NASCARolina

This week’s blog entry is delayed somewhat, first due to writer’s block and then due to a funeral in North Carolina for my aunt, who was also my dad’s twin sister.  Now not only is my father gone (2004), but also both of his brothers and both of his sisters, which brings that generation of my father’s side of the family to a close.  My mother, one of nine children, still has a few siblings left alive (including herself) but no one is getting any younger.  Neither am I…

I have already addressed the issue of funerals, so I’ll keep that element as brief as possible.  Moreover, my experiences in NC are likewise limited, which will make this blog fairly brief as a whole.

I have a law school classmate doing fairly well in Greensboro (“John B”), who have I yet to visit since he moved down there.  If the invitation is still open, I’d be happy to see how he’s doing.  I have an elementary school classmate (“Michael B”) who is now a professor at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC, but I don’t have much contact with him – just oblique messages on political topics on Facebook – much less any invitation to visit.  Moreover, Boone looks like it’s fairly remote, so it’s not even on the way to anything else.  

Ages ago, when my other law school classmate, John G, was still living at home and hadn’t yet met his wife, I visited him in Virginia Beach.  We took a day trip down to Nag’s Head on the Outer Banks.  We even stopped by Food Lion for sandwiches, which the store identified as “miscellaneous retail items”.  You can really sink your teeth into those.   I have relatives who visit the Outer Banks every summer, but I’ve yet to join them.   The Outer Banks look like much of the East Coast beach scene, like Ocean City, MD; Virginia Beach, VA; Coney Island, NY; Jones Beach, NY; Sandy Hook, NJ;  Atlantic City, NJ.  Outer Banks, though, doesn’t seem to have a boardwalk.  Too bad.

Raleigh-Durham.   My uncle – the recently-deceased but much beloved aunt’s husband – died last year, which gave me my first taste of this area, which is about 4 hours south of the DC area.  I didn’t visit any downtown area, but I did stop by Duke University on the way out and picked up a pint glass from the bookstore.  The weather then was fantastic, and I was in no particular hurry to leave.

I didn’t notice the area looking much different than Virginia, except maybe more trees and much taller.   But that looks is shared with Virginia southwest of Petersburg, along I-85. 

NASCAR.  I associate North Carolina with NASCAR, which is why I call it the way I do.  I don’t watch much auto racing, period, and almost none of NASCAR.  In the short time I’ve been in NC, I had no occasion to run into Don Garlits, John Force, Don Prudhomme, Helio Castroneves, Emerson Fittipaldi, Ayrton Senna, or other such NASCAR (!) heroes.  Nor did I see anyone driving like that on the street.   Looks like I missed out on NC. 

If I have occasion to return, I’ll be happy to.   Until then…

Shirley Muldowney vs. Danica Patrick

Recently NASCAR legend Richard Petty got in hot water for saying that the only way Danica Patrick could win a NASCAR race was if no one else showed up.   The issue of women drivers, and particularly women race drivers, is this week’s blog topic.

Before Danica Patrick, the most successful female race car driver was Shirley Muldowney, who was active in NHRA (drag racing) from the mid 60’s up until her retirement in 2003.   Not merely competitive, she actually won three NHRA Top Fuel championships, in 1977, 1980, and 1982.   That means not merely winning ONE event, but the entire season.   The nature of drag racing means that winning an event means not beating 35 other drivers on a dragstrip simultaneously, but winning a bracket of paired races. 

Danica Patrick started out in Indy Racing League (IRL) before NASCAR.   From 2005 to 2010 she raced in IndyCar, switching to NASCAR in 2010, initially in Nationwide (2^nd tier) and bumping up to Sprint Cup (top tier) in 2012.   Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmy Johnson, etc. are in Sprint Cup.   In her entire career, through IRL to Sprint Cup, Patrick has won ONE race, in 2008.  Her highest position was 5^th place in the standings, the 2009 IRL season.  While she has won pole positions, these are won by driving quickly alone on the track, and do not translate into results amidst the full field of competitors on the track at once.  To date she does not appear to be competitive. 

Granted, there are big differences between drag racing and stock car racing.  In drag racing you drive the dragster from a dead stop for a quarter mile, racing at most one other competitor in the other lane, in as close to a straight line for that 1320 feet as you can.  NASCAR means driving around a track, among a field of 30-something other drivers. 

