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Redistricting in Texas

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Politicians in Texas have used improper means of redistricting, so that their parties can attain unfair advantages. Redistricting entails the creation of district boundaries by legislatures. The thirty-six state representatives and state legislatures are elected from various districts in Texas; they make up the Texas legislature. The district boundaries are subjected to review after every ten years, after the completion of the census. The federal government mandates that each district, should have near equal population, and prejudice should not exist(Fraga,2016). Redistricting in Texas has been marred by various controversies. Politicians have adopted gerrymandering, which is improper redistricting to divide voting areas, giving their parties unfair advantages. Gerrymandering has disadvantaged many Texan voters, this is because their votes are rendered meaningless given that they do not count into who will be their representative. This policy report will aid in identifying the drive for partisan gerrymandering and its effect on Texans.

Some people have termed redistricting as anti-democratic process, given that politicians basically decide who their voters will be. Redistricting when done properly, can be used in effecting fair and effective representation. The resulting map from after redistricting affects the election and ultimately the political landscape. Therefore, redistricting has been regarded as a political exercise; that is guided by state legislatures. When one party is in control of the state legislative bodies and the office of the governor it is easier to facilitate gerrymandering. Redistricting has been used by politicians to propel their own agenda. Gerrymandering is undertaken to gain control of either state legislation or congressional representation. This also enables political parties to potentially maintain control over several decades, even if there is a shift in state population. In the U.S gerrymandering is mostly partisan, where it is geared to favour one political party and weaken another (McKee, Teigen &Turgeon,2006).

There are also cases of racial gerrymandering, that aims to weaken the votes of the minority. Gerrymandering a district map has been made possible with advanced computing powers. The geographical information and census data can be used as inputs; mapmakers use computers to process this data to achieve potential map configuration. The computers can distinguish the voter’s preference, this enables the packing and cracking of voters. Packing voter’s entails grouping like-minded voters in one district to limit their influence in other districts. This ensures that the group is given representation in one district and yet denying them representation in other districts. While cracking entails spreading likeminded people in different districts thus diluting their influence.

redistricting should actually not be left to the politicians because it is an important democratic process that influences a lot of things. It is unfair for politicians to choose their voters although indirectly as eventually it may have an effect on the election. In ;2012, a research indicated that states where Democratic legislatures had controlled redistricting, their candidates were able to win the election by about 56 percent of the votes and they acquired 71% of the seats. The Republicans too were guilty of this as states where they controlled the process, they were able to bag 53% of the votes and 72% of the seats (McKee, pg. 308-317). Instead of race there are other factors that can be used to control redistricting including community interest. Communities of interest describes a group that share common cultural, racial, economic or geographic concerns. Communities of interest are more likely to have similar legislative interest. For example, if there is a district that was redrawn and is now composed of more farmers while the other is more composed of city dwellers these two groups are likely to elect representatives that may reflect different aspirations or priorities.

Texas witnesses a seven-year legal battle over their legislative maps. However, the supreme court made a ruling rejecting claims of that they had intentionally drawn out boundaries, to dilute minority voters. The Abbot versus Perez rounds out a string of defeats; this ruling vindicates the Texas republican legislatures strategy of shielding an electoral map deemed discriminative, from judicial correction. After the 2010 census, Texas lawmakers redrew the state legislative and congressional districts in 2011. Some of the minorities; African Americans and Hispanic mounted a legal challenge, intending to challenge the new map. The argument established was that republican lawmakers had participated in racial gerrymandering, that favoured the white Texans voting influence(Lo,2013). The alterations were made, given that the 2012 election were imminent, and it would play a decisive role in that year’s election; this was made possible by the federal court making minor alterations to the 2011 map. The Texas republican adopted the court interim maps, making few alterations in 2013. However, the courts later on ruled that the 2011 map, had been drawn with clear discriminatory intent. However, the state argued that the maps had largely been drawn by the courts(Payne,2013). This shows how the republicans were able to legalise a gerrymandered map through the judiciary.

