By Mike Mulhern
mmulhern@wsjournal.com

Nope, Kentucky Speedway didn’t make the cut for NASCAR’s 2009 Cup tour schedule, which NASCAR president Mike Helton released Tuesday afternoon.
But Helton and CEO Brian France did bow to the late summer heat in Southern California and move the Labor Day 500 from California Auto Club Speedway to Atlanta Motor Speedway, though why the heat in Atlanta that weekend – even if the race is run Saturday night—should be any more bearable is unclear.
What that move does do, however, is give NASCAR’s Los Angeles stop better weather, in mid-October next year.
And it puts the LA market right in the heart of the championship chase. Whether or not that will be a Sunday afternoon race or a Sunday night race is still up for study.
Helton and France also moved Talladega Speedway to Nov. 1st, the date that Atlanta would have had.
They also moved the Montreal Nationwide event to a weekend of its own. NASCAR was criticized for having no wiggle room when rain hit Montreal earlier this month, that key international event being scheduled the same weekend as the Cup event at Pocono.
And NASCAR added a week off, giving Cup teams four off-Sundays next season.

The NASCAR Frances added Iowa Speedway to the Nationwide tour, the sport’s Triple-A tour, August 1st. That event replaces Mexico City on that tour.
And NASCAR added a Truck series event in Chicago August 28th.
NASCAR used the occasion of the release of the sport’s 2009 tour schedules as a marketing opportunity for some of its key tracks – in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Atlanta-Birmingham.
Crowds have been off this summer at several NASCAR tracks, as the economic slump hits this sport too.
So a lot of Wednesday’s talk was rah-rah.

Atlanta president Ed Clark, who once had the Cup tour’s season finale but gave that back to NASCAR, citing poor weather in November, called his new late season race date “a win-win for all of us.
“We’ve desired a night race for a number of years.”
Gillian Zucker, who runs the LA track for the Frances, has been pushing for a cooler Cup weekend. The Labor Day heat has been brutal, even though that event has started in late afternoon.
“We have to pinch ourselves to be sure this is really happening,” she said.  “We know how complicated the schedule change was to complete.
“This is an emerging market for NASCAR but also a very important one.  Since the track opened in 1997, we’ve seen nothing but growth in this market, even with a less-than-ideal schedule.  What we see here is a real opportunity for people to come out and experience NASCAR in temperate conditions, and we believe it certainly will help with our attendance and help us to continue to grow.”

 
Moving Talladega a few weeks deeper into the chase makes it even more of a wild card in the title playoffs.
“Also, moving to the end of October separates our two events,” Talladega boss Rick Humphries said, with a nod toward Atlanta Motor Speedway, less than two hours away.
What Iowa Speedway brings to the table – particularly with the loss of Mexico City so obvious – is questionable. Still Jerry Jauron, who runs that track for owner Rusty Wallace, points to NASCAR’s Midwestern fan base: “We have a tremendous fan base, with what we believe is enormous growth potential. 
“Our Iowa fans are crazy about racing since we have no professional baseball, basketball or football teams in the state to compete with.”
Perhaps pumping up Iowa will help the France family’s track in Joliet, Ill., four hours east.

The Chicago market is the third largest in the U.S., and it’s key to NASCAR’s growth, which president Matt Alexander knows: 
“We have a lot of great competition, and we’re very proud of the progress we’ve played in trying to establish NASCAR, motorsports and Chicagoland Speedway. 
“A tangible example of our growth is our TV ratings for this year for the NASCAR Sprint Cup series—up 26% compared to last year.”
However adding a Truck event at Chicago does more to pump up the series – which is facing continued sponsorship issues and perhaps Detroit issues too with the high price of gasoline affecting truck sales – than to pump up the track itself.
Helton declined to describe the decision to move the Labor Day event out of Los Angeles as NASCAR realizing the original move – the date belonged to Darlington’s Southern 500 for years – was a mistake.
“The inaugural Labor Day event in California was the addition of a second race in California, and the schedule throughout the 60-year history of NASCAR has been a work in progress to find the right place at the right time for the series,” Helton said.
So, does Atlanta now inherit the ‘Southern 500,’ in effect?
“W certainly don’t think we’re going to replace Darlington…But what we’ve done is given southeastern fans an opportunity to have an event back in the Southeast at a long time NASCAR speedway,” Clark said. "We’ll be celebrating our 50th year of racing next year, and this event certainly is going to be the keystone of that celebration.
“I won’t call it a new start, but almost like a new event.”
However Atlanta has long been plagued with smaller-than-desirable crowds, and weak attendance at Darlington was one reason for the date move to California.
However California’s attendance too has been weak that weekend.
Whether a simple date change will help Atlanta or California is not obvious, by any means.
For one thing, Clark’s decision to move to Labor Day takes his track out of the title chase: “That’s certainly something we took a hard look at. We felt the opportunity to have a night event in a summertime setting on a holiday weekend overshadowed the opportunity to be in the chase.”
Zucker says creative promotion is key: “We already have a bunch of really creative and unique out-of-the-box ideas.
“We have a huge Latino outreach program that’s been extremely successful.  We’ve seen that grow considerably over the past three or four events. 
“And we done some unique things with our partner Miller Lite—a bar poster program all throughout Southern California.
“We have some unique marketing partnerships with the military, and with our area sports franchises, everything from the Angels to college football.”
Jauron, who has the most unusual job here, perhaps, with a track that’s on the rise, agrees:  “I’ve challenged our staff to throw the box away. 
“We’ve only been in existence two years officially next month. This just raises the ante.”
Of course moving from Mexico City to rural Iowa could easily be considered a major step backwards for the sport, whose bosses have been pushing the sport into major markets for several years now.
And what does the future hold for NASCAR, in terms of tracks and schedules? Where does Kentucky Speedway fit in, if it does at all?
“We put the schedule together one year at a time, and this announcement is our most current look at the three national tours,” Helton said. “I don’t know what the future holds, other than that, based on our experience—and if people looked at NASCAR’s reaction to opportunities—we are open to looking at better ways of doing things for the entire industry, and particularly the fans.
“There are a lot of moving parts and pieces in the NASCAR community—whether it’s the tracks or teams or NASCAR—and that’s a good thing. 
“We worked very hard for a long period of time to build this sport to the level of recognition it now gets…and it probably deserves more.
“When we do that, we also ask for the exposure….and we also inherit the responsibility that goes along with that. 
“It’s a wonderful sport, a wonderful lifestyle to be part of. 
“But it doesn’t get any easier. And it shouldn’t. That’s what comes along with the high level of exposure: you get scrutiny…and scrutiny demands sometimes tough decisions. 
“That’s what we asked for. And that’s what we should step up and be prepared to do.”

2009 NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES SCHEDULE
Feb. 7 Budweiser Shootout at Daytona, Daytona International Speedway*
Feb. 15 Daytona International Speedway
Feb. 22 Auto Club Speedway
March 1 Las Vegas Motor Speedway
March 8 Atlanta Motor Speedway
March 22 Bristol Motor Speedway
March 29 Martinsville Speedway
April 5 Texas Motor Speedway
April 18 Phoenix International Raceway
April 26 Talladega Superspeedway
May 2 Richmond International Raceway
May 9 Darlington Raceway
May 16 NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race, Lowe’s Motor Speedway*
May 24 Lowe’s Motor Speedway
May 31 Dover International Speedway
June 7 Pocono Raceway
June 14 Michigan International Speedway
June 21 Infineon Raceway
June 28 New Hampshire Motor Speedway
July 4 Daytona International Speedway
July 11 Chicagoland Speedway
July 26 Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Aug. 2 Pocono Raceway
Aug. 9 Watkins Glen International
Aug. 16 Michigan International Speedway
Aug. 22 Bristol Motor Speedway
Sept. 6 Atlanta Motor Speedway
Sept. 12 Richmond International Raceway
Sept. 20 New Hampshire Motor Speedway
Sept. 27 Dover International Speedway
Oct. 4 Kansas Speedway
Oct. 11 Auto Club Speedway
Oct. 17 Lowe’s Motor Speedway
Oct. 25 Martinsville Speedway
Nov. 1 Talladega Superspeedway
Nov. 8 Texas Motor Speedway
Nov. 15 Phoenix International Raceway
Nov. 22 Homestead-Miami Speedway
* – Denotes non-points event.

2009 NASCAR NATIONWIDE SERIES SCHEDULE

Feb. 14 Daytona International Speedway
Feb. 21 Auto Club Speedway
Feb. 28 Las Vegas Motor Speedway
March 21 Bristol Motor Speedway
April 4 Texas Motor Speedway
April 11 Nashville Superspeedway
April 17 Phoenix International Raceway
April 25 Talladega Superspeedway
May 1 Richmond International Raceway
May 8 Darlington Raceway
May 23 Lowe’s Motor Speedway
May 30 Dover International Speedway
June 6 Nashville Superspeedway
June 13 Kentucky Speedway
June 20 Milwaukee Mile
June 27 New Hampshire Motor Speedway
July 3 Daytona International Speedway
July 10 Chicagoland Speedway
July 18 Gateway International Raceway
July 25 O’Reilly Raceway Park
Aug. 1 Iowa Speedway
Aug. 8 Watkins Glen International
Aug. 15 Michigan International Speedway
Aug. 21 Bristol Motor Speedway
Aug. 30 Circuit Gilles Villenueve
Sept. 5 Atlanta Motor Speedway
Sept. 11 Richmond International Raceway
Sept. 26 Dover International Speedway
Oct. 3 Kansas Speedway
Oct. 10 Auto Club Speedway
Oct. 16 Lowe’s Motor Speedway
Oct. 24 Memphis Motorsports Park
Nov. 7 Texas Motor Speedway
Nov. 14 Phoenix International Raceway
Nov. 21 Homestead-Miami Speedway

2009 NASCAR TRUCK SERIES SCHEDULE

Feb. 13 Daytona International Speedway
Feb. 21 Auto Club Speedway
March 7 Atlanta Motor Speedway
March 28 Martinsville Speedway
April 25 Kansas Speedway
May 15 Lowe’s Motor Speedway
May 23 Mansfield Motorsports Park
May 29 Dover International Speedway
June 5 Texas Motor Speedway
June 13 Michigan International Speedway
June 19 Milwaukee Mile
June 27 Memphis Motorsports Park
July 18 Kentucky Speedway
July 24 O’Reilly Raceway Park
Aug. 1 Nashville Superspeedway
Aug. 19 Bristol Motor Speedway
Aug. 28 Chicagoland Speedway
Sept. 12 Gateway International Raceway
Sept. 19 New Hampshire Motor Speedway
Sept. 26 Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Oct. 24 Martinsville Speedway
Oct. 31 Talladega Superspeedway
Nov. 6 Texas Motor Speedway
Nov. 13 Phoenix International Raceway
Nov. 20 Homestead-Miami Speedway

Note: All dates subject to change.

