A Former Champ's Take on Jimmie J

Former Sprint Cup champ and current ESPN personality Dale Jarrett answered a couple questions about Jimmie Johnson and his almost certain step into motorsports immortality Sunday.

Jarrett, who will be in the booth for ABC’s live coverage of Homestead, was quick to give Jimmie his due in the talent department. And, I realize I may be in the minority, but I wholeheartedly agree with ol' DJ. Jimmie is the most under-rated and under-appreciated overachiever in the sport (perhaps in sports period). The dude is getting ready to accomplish a feat of which no other driver before him can boast - and instead of cheering him on as he drives into the history books, many fans could care less. More's the pity.

For Jarrett's astute comments, read on:

What does Jimmie Johnson have to do to win the championship?

"I think you have to focus in a number of different ways and break the weekend down. On Friday before qualifying, I want to make my car as fast as possible and see if we can start up front. That allows me to run the race I want to run. Obviously practice on Saturday, making the car fast once again will allow me to run the race that I want to, and I think that’s exactly what Jimmie Johnson is going to do. He’s going to try to lead some laps early if he can do that, get those bonus points, and then he’s just going to settle into a good position. I think what we will see, on the double-file restarts, Jimmie be extremely careful around traffic until things get single-file, and then he can pass cars one at a time; it’s much safer that way. I think we’ll see their normal 13-second pit stops become 13 ½, 14 seconds which will probably lose them a couple of spots in the pits, but they want to make sure they don’t have any problems with loose wheels or anything like that. And then he can run his race, finish somewhere in the top 10, maybe even 15, that’ll bring him another championship home."

What about the level of appreciation that Jimmie Johnson gets from the public?

"From the public it’s a little suspect. I think in the garage area everybody appreciates what Jimmie Johnson the driver has done. I think the public perception of him is that he’s with the best organization in the sport, he has the best race cars, he has the best engines, he has the best crew chief in the business, so therefore why shouldn’t he win? But that’s not exactly the case. I would have to disagree with everyone. Someone has to get in there and make all the right moves, push the buttons, do the things that you need to do on the racetrack. Jimmie Johnson does all of those things. He’s a tremendous talent behind the wheel, has a great head on his shoulders, and that makes for a perfect champion."

Photo info: Dale Jarrett talks to Jimmie Johnson (from Life magazine)

Saturday Night's All Right For Fighting

Brad Keselowski has been chastised by the boys in the hauler.

Denny Hamlin is mad and loaded for bear.

And Saturday, viewers of the Nationwide Series race will get to see if these two will turn what might otherwise have been a foregone conclusion of a championship into the most entertaining spectacle of the weekend.

NASCAR marketers could not have scripted a better sendoff to the season.

If Hamlin backs up his talk (and his tweets), he'll move the feud from Twitter to the track as he's "first to the pay window" to collect on the debt that Keselowski owes him for those Phoenix dustups. Besides, as Hamlin told reporters "Let me tell you something, the one thing he ain't got is more talent than me."

Whether that boast is true or not remains to be seen. But one thing Keselowski isn't is running scared. After all Denny's mouthing off during the week, Keselowski arguably has a score to settle of his own. And no matter what kind of scolding Brian France and co. put on Keselowski behind closed doors, something tells me Brad isn't gonna sit there and let Denny retaliate all over his bumper.

So let's get ready to rumble - because at Homestead, the fight moves from Twitter to the track. And if either driver's day ends with a wreck, there just might be a Saturday night fight in the pits.

Oh yeah, this is gonna be good.

Somebody Dial 811

Kevin Harvick wants you to call before you dig.

Okay, not to call him exactly, but to dial three little numbers - 811. And to that end, the No. 29 Shell-Pennzoil car will feature a new logo on the deck lid at Homestead that will read, “811 Know what’s below. Call before you dig.”

The Richard Childress Racing teams are working with Shell and the Common Ground Alliance to educate fans about the importance of calling 811 before doing any digging or excavation activity. A quick and easy call to 811 helps to keep you from unintentionally hitting underground pipelines, infrastructure and utility lines, which can put the community and environment at risk.

“Calling 811 is like having a spotter when you’re digging,” said Richard Childress, President and CEO, Richard Childress Racing. “The spotter’s job is it to let the driver know whether or not it is clear before he makes a move on the track helping him to avoid a collision that would put everyone in jeopardy. 811 helps keep neighborhoods safe by ensuring people know what’s below and that they’re clear to break ground.”

