Psyche Out, Sandbagging, Chicanery!!
Daytona: Is it Testing, Boring or a Joke?
An Opinion
If you don’t live in a cave and have watched racing for over a year, then you’ll be familiar with the term “sandbagging.” It’s an old card game term, meaning that someone holds a very good hand but plays as though he holds little, only to pounce at the end and take the pot. This term has become almost synonymous with Daytona testing over many years, and has actually become quite sophisticated. It almost never applies to a single car any more, but rather to an entire group of cars, usually designated by manufacturer.
If Ford (Or Dodge or Chevy) is looking for some sort of consideration or concession from NASCAR, then we will see all of the Fords (Or Dodges or Chevys) run times well below those of the competition. This enables the chief whiner for whichever manufacturer we’re speaking of, to go to NASCAR and plead his case on the basis of low testing times. It seldom works, but it never seems to stop.
Then of course, there is the other side of the coin, the psyche-out. If sandbagging comes from cards, this move probably comes from chess. The idea behind the psyche-out is to convince the competition, through chicanery of course, that they might as well give up because this car is unbeatable.
The most stellar example I can think of as to how this works comes from Richard Childress. This particular move didn’t come at Daytona, but at a testing session at Atlanta. That makes no difference; testing is testing, except that at other tracks, more than one car goes out at a time. The year was 1990 and the battle for points was extremely close between Dale Earnhardt and Mark Martin.
In this particular chess game, Roush brought as many cars to the track as he legally could and even enlisted the aid of fellow Ford owners, attempting to find the best possible car for Martin. Childress brought one car and Dale Earnhardt.
When testing began, the #3 Goodwrench car did not immediately take to the track. In fact, the car went out for its only run when the day was half over. Dale Earnhardt brought the #3 up to speed, ripped off a couple of unbelievably fast laps, knowing that every team there (Especially Roush) would have a stopwatch on him, and pulled back into the garage, all smiles. The Goodwrench team immediately loaded the #3 onto the hauler and went home.
What Childress had done was have the crew mount left-side tires on the right side of the car. Don’t ask me to explain that beyond telling you that the reason it’s not legal in a race is that a makes the car a whole lot faster. Folks are still talking about it as one of the best psyche jobs ever pulled in racing, and since it was only a test session, it was perfectly legal.
Perhaps because of that exhibition of speed, Roush opted to “borrow” a car usually driven by Davey Allison for Robert Yates, for Martin to drive in the final race of the season. Remember, there was a time when those two did NOT share that famous Yates horsepower…or even the same oxygen if they could help it, but on that occasion, it was all about Ford.
Despite experiencing a problem early in the race because Davey set something in his car differently than Mark was used to, Martin went on to finish sixth, but Earnhardt finished third, thereby clinching his fourth Winston Cup Championship. (Lord, I love saying that) Sure, he very well could have won it anyway, but without the psyche-out, Martin would have been in his own Roush car and wouldn’t have lost ground early on.
I know that little anecdote had little to do with Daytona, but it had everything to do with testing. Besides, I thought some of you younger fans might enjoy hearing it…or some of you old-timers might enjoy remembering it. Aw, come on, you knew I couldn’t resist telling you one little story about the days gone by.
http://insiderracingnews.com/PK/011806.html