Charlotte's All-Star and 600 weeks are coming up....is it time to rethink things? What would T. Wayne say?

   Tony Stewart and crew celebrate winning the 2009 All-Star race (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   DOVER, Del.
   It's been a long time since R. J. Reynolds' sports boss T. Wayne Robertson first dreamed up the annual NASCAR All-Star race, back in 1985, with its wacky formats and big winner's purse and that anything-goes last dash for the cash.
  And a race with $1 million to win should certainly be worth anteing up for a ticket.
   But.....
   Dale Earnhardt isn't around any more to make up the rules as the night goes on, and aggravate his rivals...and that pass-in-the-grass is just so much ancient history...and does anyone remember the night Davey Allison won the thing by crossing the finish line on his roof, and then instead of celebrating in victory lane, he had to be helicoptered to a local hospital?
   Ah, there are some dramatic memories, to be sure.
   But now -- this month, this season, this year -- has this whole All-star thing simply morphed out of control?
   Is it time to start off again with a clean sheet of paper?
   Maybe it's time to rethink this whole thing.
   Is NASCAR's annual All-Star race past its prime? Is it time to change the deal, maybe just scrap it?
  
  

  R. J. Reynolds' late T. Wayne Robertson, the man who created the All-Star race (Photo: Spevco)
  

   Back in '85 times were flush. Not today.
   Economically maybe it would make more sense to run the All-Star race on Friday night of the 600 weekend.....make the whole 600 week package tighter and more affordable for the fans.
   Remember the fans?
   I'm not so sure I even understand any more what this All-Star week is supposed to be all about....or who the target audience is....or why we even do it any more.
    As long a season as NASCAR plays, February through Thanksgiving, maybe we should take this prime sports weekend and use it more productively.
   Just from the simple standpoint of selling tickets, putting on two big races on consecutive weekends at the same track, which seats 140,000 or so, has to be a major challenge, even for a crack staff like Bruton and Marcus Smith have.
   Indianapolis has cut back on its May schedule; maybe Charlotte should too. Sometimes less is more....
   But perhaps the All-star thing has just become embroiled in too much behind-the-scenes politicking. Once, the show was to move around to different venues.... but that disaster in Atlanta in 1986 brought it all back to Charlotte, where it's been ever since. And once, the purse was provided by RJR, which made the event so much easier on the promoters.
   
   

    Jeff Burton's crew, winning the 2009 NASCAR pit crew championship...indoors (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
   

    Now.....

    First, let's see if we can even sort out this year's thing.
   Not quite sure how this month's All-star race, and that pit crew competition, got so screwed up, but reading the entry blanks and eligibility rules and various formats is headache-inducing.

    Just who is in the All-Star race next Saturday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway?
   -- all Sprint Cup tour winners from 2009 and 2010: Matt Kenseth, Kyle Busch, Kurt Busch, Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin, Brad Keselowski, David Reutimann, Tony Stewart, Kasey Kahne, Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin, Brian Vickers, Jamie McMurray, Ryan Newman and Kevin Harvick.
   -- all Cup champions from the last 10 years: Bobby Labonte.
   -- all All-Star winners from the past 10 years: Dale Earnhardt Jr.
   -- the winner and the runner-up in next Saturday's Showdown prelim
   -- and the winner of a fan vote.

   So which NASCAR stars are not in the All-Star, at least right now, on the eve of the Dover 400:
   Principally Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle, Jeff Burton, Juan Pablo Montoya, Clint Bowyer, Robby Gordon, Elliott Sadler, Marcos Ambrose, Paul Menard, David Ragan, Sam Hornish, AJ Allmendinger, and Martin Truex Jr.
  

  

  Jeff Burton's crew, in last year's All-star race, doing a real NASCAR pit stop (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)

  

  
So there are some PR battles going on right now for the fan voting, though Burton himself says he will not be doing any:
  "I'm embarrassed we are not in the race. I will just be honest about it – I'm embarrassed we are not in it.
    "We don't deserve to be in it because the rules say 'this is what you have to do to be in it.' and we haven't done that.
    "But I'm not going to go politicking to get in. I'm not on Facebook, I'm not on whatever they all are; I don't even know what the hell they are....
    "That doesn't mean it wouldn't mean a lot to me if the fans voted me in, but I'm not asking for the vote. They all want me to ask for the vote, but I'm not going to do it. I'm embarrassed we are not in it and that is really where I am."
 
