Next week’s NASCAR pace car will be a Ford hybrid
Posted by admin in Nascar News Wire on 11 10th, 2008AVONDALE, Ariz.
For the first time in a NASCAR event, a hybrid will be the pace car when the Sprint Cup Chase concludes at Homestead-Miami Speedway next week.
The 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid, featuring the debut of Ford’s next-generation hybrid system, will pace the Ford 400 along with the Fusion Sport.
The Ford Fusion Hybrid and the Fusion Sport will both be in NASCAR-inspired camouflage for the race. The cars won’t be officially unveiled until the Los Angeles International Auto Show three days later.
read comments (0)Nothing Mini about youth’s NASCAR dream
Posted by admin in NASCAR News on 10 9th, 2008Grass Lake High School sophomore Morgen Baird wears his dreams on his cap and boldly brandishes them in the paint scheme of his Carl Edwards-inspired Mini-Cup race car.
The 15-year-old Baird has a dream of one day racing with the big boys in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
It’s been a wild first season in the Mini-Cup Series at Jackson Speedway for Baird, who expects to finish second in the points at Jackson after finishing eighth in the Great Lakes Supercup Racing series.
In the GLSR, which primarily holds its races at tracks throughout Michigan and Indiana, Baird races against current and former ARCA-licensed drivers, and he even went wheel-to-wheel this season with GLSR points champion Maurice Randall, a former Sprint Cup driver.
It’s all heady stuff for a young athlete who spends a good portion of his week at football practice, where he’s a wide receiver for the Grass Lake junior varsity team. Friday nights, however, are reserved for racing, and that works out this year, as the junior varsity plays its games on Thursdays.
Baird said the decision about next fall, if the varsity football and racing schedules overlap, will be an easy one.
“I have to go racing,” Morgen said.
That’s just fine with Baird’s parents, Dave and Stephanie of Grass Lake.
“I trust him,” said Dave Baird, who is a dynomometer technician at for Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn. “He’s good and wants to go on to something bigger in the sport already.”
Even though he’s not old enough to yet take the family car out on the street, the young Baird hopes to move on to modified stocks in the next year. He’d also like to apply for an ARCA license that would allow him to drive in that series.
For now, it’s the Mini-Cup cars, which are 1â„2 scale Cup cars styled to resemble cars in the Sprint Cup Series. The cars are designed to reach a top speed of nearly 90 mph on the largest go-kart tracks.
The family has spent more than $4,500 on a car and parts for Morgen’s racecar this season.
“We used to have all kinds of toys, but we’ve gotten rid of some things so we can do for our kids,” Dave Baird said.
“It’s his passion.”
Attracting NASCAR sponsors gets tough as economy falters
Posted by admin in NASCAR News on 09 24th, 2008Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates has been among the top NASCAR Sprint Cup teams in recent years. It has employed big-name drivers, enjoyed the respect of its fellow competitors and was competitive on the racetrack.
But earlier this year, Ganassi sent a shock wave through NASCAR when it was forced to send one of its three cars to the garage and lay off a driver and scores of team members because of a lack of sponsorship.
What ensued was a fired-up debate about the state of auto racing in these times of economic chaos.
If Ganassi couldn’t find sponsorship — sponsorship for a car driven by 2007 Indianapolis 500 winner Dario Franchitti — what is the future, some wonder, of NASCAR?
The prevailing view seems to be that the future looks challenging on the car sponsorship front, but far from lethal.
Asked whether panic had set in at his team, Steve Lauletta, president of Chip Ganassi Racing, said: “Exactly the opposite. We feel good about where we are.”
The Sprint Cup series has had no problem filling race fields this season. The race Sunday at Kansas Speedway, for example, has 45 cars currently entered, and there are only 43 spots available.
The 45 is not a big number, but the farther races move from the Southeastern base of NASCAR, the entry lists tend to get smaller. All have some form of sponsorship.
Ask NASCAR about the loss of some sponsors — and there have been several of the big-name variety who have left — and they will point out that new sponsors have come in to offset the losses.
It has always been that way.
