The first thing I want to rant about is NASCAR (go figure this is Rose talking here) destroying yet another icon of racing when they reconfigured Phoenix International Raceway. Ever since it was built in 1964, the track was unique because of layout. Many a legend had been promoted that when they started building the track the engineers started building in turn one and then realized that it was not going to work and bent the turn and created the famous "dog leg" where the back straight was supposed to be. That is a myth. The track's layout was intended to be that way because the original design included a 2.5-mile road course that ran clockwise on the oval, exited at the "dog leg" and re-entered at what later became known as the "cross-over" where you had to sit and wait until a practice session was over before you could get into the infield. An unforgettable experience was standing next to the end of the wall during practice and seeing the cars blast past the end of the wall and make that high speed run to the "dog leg." Only lap one, turn one at Indy was more thrilling to me. That wide, long piece of asphalt was an ill-fated drag strip and part of the road course.
It turned out that the road course did not generate much interest in the racing world and the drag strip turned out to be tragically too short when, in the first event, a Top Fuel dragster did not deploy its parachutes and the driver was killed when the car went up the side of the mountain at the end of the strip.
So that left us with the most intriguing one-mile track in the nation. It was the scene of some of the best Championship car races ever contested: Mario Andretti showed the world what it was in for with a thrilling drive in the Dean Van Lines Roadster in November of 1964; Don Branson was the last driver to win in a Roadster at the track in 1965; Bobby Unser crashed under the turn 3 guard rail and walked away; Lloyd Ruby won here three times; Swede Savage's only Championship car win came when he passed Roger McCluskey on the last lap when McCluskey ran out of fuel; Mike Mosley and Roberto Guerrero both won from last position in 24-car fields; Andretti's last win in CART was here and the 1st CART Indy Car race was contested here on the track in 1986 and the list goes on. Even NASCAR history was made here when in 1988 Alan Kulwicki took his 1st career win and established the "Polish Victory Lap" by driving in the wrong direction around the track to pay tribute to his fans! NASCAR also ran its 1st Truck race at PIR, won by Mike Skinner.
It fell into dis-repair for a while when the original owners Dick and Nancy Hogue fell on hard times and couldn't maintain the facility. JC Agajanian stepped in to keep the track going, promoting a race before Malclom Bricklin purchased the place to be a test facility. The Bricklin SV-1 was the forerunner of the DeLorean car.
The Bricklin SV-1
He was Canadian and had worked with AMC (Rambler) to develop a gull-winged door sports type car. Very few of them ever made it to the road, but they were probably ahead of their time. Aligning with Rambler was not necessarily a plus-factor either. In fact he re-named the track Fastrack. They continued to run two Championship car races a year there, but eventually Bricklin's attempt at building cars went bust and again the track was in limbo.
So, another group of racing enthusiasts saw a chance to revive the track. Led by Dr. Tom Taber, whose son was racing at Manzanita at the time, pulled together a group of investors to buy the place.
One of those investors was Bob Fletcher, who was also in the process of piecing together an Indy Car team with Clint Brawner as crew chief and Jimmy Caruthers as his driver.
Over the course of time, Fletcher gained controlling interest in the track and named Dennis Wood as the general manager. As time passed on, Fletcher's interest in the track waned and Wood took control of the track.
Any of you who know Denny Wood know that he has one of the most active and creative minds in racing. He began adding events to the schedule, including NASCAR Winston West races and inviting the top names of the day, Petty, Pearson, Bonnett and Allison to run on a race in late November after the Championship car finale.
Wood's coup de' gras was the Copper World Classic! Although to be perfectly honest the original seed was planted by Bill Culp, Manzy racer Dave Culp's father, when he promoted a race called the Copper State Classic race for sprint cars (won by Chuck Gurney and a controversial finish that named Jerry Miller of Indy the winner although there are several who could easily claim the victory) for two years before Denny assumed control of the track.
That's Billy Shuman in the Gibson #10, who led every lap until a series of incredibly stupid decisions by race officials robbed him of certain victory. Car owner Billy Gibson makes a valid argument that Shuman actually won the race. There is also some who think that Rick Ferkel could have been named the winner - no one I know who was there actually thought that Jerry Miller (of Indianapolis, not the popular Jerry Miller of Glendale, AZ) won this race.
Having said that, it was Wood who elevated the Copper World Classic to become the "must" race at the beginning of the season. Wood added midgets and stock cars before also bringing in Super Modifieds and eventually Silver Crown cars. For my money it was the best weekend in racing!
So now there were four races on the PIR annual schedule - two USAC Championship car races (aptly named the Jimmy Bryan Memorial and Bobby Ball Memorial, traditional races), the Copper World and the Winston West race.