Agree? Disagree? Don’t just brood. Express yourself here, and make your voice heard clearly in NASCAR headquarters in Daytona and Charlotte and in NASCAR race shops throughout North Carolina and the rest of the country.
We want your reaction, so please comment on this story and offer your own opinions and insight, on this topic, on our NASCAR videos, and anything about NASCAR. Any questions, just ask Mike at mmulhern@wsjournal.com. And bookmark this page for continually updated NASCAR reports: http://independenttribune.net/index.php/sports/mulhern/

By Mike Mulhern
mmulhern@wsjournal.com

Einstein’s brain may have nothing on what’s inside Humpy Wheeler’s head, and the legendary NASCAR promoter, who is finding life after running Charlotte’s Lowe’s Motor Speedway to be just fine, thank you, is – Gasp! – now writing a book.
This one ought to knock your socks off: Wheeler is an insider’s insider, who not only knows where the bodies are buried but probably laid a few to rest himself over his amazing career.
“It will be, ah, interesting,” Wheeler says, in uncharacteristic understatement.
He’s also doing some TV work for SPEED and forming The Wheeler Company to represent some drivers “and to sell some ideas.”
Wheeler has never been at a loss for ideas, which is one reason he’s the best promoter in the business.
Wheeler of course is nothing about understatement. His career has been based on redefining over-the-top.
While others were promoting motorcycle jumps, Wheeler went one-up and promoted Jimmy the Flying Greek, making his jumps in a school bus. At Bristol even.

We’re going to race what? School buses? Only Humpy Wheeler....(Photo: Harold Hinson/Lowes Motor Speedway)

One of his most, er, notorious promotions was with Willy T. Ribbs, the star African-American road racer who Wheeler brought over to NASCAR for what turned out to be an outrageously humorous – and historic – stint, all too brief, for various reasons.
Wheeler was doing ‘diversity’ before it was quite so catchy.
Janet Guthrie too. Some 30 years ago.
And at the moment diversity is a hot topic in NASCAR, with Danica Patrick winning in Indy-cars, with Ashley Force winning in the NHRA, with Juan Pablo Montoya winning in NASCAR, and with Lewis Hamilton winning in Formula One. And with that $225 million lawsuit hanging over CEO Brian France’s head.

Humpy Wheeler has come up with some wacky promotions over the years...(Photo: Harold Hinson/Lowes Motor Speedway)

NASCAR is a fast-paced sport, yes, but is it moving fast enough with diversity? That’s part of the current debate.
Actually NASCAR has been moving pretty darned fast on this issue, for several years now. Maybe not fast enough to suit some, but no one can accuse NASCAR of dragging its feet.
One problem, though, is that NASCAR, perhaps surprisingly, isn’t doing enough to promote what it is doing, so there may be a perception in some quarters that is 10 years out of date.

Rah-rah-rah! Every stock car team needs good cheerleaders.....another Wheeler brainstorm (Photo: Harold Hinson/Lowes Motor Speedway)

Wheeler is just back from Detroit’s Motorsports Hall of Fame banquet, where among the stars inducted Wednesday night, along with well-known men like Buddy Baker, Paul Goldsmith, Michael Andretti and John Force, was Betty Skelton. “She was the forerunner of all women drivers, though she was basically a stunt pilot,” Wheeler said. “And she raced NASCAR….speed runs, when Bill France held those on the beach.
“If they’d held this thing 10 years ago, there’d probably been nobody there. So some progress has been made (in diversifying motorsports), but you don’t really see the progress until you get down in the lower levels, with the Bandoleros and Legends cars. You see a lot more diversity there.”
Creating a more diverse NASCAR face, Wheeler says, “is going to be solved by slow evolution.
“These kids who are racing right now in the lower levels, some of them will be good enough to move up.

Ever see $14 million? Just ask Humpy (Photo: Harold Hinson for Lowe’s Motor Speedway)

“The biggest progress we’re seeing in diversity is among Hispanics. There are some really good Hispanic drivers coming up. And in certain markets, where we have second and third generation Hispanics, with the wherewithal to support a racing program, that’s where you see the first real diversity breakthrough.
“Juan Montoya is an example for them.
“However I think the female and the African-American breakthroughs will come much, much later.
“Janet Guthrie was 30 years ago…and how much has really changed? Not much.
“Germán Quiroga has so much talent it’s incredible. (Quiroga is one of Mexico’s top NASCAR racers, winner last month at San Luis Potosi.)

Bruton Smith’s new NHRA Bellagio of dragstrips, just across U.S. 29. Was this the trigger for the Bruton Smith-Humpy Wheeler split? (Photo: Harold Hinson/Lowes Motor Speedway)

“But we may have to face the fact that we may never see women racing in NASCAR in big numbers. That will probably not happen in the next 10 or 15 years. There just aren’t that many racing at the lower levels, not in the same numbers as Hispanics and African-Americans.”
However NASCAR’s decision to abandon Mexico City certainly doesn’t look like a good PR move in Hispanic circles.
But Wheeler looks at Mexico City from a promoter’s point of view:  “The Mexico City race was very expensive for the track operator to do. And would it be better for NASCAR to have its own series in Mexico, which it now has? To see if this Corona series can grow and prosper on its own, without NASCAR having to bring its own stars in?

Is this the next surprising NASCAR star? German Quiroga is hotstuff at the wheel (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images for NASCAR)

“The Nationwide tour (Mexico City was part of that series) is not at the level of the Cup series. If Mexico City were a Cup deal, then we’d all go…and if we’re going to grow the TV market, that’s the way we’ll have to go.
“But that’s down the road…unless the networks can convince NASCAR they want to expand into a more global type of racing.
“To take the next step, we’ll have to look at the global picture. And the global picture starts in this hemisphere.
“The two sports that take in the most TV dollars are F1 and soccer…and that’s because they take in the world market.
“And to go global, that means road courses in some places, and that means learning how to race in the rain.”
While NASCAR’s Hispanic initiatives are catching hold, the sport is still fighting an uphill battle on the African-American front.

NASCAR needs Adrian Fernandez...but Fernandez has so far shrugged it off (Photo by Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR)

But if Ribbs had made it in NASCAR, when he was here in the 1980s—and he had the talent—things might be quite different today, Wheeler says.
“Willy was just way ahead of his time, that was the problem,” Wheeler says. “If he’d come in and won a lot, he could have been a Lewis Hamilton.”
Hamilton, 23, is tearing up the Formula One world, as F1’s Tiger Wood. But his ‘overnight’ success has come after 10 years of careful nurturing by Team McLaren and Mercedes-Benz.
Detroit car makers have yet to take that determined an approach in NASCAR, though Toyota may be getting ready to shake it all up.
“Lewis Hamilton is changing everyone’s minds,” Wheeler says.
“But the Lewis Hamilton model worked because McLaren helped bring him along. McLaren really began helping Lewis Hamilton out significantly when he was 12. 

Mr. Popularity, for his many innovations (Photo:Harold Hinson for Lowe’s Motor Speedway)

“And the deal is right now Detroit is in tough shape. It is really, really brutal. I just have to imagine that racing is pretty far from everyone’s minds up there. They just want to get through these days of poor car sales.
“What the auto industry is really looking at right now is selling cars. If they had a fairly sizeable, fuel efficient car, sales would be improving significantly.
“Okay, we’ve got all this stuff going on in racing, but answer the marketing question Detroit is trying to answer – where is the car that gets 50 mpg?”
Well, to begin with, NASCAR could get Detroit to provide high mpg pace cars, for a touch of ‘green’ in this gas-guzzling sport.
And NASCAR started the Truck series some 12 years ago because Detroit wanted to use truck racing to sell trucks.  So why not create a new racing series – maybe like the old Baby Grands – that focuses on fuel efficiency?

Humpy Wheeler made Charlotte’s Lowe’s Motor Speedway the NASCAR powerhouse it is today (Photo: Harold Hinson/Lowes Motor Speedway)

Wheeler says “There is talk within the racing industry about ‘Do we really need 358 cubic inch engines? Why can’t we run 250 cubic inch engines?’
“So the auto racing industry isn’t really in sync with what Detroit is thinking right now.
“The consumers are demanding better economy…and that means changing the car as we see it significantly.
“And where does the diversity thing fit into all this? I don’t think it does.
“Yes, they have to sell to Hispanics, and Hispanics want good fuel mileage as much as Anglos do.

Humpy Wheeler’s book could be a sizzler (Photo:Streeter Lecka/Getty Images for NASCAR)

“But we’re in a bit of a quandary about where to go. I don’t think auto racing has any conception about what to do about ‘going green.’
“You talk about ‘green’ and they get this bewildered look on their face.”
But then it took NASCAR 30 years to get unleaded fuel.
“What we need to be focusing on right now is getting in sync with what Detroit wants to do….once Detroit figures out what it wants to do,” Wheeler says.
“Look back at where NASCAR came from back in the 1960s and 1970s, with those 4,000-pound, 427 c.i. behemoths…we’re still in that same mold.
“We’re just not in sync with Detroit right now.
“That’s why I think the diversity program is taking a backseat mentally. People are still promoting it, but I think it’s taking a backseat.”

