Earnhardt is right about tandem racing—it’s foolish

Earnhardt is right about tandem racing—it’s foolish

By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

(July 5, 2011)

OK, Dale Jr., you got me.

I’ll admit it. I know I’ll ruffle some feathers by saying this, but I’m about as fond of the tandem drafting we saw at Daytona on Saturday night as you are—and that means not at all.

So far, you have been the lone consistent voice railing against the style of racing that has become necessary at Daytona and Talladega, the high-speed racetracks that require the use of restrictor plates to limit horsepower.

After Saturday night’s Coke Zero 400, you cried out for support.

“I don’t like this type of racing, and you know it,” you told reporters after the race. “It was just a foolish race.”

Then you asked for help in making your case. “You guys need to get your own opinions and write what you all think about it,” you said to the reporters. “I think it’s probably pretty damn close to mine. Y’all write what y’all think, man.”

Let me be the first to add my voice to yours. I’ll go beyond “foolish.” I’m willing to call this type of racing pure nonsense.

In the first place, it’s antithetical to the goal of Sprint Cup competition. Stock car racing was built on the foundation of one trophy for one winner, of one driver trying to beat 30 or 40 others. Yet, at Daytona and Talladega, the racing has evolved to the point that an individual driver or team is powerless to win an event at a plate track without the sustained, dedicated help of a drafting partner or partners.

No matter how fast a car is, no matter how talented a driver is, no matter how quick the pit crew is, no matter how crafty the crew chief is—a plate race can’t be won with individual effort, and that’s just fundamentally wrong.

For argument’s sake, let’s say that I had come to NASCAR president Mike Helton five years ago with a novel plan for restrictor-plate racing. The gist of it would have gone like this:

“Suppose we pair up the Cup cars at plate tracks, one leading and one pushing, locked bumper to bumper, lap after lap. The driver of the pushing car won’t be able to see anything at all, but that’s OK. We’ll have the spotters for both cars working together, trying to tell the pusher where to go and trying to keep the cars together. We’ll give every driver as many radio channels as he needs to maintain contact with everyone else on the track, in case he has to work with someone else he’s trying to beat. We might have to rub Vaseline on the bumpers so friction between the cars doesn’t cause a wreck. We’ll reduce the size of the restrictor-plate openings to the point that two cars will be able to stick together lap after lap. That’ll make sure that two cars drafting together will be about 15 mph faster than a single car. Won’t that be fun?”

Back in 2006, I would have been laughed out of the NASCAR hauler. In 2011, it’s what we have.

It wasn’t by plan that we got to this point. As NASCAR’s attitudes evolved, so did plate racing.

Remember November 2009 at Talladega? In response to driver complaints about bump-drafting through the corners—and to a massive wreck that sent Carl Edwards into the fence that spring at Talladega after he and Brad Keselowski had broken away from the field in a two-car hookup—Helton told competitors in the prerace drivers’ meeting that bump-drafting through the corners would not be tolerated. The Cup drivers responded with singularly unexciting, single-file racing for much of the afternoon.

By January 2010, the pendulum had swung in the opposite direction. NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton told reporters during a preseason gathering that bump-drafting though the corners at plate tracks was back on the menu.

Speaking specifically about plate races, but with a turn of phrase that soon became a mantra for the entire sport, Pemberton said, “The (rules against) bump drafting as we know it at Daytona and Talladega over the past few years will be totally eliminated. We will put it back in the hands of the drivers, and we will say ‘Boys, have at it and have a good time.’ That’s all I can say.”

Talladega was repaved in 2006, Daytona last year. The smoothness of the racing surfaces at both tracks facilitates “love bug racing,” the two-car hookups that are necessary to achieve maximum speed. Similarly, smaller restrictor-plate openings designed to slow the cars also have made them more stable and better able to stay locked together on the racetrack.

I don’t blame you for being upset, Dale. You’re a consummate plate racer, as was your father, and this Noah’s Ark style of racing negates an important part of your skill set.

I understand your frustration. I feel your pain. As you said Saturday night, “What kind of move can you make? I mean, man, what kind of move can you make in racing like this? There ain’t no move you can make. You just hold it on the mat and try not to wreck into each other. You see how good we are at that.”

As Pemberton said last year, NASCAR has put racing back in the hands of the drivers. Now NASCAR has a new challenge—trying to put the outcomes of plate races where they belong, back in the hands of individual drivers.

So keep talking, Dale. I will, too, and we’ll encourage others to join the chorus.

After just three races with sustained two-car drafts, change is already overdue.