Lauletta said the game of landing sponsorship deals has changed in one respect. Potential sponsors now take much closer looks at what their money is buying, and it now takes much longer for them to make decisions.
“What used to take four to six months to decide, now takes 18 to 24 months,” Lauletta said.
He said that had an effect on the Franchitti situation. He said he and his team should have had more irons in the fire for the sponsorship of the car.
“We were a little less aggressive than we should have been in developing that relationship (with potential sponsors),” Lauletta said.
One thing that has not changed when it comes to landing sponsorship is on-track performance. The economy has very little to do with that factor.
Geoff Smith, president of Roush Fenway Racing, which has five cars and sponsors for all of them, says winning solves a lot of economic headaches for teams.
“It’s always been about who had the money, and it takes performance to get money,” Smith said. “We know that and Rick Hendrick knows that because look at all the money it took to buy Dale Earnhardt Jr., to buy Tony Stewart, to buy Ryan Newman (both of whom will be with a team with strong ties to Hendrick Motorsports, Stewart Haas Racing, next year). Joe Gibbs is the same.”
Smith says a good example of that is the team with which Roush Fenway is associated — Yates Racing. That team started the season with two young, lesser-known drivers — David Gilliland and Travis Kvapil — but large gaps in sponsorship.
Both drivers have shown improvement during the season, but neither has won a race and, while some sponsorship has developed, gaps still exist.
“It’s the same situation that they have proven themselves competent to be competitive on the racetrack, and if we could have broken through and shown they have blue-sky Chase potential, that they would be sponsored already,” Smith said.
Lee White is president and general manager of Toyota Racing Development. Some of the cars in his stable have lost sponsors in the time since Camrys began racing last year in Sprint Cup.
The latest of those losses occurred earlier this year when UPS announced it would move from Toyota-affiliated Michael Waltrip Racing, to Roush Fenway next season. At Waltrip, the UPS sponsored car had not won a race with Dale Jarrett driving last year nor with David Reutimann driving this year.
White called the current situation of attracting and holding sponsors, “very, very tough.”
“It depends on the organization, and the organization has to win,” White said. “Geoff and Jack (Roush) are in a position where they are winning races, they’re certainly contending for a championship and have to be considered favorites today. On-track performance is the catalyst that brings sustainable sponsorship to the sport.”
There is, of course, a catch-22 in all of this — teams need money to be competitive, and they need to be competitive to get money.
And that has become exacerbated in times like these. In this tumultuous economic climate, sponsors are reluctant to take multimillion-dollar gambles on teams without proven track records.
Smith said that was a big part of the problem with the Yates drivers.
“In the old days, the market would have looked at a start-up (operation) like this (at Yates) and gone, ‘Wow.’ Because it is very much in line with how we started up our own teams first year to second year,” Smith said. “But the market now is expecting immediate gratification.”
When the Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship arrives this week at Kansas Speedway, the 12 drivers in the playoff will all be from one of four teams — Roush Fenway, Hendrick, Richard Childress Racing and Gibbs.
Those are four teams that are winning because they have sponsors and have sponsors because they are winning.
Breaking that cycle could prove next to impossible in the current environment.
“It makes it harder for the little guys. There’s no question about that,” Childress driver Jeff Burton said. “The harder it becomes for the little guys, the more endangered they will become. There’s no getting around that. The key for the little guys is to try to find a way to be the big guys, but it’s very difficult to do because there are only 43 spots.”
And therein lies another problem right now. Under the current system, only the top 35 cars are guaranteed starting spots in race fields. That means that companies sponsoring the smaller, less-competitive teams face the prospect of not being on the track and, hence, on television on the all-important race day.
It becomes tough for a small team to lure sponsors when it cannot guarantee media exposure.
Some have suggested that there is a way around that — franchising. That is, 43 teams would be franchised — just as there are currently 30 franchised teams in the NFL right now — and all, with their sponsors, would be on the track every weekend.
The franchising concept is rather controversial, though. So much so that Burton referred to it as the “F” word. But, he said, the concept could work to strengthen the series.