Agree? Disagree? Don’t just brood. Express yourself here, and make your voice heard clearly in NASCAR headquarters in Daytona and Charlotte and in NASCAR race shops throughout North Carolina and the rest of the country.
We want your reaction, so please comment on this story and offer your own opinions and insight, on this topic, on our NASCAR videos, and anything about NASCAR. Any questions, just ask Mike at mmulhern@wsjournal.com. And bookmark this page for continually updated NASCAR reports: http://independenttribune.net/index.php/sports/mulhern/

By Mike Mulhern
mmulhern@wsjournal.com

Maybe it’s a case of ‘In your face, Bruton Smith,’ but the NASCAR France family Wednesday proposed adding a second Sprint Cup weekend to its Kansas Speedway…while Smith’s own bids for a second Cup event at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and a first-ever Cup event at his planned-to-be-purchased Kentucky Speedway both languish in somebody’s desk drawer.
Lesa France Kennedy, sister of NASCAR CEO Brian France and the daughter of the late Bill France Jr., says she will be asking NASCAR for a second Kansas race weekend, now that the International Speedway-owned facility in Kansas City has put together a proposal for a huge Hock Rock Hotel and Casino – with 3,000 slot machines and 140 gaming tables – at the planned new facility in the second turn of Kansas Speedway.
ISC and The Cordish Company plan the large gambling operation, which would cost about $700 million and which they say would generate $350 million a year.
Kennedy, as part of the bid, says she’ll ask for that second Cup weekend if the track gets the go-ahead for the gaming facility.
How quickly it might all come together? There are plans for a temporary casino, with 2,000 slots and 75 tables, which the proposal says could generate as much as $200 million a year.
The track currently provides about $250 million a year in economic benefit to the Kansas City area, according to the track.
ISC stock closed essentially unchanged at $38.97 on modest volume. It’s 52-week high was $52.41; the low, $35.45.
Kennedy, in a press conference to announce the plans, called Kansas Speedway, now seven years old, “a world-class motorsports facility that continues to provide a significant economic benefit to the community.
“Kansas Speedway not only attracts hundreds of thousands of fans throughout the year but also serves as a catalyst for new development.
“Many positive changes to the community have occurred since our arrival, and we believe our Hard Rock Hotel and Casino proposal will continue the momentum we started and benefit the taxpayers of Kansas.”
Brian France has rejected Smith’s call for a Cup date for Kentucky Speedway on the 2009 tour. And France has had little to say about Smith’s long-running bid for a second Cup weekend at Las Vegas.
And the reaction from Las Vegas Motor Speedway? Smith himself was on a plane and couldn’t be reached for comment, but track president Chris Powell said “If having a casino is a precursor to a second race, then we certainly see where we would justified in having a second Cup race.”

Las Vegas track boss Chris Powell (center, watching Texas president Eddie Gossage (L) talking with Bruton Smith) says if NASCAR considers a casino the key to a second Sprint Cup tour date, Vegas is solid for a second Cup date. (Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Meanwhile Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart continue their search for that first tour win, this week at Michigan International Speedway. They both came up short at Watkins Glen – perhaps a very big surprise, since they’re the two best road racers on the tour.
The Glen winner: Kyle Busch, who is dominating this season like nobody’s business. It was his eighth Cup tour win, and his 16th major NASCAR victory for the year, and Busch has already locked up the top spot in the championship chase, which begins next month at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
So Busch now feels comfortable about expanding his racing schedule again – next week he’ll be running all three NASCAR events at Bristol – 950 laps over four days.
However, with only four races – Michigan, Bristol, California and Richmond – before the championship playoff cut, tensions are rising among the men near the bottom of the top-12.
Stewart, with seconds the last two weeks, at least is having a better season than Gordon, whose year has been all-but woeful.
“I am a lot more comfortable with the momentum we have going right now,” Stewart says. “The last two weeks have shown how focused our team is at the job at hand.”
Stewart, who is leaving the Joe Gibbs camp at the end of the year, has a press conference scheduled for Friday at the Michigan track to announce more details of his new Cup team, including his new teammate, expected to be Ryan Newman.

New teammates: owner-driver Tony Stewart (L) and soon-to-be-teammate Ryan Newman should make it all official Friday at Michigan (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)

Making the cut may seem assured. Stewart has moved up to seventh in the standings, and he’s 138 points ahead of 13th-place Clint Bowyer, one of the men on the hot seat, on the outside looking in.
But Stewart is cautiously nevertheless: “You have to be cautiously aggressive.
“You still have to keep in mind that if you take a chance and don’t finish a race, you’ll lose a lot of points. You can’t afford to take too many unnecessary chances.”
So Stewart is points racing? “We’ve got a couple of weeks here where we can try things and have that flexibility,” he says.
“But the good thing is we’re not struggling.
“We have the ability to try new things if we want to, because of where we are in the points. We’re in a good spot.  Our performance the last couple of weeks has shown that we’re finally hitting our marks.”

These guys have had their run-ins on the track over the years, but they should work well together as teammates...unless owner-driver Tony Stewart (L) gives Ryan Newman some ‘team orders’ (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images for Eldora Speedway)

If Stewart wants to win at Michigan, maybe he should take a page from the Dale Earnhardt Jr. notebook and focus on fuel mileage.
“I realize we won the last time out at Michigan, but we need to be racing better overall,” Earnhardt grumbled. “Yeah, we rolled the dice and gambled on fuel strategy. But a win is still a win, however you get it, and you’re no less proud.
“This has by far been my most consistent year; this has certainly my best season to date.
“But I really want to be racing for wins every week, not just being competitive.”

Winning on gas mileage is like kissing your sister. But Dale Earnhardt Jr., here with owner Rick Hendrick after winning Michigan in June, says he’ll take ‘em any way he can get ‘em. But it would be nice to see Junior kicking butt out on the track instead of just stroking to make the chase, and he agrees (Photo by John Harrelson/Getty Images for NASCAR)

In this sport nobody is ever really satisfied, it would seem. But Tony Eury Jr., Earnhardt’s crew chief, certainly deserves a pat on the back for building this team into a championship contender – the hardest part of the chase sometimes is in the year’s first 26 races: “There is a lot more stress in making the chase than there is in the chase itself,” Eury says.
“Most of these tracks in the chase you have been to once already this season and have a baseline of what to expect. There are good tracks for us in the chase, like Lowe’s and Talladega.
“But there is a lot of stress right now for those guys on the bubble. It’s a dogfight from 11th to 14th. And they are getting more conservative, because they know that things are happening each week and one little miscue can send them away. You won’t see those guys take as many chances.
“Somebody who is a long-shot might take one, but most of the guys are going to be conservative, because they don’t want to lose any more than they’ve got. They want to wait on the other team to have that mistake. So it’s basically a game of who’s going to mess up first.”

Clint Bowyer has a lot on his mind, and his back is to the wall in the fight to make the championship chase, with four to go before the Richmond cut (Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)

One man under particular pressure is Clint Bowyer, now 13th after finishing 23rd at the Glen when fuel mileage strategy went awry. Bowyer is chasing Matt Kenseth (22 points ahead of him), Kevin Harvick, and Greg Biffle.
Bowyer and Harvick are two of Richard Childress’ drivers, and the team’s third man, Jeff Burton, concedes the operation has hit too many potholes this summer.
“We haven’t run as well in the past two months as we would have liked,” Burton said of his own team. “We haven’t been terrible but we haven’t been great either.
“We feel good about where we are now, but there is a lot of racing left.
“We haven’t run well at Michigan as we would have liked to, but we have put a lot of effort in to finding a way to be better. There’s something about that track we don’t understand…and I’m obviously part of that equation. What I’m looking for in a car and what the car actually does is very hard to achieve.

Jeff Burton was hot, but now he’s not. Car owner Richard Childress gets kudos for kicking off The Childress Institute at Wake Forest’s Baptist Medical Center....but what’s happened to his NASCAR teams. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images )

“So we’re approaching Michigan with an open mind and a different thought process on how to get it done.
“Michigan has been our biggest challenge, as far as two-mile tracks are concerned.”
And the Childress group as a whole? “I think we’re behind a little bit,” Burton says. “I don’t think we’re grossly behind, but if you look at the speed Jimmie Johnson and his team produce, the speed Kyle Busch and his team produce, we haven’t been able to do that.
“We do really well in a lot of areas, but we’ve got to find a way to create some speed.
“Numbers don’t lie, and if you look at Jimmie and Chad Knaus, they have set a really high standard that’s hard to keep up with. We’re a little behind them. But I believe we can get there.”

Lesa France Kennedy (R) and Betty Jane France. When they put their heads together, the rest of the family listens. (Photo: Nick Laham/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Agree? Disagree? Don’t just brood. Express yourself here, and make your voice heard clearly in NASCAR headquarters in Daytona and Charlotte and in NASCAR race shops throughout North Carolina and the rest of the country.
We want your reaction, so please comment on this story and offer your own opinions and insight, on this topic, on our NASCAR videos, and anything about NASCAR. Any questions, just ask Mike at mmulhern@wsjournal.com. And bookmark this page for continually updated NASCAR reports: http://independenttribune.net/index.php/sports/mulhern/

By Mike Mulhern
mmulhern@wsjournal.com

In a surprising move Bobby Hutchens, long-time engineering head at Richard Childress Racing, is moving over to Dale Earnhardt Inc. to become vice president of competition.
Hutchens, who has been general manager for Earnhardt-Childress Racing Engines, a collaborative motor development operation owned jointly by Childress and Teresa Earnhardt, should not only shore up the faltering DEI operation but it should also tighten relations between the Childress and DEI camps.
DEI, until finally signing Martin Truex Jr. last week, had appeared on a very rocky road. It lost Dale Earnhardt Jr. last season, and it will be losing Mark Martin at the end of this season.
Childress himself, because of his long ties with the late Dale Earnhardt, has a special role in DEI.