The local tracks have “bracket racing”, which means you can literally bring your street car to the track, zip off at the same quarter mile as the NHRA legends, and compare your E.T. and mph to theirs in an apples-to-apples comparison.   Obviously a street car isn’t going to compete with a top fuel dragster (the fastest category), or even the Pro Stock dragster (the slowest category), but the track and measurement are the same.   A street car might be anywhere from 20 seconds (slow minivan) to 14 seconds (fast muscle car) to 12 seconds (Dodge Viper or Z06 Corvette).   Race motorcycles are even faster.   

            To give examples, my best speed in my fastest car, a 1992 Pontiac Firebird Formula 350, was 14.28 seconds and 98 mph.  The current NHRA records are: Pro Stock, 6.471 ET, 214.69 mph; Funny Car, 3.965 ET, 324.15 mph (John Force); Top Fuel 3.701 ET, 332.18 mph.   This means John Force covered the same quarter mile it took my car to cover in 14.28 seconds, in just under 4 seconds (10 seconds faster), at over 3 times the speed by the time he reached the end of the track. 

            Needless to say, the same does not hold true for NASCAR.  You cannot bring your street Camaro or Mustang down to Daytona and race your buddies.  For that reason, drag racing appeals more to me as someone who sometimes drives “performance” cars., emphasis on “sometimes.”

Also, I’ve noticed that NASCAR has a bit of a soap opera element to it.  Fans get passionate about their allegiances to different drivers, and subjective qualities of the drivers come into play.  Jeff Gordon, in particular, seems to elicit the same hostility as Justin Bieber.  But the world of drag racing also had its drama.  Muldowney was dating Connie Kalitta, “The Mongoose”, a rival of Don Prudhomme, “The Snake”.  Don Garlits and Jungle Jim and Jungle Pam were also colorful characters in the 70s.  Some of this can been seen in “Heart Like A Wheel”, the movie about Muldowney, featuring Bonnie Bedelia as her, though Muldowney was not impressed by the film or Bedelia. 

Anyhow.  If you look at many of the records Muldowney and Patrick have made, almost all of them are “first” or “best” by a woman, not first or best overall.  There are so few women in racing that either of these two were bound to break some of these records.  Clearly among the sports, Muldowney was far more competitive.  As it stands, Patrick’s only virtue appears to be as a photogenic, articulate Go Daddy spokesperson amidst a male-dominated sport.  The likelihood of her of winning a Sprint Cup race is extremely low.  Her likelihood of winning the trophy – top points score by the end of the season – is effectively nil.   Contrast that with Muldowney’s three championships. 

Why are women not more competitive in racing?  Given how diligently the engineers try to reduce weight in the race cars, a lighter woman (e.g. 5’2”, 100 lb Danica Patrick – no Brienne of Tarth!) should be competitive against a bigger, heavier man driving the exact same vehicle.  Neither a vagina nor ovaries appear to have any direct impact on steering, shifting, accelerating or braking, relative to male anatomy. 

In Puttering About In A Small Land, an early Philip K. Dick novel with no science fiction elements, the major character Roger Lindahl articulates why he believes women make poor drivers:  because they don’t focus on driving.   The book was written in 1957 but not published until 1985, a few years after Dick died.  By 1957, automatic transmissions had become popular in American cars.   With an automatic, as opposed to a manual, a driver can shift attention away from shifting the transmission and let his – or her – attention to other things, which may not even include driving.  I find my own attention wanders immensely if I’m tired.  The safest and most effective driving is when you’re focused exclusively on driving.  While I can’t speak from my own nonexistent experience in NASCAR (though I have bracket raced, as noted above) it takes little imagination to ascertain that what holds true at 70 mph on I-95 is even more important at over 200 mph at Daytona. 

I’m not going to suggest that Danica Patrick isn’t winning NASCAR races because she’s fixing her makeup or thinking about wallpaper or the argument she had with Ricky the night before, or worried that her race jumpsuit makes her butt look fat.  This isn’t the blonde chick on “The Big Bang” (who we know is no bimbo in real life anyway).  I’m sure she’s 100% concentrated on finishing 30^th instead of last, on not crashing again, and on finishing the race.  But results are results.   She is NOT competitive.  Why is that?

