GOBS AND GOBS

Though one suspects upper management likely prefers otherwise, at present two different worlds evidently exist in NASCAR.

For the sake of brevity and ease of reading, let's just call 'em -- and your scribe has thought long and hard about it -- "Good Old Boys" (GOB) and "Wine And Cheese Crowd" (WACC).

(Cool, huh? Note to self: secure trademarks.)

The GOBs, in which Richard Childress (at left) is firmly ensconced, started with hardly a nickel in their respective pockets or, perhaps, even spread among themselves.

Unlike the GOBS, the WACCs who raced, also known as SOTRMITW (Some Of The Richest Men In The World), started with millions before racing and had still more millions after racing, like Rolex Series Trueman winner Mark Patterson.

For the SOTRMITW WACCs, staying in the race game wasn't, still isn't the end game and didn't require something on the order of Bill France Jr. once buying Childress, as he hisownself once stated, an engine, at Jon Hall Chevrolet, so as to facilitate a full Daytona race field.

Imagine, if you will, someone sitting down at a King Louis XIV-era desk and, pen in hand, cut a seven-figure check (that's seven digits LEFT of the decimal point, JJ) for about 10 months of racing fun. Throw in a brand new Riley as part of the deal and pretty soon we're talking money most folks have never and will never see.

A goodly number of SOTRMITW WACCs will do the same year after year.

When the GOBs started racing -- any racing -- they employed few people, if anyone at all.

SOTRMITW WACCs write checks that immediately employ tens, if not hundreds of others to make that racing thing happen.

This isn't, hasn't been a recent thing in sports car racing; it is woven within the sport's DNA.

BUT KNOW YOUR PLACE, BOY

Surfing the Web while 10,000 ft.- high-or-more in the air (on an airplane, JJ) and returning home following Road America, seen were a few blurbs in motorsports news about Nelson Piquet Jr. having been the first Brazilian . . . well, here it is, straight from NASCAR Media itsownself:

"Nelson Piquet Jr., driver of the No. 30 Qualcomm Autotrac Chevrolet for Turner Motorsports" . . . "made racing history on Saturday, becoming the first Brazilian to win a NASCAR national series race" at Road America.

In short, according to the folks so empowered, the first NASCAR national series race winner isn't the Brazilian who was the first Brazilian to win in Grand-Am, Oswaldo Negri Jr (at right).

Then again, maybe the Rolex Series isn't a national series. Well, what exactly makes a "national series?" One that competes outside of local, state or regional boundaries?

One might think the splitting of hairs to be operable, herein, one such being Negri having won his first Grand-Am race in 2005 when the sanctioning body wasn't a "Company of NASCAR."

Then again, Negri did win the 50th Rolex 24 At Daytona, not that the Rolex 24 is of any consequence whatsoever to anyone.

Well, after hearing a certain NASCAR series bellyache to no end about wanting more attention than a certain other NASCAR series, the subject now passes into air's thin wisps, which is where it would've gone, anyway.

IS BREAKING UP EASY TO DO?

By this reporter's give-or-take count, over the last three races -- Belle Isle, Detroit, Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course and Road America -- something on the order of four or more A-frames, have fractured or, put another way, failed in three or four Daytona Prototypes during that three-race period.

None of those failures were in Riley DPs.

For what it's worth, hitting walls -- more "glance" than "hit" in at least one case -- isn't exactly a healthy thing. Or, for that matter, neither is impacting another car but, truth be known, DPs -- whether Riley or otherwise -- have been doing such things for years and have, more often than not, continued the race in which such blows were struck or undertaken.

It just seems that one particular but still unnamed DP is presently a tad more "fragile" -- a condition not unknown to, ahem, prototypical race cars.

A seemingly logical extension of the above would include the possibility, if not probability, of that particular suspension piece to be more likely to fail as usage (cycles) increases, thus possibly and unexpectedly breaking when otherwise regular and expected stresses are induced, say, when scrubbing tires.

Just saying.

EARNING IT

Saturday at Road America, Emil Assentato, Jeff Segal (at left, respectively) and Toronto-based AIM Autosport won their third race of the 2012 Rolex Sports Car season in the No. 69 FXDD Ferrari 458 Italia.

