Auto Racing

I WENT to the big NASCAR race at Delaware's Dover Downs International Speedway last Sunday, an experience comparable to Wild Bill Hagy enjoying an afternoon of chamber music.Here is all you need to know about my knowledge of motor sports: I had to ask somebody how you tell which driver is in the lead.But then, I didn't go for fun. I went to the Winston Cup Series MBNA 400 to learn what a motor speedway might mean for Baltimore County, where a group of people who call themselves the Middle River Racing Association want to open a privately funded, 54,800-seat track in Middle River by 1999, then expand it to to 87,000 seats in 2002 and 109,600 seats in 2004.

Long before there was a Patuxent Greens Golf Course or Stewart Towers high rise building, a mammoth oval race track occupied that area of land off Route 197, near Route 198. Horse racing at Laurel Park racetrack had been ongoing since 1911, but in 1924 an idea was pitched to the public to construct the Baltimore-Washington Speedway, a new wooden track for auto racing. Promoters issued a slick brochure for potential investors, extolling the benefits of the enterprise and describing the proposed track and how investing in it worked.

Busch Series driver Donnie Neuenberger of Brandywine is taking an indefinite medical leave of absence as the driver of the Moy Racing No. 77 car. Neuenberger has been diagnosed with follicular non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He will begin treatment immediately. Three-time Hagerstown Speedway champion Roy Deese of Jessup leads a tight points race in the late-model division, with Gary Stuhler of Greencastle, Pa., only one point behind going into Saturday's race. Ronnie Dennis, also from Jessup, has a one-point lead in the pure stocks division.

Many years ago, longtime NASCAR crew chief Harry Hyde said a stock car is "like an egg. You have to handle it gently or it will break. " Though at its heart it was true, it was a shocking statement. Who compares a stock car — a big, brute of a car — to such a thin-shelled egg? That philosophy may have found its match during a Grand Prix of Baltimore interview with Helio Castroneves when he compared driving an Indy car to dancing. "There are no secrets," Castroneves said, when asked how competitors on Dancing with the Stars are able to perform intricate moves so quickly.

Dale Earnhardt certainly caused a stir last week when he bumped Terry Labonte out of the way at Bristol. When he got to victory lane, the fans booed him so loudly, he probably had a momentary identity crisis.Was he Dale Earnhardt, seven-time champion who has long demonstrated his penchant for roughhouse racing? Or was he the man nearly everyone loves to boo, three-time champ Jeff Gordon?Going into today's usually raucous Southern 500 in Darlington, S.C., there is still a lot of talk about Earnhardt's last move at Bristol, and nearly everyone has an opinion.

This is the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. For readers seeking gifts for auto racing fans, here are a few ideas:"French Kiss": Butler's Michael Keyser talks with such excitement in his eyes and energy in his voice about his recently released book "A French Kiss with Death -- Steve McQueen and The Making of `Le Mans,' " the impression is it's an homage to the late screen star.But "French Kiss," which Keyser wrote with Jonathan Williams' help, is no loving smooch."I knew he had a lot of warts on him," said Keyser, who has no qualms about showing those imperfections.

The world of motor sports didn't know what to do with itself this weekend. Race or not race? Which was right? Which wasn't? Sometimes answers seem easy -- and hard. Easy to say: Don't race because you want to make sure you respect the victims of one of the biggest horrors this country has ever faced. Hard: Race, because you don't want to seem to be giving in to terrorists, whom some view as rejoicing every time they hear of another regular activity in our country being disrupted. NASCAR chose to follow the lead of the NFL and postpone all of its races, "so families could be together" to pray and reflect.

The biggest names in Indy racing may skip the biggest race in the world next year.IndyCar owners are threatening a boycott of the Indianapolis 500 unless Speedway president Tony George rescinds a new qualifying plan that would affect teams and drivers not aligned with his new Indy Racing League."

Several weeks ago, some readers took issue with the idea expressed here that the CART open-wheel series is in trouble. But during a conference call last week, none other than Michael Andretti, CART's winningest and most veteran driver, admitted the ground is shaky. "I think what has kept CART alive since the CART and IRL split has been the international influence," Andretti said, referring to the series' success in Australia, Canada, Japan and, until this year's forced cancellation, Brazil, since the open-wheel drivers broke into rival groups in 1996.

While the Winston Cup boys were bumping into each other at Bristol Motor Speedway last Sunday, the drivers in the Indy Racing League were giving a pretty good demonstration of what wheel-to-wheel racing in their sport can be. Defending IRL champ Sam Hornish Jr. and Buddy Lazier raced side-by-side to a heart-stopping finish in the Yamaha Indy 400 at California Speedway. Hornish won by .0281 of a second. Too bad so few saw it. Only about 15,000 fans showed up. The IRL's next race is at Nazareth (Pa.)

