Another gas mileage finish? What's the problem here? And when will Carl Edwards break his silence and tell us all what's up?

  Carl Edwards (L), here with team owner Jack Roush: Edwards is the NASCAR tour leader, and the sport's biggest question: will he leave Ford and Roush and move to Toyota and Joe Gibbs? When will somebody say something on the record about all this? (Photo: Autostock)
  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   The Boston market.
   People like John and Mona are NASCAR's newest customers.
   Will they be coming back to see more?
   Good question.
   The traffic was no real issue, and the midway carnival was a lot of fun.
   But they had questions:
    "We saw Jeff Gordon coming on strong there at the end….and then Carl Edwards too," John was saying, clearly a bit perplexed.
    "And then they just started backing off. What was that all about? Why weren't they all fighting door to door and all that?"
   Ah, yes. Very good question, John.
   And we've all been asking that question much too frequently the past several weeks – after too many gas mileage finishes. How many races lately have been gas mileage finishes? Too many, that's for sure.
   This is a sport built on lead-foots, not feather-foots.
   But too many times lately the winner has been the man doing the best job of conserving gas.
  
  

  Ryan Newman, making Victory Circle a family affair (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   NASCAR might be taking this 'green' thing too far.
   Or maybe we should just discard these gas-guzzling V-8s and race those eerily silent electric hybrids. At 50 mpg, gosh, Ryan Newman and Tony Stewart could have made the New Hampshire 301 on just six gallons, instead of the usual 60 gallons or so. 
   John, at the quick explanation, replied sharply: "I hate the gas mileage racing. Granted that Carl Edwards is ahead in the point standings, but Carl should have been 1st, 2nd or 3rd in Loudon!"
   Maybe it's just Fate, so many 'Back off!' finishes as crew chiefs cajole drivers to stretch gas.
   Or maybe there's something else going on here.
   But fuel mileage finishes really aren't all that thrilling, except for aficionados.
   And if 'the customer is always right' should be NASCAR's marketing mantra, well, it sure looks like the sport has been off the mark lately, with that traffic mess at Kentucky and all these 'feather-foot' finishes.

   What is going on with all these fuel mileage races?
   One or two might be interesting…..but just about every race the past two months has been determined, one way or another, by fuel mileage.
   Remember the 600 at Charlotte, and all those guys running out in the final miles, like Dale Earnhardt Jr. running out in the third turn of the last lap?
   And the Chicago Nationwide race the following week…..cars running out right and left in the final miles.
   And Kansas, where Brad Keselowski used fuel mileage rather than horsepower…
   Michigan, the next week, was a gas mileage finish until Earnhardt blew a tire late.
   Don't forget that last season's championship itself might well have boiled down to fuel mileage at Phoenix….
  

  

  Winning crew chief Tony Gibson: the right gas mileage and tire strategy to key Ryan Newman in Sunday's New Hampshire 301. But too many gas mileage NASCAR finishes this summer? Why? (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   Yes, measuring gas mileage and making the right stops has long been part of racing.
   But this rash of fuel mileage finishes has become an epidemic.
   What's the deal here?

   Let's ask Sunday's winner, Ryan Newman:
   Why so many fuel mileage races?
   "Because we still carry fuel in the car," Newman quipped.
   Okay, let's try for something a little deeper here, please.
   Let's ask Tony Gibson, Sunday's winning crew chief.
   And the answer seems, somehow, to boil down to tires, perhaps ironically.
   Ever since the Brickyard tire issues in 2008 Goodyear has been on one of the most impressive tire development programs ever seen in this sport.
   Testing, testing.
   And new tires – or a tire combination new to the track – nearly every single week.
   Crew chiefs have been complaining about all the new tire combinations they have to deal with this season. And drivers too. (Though not too loudly, of course, because Goodyear is one of the sport's 'sacred cows,' and NASCAR officials have this willingness to hand out secret $50,000 penalties….)
   Dale Earnhardt Jr. may have taken the tire complaints to the next level, after Sunday's 301:
   "Every damn week they change the tire. We had a pretty good one here, but I guess the government is getting on 'em about how they build them, or something, and they had to bring a new one here. Some kind of new construction. I didn't like it. But we can figure it out and get a setup going and try to figure it out where it will drive good."
  
  

