Posted on 05/09/2003 8:51:56 AM PDT by Stew Padasso
The driving schools. They use real Nascar race cars. I drove one at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Hit your marks and you can go as fast as you want.
I had not heard that they had something actually installed at the track though.
Safety is #1 at 200 mph
They used soft walls at Indy during the race there last year. It saved Kurt Busch in a drivers-side impact when Jimmy Spencer decided to take revenge at a superspeedway for a short-track incident. They need to spend the money and put them at all tracks.
I had not heard that they had something actually installed at the track though.
If the report was accurate that said "soft walls", they probably just put some styrofoam up for this promotion. They can't use styrofoam in a race though, too messy and time-consuming between impacts.
I saw a car hit head-on at Watkins Glen into a stryrofoam wall at way more than 40 miles an hour (the relative speed to a wall that has been causing major injuries is only about 40 miles an hour...The car's velocity is usually more than 100 mph, of course, but relative to the wall, 40 miles an hour is all it takes to cause a fatality with these stiffer chassis of today), and the driver emerged unhurt because they had styrofoam that was a few feet thick in front of the wall.
Who is ripped off? How is someone ripped off when Rick Hendrick makes a deal with Honda execs to sell him more cars? Do you think the government should have any say in who buys what cars? Why? Or do you just repeat nonsense that you hear...
Here's my original post. I stand by what I wrote. His actual indictment and conviction was for paying bribes to Honda execs for preferential treatment.
When one person gets preferential treatment, someone else is getting screwed.
The only thing this has to do with free markets and government controls, is that Hendricks helped to reduce the choice and availablity of desireable Honda's to other dealerships.
FWIW, I was ripped off by one of his service departments at his old chevy dealership in Apex. I was happy to see him get slapped down.
You are welcome to defend this a$$hole if you want, I think he got what he deserved for running his dealerships with a wink and a nod. The fact that he was pardoned by Clinton is the icing on the cake.
Go find somebody else to pester.
BOOK REVIEW: ARROGANCE & ACCORDS - THE INSIDE STORY OF THE HONDA SCANDAL by Steve Lynch
Reviewed By Michael Daly
In June 1999 Pocono Raceway awarded Rick Hendrick its prestigious Bill France Sr. Award of Excellence. Wrote Speedway Scene when the award was announced, "Rick Hendrick exemplifies the drive, dedication, and ideals long associated with Bill France Sr."
The talk about ideals reeks of irony.
Steve Lynch spent thirteen years with the American branch of Honda Motor Company, and he loves Honda automobiles. This passion helps animate and drive his eyewitness account of the long-running bribery scandal that rocked American Honda and involved one of NASCAR's most powerful team owners. The scandal not only involved Rick Hendrick, it swept others in NASCAR racing as well, through no fault of their own.
Lynch's love of Honda shows in his early account of the dismal state of the American automobile scene circa 1981. There is a certain glee with which Lynch contrasts the high quality of Honda's product with the lesser quality of American marques of the time. Such contrasts in quality were vital, for Honda automobles were selling themselves, unsupported by the kind of extensive marketing campaigns common to auto manufacturers.
But as Honda grew more successful, greed and graft within the American division grew bigger and more audacious, as a gang of car cowboys dipped into the till of corruption and made themselves multimillionaires as a result. Lynch notes how Honda's tightwad employment policies contributed to the atmosphere of thievery.
The prince of payola at American Honda was "the blacksheep son of a well-to-do North Carolina family," John W. "Jack" Billmyer. Billmyer first made himself known as corrupt when he first joined Honda in the mid-1970s. He tried to extort from a Honda motorcycle dealer. When the dealer complained to higher-ups, he was ignored - a trait that would permeate American Honda's approach to the scandal for nearly 20 years.
Billmyer "wallowed in the kickbacks of dealers" throughout the country, and following in his footsteps was his successor as chief of national sales, Stanley James "Jim" Cardiges. Cardiges' own lack of moral scruples first displayed itself in very Clinton-esque fashion around 1977; running a dealership with his uncle, Peter Cardiges, Jim hit on - and ultimately stole - Peter's wife, his own aunt-in-law, Effie.
Such men were natural candidates for criminality.
Rick Hendrick was the biggest dealer influence-peddler to play ball with Billmyer and Cardiges. His relationship with Billmyer went back to Rick's youth as a hot rodder. Billmyer helped Hendrick establish himself in the car sales business and was instrumental in getting him a dealership. Lynch shows how Hendrick wielded undue influence with American Honda and was thus able to acquire more car stores than anyone else. "All it took," Lynch writes, "were a few gifts."
