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Sprint Cup qualifying rained out again
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Published: October 25, 2008
HAMPTON, Ga. - The rain, the economy and Jimmie Johnson -- three things that nobody seems able to do much about right now -- were the stories yesterday at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
And Goodyear's new tires.
"The right sides are softer and have more grip, and that's a good thing," Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. "This track is wearing out, about like Darlington was, and it needs a soft tire."
"Obviously what we had in the spring wasn't anything any of us wanted," Tony Stewart said of the new rubber here, the result of major driver complaints in March about tires that were far too hard. "Criticizing me for being outspoken about it, all I did was speak from the driver's standpoint and spoke the truth. It got something done, didn't it?
"If it makes it safer for us, and makes us all more comfortable, isn't that going to put on a better show?
"The great thing is that Goodyear was active about it. They did not only one test but two tests. And it sounds like, from the comments we heard from the drivers that they did the test (teammate Kyle Busch, Travis Kvapil and Scott Riggs), and we have a lot better tire."
But yesterday's rain kept drivers and crews from learning much. Cars didn't get on the track until 5:30 p.m., only 28 got in a few laps, and then more rain quickly halted runs. At 6 p.m., NASCAR called it a day, setting both Sunday's Cup field and today's Truck field by points.
Busch criticized the winged car, more than the tires, for the spring debacle here. And he said that even new, softer tires won't solve the basic problem with the new car -- that it just doesn't handle well.
"We've got a better tire now than what we had in the spring, but the tire is only going to be better for eight or 10 laps," Busch said. "The car just doesn't have the downforce it needs. And the more you run, you just get so loose in and tight in the center and loose off that you just can't stand it.
"It's going to be a tough race again, same as in the spring, not a whole lot different -- Just a little bit more comfortable for eight laps instead of just one lap."
The biggest story here -- that the ragged U.S. economy and slumping car sales are leading General Motors to the brink of what looks like a buyout of Chrysler, which has NASCAR's 11 Dodge teams on pins and needles.
One Detroit source said he senses the merger as inevitable and said that merger could really shake up the NASCAR garage, because rival car makers GM, Ford and Toyota may be unlikely to want to pick up any new NASCAR teams. George Gillett has been looking at Bill Davis' Toyota team and becoming a three-team Toyota operation; however there now appears to be a major stumbling block to any such move by Gillett. And that stumbling block is Toyota.
There are also worries that when the 2009 season dawns at Daytona, there will be only 30 teams with full-time non-factory corporate sponsorship.
Meanwhile, the NASCAR championship chase continues, and it is an amazing dynasty -- not too strong a word -- that Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus have created during their seven years working for Chevy's Rick Hendrick on the NASCAR tour, with 39 wins and what now looms large as a third straight championship.
"We need to be within 50 points going into Homestead," said Greg Biffle, now 149 down to the tour leader. "That's 12 or 13 spots there, and then it's feasible we could win. We'll be competitive at Homestead for sure. And I'm confident we can pick up some ground on him these next few races.
"But I'd rather be the guy being chased, because all he's got to do is finish in the top 10 and he's looking at that third title."
So is Johnson to be known as the man who ruined the chase, with three straight romps?
"That would be fine with me," Johnson said with a grin. "Hey, Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France seven times.
"I want to be going for four in a row next year.
"We know it's coming to come to an end eventually. But we're going to ride this wave as long as we can."
With Johnson suddenly holding a comfortable lead against his closest rivals Biffle and Burton, "a lot of people are looking at this thing saying ‘It's over,'" Burton said.
"But I don't think it's over. And anybody who's been around racing knows it isn't over.
"A lot is going to happen between now and then.
"I don't want to write history just yet. We've still got a month to go."
Yet Burton points to Johnson's 2007 title run as one of the most impressive he's ever seen. Last fall Jeff Gordon came out of Martinsville with a 53-point lead over his teammate.
However Johnson won four of the last five races to take his second NASCAR title; he went into the Homestead finale 86 points ahead, and he won by 77 points.
Rain has dogged this south Atlanta track for years, and yesterday was no exception.
The washout was the 10th time this season NASCAR has been forced to set a field on point standings. So Johnson, Biffle, Jeff Burton and Carl Edwards will start 1-2-3-4 at 2 p.m. on Sunday.
"On a track like this (so high speed), as important as clean air is, track position is so important," Johnson said. "If you can start in the top five, you can usually stay in the top five."
Hot-shot rookie Joey Logano misses this race, because his particular team is not one guaranteed a top-35 starting spot.
Johnson said NASCAR should start giving the go-or-go-home guys, the ones not in the top 35, a second shot at making the field on Saturdays.
Next season the weather for this event should be much better, because NASCAR is moving its Los Angeles 500 to this weekend and running this event on Labor Day weekend Saturday night.
But the biggest question for NASCAR at the moment is the economy, with teams struggling for sponsorships, and fans struggling to find money for race weekend tickets and hotels, and GM perhaps with Chrysler.
"You can't ignore the economy, it's such a big story we can't ignore it," Burton said.
"If you listen to some economists, the mood of the country has more to do with the economy than the economy has to do with the economy…. though I'm not sure I buy that.
"Still, you can't ignore that people are being laid off, that the stock market is doing what it's doing, the bailout….
"And the people who are buying the tickets know what's happening, because they're the ones getting furloughed and their wages are going down.
"And we have to have corporate America; without corporate America we can't succeed. The purse money pays only about 30 or 35 percent of what it takes us to run a race team for a year."
■ Mike Mulhern can be reached at mmulhern@wsjournal.com.
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