" Even If It Works.....Crazy Is Still Nuts !
Virginia's skies were racing blue today.
This has to have been one huge relief for the teams of people in Martinsville for the sole purpose of broadcasting the GOODIES Pain Relief 500, as the one-day delayed race was named.
I have been noticing a number of race writers diss'n the TV bradcast crew of DW, Larry McReynolds, and Mike Joy. Most especially the writers for an online racing blog site called "Frontstretch". They've been snipin away at DW in particular since February's Daytona Speedweeks.
Weekends like the one just past, wherein the weather is sorta rainy, but the track management holds out the hope all day that they will start the race, thee days are murder for the people that talk racing for a living. The task becomes one of trying to fill anywhere from two to four hours of rain delay, with stories, spoken history, and commentary, both current and nostalgic...in the effort to keep the viewing audience in place, when essentially nothing is going on. That's a trick and a half.
Luckily, race fans, like baseball or football addicts, love to talk and BS about the thing they love. So this extended time of "filling in", is an easy sell for the TV crew.
To their credit, DW, Mike, and Larry Mc are pretty good at what they do, Frontstretch aside, so we all enjoyed two days togther, and got the race in too.
Denny Hamlin was one of about four cars that seemed to have the Martinsville half miler really dialed in. Along with Jeff Burton, Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick ( for a while) the coming and going from the front to the back, s is always the case on a short track like that.....these guys put on quite a show, but as is the case every week they race, you sat through 496 laps of racing to get to those last four laps.
This is where crazy becomes nuts, for Denny Hamlin, and his crew chief Mike Ford.
A caution with less than 10 laps left in the race slows the action, and Denny Hamlin is in the lead. Hamlin looks bulletproof, and since it looks like there will only be four laps of racing left when they throw the green flag to restart, it's Hamlin's day to win the race in his home state, in front of everyone he ever knew in the state of Virginia.....it just don't get no better.
Then Mike Ford, atop the team's tool cart keys his mic, and tells Denny to bring the car in on pit road for fresh tires. Four of them.
No you know Denny Hamlin had to be in a state of disbelief.
Come in ? With four laps to go, give up the winner's purse, and then go backout four rows back...on a track you can't pass on ?
That's not just crazy....that's NUTS !
The pros in the broadcast booth were beside themselves !
What the hell is Mike Ford thinking ? ! ? !
Two thoughts on this bizare turn of events.
First ..... Mike Ford is WAY outside the box on this call.
Second.....Why did Denny listen, and bring the car in ?
I know, if I'd been in Hamlin's seat, Ford would have gotten a message....." You're breaking up, I can't hear you "....and I'da stayed right out there leading the pack toward that final, four lap run.
But he didn't do what I'da done. Denny pulled onto pit road, got his four new tires, and then went out, paased everyone in front of hi,, and won the darn anyway !
Well, like I said, it worked out for Hamlin and Ford. But even though it worked......it was still nuts !!!