Designated Driver?
Dateline: 04/25/01
Baseball has its Designated Hitter, and now it looks like NASCAR is following suit with it's version, the Designated Driver. It seems that Jasper Motorsports, sponsor of the #77 Ford, driven normally by Robert Pressley, will make a change for Sears Point and Watkins Glen road courses.
It was announced that Boris Said, veteran of the Craftsman Truck series and of sports car racing events around the world will take the wheel as their Designated Driver for road courses this season. Somehow this doesn't seem right.
Regardless of who you cheer for on Sunday, I know of few fans who are Texaco fans or Viagra fans or Jasper fans. Instead we are fans of Ricky Rudd or Mark Martin or Robert Pressley. Now suddenly, our favorite drivers seem vulnerable, since they can be pulled from the car by the owner and replaced for a short series by someone we may know nothing about. When asked about the move, Pressley stated, "Boris is a road course specialist. We need to do what's best for this Jasper team. That's always been our goal."
The whole concept of road courses is to give us the experience of seeing our favorites making right turns. Now that is taken away from us. We now see one team beginning to set the mold for others and replacing our favorites with "specialists" who are signed for a short period and used on particular courses.
I personally would hate for teams to take this to the next level, by choosing short track "specialists", superspeedway "specialists" or even cool weather "specialists". It's absurd! Next we'll see Michael Andretti put behind the wheel of a Winston Cup car, because he's an "Indy Specialist", and replacing another driver for "The Brickyard".
If a team is dissatisfied with the abilities of a driver, then they should replace him permanently. To switch drivers for a particular type of course is doing a disservice to the fans and the drivers alike. The Designated Hitter hasn't worked well in baseball, as evidenced by the controversy surrounding it. It's not going to work for Winston Cup either. Let's hope the trend stops here.
