In this corner, Humpy Wheeler....and in this corner, Bruton Smith. Gentlemen, start your zingers

  
Bruton Smith and Marcus Smith (Photo: HHH for Lowe's Motor Speedway)
  
  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   CONCORD, N.C.
   Some Monday morning musings….awaiting the start of the rain-delayed Coke 600:

   -- Remembering some of the zany promotions Humpy Wheeler used to pull off here, like some of those boxing exhibitions, maybe new track promoter Marcus Smith needs to be thinking about a frontstretch ring with Wheeler versus Bruton Smith, battling with one-line zingers.
     
   -- If NASCAR can't get the 600 in on Monday, speculation is that it wouldn't come back Tuesday for a third try but rather reschedule the event for Sunday July 19th. That's the next open Cup weekend available, coming between tour stops at Chicago and Indianapolis.
  
   -- Heading into Tuesday's planned day-long series of meeting between NASCAR officials and stock car teams, some teams point out that one thing NASCAR could do to make the racing better would be to lower the center of gravity of these cars. There is about 300 pounds of lead ballast in a car, which could be moved lower. That could help the excessive strain on the right-side tires.
   Promoter Humpy Wheeler says teams could prod NASCAR and Goodyear into bringing out wider tires, a project that has been in development for some time.
   "I think it's a great idea that NASCAR is having that meeting," Wheeler says. "The problem is we're missing the drama. We're having some pretty good finishes, but the drama is what sells tickets. And to get that drama you've got to have side-by-side racing and passing for the lead.
  

  

  
Humpy Wheeler spent Sunday at Indianapolis, instead of Lowe's Motor Speedway, where he ruled for 30 years (Photo: HHH for Lowe's Motor Speedway)

  

  

"Gosh….I don't think we've had a sustained rivalry since Darrell Waltrip and Cale Yarborough, when they got into it over the 'Jaws' issue. I'm talking about a whole season of a sustained rivalry; that's what gets people fired up to buy tickets.
   "But to get that, you've got to have drivers running side-by-side passing for the lead and banging fenders.
   "On the intermediate tracks, the 1-1/2-mile tracks, the lead car has clean air and that's the culprit, that's the enemy of the whole thing.
   "But there is too much riding on this, so I think they're going to figure that out.
   "The one thing that would help us the most is for Goodyear to bring out that new wider tire. That could help us more than any other thing."
   Well, the tires and maybe the proposed double-file restarts – putting all the men on the lead lap up at the head of the pack, and the lapped drivers back in the pack.
   Wheeler likes the double-file restart: "At least you'd have side-by-side racing for a couple of laps. That's what people like to see. That's why they like the racing at Daytona and Talladega, and Bristol and Martinsville and Richmond.
   "The fans want to see these drivers ripped the decals off each other's cars."
 
   -- If Tony Stewart can make it work, then why not Kevin Harvick? Stewart has done a remarkable job as new owner-driver this season, and Harvick could be the next man to make the move from contract driver to owner-driver.
   Harvick, who runs Kevin Harvick Inc., with Truck and Nationwide teams, while keeping his day-job driving for Richard Childress, talked a few weeks ago about the possibility of adding a Cup operation, but Harvick said then he wasn't looking at driving for his own Cup team.
   Now that may be changing, and there is speculation that Childress and Harvick may be looking at Stewart-Hendrick-type 'satellite' operation, with Childress providing engines and engineering support for such a Harvick team. How all the sponsorships might work is unclear; Childress and Harvick have Shell as their major sponsor, but that contract is apparently up for renewal…which is one reason for Childress' recent team shakeups, to spark something in his group. None of Childress' four drivers – Harvick, Jeff Burton, Casey Mears and Clint Bowyer – has won yet this season.
   In fact, some of Childress' rivals are starting to question Childress' operation as looking a little off-key at the moment, perhaps even a bit disjointed.
   Bowyer started the season hot, with a fourth at Daytona, second at Las Vegas, sixth at Atlanta and fifth at Martinsville, but since then he's hit a slump and has fallen to 13th in the standings.
   Burton started slow but has picked up speed. His best is a third at Las Vegas and a third at Richmond, and he's sixth in the Cup standings.
   Harvick opened with a second at Daytona and a fourth at Atlanta, but the rest of the spring has been pretty much forgettable; and he's led only nine laps so far. He's 21st in the standings.
   Mears isn't doing any better; he's 22nd in the standings with a season-best ninth at Richmond.
   Meanwhile over at Stewart's shop, the word behind the scenes is that Gene Haas' return to that operation, after his 18-month absence, may be creating some turmoil. Haas created that team in 2002, under Rick Hendrick's aegis. Haas, who runs one of the world's top machine tooling companies, had to drop off the tour to deal with some tax problems. But now he's back, and just how he'll fit in at the company he still half-owns is unclear. The issue may be a bit sensitive, of course, and how Stewart and teammate Ryan Newman deal with it remains to be seen.
    There is speculation that Hendrick himself may step in and purchase Haas' share of the operation.

   -- What next in the Jeremy Mayfield-NASCAR standoff? Humpy Wheeler and Bruton Smith are both in agreement on this: unless NASCAR executives resolved the issues and clean up that situation, things are only going to get worse. "It will get nasty," Wheeler says, if NASCAR doesn't settle things before it all goes to court. "It will probably get unnecessarily nasty. I hope it doesn't.
   "I hope Jeremy was taking something like Alka-Seltzer or Milk of Magnesia."
     
   -- Some crewmen here are worried the heavy rains in Daytona Beach over the past week might damage the integrity of the base under the track and create more bumps as the asphalt shifts. Track officials say there is no danger.
  
   -- Those Charlotte racers who were talking earlier this year about building a US-based Formula One team, headquartered in the Charlotte area, were in Monaco over the weekend, talking up their proposal. They insist that F1's coming rules changes would make it viable to run a Grand Prix team on $60 million a year. The F1 tour's top teams currently spend from $300 million to $500 million a season.

   -- A nagging problem for many NASCAR teams has been in the car's electrical system. Over the past year or so, teams have been adding more electrical items to the cars, and some of the wiring systems are being overloaded, according to those analyzing the situation. The alternators are also an issue – that's just an electric motor, but some very lightweight models are very expensive and also rather fragile, considering all the bumps a car endures in a four-hour race.