Quick. When someone says The Masters, what name comes to mind? I’ll bet that many folks go through Martha Burk and Hootie Johnson before they even get to Tiger Woods and Mike Weir.
In case you missed it in all the reporting on the frustrated attempts by the National Council of Women’s Organizations to upstage the prestigious golf tournament this year, Weir won the Green Jacket in a sudden death playoff. Woods, the two time defending champion whose towering drives were expected to make him the favorite on the wet course, had a bad tournament and finished well back.
But, after ten months of potshots back and forth Burk and Johnson got most of the headlines during the week.
Burk wants the Augusta National Golf Club, which sponsors and hosts The Masters and always has, to invite some women to join. Johnson, who heads the golf club, said the club won’t do that unless it wants to.
Burk associated the club with The Masters Tournament and wanted to use it to make her point. Others claimed that the club and the Tournament are separate entities.
She could not get permission for her group to stage its protests close to the club’s main gate. She did get permission to demonstrate at what was described as a strip mall some distance away.
Observers said that police and onlookers outnumbered the demonstrators from the NCWO. So much for that.
A recent article on speed.com presented some opinions from female race car drivers that differ somewhat, but not entirely, from those of Martha Burk.
For instance, Christi Passmore, who drives in the ARCA Series for G.A.P Roofing/Royal Trading, suggests that every sport should be like racing. She said that once the helmets are on and the seatbelts tightened, the drivers’ religions, skin colors or genders don’t matter.
She added that she doesn’t want to see “women’s tees” in racing. The un-bylined article also presents that Christi suggested a head-to-head 18 hole golf match between Ms. Burk and Mr. Johnson.
You might be missing the point, Christi.
Then there is Beth Ann Morgenthau. She owns BAM Racing, which fields the No. 49 1-800-CALL ATT Dodge in Winston Cup and might be expected to run in the circles that lead to membership in August National.
In the Speed article, she conceded there are good arguments from both sides. But she denied that gender or race matter in NASCAR racing. Her words were, “Work hard and work smart, tie yourself with good people and you have a good future.” She said that should work at either Augusta National or Talladega.
Can’t get enough racing on TV and can’t see spending the extra money just to get SpeedVision? Take heart, starting next May, there should be a whole new racing league for you to watch most weekends.
This past week ESPN and TRAC announced a deal that will put team stock car racing on the tube 13 Saturdays from May to August. TRAC stands for Team Racing Auto Circuit, a subsidiary of Team Sports Entertainment.
The races will be on ESPN or ESPN2 on Saturday afternoons or nights, with a couple of Sunday events being considered.
The concept was announced a year ago and the legendary Cale Yarborough is one of the moving forces behind it. ESPN, I’m sure, was happy to have somewhere to rebound after being jilted by NASCAR in favor of the wealthier contract from Fox and NBC.
With a TV deal in hand, the next step is to find team sponsors.
According to the announcement the format will put six four-car teams on the track. All 24 cars will start the race but the winner will be a team, not an individual.
It will be like any other team sport with a star player or two, but performance of the rest of the team members also will be important. The cars will be Corvettes, Mustangs and Vipers.
The teams will come from major American cities which have big motorsports venues nearby. The announcement said that some of the possibilities are Texas Torque, Colorado Edge and Chicago Breeze. Gives you some idea.
Look for women and minority drivers to show up in this league. It will give them the exposure that can attract the sponsorship needed to get to The Big Show.
But will they be able to send in substitutes?