All Purpose NASCAR Thread

Jeff Gordon – NASCAR's new bad boy? For the first time in his career, he's been put on probation and fined a dollar amount, but he says we're now seeing the real him and to expect more emotion out of him in the future.

By Jenna Fryer
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Jeff Gordon has always been a model of good behaviour off the track, the rare driver able to keep his emotions in check.
That changed when he angrily shoved Matt Kenseth following the race at Bristol Motorspeedway, an action that drew a $10,000 US fine from NASCAR on Tuesday. It’s the first time in Gordon’s 14-year career that he’s been penalized for his conduct.
Don’t expect Gordon, who was placed on probation until Aug. 30, to turn into another Tony Stewart or Kurt Busch. But the image-conscious driver is committed to letting loose the emotion he’s kept bottled up over the years.
“For many, many years I’ve been so reserved from controversy,” he said. “I was just so concerned with `What was this person going to think?’ and `What was that person going to think?’ and I was more caught up in that than I was in being true to myself.
“What you see today is a more truer Jeff Gordon and who I really am. I’m not a robot. I have a personality and I have emotions and I have a humorous side to me and an angry side to me.”
Kenseth learned that firsthand when contact with Gordon on the final lap of Sunday’s race sent Gordon spiraling backward from a third-place finish to 21st. Kenseth claimed the contact was accidental and approached Gordon on pit road in what looked to be an apologetic gesture.
But Gordon, who was still wearing his helmet and safety devices, angrily shoved Kenseth back several feet. The two were quickly separated by NASCAR officials.
It’s the first time anyone can remember Gordon losing his cool at NASCAR’s highest level. He’s had run-ins with drivers before, but nothing has ever escalated beyond a shouting match.
And Gordon has certainly been angry before, but he typically retreated to his hauler to collect himself before facing the public.
That behaviour led to a squeaky-clean image and kept him afoul of NASCAR’s police — the last time Gordon was even penalized as a driver was in 2000 when he was docked 100 points for having an unapproved part on his Chevrolet.
But Gordon is ready to shed his image as he attempts to return to championship form. He failed to make the Chase for the Nextel Cup championship last season and wound up 11th in the points — his lowest finish since his rookie season.
“I think that I kind of heard a lot last year that maybe I wasn’t being aggressive enough on the racetrack and different things,” he said. “My team has done an awful lot this year to make our race cars better, to put me in better positions . . . and I’m giving them everything I possibly can out there on the racetrack because they deserve it.
“If that means I’ve got to be more aggressive, then I’m going to be more aggressive. When you’re more aggressive, sometimes it carries over off the racetrack, as well."

 

HOLY CRAP! They edit Canadian spellings INTO AP copy? "a model of good behaviour?"

 

I'd imagine that if it moved on the Canadian wire that they would. I mean otherwise it's misspelled up there.

 

You know what? I never even noticed that. The editors at CP must have that drilled into their heads.

 

Damn those shifty Canadians! Damn them and their so-called "Bacon!"

 

Well, Jay, to be fair...Gordon didn't go after Kenseth. Kenseth came to him. It's not like Gordon climbed out of his car and went running down to where Kenseth had parked. He had just climbed out, and those helmets don't just slide off anymore with the HANS device.

 

It's time to bring this one back.

http://autoextremist.com/page3.shtml#fumes

Ed Hinton of the Orlando Sentinel and Robin Miller of Speed Channel just finished discussing this on Speed Channel's program Wind Tunnel ... they seem to think it's GM. They also think Toyota plans to basically own the place in 2010.

No Chevys in NASCAR? Sounds crazy. Then again, they're broke --- but not nearly as broke as Ford is.

Thoughts?

 

IF this happens, my dad might become inconsolable.

 

Ford itself is not "broke." It's making a nice bit of change on its international operations. Is their North American division struggling? Yeah. Does that mean they're about to go under? Far from it.

 

That's an awfully big IF.

Megacompanies need to do all sorts of contingency planning, especially in the days of $75 a barrel oil.

GM lost something like $6 billion last year. They'd be fools if they didn't look at every option.

But putting it on the table with dozens of other cost-cutting options and actually doing it are two very different things.

Time will tell ...

 

Newman seems to have gotten in the way of every wreck this season. It could be that's just a perception.

NASCAR needs to alter the points system so anybody finishing 26th or worse gets just 1 point. I've watched the sport since before I was old enough to read and I'm tired of torn-up jalopies rolling around the track apron just to move up two spots in the race results.

 

I've been thinking about something for a while now and today's race kind of confirmed my suspicions.

Elliott Sadler just isn't that good.

Guy routinely has the best car out there at these restrictor plate races, yet, he always manages to get himself shuffled out in crunch time. Or he ends up turning flips through the grass.

It pains me to say because I like him. But I'm starting to realize he's just not that damn good.