As of the tents being stricken at Road America, Segal and Assentato lead the GT driver-points championship, thus far having compiled 220 points to Stevenson Motorsports' Robin Liddell's 199 points.

Segal is the team's "professional driver" while Assentato is the (pick one) "Gentleman," "Sportsman," "Bob Akin" or "amateur" driver.

It's familiar territory for the two drivers who, in 2010 and driving a SpeedSource Mazda RX8 bearing the same number and sponsorship as today's car, won that year's Grand Touring championship in an admitted year-end squeaker at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, Utah.

The competition was wickedly thick during the whole of the Rolex Series' 12-race 2010 GT schedule, as 18 drivers would help capture one or more race wins. There still were 16 winning drivers that season when dropped are the two additional drivers, Nick Hamm and David Haskell, from the Rolex 24-winning SpeedSource No. 70 Castrol Mazda RX-8 regular-season team of Sylvain Tremblay and Jonathan Bomarito. Heck, the now estranged Andy Lally and TRG team alone accounted for three wins.

A tight points race the whole of that 2010 season, Assentato and Segal hardly ran away with the title, even though the pair twice won while, on the flip side, twice failed to finish within the top five. Between those extremes, the pair scored eight top-four-or-better finishes.

The team didn't have to finish as the best for each race, "just good enough" worked perfectly fine to score two Rolex championship "timepieces."

Assentato, beginning with the 2009 season and through the Road America race, has scored 17 podium finishes in 43 races.

On track in 2012 to be one of Assentato's best seasons yet, Assentato this season already has surpassed 2011's four podiums and has equaled his 2010 career-best five podiums.

As Assentato readily notes, the 2010 championship win -- by five points over sole second-place finisher and SpeedSource owner Tremblay -- came as a result of other championship contenders' carelessness or, perhaps, uncontrolled testosterone.

Yet, serving as a metaphor for "how life works," one often wins, whether on a race track, business or, even, love because others err.

As is the case for yours truly, Assentato is an admitted "old guy" but, unlike yours truly, Assentato doesn't wince upon gazing into an early morning bathroom mirror, being unsurprised at the sight of a non-25-year old guy returning his gaze.

Like most of those who are in their, um, "advanced years," Assentato has an ache or two which, in his case, is manifested by a slight but noticeable left-leg limp in his walk.

"It was the least serious of my injuries," which came when Assentato did what a lot of race car drivers do at one time or another: wreck.

Only this decades-ago wreck wasn't at all pretty, especially when doctors decided Assentato's seriously busted left leg would not receive anything but cursory treatment and was the very least of Assentato's medical woes.

"I was in my early 20's," Assentato said. "I loved racing and was good at it, too. I was fast.

"But the recovery time gave me a chance to think, it gave me pause and made me think about what I was doing, what I wanted to do and how I should (note: not "could") get there.

"I wanted to return to racing, but I was going to do it on my own terms. The only way to do that was get an education and a job."

"Fate" is a curious thing, often suggestive of a secretive "Mr. Wizard" hiding behind a curtain somewhere, throwing levers, pressing pedals and spinning dials that are the determinants of individual lives.

So, was fate at the root of Assentato's wreck? Had that wreck not occurred, would have a young Assentato excelled sufficiently to become a star and later revered race car driver? Or, had Assentato not wrecked, would he today be at the helm of one of the world's largest, privately held securities dealers?

"Getting back to racing took a little longer than I would've liked, but it is what it is," Assentato said.

Later,

DC

Excepting that of Richard Childress, the above pictures are the work of photojournalist Brian Cleary, who retains all rights of usage. To see more or get copies of his work, go to http://www.bcpix.com

TAKING THE MEDICINE

Given that Action Express Racing's opening-day focus at Detroit's Belle Isle Rolex Series race was learning that breaking up isn't really "hard to do," it only seems fitting the race itself would boil down to a 1-2 finish between the Action Express Racing boys.

