the drum.

LEAVE THE TRACK ALONE IT’S DOING JUST FINE.

Prior to the start of the NASCAR weekend at the California Speedway there was the usual printed words regarding how boring a race can get there something, quite frankly, I just don’t understand.In fact, there was a columnist from “The San Bernardino Sun” who actually said they should blow up the track and start over. But, after reading several of his columns in the past it appears that this gentleman has created a second career out of bashing the speedway, its staff and probably even doesn’t care for the City of Fontana.

None the less this issue was presented to some of the Nextel Cup drivers. Jeff Gordon responded to the question and said “Michigan is one of my favorite tracks. This track is patterned after Michigan and it’s not exactly the same but it is similiar. From a driver’s standpoint I love it here. There are a lot of different grooves to run on. But, maybe, we haven’t seen as exciting racing as we have on some other tracks and I’m not sure why because I like this track as much as I like Michigan. We’ve had some good runs here and I’ve seen some exciting races. But, on a consisten basis, I think that because there is so much room here to race on we don’t see many cautions and the cars get really spread out and sometimes that’s not going to be as exciting for the fans.”

Prior to the race Matt Kenseth, who has every reason in the world to love the California Speedway, said “I expect the same race that you see here all of the time. I expect to see two-three grooves of racing out there. The track lends itself really well for side by side racing, it’s plenty wide, so I think you’ll see a great race like you always do out here.”

The bottom line towards measuring the merit of any auto race is the event’s final stastics. Matt Kenseth’s margin of victory over Jeff Gordon was a mere .679 seconds. That’s hardly a yawn making ho hum finish. The race had 28 lead changes which did not give any real creedence to cars being too strung out to race with each other. Actually some of the best racing, that probably was not seen on television, was going on in the rear of the field where the drivers climbed on the wheel and raced door to door all day long. I actually found myself watching this group more than I did the leaders. For those of you who came to the race to see the wrecks, the Auto Club 500 had nine caution flags and one red flag. That should have been plenty for even the most ardent carnage seeker. In fact, the sight of those cars barreling full bore off of the frontstretch and into turn one three wide was breathtaking and they were running so close to each other I’m amazed that that weren’t even more caution flags.

In the past it’s been suggested that the speedway needs a major facelift to improve the competition similiar to what the Miami Homestead Speedway did a few years ago. I say leave the California Speedway alone. It’s doing just fine.