Three household names in the NASCAR community will be retiring soon. Mark Martin, Terry Labonte and Rusty Wallace all have announced their pending retirements from the sport. We have to agree with ESPN's Mike Massaro that their timing is good.
He says that the careers of all three probably have peaked. Although he points out that Martin is in the top five in the chase for the Nextel Cup, so a case could be made that he is not too far over the hill.
Massaro suggests that Martin, Labonte and Wallace hope to avoid the aging rock star syndrome, where you have the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Ozzie Osbourne, Mick Jagger, Gene Simmons, trying to create the same electricity onstage that they did 30 years or more ago.
Much as I like the Stones, I've got to admit that it's getting a little embarrassing to see them whooping it up in front of a hall full of screaming fans. But there's the issue…they still can fill a hall, even though they still are doing the same music they were doing in the mid-60's. Distance and make-up can subtract a lot of years.
It makes me tend to agree with Grace Slick and Roger Daltry, who both ridicule the idea of adults playing music for teenagers. (But Grace, would it kill you to wash a little color back in your hair? Call Cher.)
Just as it became embarrassing to see The King, Richard Petty, extend his career too long. He was greatest in his day but those last few years he was never competitive and simply circulated around the top of the track until he hit or was hit by something. It was getting a little sad.
Massaro points out that one of the reasons, other than the fact that they still enjoyed what they were doing, for Petty and even Darrell Waltrip, to continue too long was The Money. He notes that in winning the championship in 1985, he won just over $700,000 in prize money.
In the 2000 season, he finished 36th in the standings and collected $1.17 million.
It's a good idea, anyway, for those involved in sports to announce that the next season will be their "Farewell Tour." It helps one become the center of attention, instead of just spending the year as an old, tired also-ran.
Also too old and tired may be the Formula One series, based in Europe and dating back almost as long as the invention of the car. A group of car makers, the biggies, not just hole-in-the-wall operations, have finally decided that F1 has gotten selfish and crotchety in its dotage.
The new organization calls itself the Grand Prix World Championship Consortium. Its members include BMW, Ferrari, Daimler-Chrysler and Renault. Ford used to be a member but is pulling out of F1 racing anyway.
The GPWCC says it will have its own open-wheeled series in place by 2008. The Consortium was formed in 2001 and threatened at that time to pull out of F1, saying that the participants were not getting a large enough share of the profits the series generated.
An agreement was reached that was supposed to solve their disagreements but this season the GPWCC said the F1 organization did not stick to their agreement.
Reminds us of the CART/IRL split on this side of the Atlantic. That has benefited some individuals, but not the sport itself.