A benefit motorcycle ride and a NASCAR race in Dover, Del., are expected to create heavy traffic this weekend at the Bay Bridge, the Maryland Transportation Authority said Wednesday. About 600 motorcyclists will cross the span at about 10 a.m. Saturday as part of the Ride Across Maryland event to benefit Komen for the Cure. Officials will direct participants to the far-right side of the toll plaza before allowing them to cross. In addition, eastbound traffic is expected to increase throughout the weekend as fans travel to and from the Sprint Cup race.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake famously promised that the Baltimore Grand Prix would be a "game-changer" for the city. But after nearly $7 million of infrastructure funds have been squandered for what merchants outside the Inner Harbor say was little or no benefit, race organizers are failing to pay their bills from backers and local vendors. The Maryland Stadium Authority, which represents taxpayers' half-million dollar investment in the event, says it is "preparing for the worst" ("Grand Prix's financial troubles," Nov. 3)

It's one of the more crackpot civic katzenjammers in recent years: How come the so-called cash-strapped city can find the $5.5 million needed to prepare streets for the Grand Prix next August, while officials resort to tambourine rattling to keep public swimming pools from closing? The three-day Grand Prix event to be held on a 2.4-mile course around the Inner Harbor and Camden Yards promises, the mayor and other officials say, to bring more than 100,000 people to the city and keep cash registers ringing.

Being the engineer for an F2000 Championship Series driver is no glorified position. But that doesn't matter to Eric Langbein of Annapolis. "I really love what I do," Langbein, 35, said. "There's too much time involved for anybody who doesn't love it to keep doing it. " Langbein engineers racecars for driver Tim Minor, who is in fifth place in the F2000 Series. The circuit is primarily a proving ground for up-and-coming IndyCar drivers. Minor, 50, is part of the "Masters Class" in F2000 racing, meaning that he is among a competitive class of older drivers in the series.

The Baltimore Racing Development group proposing an Indy Racing League event said yesterday that if all goes according to plan, the city would have its own Grand Prix IndyCar event running on a street course through the Inner Harbor on Labor Day weekend 2011. "Given what our communications have been with the IRL, I would say [whether or not the race comes here] is on our end," said Jay Davidson, BRD's chief operating officer, during a news conference at the Sports Legends Museum at Camden Yards.

In any other year, Carl Edwards probably would have been a NASCAR champion. He won nine Sprint Cup races, including three of the final four in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, and had eight top-five finishes in the 10-race Chase. One problem: Jimmie Johnson was even better, forcing Edwards to settle for second place. "If we run like that every year, we're going to win a lot of championships," Edwards said. History bears him out. Only one current driver, four-time series champ Jeff Gordon in 1996, has won nine or more races in a season and failed to win the title.

Long before May 12, 2000, when Adam Petty became the first of four NASCAR drivers to die in racing accidents in nine months, Lowe's Motor Speedway president H. A. "Humpy" Wheeler was on record as saying, "There is no excuse for anyone dying in a racing accident." So it should come as no surprise that last week Wheeler was the driving force behind a "soft" bumper test at his speedway. Over the years, Wheeler has been behind a lot of safety testing involving soft-wall technology. Now he is testing and recommending a new carbon-fiber bumper designed to lessen a high-speed crash's impact on a driver.

Winston Cup points leader Jeff Gordon was in a good mood as he talked last week from his home in Florida. With eight races to go, counting today's UAW-GM Quality 500 in Charlotte, N.C., Gordon realizes he needs a good finish today, but he also is starting to think about wrapping up the title. "To me, if we have to wrap it up in 10-degree weather, in six feet of snow at New Hampshire, that's fine with me," he said. "No matter when, where or how, I'll be happy. But it does take a toll on your nerves when it comes down to the final race."

Seven members of the Joe Gibbs Racing team have been sanctioned by NASCAR for cheating, some suspended indefinitely. To cut to the chase, members on the mechanical side of the Gibbs team tried to thwart a chassis dyno test by placing magnetic spacers under the gas pedals of two cars used in the Nationwide Series. Now, I'd have a hard time explaining the difference between a magnetic spacer and a pencil sharpener, but it doesn't sound like something that can happen accidentally. So here's the question: Whether it's steroids in baseball, unethical taping of opponents in football, gambling-addicted basketball referees, fudging college athletes' transcripts, drugging horses or something called magnetic spacers in auto racing, is there a game anywhere that's on the level?