Post by jessn16 on Nov 20, 2018 6:10:59 GMT -5
...I'm not really sure it can be said in short fashion.
I think it's come time for Richard to pull out of the sport altogether, shut the team down and call it a career. I don't think anyone would harbor ill will toward him if he did so.
I only watched this season with minimal attention. NASCAR stopped holding my interest a long time ago, to be honest. I'm glad the series had an exciting final race and maybe they can build off that. For me, open-wheel racing is (no pun intended) lapping NASCAR so badly right now that it's not even funny. If any of you watched the Indy 500 this year, that was vintage American open-wheel oval-track racing, with real drama and real strategy and with 5 laps to go probably 20 different cars still had a shot at winning despite where they were on the track. And they didn't need a gimmick like a restrictor plate to pull it off. IndyCar has fixed its product. For some reason the media won't give it a fair shake anymore. But modern Americans continue to prove time and again that they will find the truth whether the media wants to report on it. I wouldn't be surprised to see IndyCar retake NASCAR in popularity at some point, especially if/when Indy gives the green light to electric-powered vehicles. And that's coming, because the younger generations are increasingly intolerant of dirty, smelly ol' gas-powered racers.
While that's happening, though, we have a short-term problem. And that problem is the Petty racing team is not competitive. It's not competitive because the car is crap. Almirola showed how good he was this year when someone gave him a real car.
I've wondered aloud for years why Petty or Medallion or whoever is calling the shots now can't put a good car on the track. I'm past wondering, and now I'm accusing. I'm accusing someone of being a cheapskate. Either the team won't pay the right people to come to work there, or they won't pay for the requisite materials it takes to put a winner on the track. Speed costs money; how fast do you want to go? Anyone in racing has heard that idiom. It applies to NASCAR more than anywhere else these days other than F1. And apparently management doesn't really care about going fast.
Petty is being run like Front Row was 10 years ago. Show up, run enough laps to keep the sponsors happy, bag 25th place if you can get that high and move on to the next one. Be competitive at the plate tracks, and maybe steal one on a road course (if you brought in a ringer, that is, which Petty doesn't do). Outside of that, look pretty for four hours and go home. Notice I said Front Row 10 years ago, because I get the feeling they're now actually trying. Maybe harder than Petty is.
I have a hard time believing Richard likes being a backmarker. I also have a hard time believing he can't fund improvements unless he has made some very poor financial choices in his life. If he has, that's his personal business, but he really needs to exit the sport now if that's the case, because someone is going to eventually do some digging and figure it out, and he doesn't deserve that. I have to believe he's nothing more than a name now, and he gets free entry at the race track, and aside from that this is really Medallion's team. I was expecting them to be more involved when they bought in; I was expecting them to want to win. I don't think they do anymore.
And poor Richard Childress is basically running a family charity at this point. He's got a race team full of grandkids and it's starting to feel like when I used to run SCCA Solo II and rich dads would bring their 15-year-olds out and sneak them into the car for a lap. Petty aligned with this because, bless Richard Childress, he probably really wants to help and we know if anyone has the money, he does, but what it has done is put two guys who are locked into the way things were done 20-30 years ago under the same roof. And one of them has a nepotism problem on top of that.
I really don't want to see Petty exit the sport, because when it does, all my NASCAR-related bookmarks will go away and I'll never watch another lap again until the racing is better. There is so much about the sport that feels wrong these days: the convoluted playoff system, the top-loaded (and overall lack of) driver talent, the cookie-cutter personalities of the younger guys, the way the sport has run from its Southern roots like a college kid embarrassed by his farmer dad and seamstress mom, the ever-shrinking car lineup and then the way the megateams are controlling the sport. This isn't what I signed up for. It's not better than what I signed up for. New isn't always better. Change isn't always needed. The leadership of the series in general ... well, it sucks eggs. That's about the only way to put it. It...sucks...eggs. Rotten ones at that. I give NASCAR leadership an F in nearly all leadership categories. I can't remember the last correct decision they made.
The sport, really, deserves to die, so that someone else can come in, pick up the pieces, and reform it around its core once again. But if Petty can't help with the present, I can't see it helping with the future, either, so I'll skip the rest of an anti-NASCAR rant.
Instead, I've got an ultimatum, as much as someone can give an ultimatum to an 81-year-old legend: Put a real car on the track. Pay the money, hire the men (women). If you can't, leave with your legacy intact. This is starting to feel like Babe Ruth with the Boston Braves, or Johnny Unitas with the San Diego Chargers.
