This semi-regular column is written (in his own blood) by an automotive sage and noted malcontent, known as The Mechanic. Mercilessly beaten as a child with rolled-up back issues of old car magazines, our free-spoken hero developed a unique "for your own good" take on cars and the auto industry, along with an unfortunate habit of setting himself ablaze. Later, after a distinguished career as an automotive journalist and magazine editor, he cast off the reins of his musty oppressors, carved out his superego with a plastic spork and became The Mechanic.
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina -- Actually, Concord, North Carolina, but we figured you might not be able to find that on the map. The Mechanic is, yes, on the road, attending the annual NASCAR Media Tour, because NASCAR is the sport of the people, and The Mechanic is, if nothing else, a man of the people.
Each year, for the past 28, Charlotte Motor Speedway has hosted the NASCAR-covering media, who migrate here like the Three Wise Men seeking Baby Jesus; whoever NASCAR's Baby Jesus is that year, maybe Jeff Gordon or Jimmie Johnson or Parker Kligerman. But instead of bearing gifts, we take gifts home, such as a box of Ritz crackers, the Official Round Cracker With Seven Little Holes in It of NASCAR.
This is NASCAR, and sponsorship is everything. Note that this shindig is hosted by the Charlotte Motor Speedway (CMS): It used to be Lowe's Motor Speedway, but the money ran out at Lowe's, so it is CMS again until a big check clears and it becomes Taco Bell Motor Speedway or Dunkin' Doughnuts Motor Speedway or, given the track's love of Toyota hybrid pace cars, Prius Motor Speedway, which would at least allow us to refer to the track as PMS, and snicker out loud.
Anyhow, The Mechanic is here for four days, and I will bring you The News, Mechanic-style, which means we may not feel compelled to refer to the May NASCAR Nationwide race at CMS as The TECH-NET Auto Service 300 Powered by CONQUEST Auto Parts. In fact, we may not refer to it at all.
So here's the Media Tour, Day 1:
Lunch With Stewart-Haas Racing
Tony Stewart, since he became co-owner of his own team last year, is startlingly fat and happy. The "happy" part is new. Long a handful at Joe Gibbs Racing -- the Coach said later in the day that he wanted to strangle Tony once a week when he drove for him, but strangle him in a friendly Christian way -- Stewart's first year driving for himself was pretty smooth for him and for his teammate, Ryan Newman, a degreed engineer from Purdue, which is apparently some sort of technical school, like DeVry.
Describing the 2010 season compared to 2009, Newman said: "Two points define a slope. We have our point from 2009. Our point from 2010 will determine our success for Stewart-Haas racing in years to go. Just going out there and having a lot better start to the season in Daytona is extremely important -- and getting that definition and that second point so we can define our future at Stewart-Haas Racing is also important for us this year." Zzzzzzzz.
At least the lunch was not catered by Stewart's favorite restaurant, Burger King, but it did feature Tornados, another sponsor, which is "America's Number 1 Roller Grille Snack Item," meaning they are the little brown things you see rolling behind the food counter of 7-Eleven. Yum!
Joe Gibbs Racing Press Conference With Charlotte Motor Speedway
We were bused to the track and delivered to the garage area, where we found our chairs segregated from about 100 "rabid NASCAR fans," but only several actually looked rabid, including a couple presumably fresh from the set of Deliverance.
The track president, young Marcus Smith, who probably only coincidentally is related to his father, Bruton Smith, who pretty much built the place, revealed that 15,000 of the ancient, rusty old seats on the front stretch will be replaced by new plastic seats, and that if you buy the same seat for all the races, including the TECH-NET Auto Service 300 Powered By CONQUEST Auto Parts -- damn! -- you could not only get your name placed on your seat, you actually get to take home the old metal seat!
The rabid fans cheered and the media went, "Huh?" Then an actual fan, Judy Trudel, The Official Representative Female Fan of Charlotte Motor Speedway, was allowed to sit in a sample plastic seat, and revealed that it was "great!" See? That's why The Mechanic traveled 3,000 miles to bring you the scoop.
