NASCAR news: nay-sayers quieted by the shootout
Why hasn't Junior made it to victory lane recently: was it the team, the equipment, the management or was it really the driver?
Truckers Connection
3/4/2008
It’s well known that Dale Earnhardt Jr. doesn’t have very many nay-sayers.
In a sport with many popular drivers whose fans are loyal to the bone, Earnhardt, this year’s No. 88, clearly has more than most, maybe more than anyone.
But when he announced he was leaving DEI in the middle of the 2007 season and then announced his joining Hendrick Motorsports, there were a few who commented that this change would certainly make obvious the reason(s) Junior hadn’t seen much of victory lane in the past few years (and not at all last year).
Was it the team, the equipment, the management or was it really the driver?
After all, Hendrick is arguably the most dominant team in the Cup series with multi-championship drivers Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson who boast six Cup titles between them.
Their equipment is proven to be winning stuff.
So if Junior has all of that behind him and still can’t rack up the wins, what’s that mean?
But this year’s Budweiser Shootout — the last for sponsor Anheuser-Busch — put a quick end to any of those stirrings. For the first race of the season — not a points race but a momentous one just the same — the PepsiCo AMP Energy Drink/National Guard favorite showed what he could do with his new team.
Leading 47 of the 70 laps and taking home the win by inching out pal Tony Stewart, he’s established that he will be a force to be reckoned with this season. And legions of Jr fans couldn’t be more excited.
Other Hot News from the season-opening weekend
The fireworks have already begun and we’re not talking about those that went off at the culmination of the Great American Race.
We’re talking about bumping cars and flaring tempers among competitors and this occurring during practice. In the second practice session for the Shootout, long time hot heads Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart failed to see eye to eye after Stewart appeared to nip the back end of Busch’s Chevy, sending him into the wall. The still rolling No. 2 caught up to Stewart as the two entered pit road and Busch offered his opinion about the incident through a series of three purposeful right side bumps, which caused minor damage to the No. 20 Home Depot Fusion but not enough to require a new car.
The two were summoned to the NASCAR hauler for a little pow-wow that probably sounded familiar to the pair who each spent more than half of the ‘07 season on probation. At the meeting’s conclusion, both declined comment; each earned six-race probation for the incident. Said Jim Hunter, NASCAR vice president for corporate communications, “Professional race drivers need to control their emotions when they’re in the racecar; and I think we’ve shown in the past that we’ll do whatever we need to do to make sure they do.”
Toyota showing strong early on
Some of the most talked about news last year was the entry of Toyota into the Cup scene. Later in the season was the news that the rookie OEM wasn’t doing that swimmingly — certainly a near 180-degree difference from the dominance they show in the truck series.
But toward the end of 2007, some good news: more teams would be taking their car buying business to Toyota for 2008, most notably Joe Gibbs Racing. Toyota’s work and effort put into the off season is certainly showing some payoff already. Michael Waltrip, two time Daytona 500 winner, proudly captured the number two slot for the Great American Race thanks to a spectacular qualifying run, missing the pole position by just .088 seconds. Tony Stewart’s Toyota Fusion posted lead-the-pack times in the Shootout’s first practice session, and when the Shootout was over, three of the top 10 and five of the top 15 finishers were Toyotas, including the No. 2 finisher. Look out Chevrolet and Ford: this sophomore doesn’t see a slump in sight.