Like a blossoming "overnight" movie star suddenly in a spotlight after years of toil, Saturday's Chevy Grand Am 200 finish actually started on "lucky" 13 Aug., 2011, at the end of the Watkins Glen 200.

At The Glen, the AXR Porsche (Cayenne) Riley Daytona Prototypes finished sixth and seventh; the Double Ds' (David Law and David Donohue) No. 5 finishing ahead of the Double J's No. 9 of João Barbosa and J.C. France.

"We looked at the data from the race and noticed that Darren and João had a lot in common," former NASCAR Sprint Cup Muckety Muck-turned-consultant Gary Nelson, of Gary Nelson and Associates, Inc., said Saturday in Detroit while killing time before the late-afternoon Belle Isle Chevrolet Grand-Am 200 race start.

His curiosity piqued, Nelson began the task of analyzing year-over-year driver data and, perhaps more importantly, associated and integrated his drivers' thoughts within the context of that data.

Yet, it's likely Nelson couldn't have at all traveled that particular road if the AXR team hadn't "been professionals," as AXR's race team operations director Elton Sawyer put it Sunday morning.

"The Action Express guys have worked their fingers to the bone to put competitive cars on the grid. Throughout this deal they've been professionals through and through, man. I'm proud of 'em for digging deep; for never giving up."

"They (the wrenches), none of us really know where this driver-change thing would go but they never stopped putting out cars that could win. The race Saturday proved they prepared cars that could win and that meant a lot to me."

COMPARING THE APPLES AND ORANGES

Even if maintained by dedicated team members and even if the two (or three) Riley DPs in AXR's possession were made by the brilliant folks over at Riley Technologies, they weren't identical; not even close.

Whether curse or genius, every engineer working on every car nearly everywhere thinks his "the better solution" to making a car go faster. Sometimes change can be effected with the application of a wrench; other times with a new "widget." With enough widgets and wrench turns, before long one Riley really isn't like another Riley.

AXR lead engineer, Iain Watt, presently on his second Rolex Series' duty tour (the first with owner Eddie Cheever and, mostly, drivers Christian Fittipaldi and Antonio Garcia), spent the better part of the 2010-2011 offseason taking two Rileys and making them one or, actually, two.

Confused? Of course you are. Still, you should see this brain. So we'll try it again.

Thus, becoming Watt's principal mission was to take two (or three) cars and bring them closer together insofar as baseline configurations were concerned.

"Why didn't AXR just buy new Rileys?" you ask.

For a California boy, Nelson has turned into one of the best Southerners around. Southerners hate wasting stuff (the reason for their junk piles; cars on cement blocks in front yards, etc.).

Recently, Nelson's spare time has been devoted to building a Café Racer. Proud of that still-under-construction but nearly finished bike, stored in Nelson's cell phone are pictures taken from more angles than those found in a porn star's portfolio. His proudest pics? The junk he's turned into viable parts.

Heck, had Nelson lived in the Middle Ages, he would've been an alchemist -- you know, the folks who tried converting everyday metals like lead into gold. Nelson, though, probably would've succeeded.

Thus, spending money when old parts will do is sorta woven into Nelson's DNA and the AXR team was tasked with putting a couple of Humpty Dumpties together again.

Yet, unlike the King's Men and HD, Messrs. Watt, Sawyer and Nelson, with a big assist from the rest of the AXR guys, succeeded and, best of all from Nelson's viewpoint, he could effectively compare data generated by the AXR drivers.

"Generally" arising at the same time was a delicate political matter involving a "minimum purchase" and, before you can say "cookie cutter," AXR had two brand-spanking new identical DP chassis that offered a bonus: new comparative data from an entirely different baseline.

At first having Watt's "identical" Rileys through 2011, then for 2012 the Pratt and Whitney, er, "Miller," um, "Coyote" Corvettes (if one can't dazzle with brilliance, then baffle with B.S), the two distinct platforms from two different constructors afforded accurate comparisons.

At race tracks "we'd unload identical cars and the drivers started taking them in different directions; sometimes on the same car!" Nelson said.

All of that's fine and dandy, even wonderful had the multiple drivers and two teams produced wins -- something expected from two-car teams -- but AXR kept coming up short in the "wins" column.