John Story, DEI’s head of ‘motorsports operations,’ said adding the Winston-Salem engineer “is another piece of the puzzle that we feel will definitely further strengthen our organization.
“He brings two decades of experience and a tremendous amount of knowledge to our race teams.”
Hutchens (N. C. State, 1982) is a Bowman Gray Stadium Modified regular who was key to many of Childress’ championships with the late Earnhardt. He joined Childress in 1989 and moved up to the key role as vice president of competition. He has been GM for the engine development arm since it was created in early 2007.
Hutchens will face the unenviable job of helping rebuild DEI. “Hopefully in the next few weeks and months we can begin to chart a path that will see Dale Earnhardt Inc. win a lot of races and compete for championships,” Hutchens said.
“I feel my experience at RCR will be a great benefit and pay big dividends in both the areas of car and engine development. Hopefully we’ll all be very happy with what we are able to accomplish.”

Bobby Labonte escaped this big crash relatively unscathed. (Reed Sorenson drives away after being one of nine cars involved in a wreck that halted Sunday’s race at Watkins Glen) (Photo Credit: Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Meanwhile Bobby Labonte is shaking off the effects of Sunday’s hard crash at Watkins Glen.
“I’m probably as guilty as anyone of not giving NASCAR enough credit for all of the safety initiatives they have introduced to our sport in the last five years,” Labonte said.
“I’ll tell you, all it takes is to be involved in an accident like we had at the end of the race at Watkins Glen to send you a reminder. 
“There is no doubt this is the safest race car in the world.
“We don’t think of road courses as places where hard wrecks like that can occur.  But everything in the car worked like it was designed to do. 
“I appreciate NASCAR bringing safety to the forefront and keeping it there.”
Labonte was taken to a local hospital for a checkup after the late race crash, which was triggered when rookie Michael McDowell clipped David Gilliland coming out of the last turn onto the frontstretch.

Bobby Labonte is thankful for NASCAR’s safety work, after Sunday’s bad crash (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

The Glen race, which was red-flagged for more than 40 minutes to clean up that wreckage, was a TV disappointment for ESPN, pulling only a 3.6 final household rating, down from the 4.1 for the 2007 event. That means 3.4 million homes were tuned into the race, compared to 3.9 million a year ago.

Mike Skinner gets a new Sprint Cup ride, for the next few weeks (Photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images)

A minor shakeup, with the hint of more, is underway at Michael Waltrip Racing. Veteran Mike Skinner will take over the Toyota that Michael McDowell has been running this season. Skinner will be in the car at Michigan this weekend and at Bristol and California in coming weeks.
Ostensibly the move is to help “evaluate” that part of the still struggling Waltrip operation.
Waltrip himself said “We asked Mike Skinner to evaluate areas where we can improve. I thought he did a really nice job of working with Red Bull and AJ Allmendinger earlier this year. And our team could use the same experienced insight.”
With sponsorship problems looming, McDowell’s future could be on the line, of course.
“Michael Waltrip Racing is fully committed to our sponsors, the success of our race teams and ensuring Michael McDowell, Josh Wise, David Reutimann and I have the necessary tools to succeed as drivers,” Waltrip insists.
“We feel the same way about Michael McDowell as we did when we signed him.
“But this is the toughest, most competitive form of racing in the world, and I know Michael and our team can benefit from Skinner’s input.”

Michael Waltrip has a lot on his mind right now...and he’s calling on Mike Skinner to give him a baseline (Photo by Todd Warshaw/Getty Images)

McDowell will return to the ride at Richmond Waltrip said.
“I support doing whatever it takes to improve the performance of our team,” McDowell said. “No driver wants to get out of the car, but I understand that every part of our program needs to be evaluated, and that certainly includes me.”
Skinner has been a Toyota man ever since the car maker joined NASCAR several years ago, and he’s won seven Truck races and 31 poles.
“Michael Waltrip and I have been friends for a long time,” Skinner said. “I know it’s tough for drivers like Michael McDowell when they make the big jump to the NASCAR Sprint Cup series. But Michael has done a really good job in a sport that’s fiercely competitive.
“I look forward to us working together.”

Michael McDowell is having a typical rookie season, a bit ragged (Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Agree? Disagree? Don’t just brood. Express yourself here, and make your voice heard clearly in NASCAR headquarters in Daytona and Charlotte and in NASCAR race shops throughout North Carolina and the rest of the country.
We want your reaction, so please comment on this story and offer your own opinions and insight, on this topic, on our NASCAR videos, and anything about NASCAR. Any questions, just ask Mike at mmulhern@wsjournal.com. And bookmark this page for continually updated NASCAR reports: http://independenttribune.net/index.php/sports/mulhern/

By Mike Mulhern
mmulhern@wsjournal.com

Brad Daugherty, already the most visible African-American in NASCAR, with his 20 years as an on-and-off team owner in the sport’s Triple-A ranks, and with his current role as TV analysist for ESPN’s Sprint Cup coverage, will be even more high-profile in the coming weeks and next season—because he’s stepping up his game and becoming a Cup team owner full-time.
And that should be a big step forward for NASCAR’s long-running diversity program.
Striking while the iron is hot, the Asheville native and former UNC/NBA basketball star has bought into partnership with Tad Geschickter, the former advertising exec who has been running a Nationwide (Busch) team the past few years. And the two will be campaigning Marcos Ambrose on the Cup tour next season full-time, Daughtery says.
Daugherty says he also plans to run two NASCAR Late Model teams “with drivers of color.”
Geschickter’s team works out of the same shop with the Woods, and the two were partners for two years until splitting earlier this season. However the two are still obviously close—Ambrose won Saturday’s Nationwide race at Watkins Glen in the Daugherty-Geschickter Ford and Ambrose nearly won Sunday’s Cup race at the Glen in the Woods’ Ford, finishing third.
Ambrose’s Saturday win was a breakthrough for the Australian, who has moved to North Carolina to try to make his mark in NASCAR.

TV’s Brad Daugherty knows NASCAR inside out, and now he’s putting his money where his mouth is—as a new Sprint Cup team owner (Photo: ESPN)

David Hyder, the Woods’ new crew chief, says he’s been amazed by Ambrose: “He could be the very best road-course driver I’ve ever seen. It all worked out. We came out third, so I’m happy and tickled to death.”
And Ambrose’s run Sunday was even more remarkable because he had to start at the rear of the field.
“I kept watching his lap times, and they didn’t fall off in a long run like a lot of the cars did,” Hyder said. “He stayed consistent and kept the car under him all day. We looked at the tires the first stop, and at that point I figured it was going to be a pretty good day if everything fell our way from there on out.
“Anytime you can finish in the top-five in this series, you’re doing your job. And certainly it’ll help us in the future.”
However good a road racer Ambrose is, though, his work on NASCAR’s ovals is still iffy.

Chrissy Wallace, NASCAR’s top female racer this season, will do her part for NASCAR’s diversity program this week when she, accompanied by her father racer Mike Wallace, rings the closing bell Tuesday at the New York Stock Exchange—a good 4 p.m. PR lick on CNBC. Wonder what questions Maria Bartiromo might ask. And does NASCAR get credit for this photo-op....or her sponsor Toyota? (Photo by John Harrelson/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Eddie Wood, the team owner, has been struggling to right his legendary team for some time now, and what happens next, well, that remains to be seen.
“You could feel all day long that nothing went wrong, and your pit stops are okay, and everybody did what they ought to do...so you feel like it’s going to be a good day,” Wood said of Sunday.
“Marcos has done one heck of a job for his first time in a Cup car (at the Glen).
“We needed this so badly. I think this is our first top-five in a long time.”
Recently adding Hyder, who worked with the Woods a few years ago, “has just made a world of difference,” Wood said. “We ran well last week at Pocono. And we had a good car at Sonoma too.
“Sometimes things will fall into place for you.
“Any time you have a good run it creates enthusiasm.”

Marcos Ambrose talks with the Woods’ crew chief David Hyder at Watkins Glen (Photo by Geoff Burke/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Ambrose himself is just riding the wave....which has been very up and very down too.
“We came up out of the truck so well we were too scared to change anything, and the car was flopping around a lot during the race, though it had a lot of grip,” Ambrose said of Sunday. “It was just real tough to drive. So I just tried to stay clean as best I could there and pass cars cleanly and just pick away at it.
“I really had no idea where we were at until the last pit stops.
“I’m just so proud of the Wood brothers for giving me a piece that I could get out there and give it my best with...and a chance to go Cup racing.
“I don’t want to be labeled a road racer. And by the way I am 10th in the Nationwide series standings.

Marcos Ambrose points out he’s not just a road racer from Down Under

“I’m trying to make it as a NASCAR driver ‘full-stop,’ not just a road racer.
“I’m just really excited I’ve been given an opportunity and I’ve able to be making the most of it. You don’t get many chances in life to do something special like this.
“I’m just really proud...and I hope it can give the Wood brothers a shot in the arm that they need to really get the momentum to move forward.”

Ambrose said he could have pressed with the issue with Tony Stewart at the end, when he was chasing Stewart for second, behind eventual winner Kyle Busch.
But Ambrose said he needs to earn respect too: “I just really want to be respectful to the guys who are doing it week-in and week-out. It’s not my place to stick my nose in and ruin someone else’s day that’s fighting for the (championship) chase.
“If I was going to pass Tony, I was going to do it clean. I really thought about it. I wanted to have a crack at it. But I just wasn’t close enough.
“I didn’t get the run up the hill through the esses to get him into the ‘bus stop’ (chicane).
“The difference between second and third was small...compared to the negative it would have been had I taken out one of these chase guys and gotten a bad reputation.”

