Power of Caring
  presented by CIGNA

Posted: Fri February 6, 1998

1. Dale Earnhardt will win the Daytona 500 on his 20th try.
But he won't do it in the electrifying, hard-charging style that has brought him so close so many times in this race. He'll win it by running a conservative—by his standards, anyway—race and by attrition. NASCAR will have done nothing by February to prevent the spectacular wrecks that result when carburetor restrictor plates, required equipment at Daytona, stifle drivers' ability to accelerate away from trouble. Earnhardt will avoid the big crash this time because for once he won't be pressing. His terrible slump of the past two seasons will work in his favor; fan and media expectations of him will be so much lower than in years past that he'll be hounded less about never having won NASCAR's biggest race. With the heat turned down, Ironhead will finally shine.

2. Dale Jarrett will win the Winston Cup and more races (at least 10) than anyone else.
For years the Robert Yates Racing organization has produced the most powerful engines in NASCAR. Now the team has perfected in-house construction of the rest of the car. As a result, Jarrett's crew chief, Todd Parrott, will emerge as NASCAR's chassis-setup master. Jarrett has nearly flawless instincts for when to go all out and when to use finesse. He'll become an enormously popular champion among hard-core fans. Why? Because at 41, he's close to their age; he appreciates their support and shows it; and he's a forthright, down-home kind of guy. His occasional "Aw, hell" is more to their liking than the squeaky-clean platitudes of Jeff Gordon.

3. The TranSouth Financial 400 on March 22 at Darlington Raceway will be the last spring race run there.
With Las Vegas already on the '98 schedule, with the new California and Texas tracks begging for second dates each year in their huge markets, and with a new track under construction near Kansas City and another one possible near Denver, something has to give. And that something will be in the Southeast. Storied Darlington figures to be the first track to lose a traditional Winston Cup date. The France family, which owns NASCAR, also owns several tracks—Darlington, Daytona, Phoenix, Talladega and Watkins Glen. The Frances will sacrifice Darlington's spring race as a we're-all-in-this-together gesture to prepare other old-time tracks such as Rockingham and Martinsville for the inevitable loss of at least one date each. Since the Winston Cup abandoned North Wilkesboro at the end of '96, it has become easier for NASCAR to move away from its roots.

4. The S in NASCAR will be rendered meaningless
by the introduction of the Ford Taurus.
The Taurus you'll see racing next year won't look much like the one you see on the street. The Taurus will go racing only because Ford Motor Company has ceased building Thunderbirds and doesn't want to promote on the racetrack what it can't sell in the showroom. To put the Taurus in racing trim, Ford engineers had to deviate drastically from stock body design, most notably with wider rear fender and trunk configurations. NASCAR has already approved the design, and that's not going to make General Motors engineers happy unless they, too, get to go wild with the body designs of the Chevrolet Monte Carlo and the Pontiac Grand Prix. NASCAR has little choice but to give all teams unprecedented latitude, so the "stock" in stock car racing—at least the Winston Cup brand of it—will be a thing of the past. Expect a big flap at Daytona as GM teams scream about the Taurus's aerodynamic advantage until they get their way.

5. Kenny Irwin Jr. will win the rookie of the year title.
He'll win two or three races and finish in the top three in Winston Cup points. He's even a dark-horse candidate to become the first rookie to win the championship outright. At 28, Irwin is by all accounts eminently coachable. He spent five years racing midgets (he was the '96 champion) and two years in the Craftsman series. He'll listen to car owner Robert Yates and senior teammate Jarrett, who is too nice a guy not to give Irwin all the help he can. As a replacement for Ernie Irvan in Yates's Texaco/Havoline Ford, Irwin will be in the finest equipment a rookie has ever enjoyed—and he'll drive it well.

6. Steve Park will turn in the best-ever rookie performance not to win the rookie of the year award.
Park won three races and had nine more top-five finishes in '97 in the Busch series while driving for Earnhardt. In '98 he'll drive full time for Earnhardt's new Winston Cup team, which is amply sponsored by Pennzoil. Park would be a shoo-in pick for rookie of the year if not for Irwin. He is every bit the driver Irwin is but lacks a proven team behind him. It remains to be seen whether Earnhardt will be willing to spend the money, over and above sponsorship revenue, that it takes to make a Winston Cup team a front-runner. Earnhardt has deep pockets, but word among the crewmen he tried to recruit for the new team is that his arms are short. And a personality strain may eventually develop. Park is the nicest guy to join the Winston Cup series since Jarrett and may not match up well with the gruff Intimidator. Park will make some owner a consistent winner, but it probably won't be Earnhardt.