Women love to brag about their ability to multitask.  Relative to men, they are definitely better.  Men think in linear, series, terms:  focus on one thing to the exclusion of all others, do that, do it right, then move on to the next task, tackling problems and assignments one at a time.  Women think in parallel: they are more apt to try to do many things at the same time, but while they may be better at doing so than men are, none of the individual tasks will be completed as competently as if it had been done exclusively.  While this may apply to most of the women drivers out on the roads today, I don’t think this is necessarily the issue with Patrick, as noted earlier. 

So I remain stumped:  problem identified, but not conclusively solved.   Perhaps it is a male-female brain thing.  In my earlier blog I suggested that gays are people with the wrong-sex brain.  Notwithstanding “Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby”, that Will Ferrell NASCAR parody in which a competing driver Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen) from “Formula Un” – a GAY driver! – defeats Ricky Bobby, I’m not aware of any NASCAR champions who are gay.  For that matter, I’m not aware of any lesbian race car drivers either, and by all appearances, Danica Patrick only sleeps with men.  For that matter, the same holds true for Shirley “Cha-Cha” Muldowney.  While I’m not a big champion of gay rights, maybe a lesbian NASCAR champion could resolve this issue once and for all.            

Formula Um!

I saw that Helio Castroneves, almost immediately after winning his tax case (acquitted of tax evasion) managed to win yet another Indy 500 race.  He had previously won in 2001 and 2002.  The Brazilian, from São Paulo, had been extremely competitive in IndyCar racing – and we know he can dance. 

 He’s not the only Brazilian associated with race car driving.

 Ayrton Senna.  Another one from São Paulo, probably Brazil’s most famous driver.  He died on the track in the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix.  He won three championships: 1988, 1990, and 1991.  He was popular not only for being a great driver, but also a nice guy.  It turns out his will left his huge fortune to children’s charities.  Whereas in the US we had “Elvis” sightings, in Rio de Janeiro, during his lifetime, there were plenty of “Ayrton” sightings.

 Nelson Piquet.  A carioca (from Rio de Janeiro).  Often considered a rival of Senna and Fittipaldi – or Nigel Mansell.  He never won the Indy 500.

 Emerson Fittipaldi.  Guess what – he’s from São Paolo.  He won the Indy 500 twice (1989 and 1993).

 Tony Kanaan.  From Salvador, Brazil, of Lebanese origin – but has never won the Indy 500.  Associated with Indy Racing League.

 Rubens Barrichello.  Also from São Paulo, and a protégé of Ayrton Senna.

 Gil de Ferran.  Won the Indy 500 in 2003, and then retired.  Born in Paris, France of Brazilian parents.

 At this point, it may be worth sorting through the different racing leagues to distinguish and explain them.

 Formula 1.  This is the top tier of open-wheel racing, using purpose-built race cars on tracks which turn left and right (not just in circles), which are called road courses.  It’s worldwide: the 2009 season will be 17 races around the world (sounds like “Speed Racer”) including Australia, Shanghai, Monaco, Istanbul, and São Paulo.  It began in 1950.  The top 4 teams have been from McLaren (part owned by Mercedes), Williams, Renault and Ferrari, with engines made by Mercedes, Honda, Renault and Ford.  Ferrari has been involved in every season and has the most titles; Michael Schumacher has been the most dominant driver in recent years.  The “minor leagues” are Formula 3, Formula Ford, Formula Renault, and GP2.  Although most of the races are held on purpose-built tracks, several take place in cities: Monaco (aka Monte Carlo), Melbourne, Valencia, and Singapore.  India will have a Grand Prix in Delhi in 2010.  From 1950-60 the Indianapolis 500 was part of this series.  The cars run 2.4 liter V8s revving extremely high: 18-20,000 RPM, producing almost 800 horsepower, going up to 220 mph and cornering at 5 g’s.  Back before electronic fuel injection (EFI), these cars were running mechanical fuel injection.

 Indianapolis 500.  This is the Holy Grail (!) of Formula racing.  The track and race date from 1911, well before NASCAR or Formula 1 came around.  It’s so prestigious that both Americans and Europeans vie for the chance to race, and win there, and various lawsuits have flown back and forth about using the name. 