Marcos Ambrose, who drives for both the Wood brothers and Brad Daugherty, is suddenly NASCAR’s newest sensation...but can he back it up at Michigan?  (Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Ambrose’s run was certainly a crowd pleaser: “I wasn’t overtaken all day, which I’m proud of, and we did a lot of passing.
“You have to have the right strategy when you come from the back. It’s not all about passing cars; it’s about having the right calls in the pits too. And David Hyder did a great job, stopping us at the right time.
“It’s been a great two days on strategy, to be honest with you.

Aussie newcomer Marcos Ambrose leads the Saturday pack through the esses at Watkins Glen (Photo: John Harrelson/Getty Images for NASCAR)

“I’m driving for three teams this year, first time I’ve ever done that. So I’m losing helmets and earplugs, boots because I’m so disorganized between the three trailers.”
The finish was the first top-five for the Woods in more than three years.
But Ambrose had them in position to win at Sonoma in June too, until he got rear-ended late, which broke the transmission. “I felt bad for breaking the gearbox at Sonoma because I think we were going on for a strong top-10 for them,” Ambrose said.

Marcos Ambrose (21) chasing Tony Stewart down the stretch at Watkins Glen, hoping to get close enough to rattle his cage (Photo by Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR)

“They’ve had a tough run, no doubt about that. I hope I can play my part in helping them get back on track.
“The problem is bigger than one person. This is a tough sport. You’ve got to be 100-percent committed and have the resources behind you to make it work.
“I hope they can turn it around. It’s just great I can give them a bit of a lift.”
And Ambrose in turn. “I’ve dragged my family a long way away from friends and family down-home,” he concedes. “It’s just a lot of commitment.
“But when you have a weekend like this it validates the choices I’ve made.
“It’s a big, bad world out here in NASCAR-world...and I’m just pleased to have a weekend like this to remember.
“We’ve got a fair chance of getting humbled next week at Michigan, so I’m going to have a really good five days to enjoy this.
“I’ve gone down this road before, and races come and go—and you’ve got to stay level. You don’t want to get too high when the going’s good, and you don’t want to get too low when the going’s bad.”

When it comes to NASCAR road courses, like Montreal’s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve here, Marcos Ambrose holds a mean wheel....and crew chief David Hyder says the Aussie may be the best road racer he’s ever seen (Photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Agree? Disagree? Don’t just brood. Express yourself here, and make your voice heard clearly in NASCAR headquarters in Daytona and Charlotte and in NASCAR race shops throughout North Carolina and the rest of the country.
We want your reaction, so please comment on this story and offer your own opinions and insight, on this topic, on our NASCAR videos, and anything about NASCAR. Any questions, just ask Mike at mmulhern@wsjournal.com. And bookmark this page for continually updated NASCAR reports: http://independenttribune.net/index.php/sports/mulhern/

Marcos Ambrose, winner Saturday at Watkins Glen for team owner Brad Daugherty, nearly made it 2-for-2, with a strong run Sunday in Len and Eddie Wood’s Ford too (Photo by Geoff Burke/Getty Images for NASCAR)

By Mike Mulhern
mmulhern@wsjournal.com

Kyle Busch made Jeff Gordon eat a little crow Sunday, completing a NASCAR road course sweep this season with a surprisingly easy victory over teammate Tony Stewart and stunning Marcos Ambrose in a crash-marred afternoon at Watkins Glen International.
The win was Busch’s eighth Sprint Cup victory of the season and guarantees he’ll be the tour leader when the championship chase kicks off next month at Loudon, N.H.
Gordon, one of the stock car tour’s best road racers, had picked Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards as slight title favorites over Busch, pointing to Busch’s all-out racing style as perhaps too hard in a championship race.
But Busch soundly whipped Gordon and everyone else at the Glen, adding this victory to road course wins at Mexico City in April and Sonoma, Calif., in June.
It was a one-two victory for Toyota.

Bobby Labonte was injured in a savage crash near the frontstretch pit road at Watkins Glen during Sunday’s NASCAR stop at the legendary upstate New York track. He was taken to a nearby hospital for examination.  (Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Len and Eddie Wood have a keeper in Marcos Ambrose, who had a great shot at winning Sunday’s NASCAR Cup event at Watkins Glen. (Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Last lap at Watkins Glen, and Kyle Busch (18) gets Sprint Cup win No. Eight of the year, over Tony Stewart, Marcos Ambrose, and Juan Pablo Montoya (Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Agree? Disagree? Don’t just brood. Express yourself here, and make your voice heard clearly in NASCAR headquarters in Daytona and Charlotte and in NASCAR race shops throughout North Carolina and the rest of the country.
We want your reaction, so please comment on this story and offer your own opinions and insight, on this topic, on our NASCAR videos, and anything about NASCAR. Any questions, just ask Mike at mmulhern@wsjournal.com. And bookmark this page for continually updated NASCAR reports: http://independenttribune.net/index.php/sports/mulhern/

Better get used to this: Kyle Busch may be practicing his championship pose for the NASCAR tour’s Homestead-Miami finale (Photo by Jerry Markland/Getty Images for NASCAR)

By Mike Mulhern
mmulhern@wsjournal.com

Hey, remember the Woods?
The legendary stock car team, that ran for years out of a shop just north of Winston-Salem, up in Stuart, Va., suddenly has an ace in the hole at the wheel of their Ford: Aussie Marcos Ambrose.
And if this thing pans out in Sunday’s race at Watkins Glen – admittedly a very big if – the Woods, Len and Eddie, and patriarch Glen and Leonard, could be back in the NASCAR win column for the first time in a long, long, long time.
Get it now, Ambrose is hot.
The little-known racer trying to make in NASCAR, a rookie on the Sprint Cup tour, and a journeyman, trying to land a steady ride, had a shot to win at Sonoma in June with the Woods. He ran as high as second at Bruton Smith’s northern California track, but a gearbox failure 26 laps from the finish – after he got rear-ended by Elliott Sadler—doomed him and the Woods.
And Ambrose had a great shot to win last weekend’s NASCAR Nationwide event at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, battling for the lead all afternoon only to get foiled late by the rain. Ambrose had the quickest car at Montreal, but NASCAR red-flagged the race—while he was running third and awaiting a final pit stop to regain the lead—and called it a day when rain got too heavy.
But Saturday at the Glen Ambrose finally broke through, winning the Nationwide 200, and setting himself up for Sunday’s Cup event with the Woods.

Wow! Is that Richard Petty winning again? Nope, it’s Marcos Ambrose. A star is born? Maybe so. (Photo by John Harrelson/Getty Images for NASCAR)

And Ambrose had the Woods smiling when he posted some of the quickest practice laps Saturday in their Ford: “It’s not every day you can say you topped the charts at the Cup level. We’re really pleased with that.
“It’s a real privilege to drive for the Wood brothers, and I just hope I can play my part in getting them back on track.”
The Woods have struggled mightily lately, and they really don’t have a full-time regular at the wheel. If Ambrose can show something Sunday at the Glen, it could be a sorely needed shot in the arm for the Woods.
However Ambrose will have to start dead-last…which means he’ll have his hands full. “I said to the guys ‘Make it comfortable, because I’m going to have to be aggressive to drive past some cars.
“We might not have the fastest piece, because we’re going to set it up to be comfortable so I can race it well.
“We’re going to have to be smart out there. I want to finish the race and get them some momentum.”
Ambrose is behind the eight-ball, because he not only has very little NASCAR experience but he also has virtually no experience on the fast Watkins Glen course. Of course that was no problem Saturday.
“It’s an old-school track—rough,” Ambrose says.
Well, that may well suit Ambrose, who is a rough driver himself, as he showed in Mexico City earlier this year.
Patience? He just laughs: “I’m not very patient…so we’re in trouble.”

Now that’s a smile! Marcos Ambrose surprised at Sonoma in June, surprised again last weekend at Montreal, and finally won Saturday at the Glen. Now what can he do in the Woods’ Ford in Sunday’s Sprint Cup race at Watkins Glen? (Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Ambrose isn’t the only guy who may make this Glen race one for the books.
Robby Gordon wants to make a game of it too Sunday. But with rain washing out Friday qualifying, he’ll have to start 31st, and track position is so important on road courses, where passing is tricky. So Gordon may be worth the price of admission, since he’s one of NASCAR’s finest – and most daring – road racers.
“I think we can have a good day,” Gordon says, realizing his sponsorship plans for 2009 – and that’s a $20-million-plus nut to crack – may hinge on how well he does at the upper New York state track.
If nothing, Gordon should make the afternoon exciting: “It a fun track to race.  You can carry a lot of speed around, and there never is a dull moment in the car.”
So deep in the field for the start, Gordon realizes “You have to have some luck.  Running in the back is tough.
“I’m going to have to pick my spots where to pass, and not put my car in a position where I can wreck it or run it off the road.
“The key for us will be to put ourselves up near the front to be in position to make a run that last 20-lap dash.”

Robby Gordon starts Sunday NASCAR race at Watkins Glen in a deep hole, after rain washed out qualifying (Photo by Geoff Burke/Getty Images for NASCAR)

And David Gilliland is also on the hot seat at the Glen, needing a good run – like his spectacular performance at Sonoma in June, where he came within a hair of an amazing upset win – to land sponsorship for struggling car owner Doug Yates.
“Confidence and momentum go a long ways, and we’ve been building some momentum,” Gilliland says. “We’ve had some strong runs, just haven’t had the finishes to show for them.
“But we’ve had some great race cars, and a lot of that stems back to Sonoma—I think that was a turning point for our organization.
“It showed these guys that ‘Hey, we can run up front. We can finish up front.’”
Gilliland concedes his lack of experience at the Glen could hamper him. “But I definitely have a lot of confidence in the car and feel like I can do it.”
Gilliland’s Sonoma run probably shouldn’t have been so surprising, since he’s got plenty of lap time there. But it was an emotional afternoon – “There were a lot of emotions,” he says of that day. “We’ve had our share of difficulties in this series. And that was a day I’ll never forget, for sure.”