The democratic process was established to ensure that the community choose their own representatives. However, redistricting has weakened the electoral power of voter. This is because of racial redistricting, whereby minority communities are disadvantaged. Given that minority voters are concentrated in a few districts or are spread among themselves, these explains how the Texan republicans are able to maintain an artificial majority. The diminishing of an individual’s vote poses a threat to democracy. Hillary Clinton was able to garner 43 percent of the votes in Texas; however, the republican party dominates holding 25 whereas Democrats hold 11 seats in the house. Democrats hold 30 percent share of the delegation; this is in direct contrast with the state-wide voting pattern. This argument can hold weight, highlighting how the Republicans might have obtained the majority undemocratically and unfairly. The 2010 census clearly highlighted that 90 percent of new Texan population were minorities. Traditionally these communities have supported Democratic leaders. The ruling by the three judge panel ruled in march citing that the republican law makers were guilty of packing and cracking voters over several districts. The ruling pointed out the congressional districts in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. They cited this as prime examples of gerrymandering. Whereby packing and cracking diluted the minority communities electoral influence. Redistricting has affected the voter turnout in the state.

Various policies can be championed, to bring out redistricting reforms in Texas. Therefore, the state of Texas has decided to hold public input hearings, conducted by the House Redistricting Committee. This exercise will be undertaken in various parts of the state. The aim is to garner feedback from the community on what the next redistricting map should look like. This is because the drawn up maps affect the daily lives of the community. Therefore, boundary lines should be drawn for the benefit of the community rather than the legislatures. The state should invest in public awareness, where they inform the public on the importance of participating in the redistricting process. This can be done through informing the public on tentative hearing schedules and venues. The state of Texas can adopt measures taken up by other states such as California. California has tasked its citizen with the entire process of mapping out boundaries. This is aimed at putting power in the hands of more-independent bodies; this was aimed at taking pure politics out of it. Tactics such as racial gerrymandering should be done away with during redistricting; this will ensure that people will have fair representation.

The next redistricting which is supposed to take place in 2021 is being looked at to see if there will be gerrymandering by the parties. The history of fighting for fair redistricting process in Texas can be accredited to Jose Garza who brought a case to the U.S Supreme court on how Texas lawmakers were drawing maps that seemed to be undermining the people of colour. Gerrymanders in Texas politics is not new and Garzas aim was dismantling the political structures that were undermining people of colour. The most affected are people of colour the Hispanics and Blacks. Although the court has seemed to ruled that the process is fair, people are keen to see what will happen in 2021 now that Redistricting committee has been having dozens of hearings on what to do on new political boundaries. With the mounting pressure for equity and fairness people of colour are hopeful that the new boundaries will not discriminate against them

Every system has its flaws; it would be pretentious to assume that adopting methods taken up by other states will be effective. However drastic steps and measures need to be taken, the outcomes can be re-evaluated. However, reforms around the country have shown that, it is possible for states to make the redistricting process more transparent and involving the necessary stakeholders. Redistricting reform should focus less on partisan control, rather the process should focus more on it making sense to voters. However, while coming up with reforms, it is important to note that, it is a process that is vulnerable to distortion. If done well redistricting can provide an opportunity for the minorities, to elect leaders of their choice; who will be able to represent them in their respective districts.References

Fraga, B. L. (2016). Redistricting and the causal impact of race on voter turnout. The Journal of Politics, 78(1), 19-34.

Lo, J. (2013). Legislative responsiveness to gerrymandering: Evidence from the 2003 Texas redistricting. Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 8(1), 75-92.

McKee, S. C., Teigen, J. M., & Turgeon, M. (2006). The partisan impact of congressional redistricting: the case of Texas, 2001–2003. Social Science Quarterly, 87(2), 308-317.

Payne, M. M. (2013). Redistricting and reapportionment: Reforming Texas district courts. The University of Texas at Dallas.

Nuclear Waste Where does it belong

Nuclear Waste: Where does it belong?

Nuclear waste is best defined as the leftovers from nuclear power. It is very radioactive and unstable and can cause severe, permanent damage to all those in constant contact with it. It is even linked to lung cancer and leukemia. Is this something you want in your neighborhood and around your children? Probably not. Well, the Western Shoshone tribe has to deal with this in their neighborhood. Congress recently passed legislation to dump a lot of the waste from the US on their reservation. I believe that this is not the right thing to do because it endangers lives and I think there has to be another way.

For the most part, nuclear power is one of the cleanest, most efficient forms of energy with the exception of one thing. At a nuclear power plant, heat is generated due to fission. This heat creates steam that turns turbines and makes electricity. The fission occurs due to the nuclear fuel. Nuclear fuel is made of very small pellets of enriched uranium, about the size of a pencil eraser. The fuel will continue to be used until it is spent, meaning it has no effect in generating heat. The spent fuel is the one exception. Once it is spent, it becomes the nuclear waste. This kind of waste is called High-Level Radioactive Waste (HLW) (United States DOE 11). HLW basically consists of the following elements: Krypton-85, Cesium-137, Plutonium-241, and Americium-241 (“Selected” sec. 1-4). I’ll go into more detail about those later, but basically, they all make a very radioactive substance.