In 2011, after what would prove their season's worst finish of 9th in the Rolex 24 At Daytona, Donohue and Law would not finish worse than sixth place -- four of those, consecutively at that -- and combined for a remaining seven top-5 finishes, of which three were podiums but none were a first place. They finished third in the championship, three points ahead of a 4th-place Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty, who didn't record any championship points whatsoever in the second Watkins Glen race but who recorded two wins.

In the 2009, 2010 and 2011 seasons, Barbosa finished 9th, 13th and 5th, respectively -- the 5th-place season coming mostly with a three-person team including J.C. France and Terry Borcheller, excepting that season's final three races for which Borcheller sat out.

Clearly, the contributions of Watt and Sawyer were beginning to show, but they couldn't get over the hump that kept all of them from scoring a 1st-place.

According to Nelson, some of the drivers wanted to go in the same direction -- mechanically and/or aerodynamically -- but Nelson saw they weren't in the same car for the same race.

"One driver would take the car one way, another driver would take it another way. Then their respective partners would try to tune it a little more to their liking and, before long, each car was different for the race and just about every driver wasn't really happy with the setups."

"We started noticing that the preferences of one driver in one car were a lot like the preferences of another driver over in the other (sister) car."

For the most part in sports car racing one accepts the premise of "compromise" when it comes to driving teams. The problem with a compromise is that it is just that.

Though two drivers might be demonstrable championship winners while driving individually or for different teams, they may well fail to perform equally well with each other while in the same car.

With data in hand after the New Jersey Motorsports Park race, the AXR brain trust had a sit down and made the decision to switch the drivers around.

"It was a team decision," Nelson confirmed. "It wasn't just one guys decision."

It had all boiled down to a difference in a driver's preferences behind the wheel and tweaking a formula that no longer could be inviolate.

"That's what we needed for the cure," Nelson said.

That "cure" may well have been found.

Later,

DC

SCOTT TUCKER

DETROIT (02June2012) – For what it's worth -- in case most everyone hasn't already, learned, discerned or been told -- the male human tends toward the lineal.

So, yes, Part IV of this writer's diatribe concerning "prototype" racing is in production but, first, let us depart from the rote and ponder something that hasn't much to do at all with "prototype" racing or, for that matter, racing at Belle Isle (besides, there are more than a few hours to go before Rolex Series competitors will be disposed of avoiding risk within the concrete canyons hereupon the isle). But this post is topical and at least is tangentially associated with racing and "prototypes."

Straight up: This motorsports writer doesn't much care to associate with Scott Tucker. Attributable to personal disquiet, it's not a business nor legal thing.

Mr. Tucker is a quiet, perhaps "shy" man who at times proves difficult if not impossible with whom to converse. Put only he and me in the same room at the same time and we'd probably both become psychopathic from a lack of human interaction.

From this perspective, and given sufficient failures to do otherwise, why try to overcome that to which another doesn't seem any more inclined than oneself?

Life has served many examples of those who are disposed of quiet demeanor and thought to be egocentric. Yet, as once noted by late American entrepreneur Bernard Baruch, one is far more likely to learn when listening than when talking, anyway.

One shouldn't, most probably won't think a lack of desire to associate with Tucker is exactly earthshaking news; Tucker apparently is well short of a paddock's popularity meter’s high end, anyway, if conversations with other paddock types prove accurate and which insist Tucker as one who likely thinks a certain Carly Simon "song is about" him.

Unless a Ken Swan, Christophe Bouchut, João Barbosa, Charisa Cobb or tens-of-other racetrack support personnel directly connected to or peripherally involved in Tucker's Level 5 Motorsports racing program, the driver/owner hasn't been winning many popularity contests over the last few years -- whether Ferrari Challenge, where he's a champion; or, SCCA, where he's also a champion; and, ALMS, where he's, yep, a champion, too.

Indeed, one can fairly say Tucker and championships seem often to be in the same time zone if not zip code -- hell, even on the same neighborhood block -- and that particular personal attribute itself often is enough to invoke others' considerable contempt.