            Although the cars which race the Indy 500 are the same race cars of Formula 1 or CART/IRL, the pace car is a production car, which has been a Camaro (1967 and 1969) and a Trans Am, and often a Corvette.  In fact, the 1989 Trans Am pace car was the only Trans Am with a V6 – a turbo Buick V6 borrowed and modified from the Grand National.  This model was so fast, it outran the V8 models and did not need to be modified from street to track to do its job. 

 CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams).  This was formed in 1979 as an American equivalent of Formula 1, both to race in the United States – including the Indianapolis 500 – and to include American drivers.  Starting in 1905, the first sanctioning body for auto racing in the US was AAA -  yes, the same American Automobile Association that gives you clever maps and tows your car when you break down.  After 1955, AAA got out of the racing sanctioning business and turned to more mundane pursuits which concern the rest of us, leaving the sanctioning to the US Automobile Club (USAC).  But many people were less than impressed with the job USAC was doing, so they formed CART instead. Like Formula 1, this series uses purpose-built race chassis with low displacement, high-revving V8s putting out something in the neighborhood of 700-800 HP.

 IRL (Indy Racing League).  This was started in 1994, as a spinoff and rival to CART.  The Indianapolis 500 is the focus race, and this acts as an American equivalent of Formula 1, although foreign teams do enjoy competing at the Indy 500 race.  Ironically, although it acted as a competitor to CART (see above), by now CART has gone bankrupt and eaten up by IRL.  This was originally ovals-only courses, then added road course races – Watkins Glen, Infineon and St. Petersburg. 

 NASCAR.  This was began in the late 40s by Bill France, and originated from the races on Daytona Beach, which were the earliest land speed races before the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah became popular from 1936 onward.  Much of NASCAR’s origin and heritage came from Prohibition era bootleggers who modified their cars both to handle heavy loads of illicit alcohol and to evade the slower cars of the local police, particularly in Wilkes County, North Carolina.  Eventually the bootleggers started racing each other in local races, and it simply became a matter of institutionalizing these, starting with Daytona.

            Oddly, NASCAR’s premier race, the Daytona 500, takes place early in the season.  The top tier is Sprint Cup, followed by Nationwide (2^nd Tier) and the Craftsman Truck series.  With a few exceptions, all the NASCAR Sprint Cup races are ovals, and most of the drivers are white males from south of the Mason-Dixon line, mostly from North Carolina.  There is no Shirley Muldowney (NHRA) or Danica Patrick (IRL – though there is speculation she will move to NASCAR or Formula 1 next season) to liven things up.  Unlike Formula 1 and IRL/CART, the cars are based on US production cars, Chevy, Ford and Mopar (except the Toyota Camry, a recent update) even if the cars themselves bear little resemblance, aside from name and shape, to actual street cars. The engines are 355 cubic inch V8s with carburetors.  On certain races on the circuit, restrictor plates are mandated between the carburetor and intake manifold to artificially reduce horsepower and slow the cars down.  With the exception of Infineon (Sonoma, CA) and Watkins Glen (NY), which are road courses, the 36 races are on oval tracks.

            The cars in NASCAR started out as production cars, but eventually developed into purpose built race cars with really only the shell of the car in common with the street versions.  Three Mopar production vehicles have NASCAR origins, however.  The Dodge Charger 500 replaced the recessed grill and rear window with versions flush with the body for improved aerodynamics, but this was not enough, leading to the Charger Daytona, with its beak and high spoiler (to clear the trunk decklid).  With these changes, the car could finally break the 200 mph mark; observers said the car sounded like a jet going around the track.  And Plymouth copied the Daytona with the Superbird, based on the Road Runner – complete with a decal on the side of the spoiler showing the Road Runner with a racing helmet.

            Years ago, the body shop near the law office I used to work at, in Falls Church, had an orange Dodge Daytona (or maybe it was a Superbird).  The hood was open, so I stood there admiring the 440 cubic inch V8, though recognizing immediately that it wasn’t the famous 426 Hemi engine.  A body shop guy walked up to me, and as if reading my mind, remarked, “shame it ain’t a Hemi, huh?”    