7. Lap times at NASCAR's intermediate-sized speedways won't be quite so speedy.
Restrictor plates are mandatory at only two tracks: 2.5-mile Daytona and 2.66-mile Talladega, where they limit engines to
about 400 horsepower. But speeds have shot up so quickly at the 1.5-mile Texas, Charlotte and Atlanta tracks and at the 2.0-mile California and Michigan tracks that something has to be done for safety's sake. The answer being kicked around the pits: restrictor plates for the intermediate tracks, but only if they're less restrictive than the ones used at Daytona and Talladega. There are other options. Tires made of harder compounds, with less bite, would force drivers to slow down or risk wrecking. Mandating higher gear ratios might keep cars from rocketing out of corners so quickly. Reducing engine size wouldn't necessarily slow cars down—cutting from the current 358 cubic inches to 305 would result only in higher-revving engines, which are just as mighty but less reliable. Only a reduction to, say, 220 cubic inches would make a real difference. And if that happened, what would prevent companies such as Honda, Toyota, Mercedes and BMW—all of which have U.S. plants and can claim for their cars the "American-made" status required by NASCAR for entering races—from taking over this previously red, white and blue realm?

8. Drivers will revolt against restrictor-plate racing at Daytona and Talladega.
Look for October's 23-car pileup at Talladega to be followed by a similarly massive wreck in the '98 Daytona 500. With that, the drivers will say enough is enough. NASCAR has stubbornly retained the tremendous dampening of horsepower at the two big tracks (designed to hold speeds below 200 mph) because fans like what appears to be tight racing in large packs, and for the sake of the safety of everyone involved. But the truth is that drivers can't get away from each other. What fans are really watching is a de facto traffic jam. Drivers say it's dangerous because the restrictor plates mean they have no throttle response and thus can't accelerate away from problems. So if one guy wrecks, they all do. Some drivers say smaller carburetors, without restrictor plates, would keep speeds reasonable and allow some throttle response. And since roof flaps have proven effective in the last two seasons at keeping cars from becoming airborne, some say it's time to allow speeds to creep back above 200 mph.

9. Multicar teams will become even more dominant.
Jack Roush will field five drivers in 1998, with an eye toward entering six in '99. Hendrick Motorsports will run a fourth driver, Jack Sprague, in selected races next year, then send him out for the full schedule in '99. Yates's pair of Fords—with Jarrett and Irwin behind the wheels—will win so many races, and the thundering herds from Hendrick and Roush will mop up so much of what's left, that it's conceivable no one-car team will win a race in '98. The every-man-for-himself code of honor adhered to by NASCAR drivers will hold up for now, so don't expect to see the sort of on-track team tactics—like blocking opponents—that are common in Formula One. Says Mark Martin, Roush's senior driver, "That'll never happen." But don't be so sure; as the stakes grow ever larger in NASCAR over the next few years, Winston Cup racing could become a team sport in more than just name.

10. Darrell Waltrip will flirt with retirement. So will Earnhardt. NASCAR president Bill France Jr. won't.
Oh, Waltrip will drive a few races in 1998 and '99, but it's only a matter of time before he moves on to become the best TV color commentator stock car racing has ever known. He's bright, articulate and witty. Earnhardt, who turns 47 in '98, swears he won't quit until 2000 at the earliest. But after he wins the Daytona 500 (as noted above) and gets that big gorilla off his back, Earnhardt may have a change of heart. His agent, Don Hawk, expects that when Earnhardt does go, he will do it suddenly and without fanfare. Earnhardt has expressed his admiration for how quickly and cleanly North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith retired. As for France, he will turn 65 in April; that's well past the age at which his father, Big Bill, turned over the reins of NASCAR back in 1972. But neither of Bill Jr.'s children—Brian, NASCAR's vice president for marketing and communications, or Lesa, executive vice president—is ready to move up to such an influential position. And his younger brother, Jimmy, 53, and NASCAR's executive vice president-secretary, has never demonstrated a taste for power. In this boom time, the stakes are too high for the hand at the helm to be anything but iron. France will remain in charge for a few more seasons.

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