"Well, he's bought those wins!" comes a rejoinder.

Um, and exactly who hasn't? Unless this observer's grossly overlooked a major point on the subject over his six decades of racing involvement, even a local bullring race team spends big money relative to its pursuit of fireplace mantle accoutrements -- even at the local racing level more money flows to parts vendors than a family often likely would wish to spend.

"Well then, he's spent ungodly sums of money doing it!"

You mean like that which Henry Ford II spent in the middle 1960's? Or Roger Penske? How about Chip Ganassi? Heck, wanna bet Audi doesn't spend more on wind tunnel time, alone, than Tucker's cumulative racing expenditures since 2006?

For what it's worth and largely because its topical: a certain block of politicians in very recent times have spent vast, mind-boggling sums of money, too -- the principal difference being Tucker actually has achieved that which was pursued.

No, one shouldn't see this as Ol' DC apologizing for Mr. Tucker; if nothing else but for the fact that Mr. Tucker likely doesn't need anyone but himself to do such, if at all.

"But Tucker's done wrong!"

Exactly what "wrong" might that be? At this point don't get nebulous and all; be specific. Be exact with the claims. If one is insufficiently educated as to the specific legal areas in question, then personal motives need to be examined.

"Well, 'the government' said he's done wrong!"

The Federal Trade Commission in April asked a federal judge to stop certain practices undertaken by a company, AMG Services, which is controlled by Tucker.

The FTC is also undertaking various actions, investigations and opposes practices by the likes of Google, the North Carolina General Assembly (legislature), Facebook and, give or take, hundreds of others at any given moment.

To say that Tucker is "guilty" merely because "the government says so" is to say the government is guiltless in anything and everything it has ever undertaken. Surely, no one reading this is that damn dumb and, if so, there exists more than sufficient case law to demonstrate government has all too often done what it shouldn't.

"Well, Tucker's making usurious loans!"

In the opinion of this writer, so too was the pawnshop which provided DC The Younger a loan on a handgun used as collateral on a fully amortized $70 loan.

At a time when DC The Younger was still earning his UHK (University of Hard Knocks) degree and at the time having had little more than a couple of nickels in his pocket, that $35 in cash he received was a badly needed gap loan.

Yes, DC The Younger, perhaps the beneficiary of a pawn shop owner's pity, needed to repay only twice that which he borrowed inside of 30 days to retrieve his precious handgun -- one that Ol' DC retains to this day, he adds.

Yes, the overall loan cost stung a might. Yes, it was an eye-opening, lesson-filled experience for DC The Younger. And, no, neither DC The Younger nor Ol' DC ever again turned to a pawn shop -- at least for a loan.

Nor has he turned to a "payday lender," such as Mr. Tucker's business is purported to practice with a bunch of Indians (who, in Ol' DC's humble opinion, aren't "indigenous" to the Americas when the Bering "land bridge" crossing is taken into account).

Those "Indians," who likely are financially benefitting as a result of Mr. Tucker's supposed business relationship, also are finally "getting" what has too long been due to them and, absent from participation therein, one which the government itself might be envious and, through its actions, now is seeking a piece. Such pursuit wouldn't be the first it has undertaken when first "in the cold."

Bottom line: Presently, Tucker has not been adjudicated of running afoul of any action that is deemed contrary to federal statute or regulation.

There are hundreds, if not thousands of people who depend on paychecks generated by Mr. Tucker's undertakings -- whether profession or avocation.

Whether George Zimmerman or Scott Tucker, finding someone "guilty" without benefit of a thorough examination of the particulars in a legal proceeding is entirely at odds with what so many of us hold and speak about so highly: The Constitution.

Does the lack of adjudication suggest anyone who knows or freely associates with Tucker shouldn't be cautious or, perhaps, even altogether review an ongoing association with Tucker? Of course not. But such prudence and vigilance should at all times prevail regardless of who, what or where, anyway.

The scariest part?

Uncle Sam's purse is far deeper than yours, mine or, even, Scott Tucker's.

Anyone who can attach himself to the public purse and who seeks to grind a personal axe for whatever purpose can be a very scary thing.

Later,

DC