David Gilliland had the car to beat at Sonoma....what can he do in Sunday’s race at Watkins Glen? (Photo by Jerry Markland/Getty Images for NASCAR)

This Glen weekend has already shaped up as a strange one in several respects, and now Boris Said in a Richard Petty Dodge? Well, when rain knocked Said out of the Sunday field Robbie Loomis, Petty’s general manager, made a quick call, and Said said yes to running in the car that Kyle Petty had planned to drive.
“Before I could say yes, I had to check with Ford, because they have been so good to me this year,” Said said. “They gave me their blessing, and now I get to race.”
Said is one of the world’s best road racers, and he’s still trying to find a bigger niche in NASCAR. Sunday’s run, however, may not be a break – “I’m kind of on a different page,” Said concedes. “If I were racing my car, I’d go all out and take all kinds of chances to win.  But when the Pettys asked me to do this, the most important thing is to get their car in the top-35 in owner points.  So if I can finish in the top-10, that will be a successful day for the 45 team. 
“To take a lot of chances, I just won’t, because I don’t want to go off-track and get a 40th.”
Then again it’s a suddenly new deal all the way around for Said and the Pettys. “It’s really getting to know the team,” Said says. “I’ve never worked with anybody over in the Petty camp, I’ve never driven the car or sat in it before.  That’s the tough part. 
“And the level of communication won’t be there either.
“But last year I got to drive for the Wood brothers, and now the King. I told Richard I want a bonus if I finish in the top-10— I want a signed Richard Petty hat that I can put on my wall.  I think that would be the coolest thing.”

Boris Said got rained out of qualifying for Sunday’s Sprint Cup race at Watkins Glen, but Richard Petty came to his rescue (Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images for NASCAR)

The Glen surprise could be Dale Earnhardt Jr., on the front row for the start after NASCAR set the starting grid by point standings following Friday’s rain. But then Earnhardt undoubtedly picked up a few tricks from road racing veteran Ron Fellows, who won at Montreal last weekend in Earnhardt’s own Nationwide car.
“He is a good guy, and I have known him for a long time,” Earnhardt says of the well-respected international racer. “But he is a hard act to follow…so I have my work cut out.
“We became friends back in ‘99 (Earnhardt’s break-in season in NASCAR), and I had a lot of respect for him. We got to work together again with Corvette in 2001; he was a teammate when I drove with my father. He has always been glad to help.
“There are people that will help you….but there is a difference in the guy that will help you and the guy that is glad to help you. He is one of those guys happy to lend a hand however he can. He just likes to help people and see them do good.
“He is still a far superior road racer than a lot of the Cup guys in this sport that are regulars. So it’s good to be able to hang out with him.”

Crew chief Tony Eury Jr. (L) talks with Dale Earnhardt Jr. during practice for Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Watkins Glen (Photo by Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Earnhardt’s former teammate at DEI, Martin Truex Jr., has decided not to fight DEI over his contract and just stick it out one more year, even though Truex was vigorously trying to get his release so he could move to another team.
Earnhardt, who knows what it’s like to deal with DEI, says Truex probably made the best move: “It gives Martin another year, and he can see what the landscape is like (for 2010).
“What he did was take the best opportunity, and that was staying where he was. And maybe next year he will have a better opportunity somewhere else…or maybe it will still be where he is.
“I didn’t get in the middle of it. I didn’t talk to Martin. I didn’t talk to Max Siegel (the contract negotiator at DEI). But I am glad they have chosen to do what they did. I think it is good for both of them.
“Martin has a pretty good relationship with his team. He is the premier driver for that whole company.
“So I think Martin made a wise decision to wait it out another year.”

Martin Truex Jr, who just agreed to drive one more year for DEI, doesn’t look too happy (Photo by Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR)

But then Earnhardt has his own business issues – he’s still looking for a sponsor for his Nationwide team for 2009….so maybe Fellows’ win may help.
“I would hope I wouldn’t have a difficult time finding a sponsor,” Earnhardt says. “We have a great team, that runs well and gets a lot of valuable recognition and television time.
“We are talking to a group of people, and hopefully one of those will be a great fit for us.
“But it is a challenge. And I wasn’t anticipating facing this challenge this season.
“Still, it’s part of the business.”

Ron Fellows, holding up his Montreal trophy, draws praise from Dale Earnhardt Jr. for helping him on NASCAR’s road courses. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images for NASCAR)

And Earnhardt isn’t the only Nationwide car owner struggling for dollars. That’s one reason NASCAR has backed off introducing the car-of-tomorrow in that series.
“It really throws a lot of options up in the air when you are talking about bringing the car-of-tomorrow into the Nationwide series,” Earnhardt says. “Depending on where your company is in its growth, you can look at opportunities in Cup (instead of Nationwide) if the sponsorships are there….and I might have a better opportunity finding a sponsor in the Cup series than I would in the Nationwide Series.
“And if I have to build all-new race equipment, and if I can make more money finishing in the back one-third of the Cup series as I can in the front one-third of the Nationwide series…..”

Jeff Gordon, who sorely needs a win this season and could get it Sunday at Watkins Glen International, says he thinks teammate Jimmie Johnson and Ford’s Carl Edwards have a championship ‘edge’ over tour points leader Kyle Busch (Photo by Jerry Markland/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Of course the man to beat Sunday has to be Jeff Gordon….or maybe Tony Stewart. They’re the two best on the tour at this type of track. But, surprisingly, they’re both still winless this season.
Stewart’s teammate Kyle Busch has been the tour’s hottest driver, and as the top man in the standings he’s got the best starting spot Sunday.
However Jeff Gordon says he and teammate Jimmie Johnson “are turning the heat up….”
If Johnson were as good on road courses as Gordon, then Johnson would be the man to beat at the Glen. But road racing still doesn’t come quite that naturally to Johnson.
Gordon says it’s that point in the season where momentum starts to play a bigger and bigger role, with the start of the championship chase looming: “Right now most of us think more about momentum than we do anything else….

So who’s your money on in this year’s NASCAR championship: Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Busch (here), or Carl Edwards?  (Photo: Toyota Motorsports)

“I have always said how much talent Kyle has and the respect I have for him….But where people in the past (with as much of a lead as Busch currently does) have coasted, that is not Kyle Busch. That is not how he does things. He doesn’t know how to coast.
“Last week I saw the right-side flat on his car. The guy doesn’t know how to coast.
“They are pushing hard, they are trying hard…and they might win this weekend, who knows. That is the kind of year they have had, where they’ve been able to surprise you when you least expected it.
“I still think they are definitely one of the teams to beat in the chase.
“But they have shown some vulnerability. Me right now, if I had to put my chips on the table, I would say you have Jimmie and Carl Edwards that to me seem like the guys to beat. Then I would put Kyle next.”
Hmmmmm….sounds like something Busch and crew chief Steve Addington might want to tape to their toolbox….

Agree? Disagree? Don’t just brood. Express yourself here, and make your voice heard clearly in NASCAR headquarters in Daytona and Charlotte and in NASCAR race shops throughout North Carolina and the rest of the country.
We want your reaction, so please comment on this story and offer your own opinions and insight, on this topic, on our NASCAR videos, and anything about NASCAR. Any questions, just ask Mike at mmulhern@wsjournal.com. And bookmark this page for continually updated NASCAR reports: http://independenttribune.net/index.php/sports/mulhern/

Now that’s a sight not seen in quite a while—an STP-sponsored car winning a NASCAR race. Give it to Aussie Marcos Ambrose, outrunning Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (5) at Watkins Glen (Photo by Geoff Burke/Getty Images for NASCAR)

By Mike Mulhern
mmulhern@wsjournal.com

If Tony Stewart thinks becoming a NASCAR owner-driver will be any panacea next season – even with hefty support from General Motors and Chevy team owner Rick Hendrick – maybe he should drop by Robby Gordon’s hauler or motorcoach and listen for a while.

Gordon gave up a solid job as winning driver for top-notch GM owner Richard Childress four years ago in order to set up a NASCAR team of his own and be his own boss. But he’s still winless on the Cup tour since, and prospects for winning, well, this weekend’s stop at Watkins Glen may be the best shot Gordon has this season to snap that long losing streak.

And there are signs that Gordon, typically upbeat and optimistic about his life on the stock car tour and in those wild off-road events, is getting beaten down by the winds of fate that have been battering him pretty hard lately.

First, there was the Dakar disaster. That January off-road race has been a showcase for Gordon off-season the last few years, and with major GM support he was banking on kicking off this season with something splashy over there. Then the organizers of that event decided terrorists threats were too serious and they cancelled the event. That left Gordon holding the bag. And that substitute event through Romania and Hungary was no make-up.

Then he went through a bad run of luck in the opening weeks of the NASCAR Sprint Cup season. That eighth in the Daytona 500 may have seemed promising, particularly after that NASCAR penalty shocker, but Gordon didn’t score a top-10 again until Daytona’s 400 just a few weeks ago. Heck, Gordon only managed one top-20 during that dismal stretch.

Is Robby Gordon really finding it harder to smile this season? (Photo by Drew Hallowell/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Sponsors are hard to come by this season, and Gordon has lost out big-time, forced to run an unsponsored black paint scheme more times than he expected. Now he’s under the gun to get Jim Beam back as sponsor for 2009….and how well Gordon performs this weekend at Watkins Glen may be key.