“I think an expansion of the top-35 rule to make it a top-42 rule or something like that is what I think we need to do,” Burton said. “I think that provides stability. Listen, when the economy is going well, it’s a whole lot easier. When you really start to see people getting hurt is when the economy starts to go bad.
“Sponsors are just not going to continue to show up spending the kind of money they are spending today in this economic environment not knowing if they can be in the race, and we’ve got to find a way to shore that up. Top-35 rule was an awesome rule, and NASCAR deserves a lot of credit. I just think it ought to be a bigger rule.”
NASCAR Camping World Series East Dover Notes, Thursday
Posted by admin in NASCAR News on 09 19th, 2008Triple Duty For Sauter: Johnny Sauter, 30, of Necedah, Wis., will be doing triple-duty at Dover International Speedway this weekend, starting with the NASCAR Camping World Series East.Sauter, a three-time NASCAR Nationwide Series race winner, will attempt to qualify for his first NASCAR Camping World East Series start Friday. Qualifying is scheduled for 12:40 p.m., followed by the Sunoco 150 at 4:45.
“I just want to race as much as I possibly can,” Sauter said. “Anytime someone comes to me with an opportunity to race, I’m all for it.” Sauter will drive the No. 12 Chivas Racing/Diamond Resorts International Dodge fielded by Troy Williams Racing with Sean Watts. NASCAR Mexico star Antonio Perez has driven the car three times with year. He won the Coors Light Pole Award and finished 10th at Watkins Glen, N.Y., in June. Sauter is also entered at Dover to drive the No. 08 FUBAR All Natural Dodge in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and the No. 78 Darren Cope-owned Chevrolet in the NASCAR Nationwide Series.
First-time starters: Two others in addition to Sauter are making their first career NASCAR Camping World Series East qualifying attempts this weekend at Dover.
Dale Earnhardt, Inc. development driver Aric Almirola is seated in the No. 8 Dale Earnhardt Foundation Chevrolet. He is splitting duties with Mark Martin in DEI’s No. 8 U.S. Army Chevrolet in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series this year, and will be the car’s full-time driver in 2009.
Jason Patison of Corona, Calif., a NASCAR Camping World Series West driver, is behind the wheel of Shawn Keep’s No. 80 Lucas Oil/Racin’ For A Cure Chevrolet.
Logano Visits: Joey Logano, the 2007 NASCAR Camping World Series East champion, paid a personal visit to the series 2008 point leader Matt Kobyluck (No. 40 Mohegan Sun Chevrolet) Thursday morning before the track opened for practice.
Logano clinched his championship at Dover last year, when the track was the last on the 2007 schedule. He has been named as driver of Joe Gibbs Racing’s Home Depot Toyota in 2009, replacing departing driver Tony Stewart.
“He told me it was really cool that I was having such a good season and that he’s excited for us, and it’s not like he doesn’t have a lot to be excited about himself,” Kobyluck said. “He’s a great kid and a great competitor and we had a lot of fun racing with him last year.and he got the opportunity to move on to bigger and better things this year. If we’re able to win the championship this year, maybe we’ll be able to capitalize on it, too.”
Tim Andrews Returns: Tim Andrews, 25, of Concord, N.C., is making one of his infrequent starts with the series at Dover. Andrews, son of veteran NASCAR Sprint Cup Series crew chief Paul Andrews, is entered in the No. 95 Bollegraaf Chevrolet, a Sadler Racing team car to the No. 59 Wide Open Energy Dodge of Bobby Hamilton, Jr. The senior Andrews was the 1992 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion crew chief for Alan Kulwicki.
Schrader’s No. 52 Team Notes: Driver Jamie Hayes (No. 52 J.L. Hendrick Auto Group Chevrolet) has some extra help this weekend at Dover. With regular crew chief Donnie Richeson away on assignment, Chad Walter is picking up the job. Walter was most recently crew chief for JR Motorsports’ number 5 NASCAR Nationwide Series team. In addition, David Green of Owensboro, Kentucky, the 1994 NASCAR Nationwide Series champion, is serving as Hayes’ spotter this weekend. Green also spots for NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Kyle Petty.
