Hello again Nascar fans. Hope you had a great week. Champions week ended Friday with the banquet that night at the Waldorf-Astoria. It was an exciting week in New York for the champion Jimmy Johnson and his crew chief Chad Knause. If you havent already be sure and check out Vinny’s photo blog. There are some great shots there of the cars and Johnson.
Chairman of Nascar, Bill France, wrote to Congress urging them to support a bailout of the big three automakers. The letter stated that the loss of jobs would be tremendous, 3 million the first year alone, and 2 and half million more in the 2 year period following the first year. Mr. France estimated that personal wealth in this country would drop some 150 billion during that first year as well. Any kind of pullback would hurt many race teams. He also stated that federal aid would be in the best interest of the entire country. Although Nascar could survive a manufacturer pullback it would certainly impact the teams and many are concerned at this point about the stability of the big 3 automobile companies.
Speaking of hurting teams and forcing changes, the lengendary Wood Brothers announced Saturday that they were scaling back to a limited 12 races this coming season. An obvious effect of the economic difficulties facing the nation. In fact, the difficult economy has encouraged and perhaps influenced teams to merge with one another in the face of difficulty. Besides the DEI-Ganassi merger announced last month, Petty Enterprises is in talks to merge with Gillette Evernham Racing.
On Wednesday the Michael Waltrip Racing organization announced that they have brought Rodney Childers on board as crew chief for driver David Reutimann. He will serve as the crew chief for the 00 Toyota. This will be Childers 5th year as a crew chief on the cup level. Reutimann who had stated that he was disappointed that crew chief Ryan Pemberton is leaving, is looking foward to working with Childers who was the crew chief for the past 3 seasons with Gillette Evernham Racing, working with Elliott Sadler and Scott Riggs. Pemberton will be moving to a new team this coming season as he serves as the crew chief for Brian Vickers over at the Red Bull Racing organization.
Here is something interesting. Nationwide driver, Stanton Barrett, who by the way is a real nice guy in person, debuted his own art this week in his own gallery. He first got a camera at age 9 for a Christmas present and never looked back. Barrett, who drives in the Nationwide Series, also has a career as a Hollywood stuntman. Stanton has signed on to drive 19 races for the Rick Ware Racing Team, stepping away from his one car -driver-owner duties to drive for someone else. He has also signed on to drive full time in an Indy car next year for the CURB Agajanian 3g Racing Team.
Well fans thats about it for tonight. I’ll be back Wednesday for another mid week racing report. Hope everyone had a good weekend. I’ll see you back here on Wednesday night. Have a good week Nascar fans.
Clance' McClannahan says
Great post!
Lorri says
thank you very much. keep reading and i’ll keep writing.