NASCAR and More

As I predicted in my writing on another site, GM has announced cutbacks in their NASCAR activites. It has already been anounced that some truck and Nationwide series teams have lost support. Cuts in the Cup series have not been announced as of yet. This follows moves by both Ford and Dodge to cut costs. These moves have resulted in layoffs throughout the sport.

At Michigan, it was Mark Martin taking his third win of the season in race taht was decided by fuel strategy. A crowd of only 80,000 watched Mark win another one for the over 50 crowd.

While the current crop of car suppliers are suffering, Brian France is opening the door to more imported competition. This was announced following this weekend's race.

It has also been announced that NASCAR is going green. Following each race, trees will be planted to provide a carbon offset.

What does Brian France have in common with the captain of the Titanic? Both went down with their ships. The double file restarts are a plus, but if things do not start changing, look for NASCAR to get in line for a bail out.

If you want see some real neat vintage racing photos, check out the latest edition of "Muscle Machines" published by Hemmings. The spotlight is on Darlington in the 50s. Among the cars are a 51 Kaiser Manhattan and a 59 Buick Invicta. Drivers include a young Richard Petty, Fireball Roberts and other greats of the early years. Both "Muscle Machines" and "Classic Car" are good reads if you like cars the way I do.

The Chrysler -Fiat marriage is a done deal. We will now be blessed with ugly little cars that start rusting before they leave the lot. I have always been a fan of the US car companies, but scratch Chrysler and GM from the competition for the vacant spot in my driveway.

"Trains" magazine had an interesting article this month on trasnpotation comparing how various modes stack up for costs and efficiency. It costs less to build a mile of track than a mile of expressway. Lots of other intersting stuff there also. It vacks up my belief that we need a balanced transportation system in this country.

The Obama administration shudders every time unemployment figures are announced. They can be held directly responsible for another jump with almost 800 Chrysler dealers closing this month and thousands of GM dealers getting ready to follow. While BO has said that he does not want to run a car company, it looks like many of the closings have been dicatated by politics as opposed to economics.

I have not had as much time to blog or to participate in my favorite chat rooms, but that is a good thing. My personal economy has improved since I returned to work for Tony Patalano's
stores. I am now pushing around 60 hrs a week. That can easily grow, depending on sales.
We are negotiating with the bank and hoping to avoid foreclosure.

That it for this trip. John

Ranting at Random

Hello all

Welcome to any new readers. This blog now is being posted in the Soundoff Ct. chatroom, the Western Ma 912 discussion board and on my Facebook Page.

I would like Tony Patalano of Patalano Pizza for rehiring me. Tony has two Domino's stores in Chicopee and Springfield Ma. I worked a full week for the first time in about five months and it feels good.

Looks like the house is safe for now. I have spoken to our lender and we are now eligible for a loan modification. Looks like I will now have to mow the grass since it is now taller than a poodle.

A interesting development. Some old friends from Woonsocket High School have been finding me on Facebook. I wonder what they are thinking when they see the rest of my page?

I am a proud member of two conservative groups. The Western Mass 912 group and the Sound Off Ct chat room. The 912 group operates on priciples esposed by national talk show host Glenn Beck, while the Sound Off group supports Jim Vicevich who is a talk show host on WTIC in Hartford. The reason I support both of these organizations is simple. I live in Mass and work both in Mass and Ct.. I have also found the chatroom that supports Jim to be a really great bunch of people. They proved to be very supportive during my recent difficulties.

What bothers me is the inability of these two groups to get together. Despite the fact that they are built around many of the same priciples, they let geography and the fact that they support different radio shows keep them apart. I am trying to act as a link between the groups because I feel that if we really want to have an impact, we need to show larger numbers. We cannot do that if we are splintered into many small groups. Western Mass and Ct. have many of the same problems. We face high taxes and representatives who do not speak for the people but are bought and paid for by special interests.

I have read a copy of the NASCAR Substance Abuse Policy that was recently made public.
If you are intersted in the sport, you will find it of interest. Now what I would like to see is a list of banned substances and a quick end to the Mayfield case. I am sick of this sideshow. We should be reading about racing, not court cases. Jimmy Johnson won this week's race at Dover Downs. I missed the end of the race but what I did hear was a good one.

General Motors is now officially bankrupt. Another 30 Billion of our tax dollars will be invested in this company. If GM was going to go bust, it should have happened a year ago without taxpayer dollars. As a result of this bankruptcy, more plants are going to be closed as are more car dealers. Where will the administration find jobs for all of these displaced workers?
Another result is less choice for the car driving public. Both Pontiac and Saturn are being dropped and the Hummer brand will be sold. As part of the deal to sell GM of Europe, there was an agreement that the new company could not sell cars here.