Salemi Catches A Ride: NASCAR Camping World Series East driver John Salemi has competed in his family owned No. 63 John Salemi Racing LLC Chevrolet or four years. After wrinkling the car at New Hampshire Motor Speedway last week, team owner Troy Williams offered Salemi one of his Dodge race cars for Dover. The Salemi team, featuring the driver’s brother, Kevin, will pit the car.
Crew Chief Jamie Aube: Three-time NASCAR Camping World Series East champion Jamie Aube (1988-1990) should have some good advice for driver Dustin Delaney (No. 39 Delaney Motorsports Chevrolet), for whom he is crew chiefing this year. As a driver, Aube posted Dover finishes of second (1998) and fourth in 2001.
Quarterly On The Prowl: Former Dover winner Dale Quarterly was a late entrant for the Sunoco 150. Quarterly has six career NASCAR Camping World Series East wins including Dover in 2004. Quarterly made one other 2008 start with the series at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut where he started 31st and finished 25th with suspension problems.
NASCAR Chase for the championship winner needs mental toughness
Posted by admin in NASCAR News on 09 16th, 2008LOUDON, N.H. — The winner of the Chase for the championship will need fast cars, flawless pit stops and solid strategy. He’ll also need a strong dose of mental toughness.
Based on Sunday’s opening round of the 10-race sprint to the title, Greg Biffle has the confidence to make a run at the championship. Kyle Busch and Dale Earnhardt Jr.? Well, those two title favourites have a lot to prove.
Biffle, a long shot to claim his first Sprint Cup title, left New Hampshire International Speedway with a surprise victory. His bravado seeped through his words, particularly when he described the winning move on two-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson.
“I don’t want to brag,” he said, “but it was a textbook pass.”
Seeded ninth in the standings and riding a 33-race winless streak one week ago, “The Biff” heads to Round 2 of the Chase ranked third in the points and certain he’ll be a player in how this title is decided.
It’s not so clear, anymore, whether Busch or Earnhardt can climb back into the mix. And it has nothing to do with their cars, and everything to do with their mental state.
Busch had a rough first Chase race, starting from the pole but sinking quickly to the back of the field when a bolt broke on his sway bar. It was all Busch could do to keep his car off the wall as he struggled to make it to a lap 35 competition caution that gave his team a chance to diagnose the problem.
Repairs and a procedural penalty dropped Busch two laps off the pace, and a later accident ensured a long, miserable day for the regular-season points leader. He finished a mortifying 34th, and that cozy lead he’d taken into the Chase - he was the top seed, with as much as an 80-point cushion over most of the contenders - instantly evaporated.
Busch is now eighth in the standings and trails co-leaders Johnson and Carl Edwards by a head-banging 74 points.
“It’s unbelievable how fast you can fall,” Biffle said.
It is indeed, and it’s unknown how Busch will handle the adversity.
He’s not faced much of it this season, reeling off a series-high eight Cup wins and adding another 10 in the Nationwide and Trucks Series. It gave him a swagger and air of invincibility not lost on others.
But how he felt following Sunday’s debacle is unknown. He didn’t stick around to take questions, behaviour many deemed unprofessional for a future champion.
Busch isn’t fragile, but at 23 years old he’s still learning the appropriate way to deal with the ups and downs of big-time sports. Letting one bad race fester will certainly sink his title hopes, so it’s critical that Busch rebound from this by the time he moves on to Dover International Speedway this weekend.
His former boss thinks Busch will bounce back.
“Kyle is mature enough to handle it,” Rick Hendrick said. “He’s going to drive the wheels off of it at Dover. I don’t think this is going to hurt him at all. It just might make him more of a bulldog.”
Hendrick knows a thing or two about driver psyche, particularly after counselling Earnhardt through portions of Sunday’s race.
Earnhardt drove to the front about midway through and seemed to set to contend. But when a bad set of tires cost him track position, Earnhardt appeared to unravel on his radio. Hendrick quickly took the mic to settle his driver.
“You got a bad set of tires. It happens,” Hendrick said. “You can do this. Talk to everybody about what the car is doing. We can make the right adjustments.”
An irritated Earnhardt wasn’t convinced.