Most car companies limit dealers to about six store. Rick Hendrick, though, didn't believe such a rule should apply to him, and in Honda he found a company that officially did not have such a limit. He nonetheless took no chances; Lynch notes that Hendrick store holdings were frequently in the name of others, notably his brother John Hendrick, and less than $1 million of the bribes Rick paid have ever been recovered.
Lynch shows how Hendrick used bribes and influence-peddling to bankrupt rival Honda dealers and poach their stores. William Van Dalsam of Corono, CA, was one. Dick Young of South Carolina was another. These two cases were directly witnessed by Lynch; there were many other such cases not mentioned in the book because they were not directly witnessed by him. According to Rodger Knupp of Asheville, NC, one such involved former NASCAR driver Dick Brooks; after rebuffing a Hendrick offer to buy his stores, he found cars slated for his stores winding up at Hendrick stores.
This tactic of bankrupting rivals also drives Hendrick's racing, as evidenced by the enormous disparity of Hendrick Motorsports' budgets and engineering compared to those of most other teams.
Lynch also reveals how team owner Junie Donlavey and crew chief Doug Richert wound up getting caught up, through no fault of their own, in Billmyer's corruption. Seeing that Donlavey, a Richmond, VA Honda dealer, needed a crew chief for his team for 1987, Billmyer put the squeeze on a dealer from CT, John Orsini, to put Doug Richert on Executive Honda's payroll. This done, Donlavey had his crew chief. But the deal reeked of quid pro quo, and left a paper trail that would help unearth the massive bribery within American Honda.
Lynch carries the story through the trial and conviction of over 22 defendants, including Hendrick. There is a sense of disappointment in Lynch as he notes that, with Hendrick's guilty plea to one count of mail fraud (pertaining to perhaps the biggest individual bribe he paid Cardiges, a bribe that helped Cardiges buy an obscenely expensive California house), the probe of the Honda scandal seemed to close.
Lynch also notes a lesser-reported angle to the story -- how Hendrick reportedly also bribed Lexus. A cynic might thus question Hendrick's relationship with General Motors as well, given Hendrick's Chevrolet dealerships and the near-monopolistic clout and technical assistance GM provides Hendrick's racing empire.
One might also ask, if Hendrick is such a crook, why so many people so love him. Lynch answers that when he notes that, unlike the lesser dealers who bribed Honda, Hendrick was actually a good dealer, and his dealerships reflect him. Lynch notes Hendrick's generosity, his habit of providing whatever his employees need or want - most notably how he paid for operations on employee family members.
"Rick Hendrick has been a driving force in NASCAR Winston Cup racing," Joseph Mattioli of Pocono stated in announcing the France Sr. award, "and has displayed all the attributes that this award stands for."
Steve Lynch shows us just what attributes Rick Hendrick has displayed. NASCAR fans should be required to read this book.
So I ask again, why is paying some execs extra to buy additional cars to sell illegal? Why is the government involved? There is a local grocery store that sells 12 packs real cheap to induce customers to enter their store. The store policy says 2 per customer. Should we call the local DA if somebody pays the baggboy to buy him an extra 2? I can see Honda's gripe, their employees violated their policy, but is that something people should go to jail for?
Family businesses ruined.
People forced to pay higher prices for Hondas because Rick Hendricks has tied up the inventory.
Do you believe these are acceptable business practices?
Do you have any problem with any of this?
Is your position NASCAR right or wrong at any cost?
Do you believe so long as Jeff Gordon works for Hendricks it must be ok?
He is still scum...klintoonista lovin' scum!!
Hendrick was willing to pay more for Hondas. I have no problem with that. Is his business not a 'family business'?
People forced to pay higher prices for Hondas because Rick Hendricks has tied up the inventory. Do you believe these are acceptable business practices?
Yet NO ONE is forced to buy a Honda. Those people chose to pay that price for a Honda. No one was 'ripped off'. "If an exchange between two parties is voluntary, it will not take place unless both believe they will benefit from it. Most economic fallacies derive from the neglect of this simple insight, from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another." -Milton Friedman
Is your position NASCAR right or wrong at any cost?
I've attended at least one NASCAR race per year since I was 20. Now that I've learned they are shovelling money into Jesse Jackson's slush funds I've made sure none of it is mine, so I have no clue why you're bringing NASCAR into this.
Do you believe so long as Jeff Gordon works for Hendricks it must be ok?
Red herring. Jeff Gordon has nothing to do with my opinion that someone being willing to pay more for cars than someone else isn't a crime. Violation of company policy, certainly appears so in this instance, but a crime - no.
I know I shouldn't be laughing, but----!
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