While the Federal government prints and spends money, the states are in trouble. California is already bankrupt and voters there recently failed to approve new taxes. Mass and Ct. are not far behind however we cannot follow the lead of Ca voters. In Mass., our leaders recently approved a 25% increase in the state sales tax. A small band of us recently staged a protest at the state office building in Springfield. Why would our state reps listen to 25 protesters in Springfield when they are getting lobbied constantly by people who get paid to do just that?
Meanwhile, our brothers and sisters who own firms in Ct. are beins slapped with another penalty. Thye are being told that they have to provide paid sick time if they have 50 or more workers. This is just another form of taxation. More buisness will either leave or not grow in the Nutmeg state.

Till next week, Live long and pay cash. John

The Spirit of America

One of my liberal friends an I have been having a debate recently on my facebook page.
Years ago, she was my manager in a store that no longer exists. We both went on to other things. For some strange reason Facebook has brought many of us together. It was only a short time, micro seconds in a galactic clock. We worked together as a team. Our goal, a simple one, make money for our store owner and as a result achieve our own success. We have all gone our separate ways. Only a few are still working for Dominos. The companies for which we once worked, no longer exist. yet it gives me reason to think. What is the Spirit of America? Who is the Spirit and does it even still exist. I believe it does and here is why.

Citizens of the United States of America! Now doesn't that have a ring to it. I first saw you in my back yard when i was three years old. You were driving a massive black steam locomotive on the New Haven line between Providence and Worcester. You never saw me, but i was there.

I saw you sitting scared in my father's barbershop. Your house across the street was on fire.
You helped my mom serve coffee to the firefighters.

You drove the massive front end loader in the blizzard of 1978. You came through from Buffalo N.Y. and helped a snowbound city recover.

You caught me as I fell of the top of a forty foot tower in basic training. You risked your life to save mine.

I was a stranger in a southern city. You paid for my hotel room while we waited for my car to be towed from the interstate. I still have the Bible you gave me. It has traveled many miles and many years.

You working in the infield of a track which no longer exists. Your daughter sold me coffee at a nearby diner in the state of William Penn.

Another track and another time. You befriended a lonely young drunken racefan. Later we would serve the Lord together. You have gone to him and I remain.

You and I have never met. You made the steel for my cars, the flour for my pizza dough.

On a sunny spring day in a far away land, you saw a scared and broken man. You gave him hope.

Yes America, your Spirit is alive and well. I see you each and every day. I hear you on my radio. I chat with you on this thing we call the internet. I work with you in a pizza shop.
You pulled me over and did not have my car towed.

I know you. You are white and black, gay and straight. Your families, like mine came from all over the world in search of freedom and a chance to have a better life.

Yes America, your Spirit is alive and well. We have some tests ahead, but we will pass them together. We will pull together like we have so many times like we have since our country was born. We will succeed, we will win and we will prosper. No one man or group of men can defeat us.

We are the Spirit of America.

Will the real NASCAR please sign in?

Hello everyone

After a bit of work, this blog should now be read by a number of my very best friends. I do not plan on posting every day, but when there is something that I absolutely need to say, I will.
I promise that it will my opinion, pure and simple. No editor to muck it up either.

I have been a fan of NASCAR since the 1960s. I lived for the days when I could sit and watch Chris Economaki on Wide World of Sports. There was something that drew me to racing. Stock cars were the cars I saw every day on the streets in my hometown. I never could play sports very well due to a handicap. I remember asking my dad if I would be able to drive a race car.
He never said no.

From 1971, the year he died, until Janet and I met in the early 90s, most spring summer and fall weekends you would find me at a track. Sometimes you might find me in the pit area, if I knew someone or if I was helping Rev Pat Evans. Otherwise I would be parked in a grandstand seat.
The only break came during my time in the military, even then, if there was racing, I would find it.

The sport in general and NASCAR in particular has changed a lot in nearly 40 years. Not complaining, just stating a fact. When I came into the sport, the WWII generation was still firmly in control. You could still build an entry level car with a couple of trips to the junkyard, some rollcage tubing, a torch and hand tools. I know this because my best friend and I once built a car with the help of my next door neighbor who just so happened to be a darn good mechanic.

If you were racing in New England, you either ran NASCAR or an outlaw track. NASCAR controlled the two top series here, the NASCAR modifeds and the North Late Models. You coudl draw a line. If you were in Mass, R.I. or Ct. you were in modified country. The northern states were ruled by the late models. The two top events on the calender were the Thompson 300 for the modifeds at Thompson Ct. and the Oxford 250 for the Late models at Oxford Plains in Maine.