“Take it out on those guys in front of you,” Hendrick advised.
Earnhardt wound up in fifth place, leaving him tied for fourth in the standings, 50 points behind the leaders. But it wasn’t the win he wanted, and when he felt victory slipping away he almost let it defeat the entire effort.
“Once I’m on the ledge, it’s hard to get me off of it,” Earnhardt said. “I don’t know if even Rick’s got what it takes to do that. I just said what I had to say to appease him, make him think I was calm.
“I like getting riled up. It motivates me. I drive better when I’m ticked off, and racing usually ticks you off.”
Hendrick doesn’t necessarily subscribe to that theory, and he wants Earnhardt calm in the heat of the moment.
“If you let things get to you, you will not win this Chase,” Hendrick said. “It’s just like a basketball game. Guys lead, lead, lead and then choke. You can’t choke. That’s what I’m trying to get them not to do.”
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The Cool Down Lap: NASCAR got it right in Richmond
Posted by admin in NASCAR News on 09 9th, 2008Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service
When the rain at Richmond stopped Friday evening, and when Tropical Storm Hanna made a swift passage through the city on Saturday afternoon, you knew the second-guessing would accompany the unexpected blue sky.
In the garage Sunday morning, if I heard the following complaint once, I heard it 20 times: “We could have run the Nationwide race Friday and the Cup race on Saturday.”
Instead, with rain falling Friday afternoon, and with Tropical Storm Hanna making a beeline toward the Carolinas and Virginia with an ETA in Richmond on Saturday, NASCAR chose to postpone Friday’s scheduled Nationwide Series race and Saturday night’s scheduled regular-season finale in the Sprint Cup Series until Sunday.
It was not a decision the sanctioning body made lightly. Throughout its history, NASCAR has attempted to run each of its races at the appointed time, and, barring that, at the earliest possible opportunity thereafter.
Seemingly, Mother Nature mocked the decision to reschedule the races. A few hours after cars were loaded onto their transporters on Friday, the rain stopped. A day later, Hanna raced through Richmond at breakneck speed, preferring to cause problems for the U.S. Open tennis championship in New York, rather than continuing to drench the asphalt at Richmond International Raceway.
Between approximately 4 p.m. and midnight Saturday, we enjoyed glorious weather in Richmond–with no race to watch.
Nevertheless, NASCAR, in concert with the racetrack, absolutely made the right call in postponing the two events. With state, local and city governments preparing for a worst-case scenario, NASCAR should be commended for doing the same.
Sure, the weather cleared Saturday afternoon. Before it did, however, the rain was falling sideways, whipped by wind gusts that exceeded 40 mph, according to local weather reports. To have run the race Saturday night as scheduled would have brought race fans slogging through the mud in the worst of the weather, and it would have narrowed the window for race preparation to an unmanageable degree.
Ultimately, NASCAR weighed the potential devastation of Hanna against a forecast of good weather on Sunday and made the call in the interest of the safety of all concerned.
“We just felt it was the right thing to do,” said Jim Hunter, NASCAR’s vice president of corporate communications.
It was.
Not so charitable was the decision of Richmond International Raceway officials to clear the house after Sunday’s Cup race and restrict the rescheduled Nationwide event to those fans who had purchased tickets for the event. The result was a small crowd for the second half of the doubleheader, with grandstands in Turn 2, the entire backstretch and Turn 3 all but empty.
With the rain delay having disrupted weekend plans, why not give all Cup ticket holders the opportunity to stay for the Nationwide race at no charge?
Yes, there would have been issues with duplicated seats on the frontstretch, and there might have been some grousing from those who had already paid, but the Cup fans could have moved to the empty grandstands rather than being forced to leave the track and buy tickets for the Nationwide race.
RIR officials considered the idea but felt that allowing Cup ticket holders to attend the Nationwide event free of charge would devalue the tickets of fans who had already purchased admission to the Sunday night race.
The trade-off was losing a valuable public-relations opportunity. In rewarding fans who incurred an extra day’s expenses to stay for the weather-delayed events, the good will would have outweighed any potential complaints.