Jess
I think it's come time for Richard to pull out of the sport altogether, shut the team down and call it a career. I don't think anyone would harbor ill will toward him if he did so.
I only watched this season with minimal attention. NASCAR stopped holding my interest a long time ago, to be honest. I'm glad the series had an exciting final race and maybe they can build off that. For me, open-wheel racing is (no pun intended) lapping NASCAR so badly right now that it's not even funny. If any of you watched the Indy 500 this year, that was vintage American open-wheel oval-track racing, with real drama and real strategy and with 5 laps to go probably 20 different cars still had a shot at winning despite where they were on the track. And they didn't need a gimmick like a restrictor plate to pull it off. IndyCar has fixed its product. For some reason the media won't give it a fair shake anymore. But modern Americans continue to prove time and again that they will find the truth whether the media wants to report on it. I wouldn't be surprised to see IndyCar retake NASCAR in popularity at some point, especially if/when Indy gives the green light to electric-powered vehicles. And that's coming, because the younger generations are increasingly intolerant of dirty, smelly ol' gas-powered racers.
While that's happening, though, we have a short-term problem. And that problem is the Petty racing team is not competitive. It's not competitive because the car is crap. Almirola showed how good he was this year when someone gave him a real car.
I've wondered aloud for years why Petty or Medallion or whoever is calling the shots now can't put a good car on the track. I'm past wondering, and now I'm accusing. I'm accusing someone of being a cheapskate. Either the team won't pay the right people to come to work there, or they won't pay for the requisite materials it takes to put a winner on the track. Speed costs money; how fast do you want to go? Anyone in racing has heard that idiom. It applies to NASCAR more than anywhere else these days other than F1. And apparently management doesn't really care about going fast.
Petty is being run like Front Row was 10 years ago. Show up, run enough laps to keep the sponsors happy, bag 25th place if you can get that high and move on to the next one. Be competitive at the plate tracks, and maybe steal one on a road course (if you brought in a ringer, that is, which Petty doesn't do). Outside of that, look pretty for four hours and go home. Notice I said Front Row 10 years ago, because I get the feeling they're now actually trying. Maybe harder than Petty is.
I have a hard time believing Richard likes being a backmarker. I also have a hard time believing he can't fund improvements unless he has made some very poor financial choices in his life. If he has, that's his personal business, but he really needs to exit the sport now if that's the case, because someone is going to eventually do some digging and figure it out, and he doesn't deserve that. I have to believe he's nothing more than a name now, and he gets free entry at the race track, and aside from that this is really Medallion's team. I was expecting them to be more involved when they bought in; I was expecting them to want to win. I don't think they do anymore.
And poor Richard Childress is basically running a family charity at this point. He's got a race team full of grandkids and it's starting to feel like when I used to run SCCA Solo II and rich dads would bring their 15-year-olds out and sneak them into the car for a lap. Petty aligned with this because, bless Richard Childress, he probably really wants to help and we know if anyone has the money, he does, but what it has done is put two guys who are locked into the way things were done 20-30 years ago under the same roof. And one of them has a nepotism problem on top of that.
I really don't want to see Petty exit the sport, because when it does, all my NASCAR-related bookmarks will go away and I'll never watch another lap again until the racing is better. There is so much about the sport that feels wrong these days: the convoluted playoff system, the top-loaded (and overall lack of) driver talent, the cookie-cutter personalities of the younger guys, the way the sport has run from its Southern roots like a college kid embarrassed by his farmer dad and seamstress mom, the ever-shrinking car lineup and then the way the megateams are controlling the sport. This isn't what I signed up for. It's not better than what I signed up for. New isn't always better. Change isn't always needed. The leadership of the series in general ... well, it sucks eggs. That's about the only way to put it. It...sucks...eggs. Rotten ones at that. I give NASCAR leadership an F in nearly all leadership categories. I can't remember the last correct decision they made.
The sport, really, deserves to die, so that someone else can come in, pick up the pieces, and reform it around its core once again. But if Petty can't help with the present, I can't see it helping with the future, either, so I'll skip the rest of an anti-NASCAR rant.
Instead, I've got an ultimatum, as much as someone can give an ultimatum to an 81-year-old legend: Put a real car on the track. Pay the money, hire the men (women). If you can't, leave with your legacy intact. This is starting to feel like Babe Ruth with the Boston Braves, or Johnny Unitas with the San Diego Chargers.
Jess
I have Richard petty cars 1/18 1/24 scales! Etc...