 NHRA (National Hot Rod Association).  This is drag racing – straight line acceleration on a quarter mile strip.  It was started in 1953 by Wally Parks as a way to get racing off the streets and onto sanctioned drag strips, often times former airstrips.  The top tiers are Top Fuel (dragsters), Funny Car, and Pro Stock.  Top Fuel dragsters run nitromethane, superchargers, open headers (zoomies), and typically finish the quarter mile in less than 4 seconds at over 300 miles per hour (the record is 330 mph).  The times for Funny Car are a little over 4 seconds and a little less than 300 mph, and Pro Stock at 6.5 seconds at over 200 mph.

            At the grass roots level is bracket racing, in which the cars do not compete “heads up” (both leaving at the same time) but have staggered starting times depending on the dial-in (estimated ET) of the two cars, so theoretically a 18 second Neon could beat a 12 second Camaro.  What I love about it is that you can race street cars, possibly your minivan or station wagon (!) although only race cars and dragsters are competitive in the top classes, and faster cars are more fun than slower cars.  I’ve brought my Formula to 75/80 various times from 1996-98, mostly low 14 second times from 95-98 mph.  Since the strips are quarter mile, the times correspond and compare, apples to apples, to the professional times, which is a nice touch. 

            While the NASCAR crowd loves to boo and hiss about the various racers, especially Jeff Gordon, I think the NHRA scene is more colorful.  Not only Shirley Muldowney, but also Don Garlits, John Force (whose daughter Ashley races), Connie Kalitta, Don “The Snake” Prudhomme, Jungle Jim Lieberman (and Jungle Pam…schwing!), among others.  “Heart Like A Wheel”, the Shirley Muldowney story (with the babacious Bonnie Bedelia as Muldowney) was an excellent view of this scene in the 70s and 80s.      

 IROC (International Race of Champions).  The idea here was, give every driver exactly the same car, so the better driver wins, so no whining about who had a better car, engine, stereo, etc.  Most of the winners were NASCAR drivers, but some open wheel drivers such as Mario Andretti and Helio Castroneves have competed as well.  The cars were Porsche Carreras (1974), Chevrolet Camaro (1975-80, 1984-89) (resulting in the Z/28 IROC), Dodge Daytona (1990-93), Dodge Avenger (1994-95) and Pontiac Trans Am (1996).  The races were from 1974 to 2006, with no races in 1981-83.  IROC is currently out of business. 

 SCCA/Trans Am.  These were races in road courses using cars which were very close to production models you could actually buy from the dealer. This was considerably more popular in the late 60s and early 70s than it is now. 

            It was so popular that several US production vehicles bear the name or some connection:

            1)         The most obvious is the Pontiac Trans Am, available from 1969 to 2002.  This was in continuous production for that time, and pretty much saved Pontiac’s ass in the late 70s.  More so than the GTO, the Trans Am essentially became the flagship for Pontiac.  Ironically, the 1969 Trans Am did not qualify for the race, as it had the 400 cubic inch V8s Pontiac was equipping its performance models with.  Plans for a qualifying 303 cubic inch V8 didn’t pan out.

            2)         Less obvious, but still having a connection, was the Camaro Z/28, which in its original years, from 1967-69, had a 302 cubic inch V8 with two Holley 4 barrels, 290 HP, revving so high that 7500 RPM was considered the optimal shift point – and only available with a 4 speed manual and no A/C.  The 302 was in order to meet Trans Am specs when its “brother”, the Camaro SS, was available with the much larger and street-friendly 350 and 396 V8s. 

            3)         Ford’s Mustang Boss 302 was Ford’s answer – not to be confused with the Boss 429 (a hemi big block), or the top street engine, the 428 Cobra Jet.

            4)         Mopar had the Dodge Challenger T/A and Plymouth AAR ‘Cuda, set up for handling as opposed to simply straight line acceleration.  

            5)         Even AMC had a Mark Donohoe Javelin. 

            Oddly, due to the different classes, there are classes where Mazda Miatas and Dodge/Plymouth Neons are competitive.  By now, though, as with most other motorsports, the cars which actually race in SCCA are specifically built to race and are not street legal.