No hat in the ring for Gibbs
A speech at one of the major political party’s nominating convention usually serves as a springboard for the political aspirations of the speaker. NASCAR team owner and former Washington Redskins coach Joe Gibbs, however, says not to read anything into his address to the Republican Convention in Minnesota last week.
“I’ve got enough problems–I don’t want to get into that war,” Gibbs said Sunday at Richmond. “That would be a wild one.”
So, no Senator Gibbs? Or Governor Gibbs?
“I probably wouldn’t get three votes,” he said. “That one you won’t have to worry about. Those guys are pros, and I don’t think I could help with that one.”
Inside Nascar - Johnson will be the one celebrating
Posted by admin in NASCAR News on 09 9th, 2008Kyle Busch had a spectacular regular season with eight wins and 15 top-fives in 26 races. Carl Edwards was second best, six wins and 11 top-fives. Those are great performances backed up by great numbers from drivers who will be forces in Sprint Cup for years to come.
But neither will win the championship this season. Jimmie Johnson has a rendezvous with history. He’ll become the second driver to win three straight, equaling Carl Yarborough’s record run that concluded 30 years ago.
Johnson’s back-to-back victories heading into the Chase opener Sunday at New Hampshire certainly give him and the No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet team big-time momentum and confidence. Momentum is good to have, but is overrated in a 10-race playoff. It could be gone by Sunday night if Johnson runs into some trouble, like he did in the Chase race at Loudon in 2006, when he finished 39th.
Confidence is a more enduring attribute. Johnson’s has been consistently built over the course of a remarkable career. He’s made the Chase in all five years. He’s never finished out of the top five in the championship in his six previous seasons. He has 37 victories. It will take more than a bad result or two to shake up Johnson.
From confidence, Johnson derives poise. He’s calm in the caldron of the Chase, able to communicate what he needs in the car and stay out of trouble on the track. Johnson’s demeanor is contagious, spreading throughout the No. 48 team. When can you last remember a lug nut being loose or a jackman hung up a bit too long or a tire rolling down pit road?
Then, consider the experience factor. Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus have the most productive working relationship in Cup. They’ve been there and done that better than anyone. Knaus instinctively has a knack for making just the right call — two tires, four tires, no tires — at the right time. Like Johnson, Knaus doesn’t get rattled. Together, they have the ability to work through problems with clear, precise thought.
At the Chase tracks, Johnson has an overall performance edge over Busch and Edwards. He didn’t in the first half of the regular season, but all the testing they’ve done has paid off. Johnson’s four wins this season are at Phoenix, Indianapolis, Fontana and Richmond, four distinctly different tracks. Johnson and Knaus know how to adjust to that narrow window in the Car of Today and to the different tires brought by Goodyear.
The Chase schedule is top-heavy with five races on 1.5-mile tracks, which favors Edwards. Johnson was second at Texas, which is in the Chase, and Chicago, which is similar to Kansas. With his increased speed late in the season, Johnson will perform well on the 1.5s, maybe even win a couple. He did last year, at Atlanta and Texas.
The Chase also has Martinsville, where Johnson was fourth in the spring, won last year in the fall and has four wins in his Cup career, Dover, Talladega and Phoenix. He was seventh at Dover and 13th at Talladega the first time around this season.
Momentum, confidence, experience, maturity, poise, it all adds up to Johnson’s battle readiness in the Chase. He’s got the mental toughness that will make a difference.
“Momentum is certainly something we are looking at and trying to carry, but more than anything, I think we are just confident in our stops and what I’m doing on the track and the way we can adjust on the car,” Johnson said following Sunday’s win at Richmond.
Johnson is confident, not overconfident. He wants to take it to the water’s edge without getting wet.
“I’m trying to show up at [Loudon] scared, worried about 11 other guys and worried about doing my part,” he said. “I have confidence in what my abilities are and what my team is capable of and the packages we have put together in the last five or six months, short track, big track, all of it.
“With the way the pack is running, especially the 99 [Edwards] and the 18 [Busch], you can’t show up and run at 80 percent and just hope at top-10 is going to get the job done. You have to show up and bring your A game each week. I feel confident that we are there now and that we can run with these guys.”
