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Prep Roundup
Columnists Brian Meadows Brad NormanMembersLocal Connection› Iredell County Young Athletes Association› South Iredell Athletics Association › SHS athletics › WIHS athletics › NIHS athletics › SIHS athletics › LNHS athletics Syndicate RSSAP NASCAR NASCAR Features A look at this year's schedule A look at this year's drivers Differences between stock car and open-wheel racing NASCAR Research & Development Petty Enterprises splitter testing Aerodynamic testing in Concord's wind tunnel Top 10 moments in Daytona history Site StatisticsThis page has been viewed 801331 timesPage rendered in 0.2092 seconds Total Stories: 2136 Total Comments: 34 Most Recent Entry: 08/15/2008 01:53 pm Most Recent Comment on: 04/17/2008 11:54 pm Most Recent Visitor on: 05/23/2012 08:12 am |
• Racing
2007 Sep-25
NASCAR notes:By Mike Mulhern Car owner Chip Ganassi said he wants to get Indy-car star Dario Franchitti into the ARCA race at Talladega in two weeks, as prelude to putting Franchitti into a Nextel Cup ride next season. If all that works out, next spring’s Daytona 500 could well boast more Indy 500 winners - Juan Pablo Montoya, Jacques Villeneuve, Sam Hornish Jr. and Franchitti - than the Indy Racing League’s own 2008 season opener at Homestead. The 2008 NASCAR Cup and Busch tour schedules have yet to be released, and those calendars are typically announced by Labor Day. No word on the hold up. However NASCAR’s Mexico City stop still appears up in the air, though possibly set for a mid-April weekend, instead of the early March date that race has had the past three years. NASCAR is considering changing sheet metal and model identification for its Busch tour cars, which for years have had logos essentially similar to Nextel Cup machines. NASCAR is looking at rebadging that series to feature muscle cars like Mustangs and Camaros, though such a change might not come until 2009. There are also reports that NASCAR is considering changing its minimum-age rules for Busch drivers next season, which would allow Joey Logano to step up to that tour. Logano, who doesn’t turn 18 (the current NASCAR minimum) until next May, just won the Busch East championship on Friday. Logano will to drive for Joe Gibbs’ Busch team as soon as NASCAR gives him the OK. The NASCAR job market is in high gear now, with Jeremy Mayfield, David Stremme and Tony Raines all looking for rides for 2008, and with David Reutimann considering several job offers, including one from current team owner Michael Waltrip. Reutimann, who has been one of the few bright spots this season for newcomer Toyota, outperforming veteran teammates Waltrip and Dale Jarrett, is also talking with car owner Richard Childress. NASCAR executives may be under increasing pressure to resolve the lawsuit with Kentucky Speedway, which says that NASCAR doesn’t deal out its Nextel Cup dates fairly. Jerry Carroll, part-owner of that track, was in Loudon last weekend to throw his hat in the ring as a potential buyer of that track, which is owned by Bob Bahre. Carroll two years ago expressed interest in buying that track, to move one of its two Nextel Cup dates to Kentucky Speedway, but Bahre rebuffed that effort. Last weekend, however, Carroll was at Loudon at Bahre’s invitation.
Bahre, 80, hasn’t shied away from saying he would eventually sell the track, because his son Gary isn’t interested in running it himself. Bahre confirmed talking about a possible sale, but he declined to describe any of those talks as negotiations. Bruton Smith may also be interested in buying the track, and the once-frosty relationship between Smith and Bahre has apparently thawed. So a bidding war for the Loudon facility could well be in the making. Based on the $100 million that the Frances’ International Speedway Corp. just paid for a 60 percent share of Joliet’s Chicagoland Speedway, with its one Nextel Cup tour date, New Hampshire International Speedway, with its two Nextel Cup dates, could be worth as much as $340 million. While Bahre said he would like for any buyer to keep both Nextel Cup dates at Loudon, he has apparently not made that a non-negotiable issue. Carroll’s Kentucky track has had sellout Busch races for several years, but NASCAR officials have been cool to Carroll’s bid for a Cup date, pointing out that it’s only 100 miles from Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Jacques Villeneuve did well in his NASCAR debut, in Saturday night’s Trucks race at Las Vegas, finishing 21st. “It was a great experience, we learned a lot,” Villeneuve said of his evening in one of Bill Davis’ race cars. “We had a lot of good pit stops. The truck was running really strong in the first part of the race, and the lap times showed that. It was a little loose in the beginning, and then it got settled in. “I got cut out on the first restart; that was a fun learning experience. It’s quite aggressive in the first laps, everyone runs aggressively. They slide the trucks around … and it’s good to see you can slide the trucks quite a lot without crashing.” His night was not without incident, though, and a bump with Brian Scott forced him to get some repairs. “I was running high and came off the gas and came up on the back of the red truck,” Villeneuve said. “After that I lost all the downforce. It was just a matter of trying to patch it up and run to the end.” Bookmarkz |
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