Chasing Twelve of NASCAR's NeverEnding Stories

A new year, and technically, a new decade! It is time to look at those persistent NASCAR stories that we suffered through last year, and that we will be digesting this year, too! Twelve stories, representing a Chase-full!

The Economy. Yes, it is still looming it's nasty head over the world in general, and NASCAR specifically. Off season conversation still talks about the need for teams to merge or form alliances. Team members are still losing their jobs. Start up teams are succeeding or dying. Sadly, this is a truism all through the country, in all sectors. While there are glimmers of hope, we will still have to listen to this story for several months.

Jeremy Mayfield. *Sigh* (That sigh is exactly what I did when I typed his name.) The Great Drug Testing Debate will continue, at least, until September. In the meantime, we will be subjected to dribbles of information whenever NASCAR and Mayfield attorneys go to court. One has to wonder if Mayfield's wallet will be depleted before September.

The COT. It looks as if the furor and angst over the COT will be renewed for a few months, as NASCAR is reported to be considering a return to the spoiler, replacing the despised wing. I doubt though, that it will ensure that drivers at Talladega will always drive side by side.

Dale Earnhardt, Jr. This debate has been years in the making, and it is a no-win situation. If Dale Jr continues to struggle this year, we will hear that either he is not talented, or he is not getting the right equipment. If he succeeds, his detractors will claim it IS the equipment. The Jr Nation is getting tired of Jr being blamed for lack of attendance at races, and yet we will continue to see stands empty out if Jr does not complete a race. No winners predicted!

Jimmy Johnson. It is astonishing that such a mild mannered Clark Kent of a man turns into Superman on the track, much to the ire of any non-JJ fans. All 2009, we heard how horrible it would be for him to make history and win a 4th championship. Now, in 2010, we will hear the speculation of how the impending baby arrival will ensure that there will not be 5 championships in a row.

Race broadcasts. NASCAR has a huge problem. None of the three (four, counting Speed, even though it is technically FOX) broadcast partners are popular with the fans. Each have good and bad issues, but none are universally popular. And yet, the NASCAR franchise appears to be strong enough for Showtime to want an exclusive show.

Danica Patrick. Can she? Will she? And the marketing machine that is part of her image will still raise the hackles of many fans. Many are tired of Danica Mania, yet few dispute that she will bring some much needed attention on the stock car side of the motorsports industry.

Nationwide series: Is it a driver development series? Is it fair of Cup drivers to usurp the money and the fame from the lower tier? It depends on if you are a sponsor of one of those big names who bring fame to their brand, or if you are a struggling team trying to cover your tire bill.

Start and Parks. See #1, blame the economy. Yet some of those teams will be back in 2010, with a few of them expanding and having sponsors. Perhaps the Start and Parks have a few good ideas on basic survival.

Social media. Facebook and Twitter are being used extensively by NASCAR, journalists, bloggers, teams, and drivers. Sadly, some of the best journalists in the industry lost their jobs when NASCAR Scene planned huge cutbacks. Curiously, they may be victims of their social media skills, as the printed media is going away since the internet provides instant gratification to the fans.

Credibility. Many fans of NASCAR are loudly protesting that NASCAR is not credible, and is indeed turning the sport into a clone of professional wrestling. Debris cautions, inspection penalties, driver penalties and drug testing are among the most discussed and contested subjects. NASCAR has a huge job to do, but it appears that fixing their reputation may be at the top of the list.

The Chase. The debate continues on the 'fairness' of the Chase, with particular emphasis on the resetting of points at the beginning of the Chase for the Cup. Listeners to SiriusXM128 know that it brings a constant stream of commentary. Will it end? The complaints will be around as long as there is a Chase.

As I review the list, I am convinced that the vast majority of these stories will survive well into next year. Good, bad or ugly, these topics will continue to be at the forefront of our sport.

Petty Blue and the Blue Oval to team up!

It has been a quiet Thursday, with little to no NASCAR news, except for the non-news of anything pertaining to Jeremy Mayfield.

Watching Twitter, I noticed Marty Smith of ESPN comment he was working on a big story. Less than an hour later, the news broke on Twitter, Facebook and SiriusXM radio 128. The press releases states:

Today at 11:54am

STATESVILLE, N.C. – Richard Petty Motorsports and Yates Racing announced today they have signed a letter of intent to merge operations in time for the 2010 season. The four-car team will race Fords under the Richard Petty Motorsports banner.

Richard Petty: “This is a pretty big deal for us. We’re thrilled to partner with Ford. We’ve talked with a lot of folks, but in the end it came down to the success the Gilletts and I think we can achieve with Ford Racing. Right now this deal is real new. There are lots of details still left to be ironed out so we don’t have a lot of answers for anyone right now. We’ll be working on all that in the coming days, weeks and months, but we do intend to have everything in place before the start of next season. I’ve won races with Ford and plan to again.”