Busch’s season has been amazing in that he’s won on all types of tracks. But two were road courses and there are none in the Chase. Two were restrictor plate races, Talladega and Daytona, and he has only one in the Chase. Busch won at Dover in the spring, but wasn’t particularly good at Loudon (25th) or Phoenix (10th). He’ll be good at the 1.5s, but so will Edwards and Johnson.
The biggest factor in Busch’s performance will be how crew chief Steve Addington and the No. 18 Toyota team handle the pressure of the Chase. It will be the first time in it for Addington.
Edwards has been strong everywhere and carries some momentum into the Chase with three wins in the past six races. He was second in the three races before that. At 29 and in his fourth full Cup season, Edwards and the No. 99 Ford team led by crew chief Bob Osborne have the speed to win the championship.
The key for Edwards is execution, on pit stops and making changes during the race. It’s the one area where the No. 99 falls slightly short in a championship fight.
The Chase will be decided among this season’s Big Three. Busch and Edwards have legitimate shots and will make it interesting, but it will be Johnson celebrating at Homestead-Miami.
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Franchitti fizzles in NASCAR
Posted by admin in NASCAR News on 09 5th, 2008Dario Franchitti, last year’s IndyCar Series winner, won’t be fighting Scott Dixon and Helio Castroneves for another championship Sunday at Chicago.Instead, Franchitti will be watching from the Target Chip Ganassi Racing pits.
Franchitti, who drove for Andretti Green Racing in 2007, stole the victory — and title — from Dixon at Chicagoland Speedway in 2007, after Dixon ran out of fuel while leading the race with two turns left.
After claiming the series title, Franchitti followed in the footsteps of a number of other open-wheel competitors and joined the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
He proceeded to bomb, losing his sponsor and ride at Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates.
How on earth did someone of Franchitti’s ability — he won the 2007 Indy 500 — struggle so badly in stock-car racing?
Just ask former Formula One winner Juan Pablo Montoya, who also drives in Sprint Cup for Ganassi, or 2006 Indy 500 champion Sam Hornish Jr., who is having his problems at Penske Racing.
Running up front week in, week out in stock-car racing’s premier series might appear easy if you’re Jimmie Johnson or Kyle Busch, but in truth, it is the hardest thing to do in racing.
And that’s if you are in a top team, which Ganassi hasn’t been in a long time.
You need the team.
You need the sponsors.
You need an engine builder.
You need a smart crew chief.
You need time.
You need information.
You don’t get there just by being successful in another series, particularly in one that has very few similarities to Sprint Cup.
Franchitti is one of the best open-wheel racers around, but he didn’t arrive in NASCAR from the short tracks. He didn’t drive late-models, he didn’t drive super modifieds or sprint cars or midgets.
He didn’t race on quarter-mile and half-mile ovals. He didn’t rub fenders at bull-rings. He didn’t drive big, heavy cars with marginal brakes and slow reflexes.
Montoya, one of the most brilliant and aggressive F1 drivers of recent times, is treading water at Ganassi, where he might just sink or abandon ship.
Franchitti jumped into the deep end when he joined NASCAR. He drove some ARCA and Nationwide races, but people expected him — and Montoya and Hornish — to be an overnight Sprint Cup success.
Didn’t happen — particularly at a Cup team that is performing poorly and losing financial support.
Franchitti, 35, did not race at Auto City Speedway in Flint or Toledo Speedway like Brad Keselowski of Rochester Hills, who will be running Sprint Cup soon.
He didn’t run at Terre Haute or Salem Speedway in Indiana like Tony Stewart, a two-time Cup champ, as a teen.
Franchitti drove formula and touring cars in Europe and did very well. He drove CART and IndyCar vehicles in America and did exceptionally.
“I’m very excited to be coming back to the IndyCar Series,” Franchitti said. “I think the schedule for next year was a big part of my decision. I’m really looking forward to being part of the team going forward and having (Scott Dixon) as a teammate.”
It appears Franchitti is home again, driving in 2009 for Target Chip Ganassi Racing.
Perhaps Montoya and some others should join him.