Gordon swept Sonoma and the Glen in 2003 while driving for Childress, and the case can be easily made that he made a major mistake leaving the Winston-Salem car owner to pursue a career as owner-driver.

And Gordon may well have made a big mistake in leaving the Chevrolet camp. Last year he was with Ford, but the big story there was car owner Jack Roush taking Gordon’s crew chief, Greg Erwin. This year he jumped to Dodge just days before SpeedWeeks opened….and NASCAR ripped him for $100,000 for having the wrong bumper the first day. He did win an appeal of a points-deduction too, but he’s still just barely hanging in the top-35 – that’s the cutoff for having a guaranteed starting spot in each Sunday’s field.

Gordon has yet to really squelch all those complaints. And he’ll be 40 for next season’s Daytona 500 – not a doomsday milestone by any means, but Gordon needs to start making things happen.

And if Gordon can’t make something big happen at the Glen this weekend….

For those who want to follow Gordon’s uphill quest, he’ll have an in-car ESPN camera Sunday, and he’ll be one of NASCAR’s DirecTV HotPass picks (channels 793 and 798).

Hopefully none of that TV equipment will blow up – like it did at the Glen a few years back, in a bizarre incident that forced him to bail out of his smoke-filled car while on the run toward victory.

Now that’s more like it, Robby. Hey, this is supposed to be fun...even if you do have to rustle up from $22 million to $30 million to play the NASCAR game (Photo by Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR)

“I obviously look forward to the road courses all season and view them as our best opportunities to shine,” Gordon says. “We tested Road Atlanta last week and have spent the last few weeks perfecting our cars for this weekend’s races. I feel really good about this weekend and think we have a legitimate shot of being in victory lane Saturday and Sunday.

“Watkins Glen could be the race we’ve been looking forward to…and the start of something big for our team.

“We have probably a one-in-five or 1-in-10 shot of winning. We put a lot of effort into our road racing effort. This is something I’ve done for 15 years now and I have a lot of experience road racing.”

But the bottom line is Gordon needs to line up big sponsorship for next season. The benchmark is about $30 million; that’s the budget half a dozen top NASCAR Cup teams have to work with. And the bare minimum, according to car owner Felix Sabates, is $22 million.

That’s a lot of money for anyone to try to persuade a company to spend in this sport, particularly on a team that is still winless.

So it may be over-the-top for anyone to suggest Gordon needs to be making plans to expand to a second team. Single-car teams, to be frank, don’t have a chance in NASCAR these days. Even multi-car teams struggle, like Chip Ganassi can attest.

But maybe Gordon can get lucky and put together something for a second team, because it takes at least a two-car operation even to have a prayer in this sport.

Robby Gordon (7) needs some monster sponsorship for 2009. Here in Sonoma he leads the field as Tony Stewart (20) drives off the track. (Photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images for NASCAR)

“We still haven’t won with one car…but this weekend’s race hasn’t happened yet either,” Gordon says.

“It’s important to make one car run good first. And we’ve been able to stay inside the top-35.

“But we’d like to position ourselves to win races. A second car is going to help in that. The thing is ‘Who’s going to pay for it, how are you going to do it, and what sponsors are going to be involved in it?

“Obviously sponsors want to be involved with a team that can win races…and I look at this weekend as an opportunity of putting our team in victory lane,” Gordon said, with a trace of panic perhaps. “There have only been three teams this year in victory lane. So if we could pull it off, that would be big.

“I don’t do this out of my own pocket. If I had to pay a driver, I’d probably be in trouble. But because I am the driver and the owner, we can do a little bit of give-and-take and get through, like we’re doing now.”

Robby Gordon can wish.....(Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)

The rain at Montreal last weekend? Gordon clearly has to be politically correct at the moment, because of his tenuous fight for sponsorship. And that may be chaffing for a guy who is one of the sport’s most outspoken and most volatile.

Gordon wouldn’t bite when pressed about complaints that NASCAR shouldn’t have gone with rain tires at Montreal, for safety reasons as much as anything.

“It looked to me like everybody enjoyed it,” Gordon said diplomatically. “The biggest problem they had was the window fogging up.

“The fans, they put up their umbrellas and they went for it. There are definitely some true fans there in Canada. They were very supportive of the event.”

Uh, yeah. Gordon can make that pitch….but isn’t this the same guy who pitched such a temper tantrum at Montreal last summer?

Oh, well.

Ah, a Gordon-versus-Gordon dogfight at Watkins Glen, now that would make for some fun (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

Besides, Gordon has more on his mind at the moment: like finishing better than that 36th at Sonoma.

“Hopefully we don’t run ourselves out of fuel at Watkins, and we put ourselves in a position to time the pit stops right,” Gordon says ruefully.

“And if we do, I think we’ve got a legitimate shot at winning.

“Pit strategy has a lot to do with winning. Fuel mileage has a lot to do with it. And timing a caution right.

“Our cars have been fast at Sonoma. We ran in the top-three the first half of the (June) race…till we pushed it on fuel mileage. We hung ourselves out. We’ve either not gotten the fuel mileage to have the pit strategy, or we made some bad calls, or had a bad pit stop.

“And there are a lot of good road racers in NASCAR. Mark Martin (who has been very hot lately in that DEI Chevy) has been a phenomenal road racer for as long as I can remember; I teamed up with him in the late ‘80s and we won the 24 Hours of Daytona together.

Robby Gordon may be the only driver in NASCAR who doesn’t fear racing in the rain. Here Ron Fellows at rainy Montreal last weekend (Photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images for NASCAR)

“Now Ron Fellows—winning in the rain at Montreal – is a normal, traditional road race driver who has some experience – and advantage—in rain situations.

“But the last eight years in Cup races it’s been a NASCAR regular who’s won.”

And maybe this weekend that will – finally – be Robby Gordon.

Marcus Smith, here with actress Minka Kelly, insists Kentucky Speedway would be a great addition to NASCAR’s Cup tour (Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)

THE NASCAR NOTEBOOK

Will Bruton Smith and his Speedway Motorsports (SMI) track holding company go ahead and buy Kentucky Speedway, as Smith promised back in May?
Maybe so, maybe not.
That’s the iffy judgment offered Wednesday by Bill Brooks, the chief financial officer for SMI, during the company’s second-quarter Wall Street conference call: “The Kentucky due diligence is ongoing and is not complete. Once it is, we will make a final decision, and file one way or the other by the end of this month.
“I cannot answer definitively if we will go forward…..”
Smith, in May, jumped into the middle of the long-running battle between the Kentucky track and NASCAR – the track is suing NASCAR over not getting a Sprint Cup tour date. And Smith said then he was convinced he could get Kentucky a Cup date on NASCAR’s 2009 tour.
NASCAR executives replied that they had no plans to add Kentucky. And until Kentucky’s Jerry Carroll does abandon his legal fight with NASCAR, the Daytona sanctioning body is unlikely to give any ground.
The track cost about $150 million to build. It’s hosted sold-out NASCAR Busch/Nationwide races and Indy-car events. But no Cup race.
Smith, who said he plans to expand the track to 120,000 seats, agreed to buy Kentucky by assuming considerable track debt, about $63.3 million, and paying $15 million in cash. However the deal included a clause that gives Smith 90 days to back out, and that deadline is looming.
Since its low of $17.72 a share a month ago, the company’s stock has moved up to a close of $20.10 Thursday. However that’s still well off its 52-week high of $40.63. 
Marcus Smith, Bruton’s son and now head of SMI, says he understands all the questions about Kentucky Speedway. But he could offer few answers.
“It is a tremendous facility, and the market is fantastic for sports. You talk about sports fans, that area is in a fever over sports,” Marcus Smith says.
“If we are able to get a Cup date at that facility, and acquire it at a good price, that would give us a very strong facility and a great anchor in what is a Midwest area where we don’t have a race…and a unique area of the country for NASCAR, that really hasn’t been served.
“Some people say ‘It’s close to Bristol.’
“But Bristol is ‘close’ to Charlotte. And Charlotte is close to other facilities, and Atlanta is close to Talladega, and Phoenix is close to Las Vegas.
“This sport has grown up around itself.
“And there are millions of people around that facility who could support it if we have a Cup date there. Our hope is to realign a Cup date to that facility if we close on the transaction. And we’ll have a board discussion on that soon.”
And Marcus Smith said it was possible that SMI would move one of its current Cup tour dates to Kentucky. “That is one of the potential options we would have,” Smith said.

Agree? Disagree? Don’t just brood. Express yourself here, and make your voice heard clearly in NASCAR headquarters in Daytona and Charlotte and in NASCAR race shops throughout North Carolina and the rest of the country.
We want your reaction, so please comment on this story and offer your own opinions and insight, on this topic, on our NASCAR videos, and anything about NASCAR. Any questions, just ask Mike at mmulhern@wsjournal.com. And bookmark this page for continually updated NASCAR reports: http://independenttribune.net/index.php/sports/mulhern/

Robby Gordon needs to keep better track of gas mileage at the Glen...running out of gas is a no-no (Photo by Todd Warshaw/Getty Images)

By Mike Mulhern
mmulhern@wsjournal.com

For Patrick Carpentier this may be judgment week: is he doing the job?
The Montreal native, who is making a racing comeback this season, in NASCAR no less, after most of his career in open-wheel, may sport the biggest smile in the sport. 
And he’s incurably upbeat, despite setbacks that might get a lesser man down.
But then this is a performance business, and will Carpentier’s numbers be enough to keep him in the seat of George Gillett’s and Ray Evernham’s Dodges?
Carpentier by the numbers:
He ran second in NASCAR’s rain-marred Nationwide event at Montreal’s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve last weekend, and he’ll be on a road course again this weekend at Watkins Glen. He’s averaging a 25th place start and a 30th place finish on the Cup tour, and he’s made 17 of the 21 events, sitting 37th in the standings. He’s has his two best runs of the season in the past few weeks, a 14th at Daytona and an 18th at Indianapolis. Last weekend at Pocono Terry Labonte took the ride while Carpentier was in Montreal, and Labonte ‘benchmarked’ the car with a 32nd place finish, and a 25th place start.
For comparison, last year Scott Riggs, now in his fifth season on the tour, was in this ride, and at this point of the season he was 36th in the standings, after making 17 of the 21 events.

