The Scoop
CONFESSIONS FROM AN (ALMOST) OLD RACING CURMUDGEON
Posted on: Monday February 20, 2023
Motorsports author Joe Verdegan enjoys some weekend racing on television accompanied by his faithful companion Macie. (Kim Verdegan)
I’ve got a confession to make.
I’ve never once watched any race online in it’s entirety through any of these streaming services (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and I’m lucky if I watch one or two races on television annually.
I’ve got nothing against it at all.
The wife claims it’s part of some adult Attention Deficit Disorder I’ve got and that unless it’s a good Netflix documentary I haven’t the patience nor the attention span to sit still and watch much of anything in it’s entirety.
But I must admit this past weekend I planted my butt in my recliner and checked out what Daytona International Speedway had to offer this past weekend.
The Daytona 500 for a lot of years served up lots of family fun. Aunt and Uncle Mary Jo and Art Siefert would host our annual family Daytona 500 party. It was a fun deal, filled with lots of food, drink and even a chocolate fountain (remember that Mary Jo?) which at times could get pretty messy if you weren’t careful.
This race for our family sort of signaled the unofficial “kickoff” if you will for the racing season.
It was always a fun afternoon. We’d teach the kids how to play poker. We’d draw names of all the 500 contestants and we’d always throw a “dummy” driver who wasn’t in the field. If you drew their name you’d get your $5 entry fee back.
Most years that driver was either Jimmy “Smut” Means or Delma Cowart. Great times. By the time my dad died the parties had already sort of dissolved and for a long time I personally lost interest in watching any racing on television for a variety of reasons.
With Kim and I heading to Phoenix next month to take a brief vacation and check out the NASCAR weekend at Phoenix Raceway, I thought it might be a good idea to track some of these guys and get familiar with the teams, drivers, car numbers, paint schemes, and so on and so forth.
Friday night’s truck race kicked things off. With a big bowl of popcorn, we sat through one rain delay after another – keeping a close eye on the 98 of Ty Majeski and also Stratford’s Derek Kraus. In the end Mother Nature dictated the outcome with Ty managing a respectable sixth place finish. Kraus would wind up 18th in a rain-shortened contest.
We continued watching with the ARCA series race Saturday. Another confession – I knew of maybe one-half of the contestants in that event. But when the checkers flew and Greg Van Alst burst out of his winning car and gave one of the best ever post race interviews in the sport’s history – I was moved.
It hit me. THIS typifies what the sport of stock car racing is all about. This wasn’t a guy with ties to some of the bigger NASCAR teams. When Gregg McKarns replied to a tweet of mine I learned a little more about Van Alst.
I’m not sure if there are many (if any) drivers who can claim to actually “make a living” these days in ARCA (if there are any please let me know at jverdegan2@gmail.com as I’d love to hear their stories).
I can tell you that following that interview I instantly became a fan of Van Last.
Veins bulging out of his neck and tears welled up in his eyes, when he spoke you could just FEEL the long, long road he took to get to Daytona victory lane. It was about as real as it gets.
It gave me hope that the American dream is STILL alive and well.
Also of note in Wisconsin – Eagle River’s Natalie Decker netted a 14th place finish (I still can’t get used to that new lingo P14 and refuse to do so) giving those of us in the Badger state someone else to keep a close eye on during the day.
We kept our TV on Fox Sports 1 and watched the Xfinity race Saturday night. Again, it’s always fun to follow the competitors with Wisconsin ties. In this one we had Rhinelander native Parker Retzlaff in the field and Franklin’s Sam Mayer.
Mayer of course led for a bit and ran up front most of the day and ended his run on his roof in a wild ride. A sour ending for the youngster who got fast tracked to the NASCAR scene out of the karting scene. I would have loved to have seen him run some more pavement short track stuff in Wisconsin.
Rhinelander, Wisconsin’s Parker Retzlaff snacks on a bag of Cheese Its following his fourth place finish in the NASCAR Xfinity race at Daytona Feb. 18. (Brian Schmitt photo)
The 19-year-old Retzlaff quietly hovered around the top ten all race long, scoring a top five finish. The race commentators didn’t mention him hardly at all until the last caution flag or two during the contest.
Mayer would wind up credited with a 27th place finish. He emerged from the infield care center shaken but otherwise unhurt.
Onto Sunday Feb. 19. The biggie. The Daytona 500. Sadly there was not one of the 40 contestants in the starting lineup who was a Wisconsin native. However there are plenty of pit crew members from the Badger state who serve on the respective pit crews on a number of NASCAR teams at many different levels.
That being said I’ve had the privilege of either watching some of the drivers in the starting lineup race at the short track level.
The “California Kid” Tyler Reddick, for example. Reddick won the late model “Hell Tour” portion of a doubleheader with the Badger Mod Tour at Wilmot Raceway in either 2012 or 2013.
I’ve always liked Kyle Busch. He may be NASCAR’s “bad boy” but I have always admired his “tell-it-like-it-is” attitude when dealing with the media. He stands out amongst the current politically correct, milk toast, don’t-want-to-offend-anybody-with-my-comments generation of new racers. Too bland for me.
I got to interview him in victory lane in 2007 when he won the Dixieland 250 at Wisconsin International Raceway in Kaukauna, Wisconsin when he ran with the ASA Midwest Tour. Over the years I’ve come to appreciate his brutal honesty.
I feel Busch and Kevin Harvick are probably two of the last of an older generation to battle at NASCAR’s highest level. Overall the broadcast team of veteran Mike Joy, Tony Stewart and Clint Bowyer I thought did a solid job.
I’ve always enjoyed Joy as a motorsports broadcaster and Stewart is especially adept at breaking down technology with the Cup cars and delivering it in true layman’s terms for the average sports fan.
Although we didn’t hear him often we would be remiss if we didn’t give a shout out for Jim Tretow. The Milwaukee area broadcaster has handled the public address announcing chores at Daytona and is a class act through and through. Like many in motorsports Tretow wears many different hats and remains one of the busiest men in show business.
The entire deal was filled with commercials, which is typical. (I remember my dad used to always call it the “Commercial 500.”) But truth is it’s a big sporting event in our country.
At any rate it was good to see some live racing on television. But I’ve always maintained that NOTHING beats being there. In person. Yes, this technology available at our fingertips has in some ways improved our sport (I must admit I love MyRacePASS – in fact check out my story on MRP I did in December in our archives at this website).
With that said, I can’t wait to smell the rubber burning at Phoenix Raceway this March. And I look forward to bouncing around the pit area at Shawano Speedway April 15 for their season opener. Chat it up with some old friends.
And just a note as to the business plan for joeverdegan.com moving into 2023.
We plan on continuing to bring you fresh local and regional racing news and history 52 weeks out of the year.
You will NEVER have to purchase a subscription to read or listen to ANY of the content on this website. That’s a huge thanks to our loyal band of advertisers.
“The Scoop” will always feature the latest stories and driver profiles in the current racing scene while you can listen to podcast interviews (we’ve already recorded hundreds of them) at our “On The Record” segment.
If it’s more of the history end of things you’re into we’ve got “The Vault” segments and I’ve always got a tab for “Pressers” which I use to announce book signing dates, and other nuggets of pertinent information with our marketing partner tracks and series events.
So whenever you can please click on their ads on this site and they’ll take you to either their website or Facebook page.
Get out out to a race track IN PERSON as often as you can this year. Your local track promoters will most certainly appreciate it. We’ll see you at the tracks very soon! Comments and story ideas are always welcome at jverdegan2@gmail.com.
Now……get off my lawn! 🙂