As I said, Denny was pretty creative. He had to be. Unlike many track owners Wood was not blessed with a huge bank account so he had to use the success of each event to begat the next race. Each time along the way Denny would re-invest into another track improvement until fate dealt him a blow from which he could not recover.
In 1983 Arizona had record rainfall - good for the state - terrible for PIR and Denny Wood. Since the track is located at the confluence of the Salt and Gila Rivers and a 100 years flood was taking place, access to PIR was cut off from the rest of the world. There was no bridge over the river until much later. The tragic end result was that the Copper World Classic and the Jimmy Bryan Memorial had to be cancelled. Without the necessary revenue to make improvements, Wood got backed against the wall. During some testing the asphalt in turn 3 began ripping up exposing the dirt foundation and CART's John Frasco (USAC was long gone from Indy Cars by now) said they would not race on the track unless it was totally repaved. The money just wasn't there and the Bobby Ball Memorial was not run either. Denny put the joint up for sale.
Enter a local cotton farmer named Emmett Jobe, Buddy to his friends.
Emmett "Buddy" Jobe.
His CPA, a guy named Pat Johnson, had seen that there was a large parcel of land located in SW Phoenix area for sale at what turned out to be a pretty good price. Johnson pitched the idea of the real estate investment to Jobe, who at the time had only a passing interest in racing. Johnson talked Jobe into buying the land on speculation and letting Johnson run the place as a race track for one year to see how things turned out.
Since Johnson did not have the background necessary to run the track he did the next best thing. He retained Denny and his staff to run it for him. Good move! Now the track could be repaved with Jobe's deeper pockets and racing returned big time to PIR in 1983!
Jobe was paraded around as the owner and his ego was rubbed sufficiently that he began to like the idea of being a track owner, especially when the track had the history and distinction of Phoenix International Raceway.
For the next five years the track's reputation expanded with more events added to an already busy slate. But there was one thing missing - Winston Cup.
By now the cancer that was to become what NASCAR is today was metastasizing into the malignant tumor NASCAR is today. Bad luck for one is good luck for another and the urban sprawl of the city of Riverside, CA encroached upon the territory of the fabled road course and it was doomed to become an industrial complex. That opened a date on the NASCAR calendar in 1988 and what a better place than Phoenix. A new dawn was on the horizon as the new stars of American car racing were coming to Phoenix - we could actually see Dale Earnhardt race at PIR! Sounded great then, didn't it?
In fact, life was good for the next 10 years or so - two Indy car dates, one NASCAR and the Copper World was just getting bigger and better every year. Even a young kid just 16-years old out of Indiana competed in the midget race and finished 2nd to Stan Fox, his name was Jeff Gordon. Tony Stewart raced in all four open-wheel divisions one year, won three of them and finished 2nd in the other; Rich Vogler showcased his amazing talents in being able to race and win in any car any time; Kenny Irwin Jr won the Silver Crown race one year; Kenny Schrader had the most wins at the track, mostly in Copper World events. Do you want me to go on, I will: Ryan Newman and Kasey Kahne both showed what talent they had at the Copper World; a guy named Jimmy Kite won the Silver Crown race from the back row and was immediately handed an Indy Car ride (didn't work out too well - one shot wonder): JJ Yeley showed his talents on the Copper World stage that propelled him to winning the USAC Triple Crown and eventually getting to Cup as a result. It was American Idol for racing!
Things were so good at the track that NASCAR's messiah sent his only begotten son to learn the trade at PIR's front office - Bill France Jr had Jobe hire Brian France as an intern for a year in the early nineties.
Brian France. Does this guy always look this clueless? Yeah!
Politics makes for strange bedfellows as the saying goes and one day Jobe gets a phone call from a guy named Bruton Smith, President of Speedway Motorsports Inc and owner of among other tracks Charlotte Motor Speedway to see if he wanted to sell PIR to him. It was part of the attempt by Smith to leverage some of the power away from Daytona to Charlotte.
Bruton Smith of Speedway Motorsports, Inc
Since Jobe was beholden to NASCAR, he informed the International Speedway Corporation (read that NASCAR and Bill France Jr) that Smith had made an offer.
The monarchs in Daytona weren't going to allow some upstart car salesman from Charlotte take control of their mighty empire, counter offers and Jobe accepts.
Still, the world hasn't gone completely off its orbit because Jobe and company still operate the track. But then the virus begins to take hold and ISC starts to replace those on staff at PIR with their "own" cronies.
Pretty soon people who had made their way in business selling beer and not in the realm of racing were in control and the first victim was the unique and traditional Copper World Classic! They cut it from the schedule because, according to the new PIR front office and new GM Robin Braig, "it didn't have enough potential for growth." Go figure! The race with the lowest overhead and was traditionally the most profitable at the track "didn't have enough potential for growth!" Screw grass roots racing would be a more appropriate reason!
