David Poole Knew Talladega

After a crazy week at Talladega, perhaps we will will extra miss a man who could have helped us sort it all out. Charlotte Observer columnist David Poole, cited on this blog and one of my favorites, passed on. Lars Anderson of Sports Illustrated writes:

The news hit Jimmie Johnson like a sledgehammer to the knees. Johnson was taping a radio spot at the Performance Racing Network in Charlotte Tuesday afternoon when he got word that David Poole, who for my money was the top motorsports writer in the country, died of a heart attack at the age of 50 early this morning.

Indeed, as my friend, ESPN.com writer Ed Hinton, told me this afternoon, Poole was "like the school newspaper for NASCAR." The lead motorsports writer for the Charlotte Observer, Poole was to NASCAR what Peter King and Chris Mortensen are to the NFL. Put simply, he was the most authoritative voice in the sport.

Even a brief look at Real Clear Sports shows that newspaper columnists with national reputation are few on the ground in the cotton south. It is part and parcel of the institutional east and west coast press bias that permeates all types of newspaper coverage. Consequently, the two popular sports of the deep south- NASCAR and college football- tend to be under-covered vis-à-vis the pofessional stick and ball sports that dominate coastal, and to an extent, mid-west coverage.

Poole stood up to that trend, writing extensively about NASCAR and college sports- and without the snotty attitude that always is featured in east coast coverage. And since they are my favorites, he had a fan here at Frank Helps You Think It All Out. Since he was atypical journalist, he was very open to bloggers (he had his own spirited page here) and hosted a popular daily Serius radio show. NASCAR has no major national columnist voice other than David- so it hurts more to lose him because he was great, southern gentleman.

Particularly when you have to wade through such drivel as this by David Whitely with the Orlando Sentintal- talking about Carl Edwards’ terrible wreck at Talladega:

If Edwards' car had been a couple of feet higher, we could have had another 1955 Le Mans. A car flew off the track and killed 80 spectators. It led to a racing ban in Germany, France and Switzerland. The Swiss didn't lift their ban until two years ago.

How does NASCAR minimize that doomsday? Slow the cars? Reconfigure the tracks? Risk losing that Big One excitement? "I don't know how I'd change this racing," Edwards said.

Neither do I...

That’s pretty lame, right. Trash the sport, then “I don’t know”?

David Poole would never write something vapid:

Why did nobody at NASCAR ever say reconfiguring Texas Motor Speedway wasn’t an option when the drivers were complaining about it in 1998? What actually happened was NASCAR chairman Bill France Jr. came to Texas on the morning of the track’s second race and took up a spot in the garage area so reporters could come find him. He told them SMI had better fix the track or lose the one Cup date it had, let alone asking for a second.

Let me flatly say two things.

First, if SMI owned Talladega then NASCAR would have forced that company to plow it up and rebuild no later than 1987, when Bobby Allison crashed in almost exactly the same way Edwards did Sunday. There’s no chance NASCAR would have tried as many things to change the cars and the rules to continue racing at Talladega if its sister company didn’t own the joint.

Second, there’s no way anybody – ISC or SMI or anybody – builds a track today and makes it a 2.66-mile trioval with high-banked turns. The track is an anachronism.

The God of Love and Mercy

Ralph Peters today devotes his column to: "Will the god of love and mercy triumph over the god of battles?" Gosh, I don’t know Ralph. But I know where love and mercy is not the way to go- racing Juan Pablo Montoya on a road course. Montoya, right in front of us, is working out years of passive frustration, making sanitary laps in a fragile F-1 car.

Yes, NASCAR took one of its two detours to road courses this weekend. No one dislikes road course racing really. Even David Poole, who cheerleads against in constantly, can’t work up any real venom for it. Yeah, it is different- and this sport is designed for oval racing- but once or twice a year it is sort of fun.

I thought yesterday was a good example of why road racing is, on the whole, a good part of the schedule. The races are quick. The COT shined yesterday- lots of passing, the smaller fuel cell made for lots of strategy, and the finish was interesting and intense. Even the number of caution laps- the interest killer at the big tracks as cars crawl around an interminable amount of time- where kept to a manageable number (although if you blow an engine, get off the track- don’t force NASCAR to throw a caution when you can get off- I’m talking to you Sterling). I don’t want to watch it every week- but if it means adding another cookie-cutter race or Poco-snooze; I’ll take the Glen.

As to the race itself, Juan Pablo Montoya has twice this year climbed into cars in the top strictly stock divisions and whipped all comers. Good on him. Particularly impressive when you consider neither team that fielded those two race cars is known for its road racing prowess. Ganassi Racing has not won anywhere for five years- let alone a road course. Dodge hasn’t won a race this year- forget about the COT. I doubt Juan had the best car either time- but it is hard to argue he ain't the best road racer going right now.

The other point is that for years we've been told by NASCAR that the "quality" of driver in NASCAR is equal to that of Formula One. Boy, that is a hard sell today- as Montoya took our "good" road racers: Stewart, both Gordons, etc. to school yesterday. And that Busch field in Mexico had some ringers too: Boris Said, Hamlin, etc.

A semi-good Formula One road racer, or at least this one, seems much superior to the NASCAR crew touted as road racers. They didn’t seem too good today.