Team Managing Partner Foster Gillett: “Richard and Kasey (Kahne) showed us Sunday night in Atlanta that they like winning quite a bit and Ford is going to provide the support that we need to go to victory lane more often. If you are going to compete with the other teams in this sport you need a lot of support. We bring a lot to this relationship as well. We’ve won twice this season and the power of Richard Petty is hard to beat, plus we have the support of some of the biggest names in corporate America.”

Yates Racing Co-owner Max Jones: “This is certainly a great opportunity for both Yates Racing as well as Ford Racing. I have had a long-term relationship with Ford and look forward to continuing that relationship at Richard Petty Motorsports. Over the coming weeks we will continue to work with Ford and Richard Petty to lay out the best plan for Paul Menard and all of the employees at Yates Racing. We will continue to field both the No. 98 and No. 96 Ford Fusions for the remainder of the season and look forward to continued success on the track with Paul, Bobby Labonte and Erik Darnell.”

Yates Racing Co-owner Doug Yates: “This plan is clearly in the best interest of the Ford Racing community. On a personal level, I am excited about the opportunity to focus my full energy on building Ford horsepower. We look forward to working with Richard Petty Motorsports to produce power second to none. There are many details to be worked out with Richard Petty Motorsports and as we finalize those details we will keep everyone informed.”

Director of Ford North America Motorsports Brian Wolfe: "I am very pleased that Richard Petty Motorsports has made the decision to switch to Ford for the 2010 season. They had choices to consider other than Ford and it's gratifying to us that they have enough faith in the Ford Motor Company and what we're doing to make the switch. We believe we can provide them with superior analytical tools and powertrain, and we will work with them closely on the technical front to help them become even more competitive than they are. What's also really cool to me is the chance to have someone with the class and the legacy of Richard Petty involved with Ford. Combine that with the chance to work with the Gillett family, who we have great respect for, and add some great drivers to the Ford camp, well, it's hard not to be excited about this opportunity."

Notes:

• Paul Menard will be one of the drivers in the Petty team joining Kasey Kahne, Elliott Sadler and AJ Allmendinger.

This is a huge shock, mainly because no one was expecting this. Some questions remain. What happens to the 26 from Roush-Fenway Racing. What happens to the relationship with RFR. And what happens to Reed Sorenson?

According to Reed on Sirius today, at 3:37 PM, he declared that he has known for a few weeks that he would be looking for another job. He won't be the only one to experience job loss, as a merger will certainly mean that others in the two organizations will be drawing unemployment.

This news is still shaking up the internet and the NASCAR world. More to come!

Blind Faith or Being a NASCAR Fan?

A few days ago, I blogged a scathing commentary about David Gilliland losing his seat for a few races this year. While this was the most prominent of my printed feelings, I also sent a private email to TRG CEO, Kevin Buckler. Many members of David Gilliland's fans wrote to various principles of TRG, all expressing our shock and displeasure over the actions of the team.

I am going to give major credit to Kevin Buckler, as he and his wife Debra have been responding, one by one, to all of our emails. As he pointed out, there are not many team owners who would do that.

I agree. Kevin's responses are very unusual among team owners. But, TRG and David's fans, aka Gilly's Gang, have had a special relationship this year. We embraced Kevin as part of our family. We had some very special communications with members of his organization coming to our forum, and talking about some of the inner scenes. Indeed, one of our members became an associate sponsor of the #71 car.

In his email, Kevin gave some background information of the decision, which I don't feel privileged to reveal. Much of what he said, though, was already mentioned on his interview on Friday's Sirius NASCAR show, Trading Paint. He expressed that he has a family, employees,and a very large group of investors that he needs to keep paramount in his decisions. He considers David to be a likable friend, and hopes to have him back in the car for about three more races.

We had a discussion about how the fans blindly lashed out at his decision. I took quite a bit of time to think about that, and responded with some thoughts about how we as fans DO react blindly. After all, we can only react to what we see and hear, as we are not privy to the background information.

Our sport is really an anathema for the idols and the fans. We seem to have much more access to our stars than many other sports fans. Our driver autograph signings are usually free. Some drivers, with extreme popularity, have such a vocal group of fans that they can often help sway the decisions of team owners. (Tony Eury, Jr at Hendrick, for example!)