Currently, the HLW from all the nuclear power plants are stored on site in giant pools of water. However, these only serve as a temporary spot. The pools are getting full and there’s no other place to put it on site. It has to go somewhere away from people.

As of right now, there is approximately 45,000 metric tons of the spent nuclear fuel on 72 sites across the US. In addition, another 2,000 tons are added every year. By the year 2010, there will be around 60,000 tons total (United States Congress 2). That’s a lot of waste. So where will it all go?

The government says quite simply: Yucca Mountain in Nevada, about 50 miles outside Las Vegas. They believe that Yucca Mountain is the perfect place for all the nuclear waste to go. They plan on digging a giant hole into the mountain and a tunnel system inside. The waste will be kept in a series of containers that will aid in shielding radiation. It will be brought in starting in about 2010. After the site is full, it will be kept open for close monitoring for 100 years. After which, the mountain will be sealed for 10,000 more years and continue to be monitored (Zapler 19).

Yucca Mountain has many characteristics that make it a good place to store the HLW. It is said to be environmentally stable and not prone to natural disasters, such as earthquakes and volcanoes. Putting the waste in the mountain shields everyone from some of the radiation. It seemed like the best place to do this.

Well, it’s not the best place. By putting the waste in Yucca Mountain, it might affect the health of those living around the area. This is not a good plan. One of the reasons why is because its right smack dab on an Indian Reservation, but you would never know that by reading about it. The government considers that land theirs in all of their writing, but they know it belongs to the Western Shoshone tribe under the Treaty of Ruby Valley (“House” par. 6). Because of that, they have sent people to that reservation, as well as some other reservations, to try and convince the tribes that the government can dump radioactive material on their land.

The tribes were offered $100,000 just to consider the proposal, with the promise of multi-millions of dollars more if they agreed. David Leroy, the head of the federal Office of the Nuclear Waste Negotiator, was the man in charge of convincing the tribes. He relied heavily on Indian oratory to get his point across. Honestly, I think this is fairly amusing that a white person would try and use Indian phrases to get them to listen. My favorite quote of his was when he promised that the federal government would be “as flexible as the wind and the sea (Hernandez par. 2+).” However, history has proven otherwise when it comes to most Indian affairs.

Many tribal members who are against this have supposedly been subjected to harassment, physical attacks, and some death threats. “There is so much fear in the community now you could cut it with a cake knife,” said Donalyn Torres from the Mescalero Apache tribe whose tribal council wants to consider waste storage. “If nuclear storage is so safe, the people should consider putting it in their own backyards (Hernandez par. 9).”

Chief Raymond Yowell is very concerned about the waste dumping saying that he and his people have already been subjected to too much radiation because the reservation is just a few short miles away from the Nevada Test Site. Here, over 900 different kinds of atomic bombs have been tested. “…It affected our people, the land, our traditional foods and medicines. Many of those underground tests contaminated the water, the blood of our Mother Earth. A lot of our people are suffering from cancer now. Yucca Mountain will only further contaminate us (“Tribes” par. 11).” Concerning Yucca Mountain, he said, “Yucca Mountain is a sacred site with spiritual and cultural significance in our sovereign territory…” (“House” par. 7).

Tom Goldtooth, the coordinator of the Indigenous Environmental Network, said, “The nuclear industry has waged an undeclared war against indigenous peoples that has poisoned our communities…through…nuclear testing…and even experiments involving Native peoples. We’ve already made countless sacrifices for this country’s nuclear programs (“House” par. 3).”

Currently, the closest community in the nation to a nuclear waste storage site is the Prairie Island Indian Community. The Tribal Council President, Audrey Kohnen, released a statement saying that the community is in favor of the Yucca Mountain site. However, this won’t rid the community of the waste. Every nuclear waste cask that is sent away will be replaced shortly with another (“House” par. 14-15). Even with the Yucca site, they won’t be rid of it all.

The government also told the tribes that the new dumpsite would increase jobs. Donalyn Torres (quoted earlier) said, “…they said it would provide a lot of new positions for jobs, but since this is high-level waste, only robots and highly educated people qualify for those jobs (Hernandez par. 33).”