Tony Stewart and rookie Patrick Carpentier at Indianapolis (Photo by Jerry Markland/Getty Images for NASCAR)

So what happens next? “We’re going to find that out around August 15th ,” Carpentier says. “I really hope it comes out positive. 
“I think Gillett Evernham is pretty happy.  Most of the sponsors that were at our sponsor summit in Montreal last weekend were happy. Valvoline, LifeLock, Auto Value, all our sponsors seem to be happy. 
“I hope they are happy enough to keep me for next year…and I hope Gillett Evernham is happy as well, because I like being here, and I like driving this car.
“We’ve improved so much since the beginning of the year….
“There are so many things—but patience is so important.  I’ve learned you have to be so smooth. In qualifying you can be tough on the car and drive it pretty hard, but once you go racing you can drive it hard but you have to be really, really smooth and let the car do the work.
“You have to let the car do what it wants.”

Time to sweat for rookie Patrick Carpentier, here running at Sonoma (Photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images for NASCAR)

For Carpentier this run could make or break his comeback.
“Last year Watkins Glen was the first race we had led some laps,” he says. “We had a good race. I went off-track a couple of times. But the car was fast.
“The last five or six races Dodge has given me a really good engine.  We’ve had some good power coming out of the corners, and I’ve really been happy with the engine’s performance.”
Carpentier also plans to run Saturday’s Nationwide race at the Glen…and Carpentier needs all the laps he can get: “There are so many tricks you have to learn in these Cup cars.  At Loudon I gained four-tenths per lap by just driving differently and using different race lines (in the Nationwide race), and it actually worked during the Sprint Cup race.  In the Cup race at Loudon we actually stayed with the leaders until we had a brake problem.”

Patrick Carpentier waves to fans prior to the NASCAR Nationwide 200 in Montreal Saturday at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Would you run 150 mph in the rain like this—on eight-year-old tires? Jacques Villeneuve, the former World Champion, did in NASCAR’s Nationwide race in Montreal...here just moments before he crashed.(Photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Road courses, Carpentier says, are fun, even Montreal in the rain. “I just wish the conditions would have been a little bit better, because I know that Ron Fellows (the winner, when the race was stopped 60 miles short of the scheduled finish) didn’t have enough fuel to go all the way to the end of the race,” Carpentier said.
“We had already made our pit stop, and our car was great after we made the stop, even a few seconds faster a lap than he was.
“But anytime you can finish in the top-three in that series, you’ve had a pretty good day.  I was really happy that we actually had a race. The fans stayed despite the rain.  The drivers did a good job, and we didn’t have too many yellow flags.”
The Nationwide cars are different than the Cup cars, so Carpentier has tested for the Glen at Road Atlanta, “and hopefully we’ll get a better result than we did in Sonoma.”
Pressure? The guy seems to thrive on it. And, hey, he’s proven to be a darned good qualifier, which is not easy. “Ever since I’ve been in NASCAR, I’ve only had one shot at it—I have to qualify the car every week to make the race. I’ll give it my best, and there’s nothing more you can do.
“In Montreal I went back expecting results, and they don’t necessarily come. But we never panicked, and ended up in second place. And if the race would have kept going, we may have won it.”

Whatever happens next, Carpentier has certainly made an adventure of this NASCAR life: “We live in the motor coach and just travel. I sit beside my driver and just watch the road and relax.
“I like being on the road, so it’s not too bad. But NASCAR has been tougher than I thought it would be. With these cars and the schedule and the traveling, it’s tough. But I’m getting used to it.
“Stock cars have tires half of the size of Indy cars, with much more horsepower.  You have to be so careful not to burn up the rear tires and really be smooth with the car. You need a little bit more finesse with a stock car.
“And a stock car is mentally tougher to drive on an oval because you are so close to each other, with 43 cars on the track.  Plus the car moves around so much with all the air disturbance. 
“And there are so many tricks you can pull on each other with the aero, just by being beside someone. 
“The last five races I’m starting to get really comfortable in the car.
“NASCAR is the most fun I’ve ever had racing. I just appreciate the moment. We race in front of crowds that are unbelievable. I feel like a pretty fortunate guy.”

Ron Fellows driving in the rain during the Montreal 200 last weekend at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve (Photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images for NASCAR)

THE NASCAR NOTEBOOK

Rain tires were ordered by NASCAR at Montreal last weekend, in a very rare, almost unprecedented move….and a move not likely to be repeated.
NASCAR stockers don’t race in the rain, and don’t test for racing in the rain. NASCAR is supposed to require that all cars are setup with windshield wipers and rain-racing devices, but some of the details tend to get lost or overlooked.
Patrick Carpentier, who finished second to winner Ron Fellows in a one-two Canadian finish, has raced in the rain before but still had trouble: “The windshield wipers worked for a while, but where the windshield was, I couldn’t see out the right side of the car. The windshield would fog up more where the windshield wiper was, so sometimes I would shut it off…because the wind was too strong for the wiper to come back down,” Carpentier said.
“The thing that made me laugh is when I saw Carl Edwards squeegeeing out of the window. That was the highlight of the race.  I was like ‘Where the heck did he get that squeegee?’ Maybe he stopped at a gas station on the way to the track.”

NASCAR rain tires have grooves to channel water away from under the contact patch (Photo: Toyota Motorsports)

NASCAR asked Goodyear to develop rain tires about 12 years ago when it was planning a series of exhibition races in Japan. The thinking then was to be able to get the event in, regardless of the weather. And teams did qualify once over there in the rain.
However when NASCAR tried to get drivers to actually run a few laps on rain tires at Watkins Glen, they all but mutinied, most drivers simply refusing NASCAR orders to get out on the track and run some laps. Terry Labonte did a few runs, but when he hydroplaned and nearly crashed on the frontstretch, NASCAR quickly called a halt to that experiment.
What was learned: for these 3400-pound cars to run in the rain, the track itself must be immaculate, with great drainage, no bumps, and no puddles. Even at that, racing in the rain for NASCAR is really almost a joke – visibility is the really the biggest issue, with windshields not only wet but foggy, and with roostertails leaving drivers running blind. Now with enough practice, and foresight, and equipment, certainly it could be done. Every other major racing series runs in the rain. But NASCAR has never made much of a push for such advance work, in part because of such resistance from drivers.
Racing in the rain, in short, is not impossible….but it’s not going to be NASCAR-type racing, side-by-side, bumping-and-grinding.

Carpentier has raced in the rain in other series. What did he think about Montreal and the rain?
“I was impressed with the rain tires Goodyear brought,” he said. “The tires were around eight years old and pretty dried out, but still really good on the braking, and would actually stop the car more than I thought they would. 
“I could still use the brakes really hard, and I made a couple of passes, which was good, and got passed a couple of times. 
“But once the track got all the water on it, it gets a little dangerous and they had to call the race.
“Every time we had to stop for a yellow, the rear window would fog up. All the teams put Rain-X on the front windshield, but forgot to put it on the back window.  So every time that we stopped, it would fog up for a lap or two.  That was the hardest part. 
“But other than that, it was like any other race I’ve done in the past—you have to be more careful and try to be smooth, not push too hard.  I enjoyed it.”
Eight-year-old tires? Dried out?
Safety first?
Well, this week at the Glen, there won’t be any rain tires used, apparently. And drivers certainly won’t miss them.

Billionaire Bruton Smith keeps getting richer. Must be smart. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Bruton Smith’s Speedway Motorsports (NYSE:TRK) reports second-quarter revenues of $212.8 million, net income of $47.0 million, and diluted earnings per share of $1.08. So for the first six month of 2008, the track holding company has record total revenues of $368.0 million, record net income of $77.9 million, and record diluted earnings per share of $1.79.
Smith’s company says the addition of New Hampshire Motor Speedway and the Bristol NHRA event were big factors in the increase, which comes despite “the ongoing effects on admission revenues of escalating gas prices and other difficult economic conditions.”
The company says it expects to earn $2.40 to $2.50 this year, in line with previous estimates.
Speedway Motorsports also says it’s seen “significantly improved operating results” from its souvenir business.
The company also said: “Texas Motor Speedway attracted strong attendance at its NASCAR Samsung 500 Sprint Cup and O’Reilly 300 Nationwide Series racing events, and Lowe’s Motor Speedway attracted significantly higher attendance at its NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race, and strong attendance at its Coca-Cola 600 Sprint Cup Series and CARQUEST Auto Parts 300 Nationwide Series, racing events. New Hampshire Motor Speedway hosted large crowds at its NASCAR LENOX Industrial Tools 301 Sprint Cup Series, and near record attendance at its Camping World RV Sales 200 presented by RVs.com Nationwide Series, racing events.
“Other highlights include Infineon Raceway (Sonoma, Calif.) hosting a successful Toyota/Save Mart 350 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series racing weekend, and Texas Motor Speedway’s Bombardier Learjet 550 IndyCar and Sam’s Town 400 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series racing events attracting large crowds.”
Despite all that, the company said “admissions, concessions, souvenir merchandising and other event-related second quarter and year-to-date 2008 revenues were negatively impacted by declines in consumer spending from higher fuel prices and difficult consumer credit and housing markets. SMI also believes year-to-date 2008 revenues were negatively impacted by poor weather surrounding certain NASCAR racing events held at AMS and BMS in the first quarter 2008.”

J. J. Yeley is now looking for a new ride (Photo: Toyota Motorsports)

J. J. Yeley was dropped Wedn