Race Report - AutoClub 500

Before I jump into this race report let me just say in a way that is in no means condescending or proprietary that I am extremely proud of Dale Jr.’s conduct with his crew today. Perhaps I should phrase that as his conduct today made me proud to be a fan of his. Despite a difficult weekend overall and numerous difficulties on the track, Dale did not lash out at anyone, point fingers anywhere (at least not during the race) and managed to intellectually make something positive out of it, even if emotionally he was extremely disappointed and frustrated.

Details follow.

A couple months ago I met up with another NASCAR fan at the local dog park my dogs and I frequent. A Robbie Gordon fan, she invited me along to tailgate with her group of friends. So after making a huge salad and getting only 3 hours of sleep the night prior, I woke up before dawn to drive to her place and then caravanning from there out to Fontana. When we reached the outskirts, it was a beautiful drive as the heavy mists obscured all but the tops of the trees and veiled the horse paddocks along the freeway. (I don’t know about you, but whenever I drive by horses I have the irrepressible urge to say “Pone-NIES!”. I guess my inner child is about four.) We managed to gather the cars together in the lot off turn 4 and set up shop in between them. Breakfast was served as the various friends stopped by. While the core of the group was Robbie fans, through friendly association they had collected three Dale Jr. fans, two Kurt Busch fans and Jeff Gordon fan in a pear tree.

I blitz-shopped to grab a scanner, program and new (Bud) lanyard (I collect them, I’m stringing the ticket holders from each race I attend together like dance cards) before the crowds got really hairy. Which was a good thing, when I decided to take a wander n’ ‘splore later it took me close to an hour just to wander down the entire line of trailers and back only making one short stop. Which was a bummer, because the Army had a climbing wall set up and the times during the DeWalt Pit Crew Challenge were truly appalling. (27.3 seconds? >:D Ha!) Nor have I had a chance to try out the simulators in the Nextel shack.

We packed up and everyone headed to their spot. My seat was right up against the fence in turn four. My neighbors weren’t as sociable as they were the last time I was there, but it was fun to observe the various (lighthearted) exchange of obscene gestures and smack between various fan groups below me. Tony, Dale Jr., and Jeffey were the primary groups with a couple loud Rusty Wallace fans that kept the fun rolling. I will say that while booing various drivers is de’ riguer, I don’t think flipping them off during driver introductions is necessary. And I do wish the teenagers right behind hadn’t smoked quite so much pot. I thought the two stoner kids on the pitsonline.com were charicatures. I was wrong. “Dude he like smacked the wall, that’s so cool!” “Dude is that engine sound like, coming from the loudspeakers, or what?”

Nice prayer, average anthem and a good effort for “Gentlemen, start your engines” and we were off. The crowd stood for the green flag...and then remained standing for about the next 15 laps. Uh...folks, it a long race, you can sit down if you want. Really. :D I spent pretty much the entire time listening to the 8 car. I had Mark Martin ad Elliott Sadler programmed in, but whenever I switched over, they were quiet, so I pretty much stuck with the 8. Dale was struggling with his set up in the beginning, "free in the middle of the turns and loose off" if I remember correctly (he did give a good solid minute or so of detailed feedback, I wish I could remember it) and he was having some trouble with his spotter. After a couple pit stops, they managed to get it about right. He began picking his way up through the pack when suddenly he disappeared along the back stretch. Blown tire. Now, rental scanners are not the sharpest and clearest, and Pete is so low key vocally it was hard for me to hear that side of the conversation. Dale had broken a support bar in his fender, either the tire blowing did it or it broke some other way and it was rubbing the tire. (I’ll find that out tomorrow. At one point Pete said “I dunno how that happened.” and Dale replied “I know what happened” Pete: “What happened?” Two minutes of quiet. Pete: “10-4” - ???) So they went through a couple tires and several pits stops trying to fix it. Then the primary ignition box went out stalling him on pit road.

Here’s where Dale gained my admiration (yet agian). Last year, a day like this would have Dale turning the airwaves blue with profanity aimed specifically at his crew. This time the profanity was there, but not the vindictiveness. You could hear he was struggling with his fustration, but he really stepped up to leadership plate and rather than making the situation worse, he made the best of it. Several laps down Dale made the call to just treat the remaining laps as a test run for Vegas. He said “I have the car to race with Tony, but I don’t want to screw him up just to race…” (paraphrasing). He also praised the crew for getting the set up in good shape before things went to hell and proceeded to spend the rest of the race trying to figure out how to make the tire pressures work with the set up, even to the point of relating some experience from his late model stock days. That's leadership.

I am not sying this as some psuedo-superior/mature person, truthfully I don't know if I could have handled the situation that well. But it was truly gratifying to see it in Dale.

As a fan, you don’t want to see your driver give up. But as a smart fan, you want to see him use common sense and choose his battles. Between this and the respect he extended to his crew, I was cheering for him every lap he came around. And so were some other folks. No matter how far down he was, as the Bud car passed , scattered here and there through the crowd someone with a red shirt would stand and holler or simply raise their arms up to show the Bud red. Props to those guys. It’s easy to cheer for a driver when they’re winning, but they need to hear it when they are having a bad day.

But for those that watched the race, we all know Dale wasn’t the only one having a bad day. Yet another engine went south under Mikey while he was having a good/great run. (“At this rate, I’ll lose my job!”), and so did Jeffey, Vickers and Robbie. Dave Blaney smacked the wall, again, though the impact was minor considering how badly he lost it. Good driving for him and great driving for the guys trying to get around him. And it was another frustrating day for Twinkie/Kasey (his bridesmaid days are numbered tho’). Elliott had an o.k. run, nothing spectacular, Mark Martin had a good run staying in or near the top five until he got shuffled back at towards the end, and Greg Biffle won the race with Kurt and Mini-me duking it out for third and second.

I split the stands as soon as the burn out was done and went to return my scanner, (encountering a...lively inebriated woman loudly explaining into all her friends how all drivers except Dale Jr. were “whiney bitches”. Her friends were wise enough not to argue with her.) I was so proud of Dale I could have just bust. Had I the cash, I would have run up to his hauler and bought one of everything. Instead my car has been branded with an “8” decal. :D The Speed Channel was setting up to do a post race broadcast (“Victory Lane” I imagine), but the crowd crossing the overpass was so insane I decided to skip to get back to my group. And when I mean insane, I mean truly insane. Not even at rock concerts have I been packed so tightly into such a slow moving herd. When I got halfway up the steps I turned around and looked out over a solid crowd of heads at least 300 yards from the overpass. But everyone had a sense of humor about it, so it wasn’t too bad.

When we all got back to the cars we fixed dinner and compared notes. Robbie was apparently turning the airwaves quite blue long before his engine went out due to some bad calls in the pits. Calls apparently he made. People thought that Kurt had been swearing at his pit crew at the end of the race, but that wasn’t the case according to the folks I was with. He started swearing at Jimmie Johnson when Johnson passed him. He was nothing but civil with his pit crew all day. ;) This was really cool hanging out with race fans of all loyalties, being able to get a more complete picture of the race from so many vantage points, and everyone was so mellow, from the folks who’d been watching racing when Petty and Allison were still driving to the young bucks in their twenties. We hung out sipping beers and chatting, watching the kids playing and the haulers rolling out and making some plans for Irwindale until the sun went down and it got too chilly for native southern Califorians hang out.

So after aloooong round about drive home, here I am and here is my race report. :) Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Swleepy now. Go sleep. Nigh' night.