And it’s not as simple as saying that the Indians can just move off the land. This is their land. The government has taken away the Indians land once, so why should they do it again? Yucca Mountain is also one of the Indians most sacred places. It is where most of their beliefs center. So by them moving off, they are forced to leave the sacred land. Also, in moving off, it won’t be easy for families to stay together. They are used to living close to one another, but if they move, they may not get that chance. It isn’t right to think that the Indians should move because we need to dump our radioactive wastes there.

As if all that wasn’t bad enough, there’s more. Indians aren’t the only ones that will be affected by the HLW dumpsite. There will be highways and railroads constructed across the country leading to Yucca Mountain for the waste to be dropped off. These will go past several cities on an almost daily basis with tons of waste on board, affecting everything in the path. Each shipment by rail might have as much as 240 times the radiation released by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima (Zapler 20).

The government says that the transportation method is very safe and it is a very unlikely that a major accident will happen. They did drop tests on the casks that transport the waste to see if they will break open in a crash. However, it is reported that the crash speed was only 35 miles per hour when most of the trucks carrying them would be going 65-70 mph (United States Congress 11-12). Senator Harry Reid, D-Nev., said regarding the transportation trucks, “The President has created 100,000 targets of opportunity for terrorists who have proven their capability of hitting targets far less vulnerable than a truck on an open highway (“Tribes” par. 13).”

If there was such an accident from the transportation, so much could go wrong. I mentioned earlier the four main parts of HLW. In a major accident, these will become quite a problem. Krypton-85 is a radioactive gas. In an accident, it would be released into the atmosphere and inhaled by those under the plume. Cesium-137 is a metal that burns immediately in the air and will explode in water. In an accident, it would cause a plume of radioactive particles that would be inhaled and ingested by those in the vicinity. Within about 30 seconds, a mixture of Krypton and Cesium would cause people in a building ¼ mile away to inhale 14,500 millirem of radiation. That’s 1450 times the amount received during a normal x-ray. Both of these will cause lung cancer if inhaled (“Selected” sec. 1-2).

Plutonium-241 and Americium-241 have about the same affects. In an accident involving an explosion, particles of each would be released in the air and be inhaled by nearby people. This will cause leukemia and lung cancer (“Selected” sec. 3-4).

There are several other government officials that are against the Yucca Mountain site. Several representatives brought up their reasons why they disagree. They said that originally, in 1982, the Department of Energy was supposed to look at five geologically different sites and to select two of them; one east of the Mississippi and one west. However, in 1987, they claimed that the original act was amended for political, not scientific, reasons so that the only site that could be studied was Yucca Mountain. This was also known by Nevadans as the “Screw Nevada” bill. They also said that the Department of Energy failed to do certain tests, or did them incorrectly so as to get the site approved quicker (United States Congress 10).

Another thought to consider is that Yucca Mountain has the possibility for volcanic action and is directly on a fault line that could lead to earthquakes. The Department of Energy says that this won’t be a problem, but I want to know how they can see 10,000 years into the future. The world will change so much in that many years, but we may not be there to see it because all of humanity will be killed by radiation. Well, maybe it’s not that extreme.

If something does go horribly wrong with the mountain site, nearby communities will have to be evacuated, meaning Indians may have to move out of their land. Families might be separated, but what may be more important, they will be forced to leave their sacred ground.

The Indians and other Americans are wondering if there is any other way to store the waste. There are a few different ways. One is that the waste can stay in the power plants, like it is now. It is a risky option because it is not entirely safe. Many accidents have already happened in the plants, and more will come, especially if there will be more and more waste stored there.

There is a way to recycle the spent fuel using a procedure called reprocessing. In this, uranium and plutonium are removed from the spent fuel. However, this method is much more expensive than mining the uranium, so it is an uneconomical way of doing it (United States DOE 12).

There is also talk about researching a method called transmutation. This is a process that lowers the toxicity levels of the waste. This reduces the storage time from 10,000 years to a simple three hundred (Zapler 21).

The best solution possible is to get rid of nuclear power altogether. We have a great source of energy called the sun, yet we haven’t been doing anything about that. It’s a renewable source and very clean. There’s no waste left at all. And the sun isn’t due to die out in the next few millennia.

