Feb 14

Written by: The Commish
2/14/2011 1:05 PM 

Yes, the Bobbleheads have made port and will soon be signed, sealed and delivered to some very patient players.  Better late than never, it's about damn time and wouldn't it be nice if one found its way to your humble Commish here in Phoenix?

The first race on the baby's bottom -smooth surface at Daytona was the ARCA season opener featuring previous generation Cup cars driven by young bucks, old warriors, God-bless-em journeymen and Milka Duno.  There were only two race leaders with now seven time winner Bobby Gerhardt leading the last 61 laps to beat Chris Buescher, Matt Merrell and Ricky Carmichael.  Lotsa five or six car trains, plenty of cautions due mainly to overexuberant inexperience and it was a pleasure to watch what many of us believe were the sport's best looking stock cars ever.

Now that Ford has announced it wants to race the Mustang in Cup I wonder; will ARCA eventually wind up with the Fusion, Impala, Camry and Charger COTs?  Will Mustangs, Camaros, Challengers and something/anything else from Toyota soon replace the 'family sedan' race replicars in both Cup and the Nationwide Series?

Is that really a good idea?

The Bud Shootout defined the term 'unintended consequences' as the teams found out pretty skippy quick that with new front ends and splitters and a smoother than ever track surface, two cars could go a lot faster than one ... or three ... or five or a big pack. It meant bumpers were obscenely joined all the way around the oval, sometimes with predictable, Say Goodnight Gracie, results.  Two and three wide was common but this was a couples only dance -- and relatively boring to boot.

NASCAR has already taken steps to separate the cars, the same way Sister Vincencia used to pull out a ruler to make sure that my chest was at least eight inches away from Mary Michelle Dvordivich's heaving bosom at the junior high dance socials.

Those steps didn't work either.

There will not be any unintended consequences for the NASCAR racers at Phoenix as they won't be desecrating the storied banking and one-of-a-kind configuration there until after the RD#4 weekend.  Who knows what the racing will actually be like there in November although we certainly won't have to worry about two by two by two all day. 

But next weekend's 'Great American Race' at the self-proclaimed World Center of Racing will be chock full of twosome issues and post script stories; some related to the answers NASCAR is coming up with to fix the partnering at 200 mph problem, others related to tire wear or lack of same, the wisdom of droning around at the back until 50 to go in self preservation mode and that other law belonging to some guy named Murphy. 

And God forbid the Daytona 500 turns into a boring, dueling duos mileage run.

Lineups aren't due until after Thursday's twin 150s so everyone will have a chance to second guess the picks they already have in or wait until the last minute to fill out their RD#3 rosters.

The only problem with waiting until the last minute is the risk of forgetting to put them in, suffering rare power outages or ISP disconnects right when you get ready to pick your starters or something else that results in the worst kind of unintended consequences -- like no starters.

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