The brawls following the Charlotte Motor Speedway Chase race was the result of the heat being turned up on the drivers to stay in The Chase. With Talladega coming up this weekend, there could be a lot more fists flying. Here’s what it looks like going into Degga: Logano, Kyle Busch, Charlotte winner Harvick, Newman, Edwards, Gordon, Hamlin and Kahne are the top eight. After Talladega: Kenseth, Kaselowski, Johnson and Junior could be eliminated.
We’ve seen sports news reports that the Los Angeles mayor expects to announcement that a new NFL franchise will add a team to his city very soon. We know that NASCAR CEO Brian France has stated that he’d like to be part of that management team. Considering that Brian has signed two big NASCAR TV rights contracts, a move by NASCAR’s chief executive now may be the right time for him. He’ll leave NASCAR with big TV rights money for several years. Unfortunately, the TV ratings for The Chase to the Nextel Cup, his creation, haven’t kept pace with the money increase courtesy of Fox and the NBC sports networks.
Autoweek.com posted breaking news on the scheduled discharge on Oct.15 of Randy Lanier, 60, after serving 26 years of a life sentence at the high-security Federal Correction Complex of Coleman in Florida for a 1988 conviction on leading a marijuana drug ring.
Autoweek contributor Jon Saraceno learned last month that U.S. District Judge J. Phil Gilbert granted a motion by the federal government to reduce Lanier’s life sentence and approved his pending release. Earlier this year, U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. endorsed a proposal to reduce sentencing for convicted drug dealers while seeking to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders.
“He has served his time with dignity and respect. He has helped mentor young people in the prison system,” shared Stephen Ross Johnson, lead attorney for Lanier since 2002.
The brief order issued by Judge Gilbert gives no reason for the sentence reduction. In addition to his life sentence, Lanier was given an additional maximum of 40 years on a distribution charge and another five years on an IRS fraud charge. His release comes with heavy restrictions including drug-and-alcohol tests, no consumption of alcohol or patronizing establishments that sell it and no lines of credit without approval by his probation officer.
Lanier raced as a professional driver in both sports and Indy Cars prior to being convicted. Among his career highlights was the 1984 IMSA title and two Indy 500 starts. Lanier was a one-car racing operation when he won that IMSA title, which was very rare then. At that time, in the mid-80’s, several professional American race drivers and team principals, in Indy Car, NASCAR, Sport Car racing, drag racing and even top short track oval drivers and teams were accused, indicted and sent to prison for drug distribution and money laundering.
Most of the illicit money was used to finance their multi-million dollar racing activities. Those scandals made headlines in the main stream and motor sports media for many years during the mid-80’s and even beyond. That negative attention rocked all facets of motor sports during that era.
Back in the 40’s right up through the 60’s, it was no secret that several NASCAR drivers and team owners were involved in illegal alcohol manufacturing and distribution activities. Among one of the most famous was NASCAR driver and later a team owner Junior Johnson who spent time in an Ohio federal prison for those offenses. A movie called THE LAST AMERICAN HERO staring Jeff Bridges chronicled Johnson’s exploits on his bootleg running as well as his success on the NASCAR circuit.
In those days, consuming illegal booze was tolerated with a wink and was seen as a protest against government intrusion among the working folks. In contrast, consuming and selling illegal drugs by the domestic and foreign cartels was and is still seen as a serious threat to the United States’ security. There was always the dysfunction factor in families over alcohol. When compared with drug addiction though consuming booze was pale in comparison because it’s much more difficult to rehab a drug addict.
Short track racing around the country, which feeds NASCAR’s top four divisions, is going through some anxiety of it’s own. Paved tracks in the northeast has seen the attendance and car counts shrink rapidly. We know of three tracks in New England that will be going on the auction block very soon.
On the dirt tracks, it appeared that dirt segment of short track racing was still holding up in comparison to the paved tracks. However, all that is changing. According to a revealing piece in weekly Area Auto Racing News of Trenton, NJ, Lebanon Valley (NY) Speedway owner Howie Commmander tells of some major contraction already under way in the World Racing DIRT Series in the northeast.
According to the savvy track promoter, Commander claims that the Big Block Modifieds have been on the way out for the past few years, specifically shrinking fields at weekly tracks. Commander and his associates, World Racing DIRT, have already put plans in place to rebuild that huge segment of motor sports. It will take a few years for this fix to come to fruition. The idea is to make all of the teams equal. He’s talking about crate (spec) engines which has created controversy whenever that formula has been applied. It hinders the teams that can afford the expensive power plants.
Watching the NBC Sports airing of the Russian Grand Prix and the subsequent podium trophy presentations by Russian President Putin was a sham. In our opinion, it was a sellout for money as the Russian President is looking for legitimacy on a world stage. Considering what’s happening in the Ukraine, Formula 1 could care less where the sanction fees and prize money comes from.