Catchfence

The biggest names, the biggest hoopla, the biggest promotional splurge. Yep, it’s time for Charlotte’s first big NASCAR weekend of the season, the Sprint All-Star Race. The hype gets two new angles in 2008. Firt there will be a contest where drivers can demonstrate who can put on a more spectacular display of burning out tires and making an absurd spectacle of himself in a victory celebration. Meanwhile a big interactive tie-in festival will take place in West Nyack, NY on raceday Saturday, which may be something of a first for a major auto race.

Whether the race lives up to the hype remains to be seen, but history makes it a near-certainty that the race will not approach the hype. In the 23 previous runnings of the All-Star Race the hype was thick and the racing was almost always thin gruel, with attention paid to bullying on-track encounters while actual competitive racing was in short supply. 1994 remains almost the only running in which the battle for the lead was an actual race. Making it worse, the race long ago degenerated into a test sesson for the World 600, making total nonsense of the hype about this race not being about points – the same mentality as points racing took over.

It has run only once away from Charlotte, in 1986 at Atlanta as part of Winston’s original formula of rotating the event at various tracks a la Baseball’s All-Star Game. The formula was changed because of a disappointing crowd for the 1986 running, held on Mother’s Day Sunday, and the feeling that Charlotte was the only track that could promote the event to make it seem more important than it was – and is. Indeed, when consideration toward moving the All-Star Race surfaced, Charlotte put on a hissy fit to keep the race, never mind that it couldn’t justify keeping it.

That it is still here is astonishing enough, and its field is worth sizing up before the green drops.

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Of the spots taken up so far in a field that will eventually reach 24 cars, only five teams account for sixteen of those spots. Joe Gibbs, Hendrick, Roush, RCR, and Penske dominate the All-Star field as they have dominated the sport. Of the field’s remaining spots DEI has two cars – Martin Truex and Mark Martin – while Petty Enterprises (Bobby Labonte), Michael Waltrip Racing (Dale Jarrett), and Ganassi/SABCO Racing (Juan Montoya) fill out the field as presently set. The top-two finishers of the preliminary All-Star Open and a driver put in via a fan vote will round out the field.

Of those drivers already locked into the field, the easy favorite is Kyle Busch, who has looked almost unstoppable since he jumped into Joe Gibbs’ #18 Toyota. His JGR teammates have certainly struggled to stay with him, especially Tony Stewart, winless since August of 2007.

So far the only driver who has shown any consisent ability to stay with Busch has been Carl Edwards, who hasn’t led a lap since winning at Texas but who has been the strongest on intermediate superspeedways. The trouble for Edwards is he hasn’t gotten much supporting fire from his Roush teammates, who are still winless this year and who at times have looked downright mediocre.

Roush’s archenemy Hendrick Motosports remains strong, but that’s all they are right now, with even Jimie Johnson’s lone win so far this year looking more like a fluke than a trend. They are not the world-beaters they were just a year ago and with each passing week the memory of last year’s dominance becomes less impressive. Winless in two years, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has seemingly the entire ticket-buying public in his corner but answers to his inability to finish off good runs with wins remain elusive. Something similar can be said about Jeff Gordon, who seemed to treat his third-place finish at Darlington like a win.

No one else in the field shows any muscle to make one confident of a win. RCR’s point lead a few weeks ago was flimsy and exposed as such as soon as Kyle Busch took it away. Jeff Burton has looked the most consistent, especially on intermediates, but that consistency isn’t enough right now. Clint Bowyer likewise has shown consistency but it impresses one not as far as muscle to win goes. And Kevin Harvick appears to be in some kind of free-fall lately with only one top-ten finish ince Bristol.

Penske Racing and the other Dodges meanwhile continue to stumble and fumble along – that is when they’re not crashing into cars entering pit road like Ryan Newman did at Darlington. Combine this with his abysmal overall efforts and Kurt Busch’s inability to secure top tens since Daytona and Penske Racing has become just another group of cars on the track. Ganassi/SABCO likewise has impressed no one despite Juan Montoya’s superb Talladega effort. As for Bobby Labonte he may be he most consistent Dodge on the track, and it means nothing unil they can start fighting for something.

It would be pointless to hold much hope of an upset from DEI or Michael Waltrip Racing. One wonders which is the more poorly run organization, but DEI’s recent surge of top tens may hold some hope of some kind of team-wide progress.

With three other sports to be filled, the 2008 All-Star Race tries to live up to its hype, and a lot of people no doubt hope it succeeds at such.