When they downsized again to
the Lumina body style, teams were given the choice of racecar, and many, including Dale Earnhardt and Darrell Waltrip, chose
the Monte Carlo.
Soon, they too moved to the
smaller car—the precursor to the latest “Car of Yesterday” in a short period of time.
The race at Bristol
was less than stellar—for Bristol. It was still more interesting than many
of the races at the mile and a half tracks year in and year out, and you can bet that the teams are burning the midnight oil with the information that they learned from last weekend.
Similarly, after Toyota
actually came to Cup the sky did not fall (Jack Roush made sure to keep his hat on, though) and in fact have not dominated—yet.
However, remember that they
are spending tens of millions in Formula One and also have not won there—and you can ask Juan Pablo Montoya, competition
in Cup makes F1 look like child’s play.
But the new Cup car is not
going away, and neither is Toyota. You see, they could be racing soap box derby
cars (template fitted, of course) and NASCAR has the ultimate ace that they are holding—the best engineers in the world
are going to refine these cars until they are better than the ones they replaced.
In the meantime, there are
two ways to handle the transition. In an immature fashion, as did last week’s race winner at Bristol, who piloted one
of the most coveted rides in the world, (lets give him a break and chalk that up to immaturity) or smoothly and professionally,
as has a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders—Michael Waltrip.
They are both talented drivers,
but driving styles aside, ask yourself… when others watch you, which path do you think is the high road?
As it turns out most things
in life that provide instant gratification do not turn out very well. Divorce, drug usage, obesity, all of these are rampant
in today’s society, and all are the result of the “me first, and me now” mentality that we have been mislead
into believing that we “deserve”.
2006 StockCar Review.