In 1971, I got my first taste of pit side action at Seekonk Speedway in Mass.. A social worker went out of his way to help our family. His cousin was racing a street stock there and invited me to come along. For many years I would call Seekonk, my home track. Later we would build a street stock to race there, we even had a car number and a sponsor. The car would never see the track.

Seekonk, like many New England tracks was a product of the WWII era. A first generation Italian American, Anthony Vendetti built a 1/4 mile oval on the family chicken farm on Rt 6 in Seekonk. He did so with lots of concrete and his own two hands. If you raced there, if you even attended races there, you were part of his family. In later years I had several conversations with him that I remember fondly to this day. The track continues under family ownership to this day. In fact, my nephew has raced there in recent years. With the help of his father and his sister's husband, Eric Boyko has followed his uncle's dream.

It is said that when a tree dies, the roots are the first thing to go. So it is with NASCAR. Where they once dominated the New England countryside, today their presence is limited to the two Ct ovals and NHIS. The weekly racing that they once ruled has become splintered. Many tracks have shut their gates. Those that remain, survive on a diet of limited late models and modifieds, hobby stocks, and other entry level divisions. The Late Model tour is now called the Camping World East and runs a limited number of races as a developmental tour. The Whelen Modifieds alos run a limited tour, focused on the two Ct ovals. There are a number of other tours in the region run by numerous groups. They range from the PASS and ACT Late Model tours to the 4 cyl mini mods and midgets. While the Thompson 300 remains in name, the Oxford 250 has become a part of the ACT . I have no bone to pick with any of these people. I have known many to be fine people who are devoted to their sport. It is just not NASCAR.

Now it seems that the illness has reached the upper levels of the sport. The first two generations of the France family were men of vision. Bill Sr took a bunch of bootleggers and made them respectable. Bill Jr,made them professionals and made the sport into something that attracted a wide range of interest. At one point I saw it becoming the fourth major sport in this country. I can see that I was wrong.

The current leadership has made mistakes that may not be easily repaired. Brian and his sister would rather manage their other interests than concentrate on the sport. For many years, NASCAR was seen as being free of drug abuse. The worst that could be said is that they were a bunch of hell raising good old boys. Not so today. Within the last two months, a former Nationwide series driver has been found dead in a motel room and a Cup series owner/driver has been placed on indefinite suspension for testing positive for an unnamed substance. The driver has been in discussion with NASCAR and is now taking them to court. This has rocked the motorsports world. To it's credit, NASCAR has taken the drug issue seriously. Following the rain out of the World 600, it was reported that ten people were randomly tested. While I am glad to see action, I really did not want to read this.

The sport faces many other problems. Last year's race at Indy turned into a tire failure nightmare. As you read this, eight teams are meeting to test tires. One of the biggest , most hyped changes in the sport, the COT is not helping the sport. A ban on testing has hurt teams who are trying to make it into a car which allows the good quality of racing that the series has been known for. Every week I see figures on tv ratings and attendence. It is down across the board. Not a good sign when teams are struggling to find sponsor dollars.

The final nail in NASCAR's coffin may come from the United States government. At this writing,
there are four auto companies involved in the sport. One, Chrysler is already in bankruptcy after accepting billions in aid. General Motors is following closely behind. Of the domestics, only Ford remains in private control, while Toyota, the lone import bleeds it's own red ink.
I cannot see either GM or Chrysler remaining in the sport once government takes control.
Our president is no fan of motorsports. We are not green enough for him. At a time when he is increasing mileage standards, I see little interest from this administration in helping the sport.
Cutting this funding will leave a major hole in the sport at all three of the major levels. Where will the teams find funds to compete? Will we lose at least one of the tours? Will we begin to lose tracks? Will our sport, a sport that many of us have come to know and love, fade into the carbon crazed sunset? I hope not, 40 years is a long time to waste.

Will the real NASCAR please sign in?

Passenger Rail? Who are we kidding?

I recently read an article on the site of another raido station about a proposed upgrade of the railroad bewtweenSpringfield Ma and Greenfield to allow Amtrak to use the corridor as a more direct route to the north.



At this time the trackage is designated for 10 mph use. That is a very slow freight. At present those tracks are just about totally useless for anything. Years of neglect by the current ownership has allowed this to happen. It is proposed that the state and federal government invest millions of taxpayer dollars to upgrade this trackage. If this is done, passenger trains would be able to use this route, eliminating service to Amherst Mass. and replacing it with a stop in Northampton. Yes, you are shortening a route. You are also eliminating service to a town that needs more rail, not less. You are also adding traffic to a major highway, (Rt 9), which cannot handle current traffic. Note: Amherst Ma. is the home to U Mass Amherst and four other colleges. The town currently faces severe road traffic issues during the school year.