Right now, the $58 billion Yucca Mountain project is under way. Don’t worry, the money isn’t coming out of your taxes, it comes from your electric bill (United States DOE 5). There are huge tunnels being drilled into the side of the mountain as you are reading this. In about seven years, it will be ready for the first shipment and storage. So for seven years, the Western Shoshone Indians can live fairly radiation free. However, one of their most sacred sites is being destroyed, but right now, they don’t have much choice.

Only time will tell what happens with the waste; whether an earthquake occurs and breaks the casks open and exposes the HLW to the water, or if a truck tips over near a residential area. Both will be terrible for the air and quality of life, especially for the Indians. “The Navajo language doesn’t even have a word for ‘hazardous,’ the closest word is ‘scary.’ It’s like describing a light bulb to a blind person. It’s a whole different concept (Hernandez par. 35).”

Bibliography:

Works Cited

Hernandez, Juan Avila. “How the Feds Are Pushing Nuclear Waste on Reservations.” The Circle Sept. 1999: 8

Selected Elements of High-Level Radioactive Waste. 2003. The MapScience Center. 24 Apr. 2003

Taliman, Valerie. “House Approves Yucca Mountain.” Indian Country Today 15 May 2002: A1

Taliman, Valerie. “Tribes, States Will Fight Nuke Waste Dump.” Indian Country Today 6 Mar. 2002: A1

United States. Congress. House. Committee on Energy and Commerce. Approval of Yucca Mountain Site: report together with dissenting views. Washington: US GPO, 2002

United States. Dept. of Energy. Yucca Mountain Project Office. Why are Scientists Studying Yucca Mountain?. Washington: US GPO, 1995

Zapler, Mike. “Yucca Mountain.” Planning. Vol. 69 Issue 2: 19

NASCAR Safety with Restrictor Plates

Imagine this, forty-three cars running one hundred and ninety miles per hour around an asphalt track, three and four cars wide, covering a span of about five hundred feet. One mistake by only one of these forty-three drivers and half the field could be gone due to a wreck. The reason for this type of racing is because NASCAR, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, mandates the teams to have special aerodynamic rules and restrictor plates to slow the cars down on the superspeedway tracks such as Daytona and Talladega. CNN Sports Illustrated said that, “The plates slowed speeds, but now the cars are bunched in large groups, racing two and three wide” (CNN1). They go on to say that, “It makes for an exciting race, but some drivers feel it puts them in greater danger” (CNN 1). The easiest explanation of a restrictor plate is best given by Kevin Bonsor and Karim Nice from Marshall Brain’s How Stuff Works.com.

A restrictor plate is a square aluminum plate that has four holes drilled into it. Whole size is determined by NASCAR and varies between 0.875 inches and 1 inch (2.2 to 2.5 cm). Restrictor plates are placed between the carburetor and the intake manifold to reduce the flow of air and fuel into the engine’s combustion chamber, thus reducing horsepower and speed. Restrictor plates were implemented in 1988 following Bobby Allison’s crash into a retaining fence at 210 mph (338 kph), which endangered hundreds of fans. (Bonsor and Nice 6)

It has come to the point now where fans flock to watch the race with anticipation of “The Big Wreck.” The staff of Auto Week magazine wrote, “At Talladega, usually it’s coming off Turn Two, where the track funnels a bit. But with 30 or 40 cars running two-, three- and even four-wide for laps on end, the Big One is guaranteed to happen somewhere, sometime” (Auto Week 1) Racing should not be a sport of anticipation, spectators should not pay big money to go and see a race with the anticipation of a big wreck that would usually involve at least one fourth of the cars in the field. This was not the original intention of racing legends when racing was first started in the Carolinas. The restrictor plates are hurting the sport overall and also endangering drivers.

Jerry Bonkowski, who writes for ESPN tells us “NASCAR originally adopted the plates because of safety concerns that cars were going to fast at Daytona and Talladega”(2). He also goes on further to say, “When Bill Elliot clicked off that record run of 212.809 mph at Talladega nearly 15 years ago, NASCAR’s quick response was to find something, anything, to rob engines of their power” (2). NASCAR did this quickly without haste. NASCAR moved on and passed the restrictor plate rules, but they were only supposed to stay on the cars until a new method was found to slow the cars (Bonkowski). This shows that fourteen years later NASCAR still has done nothing to find an alternative way to slow down the cars.