Yet, really, what do we know about the drivers and the others who make this sport work? We rarely hear details about their personal lives, and what we do know is just brushed across the surface. Press Releases are cleaned and sanitized to prevent negative comments. Few drivers want to create negative vibes with fans, and therefor watch everything they say carefully. Sponsors will send their drivers through carefully crafted media-training sessions. Most sponsors also have a brand manager at the driver's side to keep anything negative from falling on the brand.

Because of that, we do react blindly to situations that involve our favorite drivers. It is the only way we CAN react, because we don't have access to the intricacies of how these decisions are made. Nor should we, yet we will still react.

We will follow our driver from team to team. We will defend that driver and the team with the best of our abilities. We trust that the media releases we hear are true. We will line up hours ahead of time to get a chance to meet our driver. We embrace team owners, since they have the excellent taste to hire our driver. And when we perceive something is not right, and it is a negative for our idol, we will 'blindly lash out.'

This is called being a fan.

Bobby Labonte's fans have experienced some pretty big ups and downs. They were upset with Yates, and thrilled with TRG. Gilly's fans are upset with TRG, and thrilled with Wood Brothers, Joe Gibbs, and Robby Gordon. Erik Darnell's fans are just plain thrilled! But each of those drivers does have a fan base, and the fans ultimately are the ones who make the loudest noise! And with the internet, Twitter, blogging and Facebook, fans have even more noise than ever before.

And if any of the above mentioned teams have problems? The fans will blame the team, the owner, the crew chief, the car, the tires, the weather....anything but our driver. I for one, hate to think of the fans 'blindly lashing out' if Labonte has to do a start and park!

I would like to thank Kevin Buckler for taking the time to respond to me and to the other fans of Gilliland. While we are not cured of our hurt, the wound has a makeshift bandage. Many of us are feeling better. For now!

A Black Letter Day for Gilliland Fans...AGAIN!

Sometimes my favorite sport, NASCAR, is brutal. Today was especially harsh!

Fans of David Gilliland have been upset over the Watkins Glen incident where David was given a second car to drive, so that TRGMotorsports could showcase Andy Lally in the #71 car. There was a certain level of fan understanding on this deal, as Lally had a much longer relationship with TRG than David. The execution of owner Kevin Buckler's two car plan was a huge fail! There was only one crew chief, as the person assigned to CC David's car had never had that experience. Crew Chief Slugger Labbe admitted, during a Sirius interview on the Monday following The Glen, that he was supposed to work on both cars, and got stuck on working on Lally's car for the whole practice session. The result was that David's car received little attention, and he went out to qualify in a 'scary loose' car, and barely avoided wrecking on each turn. David went home, and his sponsor was transferred to the car driven by Lally.

David has continue to remain faithful to TRG. A recent online chat with his fans showed David to be very supportive of the efforts of TRG and their driver:

"I think everyone needs to know that everyone at TRG works day and night to be able to race every week. We go to the track with the cars ready to race. Whether we get to or not comes down to if we have the money."

This support is laudable, but appears to be misplaced. An owner is truly allowed to do what he pleases. However, the owner needs to be prepared for the fallout. A press release early on Thursday, September 3rd loudly declares how exciting it is for Team TRG and David to be going to Atlanta, and a few short hours later, the news leaks out that David is out, and Bobby is in. I heard about it as a breaking news item while half awake, listening to it at 745 AM Pacific. Things moved very fast.

Fans of David Gilliland were already feeling burned. Now, they are upset in defense of their driver. First, early this year, they endured the last minute decision at Yates Racing, to replace David with Bobby Labonte. Now, it is happening again. A different owner, but the same drivers.

I understand that money is needed to drive those bright billboards in circles. I understand that Labonte had a long streak of NASCAR starts going, and it would be a shame to break that statistic. I understand that Bobby is a great guy. (I have met him twice, and he is a gentleman!) I understand the nasty necessities of this sport.

But do I have to like it? No, I don't. As a fan, I am taking my prerogative to display my anger towards the team owner, towards the 'new' driver, and towards the sponsor that seems to believe the hype from the owner.

A good guy is getting the shaft. Again.

I only hope that Labonte understands that if he couldn't equal Gilliland's results at Yates, he certainly won't be happy at TRG. Their cars are three generations old. The parts on the 71 have been used all season long, with the stress and wear showing up at the worst times, like Bristol. As bad as Yates looks, it is certainly worse at TRG.

David will take the high road when interviewed this weekend. He IS that kind of person. Fortunately, I don't have to answer to a sponsor.
Therefor, I will be taking a different road.

I was proud to be a part of Gilly's Gang when we presented Kevin Buckler with our hard earned cash to buy a set of tires for one of David's races. I think I want my money back! And judging from the temperment at DavidGilliland.com, I do believe that most of David's fans feel the same way.