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September 19, 2005
Smash hit
I grew up in the South and knew plenty of guys who spent more time under the hoods of their ’57 Chevies and 327 Impalas than they did with their girlfriends. As a young sports writer, I covered small-track stock-car racing at an old-fashioned speedway and sprint cars on a dirt track at the Tampa fair. But even with two big races a year a dozen miles from my house in Concord, my interest in NASCAR is more professional than personal.
Yesterday was an exception. Between the little-boy petulance on the track and the suspense at the finish, the Sylvania 300 in Loudon was a great race. I tuned it in on TNT while sitting on my couch paying my bills.
With just over 100 laps to go and the caution flags out, Michael Waltrip ran Robby Gordon into the wall. Gordon exited his smooshed car, took off his helmet and waited for Waltrip to come around again. When he did, Gordon walked out among the racers and slammed his helmet into the driver’s side of Waltrip’s car.
Gordon’s next stop was a TNT microphone into which he referred to Waltrip as “a piece of ----.” As Gordon stalked away, the nonplussed announcer apologized and I wondered, “Can they say that on television?”
Back on the track, the thrill of the Chase, the 10-driver, 10-race grand finale that decides the Nextel Cup, soon overshadowed the bizarre – and perilous – feuding between Waltrip and Gordon.
Two drivers in the Chase, Ryan Newman and Tony Stewart, were running 1-2 with 16 laps to go. As they entered each curve, Stewart dropped down the bank and tried to pass. Newman fended him off until just eight laps remained.
Then it was Newman’s turn to try to squeeze by Stewart. On the next-to-last lap, he did it – a miracle finish on the Miracle Mile.
“We raced clean, we raced hard, we had fun,” Newman said afterward.
Stewart had less fun. He was surly, turning away from the microphone with the same disgusted look Gordon had worn after his tiff with Waltrip.
The private jets flew out of Concord airport into a blue late-summer sky late yesterday afternoon as the NASCAR caravan headed out for the next stop. But anyone who watched this race – in person or on the tube – had to acknowledge that the oft-maligned Loudon track had provided the setting for one of the circuit’s better shows.
Posted by Mike Pride at September 19, 2005 03:48 PM