When a group of cars are packed tight in a bunch it allows a car that is moderately good to run in with cars that have a better set up and would normally run much faster. In a since, “It allows a not so great car, to run with a great car.” This creates serious problems because the cars have such a hard time passing one another since them all, in essence, are the same. Bonkowski from ESPN says, “They make it harder for individual cars to pull out of an aerodynamic draft to pass others” (2). This of course leads to big problems as drivers get closer to the finish of the race and are desperately trying to advance their positions. With that many racers trying their best to advance themselves will inevitably lead to disaster. Once again, NASCAR was not designed for spectators just to wait for a huge wreck. All this is due to the restrictor plate.

Blocking has become a part of NASCAR since these racecar drivers must race under such conditions. This word was never heard of until these rules were implemented. Mark Bradley, who writes for the Atlanta Journal Constitution believes, “Blocking is a big deal in NASCAR, blocking being the polite term for the abject refusal to let another car pass” (1). Godwin Kelly, who is the Motor sports Editor for Speed Magazine, in an interview with Mike Helton, NASCAR president wrote:

It’s been part of the sport,” he said. “If it gets to the point where it’s counterproductive to the racing, then we’ll have to react to it. Blocking is as old as Daytona International Speedway. But if it’s coming to a point that it seems to be detrimental, then we’ll have to address it. (1)

This blocking may have been around a while but was never used often in a race due to the fact that if a racer could pass the car in front of him, then he was obviously faster than that vehicle. The new aerodynamics and restrictor plate allow this to not necessarily be true. A car in front of several others is breaking the air; the cars behind it are riding in a zone where there is little wind resistance. Those cars in essence are pushing the lead car faster, while picking up speed themselves the entire time. This was why several cars

Running nose to tail was much faster than a single car, until the new rule changes came about and ruined racing. Now cars run nose to tail in a line because they can’t use the draft to their advantage. Marty Smith, from Turner Sports Interactive, gives us this interview with Ward Burton after a restrictor plate race.

Example 1, Ward Burton: “I hope they’re proud of themselves. We came down here and tested. A lot of us learned something, but (NASCAR) didn’t learn anything. If this is racing, they can have it and I think everybody in the garage will say that. It’s ridiculous.” (1)

Smith also gives us another interview with Sterling Marlin, the current NASCAR Winston Cup Points leader.

Example 2, Sterling Marlin: “It ain’t the drivers, its NASCAR. You run it all day, you’re going to wreck. Every driver has been telling them in the NASCAR trailer that it’s going to happen. They wanted it to happen. (1)

These are strong words from veteran drivers that should not have to talk this way about a sport that they have grown up around all of their lives. This sport is their job and livelihood.

Here again it is easy to see that NASCAR has good intentions to begin with. They mandated restrictor plates to slow cars down to prevent injury and or deaths. Now the question is, Is NASCAR really helping or hurting the drivers? I think the answer is clear from all the evidence, even though NASCAR originally had good intentions, NASCAR is endangering drivers by making teams run the restrictor plate. It has led to big wrecks, which lead to hurt drivers, and some very expensive damaged machines.

Auto Week Magazine. “The Race Report.” Pg. 41 April 29, 2002 Lexis Nexis. May 2,

Bonkowski, Jerry. “Time for Plates to Go.” ESPN.com February 17, 2002

Bonsor, Kevin, Karim Nice. “How NASCAR Safety Works.” Marshall Brain’s How Stuff Works. May 2, 2002

Bradley, Mark. “Out of the Wrecks Emerge a Steal.” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

February 18, 2002 “1” May 2, 2002

CNN Sports Illustrated. “Lashing Out, Earnhardt Blasts Restrictor Plates on Eve of Pepsi

400.” June 30, 2000 “1” May 2, 2002

Jenkins, Chris. “Speed a Source of Concern at Ultra-Fast Texas Track.” USA Today.com

Kelly, Godwin. “Earnhardt Jr.’s Day is Full of Stunts, but He’s Still Smiling.” Speed

Magazine. February 19, 2002 http://www.news-journalonline.com/2002/Feb/19/ CAR2.htm “1” May 2, 2002

Smith, Marty. “Drivers Dissatisfied with Restrictor-Plate Racing.” NASCAR.com

Bibliography:

Auto Week Magazine. “The Race Report.” Pg. 41 April 29, 2002 Lexis Nexis. May 2,

2002

Bonkowski, Jerry. “Time for Plates to Go.” ESPN.com February 17, 2002

“1” May 2, 2002

Bonsor, Kevin, Karim Nice. “How NASCAR Safety Works.” Marshall Brain’s How

Stuff Works. May 2, 2002