Joe Gibbs then announced that Kyle Busch, who replaced Stewart as the driver he would most like to strangle weekly, has signed a "multi-year" contract. Then we ate "funnel cake fries," which are like little slivers of fried funnel cake, thus guaranteeing The Mechanic's last flowing artery no longer flows.
Dinner With Roger Penske and Dodge
Since Penske dumped his bid for Saturn, and his Smart car sales are down 38 percent, what else does he have to do other than spend an evening with NASCAR media, explaining how happy he is to be the only Dodge team in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series? Ralph Gilles, president and CEO of Dodge, showed up because any place is better than Detroit in January.
Both agreed how happy they are with each other, though you have to think that in restrictor-plate races like the Daytona 500, where you pretty much have to draft with partners who share your manufacturer's brand to get to the front, those three Dodges are likely to look pretty lonely out there. I asked Penske if he would like to run General Motors: He said, "No." Stop the presses!
Hospitality With ESPN and TRG Motorsports
The Racer's Group is headed by Kevin Buckler, who will have five Porsches in the 24 Hours of Daytona, but is only now getting his feet wet in NASCAR, with a sophomore one-car team for driver Bobby Labonte. Former NASCAR Cup champion Labonte tries to seem chipper that his career has reached the point where his main value is offering a past champion's provisional starting spot if he can't qualify, but even when Labonte actually is thrilled, he seems as morose as Scott Oldham when someone makes fun of Smokey and the Bandit.
As for Buckler, he owns a vineyard in California, and brought lots of wine. And ESPN brought lots of desserts and a huge vat of melted chocolate for dipping, which made me wish I'd saved some of those Tornados from the Tony Stewart lunch. Is there anything not improved by dipping it in chocolate?
Tuesday, Day Two, will include a visit with Richard Petty, Jack Roush and a trip to the new NASCAR Hall of Fame, as well as an evening stop at Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s bar, Whiskey River. There we expect to drink heavily and then ride the mechanical bull, which will allow Junior a little revenge on journalists who pissed him off last year. Things are looking up! -- The Mechanic, Inside Line Contributor
E-mail me at themechanic@edmunds.com.
mozzz77788 says:
07:52 PM, 01/19/10
Would it be safe to say that NASCAR is a dying sport? Or is that just a myth?
uncanny_man says:
04:23 AM, 01/20/10
^^^ Probably just a myth perpetuated by high revving formula 1 adoring fans (which seem to be the ones to usually get media jobs). I doubt nascar will be dying anytime sooner than redneck culture.
lmbvette says:
05:22 AM, 01/20/10
@mozzz77788
Yes, I think that is a very safe assumption. Back in the late 80's and into the mid 90's various members of my family used to watch NASCAR. Today, not one single family member watches any of it.
When they removed any aspect of the 'stock car' from the racing, I lost all interest.
I'll start watching again when the cars on the track are actually based on cars on the street. You would think that NASCAR would just line up the Camaro, Mustang and Challenger with stock body panels and call it a day. Nope! The sport is now about the drivers, not the car.
throwback says:
06:01 AM, 01/20/10
Nascar and Formula 1 suffer from the same thing, they have become about the "show" and not the racing. Nascar is just one big rolling billboard. When the cars are running nose to tail you can't tell where one car ends and another begins. As for F1, the entertainment is NEVER on the track. It's about the Bernie show and what assinine thing he will say next. It's about crashgate where Briatore gets banned for life, and is back in a week. I won't even mention Max Mosely. When was the last time you saw a pass for first place on the track?
Thankfully for me there is WRC and sportscar racing. I stopped watching Nascar and only watch qualifying and the first 2 laps of any F1 race. Nothing much to see after that.
audisport says:
07:15 AM, 01/20/10
I myself enjoy American LeMans..
fuhteng says:
07:21 AM, 01/20/10
Jalopnik had a great idea on how to fix NASCAR. That would be a 'sport' I would watch. Too bad it will never happen.
smilez says:
08:09 AM, 01/20/10
SCCA - That's where it's at. The closest to 'Stock' car racing in my opinion.
Plus, it's not just going fast and turning left.
I know die-hards will scream "but NASCAR is a chess match, it's not just turning left", but I just don't get it. As I heard a comedian say on satellite radio, "Not even a dog would watch a car go in a cricle 400 times."