    And what are the rules for the All-star race exactly?
    Double-file restarts, of course, Shootout-style.
    The format has changed over the years: first, straight 70 laps; then segmented – 75-50-10, 50-20, 30-30-10, 40-30-20, 20-20-20-20, 25-25-25-25, 50-20-20-10......I think....
   This year?
    Again 50-20-20-10.
    In the first segment all teams have to pit on lap 25 and change four tires. There's a yellow flag break between the segments. The lineup for the final 10-lap sprint will be based on the finish of the third leg....but everyone has to stop for four tires before the restart, and there will be a race off pit road to determine the restarting order. As usual, only green flag laps count.
   
  

  Maybe promoter Bruton Smith should move the annual pit crew championships over to his Z-max dragstrip, across from Charlotte Motor Speedway, and let 'em burn rubber (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   And then there's the annual pit crew competition....at Charlotte's downtown arena (  www.pitcrewchallenge.com )....
   Whoever dreamed up this thing, well, whatever they do next Wednesday night (May 19th, 7 p.m.) bears virtually no relationship to what pit crews do every weekend during the race.
   But then part of all this is to promote the new NASCAR Hall of Fame in downtown Charlotte....right around the corner from the arena. And Hall of Fame boss Winston Kelley has been beating the PR drums mightily already this month, to kick off the opening of the high-tech showplace.
   Still, shouldn't the deal be about 'the best pit crew' in NASCAR Sprint Cup racing this season?
    The best right-front tire guys, the best jackmen.....once upon a time those were household names in NASCAR circles. Now with specialized, high-dollar pit crews flying in just for each race, well, it's hard to know who any of them are anymore.
   This pit crew competition may need to be changed up too.
   To begin with, each team should have its real driver (not a wife or crewman) at the wheel, with motors revved and tires smoking....and a genuine pit box to have to stop in, before the four-tire/gas-up pit stop.
   Sure, carbon monoxide makes that impractical in an arena....
   So why not use Z-max dragstrip, right across from Charlotte Motor Speedway?
   That long-running annual pit crew competition at Rockingham's North Carolina Motor Speedway was a lot more representative than the show in downtown Charlotte.
   In the downtown Charlotte deal they can't even turn on the motors and drive the cars. Now what kind of pit crew challenge is that?
   And talk about over-engineering, the Charlotte pit crew challenge format certainly is. (All crews whose teams qualified for the All-Star race itself, plus Burton's team, because it won the pit crew title last season, are eligible.)
    Yes, there are a lot of bells and whistles and fireworks and showmanship in the show, and head-to-head duels -- though 'pushing' the car from one end of the arena to the finish line at the other end seems a bit, ah, odd.
    It's not even clear what the target audience is, in terms of live fans in the stands. It seems more of a made-for-TV event.   
    And, uh, why is the pit crew battle on a Wednesday night, when the All-Star race is not till Saturday night?
    Clearly the promoters are looking for a local walk-up crowd, by not tying it into the weekend's events at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
    Maybe someone thinks the economy has turned around so much that fans are willing to drive to Charlotte for a four-night event....and that the week just before the Coke 600.
   The All-star weekend was created as a quickie two-day in-and-out show for the fans. Maybe it should return to that format.

;
     [Note: You can use Twitter as an easy headline service for mikemulhern.net stories, with our instant Tweets to your mobile as soon as our newest NASCAR story is filed. And mikemulhern.net is mobile-friendly for viewing. You can also use the orange RSS feed button as a quickie headline service on your laptop or home computer for mikemulhern.net stories, by creating a Live Bookmark RSS feed on your web browser's toolbar. Or you can create a Google Alert for mikemulhernnet.]
                 
 

   Pushing cars? Is this really the way to determine the best pit crew in NASCAR? Where's the burning rubber? (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)