Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

Who put the crown on King Don this year

I think last year the "KING" Steve did

Oh c'mon.......the "Big Cat" started to and wanted to whine but he held back......he did say something about the "lapped cars not giving him a break" (then held back) and that's whining......too damn bad! If he can't handle lapped traffic at crunch time that's his problem. Schatz got by.......Don't forget that even though Pittman was being lapped he was still racing for position, and especially at a high speed joint like Eldora, lift or change your line for another driver to get by and the momentum lost could mean a heck of a lot of track position. 

Read Darryn's tweets, always a class act, a racer racing.  Both tweets make perfect sense with the situation at the time. 

The presenter was Joe forget his last name, the long time sign in man at the back gate at Eldora, very good guy.  He is also married to Earl's daughter Starr who was on the stage with him...

This is true! He was racing for position! There was a whole $50 on the line between those positions!

Real race cars don't have fenders...

I'm doubt that he was trying to hang on to $50.00 worth of pride or dignity. He's a racer.

I dont dislike Daryn at all. he has had a REALLY tough few weeks and he continues to get back out there and race at a high level. He is a true professional. I won't hold the King's Royal lapped car thing against him. But what you're saying is the same as dribbling into triple coverage intead of kicking a ball out to a wide open shooter in basketball just because of pride. Team work coulda made the dream work...

Real race cars don't have fenders...

I asked this question, about lappers, a month ago,  and the resounding answer was if they are faster they will get around.  Of course that was pertaining to Schatz.  But since it was someone almost beating Schatz, the lapper should get out of the way?  Another angle to look at is this... Pittman was racing for position, he sees his teammate coming so he should get out of the way and let who knows how many cars by(that he is battling for position)?  Seems like a good way to lose sponsors-if you just start pullin over and letting people by.

JMO

And Schatz got by Pittman, just sayin

Oh I get it......like in Formula 1 where a driver with a two turn lead heading for the checker, was ordered to back off and let his team mate who was in second place win the race. And why? Because the team mate was in a battle for the season championship and needed the extra points. I'm sure all of us would like to see deals like that being made in sprint car racing. Maybe you better stick to watching basketball! One of the reasons NASCAR sucks! Team sport my ass!

Schatz caught a bigger break from Bell having the momentum to get his car in the pits under green than the Sweet/Pittman fingerpointing episode. The knee-slaps, cuss words and sad faces were in abundance when Bell cleared the track safely, believe me.

This right here. I have never raced but I've talked about this very thing with those who have and to hear them explain it, it's chaos. Us fans sit there and watch from a distance and we have ample time to assess what's going on whereas in the car, you have no mirror, no radios, lots of dust and at most fractions of a second to react to what you think is going to happen or what is going on around you. If it was a NASCAR race, Daryn's spotter would've told him that the 49 was running 2nd and what line he was running the but in a sprint car, all you can do is guess and he guessed wrong. Happens all the time. Those guys are super talented and amazingly brave but they are still human.

It would be advantageous to have multicar teams if they raced for each others best interest but that would be boring for fans and unfair to the single car teams. Earn your spots. I think Pitman shouldn't show Sweet any special treatment but he should have let any second place car have the spot. Team mate or not.

Even though I may not know you, I 
care what most of you think!

In my opinion (because I know everyone cares lol), the teammate garbage in racing has only two places, in the pits you can share data, talk about things that work.  The other place I see it being OK, is in NASCAR at Daytona or Talladega and you can't win the race but you can push the winner, then I would hope you would push your teammate to the win.  Other than that, I believe it should be every man for himself on the racetrack.

As for lapped traffic.  I don't believe it is up to the cars getting lapped to make sure the leaders get around them.  I believe it's up to the leaders to get around the lapped traffic.  I think the only thing the lapped car is responsible for is running a smooth consistent line.