David Ragan Makes A Special Delivery

For three Daytona Beach-area race fans, a surprise knock on the door from NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver David Ragan and Daytona International Speedway President Robin Braig put their coveted tickets for the 52nd annual Daytona 500 on Sunday, Feb. 14 in their hands.

In a UPS package car, Ragan, driver of the No. 6 UPS Ford for Roush Fenway Racing, visited the houses of longtime Daytona ticket holders Mike Bruno Jr., Ben Allen and Jim Barron on Tuesday with their tickets to “The Great American Race.”

In addition, both Ragan and Braig delivered goodie bags to all three ticket holders.

The special Daytona 500 ticket event with Ragan celebrates the delivery of 52nd annual Daytona 500 tickets around the world.

“It’s cool to see the fans that have been supporting NASCAR and the Daytona 500 for a number of years get excited,” Ragan said. “It’s November and they are getting excited about a race that’s in February. That shows what a big deal the Daytona 500 is. For UPS to partner and get the tickets to their rightful owners here in November, (the fans) should have something good to think about for a couple of months leading up to the 500.”

Ragan, who rode with UPS package car driver Robert Clopton, had never delivered tickets to race fans’ houses. He said the event was an eye opener.

“This is something that we will think about as we’re driving around the race track on that pace lap,” Ragan said. “You see 150,000 people up there and you wonder how each one of them got their tickets. It’s a good thing that they are pumping this race up this early. A lot of people are talking about the (Daytona) 500. It’s our biggest race of the year. It’s the first one. It’s a tone setter for the rest of the season.”

For Bruno, a Ragan fan, the delivery of his Sprint Tower seats for the Daytona 500 will be something that he always will remember.

“This is unbelievable. This sport is definitely fan friendly,” said a stunned Bruno. “We definitely look forward to it every year. My father-in-law and I have been going since Sterling Marlin won his second (Daytona) 500. It’s the highlight of the year for us – February and July.”

Check out the video here: David’s Blog: Special Delivery in Daytona UPS Racing

So Why Do ESPN Pit Reporters Wear Firesuits Anyway?

They may look a little goofy, but there's a good reason those ESPN pit reporters wear firesuits - and it's not because they're out to make a NASCAR fashion statement.

The reason behind their race day attire dates all the way back to the late 1980s and involves Dr. Jerry Punch, the King and a fiery mishap on pit road.

On March 19, 1989, Punch, who is now ESPN’s lap-by-lap announcer for NASCAR Sprint Cup coverage, was working as a pit reporter at Atlanta Motor Speedway. As was standard ABC practice at the time, Punch was wearing a blue blazer and tie.

As Richard Petty’s car was being serviced during a routine pit stop, the car, which was racing with a broken header pipe, backfired, igniting fuel that spilled from the fuel filler can during the refueling process. The fire quickly spread.

“Suddenly you could hear this big ‘whumph’ and you could feel the air just being sucked to the fire as it erupted,” said Punch, who was about 10 feet away when the fire started. “The gas man’s wearing an apron, and it’s on fire – he drops the gas can on the ground and there’s fire all over the can and on the ground. He realized it could ignite the whole car, so he then picks it up and throws it over the wall, and then there’s gas behind the wall and it’s on fire where we are standing. Then the gas man leaps back over pit wall.”

Punch, an emergency room physician, and his pit spotter, Nelson Crozier, quickly sprung into action. Crozier grabbed a rubber mat from the Petty pits and he and Punch wrapped the Petty team gas man in the mat to extinguish the fire. Meanwhile, quick thinking by Petty’s crew chief, Dale Inman, led to Petty speeding away from the pits, allowing the car to be sprayed and the fire on the car to go out. Fireman and crew members from other teams quickly grabbed extinguishers and took care of the rest of the fire.

Punch attended to the injured crew member until paramedics arrived, then attempted to do a report for the telecast. But he quickly learned that the blaze had impacted him as well.

“As I’m doing a report on camera, my moustache that I had back then is all singed, the hair on the back of my hand is gone, my microphone windscreen is melted – it’s just dripping down across the microphone,” he said. “And the sleeve on my polyester blazer is all basically melted into a goo – and all you can see is these brass buttons hanging there.

