HEMBREE: Give The Silver Medal To Martin

Sprint Cup

HEMBREE: Give The Silver Medal To Martin

Mark Martin has perfected the art of finishing second at Pocono…

Mike Hembree | Posted August 04, 2012 Long Pond, PA

Mark Martin has mastered the art of finishing second at Pocono. (Photo: Getty Images)

What better race track than the wackiest of them all – the scalene triangle that is Pocono Raceway – to host some talk of wacky business?

To wit:

ON YOUR MARK, GET SET, FINISH SECOND! – Get your bets down now. Put the baby’s shoe money on Mark Martin to finish second in Sunday’s Pennsylvania 400.

In one of racing’s most improbable stats – but one you’d expect the grand old man of the sport to own, Martin has finished second at Pocono seven times without winning (not surprisingly, a record). Martin has 20 top fives and 34 top 10s at Pocono to lead all drivers in those categories.

Where did he finish at Pocono in June? Second, of course.

MICHAEL PHELPS? IN DAYTONA? – There is no truth to the rumor that Olympic swimming multi-medalist Michael Phelps has been hired by Daytona International Speedway to entertain in Lake Lloyd in the speedway infield during down moments in the Daytona 500.

So, attention Juan Pablo. The show is yours again.

A BIRTHDAY FOR WONDER BOY – Jeff Gordon turns 41 today. FORTY-ONE. Those of us who have made too many laps with him remember when he showed up to go racing looking for all the world like a supermarket bagboy (remember those?) who got lost on his way to work.

Kudos to The Kid for being chosen this week for a well-deserved honor – the Heisman Humanitarian Award. Few drivers in the long history of the sport have matched Gordon in the philanthropic arena.

LEBRON’S JERSEY ‘FOR SALE’ – The National Basketball Association is on the verge of going NASCAR. Well, sort of.

It’s likely that the NBA’s 2013-14 season will see the debut of NASCAR-style sponsorship displays on player uniforms. League officials are expected to approve a proposal that would add a relatively small advertising patch to the left shoulder of player jerseys.

If this works well, the possibilities are endless. Skyscraper-like NBA players have much more room for soft drink ads than little guys like Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon.

THOSE MESSY RESTARTS – Restarts at Pocono Raceway are often calamitous, largely because the track’s frontstraight produces some of the fastest speeds in stock car racing and drivers are trying to make easy-picking passes while the field is bunched.

That could lead to more of the start-finish line controversy that soiled last week’s Nationwide Series race at Indianapolis, an event in which victory was snatched from Elliott Sadler’s hands through no fault of his own.

NASCAR needs a much better handle on these restart situations and drivers’ tendencies to mismanage them for selfish reasons. Lecturing drivers about proper protocol is not the answer. Enforcing rules and using common-sense responses against drivers in the top 10 who use nefarious methods to put others in jeopardy of “violations” – that’s the answer.

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 30 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mike Hembree

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