  What are the pit road strategies this season? (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   Certainly it may be hard for drivers to complain after the race about how the tires actually work. Sunday's tires were more grippy than last year's set up, hence nearly a dozen men breaking the track record in qualifying.
   But then race tactics kick in….
   "We were going to run as long as we could on our left-sides, to keep our track position," Gibson said. "So we had to do what everyone else was doing, if not a little bit less. We knew from watching the Nationwide race, and from our practice, that we could run a pretty good ways on our lefts."
   "Got to commend Goodyear," Newman added, breaking down the 301-lapper: "We did 150 laps on our lefts the first and second time. I think 75 each on the rights every time. A great Goodyear tire."
    So…..and here's another issue that may somehow need to be addressed (and not just at New Hampshire Motor Speedway): track position.
    Why in the world does track position still have to be such a major issue in this sport? Why can't drivers just go out and pass each other, like in the good ol' days?
   "Our strategy was to stay up front, and keep Ryan in clean air," Gibson said. "We knew if we could do that, we had a shot to win.
   "We gave up track position middle of the race to put four (tires) on. But we had to do whatever we had to do to keep our track position."
   So this sport is still a sport of track position…and fuel mileage?
   Will that bring John and Mona back to another track?
   Gibson says Newman "did an awesome job of saving fuel.
   "I never believed we were going to make it.
    "We were definitely a solid two to three laps short from making it.
    "I was hounding him on the radio; I'm sure he got tired of hearing it.
    "But it was time to showcase what he can do in driving and saving fuel.
     "Glad I didn't chicken out on him."
    Flash back to Dover in May, when crew chief Lance McGrew drew the ire of his driver Mark Martin for orders to stretch fuel and tires…..even though that strategy nearly won Martin the race.
    "It's just track position -- It forces you to do things you normally wouldn't do," Gibson says. "Take two (tires); stay out on fuel and gamble.
   "The reason we came to it here is because we knew if we pitted like when Tony Stewart and those guys did, there were going to be two or three guys that stayed out, like Brad Keselowski did at Kansas.
    "Somebody is going to stay out and roll the dice on fuel mileage and win it.
    "But Ryan, he's on me all the time: 'Dude, we're going to have to grow some here and win a race. The way to win it is to stay out.'"
    The win, remember, was Newman's first on the Sprint Cup tour since April 2010. And his U.S. Army sponsorship has been somewhat controversial up in Congress lately. (Plus the Army sponsorship is a relatively anemic $7 million a year….in a sport where top sponsorships run $20 million to $25 million.)
      "It's the thing you have to do…that's the way racing is today," Gibson says of these fuel mileage/track position races.
    But why?
    "I don't know why it's a fuel mileage deal," Gibson says. "Maybe the tires are better.
   "The tires don't give up as much as they used to give up, so you can stay out longer. And you're not giving up a lot of time staying out on fuel.
    "At a lot of these tracks, it's dictated by the tire more than anything."
    To which Newman adds "It's a Catch-22: We ask for a tire that will be safe and fall off (in speed), so then there's a reward to put four tires on so you can drive back to the front.
     "But it's tough to do that -- make it safe, make it so it doesn't blow out for the guys that aren't handling well or have the technology to understand the things about the tires.
      "There's a lot of demand on Goodyear.
     "Because they've been building tires that are safe, I think we've seen better, safer tires throughout the season. Therefore you're seeing more strategy -- more strategy with respect to fuel, because fuel is more of an issue than the tires are."

   Was it just a month or so ago that Tony Stewart was complaining that, as a Chevy driver, he felt that when he had to face off against these Fords "I feel like I'm bringing a knife to a gunfight."
   Stewart, who finished second to teammate Ryan Newman in Sunday's New Hampshire 301, has shown much better horsepower lately. His engines come out of Rick Hendrick's shops.
   Ironically, Hendrick's own men haven't been doing that well.

    Carl Edwards (L) and Kyle Busch: soon to be teammates? Might be an odd-couple, considering their run-ins.....(Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
   

   Carl Edwards is still holding his peace and saying nothing much about his contract negotiations with car owners Jack Roush and Joe Gibbs. And everyone involved is remaining pretty silent too.
   However if Edwards --  who has been the NASCAR Sprint Cup tour leader most of the season, and who goes to Indianapolis Motor Speedway next week as the points leader once again – does leave Roush at the end of the season, that would be the story of the season.
   Big enough for somebody to be asking questions…or at least trying to find some answers.
   And over the weekend speculation was rampant in the NASCAR garage at New Hampshire that Edwards has made his decision for 2012 and will indeed move from Roush's Ford team to Gibbs' Toyota team.

   Though this is all unconfirmed, this is the word, highly unofficial, from the garage:

   -- that Edwards will run for Gibbs in 2012;

   -- that Edwards will drive Gibbs' Home Depot-sponsored car, replacing Joey Logano;

   -- that Logano will move to a new fourth Gibbs Cup team, with sponsorship yet to be determined;

   -- that the move is from considerable pressure from Home Depot for Gibbs to get a driver who can go nose-to-nose with Lowe's-sponsored Jimmie Johnson, who has won five straight NASCAR championships;

   -- that Home Depot's sponsorship package for driver-team could be the most lucrative in NASCAR history, maybe as much as $40 million a season (for some – unofficial – comparison, Aflac's current driver-team sponsorship with Edwards-Roush is figured to be $27 million a year; for more comparison, the late Alan Kulwicki won the 1992 NASCAR Winston Cup championship on a budget of $1.2 million);

   -- that an official announcement of Edwards-to-Gibbs could come at Indianapolis Motor Speedway during next week's Brickyard 400 weekend.

   Is this the real story? Nobody's confirming anything yet, or denying anything.

   Wonder what Kyle Busch (L) might be thinking about Joe Gibbs' (R) bid to sign Carl Edwards? (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   Some background here:

   -- Edwards-to-Gibbs, if true, would be the biggest driver story since Dale Earnhardt Jr. left DEI and joined Rick Hendrick for the 2008 season, and since Tony Stewart left Gibbs at the end of 2008 to start his own Cup team in 2009.

   -- In the 'what have you done for me lately?' department, since 2008 the Sprint Cup tour scorecard among owners looks like this:
      Joe Gibbs has won more Cup races than any other team owner, 34 victories; Rick Hendrick is second, with 30 victories; Jack Roush, third, with 22 victories. No one else is close to the Big Three.

   -- If Carl Edwards does move from the Jack Roush Ford camp to the Joe Gibbs Toyota camp, what would that say about Ford Motor Company, in losing one of its top drivers?

   -- And if Edwards does now command some princely salary, how will all the out-of-work fans – including those Kentuckians who spent good money but got stuck in all that traffic -- and out-of-work crewmen look at that?

   -- Footnote: Kyle Busch, who has been Gibbs' lead driver this season and who just won his 100th national NASCAR event over the weekend, last year signed a multi-year contract extension with Gibbs, believed to be four years with an option on a fifth year, that could keep Busch in Gibbs' cars through 2015. Sponsor Mars/M&Ms signed a sponsorship extension this year with Gibbs and Busch, which is figured to match the driver contract in season.

  Carl Edwards and crew chief Bob Osborne: going to Indianapolis at the top of the NASCAR standings (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)