SILLY SEASON, KNIEVEL, AND TESTING
SILLY SEASON: The 2001 racing season hasn’t even
started and we’re already in silly season. I’m not sure if this is the end
of the 2000 silly season or the beginning of the 2001 silly season, or
maybe a combination of both. Jason Leffler, who didn’t exactly burn up the
Busch Series last year, has apparently decided he’s ready for the Winston Cup
Series, and convinced Chip Ganassi of that as well. I’ve seen speculation that
part of the deal might include an Indy 500 ride for Leffler. It’d be a shame if
that was the main reason behind this whole mess. Leffler says Joe Gibbs
shouldn’t have been surprised, but then he was probably expecting Leffler to
live up to his end of the contract.
JUMP THIS: It’s 2001, and I don’t have an flying
car. Oh well. But someone who has done his share of "flying" has
decided to come down to earth. Robbie Knievel is going racing, Busch North
style.
I’m not sure I know what to think. I’m
a Knievel fan. When Evel Knievel made his attempt at jumping the Snake River
Canyon, I was in a theater watching a closed circuit broadcast of it (kind of
like pay per view, only on a movie screen). I’ve watched his son jump the
fountains at Caesar’s Palace. But 4 wheels?
I will say that I’ll probably be following the Busch North
Series a little closer (in other words, I’ll actually try to keep up with the
races) to see how he does. So, if more people do that because of Knievel’s
involvement, that’s a Good Thing. But the Knievel name will only get him so far.
A bunch of wrecks and 35th place finishes won’t cut it.
BAKER’S IN, LAR’S OUT: I see where Gary Baker has
bought out LAR Motorsports. LAR Motorsports is where Casey Atwood got his
start in Busch racing. Jeff Purvis ran a race or two with them (before
Atwood), and then Andy Kirby had a disastrous season with them a couple of years
ago.
Baker is no stranger to motorsports. He used to own
Nashville Speedway and Bristol Speedway. For the last few years, his son Brad
has been racing at Nashville Speedway, starting out in the SuperTruck division
(where he was rookie of the year, I think), then moving to the Late Models. Also
last year he ran a few Busch races. To get superspeedway experience, the team
entered the ARCA race at Talladega, but didn’t make the show because qualifying
was rained out.
The team plans on running at least half the Busch races
this year and a couple of ARCA events. Getting a chance to run the Busch race at
Daytona hinges on being able to make the Daytona ARCA race. They were fast
enough in practice at Talladega to have made the race on time, so that shouldn’t
be a problem.
Brad has come along way over the last few years. While he
didn’t exactly burn up the Nashville track, he progressed every year, until
finally breaking into the winners circle several times last year in the Late
Model division. If he can use those same learning skills in NASCAR’s big
leagues, then his future is unlimited.
SPONSOR MENTIONS: There’s been a lot of talk
recently about, horror of horror’s, Fox not allowing the use of the car sponsor
names by the race announcers. So instead of hearing Mike Joy say "the Smoky
Pete’s Garage Chevy just hit the wall" we’ll get "Joe Blough in the
#00 car just hit the wall."
Not a big deal as far as I’m concerned. Maybe it’s
actually a good thing. Imagine this scenario: Smoky Pete decides that he’s
not getting $12 million worth of sponsor mentions by the broadcasters, so he
only commits to maybe $8 million. And the other sponsors decide to reduce their
sponsorship dollars too. What happens? Could it be possible that the teams might
have to get by with less money? Maybe I’m dreaming.
CRAVEN A WIN: I can understand a winless driver
going to a team that has a winning past (e.g. Gordon to the #4 car). I can maybe
even understand a winning driver going to an established, but winless team. But
a winless driver going to a winless team?
PPI had two strikes against them when they hit the
starting gate last year: a brand new team with a driver with zero experience (ie.
NASCAR stock car experience). Even with washtubs full of money, if you’re a new
team with a new driver, you’re not exactly going to be competitive. With Ricky
Craven replacing Scott Pruett, they’ve gotten rid of one of those problems, but
the question remains, can Craven get the job done? Even Jerry Nadeau was able to
(finally) get the #25 back into victory lane, while Craven’s best finish in the
#25 was maybe a 2nd…
I don’t have any ill will toward Craven. I hope he can get
the #32 into the winner’s circle. But he’s running out of time…
DODGING BULLETS: Everyone seems to be making a big
deal that the Dodge teams are "slower" than the other three makes, so
that must mean they have a lot more work to do. I got to see the GM teams test
for a while last Friday. They had just topped 180 when I was there around
1 pm. It was only when they started drafting that the speeds got up in the mid
180’s.
So, do we know that the Dodge teams didn’t draft? Perhaps
they were only testing qualifying setups. If that’s the case, then you can’t
draw any conclusions from the Dodge speeds, other than they’re qualifying setups
are as competitive as the other makes.