Robin Braig made the decision to eliminate the Copper World Classic from PIR's schedule
NASCAR doesn't want to be upstaged by a bunch of rag-tag insanely creative and rogue garage mechanics who race by the seat of their pants in non-sanctioned Open Competition races do they? Apparently they didn't. There was one feeble attempt to revive it with NASCAR Southwest Series and the NASCAR inspired and ridiculous "new" USAC Silver Crown cars that raced once - at PIR, won by David Steele - kiss the Copper World goodbye.
That was the 1st of many moves that has brought us to what is today's PIR. After NASCAR so generously added another Cup race to the PIR schedule after losing a court case to some guy named Francis Ferko who sued on behalf of Texas Motor Speedway shareholders, the schedule was reconfigured. If Bruton was gonna get a 2nd race at one of his palaces we need to add another to one of our dumps to keep up - right!
IndyCars were the next to get axed. This is the division of cars that put PIR on the map in 1964 and had been a bastion of IndyCar racing ever since. In the history of Indy car racing three tracks stand above all others - The Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the Milwaukee Mile and Phoenix International Raceway. Only one remains although it has been poisoned by the malady of NASCAR.
All other events, including AMA Super Bikes and Proto-type sports cars were cancelled in favor of just two incredibly boring Cup races.
I'll face the truth - it was all about the money - Cup races do provide huge profit margins but in the end the racing has been so compromised because of it that it is hardly recognizable. The spring Cup race was so boring NASCAR decided to add another 72 laps to it so that it would try even the most strident of fans into submission.
Still, we had a wonderfully unique one-mile track that drew the best from a driver because it was a track that baffled most crew chiefs to get a good balance on because turns one-two were banked at 11-degrees and turns three-four were at 6-degrees - and that damned "dog leg."
Even though, to a man, every driver loved the place just the way it was. ISC (again read this as NASCAR) decided to reconfigure the track after the spring 2011 race. What was it that they intended to accomplish? The racing at PIR on the original configuration was, in my humble opinion (BTW shared by many) was the best on the Cup schedule. Then again, what was taking place at Daytona this year embarrassed even King Richard Petty. The advertised distance was 500 miles but the only real racing lasted about 100 yards at the finish when Trevor Bayne wouldn't let his partner by at the end! Off the record, ask Buddy Baker or Cale Yarborough who "won" the 2011 Daytona 500 and I think they will laugh hysterically.
Bryan Sperber, the genius who decided that PIR was not good enough as it was and set in motion the reconfiguration of PIR. I think if he had a chance he would put a Speedo on Michelangelo's David in Rome and Oakley's on DaVinci's Mona Lisa in the Louvre.
Here's the list of improvements: They widened the front straight; added progressive banking in the turns (just a cheap way to try and make it easier to allow pansy-ass drivers to pass in the corners because the don't have the balls to take a chance on the outside) and changed the exit of turn 2 into a sweeper to the "dog leg." All of this totally ruined this once majestic track.
Part of the driver's challenge was that turn 2 pinched you down making exit very tricky and the "dog leg' was a great place to pass if you had the courage and skill to run on the outside (BTW, A.J. Foyt was the 1st guy to run through the "dog leg" flat out). The track exposed any weakness a driver might have and highlighted their talents like no other track, but that's all gone now!
I watched one lap of the Nationwide race (it was on after I watched NHRA qualifying that I had recorded and of course I was curious) and when Elliott Sadler decided that it would be easier to avoid the new "dog leg" altogether, cut through on the new infield pavement 100 yards inside of the "yellow line" (which NASCAR said would be OK before the race started), slid in front of Jason Leffler, who had used the more traditional technique of staying on the track and had nowhere to go entering turn 3 when Elliott came roaring up out of nowhere and bumped Sadler, triggering a multi-car crash that ended Sadler's chance at the Nationwide title and sidelining NASCAR starlet Danica Patrick in the process. Danica had qualifying 27th and was poised to make a run to the front I'm sure! Sadler's tactics deprived us of that glorious moment, too.
I didn't bother to watch any of the Cup race. The last one I watched was PIR in the spring on the former configuration with the additional 72 laps, which was won by the fastest guy on the track that day. Oh it was the 16-year old prodigy who sprung to prominence in the Copper World Classic - Jeff Gordon! BTW, Gordon led all of the 72 additional laps of the race.
I can only assume that NASCAR's goal is to totally screw up racing beyond any recognition of what it once was - one man, one car and a demanding test of driver skill to see who could cover the allotted distance before anyone else. No pit calls - no grip decisions - no radios or spotters - just flat-out racing to see who is the best!
THANK YOU NASCAR! Ummm! on second thought!
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