Now I know the readers in Ct. are going to say, there he goes again, shooting his mouth of about the Commonwealth, when we are here and not there. What I am writing about above illistrates only one part of a larger problem. We as residents of the Ct river valley, need to work for a comprehensive transportation plan in both states.



A solid transportation plan would look at the entire region from Worcester to the New York state line and the entire state of Ct. A plan would include ways to optimize all forms of transportation from the harbors and rivers to the rails, roadways and runways.



There are currently several proposals similar to the one above that are proposed for this region.

I am a serious unbeliever in passenger rail for the most part. I have yet to see a passenger system put into private hands and turn a profit. One proposal that I have been told of would require a subsidy of $30/passenger/trip. I can fill my tank for less than that.

And, unless you upgrade the capacity of the current rail system, you ar just adding more stress to a system that is operating close to capacity on freight alone. Passenger rail should be limited to large cities and their high density suburbs. If the traffic is there at present, fine. I understand that cities like NYC and Boston need what they currently have. Draw the line there unless you can currently demonstrate demand. Stop throwing money away.



Now some of you are saying, isn't there a cost to traffic and pollution, are we not already subsidizing highways. Is there a better answer? Yes, here is what I propose.



Upgrade all current rail systems for freight use. If there needs to be a private/government
partnership, so be it. We need to take steps to move as much truck traffic off the interstate system as possible. The idea that one truck and one driver can move 20 tons of cargo for long distances should be made obsolete. If we could take 200 trucks a day off I91 between Hartford and Springfield, how much pollution would we save? How much traffic would we eliminate?
It would be easier and cheaper to use a series of roll off or container terminals in each town served by rail. Trucks would go 20 or 100 miles,, not thousands.

If people demand mass transit, where none currently exists, let them have it. In fact, it already exists and can be operated at a profit by private companies. It uses existing infrastructure and puts no additional burden on the taxpayer. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you, the ultimate answer to 21st century mass transit, the inter city bus. For passenger use, the bus has a lot of advantages over trains. The inital vehicle can be much smaller. Current mini buses which would be suitable for low volume routes carry as few as 10 people. Larger buses such as operated by Peter Pan can operate with 60 or more. Bus travel frees you from the need for rails and the competition with freight. Moving more trucks off the road would reduce traffic, allowing buses to achieve better on time performance. Buses use smaller engines than a railroad locomotive, futher reducing pollution. If you need more capacity on a route, it is easier to add a bus. If you have a need to change routing, it is easier to move a bus than a rail line.

One other factor falls into this whole argument. Under current proposals, cars and small trucks of the future are to be smaller and lighter. These vehicles will be getting in the way of large trucks. The result of these less safe vehicles having impacts will result in more highway deaths. All the more reason to use common sense in looking at our transportation needs.

Welcome

Welcome to the new "Pipe Smoke" blog. Some of you know me as John K., others as kokoracer, and still some as John the Pipe.

I have used the title "Pipe Smoke" for many years. In the early part of this decade, PS began as a column on an independent site. It was dedicated to the New England Motorsports scene and carried a message that you can beat the disease of alcoholism. Most recently it has been the title of my national column which was dedicated to NASCAR racing. Now it is time for a change.

This blog will now be a part of the Sound Off Ct community. It is my little contribution to Jim
Vicevich and the crew. I want to start this by thanking each and every member of the community. A few weeks ago, you opened your door and your hearts. I cannot express what I feel for you all. You helped Janet and I through a very difficult time.

I also want to thank Jim. Without the show, this would not be possible. You have many friends and I am happy to be amoung them.

Okay so where do we go from here?

I am 55 yrs old, a resident of Springfield Ma. and my interests include politics, auto racing, the automotive industry and beating alcoholism. My home includes two poodles, an african grey parrot and a number of smaller birds.

While the primary focus of this spot will be on transportation, all of the above is fair game.
I may blog on a show topic, the current state of NASCAR, or anything else that I might find of interest.

If you have not gathered from any of my past writings, I am a conservative who leans Republican. I am also an enviro realist. I believe that we have to have a clean planet, that we need a sound energy policy and that global warming is a bunch of BS.

As a person who lives in Mass and works in both Mass and Ct., I believe that we are over taxed and under served. There are too many over paid people in government today who provide no value to the taxpayer.

I make my living as an employee of two small businesses. I feel that in order for small buisness to grow they need less regulation and an environment where growth is encouraged.

To all of you, my friends new and old, I bid you welcome. Ladies and Gentlemen start your engines!