A Voice For The Fans ~The Blame Game 9/19/2014 |
I bid
you welcome gentle readers, and as always that includes our assigned NASCAR
reader du jour, cozily tucked away somewhere in the glass palace known as the
Fan and Media Espionage Center, in the lovely Queen's City of Charlotte, North
Carolina. I do hope you enjoy your stay with us, as nice folks with good ideas
read and comment here frequently.
On
Monday evening as I was patiently awaiting my weekly 15 minutes of radio fame
on Bump
& Run with Robyn Vandenberg, "That Sports Chick",
a topic arose
that wasn't brought up again during my segment, but bears going into here in
our Fan Forum. The subject at hand was the feeling that NASCAR doesn't do
enough to promote promising young talent from the small tracks around the
country. Well, at first blush I guess that's true enough. NASCAR, aside from
their much heralded Diversity Program, aimed it would seem at promoting anyone
that is not an all-white American male, does absolutely nothing by way of
promoting anyone for any series. Why not? Because, to borrow a phrase from an
old TV show, "Ees not their job man!"
Once
upon a time, the small local tracks did enjoy support, but it never came from
NASCAR, though that entity was the sanctioning body for many of the races held
at those tracks. Instead, it came in the form of very real dollars and
advertising provided by NASCAR's sponsor for 32 years, R.J. Reynolds, whose
Winston brand cigarettes also stood as Series sponsor for "Winston
Cup" racing, known at various points in history as "Strictly
Stock", "Grand National", "Nextel Cup" and now
"Sprint Cup."
Those that
have taken a few more turns around the sun will easily recall the signs that decorated
so many of those small Friday or Saturday night racing venues, all proclaiming
Winston to be the racing sponsor.
Alas,
when R.J. Reynolds was forced to withdraw sponsorship from the Cup Series at
the close of 2003, that also meant the end of aid and
assistance to those local tracks that had come to depend on that Winston brand
and the dollars that accompanied it, to make ends meet. Without the money and
the priceless promotion that R.J. Reynolds did so well, many of those tracks
were forced to sharply curtail their racing programs or even close their doors
completely, thereby having a like effect on the racers that competed there.
For
years, those smaller series acted as the feeders for the illustrious Grand
National/Winston Cup Series and it was through their gates that each new crop
of racers stepped up to become part of the top Series and race for that coveted
Cup. Please bear in mind though, that in the strictest sense, NASCAR had
nothing whatever to do with that process, and was merely the sanctioning body
for many racing series, with the Cup level included.
What
many tend to forget, and it's something that can easily be missed or forgotten
in conversations such as the one on Monday night, is that NASCAR owns
nothing... technically. Yes, ISC, its incestuous sister company, owns many of
the tracks the Cup cars race on, but when it comes to "hardware",
NASCAR itself remains aloof. Team owners bear the brunt of all expenses, and
are considered to be "Independent Contractors", serving under NASCAR
sanction. It is they, not the sanctioning body, that
hire drivers. That right falls entirely within their purview and never involves
NASCAR.
There
was a time in our history when some smaller teams existed almost exclusively as
a training ground for rookies working their way up the ladder of Cup success.
Names such as Junie Donlavey, D. K. Ulrich and L.G. DeWitt filled that bill
along with many others. Then, as they say, a funny thing happened on the way to
a Championship. Rick Hendrick, then owner of a team that had been gaining
strength in its 8 years on the Cup circuit, pulled an unexpected sneak attack
and secured the services of a very young Ford driver from the Busch Series that
had, to that point, wrecked just about every vehicle owned by Bill and Gail
Davis with the exception of their personal driver.
Enter
Jeff Gordon, now 4-time Cup Champ and trying to make that five as I type. Once Jeff was done assaulting the walls, his true talent shone through
like the sun through a stained glass window on Sunday morning, and suddenly
everyone wanted a rookie driver. Every owner wanted to own "the
next Jeff Gordon." Rookies were then no longer expected to "pay
their dues" as had been the custom since the inception of stock car
racing. They came and were immediately wrapped up in the very best equipment
money could buy, with no indoctrination and no idea how much it cost to put
them there.
As
that change was making itself felt throughout the series, another was afoot
that would soon effect who gets the call to drive even more. Owners got the
message that the "team limit" of four imposed by NASCAR was not so
much a limit as it was a suggestion that might be the best way to go. Mergers
and alliances happened swiftly, and when the dust cleared, yes, there were a
few small teams still around, but the upper echelon had boiled down to the
digits on one paw of a six-toed kitten.
Now,
exactly as perceived and lamented by my friends, it is almost impossible for a
young driver to "earn" a chance to race in the elite series, because
those that will make it have been hand-selected years in advance by those six
or so top teams. They each have their personal Driver Development programs,
where the "babies" are started from the ground up... some before
reaching high-school age. Oh, and it doesn't hurt to have a recognized name...
maybe a name like Elliott or Blaney.
No,
it's not easy for a great young driver to break into that world of elite racing
these days. In fact, it's next to impossible to compete with that type of
multi-year program already in place. My only purpose in writing this is to make
it clear that NASCAR should not be the target of your slings and arrows. In
this case, lay the blame directly where it belongs, on the broad shoulders of
men such as Rick Hendrick, Jack Roush, Joe Gibbs, Tony Stewart, Richard
Childress and Roger Penske. They own the teams; they hire the drivers, and more
importantly they select candidates for their Driver Development programs from
among a pampered few. All others need not apply.
If
anyone reading this has any sort of solution in mind, please don't be shy. Post
it here and let's talk about it. Let's get it out in the open where NASCAR
might benefit from it, as I'm very sure they would love to have more drivers
coming up to the elite series. More drivers just might mean more teams; maybe
we could even get more than 43 to show up for a race now and then. I do love
the knockout qualifying, but it's really proving useless right now. It takes a
lot of time and money to run and televise that feature, and it's a shame that
the same thing... pit selection... could be determined by drawing ping-pong
balls from a fish bowl.
Now
it's time for our Classic Country Closeout and today we're going truly Classic. Every Country fan knows several versions of that
old guitar favorite called, "Wildwood
Flower." Almost all are good, but there was one that I heard in my
teen years that was a bit of a "jazzed up" version, done by Hank
Thompson and his Brazos Valley Boys, with a guest appearance from Merle Travis
on guitar. I hope you enjoy this as much as I do every time I play it. Time to
kick a bit of it off your boots!
Here's
another from very early times. I had this one on a single 78rpm, B-sided with
"The Prisoner's Song" and sung by Vernon Dalhart. Yeah, I know... "Who?" That's why I chose this rendition by Hank
Snow instead. Though this song was recorded many times over, Hank's is one
version that stays with the original words. Please enjoy the Singing Ranger, Hank
Snow doing "Wreck of the Old
97."
Lastly,
we have a very old song that easily dates back to the 1930s and maybe before,
done by a couple that themselves were way up in age
when this version was recorded in 1965. Here are Lulubelle
and Scotty Wiseman singing their late in life offering of "Rocking Alone in an Old Rocking Chair."
Be
well gentle readers, and remember to keep smiling. It looks so good on you!
~ PattyKay