“They had had high cameras on all of this and I don’t realize as I’m giving a report that people in the (TV) truck and people watching back at ABC in New York are just aghast that I was in the middle of this. Our coordinating producer of motorsports at ABC was Geoff Mason – Geoff was watching back in NY and he immediately called the truck and asked why in the world are our people not in fire-protective gear? He made the call right then that we’d wear it from then on.”

Punch said that not only did the incident lead to safety gear for ESPN and ABC’s reporters, it also led to improvements in pit stop safety.

“It’s not that he (the gas man) was sloppy; that was the nature of pit stops back then,” he said. “You’d always see gas trickling down the side of the car and the car would leave and there’d always be a puddle of gas on the ground behind the car. They’d just put a little speedy dry on it and sweep it up.

“After that, it became much more sophisticated with really, really tight dry breaks,” he said. “It made it harder to gas the car. That led to a lot of safety innovations.

“But boy we dodged a big bullet there on pit road that day and so did I,” he said. “I didn’t realize how much so until later. And to this day, I’m so appreciative of Geoff Mason just stepping in and absolutely making a great call for safety first.”

Photo info: Wearing her firesuit, Jamie Little interviews Ryan Newman at Talladega

Talk About a Series of Unfortunate Events

How's this for a series of unfortunate events?

Your pit crew wrecks on the way to the track. You blow an oil line during the race. You get sideways, causing a multi-car pileup. And, to top it all off, one of your buddies insults you for all the racing world to hear.

Such was Phoenix for Dale Earnhardt Jr., who is finally nearing the end of a season that might well have been scripted by Lemony Snicket.

In a truly bad beginning, the vehicle in which six #88 crew members were riding was T-boned before the race near PIR. Thankfully, all passengers were unharmed. And all resumed their over-the-wall duties at racetime.

However, the situation worsened as Junior lost it near the apron and went for a slide which collected eight of his closest friends - Ryan Newman, Tony Stewart, Brian Vickers and more - in a pretty bad mashup.

But what really made the gloom loom was the post-crash chatter of a rather perturbed Tony Stewart. Smoke, who suffered some bent metal in the incident, got a little bent-out-of-shape with his supposed buddy. "No-talent SOB" were his exact words.

Sigh.

If I were Junior, I just might hide in my hauler at Homestead. After, all what are the odds that The End of this season would involve a good day at the track?

One of the race commentators opined that with the type of season the #88 team has been having, if something were to fall out of the sky, it would likely land right on Junior's car.

Perhaps Junior Nation could adopt the below Don Williams' classic as a talisman against another luckless NASCAR outing. Misfortune can't last forever, can it?

Saturday at Phoenix: Tornados, Rain and Sons of Thunder

This race weekend Saturday turned out to be one heckuva NASCAR news day. There was a big sponsorship announcement for Stewart-Haas, an actual weather event and an on-track storm which warrants a red flag warning for Homestead.

First, Tornados: A major sponsorship deal for the #39 Chevy was announced today at PIR. Tornados, a brand of frozen Mexican convenience food, will be Ryan Newman’s primary sponsor for five Sprint Cup races beginning in 2010. When not serving as a primary, Tornados will take associate sponsor status on the car’s lower-rear quarterpanel. The Tornados paint scheme was also unveiled today at Phoenix International Raceway's Victory Lane.

Second, rain: It may have been brief, but the rain shower in the desert caused the cancellation of the first Cup practice and an unexpected appearance by the jet dryers. As Dale Junior's spotter T.J. Majors said via Twitter earlier today, "Rains 3 times a year and 2 of the 3 are when we are here."

Third, Sons of Thunder: The two lightning rods for NASCAR Nationwide controversy are at it again - and the fans are loving every minute of it. Tonight's dust-up between Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski started with Ham getting into Special K a bit as they raced for position...and it ended with Keselowski returning the favor by sending Denny into the fence (video below).

Although fans were hoping for a Cale Yarborough-style smackdown on pit road, all they got was a war of words. And Hamlin's still talking. About 30 minutes ago, he broadcast via Twitter "Yall are waitin on something aren't ya... Haha." If Hamlin backs up his post-race trash talk, he should be settling his score with Brad on the track at Homestead, which could be just the storyline NASCAR needs. Only time will tell...but so far he's been a man of many words and little action.

Speaking of Sons of Thunder, Kyle Busch, failed to wrap up the Nationwide Championship - thanks to a win by Carl Edwards and a ninth-place finish of his own. But he didn't fail to elude those pesky cameras again. Chalk up another disappearing act for Rowdy.