A League Of Their Own
By M.L. Morgan
Well, race fans, not even a third of the way through the 2001 campaign and we're already starting 'silly season'.
But this is not your typical silly-season stuff where the musical chairs for drivers and sponsors are required. This silly notion involves a racing league which would compete with Nascar. Reminds us of the old Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland movies in which they would not be allowed to participate in the school play, or whatever, so they'd stage a production of their own and it would always be a rousing success. Works fine in the movies. But this is not a movie.
What is proposed now is the Team Racing Auto Circuit. TRAC. Cute acronym, if nothing else. We suspect the cute acronym may be the only cute thing to come out of this deal.
There is allegedly a consortium backing this new league but the only name to be used so far is Maxx Motorsports from Greenville, SC. Jon Pritchett, President and CEO of whatever Maxx may be, has been their spokesman so far. Former Cup team owners Michael Kranefuss and Cale Yarborough have been mentioned as "being involved" but we suspect this is to lend some sense of credibility to this deal. We won't qoute Pritchett's statements to the press, but we will give you the gist of what he has said thus far.
They propose to run on oval tracks, including some of the same tracks the Cup cars use now. One of the versions we've heard is they will compete on some of the Bruton Smith-owned tracks, but this has not been confirmed. Bruton has been on record for several years as a proponent of 2 leagues. He's been very wishy-washy about it, but he's never suggested it be a second league - just two divisions. We think it is very unlikely Bill France would volunteer any of his tracks. For obvious reasons.
Pritchett has also announced TRAC will not go after any of the current Cup drivers. Very noble. So where are these drivers going to come from ? Nascar can't find a full field of competent drivers for its long established BGN Series. The BGN races are often wreck-fests because the majority of the drivers are has-beens or wannabe's. Does Pritchett, et al, know some secret the multi-billion dollar brain trust of Nascar hasn't discovered ? We doubt it.
They went on further to say they would schedule their races so as not to conflict with Cup racing dates. The only open race dates any more are in December and January - not exactly prime dates. And also that they would like to secure a nice t.v. package. That didn't require a team of accountants to realize TRAC couldn't survive as a major player without t.v. coverage. We realize NBC just lost a major cash-cow with the demise of the XFL, but we doubt they are ready to take another multi- million dollar bath again so soon.
We have long endorsed the idea that Nascar might lose some of its smugness and complacency if they had some competition. We would love to see Nascar jostled into cleaning up its act a little. Nascar has done a lot of good for the sport of racing but when they screw up, drivers get killed. Look up the word 'arrogance' in the dictionary and the little picture beside it will be the Nascar logo.
We wish TRAC well. We all like to see David give Goliath a little headache, figuratively speaking. But this isn't a movie. This is real life. TRAC will never even be a speed bump to Nascar. We think it is a P.R. stunt. Race Views does not care for race fans to be toyed with.
Only race fans can get Nascar's attention. Race fans can stop buying tickets and all the crap with the Nascar logo on it. Nascar will hear you. Trust me.
TRAC wants a piece of that huge racing money-pie. Race Views will put TRAC on a diet, if we can. TRAC is no more altruistic than Nascar. Trust me, once again.
Mike Morgan
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