Columnist Ron Kantowski: Field is chasing Chevys

Monday, March 3, 2003 | 10:14 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's insider notes column appears Tuesday and his Page One column appears Thursday. He can be reached at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

It didn't take long for NASCAR's alleged level playing field to start leaning toward one side during Sunday's UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Until pit stops shuffled the deck, it was pretty much Chevrolet, Chevrolet, Chevrolet, Chevrolet and Chevrolet at the front of the field. In fact, about the only Chevy that didn't figure in the mix was Chase.

But just when the bowtie brigade seemed destined to turn the rest of the field into the Not Ready for Prime Time Players, a lone Ford emerged from the middle of the pack to provide a Weekend Update.

At the finish, Matt Kenseth was running a quarter-lap ahead of the Chevys of Dale Earnhardt Jr., Michael Waltrip, Bobby Labonte and Tony Stewart. Kenseth was so far out in front that Little E would have needed Lasik surgery and binoculars to see his rear bumper, so that might keep the NASCAR aerodynamic gurus out of the wind tunnel for at least another week.

Then again, in that Jack Roush's Tauruses always run well at the 1.5-mile LVMS oval, maybe it won't. Roush drivers have won four of the six Las Vegas Winston Cup races, so maybe Kenseth's result should be treated like the score of the French figure skating judge. You know, throw it out.

Waltrip, of course, bristled during the postrace news conference when it was suggested the Chevys might have an aerodynamic edge on the Dodges, Pontiacs and non-Roush Fords.

"The cars are alike. There's no story there," said the two-time Daytona 500 winner, who was so ecstatic to finally run well somewhere else that he slid his car through the grass on the tri-oval during the cool-down lap.

"You saw Chevys lead a lot and Matt got on it at the end. I think you're going to see that all year -- you're not going to know where (the fast cars) are going to come from."

But, just as naturally, the Ford drivers and car owners didn't see it that way -- not even Roush. "It sure looked to me, the way they (the Chevrolet drivers) practiced and qualified, that it was going to be a rout," said the winning car owner, who believes the jury is still out.

Whether the Chevys have an advantage will be up for NASCAR to decide and the car owners to debate. I'm just looking for a way to explain why Sunday's race was even more boring than usual.

Most drivers say the LVMS track is maturing so, under normal circumstances, that should lead to plenty of side-by-side racing. That was the case during much of Saturday's Busch race, and when I awoke from my midrace slumber Sunday, I noticed there were indeed some spirited battles in the middle of the pack.

But that's sort of like watching guards and tackles open a hole. Most football fans watch the ball, and most racing fans judge a race's quality by what happens at the front of the field.

Using that barometer, Sunday's race was about as interesting as watching paint dry at Marie Osmond's. There was a grand total of one pass for the lead on the track, and that happened before the first pit stop. Only 11 cars of the 43 that started finished on the lead lap, and seven of the 11 were Chevrolets. Kenseth was the only non-Chevy driver to lead during extended green flag segments.

Yet Waltrip said that anybody who might think the Chevys have an edge is a fool.

So when does court jester practice begin?

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