I have seen the future of NASCAR, and it is a bunch of guys -- and gals -- you've never heard of. At least not yet.
Early Sunday afternoon, while the Sprint Cup Series was going through the prerace ceremonies in SoCal (including Jesse McCartney's edited-on-the-fly national anthem), ARCA (think Double-A baseball) was in the midst of its American 200 season finale at the Rockingham Speedway in eastern North Carolina. And the lineup was a who's who of nobodies who are quickly on their way to becoming somebodies.
Don't laugh. For precedent, the winner of the inaugural 2008 ARCA event at the newly reopened one-mile track was a kid named Joey Logano. That seems to have worked out OK. That said, here's a look at some of Sunday's leading candidates to become the next sliced bread:
• Parker Kligerman won the race and finished second in points. He's 19 years old and under contract with Penske Racing as a development driver. One year ago, Penske's ARCA slot was occupied by Justin Allgaier, who won the title and currently drives Penske's Nationwide Series entry.
• Justin Lofton, 25, finished third and won the championship by a scant five points over Kligerman during an epic last lap dash. The Californian doesn't have a formal development deal with a NASCAR organization. But on Sunday, Lofton was forced to start in the back of the field due to an engine change, and the silky-smooth manner in which he slipped up through the field during the first long green flag run literally drew applause from the Cup team talent scouts perched atop the infield media center.
• Casey Roderick, 17, finished second under the watchful eye of NASCAR legend Bill Elliott, who has the fellow Georgia native under contract as a teammate to Elliott's son, Chase.
• Chris Buescher, 16, who signed a development deal with Roush Fenway Racing just last week, started seventh and finished sixth, leading three laps around the race's halfway point.
•Sprint Car ace Dakoda Armstrong, 18, made his third ARCA start since signing a development deal with Penske in mid-August. He led twice for 15 laps total and finished eighth.
• Chad Finley, 17, won the pole and led 42 laps in just his fourth career ARCA start. He'll run for Rookie of the Year in 2010 driving a car owned by NASCAR rising star Brad Keselowski.
•Two women were in the field. Alli Owens, 19, will drive for legendary Venturini Motorsports in 2010. Her D'Hondt Motorsports teammate Johanna Long is just 17 years old.
• Corey Lajoie, 17, is the son of two-time NASCAR Busch Series champ (and ESPN NASCAR analyst) Randy Lajoie. He finished 23rd.
No Call From The Hall
I had a long Sunday morning chat with 1961 Daytona 500 winner Marvin Panch, who was at The Rock as part of a Racers Reunion event that was tied to the race weekend. Panch made 216 Cup Series starts between 1951 and '66, winning 17 races and 21 poles and earning 96 top-five finishes. In '58 he finished second in points to Buck Baker, the only year he raced full-time. In 1998 he was named one of NASCAR's 50 Greatest Drivers and he's already been inducted into six halls of fame, the latest coming on Saturday night at Mooresville, N.C.'s Memory Lane Museum. These days he's constantly on the move, towing his Daytona 500-winning '60 Pontiac from appearance to appearance and happily signing thousands of autographs.
When I asked him if he expected to get a call when the NASCAR Hall of Fame announces its inaugural five-person class on Wednesday, he just laughed. "Not a chance," the 83-year-old said matter-of-factly. "It'll be 20 years before I get in there. I'll be long gone. They'll have to put in all the champions first and I'm not one of them."
But will you have your phone on anyway?
"Yeah," he said with a chuckle, reminding me that he isn't among the 25 announced finalists for this year's class. "Just in case."
Season Tweetings
From Austin Petty, son of Kyle, grandson of Richard, and brother of Adam:
AustinPetty: Never eat bbq chicken at a basketball game.
Ryan McGee
