Havoline.
A driver, who just turned 18, goes to older drivers for advice, and who can drive the wheels off of his vehicle. Joey Logano? Nope. His name is Marc Davis. Unless you follow the developmental drivers in detail, you’ve probably never heard of him. No hype, no advertising, no promos from NA$CAR to help promote his career like they‘ve done with Logano. Just what Marc does on the track and is shown on Speed. He goes to guys like Dennis Setzer, Ted Musgrave, and Ron Hornaday for advice which tells me a lot. He’s driving for Randy Moss and while a 16th place finish may not be great for a veteran in the Truck Series; it’s not bad for a young up and comer. Keep an eye on this kid.
In another case of NA$CAR closing the barn door after the horse has left, they decided to have the Japanese brand truck teams run a smaller restrictor plate than the other three makes. Why? Well, it goes back to the fact that the Japanese manufacturer has been running the same engine in all 3 series thus giving them an unfair advantage. Had they followed the rules and NA$CAR bothered to actively enforce them, the Japanese brand trucks wouldn’t be in this situation. But then, $93 million can tend to make folks look the other way. If Chevy gets their request approved to run the R-07 in all 3 series, they’ll face a similar fate with the restrictor plates with their Busch and Truck Series teams.
Next season, Dodge will not be supporting any teams in the Truck Series, which leaves the sole Dodge supported race team, Bobby Hamilton Racing, switching makes after the season is over. Dodge plans to continue with their marketing presence in the Truck Series, but that’s about as far as it goes. So next season, we’ll be back to 3 brands like it was in the old days.
The recently announced lawsuit by GEM against Robby Gordon has me wondering. I had heard some rumors about Robby possibly selling his team after this season: the key word being possibly. Nothing definite. According to Jenna Fryer of the AP, there was a double secret probation deal between GEM and Robby in which Robby was going to sell his team to GEM at the end of the season. Part of the deal that I had heard about Robby and GEM was that GEM would provide technical support, information, and other things to Robby during the year as part of the deal with him switching over to Dodge but GEM hasn’t lived up to their end. Then it gets sort of weird. Part of the buyout deal was that Robby couldn’t talk to another team. According to Jenna Fryer, Robby was asked by Mr. Gillett to talk to Bill Davis, which to me seems like Gillett was foregoing the clauses in the contract about Robby talking to another team. If that’s the case, then Robby was working as a middle man for Gillett and as a representative of GEM. On Tradin’ Paint, Kyle Petty said it sounded like someone was trying to get out of their deal. I guess we’ll see what all shakes out on this as time goes on.
The “purchase” by NA$CAR (owned by the Frances) of the Grand AM Series (also owned by the Frances) doesn’t set quite right with me and leaves me with a real bad feeling. As I’ve pointed out before, the Uni-Car is little more than the NA$CAR version of a Grand Am car. I hope I’m wrong on this, but what I see happening is we’ll have Grand Am cars crossing over into NA$CAR and vice versa blurring the lines between what is supposed to be “stock car” racing and what’s supposed to be “sports car” racing. Part of the reason I say this is because in the info on Jayski, it said that they’d be combining resources for marketing, brand management, and other things. Despite the fact that it says they’ll operate as separate entities, we’ve heard before how certain things would remain safe in NA$CAR, like race dates, traditions, history, and drivers being able to speak their peace when in fact the dates aren’t safe, traditions have been forgotten or changed, the history is being revised, and the drivers have been told to sit down and shut up. Keep a very leery eye on this deal.
No real surprise that the TV ratings were off for Fontana. The race started too late for the East Coast, ended too late for the East Coast, and the continuing tradition of boring races is enough to keep folks from watching. Not to mention a little tidbit about having to give away 10,000 tickets just to make it look the way it did. I think somebody in Daytona needs to seriously rethink having two races at Fontana before they visit the Chart House for “sodas” and hunting those elusive and dangerous palm trees afterwards in his silver Lexus.
In keeping with the politicians in Washington DC on changing their positions, the Emperor of All Things NA$CAR has said that a new drug policy is imminent. Strange how earlier this year the policy was all hunky dory according to His Majesty in numerous statements to the media and now a new policy is coming within the next month. Not to say a change isn’t needed, but it’s amazing how policies change with the wind in Daytona and not always for the best. I think the testing, as I’ve said before, needs to start at the top and go all the way down to the lowly shop gofer at the bottom. And it needs to be conducted by an independent, outside agency. But this makes sense. We wouldn’t want to have HRH found to be abusing “sodas” and have to be replaced now would we?
I’m not surprised Franchitti is going back to the
IRL. When he showed up at Ganassi, he had no
sponsor and didn’t bring any sponsors with him.
You’d think being married to Ashley Judd would
make him a hot commodity for sponsorship. But
it makes it rather hard to race when there’s no
sponsorship money around. And with the
reunification of the IRL, I think Dario stands a
much better chance of winning there than he had
with a 2nd tier Cup team. So good luck Dario. I
hope your return to the open wheels meets your
expectations.
With the recent invasion of Georgia by the
Russians, the Russians left things in a mess
and left the folks of Georgia in need of some international assistance. Leave it to our Navy and Coast Guard to deliver much needed food, supplies, and medical assistance to help them out. Once again, we show our compassion to folks in need. Good job folks.
Motherhood, Apple Pie, and John Wayne
Mad Mikie
Curmudgeon at Large
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