Oh, what a tangled web we weave …
Let’s start with the poor folks at Discount Tires, which is headquartered in Phoenix, by the way.
The company’s Boys in Marketing were in full lather as Ryan Blaney, carried by the Discount Tires Ford, took the Martinsville checkers to secure a championship shot this coming weekend in … yes, Phoenix.
Their guy wins in clutch fashion, just as he did a year ago, and gets a shot to win NASCAR’s biggest prize, just as he did a year ago. And he did it wearing the Discount Tire colors and, guess what, nobody paid him much attention.
YES, MORE VOTING NASCAR playoffs: Christopher Bell mimics Ross Chastain. Should wall ride have been legal?
We’re into all this marketing talk for a couple of obvious reasons. First, marketing budgets, in the form of race-team sponsorships, are the mother’s milk of a racing organization.
And secondly, NASCAR itself relies heavily on a robust marketing strategy. But no strategy can sandbag against the weirdness that engulfed the end of Martinsville and likely had a bunch of casual viewers asking, “You think halftime of the Lions-Packers game is over yet?”
First Gear: NASCAR ‘pocket protection’ … Chevy edition
I promise we’ll get to Christopher Bell ordering a Harvey Wallbanger, but first, the stuff casual fans or the random passerby would consider bizarre.
And it’ll help if you go ahead and watch the tweeted video above first.
How about the wingman efforts by Ross Chastain and Austin Dillon for fellow Chevy pilot William Byron in the closing laps? It ranked somewhere between Smokey and the Bandit’s highway rocking chair and Secret Service detail.
Granted, manufacturer teammates routinely help each other whenever feasible. Particularly at Daytona and Talladega, where drafting mates are key to getting up front and staying there. But this was different — a rolling wall of protection.
Byron was Chevy’s only shot at a championship shot, and they weren’t risking any Jack Ruby moments (do your own research, and, yes, I’m being slightly over-dramatic).
Mildly shocking to your competitive senses? Well, next came Bubba Wallace’s hold-my-beer moment.
Allegedly, of course.
Second Gear: Ross Chastain ruined it for Christopher Bell
Bell needed to gain another position. Bubba had one to give. Both men drive Toyotas.
What a time for Bubba to have something go haywire in his Camry. A little loss of footing, up the track he goes, and there goes Bell to the inside for the pass.
Uh-oh, he couldn’t make it stick going into the corner. Slides high, to the wall, and like a cat doing the walk-and-rub on a sofa front, he just sticks there through the corner before gathering himself and darting down the frontstretch.
Problem is, two years ago, after Ross the Boss pulled that stunt for nearly the entire last lap at Martinsville, such things were outlawed by NASCAR. And after hearing the potential for bad unintended consequences, they were probably right to banish it.
But as a supposed one-off, it was quite a beauty. Let’s review …
But it reared its head in shorter form Sunday, to the replays they went, and upon further review, it’s Byron to the “final four” (lower case, quote marks, to avoid NCAA trademark violations!).
Third Gear: NASCAR rules, after a while
NASCAR is hearing plenty of gripes about how long it took to review things and make the call. Just shy of a half-hour, in fact. It made for great TV drama, but gripers gotta gripe.
This isn’t grandpa’s NASCAR, just as it isn’t grandpa’s NFL. Modern tech gives officials the opportunity to review and reset. In auto racing, it’s not just a visual replay, but actual in-car and on-track telemetry that can be reviewed to help the Johnny Law build a case.
And there’s sure to be more to come, by the way, after a thorough dusting of prints on the cars of Bubba, Dillon and Chastain. Radio transmissions don’t vanish, either.
Meanwhile, Ryan Blaney won! Did you hear? He won Race 35 last year, too. Then won the Cup championship seven days later.
Without a wingman!
Fourth Gear: Martinsville serves weak punch and F-bombs
If you think Blaney was overshadowed, consider the fellas of Friday and Saturday racin’. It wasn’t for a lack of trying, though.
Remember, NASCAR’s Truck and Xfinity circuits also set their Final Fours (oops, “final fours”) this past weekend, and man did it get saucy.
Friday, Tanner Gray needed a win to advance to Phoenix with a shot at the Truck title. Instead he was crashed, finished 29th, blamed Christian Eckes, and knew right where to find him, since Christian won the race. With the TV cameras and microphones on the scene, Tanner dropped enough F-bombs to drain the battery on the bleeper.
Saturday, it was Chandler Smith going after Cole Custer after the Xfinity race. That one ended with Chandler throwing a “punch,” which gets quote marks because upon review, I swear it might’ve been open-handed. And frankly, it hardly packed the proverbial punch.
Compared to that, Muhammad Ali’s right hand to Sonny Liston in Lewiston was a George Foreman haymaker.
— Email Ken Willis at [email protected]
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: NASCAR: Wallbangers, wingmen, F-bombs at Martinsville. And Ryan Blaney
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