The 2021 Running NASCAR/IMSA/other racing things thread

I swear there are weeks when the highlight of Titans radio broadcasts are the ads with “Ward Burton for State Water Heaters.” “Water” comes out like he’s a 70-year-old woman from working class Baltimore.

 

Ricky Craven impressed me as an "under the radar guy" until the head injury. John Andretti got everything out of some crappy cars. Harry Gant paid his dues before the Skoal ride. I thought Marcos Ambrose was better than his results. Going back further, maybe Coo Coo Marlin?

Would love to have seen Jack Ingram, Sam Ard, Tommy Houston and Tommy Ellis in good Cup equipment.

 

Ward did grow up in the southern side of the house.

 

I'd say Sterling Marlin winning two Daytona 500s despite never being in a car that rated better than 'pretty good' throughout the 90s and early 2000s constituted a pretty good career against the curve, even if it looks like five of those 10 were plate races.

 

Sterling's success can be attributed as much to Runt Pittman's engines as anything.

 

Thanks for the clarification, you're right. I meant to say a HANS device wasn't sold until 1991, which was the year when the first of nine NASCAR drivers died of the same injury that killed Earnhardt, but the HANS device (and, to a large extent, the talk of safety at all) was given the cold shoulder until 2001. And yeah, Simpson absolutely got screwed. At the Rockingham press conference a few days after Earnhardt's death, NASCAR showed the broken Simpson belt, making it clear they put the death on the broken belt. Never mind that said belt may or may not have been cut by a rescue worker getting Earnhardt out, and that Earnhardt insisted the belts be installed in a way Simpson had warned him several times would compromise the integrity of the belts. After Simpson's lawsuit, NASCAR got technical and claimed they never said the belt caused the death.

 

As Driftwood said, Runt Pittman found something no one else did, and gave Sterling more power than anyone else for a couple of years. Plus the motors had a distinctive sound. The Runt motor plus the new Monte Carlo body in 1995 was far from underrated. The team was one of the top teams in the early 1990s, from the time Irvan took over the ride.
I'd put a vote in for Bobby Hamilton.

 

Watched that episode (off NBC Sports, not sure if the actual podcast has more material or not). Agreed, well worth a watch. I thought I knew a lot about Earnhardt's injuries in 1996, but I never knew just how life-and-death the situation was. Also didn't realize Earnhardt was driving at Watkins Glen with one arm when he set the track record. Makes an already incredible achievement even more so given that background. And I must say, Doc Punch looks much better since shaving that 1980s mustache.

 

5 revived.

 

Return with us now to the 1980s, when entire race teams were money laundering operations for marijuana smugglers.

 

So you're telling me John Paul was not a saint? (RIP.)

And don't get started on the Whittington brothers.

(Did not realize Randy Lanier had been released from his life sentence.)

 

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