As for this race, I just watched it.  Three laps in a row Pittman entered in the middle of three and drifted up to the cusion.  As for the crossover move.  It looked to me like Sweet jumped the cusion and lost momentum.  So should Pittman have locked the brakes up to make sure he didn't pass him back?  What if there was other cars behind him?  That could have been a real mess.  Coming out of two Pittman had the momentum and Sweet lost it.  I don't see how that's Pittman's problem.  After that, entering turn three, Pittman left the entire bottom open for Sweet.  I guess I don't see what Pittman did wrong here.  I wonder what the opinion would have been if things had worked out like this with Schatz?  Would it be unfair because a teammate was blocking to keep Schatz from winning?  Or would it be a racing deal then?

Like a lot of people on here, I sign in to Dirtvision each week hoping to see anyone but Schatz win. Am getting sick of seeing him win every time i tune in. But Schatz is by far the best and his dominance has to be admired.

When watching the last 10-15 laps of the Kings Royal, you couldnt help but cheer for Sweet especially when he was catching him are the rate he was. Looked like we were finally going to see someone hunt down Schatz.

So I was absolutely filthy with Pittman when he raced back past Sweet and wrecked his chanes of winning. Just thought it wasnt a 'team player' thing to do and had nothing much to gain being a lap down but only cost Sweet a lot of time. The KKR boys have been struggling in recent times and good results have been far and few between and Sweet winning would have been big for the team.

Surely Pittman had to be aware that Sweet was lapping him after Schatz had already passed him a few laps earlier. Sweet had done a slide job to pass Pittman, so Pittman must have known that Sweet was not running the bottom. When Sweet pass him the 2nd time, Pittman again tried to turn under him. If Sweet was running the bottom, he would have stayed down there and maintained the bottom line rather than sliding to the top of the track.

Of course I would cheer Pittman if he held up Schatz to help Sweet but he looked pretty intent to get back past Sweet and take his line away. He says he realised his mistake but he didnt exactly move out of the way.

Makes you wonder what is happening down at KKR. Might be looking too far into it but was surprised to see Pittman race Sweet that way.

So you are sayin it would have been ok for Schatz to be held up by a team car, but when that same car battles his teammate its wrong?  Huh? 

That is the answer I always get (or give) when thepoint of lappers comes up.  A traveling series that frequents my hometown track had a guy whine and moan during his 'podium' speech (came in 2nd) that "Lappers need to learn what the move over flag means"  WHAT?????  He was clearly agitated.....Oh well, he just has to get better inlapped traffic

YEP!

As you said, they are team mates. Holding up a competitors and allowing your 'team mate' a chance at winning is commonplace in motorsport.  That is one benefiit of having a team mate, am i wrong? Look at F1, look at NASCAR even? Some guys get mad at their team mates for holding them up and ruining their chance at winning. So why would Pittman race his teammate and prevent him from a chance at winning when a lap down? huh?

I just think Pittman's moves were dumb especially when he was out of the running. It would be a completely different story if Pittman was in position and battling Sweet for a podium place. 

I understand your point, but Sprint cars are not nascar or f1(thank goodness).  If team orders ever come in to play(blocking etc) ill never attend or watch another sprint car race.  JMO.  I still say if cars are faster theyll get around lapped cars.  Especially when lapped cars are running same line and swervin all over the track

I commented earlier this season on the whole lapped cars issue.    I made the statement that lapped cars shouldn't be responsible for getting out of the way of faster cars.  I take back that statement.  Pittman should not have passed Brad back.  I have no issues if he says he didn't know where Brad was going to be or go.  But then to race him and pass him back.  ???  Tough for me to understand at all.  Both Friday night and Saturday night the 2nd fastest car won.  (which happens quite often I know)

Ill say it again. Pittman is racing a sprintcar at over 100mph with that requires very high concentration with high adrenaline levels  with millisecond reaction times. I would bet it did not register it was brad and that he was lapping untill he was going back by. What should he do? Stab the brakes? To think about the situation at hand is just not the way the mind works while racing at over 100mph. Its obvious when brad passed in the same spot the lap he backed out. Now if he would have passed back a second time, not good at all.