That's just a joke people. I respect NASCAR and it's drivers. Any sport where you lose 7 lbs. in the course of a few hours can't be easy. But I've never watched more than the last three laps of any race. Just can't do it. Like watching baseball to me.
-lmbvette
I like it but I'll add a little to it. Because that would be a domination by one manufacturer (not Dodge), how 'bout you let all of the top 'respected' tuners at the cars with max hp limits. Hennessey and the likes. And if they have the balls, let in SVT, SRT, etc. in too.
matt310 says:
09:00 AM, 01/20/10
I'm definitely not a tree-hugger, despite living near, and working in Santa Monica, but I wonder how much emissions these cars give off altogether in a single season.
good_2_go says:
09:11 AM, 01/20/10
Do you even wonder how much jet fuel the NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL teams use in a single season?
sgude says:
09:43 AM, 01/20/10
NASCAR is not dying, but it is going through a natural adjustment from the saturation we've seen since the late 1990s. I mean, does anyone remember when Fox bought Speedvision and turned it into the NASCAR channel? They quickly reversed that when future trends showed that they were going to lose viewership with the NASCAR-centric programming. As long as they keep showing F1 races and qualifying (which usually is better that the actual race), I'll be happy. I only watch the NASCAR races at the speed tracks like Talladega and Daytona and the road courses, and really, I only watch because Juan Pablo Montoya is in the series.
Formula One is going through the same sort of adjustment, but Bernie has an advantage in that the series can (and has) expand to new markets hungry for the circus. My only hope is that Bernie, in his overwhelming desire to make even more money, does not continue to put the classic European tracks like Spa and Silverstone on the chop block, trying to force them to pay higher fees. I can hardly imagine a season without Spa, Monza or Monaco. I even enjoyed the old Hockenheim with the massive straights.
inlinesix says:
10:44 AM, 01/20/10
I used to watch a NASCAR race once in a while. But not anymore. It is like one big several hour advertisement for 10,000 companies. I'd rather buy tickets for a local Rally race once a year. If NASCAR is a dying sport, no big loss in my book. On TV its about as interesting as watching paint dry or folding laundry.
iskch says:
10:53 AM, 01/20/10
Nascar now is a bathtub on wheels sport w/whole lot of sponsor money. No more small team guys. I lost interest more than a decade ago. If you have good memory, do you remember Harry Gant in the 90's when he won 5 races in a row in a Olds? That was Nascar, the small guy racing the wheels off beating the bigger teams back then. Now, only the wealthy teams rule.
F-1 and IRL? Quit watch them too long ago.
mikedrud says:
11:08 AM, 01/20/10
Supposedly, NASCAR is going to let the drivers have more control over the racing. If guys have beefs with one another, they can work out it as they used to -- on the track or off with fisticuffs. I think the Hamlin-Keselowski "feud" from last season added a lot of interest to the sport and NASCAR is trying to adapt to prevent going into freefall.
estreka says:
03:31 PM, 01/20/10
"any place is better than Detroit in January"
I beg to differ.
NASCAR is losing viewership and for good reason. NASCAR doesn't mean anything anymore (unless you're a sponsor or if you're a viewer who LOVES commercials).
To be fair though, I don't watch any type of racing anymore. The controversy and drama have soured me on most motorsports. I'd love to watch WRC, but it's never broadcasted.
rick8365 says:
03:49 PM, 01/20/10
"If you have good memory, do you remember Harry Gant in the 90's when he won 5 races in a row in a Olds?" That and many other truly great moments and memories from Nascar's heydays.
BTW - Gant was great driver and he was in good equipment....However, I firmly believe the 5 race winning streak was more a result of him and his team finding an undiscovered gray area in the rulebook before anyone else. It's only cheatin' if there's a rule being broken or if you've been caught.
canddmeyer says:
03:59 PM, 01/20/10
Great article, and the comments match mine. I still watch it on occasion, but even golf is more exciting than NASCAR, where you tune in and they interrupt the commercials for two minutes of racing.
slayerrips says:
04:00 PM, 01/20/10
Why does Edmunds continue to waste bandwith on useless drivel from The Mechanic? Who cares what your opinion is, on anything? What was gained by reading this article?